Evening Bags and Executions (13 page)

I figured she was right.

We spent the rest of our shift sorting through everything, matching things up, trying different accessories with dresses, pants, skirts, sweaters, and tops, and had exactly zero looks completed when it was time to go home.

“Maybe this stuff will look better tomorrow,” I said, as we left the stock room.

“It can't look any worse,” Bella said.

I wasn't so sure about that.

We clocked out and I headed home. When I pulled into a parking space at my apartment complex I saw Cody's pickup truck. He must have been watching for me, because he jumped out as soon as I got out of my car.

“How's it going?” he asked.

Jeez, where to start?

“Busy day,” I said, since I didn't want to stand there all night filling him in on the day I'd had, and I was pretty sure he wouldn't want to hear it, anyway. “How about you?”

He walked closer. Wow, he smelled kind of good. “Busy,” he said.

He looked handsome too, with the security lighting reflecting off his blond hair. The T-shirt he wore fit tight, showing off the muscles in his chest and belly.

“I came by to explain why I haven't been here,” he said.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” I asked. It came out in kind of a breathy little whisper—but I didn't mean for it to. I swear.

Cody grinned—
that
kind of grin. He eased closer. A crazy heat rolled off of him.

“I'd love to come upstairs,” he said. Oh, wow, Cody had a Barry White voice. “But I can't work on your place tonight.”

“Oh.”

I know I sounded majorly disappointed, but what else could I do when he was talking that way?

“Maybe I should come up, anyway?” he asked.

Cody moved closer, then leaned down and kissed me.

My thoughts scattered.

Oh my God. I can't kiss Cody. I have an official boyfriend, and I'm a real stickler about—

No, wait. I don't have a boyfriend—official or otherwise.

Why can't I ever remember that?

He pulled away and gave me a how-about-it eyebrow bob.

I was tempted—really tempted. Cody was good looking, and I'd been lonely, and he seemed like a great guy. Maybe this was just what I needed to finally get over my breakup with Ty.

But I couldn't do it.

“I don't think so,” I said.

“No problem.” Cody smiled and eased away. “I'll be back to finish up the work in your place.”

He got in his truck.

I went up to my apartment.

C
HAPTER
14

“G
ood morning, good morning,” Priscilla something-or-other, the office manager, called out in a pleasant singsong voice. “Let's all get settled.”

I was in the conference room at L.A. Affairs for my first staff meeting. The chairs were arranged theater style, and a table at the rear of the room held coffee, juice, and pastries. Everybody looked fabulous dressed in chic business suits.

So far, I liked this way better than the meetings at Holt's.

Since there was no big-guy-from-menswear equivalent here that I could sit behind, I headed for the last row of seats.

Then I spotted Eve, one of the assistant planners I'd chatted with several times when we'd run into each other in the breakroom. Eve was a huge gossip. She was forever dishing dirt, talking smack, and running her mouth about everything and everybody in the office—so, of course, I made it a point to sit next to her.

Kayla sat down beside me and sipped her coffee. “Did you see that Vanessa is here today?”

I glanced around the room and saw her chatting with Priscilla. She looked fantastic, of course, which really irritated me.

“Brace yourself,” Kayla said.

Priscilla stepped to the podium and kicked off the meeting by welcoming me, the newest employee, to the firm. At her request I stood and executed my mom's pageant wave to perfection, and everybody gave me a polite round of applause—everyone but Vanessa. I saw her lean into the woman next to her and whisper something, and I could tell from her reaction that Vanessa had said something stinky about me.

Bitch.

“I have a few announcements,” Priscilla went on, consulting a tablet on the podium. “First of all, BeeBop the clown is not available for bookings. He's currently on tour.”

From the reactions around the room, I got the feeling
on tour
was code for
in rehab
.

“Next, there's a list of additional vendors that will be e-mailed to everyone this afternoon,” Priscilla said. “Let's all give them a try, if possible.”

“We're always getting new vendors,” Kayla whispered. “Mostly because the old ones get fed up working with Vanessa.”

“Sadly, I must report that Lacy Cakes has been removed from our approved list,” Priscilla said. “With the unfortunate and untimely death of the owner, the future of the bakery is in question, so we're holding off on placing orders there until we learn something definite.”

“That Lacy Hobbs was a holy terror,” Eve said quietly to me.

“How so?” I whispered back.

“It was her way or no way,” Eve murmured. “If you crossed her, she never forgave you—and never forgot. You were dead to her. She'd refuse to talk to you no matter who your client was. She'd call Priscilla and demand to work with a different planner.”

“And she got away with that?” I asked.

“Of course.
Everybody
wanted a Lacy Cake,” Eve said. “Too bad she's dead, but good riddance.”

Priscilla kept talking, but everything turned into blah, blah, blah. I kept thinking about Lacy Hobbs. Somehow she'd come from a little town near San Francisco right out of high school and built what appeared to be the most successful, highly sought after bakery in Los Angeles. But she sure as heck hadn't made any friends along the way—including people here at L.A. Affairs.

Hmm. Maybe I could find a way to blame her murder on Vanessa.

Kayla tapped me with her elbow, bringing me back to reality, and muttered, “Here we go.”

I spotted Vanessa moving to the front of the room carrying a stack of postcards. She shoved them at Priscilla and took over the podium.

“I feel compelled to share these with you,” Vanessa announced, as Priscilla moved down the rows passing out the postcards. “These are just another little trick I came up with to bring in more business.”

I took one of the postcards as they were passed down our row. On the front was a picture of Vanessa.

“She does this at every meeting,” Kayla whispered. “She's always finding some excuse to give us something with her picture on it.”

“So many of you have asked me about how the Parkers' fiftieth anniversary party turned out,” Vanessa said.

“Nobody has to
ask
her anything because she's always talking about herself,” Kayla said.

“I'm pleased to report that after I took over the event when Suzanne wasn't about to complete it—” Vanessa said.

“Suzanne went into labor,” Kayla told me.

“—everything was spectacular,” Vanessa told us. “The Parkers were so thankful that I could step in and tie up all those loose ends so beautifully.”

“It was the day before their party,” Kayla said. “Vanessa did a walk-on and took credit for the entire event. She's always pulling something like that.”

“The clients absolutely loved everything I did,” Vanessa said, giving us all a look-at-me-aren't-I-fabulous-don't-you-wish-you-were-me smile.

She stood at the podium as if she expected to follow this up with a Q&A session, or at least get a round of applause, but thankfully Priscilla spoke up, though she didn't dare try to reclaim the podium.

“Thank you, Vanessa. You continue to inspire us all,” she said.

I wasn't inspired, and I doubted anyone else in the room was. I figured we were all lucky that we kept down our coffee, juice, and pastries.

“Let's all have a good day,” Priscilla announced, and we rose from our chairs and headed out of the conference room.

I was halfway to my office when I heard Vanessa call my name. My Holt's training kicked in immediately and I kept walking.

“Haley!” she screamed.

I heard her coming up fast behind me. I swung around, forcing her to stop. Since I was a good four inches taller than her, plus today I had on my really cool Jimmy Choos, which gave me yet another few inches, I towered over her.

The women in the hallway swerved around us and exchanged troubled looks, like they thought a bitch fight might break out or something.

I noticed Kayla standing nearby, my backup. Eve was a little farther away but taking it all in, ready to spread the word about what was going down.

Are they great BFFs or what?

Vanessa apparently didn't like the odds, because she took a half step back.

“Haley, please, you have to let me help you with the Sheridan Adams event,” she said, sounding all concerned and worried.

Oh my God, she had done a one-eighty and completely changed tactics on me.

“You told me not to ask you—”

“Please, I'm begging you,” Vanessa said.

The women in the hallway had stopped and were listening.

“I'm handling the Adams' party just fine,” I told her.

Vanessa pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Oh, Haley, I admire you so. You're new here and you're so inexperienced. You really have no idea what you're doing. But you're hanging in there, muddling through as best you can.”

“I am not muddling!”

“Just please, promise me that you won't let your pride get the best of you,” Vanessa said. “Come to me. Let me save this event while there's still time.”

“What you can
save
, Vanessa, is your breath, because I know what you're doing,” I told her.

She glared at me. I glared back. We progressed from stink-eye to double-stink-eye, to triple-stink-eye in a heartbeat.

Vanessa blinked first. She leaned in and hissed, “Quit now. Or else.” Then she whipped around and marched off down the hall screaming, “Edie! Where are you? Edie!”

Kayla gave me a little nod. “You rock.”

Yeah, maybe I did. But, jeez, Vanessa was right—I hate it when other people are right. I was barely muddling through Sheridan Adams' party prep.

I absolutely had to pull this off.

In my office, I reviewed everything that had been put in place for Sheridan's event, made calls to double-check things, and managed to calm down. Everything was in good shape with the caterer, the tribute bands, and the decorations, for now, anyway. Something could always go wrong later.

I knew Mike Ivan would come through for me on the gift bags. I still had to figure out what to do about stuffing them, plus get the Cirque du Soleil performers here somehow.

The thing that worried me most was the Yellow Submarine cake. It would be the centerpiece of the dessert buffet. It absolutely had to be ready on time, and it had to look fabulous.

Even though both Paige and Belinda had assured me the cake would be ready, I didn't feel good about it. Their promises, though well intended, wouldn't make any difference if Darren decided to give the cake an oh-well and close the bakery.

He'd made no secret of his feelings about Lacy, and that he resented having to come here and handle her affairs. I figured he'd be anxious to get back home, and that might mean cutting things short by simply selling the bakery.

I decided I'd better talk to Darren again and see where he stood on Lacy Cakes.

I sat at my desk thinking, making sure I hadn't forgotten anything about Sheridan Adams' party. I took care of a few more things, then left.

I drove to the Best Western where I'd met Darren before, but I didn't see the Lacy Cakes delivery van in the parking lot. I doubted he'd used it to tool down to Disneyland or anything, so I drove to the bakery, thinking he might be there.

I spotted the van when I pulled into the parking lot along with—yikes!—cop cars. I slid into a space near the liquor store and walked down.

The bakery's front door was propped open, and police officers in uniform were milling around. I spotted Detective Madison inside talking to Darren, and a chill ran through me. I hoped this didn't mean someone else had been murdered.

I glanced down at the floral and candle memorial someone had placed beneath the window right after Lacy died, and I hoped there wouldn't soon be another one alongside it.

I craned my neck and rose on my toes, hoping I'd see Detective Shuman here also. I really wished he could start to get over Amanda's death, and going back to work might be just the thing, but I didn't see him.

Paige was inside the bakery amid a flurry of people. She saw me through the glass and came outside. We moved a short distance away.

“What's going on?” I asked, and was almost afraid to ask more. “Did someone else get killed?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Paige said. “The bakery was broken into last night. I saw what had happened when I got here this morning and called the cops.”

The detectives and crime scene investigators had already taken the computer, fax machine, and other office equipment when they'd been here after Lacy was murdered. What was left? Cake pans? Icing bags and decorating tips?

“You're kidding,” I said.

Paige gave me an I-don't-get-it-either shrug. “Some of the baking supplies were taken, and some of the stuff Darren and Belinda had put aside for themselves.”

“Oh, great,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” Paige said, and nodded toward the bakery display windows. “Darren isn't liking any of this.”

“Is Belinda here?” I asked.

“I called her, but she didn't pick up,” she said. “She's probably at work.”

For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me that Belinda had a job somewhere.

“Where does she work?” I asked.

“I don't know. She's some kind of housekeeper, I think.” Mom flashed in my mind, and for about a half second I considered asking Belinda if she'd work for her, but I couldn't picture her following Mom around the house all day refilling her wineglass.

“So what do the cops think about the robbery?” I asked.

“Who knows?” Paige said. “Those uniform guys who showed up first called the detectives after I told them about Lacy getting murdered here. I guess they thought it might be connected. I don't see how. The stuff that was taken wasn't really worth much.”

Breaking into a business, running the risk of getting caught and prosecuted, hardly seemed worth it for some baking supplies and used household items.

“Maybe it was kids,” I said.

“Maybe,” Paige agreed. “The cops think whoever broke in climbed up on the roof and got in through the ceiling. One of the drop panels in the workroom was broken and lying on the floor. That's when I first realized something was wrong.”

“The door wasn't damaged?” I asked.

“Nope,” Paige said. “In fact, it was locked when I got here. Thoughtful of the robbers, huh?”

So someone had found a way to access the crawl space above the bakery, dropped in through the ceiling, helped themselves to whatever they wanted, then left through the back door, making sure to lock it behind them.

Weird.

“How about the other businesses?” I asked.

“The police asked around, but I don't think any of them had their stuff stolen,” Paige told me.

Weirder still.

I mean, jeez, what kind of criminals were these? They could have gotten into the liquor store and made a real haul, but didn't?

Paige seemed to read my thoughts. “Yeah, it must have been kids.”

I don't think Paige read my next thought. Whoever had been here last night might have used their key to simply walk inside, knocked out a ceiling panel for cover, taken what they wanted, and left.

Paige had a key, and Darren most certainly had Lacy's key. I wondered if Belinda had one as well, or that guy I'd seen here a couple of times baking the cakes. The landlord would have a key, along with the janitorial service. And as far as I knew, only Darren and Belinda had any interest in the stuff that was taken.