Motion for Murder (21 page)

"Jamie." Hilary's elbow dug into my ribs. "Sanderson's talking to you."

Paige noticed me then, her eyes widening and her black-rimmed mouth puckering into a little "O". At the same moment, Dog Boy scooted closer and attached himself to my leg and began humping wildly.

"Teamu!" Sanderson yanked on the leash, and Teamu yelped and leaped back where he belonged. Now I knew why he was kept on a leash.

"Jamie!" Hilary's nails attached to my forearm, and the pain spun me around. "What's wrong with you?"

I clamped a hand over her fake tips. "Look over there."

She frowned. "What? Where?"

"We'll use the padded handcuffs," Sanderson was saying, like that was some good deal. I stared at him, and he stared back at me, clueless.

"Paige Ford is over there." I pried her fingers off and rubbed my arm. "Looks like you two have something in common, after all." Maybe more than she'd thought. Maybe her husband.

Hilary zeroed in on Paige, and her face melted into something I haven't seen since the movie
Alien
was released. "Let's go," she hissed, grabbing my arm again.

"I don't think I should
" I began, but then Sanderson made a move toward me, and I gave Hilary a good hard shove in the back to get her moving toward Paige and her date
du jour.

*  *  *

"I don't have a lot of time here," Paige said. We were behind the club in a narrow alley clogged with trash cans and fire escapes. The pungent smell of garbage ricocheted between the buildings on the breeze. Paige was chain smoking, flicking ashes and black lipstick-rimmed butts onto the ground. She'd put a raincoat on over her jumpsuit and was cinching it at the neck with one hand. She looked embarrassed and awkward, or maybe it was me that looked that way. I know I felt that way.

To Hilary, she must have looked like dinner, because I could practically hear her sharpening her knives. She wasted no time. "What do you know about my Doug?"

Paige glanced at me and looked away with a shrug. "I know he came here. A lot."

My brain went into instant sensory overload. Dougie in spandex had been one thing. Dougie in rubber and vinyl and chains nearly made my head explode. As did the sight of Paige, here and now. "What are you doing here?" I blurted out. I couldn't help it. My situational context for Paige was behind a computer, playing with makeup, not in a place like this, in an outfit like that. I caught a peek of ridiculously toned thigh and thought well, okay, maybe in an outfit like that. Maybe she could give me some exercise tips.

"I'll handle this," Hilary snapped, although I couldn't see Paige being handled by anyone. Looking at her, I finally understood what girl power was all about. To Paige, she said, "Does your little friend Melissa come here, too?"

Paige's eyes narrowed against the column of smoke twisting upward from her cigarette. "Missy? Hell, no. She doesn't belong in a place like this." She shifted and the raincoat parted and I thought
I want those legs.
Without the heels. I could never walk in five-inch heels. I doubted I could even sit in them.

"I heard she came here," Hilary said.

"You heard wrong." Paige blew a stream of smoke straight into Hilary's face, and Hilary didn't flinch. It was a game of chicken. She propped both hands on her bony hips. "Have you been with my Doug?"

Paige glanced up at the sky. It was a very dark night, and not especially starry. A summer storm was probably moving in. "My client list is confidential," she said finally, very softly. "You should know that."

How would Hilary know that? Did she have a client list of her own? Clients who might want to dispose of her husband? And what exactly did Paige do for her clients? Paige had clients?

"Does this pay well?" I asked. I couldn't help myself. If Paige got legs like that from walking on fat men's backs, it could open up a whole new exercise craze. Maybe I could be open-minded for tighter thighs.

"You have." Hilary's voice was too quiet. I glanced up from my thighs in alarm. The skin on her face was stretched taut. Her lips had thinned to a crimson slash. Apparently the thought of her husband with Paige was more than she could take. I know it was more than I could take. Was there anyone in the office other than me who hadn't slept with Dougie? Or had Paige only tattooed his back with those stilettos? Either way, the visual rattled my brain.

"So what do you average?" I broke in, hoping Hilary's eyeballs would recede back into their sockets. "A hundred a night?"

"I can't disclose my client list," Paige told Hilary with a smirk. She was goading Hilary, and I had no idea why. I didn't think it was a good move, though. Hilary's heels looked like they could be lethal.

"You little bitch." Hilary stepped closer to her, close enough for the toes of their boots to touch. "Did you kill my husband?"

Whoa. It was a big leap from sex to murder, and I didn't think Hilary should be making it. "Hilary," I cut in, "maybe we should just
"

"That's rude," Paige said, her expression unchanging. I don't know how she stayed so calm.

"Did. You. Kill. My. Husband?" Like a snake poised to strike, Hilary went absolutely still and stared at Paige. Paige exhaled a slow, steady stream of smoke and stared back with languid eyes.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets to hide the trembling. "I'm sure she has no idea who
"

"Did you?" Hilary screeched suddenly, startling me into tachycardia and having no visible effect on Paige other than provoking another eerily calm smile. This was a Paige I had never seen before and didn't like very much. I'd never look at her the same way again. Maybe I'd look at her in an orange prison jumpsuit.

"If you killed my Doug," Hilary said, her quiet tone matching Paige's calm smile, "I will slit your throat. Do you understand me?"

My hands clenched themselves into fists while my stomach clenched itself into the size of a golf ball. This game of chicken was rising to a new terrifying level, and I wanted no part of it. I'd known Paige and Hilary didn't like each other, but now it struck me the basis of their dislike was competition, and neither one wanted to play fair. Suddenly it put a whole new spin on Paige's relationship with Dougie.

And maybe on her relationship to Dougie's death.

"Where've you been?" Sherri whined in my ear. "I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"You don't want to know." I dropped naked into a kitchen chair, holding the phone with two fingers. The Black Orchid experience had left me feeling filthy, and I'd shed my clothes onto the floor the second I'd walked through the door. Tomorrow I planned to burn them. "Hilary Heath took—"

"I saw Frankie Ritter with a redhead on Monmouth Road."

I closed my eyes at her statement, seeing Paige and Hilary instead facing off in my mind, and opened them again. I had to keep moving. I hunted down some comfort food, a single-serving box of Frosted Flakes, which I tore open and poured straight into my mouth while standing at the counter. "So what?" I said finally.

"Are you eating?"

I crunched a mouthful and swallowed. "No."

"You are so eating. I hear you. God." I could practically see her eyes rolling. "Thanks for caring."

"Well, it's not like you two are engaged or anything."

"Jamie. I'm wearing his
diamond ring
."

"Okay," I said. "A friendship ring. He's not being much of a friend. You'll give it back tomorrow." I upended the tiny box and scarfed down the second half. Not enough. I dropped it in the trash and rooted around for more fats and sugars.

"Maybe she was his sister," Sherri said.

"He doesn't have a sister." Frankie had been enough to handle on his own, even for Mrs. Ritter.

"His cousin, then." She was getting defensive.

"Fine. She was his cousin. Feel better now?" Ah, cheese crackers, leftovers of a care package from my mother. I used my teeth to rip the cellophane open.

"I must say, you don't seem very concerned about this. I thought you would
care
that Frankie Ritter's cheating on me."

"Oh, God." I froze in mid-bite. "You are not sleeping with Frankie Ritter."

"Certainly not," Sherri said. "He wants to, you know, but I told him not until he lets his hair grow out blond again. I have my standards, you know."

"Obviously." I turned with the crackers in hand and caught a glimpse of myself in the kitchen window that startled me into dropping the package. I was still too thin, but now I had flabby thighs and a little potbelly. "Oh, God," I said to myself.

And Sherri said, "Well, who are you to judge? You haven't had sex since Obama took office!"

Nice that she was keeping track. "I have to go," I said, closing my eyes against the reflection.

"What do you have to do that's so important?" she demanded.

 "Find a tranquilizer," I said, and hung up.

*  *  *

Chemically speaking, my options were few. I couldn't find even a sleeping pill in my medicine chest, and I didn't like taking pills, anyway, so I gave yoga a shot. Five minutes in Shavasana only left me more out of sorts. I didn't need relaxation; I needed exercise. Sweaty, demanding exercise. The sort of exercise that would obliterate that appalling reflection of my naked body in the kitchen window.

But first I needed junk food.

I searched through every drawer in the apartment and couldn't find anything to blunt the edge. I didn't want to go to bed with images of Hilary and Paige facing off or of Sherri sleeping with Frankie Ritter, so I called Curt to see if I could borrow a bottle of wine. I intended to get dressed and go downstairs to get it, maybe even share it and my troubles with him on the deck, but he was knocking on the door before I had the chance. I darted into the bathroom to grab an oversized towel to wrap around my skinny, saggy, poochy self before I went to let him in.

"Found a bottle of Korbel instead," he said, offering it for inspection. His eyes widened at the towel. "Nice outfit."

I kicked my dirty clothes aside. "It's a long story. I'm not much of a champagne drinker."

"Perfect." He went into the kitchen. "Go take your shower. I won't start drinking without you."

"I'm not showering, I'm changing," I said. "And stop looking at me like that."

"Hey, I'm a card-carrying heterosexual." He fished two glasses from the cabinet, held them up to the light, then turned on the tap and held them under the faucet. "It's only your knobby knees keeping me at bay."

"My knees are not knobby." I leaned forward to check them out. They were knobby, all right. They were also fuzzy. So that was two things I wasn't very good at. I was beginning to understand why I hadn't had sex for more than five years. "My body is a mess," I muttered. Or maybe I whined.

"I doubt that." Curt dried the glasses with a paper towel. "But show it to me, and I'll let you know for sure."

"I am not showing you my body," I said, cinching the towel even tighter. It was already so tight I was starting to get lightheaded.

"Okay." He handed me a glass of champagne. "Now I know what we're not drinking to. So what's the occasion?"