Motion for Murder (31 page)

Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and Wally burst into the room, his tie loose and his top two buttons unbuttoned over a hairless chest. "What the hell?" He immediately saw Ramsey kneeling on all fours, grimacing in pain. Then he saw the gun and the hole in the wall, and then he saw Sherri, and his eyes widened.

"This man murdered Mr. Heath," Sherri told him, giving her dress a few tugs to straighten it across her breasts. "And he made me rip my dress," she added, fingering a spaghetti strap.

"You poor thing," Wally told her, stepping over Ramsey to go to her side. "Let's sue the bastard."

"I'm okay," I told him, but he wasn't listening, so I grabbed a tissue and went over to pick up the gun. Ramsey didn't seem too anxious to get on his feet, so I left him where he was and stumbled back to my desk to call the police while Wally helped my sister stay dressed.

Curt arrived precisely on time for our date, and he brought chaperones in the form of the entire police department. While they hauled Mack Ramsey off the floor to slap cuffs on him, he pulled me aside and hugged me until the chill went away. Fortunately this took some time. Ramsey looked especially pathetic with his suit now rumpled and askew on his skinny frame and his eyes huge and confused, but this time his pathetic expression had no effect on me. The man would have killed me and my sister, and he'd already killed Dougie. I watched the officers lead him away and felt nothing but relief. That, and a growing awareness of how close Curt and I were standing.

"You should have seen Sherri," I said to him after Ramsey had been packed into the back of a squad car. His arm was still around me, keeping me steady on my feet, although the shot of brandy I'd pilfered from Ken's office had already done that job. "She was magnificent. She charmed him and distracted him and gave me a chance to—"

"Break his hip?"

I shrugged. "Whatever it took. I had no intention of missing out on dinner tonight."

"I'm flattered." He was also killer sexy in head to toe black. He'd probably dressed in five minutes flat and wound up looking that good, while I'd taken nearly an hour and now looked like I'd spent the day crawling through an alley. My hair needed combing. My brand new pantyhose were ripped. I was only wearing one shoe. If appearances were everything, I appeared to be a derelict.

"By the way," he said, his mouth close to my ear, "have I told you how good you look?"

Sweet talker. It was enough to make me want to marry the man.

Curt glanced over to where Wally was still ministering to Sherri's torn spaghetti strap. "You know, I'm not surprised about your sister. I always had her pegged for something big."

"Like ten to twenty years?"

He grinned. "Not that big. Randall's gonna have his hands full with her, though."

"He could use the challenge," I said. If anyone could make the Boy Lawyer grow up, it was my sister. And it might be handy, having a lawyer around. Especially if she insisted on wearing clothes like that torn sundress, which was currently hanging off of one shoulder and dipping perilously close to her Wonder Bra. Wally was standing closer than he needed to, either surveying the damage or sneaking a peek at cleavage, but Sherri wasn't objecting. In fact, she looked pretty happy about it. "I don't think he'll be letting her go anytime soon," I added. I didn't even think he'd be letting her leave.

"I don't think I will, either," he said, his arm tightening around my waist.

I leaned into him. "She's a good catch," I said. "Don't you think?"

"Uh-huh." Curt nodded. "And he'll probably be able to keep her out of jail."

I caught Sherri's eye and smiled, and she gave me a wink and a nod that said:
Do not screw
this up
. I nodded slightly. I had no intention of screwing it up.

"Come on." I slipped my hand into Curt's. "Let's go eat."

* * * * *

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From her first discovery of Nancy Drew, Kelly Rey has had a lifelong love for mystery and tales of things that go bump in the night, especially those with a twist of humor. Through many years of working in the court reporting and closed captioning fields, writing has remained a constant. If she's not in front of a keyboard, she can be found reading, working out or avoiding housework. She's a member of Sisters in Crime and lives in the Northeast with her husband and a menagerie of very spoiled pets.

To learn more about Kelly Rey, visit her online at:
http://www.kellyreyauthor.com

* * * * *

Jamie Winters Mysteries
:

Motion for Murder

Motion for Mistletoe

(coming soon as part of the
Cozy Christmas Capers
holiday short story collection!)

* * * * *

If you enjoyed the Jamie Winters Mysteries series, check out this sneak peek of another funny, romantic mystery from
Gemma Halliday Publishing
:

DIVA LAS VEGAS

by

STEPHANIE CAFFREY

* * * * *

CHAPTER ONE

I was naked and sweaty, and
not
in the mood to walk in on someone rummaging through my locker.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" I used my bitchiest voice.

The woman flinched and straightened up to face me. "Just checking to see if you still keep some hooch around here." She managed a weak smile.

"Rachel!" I was almost speechless. "It's been years!"

She shrugged. "About that hooch…"

"Sorry, they made us quit drinking in here. We'll have to go somewhere if you want a drink."

She nodded somberly. "Let's go, then. My treat."

I reluctantly threw on some clothes and guided Rachel out the club's back exit. It was always nice to see an old friend, but I was in the middle of a shift, and it wasn't just any shift. With the orthodontist convention in town, I was walking away from a big sweaty wad of twenties. But a woman like Rachel Hannity wouldn't pop in out of the blue if it weren't important.

"Let's duck in over there," I said, pointing across the street at Bally's. We weaved our way through the casino and up to the esplanade connecting Bally's with the Paris casino. We stopped in at Napoleon's, a stodgy piano lounge that was pretty empty at this time of night. Rachel headed up to the bar to order us some drinks, while I found us a secluded table.

When I'd started dancing a decade earlier, Rachel had been the "It Girl" at Cougar's gentlemen's club where I still worked. She was the headliner blonde, and I was an up-and-coming brunette. Somehow we had bonded over our love of champagne and our bemused outlook on our chosen profession. As the top draw, Rachel became a millionaire before she was twenty-five, but then she upped the ante by marrying one of the richest bachelors in town after making a private appearance at his birthday party. I hadn't seen her since her husband's funeral.

Rachel returned with a martini for herself and a glass of white wine for me. I would have preferred something stronger, but I let it slide.

"So what's going on?" I asked, trying not to seem too impatient.

She sighed. "Well, Raven, I'm broke."

"You don't
look
broke." She was sporting at least five carats on her necklace alone, and her princess-cut engagement ring looked like it was on loan from Harry Winston. Or the Smithsonian. And her golden hair and perfect magenta nails had obviously received the recent attention of professionals.

Rachel took a long gulp of her drink and cleared her throat. "It's embarrassing. After George was killed, I kind of developed a little gambling habit. Thanks to the family trust, his sister got the whole casino. But George left me a couple million in cash, and I figured, what was the harm? It kept me busy. I was bored all the time, and they treated me nice at the casino. But I had a string of bad luck, and before I knew it I wasn't gambling with my own cash. I was signing papers to borrow money, and then after a while there weren't any more papers to sign. It was firm handshakes in back rooms, and promises made in whispers. I guess I got in pretty deep."

"How deep?"

"About eight." She coughed softly. "Eight million."

"Ouch," I muttered.

"They're going to get my jewelry, my house, my car, everything. I know that. I don't really care about that stuff, honestly. But that won't cover the debt. The only thing I have left to give is…myself."

I remained quiet. Rachel was in her late thirties but looked about twenty-five, and if she took care of herself she was still a stunner who sported the best curves money could buy. I had no trouble believing that there were dozens of unscrupulous moneylenders who would allow her—or
force
her—to "work" off her debt. That's probably why they lent her so much money in the first place.

"Anyway," she continued, "I heard you finally started that investigation business you were always talking about, so I thought…

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I stopped myself. My "investigation business" consisted of my probationary private detective's license and a half-dozen clients who'd stumbled across my half-assed Internet website. It wasn't even a hobby, much less a business. The undertaking was the product of a vague hope that I could gracefully retire from the skin business before I got shoved out the back door. I already had a nice little nest egg saved up, but I knew I'd need something to pay the bills and keep me occupied. And although I didn't always admit it to myself, I secretly hoped to find a good man and settle down to start a family. That wasn't going to happen while I was doing thirty lap dances a week.

"You thought…?" I prodded.

She looked down at her manicured fingers. "I want to sue Cody Masterson."

I tried to keep a poker face, but I'm pretty sure I failed. Three years earlier, Cody Masterson had been tried for the murder of Rachel's husband George. The jury let him off.

"For the murder?" I asked.

She nodded. She kept her eyes on her nails, which glistened under the soft candlelight.

I thought about it for a minute before responding. I had majored in criminal justice at UNLV, and that probably made me the most knowledgeable person Rachel could trust. But murders and lawsuits were a little out of my league. Okay, they were
way
out of my league.

"You'd win millions if you could prove wrongful death," I said gamely, "but he beat the charge in his criminal case."

Rachel nodded. "My lawyer said we need something more to take to a jury, or this isn't going to work. That's where you come in." She finally looked up.

"Makes sense," I said. "But why haven't you already sued him? It's been three years."

"I didn't need to. I didn't want to relive all that, and I didn't get into debt until recently. I've tried to move on, but I don't see another way. I'm not going to become a sex slave."

I asked the obvious question. "Why me?"

She hesitated. "Well, my lawyer recommended a few other people, but it seems nobody wants to touch this."

Ouch
, I thought.

"Plus, I trust you," she said.

I ignored her attempt to sugarcoat it. It was clear I was the fourth-string choice. "What's the time frame?"

"I need the money yesterday. They left me a note at my house, and the guys who came to take my car were sizing me up pretty good, like they were all going to take turns with me. It gave me the chills."

Rachel held my gaze. She was putting on a brave face, but it was obvious she was at the end of her rope.

I wanted to make sure she had thought this through. "Can I ask an obvious question? Why not just declare bankruptcy? Or call the cops?"

She smiled half-heartedly. "These people are good. When I started losing bigger and bigger, they helped make the pain go away. A little coke, a little more heroin. It helped, actually. But then they got me doing it on tape. And not just using. I kind of helped on the distribution end, you know, selling to some of my high society friends. Now they say I'm looking at federal time. These people are going to be paid, one way or another."

I grimaced. "The reason extortion is illegal is because it actually works."

She downed a healthy gulp from her glass. "Look, I know how this all sounds. I don't blame you if you're not interested. But at least talk to this guy first." She fished in her Chanel purse and handed me the business card of someone named Jeffrey Katz, Esq., a partner at Gilread, Schwartz & Tannenbaum.

I did a double take. "Jeff Katz?" I asked. "Forty-fiveish, looks kind of like a fat Billy Crystal?"

Her eyebrows rose. "Friend of yours?"

"Let's just say he's a friend of the family," I said, grinning.

Rachel chuckled knowingly. Her lawyer was a guy who loved naked ladies and gave good tips.

"Well, he's my lawyer, although I haven't paid him yet." She smiled sheepishly. "So, will you help a girl out?"

"Of course," I said, powerless to heed the alarm bells going off in my head. "I'll talk to your lawyer first thing tomorrow." I chugged my wine. If I'd been wearing a watch, I would have glanced at it.

"I hope you don't mind," I said, "but there's a convention in town, and I really need the money."

Rachel perked up at this reminder of her past life then shot me a quizzical look. "Let's see. July is normally slow—just Teamsters and real estate brokers, right?"

I smiled. "Actually, the orthodontists changed their party to July."

She squealed. "Why didn't you say so? Get out of here, and get back on that stage!"