Plum Girl (Romance) (40 page)

"The man needs serious therapy."

"I can't help but wonder if it's just a coincidence that today is also Lyn Tang's first day," Lonnie commented.

"Ah."

"Actually," Lonnie went on, "Lyn seems cool. I like her. She's no Macey, or anything, but I think she has potential."

"You and your deep-seated psychological need for an on-call role model," Peach remarked.

"Please, don't start with the diagnoses right now, okay? I'm in a good mood, and I want to stay that way." Lonnie felt all right now that B.J. had left for the day, and soon, she was going to take off herself. She wanted to tell Peach about breaking into B.J.'s office and what'd happened after, but she couldn't take the chance that someone would overhear her.

Less than an hour after she'd escaped B.J.'s office, she'd e-mailed Bette, claiming she had a friend who was interested in pursuing a career in human resources. She'd asked her a couple generic questions about hiring policies and interviews—to pass along to her "friend"—before asking Bette about the HR term "PNH." After all, odds were good that Bette had written that notation in B.J.'s file.

Lonnie was praying she'd take the bait, but so far, she hadn't replied to the e-mail.

"Why are you in a good mood?" Peach asked her now.

She shrugged to the air and said, "I don't know. Life's short; play hard."

Peach groaned.

"Wait,
don't
even say it!" Lonnie protested. "Slogans are not the same as trite platitudes," she explained, grinning and waiting for her sister to challenge her. But she didn't. She just giggled and said, "I love you, Lon."

After Lonnie hung up, she checked the clock: 5:29. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lyn and Bette approaching her desk. Perfect! Now she'd get a chance to ask Bette in person.

"But I don't know. I've just always enjoyed Hilton Head in the spring and Lake Wanda in the fall," Bette was saying to Lyn. "Of course, nothing tops November skiing in Vermont."

Lyn nodded. "True. I do love skiing. I assume you've been to the Ridgemont?" She looked away from Bette to smile at Lonnie before handing her a set of documents for Twit.

"Uh... let me think now," Bette began, leaning against Lonnie's desk, as Lyn was. "Hmm... the Ridgemont, the Ridgemont..."

"It's a luxury condo community right in the mountains. I'm surprised you're not familiar with it."

"Oh, well," Bette said, waving her hand as if to brush away the inconsequential information. "A condo association, that explains it. You see, Reggie and I have our own mansion right there on the mountain."

"Mansion?" Lyn raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Lodge," Bette corrected. "I meant, we have our own lodge-mansion sort of place that we go to—stay at. That is, we own it, so we stay at it."

Was it just Lonnie or did that sound a little fishy? True, Lonnie didn't ski, had never been to Vermont, and knew nothing about architecture, so perhaps a "lodge-mansion" was a real thing. But from Lyn's expression, it didn't appear as though she was completely convinced, either.

Bette blushed. Her face—which was normally characterized by layers of age-defying, consciously earth-toned foundation—took on an unnaturally pink hue. Lonnie's first instinct was to try to alleviate her embarrassment somehow. But as soon as Bette shot her a snide sideways look, as if she were a nosy peon eavesdropping on a private conversation, Lonnie went with her second instinct. Namely, not giving a rat's ass one way or the other.

"A lodge-mansion," Lyn repeated, too evenly to be anything other than skeptical. "How nice. Where did you say it was located?"

"The mountains," Bette answered.

"No, I mean, where
specifically
? Perhaps we've skied the same slopes." Lyn's tone was mild, but there wasn't much mistaking the challenge that underlay it. Lonnie couldn't believe she lucked out with front-row seats, so to speak, as someone knocked Bette Linsey's pretentiousness down a peg. Fabulous.

"Specifically? Well, it's around the area—"

"What's the address?"

Apparently, she was really going to push this. Bette might as well have been on the witness stand by the way Lyn fully expected her to provide clear, truthful answers. This bordered on the ridiculous, of course, but it really wasn't any more ridiculous than the usual office happenings.

Just then Bette was saved by the ring of Lonnie's phone, which was getting predictable in its bad timing. "Beauregard Twit's central headquarters..."

She recited the rest of Twit's id-versus-superego greeting, while focusing 99 percent of her attention on the two women in front of her desk. The caller mentioned something about wallpaper swatches, but Lonnie didn't really catch it. She was too busy watching Bette to make sure she didn't slip away before she got some information out of her.

She hung up just as Lyn was heading out the main glass doors and Bette was turning on her heel to walk away. "Wait, Bette!" Lonnie said. Bette turned around and raised a sculpted brow. "I... um, did you get my e-mail?"

Bette was still blushing—obviously being mortified by Lyn didn't agree with her. So in standard corporate form, she opted to take it out on the temp. "Right, that e-mail about your
friend
who's thinking of pursuing a career in human resources." Her voice was thick with condescension. "Well, you tell your
friend
that one doesn't just jump into human resources. One must possess skills."

With that, she offered a brief smile good-bye, and walked off. "But, wait... PNH!" Lonnie called after her, but it was futile because Bette had already disappeared down the hall.

Lonnie's phone rang. "Hello," she said absently.

"Kid."

"Oh, Detective! I'm so glad you called me!" she said. She filled him in on B.J.'s personal evaluation reports.

"You read my mind," Montgomery said, sounding anxious.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Shit! We just got a call. I gotta go. But I gotta tell you something."

"What is it?" she demanded.

"All right, I'm coming! Just stay away from Flynn," he ordered, putting a stern emphasis on each word. "I can't explain it to you now; just
stay away from him.
You got it?"

"Well, he saw me in his office before—"

"What?"
he barked angrily.

She swallowed. "How else could I get the file?" she argued.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelled. "What'd I tell you about being inconspicuous?" She struggled to remember his
exact
words. "Great, so now he knows you're onto him."

"Not necessarily—"

"I'm coming! I really gotta go," he said quickly. "Do me a favor: get the hell out of there! D'ya understand? Just go home, lay low, and I'll explain everything to you later."

"O-okay, but—"

"Just do it! Oh, wait, kid? Have you seen Matt Fetchug around?"

"Uh, yeah, I saw him just a little while ago."

He sighed. "Okay, good. He's all right."
Damn it, what is Montgomery saying? And why does he always have to go when I want to talk to him? "I'll call you later."

A click and he was gone.

Chapter 30

"So I see the D drive's still not working."

"Oh... yeah," Lonnie agreed, and shut the front door behind her. "Sorry, but every time Dominick starts to fix it, he... gets distracted." She tossed the mail on the sunshine-yellow table, and kicked the front door closed with her burgundy heel. After she took off her coat, she made her way over to the sofa. "How was your day?" she asked Peach as she sank into the cushions.

"Okay," Peach said over her shoulder as she typed away on Lonnie's laptop. She was sitting at the oak table in the corner of the room facing the window, with her back to the rest of the apartment.

"What are you working on?"

"Hold on a second... okay," she said as she clicked the mouse, and swung her chair around to face her. "Sorry. I was just IM-ing Iris," she explained. Ordinarily, Lonnie would've been tempted to tell Peach how disturbingly
odd
that was, but at the moment, she had much graver things on her mind.

"So, how was your day?" Peach asked. She looked incurably sweet, sparkling, and streaky gold, and Lonnie felt a pang of sentimentality, realizing how much she'd miss living with her sister when she moved to Maine.

"Very strange... and scary." She explained what'd happened at the office, and how she hadn't gotten any information from Bette because of the bad timing. Then she described her disturbing conversation with Montgomery, and his unnerving inquiry about Matt's well-being. "I just don't know what to do about this," Lonnie said. "I know Detective Montgomery wants me to lie low, but how can I do nothing when there's a chance that... I don't know... Matt could be in danger?"

"I'm sure if he's in danger, the police are taking care of business," Peach assured her. Lonnie wasn't that easily convinced. Not because the police wouldn't take care of business, but because they might not do it quickly enough.

"I guess," she mumbled half-heartedly. "I just wish I'd gotten to ask Bette what the PNH notation meant in B.J.'s personnel file."

"What makes you think what was in B.J.'s file is important?"

"I don't know. Maybe it would tell me something more about him. Like maybe he has a medical condition that affects his mental state. Or maybe he has a history of a certain type of violence. It might give us some clue what he's gonna do next."

"Maybe he has a prison record," Peach said, and after a two-second pause, slapped her hands on her knees. "All right, let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Bette's house," she said simply, and retrieved her coat. "Is it snowing out?"

"Wait, Peach, we can't do that."

"Why not?" Before Lonnie could answer, Peach said, "What's the problem? We swing by her house and ask her about B.J.'s file."

Lonnie's face scrunched up in disbelief—that settled it, her sister was certifiable. "That is so... awkward! She's gonna think I'm stalking her, or something!" Peach scoffed and rolled her eyes. "And how am I gonna explain my obsessive interest in this? No, I'm sorry, this is too ridiculous."

"Lon, we'll plan the specifics in the car. Now, let's go." She started pulling her sister by the arm and up off the sofa.

"You want me to drive all the way to Bette's house, at night—"

"It's barely seven thirty. Where does she live anyway?"

"I don't know. Newton."

"Newton?
That's only a fifteen-minute drive from here, and you know it!"

"But I don't even know her address."

"Oh, well, why didn't you just say so?" Peach went back to the laptop. "I'm still online; just tell me how to spell her last name, and I'll do a Google search."

"You're not gonna find anything—"

"Google is god; now hit it." It was her nonnegotiable voice; there was no point fighting.

"Okay, it's: L-i-n-s-e-y."

It took less than two seconds for Peach to begin gloating. "Forty-four Glassgow Boulevard. You can thank me later. Come on, put your coat on," she said, and tossed the furry, ice-blue heap at her sister.

"Wait—"

Peach pulled her hair up into two side-buns. "Lon, seize the day. Besides, there's nothing good on TV tonight. Let's move. We can go get Dad's car." Begrudgingly, Lonnie rose to her feet, and followed orders. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Peach added with a lopsided grin. "Come on, I'm speaking your language, how can you resist that?"

"Oh, all right," Lonnie acquiesced, and grabbed her cell phone and her keys.

"Wait! Let's call Dominick, too," Peach said. "It wouldn't hurt to have a man there for protection. You know, just in case."

"Just in case what?" Lonnie asked, suddenly nervous. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

"You know... just in case B.J. beats us there."

Lonnie swallowed. Then she reasoned, "I think we can handle it ourselves, Peach," she said. "Do we really need a man to protect us?"

"We're the brains; he's the brawn. What's the problem?"

Well, when she put it like that, it didn't seem so bad. "Okay, let's go," Lonnie said, being uncharacteristically impulsive... and liking it.

They called Dominick from her cell phone, and he agreed to come. The conversation had been cut short, though, because Lonnie had forgotten to recharge her battery. But neither she nor Peach realized how bad the traffic would be, and an hour later, they were just approaching Dominick's building. And Peach was yawning.

"Lon, don't get mad, but after you get Dominick, could you guys drop me home?"

"What? You're the one who convinced me to go-"

"I know, but this is turning out to be really boring. No offense."

"Well, what did you expect? A car chase? We haven't even gotten to Bette's house yet—you know, the so-called interesting part of the evening."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm just not feeling it anymore. Do you mind?" she asked, yawning again.

"Oh, fine," Lonnie said, but she lost all irritation the second she saw Dominick approaching the car. He got in the backseat and didn't even sulk about not riding shotgun.
I'm lucky,
Lonnie thought, and smiled at him. "Hey."

"Hey, baby," he said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "Hi, Peach. So what's the plan again? We got cut off before."

"Well, now the plan is to drop Peach off at home"—

"Sorry, guys."

—"and then drive by Bette's house, and hopefully get a simple answer to a simple question."

He nodded, leaned back in his seat casually, and said, "I'm on board with that." After they dropped Peach at home, several minutes went by before Dominick said, "We should talk about Maine."

Lonnie focused her attention on the road. She'd been trying to avoid talking about Maine. She didn't want to think about what was going to happen when she moved. Undoubtedly, they'd try a long-distance relationship, and it would most likely fall apart within a matter of months. She didn't want to think about it, talk about it, or worry about it. She just wanted to enjoy the time she and Dominick had with each other now.