So About the Money Page 17

  Holly Price had the crate.

  Paid the fee.

  Chose another’s fate.

  A new address for the pig.

  Tag, you’re it.

  Her name was entered on the sender’s line.

  All of it was written in JC’s bold slanting script.

  Oh my God. She stared at the tag, horrified. She was screwed. JC had gotten her back—and made things even worse with Alex, all with one stroke on a form. She ripped the tag off the crate and crushed it.

  She was so sending that llama to JC’s department.

  She pulled her cell from her pocket, expecting to call since the front entrance was usually locked. To her surprise, the door swung open when she tugged the handle.

  She paused near the hostess stand and let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light.

  The pig was a huge complication. Maybe she could get it out of here, send it to Tim, without Alex ever knowing it was there. She could call Rick, ask him to arrange for its relocation.

  She rubbed her temples. Or Alex could learn to laugh and deal with it himself. But if she and Alex were going to try again, the rules were changing. There’d be fun. And no yelling.

  She moved further into the restaurant. A clatter of silverware and Spanish chatter came from the main dining room, where several men and women were preparing tables for dinner. Salsa music pulsed from the speakers and the women swayed between the tables with an easy grace.

  One of the men noticed Holly and stepped in her direction. “We’re not open yet.”

  “I’m looking for Alex. Is he in the office?” She headed toward the hall without waiting for an answer.

  “Hey! You can’t go in there.”

  Her gaze swiveled from the office door—closed—to the server’s face—worried. So, Alex wasn’t alone.

  “It’s okay.” Head held high, she strode forward. Was he carrying on with one of his staff? And he had the nerve to be angry with her for talking to JC?

  “But—” The waiter shrugged and returned to the dining room.

  Alex’s raised voice came through the closed office door. She slowed her footsteps. Maybe he wasn’t sweet-talking another woman. Maybe he was chewing out an employee.

  The door flew open and JC strode from the office.

  Oh. Crap.

  Alex appeared behind the detective. Anger rippled from every pore of Alex’s body, but JC was doing his impassive cop thing. Stalking toward her, his face remained expressionless, but his heels hammered sharp blows on the Mexican tile floor. His eyes swiveled in her direction, registering her presence, but his pace didn’t change.

  She looked from JC to Alex. The tension between the two men had passed “uncomfortable” and was headed straight for “danger zone.” Her attention swung back to JC. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s business.”

  Like that clarified anything. She was getting tired of everyone’s non-answers.

  “Why—” she began.

  “Ask Montoya about his alibi,” JC cut her off. He brushed past her, headed for the lobby.

  Alex vanished inside his office. She followed. “What was that all about?”

  He turned on her the second she cleared the door. “What in the hell did you tell that man?”

  She rocked back on her heels. “Excuse me?”

  “And what the fuck were you thinking sending that pig out here? Are you trying to ruin me?”

  “No. What is going on?”

  A string of Spanish curse words answered her. Alex leaned against his cluttered desk and slammed his arms across his chest. “What happened to your car?”

  “I told him you didn’t have anything to do with that.” She took another step into the office, but Alex’s furious expression stopped her from moving any closer. For a moment, she considered turning around and walking out, but curiosity won.

  “What happened to your car?” The words squeezed past Alex’s clenched teeth.

  She held onto her temper. Once again, she had to be the designated grown-up. She was getting pretty sick of that. “Somebody keyed it while I was at Marcy’s wake.”

  “And you called that detective instead of me.”

  Like she’d have asked Alex for anything after the way he ignored her? “He was already there.”

  “I noticed.” Alex’s lips remained stiff with anger.

  Keeping her tone level took effort. “I needed a police report for my insurance company. It’ll cost a fortune to repaint.”

  He nodded once, a short jerk of his chin, conceding her point. “That detective thought I damaged your car.”

  She kept her mouth firmly closed. JC clearly thought Alex had done it, but she wasn’t going to say it.

  “I told you already, Dimitrak thinks I’m guilty. That I’m involved in Marcy’s murder. And that you are, too.” His finger stabbed at her.

  “Me?” Holly’s hand flew to her chest. “I didn’t have anything to do with Marcy’s death.” Was that what JC meant last night? When he brought up Marcy and Alex?

  “First words out of his mouth were, am I trying to intimidate you?”

  “Why would you—” She shook her head. That made no sense. JC should know Alex wouldn’t—couldn’t—intimidate her, even if he was somehow mixed up in Marcy’s murder.

  Which he wasn’t, was he?

  Alex pushed away from the desk. “Then it was, did I mess with your car because I was afraid you weren’t backing Tim and me? Were we worried you were on his side now?”

  “There aren’t any sides here. We all want the truth.” She leaned against the bookcase, her attention on Alex as he paced.

  “I told Dimitrak he was crazy. That none of us—me, you, Tim—had anything to do with Marcy’s murder. Nobody’s trying to keep you from saying anything.”

  She spread her hands in a gesture that was simultaneously frustrated and placating. “I told him that too. I don’t know what he’s after. Just now, he said to ask you about your alibi.”

  “Jesus.” Alex’s hand flashed. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why in the hell didn’t you tell him we went to the movie Tuesday night?”

  She paused, thinking. “That was Monday.”

  “It was Tuesday.” He shot a hand through his hair. “What are you trying to do to me?”

  She stepped away from the bookcase. “What are you talking about?”

  “Every time you talk to that asshole”—Alex’s finger jerked in the direction JC had gone—“he lands on my doorstep.” His finger stabbed at the floor.

  Anger tightened her chest and warmed her neck. “It wasn’t anything I said.”

  He brushed aside her statement with an irritated wave. “Dimitrak kept going on about the four of us. You. Me. Tim. Marcy. That we were all tangled up together. He hammered on, where was I, since you screwed my alibi, and who wanted Marcy dead. Like I have a goddamn clue.”

  Holly threw up her hands. “What am I supposed to do about it? I didn’t tell him you did anything.”

  “Oh, sure. And then—”

  He stopped, but Holly saw something darker in his mulish expression.

  Arms crossed, he leaned back and adopted an I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude. “How long have you been fucking him?”

  His words slapped her hard. She might have a lot of faults, but screwing around wasn’t one of them. “How dare you? I did no such thing. What is your problem?”

  Alex dropped his arms and the pose. “Don’t play innocent. I saw you last night.”

  “I tripped. He caught me. End of story. Why would you think the worst about me?”

  “He had you wrapped up like…like—” He threw his hands in the air and stalked the length of the office. Throwing the curtains aside, he peered out the window. He may have been trying for aloof, but his fist crumpled the fabric in a furious tangle.

  “You’re being completely irrational.”

  He snorted. “Why’d you keep whispering in his ear?”

  She slammed her hands onto her hips. “
I was translating.”

  “Can’t you do better than that? It looked real tight from where I stood.”

  Why was she putting up with this? “Get over yourself.”

  He stomped toward her. Anger snapped in his eyes. “That asshole had the nerve to tell me if I couldn’t take care of my woman, someone else would.”

  “What?”

  “I gotta give it to you. At least you didn’t sneak around. You two put it right in my face.”

  “Wait a goddamn minute.” Her temper rose along with the warmth climbing her cheeks. “I just told you nothing was going on. And you still don’t believe me?”

  “I know what I saw.”

  She punctuated her next words with sharp finger stabs. “If my talking to the detective bothered you so much, why didn’t you come over and say something?”

  Silence.

  It said a hundred things, none of them good.

  “Yeah. I thought so.”

  Alex slumped against his desk and glared at her. “All that bullshit you fed me about not having sex until we had a relationship, is that a line you big-city girls use on all your clients?”

  She’d never wanted to punch someone so badly. “If you can’t tell the difference, I guess you have your answer.” Holly spun toward the door, fed up with Alex and his attitude.

  “You think you’re so smart. You know, you date two kinds of girls. Ones you take home and ones you don’t.”

  She heard the rest of the unspoken slur. Eyes narrowed, she whirled. “Is that what your mother was whispering in your ear last night?”

  “Don’t talk about my mother.” Alex’s finger flicked a warning arc. “You never made any effort to get to know her.”

  “Me?” Holly thumped her chest. “What about her? She went out of her way to make sure I knew how much she disliked me. And she knew I understood every slur she muttered. Which you also didn’t say a word about.”

  With an irritated snort, Alex strode toward the window. “You never tried to fit in.”

  “What was I supposed to do? I can’t change the fact I’m not Hispanic.”

  He whirled to face her, his expression unreadable.

  She threw up her hands. “We’re done.”

  He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I tell you what. Just have your mother pick out your next girlfriend. It’ll save everybody a lot of trouble.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Thursday morning

  Heart thumping, Holly staggered from her bedroom in the gray predawn light. She brushed away the remnants of a nightmare. Masked gunmen and Marcy’s bloated corpse had stalked her dreams. Still half-asleep, she stumbled into the living room and tripped. Pain jolted from her shin to her brain. “Dammit!”

  Wide-awake now, she rubbed her sore leg and glared at the offending paint can. JC was screwing up her life again. If the damn man hadn’t tied up her entire Sunday, she would’ve finished painting the living room. Then the can wouldn’t have been where she’d trip over it.

  Okay, she’d burned off a little anger slapping paint on the walls last night, but the argument with Alex was at least partly JC’s fault.

  She shuffled into the kitchen, limping on her bruised leg.

  Yeah, yeah, she should’ve moved the stupid can.

  She offered a mumbled thanks to the person who had invented automatic timers, then poured a mug of coffee and inhaled the rich aroma. Caffeine. Nectar of the gods.

  The view from the east-facing windows caught her attention. Rosy streamers flung reds and golds onto clouds like something from a Peter Maxx psychedelic painting. The colors chased across the sky and reflected off the rivers. “Wow.”

  Abruptly, the sun cleared the mountains on the horizon and scalded her eyeballs with unfiltered rays. When she blinked, the sky had transformed and shone a cerulean blue in a vast overhead bowl.

  She loved this house.

  From her counter stool, Holly savored both the view and the first rush of caffeine. The Yakima River curled below her hillside home, lazily rolled through the Chamna Nature Preserve, before looping back to join the Columbia River.

  A line of geese glided across Bateman’s Island, headed for the offshore sanctuary. She shuddered as the birds evoked memories of Alex’s hunting. Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Marcy’s murder.

  She sipped more coffee. She didn’t want to get all morbid and weepy about being alive when Marcy wasn’t. The whole thing was just so…weird.

  She danced away from the next thought. Why wasn’t she more upset?

  Marcy wasn’t a close friend—she hadn’t touched her life in a deep way—but she knew the woman.

  Still uncertain what state her emotions should be in, Holly showered and dressed for work. Her grandfather had died from old age and smoking. But Marcy…?

  Everybody said she was sweet and pretty and good.

  Nobody was all sweetness and light. Everybody's life contained some gray areas.

  Holly had the uncomfortable feeling the question everybody should be asking wasn’t who killed Marcy, but why?

  ~$~

  In one smooth move, Holly dumped her briefcase, deposited Alex’s flowers on the credenza, shrugged out of her jacket, and punched “voicemail.” She stared at the flowers as the phone connected. Did Alex really think he could smooth over the angry accusations with a seasonal assortment?

  In his dreams.

  And what was up with his so-called alibi? She knew without checking that the movie was Monday night. Where was he on Tuesday that he didn’t want to admit?

  She couldn’t believe he’d had anything to do with Marcy’s death…but why lie?

  A huge envelope filled her in-basket and a stack of file folders lay on her desk with a Post-it tacked on top. She read the brief message—“Please countersign, Donna.”

  Donna, not Mother.

  Holly still couldn’t get used to calling her mother by her first name.

  Apparently, her mother had put in an early morning appearance at the office. She’d cleared half a dozen projects, but a dozen more clamored for Holly’s attention.

  The first voicemail message played through the speakerphone. She jotted notes and wondered how many of the projects she could pass to the staff.

  Several client messages finished, then Alex’s baritone filled the office. “I guess you aren’t in yet.”

  He needed to find someone else—someone who thought his fight-and-make-up cycle was acceptable.

  “Look, I shouldn’t have unloaded on you last night.”

  Ya think? She started to erase the message. She’d already deleted the ones he’d left on her cell.

  “That cop really riled me up.”

  Her finger hesitated over the keypad. Was Alex actually going to apologize?

  “We were both upset. Said some things we shouldn’t. But…”

  He paused and she could nearly see him shift position to try a different approach. His vocabulary apparently didn’t include the words, “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want to break up…”

  Like they were ever actually together?

  Not.

  “I like you, Holly. We were having fun…”

  Yeah, they had, but was he living in Total Denial-land? Why would he want to keep dating? They were so done. Finished. Over.

  “Damn, I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. I have no idea how you’re reacting.”

  Interesting. She gave the phone a thoughtful inspection. This didn’t sound like male pride. While painting last night, she’d rerun the argument, and examined both the words and the nuances. She’d decided Alex really didn’t want her, but he didn’t like her dumping him.

  “Call me.”

  Why the push? She deleted Alex’s message. The next recording began, but she barely noticed. She and Alex weren’t a love match. They’d both known things were temporary.

  She stared out the window at the traffic on Grandridge. What did Alex really want? JC had harped on Alex’s and Tim�
��s finances. Was Alex afraid she’d uncover something? He had his own bookkeeper for the restaurant. Restaurants—any cash-based business—were notorious for manipulating income. Sometimes it provided a cover for other activity—drugs, money laundering. She’d seen no evidence of either, but was Alex trying to make their relationship more serious, hoping to protect whatever he was hiding?

  If he was hiding anything.

  Did he really think he could convince her to look the other way? Clearly, the man didn’t know her. If Alex was doing something illegal, she’d never put up with it.

  With a disgusted sigh, she noticed the silence. The message system wanted something from her. Damn, was there anybody or anything that didn’t?

  She shelved Alex and his mystery motives and replayed the last message. She had plenty of other things to occupy her time. Notes from clients lined her legal pad.

  “Call me.” Laurie’s voice. “Call me, call me, call me.”

  What had her so excited?

  Holly nearly hung up to return Laurie’s call, but the next message began: “Holly. Devon Edwards. I have the information you wanted. Call me around eleven.”

  Yes! She gave a double-fisted victory pump. Her friend from the M&A team had come through. Impatient now, she waited out the remaining messages. With a glance at her watch—plenty of time before she needed to call Devon—she picked up her cell and said, “Laurie.”

  The phone connected and her friend’s voice bubbled from the speaker. “You are not going to believe this. Marcy was pregnant.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “My brother-in-law’s part of the investigation team.”

  “I forgot your sister married a cop.” Duh! It was how Laurie had known about JC’s job, marriage, and divorce.

  “He told her Marcy was pregnant. She told me.”

  Holly shook her head. “Wow. Pregnant.”

  “Yet another major life moment she didn’t share with us.”

  “She couldn’t have been very far along. She wasn’t showing.”