A High Heels Haunting (11 page)

Authors: Gemma Halliday

Tags: #General, #cozy mystery, #Women Sleuths, #Weddings - Planning, #Women fashion designers, #Mystery & Detective

Blake was swabbed for gun shot residue and DNA and put into the back of a squad car. I was shoved into an ambulance where EMT’s went over every inch of me, examining the dark purple bruises I could already feel forming on my throat. Once they determined I was relatively okay, a plainclothes police officer in a fedora that looked like he’d seen one too many episodes of
Dragnet
told me he’d like me to come down to the station to answer some questions. Since it wasn’t really a request, I agreed.

It was light out by the time I’d relayed the events of the evening in triplicate to Dragnet, who’d then had me sign a statement and asked that I be available for follow up questions should he need me. Again, not really a request, so I nodded and promised I wouldn’t leave town as a uniformed officer led me through the lobby.

That’s where I finally saw Blake. He was promising much the same to another detective, this one a bald headed spitting image of Kojak. My heart clenched as I saw his pale cheeks hasn’t gained much colored since he’d fished me out of the swimming pool. I walked toward him and gingerly put a hand on his arm as the detective walked away.

“Hey.”

He spun around, the lines around his eyes softening as he saw me. “Hey. You okay?”

I nodded.
'
Great
'
would have been an exaggeration, but I was breathing, so I figured
'
okay
'
was a good description.

“You?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I will be. Jesus, Kya, I shot a man.”

I nodded. “I know.” I paused. Then asked the question I’d been dying to have answered all night. “What happened, Blake?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face and sat down on a wooden bench by the wall. “I… I’m not really sure. Something woke me up. I don’t know what, but I realized you were gone. My head was all fuzzy,
and
I couldn’t really focus for some reason. And at first I kind of freaked out, remembering you by the pool the other night. I walked to the sliding door and saw someone in the water, thrashing around. I…” he faltered, then looked at the ground. “At first I thought it was Angel and I lost it. I tried to grab you, pull you out of the pool. But you kept twisting away from me. And then I realized there was someone else in the water with you. I saw him grab you by the hair and pull you under. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.” He looked down at his hands. “It was like I was moving through a fog, I couldn’t make my body respond right. Then I remembered the gun I’d bought after Angel died. I ran into the house to get it, then came back out to see him with his hands around your throat. I didn’t even think. I just aimed and fired.”

Guilt hit me full force. How could I have been so wrong about him? He’d saved my life. I should have known there was no way he could ever have hurt Angel. “Thank you. I thought I was a gonner.”

“Yeah, me too.” He attempted a little half smile. It was pretty feeble, truth be told, but I was glad he was even attempting.

“Let’s go home,” I said, the fatigue I’d been fending off suddenly getting the better of me.

He nodded, taking my hand in his. It was warm, soft. Comforting.

“How about my apartment?” I offered.

Blake nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m never going back to my place again.”

I didn’t blame him. “Well, in that case, I hope Rufus likes cats.”

He grinned at me, this one closer to genuine, even showing a little dimple, as he gently brushed a kiss along my lips. “He’ll learn to love them.”

Chapter Nine

I sat forward in my cubicle, leaning my elbows on my desk as I moved my mouse to the “next” link and clicked through to the rest of the Yahoo News story about the death of Alec Davis.

It had been one month exactly since the attack. I couldn’t say I’d really gotten over it, but the bruises around my neck had almost faded. A good thing too, as I’d just about run out of turtlenecks to wear to work. Yeah, I was back at OmniWeb. After my agent tried to kill me, I figured my modeling days were over. While it had been nice to play the center of attention for awhile, Kya Star was no more. Because, honestly, there really hadn’t been anything all that wrong with Kya Bader to begin with. Sure, she’d had ample practice at being a doormat in her lifetime, but that didn’t mean I had to throw her out entirely. She had a lot of good qualities too. And the moment I’d seen death hovering on my horizon, I’d made a promise to myself to discover them all.

The news page loaded, Alec’s Redford good looks filling the screen. I tried to ignore them, instead focusing on the print beside it.

According to the reporter, the police’s first order of business had been to go over every inch of records at Parker Models. The conclusion: Alec had been skimming funds. As soon as the detectives confronted the receptionist, Julie, she’d broken down and admitted to everything. Alec had had her draw up two copies of contracts for every model – one with the real amount they were being paid, one with a fake number that left Alec with a commission bordering on 75%. Apparently once his own modeling jobs dried up, he hadn’t been content with a mere 15% of the profits. He’d had the models sign the fake ones, then transposed their signatures onto the real documents before sending them in to his accounts. Poor R.J. had been clueless about the whole operation running right under his nose.

But Angel hadn’t.

Apparently, Angel, having been an accounting major, had noticed discrepancies and caught on to the scheme. According to Julie, she’d had a heated argument with Alec just days before her death, but she claimed she had no knowledge of what happened next. The police speculated that Angel confronted him and he’d killed her to keep her quiet.

That’s when I’d popped on the scene, asking questions about Angel and making Alec nervous that the whole thing would be dragged up again. But what had tipped him over the edge was that R.J. had told him I had proof of her killer. (Little did he know it was in the form of creepy visions – hardly admissible in court.) Alec had freaked, following me to Blake’s, where he’d waited for the right opportunity. Clever me, I’d walked right into it.

Blake had eventually been cleared of any wrongdoing in Alec’s death, though, according to his tox screen, he’d ingested large amounts of sleeping pills. After going over Blake’s place, police found the half empty bottle of wine he’d drunk that night, laced with enough drugs to put an elephant out. Blake admitted Alec had given it to him before leaving the set that day.

The police surmised that Alec must have used a similar M.O. in Angel’s murder, first making sure Blake was knocked out, then killing Angel. Though, the reporter finished by saying that whether Alec lured Angel outside or it had been pure opportunity to find her at the pool, we’d probably never know.

I bit my lip as I stared at the screen. Well, maybe some of us would never know…

Ever since Alec’s death the dreams, visions, whatever-they’d-been had stopped. I’d like to think it was because Angel was at peace now, but I wasn’t about to try to analyze it. I’d come to terms with the fact that what happened to me didn’t make a whole lot of sense. In fact, it was bordering on
a
Crossing Over
episode weird. But Alec was gone, Angel’s murder was solved, and my life was back to its normal routine of cubicles, web layouts, and cat fur on my black sweaters.

So, I wasn’t complaining.

“Kya?”

I snapped my head up, quickly closing the news window as Danielle ducked around my cube.

“Oh hey, Danielle. You scared me, I thought you were Peterman.”

“Yeah, you’re on his shit list for taking three weeks vacation in a row.”

I shrugged. “I was due.”

“Hey, Maxi
n
e and I are cutting out early to go to Club Ecstasy. You wanna join us again?” She poked me in the arm. “I know how much fun you had last time.”

“Oh, uh, sorry, not tonight”

“Ah, come on, Kya, you’ve got to learn to live a little, girl.”

I grinned. “Actually I’ve already got plans.”

Danielle cocked her head to the side, fingering a corkscrew curl. “Oh yeah? With who, your cat?”

I should have been offended, but instead, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. “Nope.” I nodded behind her. “With him.”

Danielle spun around just in time to see Blake walk off the elevator.

Okay, so maybe there was one thing about Kya Star’s life that I wasn’t totally ready to give up. Could you blame me?

After Kojak and Dragnet had cleared Blake of all charges, he’d gone back to his place only briefly to pack up a few things and collect Rufus from the neighbor
'
s before moving in with me. I’ll admit, it was an adjustment for both Tabby and me to not only have a man, but also a ninety-five pound Saint Bernard, suddenly in our space. But so far we were adjusting nicely. Okay, maybe Tabby was a little more reluctant than I was, but the first morning I’d woken up in Blake’s arms, I’d known there was no other place I’d rather be.

“Ready, gorgeous?” he asked as he approached my cube, giving a cursory glace to Danielle who looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head.

“Ready.” I flipped off my monitor and grabbed my purse from the floor beside my tower.

“See you tomorrow, Danielle,” I called, waving over my shoulder at her.

She did a feeble little wave back, shaking her head in disbelief as a smile crept across her face. I knew I was going to have to give her mega details tomorrow in the break room.

“So, what do you feel like doing tonight? Movie? Dinner?” Blake asked, taking my hand in his.

“Hmmm…” I bit my lip. “Or, we could spend the night in?”

He grinned down at me, showing off both dimples. “Oh yeah? And, just what did you have in mind?”

“My shaman kicking your elf hunter’s butt. He is so weak.”

Blake threw his head back and laughed as he hit the elevator button. “Hey, that elf hunter saved your pretty little shaman behind last week, if I recall. Remember that troll? With the rampant crossbow?”

“Damn. You got me. I guess I owe you then, huh?”

He nodded. “Big time.”

“Okay, tell you what? We’ll order in Chinese, lock the animals in the bathroom, turn down the lights, and I’ll let you play with my spells.”

“Your spells, huh? Hmm…” he said, getting a wicked gleam in his eyes. He leaned in and grazed his lips along the nape of my neck. “It’s a deal.”

I giggled and went warm all over.

Blake squeezed my hand as the elevator doors slid open and I stepped one shiny red patent-leather heel over the threshold of the elevator.

Oh, yeah.

I guess there was one other tiny part of Kya Star’s life I was keeping, too. What can I say? They were
hot
shoes.

* * * * *

About the author:

Gemma Halliday is the
New York Times
and
USA
Today
bestselling
author
of the
High Heels Mysteries
, and the
Hollywood Headlines Mysteries
. Her previous books have received numerous awards, including a Golden Heart, a National Reader’s Choice award and three RITA nominations. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is hard at work on several new projects.