Polished Off

Table of Contents

 

 

“Fans of the themed cozy will rejoice as new talent Dare debuts her Southern Beauty Shop series . . . Dare turns this off-the-rack concept into a tightly plotted, suspenseful mystery, and readers will love the pretty, plucky, smart, slightly damaged heroine and the rest of the charming cast.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Humor, heart, and a first-class whodunit . . . Readers will be anxious to make the return trip to St. Elizabeth, Georgia, to check in on the adventures of the girls from Violetta’s.”

—Casey Daniels, author of
Tomb with a View

“
Tressed to Kill
sparkles . . . Stylish, swift-paced, and charming.”

—Carolyn Hart, author of
Laughed ’Til He Died

“Enticing and eccentric Southern characters combined with suspenseful tension and twists.”

—Linda O. Johnston, author of
Feline Fatale

“This first in a new series will certainly charm readers with its close-knit group of beauticians who work together to solve this nicely plotted and well-executed mystery. With its uniquely Southern setting and snappy characters, this mystery is an exceptionally good addition to the cozy genre.”

—
Romantic Times
(4 ½ stars)

 

TRESSED TO KILL
POLISHED OFF

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

 

POLISHED OFF

 

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2011

Copyright © 2011 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-47712-0

 

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Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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If I said “it takes a village” to nurture a book from idea to manuscript to publication, my husband would gag, so I’ll just say thank you to the many, many friends, colleagues, and publishing professionals who improved
Polished Off
, especially my critique group buddies—Amy, Lin, Marie; my agent, Paige Wheeler; my editor, Michelle Vega and all the wonderful people at Berkley Prime Crime; Greg Gillis and Ellory Gillis-McGinnis, amazing web designers of
www.LilaDare.com
; and Joan Hankins, my first reader and dearest friend. To my husband and daughters—thanks for the love and support and the grand adventure that is our family life together.

THE DAY GOT OFF TO A ROCKY START WHEN A HYSTERICAL bride-to-be pitched a hissy in the salon. We all have bad hair days, but brides tend to look at lank locks, or humidity frizz, or a dye job that’s more flaming idiot than Flaming Auburn, as a catastrophe on par with a mud slide burying their reception site. And this bride, twenty-year-old Penny Williams, had a real problem: she’d tried to iron her hair straight and toasted it.

“Look at it,” she wailed from Mom’s styling chair. She was a tiny thing—barely topping five feet—with long hair and brown cocker spaniel eyes, currently reddened by crying. She grabbed a hank of light brown hair and waved it. “I can’t get married now . . . I look hideous. Jarrett will want his ring back.” She waved her left hand, sparking a twinkle off the diamond chip embedded in fourteen-carat gold.

“Jarrett loves you, Penny,” Mom said soothingly, patting the distraught girl’s shoulder. The sun streaming through the wooden blinds made a halo of Mom’s short, spiky salt-and-pepper hair and glinted off the lenses of her rimless glasses. Sixty years old, she still had smooth, relatively unlined skin and deep periwinkle eyes. Her figure was comfortably rounded and she favored practical clothes when working: washable cotton-knit or linen pants, sneakers, and blouses with pockets to hold clips and combs.

“But the wedding’s Saturday!” Penny said despairingly. “It’ll never grow out by then. I need to call my mom so she can cancel the flowers. And the photographer. And the—” She dug through her purse and came up with her cell phone.

Mom drew her fingers through Penny’s hair. “Look, hon, it’s just the ends that got a bit . . . crispy. I can trim those off in a jiff, do a bit of layering around your face, and you’ll be a radiant bride.”

“You think?” She hiccupped at her reflection in the mirror. A half-hopeful look flitted across her face.

“I know,” Mom said firmly. “Let’s get you shampooed.”

While Mom led Penny to the shampoo sink that sits behind a half wall of glass bricks, I called Jarrett Noblitt, the groom-to-be. It struck me that a little reassurance from her beloved might help Penny put the hair fiasco in perspective.

“I’ll be right over,” he said. “Thanks, Grace.”

I hung up smiling. Sometimes being part of a small deep-South community can be a blessing. Having lifelong friends and neighbors who care about you and know your business can be a huge help. Of course, having those same friends and neighbors meddle in your life can also prove frustrating and embarrassing. There’s a thin line, I’d noted years ago, between caring and meddling. Like when your marriage ends up on the rocks and everyone has a theory about what went wrong. Or, worse, they want to fix you up with their friend/cousin/nephew/coworker who will be “just perfect for you.” Since I’d returned to St. Elizabeth from Atlanta after my divorce, I’d fended off offers of blind dates from well-wishers ranging from clients to my landlady.

Heavy footsteps thudding up the stairs and across the veranda cut across my thoughts. Jarrett Noblitt burst through the door into the salon, which is the front half of my mom’s Victorian home. Usually it seemed cozy, with a chintz love seat and chairs in the waiting area, two styling stations, and a shampoo sink separated by a half wall of glass bricks, wooden blinds canted to let the sun stream across heart-of-pine floorboards, and a profusion of violets and ferns. The womanly figurehead from the wreck of the
Santa Elisabeta
, a galleon that went down off our coast in the 1500s, provided benevolent supervision from a wall behind the counter. But Jarrett made the salon feel cramped. He was six and a half feet of former high school point guard turned welder.

Stella Michaelson, our manicurist, caught my eye and bit back a smile as she readied her polishes for the day. Her white Persian cat, Beauty, sat on a purple satin pillow beneath Stella’s station in the Nail Nook, whisking her tail back and forth.

The groom rushed to Penny, who was now sitting in Mom’s chair with her hair turbaned in a violet towel. He gave her a crushing hug that knocked the towel askew.

“Jarrett!” She got wide-eyed. “What are you doing here?”