So About the Money (7 page)

The male voice jolted her to attention. Heart thumping, she pivoted toward the sound.

Never let your guard down. Especially not in public.
That was one lesson she’d learned from Frank.

“Sorry,” the middle-aged man said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
 

Hand pressed to her chest, she managed a weak smile when she recognized him as a client.
 

“I wanted to introduce my wife.” He gestured to a brunette who held a leash connected to something small, fluffy, and cute.

They chatted and petted the dog, while Holly told her overactive imagination to get a grip. A few minutes later, the couple headed for the wide, riverside path.
 

A Prius purred into the lot and parked. The sun caught the bright blue streaks in Laurie’s dark hair as she emerged. Before Holly could wonder how the hospital administration reacted to the hair enhancement, Laurie closed the gap between them, wrapped arms around her, and squeezed.

“I can’t believe Marcy’s dead.” Holly leaned against her friend, worn out by too many emotional slams. For a while, they hugged in shared grief. Finally, she sniffed and dabbed a knuckle under her eyes. “I thought I was all cried out.”

“That takes a while.” Laurie pulled tissues from her pocket and handed her one.

They wiped their eyes and blew their noses. Without making a conscious decision, they strolled toward the paved walking path.

Laurie scuffed through the fallen leaves. “You didn’t have to drive over here. I could’ve come by your house.”

Holly threaded an arm through Laurie’s. “You had to work and I needed to get out of the house. Being alone with my thoughts was driving me nuts.”

“Some cops in the ER were talking about Marcy. I swear, news ran through the hospital faster than the flu.” Laurie worked on the hospital’s administrative side and heard every rumor swirling around the medical center.

“Big surprise the cops were gossiping,” Holly muttered.

Within minutes, they left Howard Amon Park. Movement gave Holly’s restless, mixed-up emotions an outlet. Slowly, her shoulders loosened and her stomach unclenched.

The path followed the riverbank to another unnamed pocket park where a couple played with a toddler in the heaps of leaves. Holly smiled at the innocent happiness.

Laurie broke the silence. “I can’t believe it. Marcy. Dead. It doesn’t make sense.”

And the day’s disasters crashed back over Holly.

“Having to answer nine thousand questions about Marcy and my alleged involvement made it way too real.”

“What?” Shock mingled with outrage in Laurie’s tone.

“Yeah, I’m a Person of Interest.”

Laurie sputtered, but Holly said, “All those cops out at the game management area, most of them were just doing their job. I get that. I mean, it did piss me off they obviously suspected Alex and me, but mostly they were polite. Professional. But I swear, they all asked the same questions. I seriously wanted to ask, don’t you people
talk
to each other?”

“Maybe you should’ve busted out and used sign language.” Laurie waved her hands in a lousy imitation of the
hello
gesture.

“Maybe if I’d used sign language in the first place, they’d have let me go home sooner.” Holly grimaced. “The question that keeps running through my head is
why?
Marcy was so nice, and in so many ways, she’s just like us. She had a job, a family. She paid her bills. Went to church on Sunday.”

“I can’t imagine her mixed up in anything that could turn around and get her murdered.”

“Do you think she stumbled into something? I saw this Aryan Nation guy out there who scared the crap out of me. The skinheads and the Mexican bandits grow dope around here. Maybe Marcy wandered into one of their ‘grows’ and they shot her.”
 

“Did you see any plants or signs someone was camping out?”

“There was a lot of trash—food wrappers and stuff—where we found her.”

Laurie shook her head. “That’s probably where people were fishing and too lazy to pack their trash out. And you know as well as I do that Marcy wouldn’t have been poking around out there.”

“I’m running out of possibilities. Could it have been someone else who screwed up? Someone she was involved with?”
 

Instead of brushing off the comment, Laurie pursed her lips, clearly thinking about it. “Marcy never talked about guys—anybody she was dating or guys in general. That’s not normal. Women talk about their men.”

Holly sidestepped the piles of poop the park geese had left on the paved path. The geese had ignored them when they didn’t offer food. “That always bothered me, too. Friends talk about their love lives. Or complain about the lack of one.”
 

“I hate saying anything bad about Marcy, but it always felt like she was hiding something.”

Holly gave Laurie an incredulous look. “We all have things we don’t want to talk about. It doesn’t mean she was doing anything wrong.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just, at times, I wondered if she was seeing a married man.”

Her mouth fell open and she sputtered, “Really? Why’d you think that?”

Laurie shrugged. “Sometimes I got that happy, I-have-a-secret vibe from her.”

“A married man?”

“Sorry, it’s just a feeling. I guess that’s a sore subject for you, your dad and all.”

“Let’s don’t add my father to today’s disasters.” Holly waved a hand, dismissing the topic and the apology. “Did Marcy ever tell you where she got that diamond necklace?”

“I wondered if it was a gift. I don’t know how much Tim’s paying her, but it looked more expensive than any jewelry I can afford.”

A pair of seagulls swooped off the river. They hovered overhead, coarse voices screeching. Holly recoiled. Her hands flew out and covered her head. “Get away from me!”

Memory reran the scene from the clearing. The gulls. The body. The ravished face.
 

Holly’s whole body tightened. Adrenaline—and fear—spiked through her system. She yanked off her hat and swatted at the birds. “Go away.”

With a final cry of defiance, the gulls tilted their wings and headed upriver.

“Come on. They’re gone.” Laurie grabbed her arm and pulled.

Eyes averted from the river and the birds, Holly stumbled after her. They retreated to a bench where the trees protected them from the wind. “Sorry.”

“The hat dance was a riot, but what was that about?” Laurie pushed back Holly’s hair and lifted her chin. “Jeez, you’re shaking.”

Warmth climbed her cheeks. She swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. “I forgot there’d be seagulls here. Seeing Marcy’s body…those horrible birds. I’ll never be able to look at seagulls the same way.”

A shudder crawled across her shoulders and down her spine. She told Laurie about finding the body, ending with a quick description of Marcy’s face. “They
ate
her.”

“Oh my God. That’s horrible.” Laurie pulled her into a sympathetic hug. “I’d have totally freaked if I found her.”

“I pretty much did.” She looked at the concern in her friend’s eyes and again felt tears well.

Blinking back the tears, she concentrated on the foliage of the closest tree. The leaves danced in the breeze, shifting bands of color. By the time the first leaf floated away from the branch, she was fairly certain her voice would be level. “I keep hoping it’s a bad dream. That Marcy will show up, shouting, ‘Surprise!’”

“People our age are not supposed to die.” Laurie rubbed her chin. “It’s so weird that you and Alex found her. I mean, it’s spooky how connected you are. You and Alex knew Marcy. She worked for Tim. Tim’s your client.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “You sound like JC.”

“JC? You mean JC Dimitrak? I haven’t heard that name in a long time. What’s he got to do with anything?”

Holly rose and headed for the path. “On top of everything else in my screwed-up life, guess who’s the detective on the case?”

Laurie knew her too well. Horrified disbelief colored her tone. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Oh. My God. I know he’s a cop. He was there? What did you do?”

“ ‘Awkward’ didn’t begin to describe it. I was already in shock. We found this horrible body and it was
Marcy
. Alex and I were being questioned by all these cops, and then JC showed up.” She wanted to bang her head against the nearest tree. “All that crap from six years ago was like it happened six minutes ago. First words out of his mouth were a huge personal hit. Of course, Alex noticed. After that, he and JC did everything but pee on the ground, marking their territory.”

“Hmm.” Laurie lips curved in a three-pointed smile. “So is it pheromones or do you two still have things to resolve?”

Holly made a rude noise.

“What are you going to do about it?”

She jammed her hands in her pockets and blew out a frustrated breath. “JC? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“What would be the point? I’m going back to Seattle. Living there was never in the Life Rules According To JC Dimitrak.” She flashed a wry smile at her friend. “No offense. I know you like it here.”

Laurie was quiet for so long, Holly turned to stare at her. “What?”

“Is that really fair? You don’t know what JC’s like now.”

“Excuse me? We’re supposed to be talking about Marcy. Besides, whose side are you on?”

“Why does there have to be sides? Look, I know what JC did was despicable—”

“Ya think?”

Laurie ignored the sarcasm. “Did you ever consider maybe it wasn’t completely black and white?”

Holly gave a fallen limb a savage kick. “I was there. There were no shades of gray.”

“I’ve changed since college. You’ve changed. Why do you think he hasn’t? It sounds to me like you’re still attracted to each other. Why not see where it goes?”

They’d almost reached the parking lot before Holly heaved a long sigh and said, “JC and I want different things. Fundamentally different. He never accepted that I want a career, much less that my career is as important as what he does. I don’t see that changing.”

“He’s taken his lumps like the rest of us. Did you know he’s divorced?”

Part of her wanted to snark,
Oh, the little woman at home, ironing his shirts and minding the babies didn’t work out?
But the rest of her didn’t want to be immature. Laurie had a point. JC had lived his own life while she was gone. Holly didn’t know anything about him except he still made her knees weak and other parts melt. She shook her head, rejecting those thoughts.

“The marriage didn’t last long.”

Laurie had apparently interpreted her headshake as an answer to her question about JC’s divorce. Holly wasn’t interested in talking about JC and she sure wasn’t interested in discussing the woman he’d married mere months after they broke up. From the corner of her eye, she saw her friend studying her and wondered what was behind all the comments. “Now what?”

Laurie turned away. “Well, if JC’s out of the picture, want to run across the river and let Alex feed us?”

“Not just no, but hell, no.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“His family will be there and after the day I’ve had, I don’t want to put up with his mother.”

“Too bad,” Laurie said. ”The boy can cook.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with Alex. I thought we were having fun, but can you believe he tried to use Marcy’s death as an excuse to jump into bed? Talk about bad timing.”

Laurie burst out laughing. “Gotta give him points for trying.”

“It did
not
earn him any points. It just made him pissier when JC showed up to ask another million questions.”

“Wait. JC came by your house? I thought you meant he was at the game refuge, place, thing.”

“That wasn’t enough for him. He had to come take a few digs at my house.”

“That seems weird. Maybe he thought he was doing you a favor by not making you go to the police station.”

“If we’d gone to the station, it would’ve been more professional. Or official. Instead, there were some seriously strange vibes. He’d make a personal remark and then slam me with,
Did you kill Marcy?
It felt like…” Holly hesitated, wondering if she should say this, even to Laurie.