“Lance is very loyal to me,” Dr. Miniskirt insisted. “Besides, he knows who butters his bread.”
“Lance is so loyal that he went after another woman?” I piped up. “Miranda had photographs of him with his tongue in her ear. And she had lots more pictures even more incriminating,” I went on, though I didn’t know that for sure. I’d only glimpsed a handful, including the one of the dark-haired dude embracing her. “She probably had notes on her laptop, too. But if you took it after you murdered her, you should know that.”
Again, Dr. Evil and her henchman exchanged glances, and neither appeared any too happy.
“What laptop?” Lance asked, perspiration beading on his forehead.
“The one that was on the coffee table at Miranda’s before she died. It somehow vanished before morning.”
“Not my concern.” Sonja shrugged, and Lance mimicked her with a shrug of his own.
Why did I get the feeling they were truly clueless
?
“Enough.” Sonja tapped the syringe and sighed. “Don’t worry, Andy, I’m not going to do you in. I’m just going to give you enough Rohypnol, on top of what Lance gave you, to make you totally forget tonight . . . and, well, probably the last few nights as well. Isn’t that lovely? You won’t remember Miranda’s last night any more than you’ll recall this one. And we’ll make sure you’re found somewhere safe. Don’t worry about that, either. We’re not criminals, Lance and I.”
No
?
I pressed my back into the chair, willing myself to disappear. My whole body trembled. The chick was insane.
“This might sting, but just for a second,” she said.
Which is when I let out a hellacious scream and kicked a pointy-toed boot at Dr. Sonja, catching her arm and throwing her off-balance.
Lance lunged in my direction as the door sailed open and a dude in a midnight blue blazer and jeans flung himself into the room. He pointed a gun at Lance and yelled, “Nobody move a damned muscle unless you want a slug up your ass.”
Lance stopped just shy of landing on top of me.
Dr. Sonja was still scurrying to recover her missing syringe.
“I called the police as soon as I glimpsed you being helped out the back door of the club. I followed you here, and the cops are right behind me,” Milton Fletcher said, and sure enough, as soon as he stopped to take a breath, Deputy Chief Anna Dean strolled in with a couple of uniformed officers, unstrapping the handcuffs from their belts.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Anna Dean began, reciting the Miranda, and Miltie the Detective tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and walked straight toward me.
“You okay, Andy? Didn’t I tell you you’d be safer working with me than if you went solo?” he lectured.
I’d been pawed by Dick Uttley, trapped in a room with Lance, and drugged once—nearly drugged twice for good measure—and now
this
?
Couldn’t I have been rescued by anyone but Milton Fletcher, the Navy SEAL turned P.I. turned pain in the tush?
I would’ve rather been saved by Cissy, for Pete’s sake.
Only mealy-mouthed girls in very grim fairy tales dream of being rescued by smart-mouthed dudes who drive Porsche Boxers.
Oy.
“Your mother was right about you, Andy,” he continued yapping as he worked to untie my wrists. “You
are
reckless. Lucky for you, I like that in a woman.”
If I hadn’t already felt like throwing up, that would’ve done it.
Unfortunately for Miltie, my weak stomach chose that moment to heave. So I leaned over the side of the reclining chair and spewed recycled champagne all over his fancy Bruno Maglis.
I
sat in the passenger seat of Milton’s Porsche Boxer, still shaken but a whole lot steadier than a few minutes before. He’d put his velvet blazer over my shoulders and turned up the car’s heat.
Still, I shivered as he told me, “I got a call from a buddy in the HPPD right after I took off from the club. He said the crime lab recovered the chip from Miranda’s damaged cell phone. They got the data off it, Andy, and they traced the text messages from the guy who called himself Big Dog to a phone number that showed up plenty, both as sent calls and received. They’re not so stuck on their suicide theory anymore.”
“Who?” I asked, croaking like a frog that needed a Ricola.
“Who what?”
“Who’s the Big Dog? He’s their prime suspect, right?”
“I didn’t say he was a suspect, but he’s a person of interest, all right. It’s some dude named Armstrong. Anna Dean said they’ll bring him in tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“Why not sooner?” Call me antsy, but I wanted whoever killed Miranda put away ASAP. Then my life could get back to its usual state of slightly less than crazy.
“Geez, Andy, it’s late, and they’re a little busy booking Dr. Madhavi and her boyfriend on kidnapping and assault charges.”
“The police aren’t charging them with murder, are they?”
“No.”
Despite everything I knew, I felt disappointed. It wouldn’t have been hard for me to watch Dr. Sonja and Lance Zarimba take the fall. But I also felt in my gut that neither Sonja nor Lance had shot Miranda. Not with a gun anyway, just with strategically placed nerve-damaging Botox injections. Which was bad enough.
“C’mon, Andy. I should take you home. You want to call your boyfriend and tell him what’s going on?”
Tell Brian?
Oh, God, no.
Seriously, how was I going to explain this to him? I hadn’t even told him I was going out, much less that I was dressing up like a high class hooker to infiltrate a local sex club. Which reminded me that I hadn’t called Janet to tell her what was going on, and she was doubtless frantic, too.
I needed time to collect myself, get my brain working again. It still felt incredibly slow-witted, and my thoughts were all jumbled. Probably why my reactions were on time delay.
Some dude named Armstrong.
“Wait a minute.” I would’ve slapped my brow but my head ached too much. “Did you say Armstrong?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“What’s his first name?”
Milton aborted his attempt at shifting out of Park and let the Porsche idle again. “I believe it’s Jonathan.”
Jonathan Armstrong?
Sister Mary Merlot!
My eyes bugged.
That was Delaney’s husband.
The handsome guy in the family portrait that I’d glimpsed on my way out of the Pretty Party.
I’d never met him face-to-face, but I’d heard stories of how Delaney had chased him all over UT-Austin until she’d worn him down. Or maybe her having a bun in the oven before graduation had done the trick. Whatever, I’d constantly been told he was the love of her life and the “perfect guy,” the kind they didn’t make anymore.
So the perfect man hadn’t been so perfect after all?
He’d been going to Caviar Club sex-fests and sleeping with Miranda DuBois.
Whoa.
Slow brain or not, it was all starting to make sense.
“
That’s
who was having an affair with Miranda?” I said aloud. “That’s the guy she was in love with who was unavailable?”
I would’ve bet money at that point that Jonathan Armstrong was the dark-haired man in the photograph with Miranda, the one I’d glimpsed on the screen of her laptop.
Yowza.
“Sure looks like it.” Milton reached inside his shirt pocket to bring out a folded note. “My pal gave me a heads-up on the final text message sent from Armstrong to Miranda, because it’s not being made public yet for good reason. The Big Dog apparently told her: ‘Done thinking. Love you. I am yours forever.’ It was dated the evening she died, Andy. Sent a few minutes after midnight. She responded with: ‘I love you, too.’”
“You’re kidding me?” I stared at him, flabbergasted.
That sounded an awful lot like Jonathan had decided to leave his wife for Miranda, even with her messed-up face.
Since Miranda had apparently gotten his message that night and responded likewise, there’s no way she would’ve killed herself. No way in hell. She would’ve had everything to live for, right?
On the other hand, if Jonathan had told his wife he was leaving her, what would that have done to Delaney? Uptight, control-freak Delaney Armstrong who’d undergone every procedure Dr. Sonja had in her arsenal to attempt to stay youthful and attractive for the only man she’d ever loved.
Her perfect guy.
Oh, boy.
If I knew Delaney, she would’ve been mad enough to kill.
But she would never have hurt her beloved Jonathan. No matter what he’d done.
No, siree, Bob
. She would’ve pinned the blame on Miranda completely.
I pulled Milton’s velvet jacket tighter around me, realizing how easy Miranda had made it for Delaney. The former beauty queen had stormed into Delaney’s own house the night of a party, so there were plenty of witnesses to Miranda’s crazy behavior, namely her taking a shot at Dr. Sonja.
“Jonathan Armstrong’s wife had to have been the one who took Miranda’s gun,” I said, thinking how Delaney must’ve seen it as the answer to her prayers. “Delaney could’ve picked it up during all the brouhaha and no one would’ve been the wiser. She also had the keys to Miranda’s duplex, because Miranda had left her car in front of the Armstrongs’ house.”
It would’ve been so easy for Delaney to let herself in after I’d left. A drunk and snoozing Miranda wouldn’t have known what hit her until it was too late.
Dear God.
I reached over to Milton and clutched his arm. Ignoring his “Oww,” I asked, “Can you take me to Delaney Armstrong’s house right now? Please, Fletch, I need to talk to her. I’ve known her since kindergarten. If she did this . . . if she murdered Miranda in cold blood, I want to hear her say it out loud.”
“Did you actually call me ‘Fletch’?”
“Will you or won’t you?” I squeezed his arm more tightly.
He looked at me, incredulous. “You actually think she’s going to confess just because you want her to?”
“Maybe.” If I played a mean Angela Lansbury, like in
Murder, She Wrote
, or did a really good Matlock impression. “Heck, I don’t know. I just have to do it.”
“The police won’t be any too happy with you.”
“Anna Dean hasn’t been happy with me since she met me. So, are you driving me?” I still had a good grip on his arm, and I wasn’t letting up. “Or should I call a cab? Because one way or the other, I’m going.”
He grimaced. “If you let go of me, yes, okay.”
So much for him being a tough guy.
I let him go.
“It’s on Bordeaux.” I pulled on my seat belt. “And drive this phallic symbol as fast as you can, please.”
“Phallic symbol?” he repeated, and shook his head. “Whew, Andy Kendricks, you are one strange girl.”
“Thank you,” I said. Like I hadn’t heard that one before. Kissing up wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Now step on it, Navy SEAL.”
I leaned back against the seat and released a huge sigh, ignoring the headache and the tightness in my now empty gut.
What the heck was I doing
?
Probably my second really stupid act of the night, besides going to the Caviar Club party and drinking tainted bubbly.
I didn’t even know if Delaney would answer the door. It was already past midnight. She was probably asleep, without a clue what was about to happen to her. Although, I guessed that knowing her husband loved another woman had probably put a major crimp in her life.
As it put a fatal crimp in Miranda’s.
What if she did confess to me? What then?
Honestly, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Perhaps I was as reckless as my mother and Milton Fletcher seemed to believe, because I was riding on pure emotion at the moment.
All I was certain of was this: I wanted to look Delaney Armstrong in the eye and have her tell me whether or not she killed Miranda.
Though, deep inside, I think I already knew the answer, no matter what she said.
She had the Big Three all wrapped up: motive, means, and opportunity.
Knocking off Miranda DuBois meant saving her marriage, holding her family together, and continuing to pretend that her life was oh-so perfect.
Delaney was merely following the secret formula known as the Way of the Park Cities Woman.
Their motto: If it’s broke, fake it.
Well, all but the murder part. Most Park Cities women didn’t kill their husbands’ mistresses, so far as I was aware. But one never knew.
“Andy? Which way from here?” Milton asked, cutting into my rather depressing thoughts.
I directed him toward the 4200 block of Bordeaux, where the Armstrongs resided in a most elaborate English manor. Back when Delaney and Jonathan had tied the knot, Delaney’s daddy had bought her two side-by-side lots and had the existing homes torn down so he could build his darling daughter her six-million-dollar dream home.
Unfortunately, Delaney had decorated it herself, without the aid of an interior designer, which accounted for all the flocked wallpaper, poofy window treatments, and bordello style furnishings with plenty of tufting and fringe.
Considering what her husband had been doing during his off-hours, I decided she didn’t have any better taste in men.
Within minutes Milton was guiding his sports car into the circular front driveway. Except for gas lamps burning on either side of the front door, I didn’t see any lights on in the house.
Oh, well.
As soon as the Porsche stopped moving, I reached for the door handle; but Milton caught my arm and said, “Hey, not so fast, lady.”
“
What
?” I was anxious to get going and half afraid I’d chicken out if he stalled me too long.
“You can’t just barge in there and accuse a woman of murder without some kind of backup.” He unleashed his seat belt so he could reach behind him and retrieve a leather case, which he jammed on his lap, opening it up so one flap wedged against his chest and the other was against the steering wheel. First, he retrieved a pair of funky looking sunglasses, which he shoved at me.
“I don’t think these things work very well at night,” I told him, wondering what he’d been drinking.
“They’re not ordinary sunglasses.” He snatched them back from me. “It’s got an MP3 voice recorder with a built-in microphone.” Stabbing his arm back into the mouth of the briefcase, he emerged clutching a rather large pen. “This baby has thirteen hours of playback,” he said, and I stared at him.