“I’m fine!” I yelled before I realized that yelling wasn’t such a hot idea. I crawled to the bathroom (literally), vowing to never, ever, ever drink again. At least, not until I fully recovered (from my hangover).
While I was in the shower, my radar gave a little warning ping. Even through the fog of my hangover, my intuition was able to get the message through. “Shih tzu!” I hissed, hurrying to wash the suds out of my hair. I figured I had five minutes before my day got off to an even worse start.
Mindless of the pounding headache and slightly queasy feeling in my stomach, I rushed out of the shower, hardly bothering to dry off, limped painfully to the closet, threw on some jeans and the first shirt I could grab, shook some of the water from my hair, and grabbed my purse, cane, and keys before gimping as quietly as possible down the steps.
Pausing at the landing, I could hear Dutch in the kitchen. It smelled like he had cinnamon buns in the oven. “Crap on a cracker!” I whispered. I loooove cinnamon buns. I’d even eat them on a queasy stomach. But there was no time. And my escape would work only if Dutch didn’t catch me sneaking out of the house.
As quietly as possible, I eased over to the door, turned the latch, and slipped outside. I managed to get down the stairs with only a few muttered expletives (swearing doesn’t count if you mutter), only to realize my car wasn’t in the driveway.
“Feck!” (Swearing also doesn’t count if you use the slang term from a foreign country.)
Looking up and down the street nervously, I spotted a gleaming silver sedan snaking its way down the road. “Feck, feck, feck!” Ducking low, I turned and hobbled across the lawn as fast as I could, squatting down behind my neighbor’s car just in time.
Peeking through the windows, I could see the silver Mercedes slow down and turn into our driveway. I waited with a pounding heart as my sister, Cat, chatted happily into her phone while putting the car into park and turning off the engine.
For an interminably long time she sat there, gabbing it up. I began to wonder if I could sneak off and call Candice from the corner, but just as I was getting ready to move, I saw my sister hang up and open her car door.
I hunched down again and waited, hearing her designer heels click across our driveway…up the steps…then the very faint sound of our doorbell followed by my dog Eggy’s bark.
Distantly, I heard Dutch call my name. I held perfectly still.
Cat rang the bell again and muttered something herself. Eggy’s bark was joined by that of our other pooch, Tuttle. Finally I heard the door open and Dutch say, “Hey, Cat. Nice to see you.”
He’s such a good liar.
“Morning!” my sister sang. “Is Abby up?”
“She’s up. I heard her in the shower a few minutes ago. She should be down in a sec. You got more wedding stuff for her to look at?”
There was something that sounded like the shifting of papers. “Yes, I do! And I’m so glad you’re still home. I’ve got some things for you to look over too.” Cat’s voice drifted merrily into the interior of our house. A moment later I heard Dutch call my name again (a bit urgently, I thought), and then the door closed and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “That was a close one,” I whispered.
“Can I help you?” asked a voice right behind me.
I let out a little “Eeek!” and stood up fast, bringing my cane around defensively. My neighbor jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting his shins whacked. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Jason!” I said, feeling my cheeks heat up when I realized who it was.
He considered me for a minute, and given the fact that my hair was now dripping onto his asphalt, I could only imagine what he might be thinking. “I gotta go to work,” he said after clearing his throat.
“Sure,” I said, flashing him my famous toothy grin. “I gotta get to work too.” I hobbled to the end of the drive without looking back and made my way down the block. When I reached the corner, I hid behind a big cedar tree and called Candice. “You gotta come get me!”
“Morning, Sundance,” she said merrily.
“Candice, I’m serious! Cat’s in town again and she’s at my place right now!”
“Did she come packing?”
I knew that Candice meant packing wedding ideas. It was a little joke between us. “She is locked and loaded!”
“Where are you?”
“At the end of my street.” I was back to whispering just in case Cat’s batlike hearing could pick up my voice. “I’m hiding behind the big cedar tree next to the stop sign.”
“See you in ten minutes,” Candice said.
After I hung up, I dug around in my purse for a brush and began to try to comb out the wet tangles. While I was at it, my phone went off…several times. I declined to answer. The first call was from Dutch. The second—my sister. The third—Dutch again. He was also the fourth, fifth, and sixth calls, but Dave—our handyman/builder—was the seventh. I dodged his call too.
As Candice pulled up, I could only imagine the voice mails. I’d get snippy from Cat. Irritated, annoyed, then downright angry from Dutch. Dave would be his usual mellow self, but he’d leave me yet another reminder that he had cabinet, paint, tile, granite, carpet, crown molding, and fixture samples for me to look at. Who knew building a house could be fraught with so many decisions?
Candice hit the locks and I shuffled my butt into her front seat quick. “Move!” I yelled even before I’d closed the door.
Candice hauled ass…terisk. Of course, she looked for any excuse to speed off in the shiny Porsche she drove. “Did she see you?” Candice asked as she navigated the turn (on two wheels, by the feel of it).
I waited for my stomach to move out of my throat before answering. “No. I made it out before she spotted me.”
My phone went off again. It was Dutch. I set the ringer to silent.
Candice cast my phone a sideways glance. “He’s gonna be super–ticked off at you for dodging her again, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I’d rather take my lumps with Dutch than face my sister.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Cat. If I ever got into a really bad jam, she’d be the first…make that the second…uh…third…okay, she’s definitely on the list somewhere of people I’d call if I got into a jam. It’s just that my sister can be…a bit overwhelming at times. Like right now, for instance.
See, a few months ago, when Dutch and I had come home from the hospital, I’d told Cat that we’d been in an “accident” and that we were doing just fine but that I might need a little help planning my wedding—which had also been moved up from next spring to this fall.
Cat had pounced on the idea like the feline she’s nicknamed for. She’d inundated my e-mail with pictures of wedding gowns, bridesmaids’ dresses, cakes, wedding bands, tuxes, DJs, photographers, flower shops, reception halls, churches, etcetera, etcetera.
I reacted as I always did when faced with something overwhelming. I ignored it. All of it. I stopped answering her e-mails—heck, I even stopped opening them. I dodged her phone calls and texts, and then she’d started calling Candice and trying to pass messages through her. Once she found out Candice was also engaged, well, Cat just about exploded with wedding-planning glee.
Candice promptly gave me a lecture about how I needed to give my sister a lecture and rein her in. But I just figured that eventually Cat would stop.
I know, I know…it was one strategy I should have figured would fail. Cat amped up her efforts to get my attention by launching a satellite office for her huge marketing firm in my own backyard. One minute, Cat was firmly rooted halfway across the country in Boston, and the next moment, I started seeing ads on local cable for Wright Marketing—Cat’s firm. I remember gazing at the television with a mixture of shock and horror, hoping that it was only a national ad, and I’d kept that hope alive right up to the moment a local number flashed across the screen with the added announcement that Wright Marketing was opening a brand-new location in downtown Austin.
Before I knew it, Cat was flying her
e about once every other week to personally oversee the new satellite office and of course to torture me.
She never told me ahead of time when she was coming. She just appeared. Like a tempest. A tiny, unruly, stubborn, irritating, wedding-planner-on-steroids tempest.
So I’d resorted to the only defense I could muster. I’d put my radar to good use by checking the ether for her energy so often that it was now on automatic pilot. And it was working, because I’d managed to dodge her the last two times she’d come to town.
Still, I knew her appearance at my door that morning meant that she wasn’t about to give up and she’d probably leave a bajillion samples of stuff for me to look at—which I wouldn’t—and then she’d call me the following week and leave me a message suggesting that, as I had no obvious interest in providing her with an opinion, she’d gone ahead and made all the choices for me.
Dutch and I were getting married in forty-four days, and I still had no idea what my wedding was going to look like. Which was fine. I only cared about the “I dos” anyway. Cat could plan the whole thing if she wanted to—which clearly she did.
The only truly unsettling thing was that for a long time I’d been having a really bad feeling about the big day. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but I knew something was likely to blow up in my face. I think that’s why I stayed out of it. If I got involved, then it’d upset me if something went crazy wrong with the caterer, or the cake, or the band, or the dress, or the photographer, or whatever could go wrong at a wedding. I figured the more removed I was, the more objective I could be when said crisis hit.
“Hey, Abs?” Candice said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Can you try not to drip on the leather seats?”
I draped my long, tangled hair forward over my shoulder. “Sorry. My radar warned me that Cat was coming while I was in the shower. I didn’t even have time to put in conditioner.”
“I can see that. And you got dressed in the dark too, I’m assuming?”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing one of Dutch’s old shirts and jeans I’d last worn to paint our bedroom. “Can I borrow something from your closet?”
Candice made another turn. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’m having coffee with Officer Purcell in the café downstairs from my place anyway. You can clean up and put on something more appropriate at the condo.”
“Will Brice be home?” Brice Harrison was Candice’s fiancé and Dutch’s boss. He was my boss too, but only when I was consulting for the bureau. We got along great now, but our beginning had been a little rough. Still, I really didn’t want to clean up and change with my boss in the next room.
“He left early this morning,” Candice told me. “He’s got a meeting with Director Gaston at eleven and he wants to be prepared.”
“Gaston’s in town?” I adored FBI regional director Bill Gaston and considered him the smartest man in the bureau. He’s Brice’s boss (Dutch’s boss’s boss) and a real bigwig at the bureau, but he’d never put on airs with me.
“I can drop you at the office after coffee if you’d like to say hi,” Candice offered.
I considered that for a few seconds. “Nah. Dutch will be there, and if he sees me, I know I’m gonna catch holy hell for sticking him with Cat.” (Oops, another quarter for the swear jar.)
Candice eyed me over the rim of her sunglasses. “Can you blame him?”
I sighed. “Not really.”
We got to Candice’s condo and took the elevator all the way up to the thirty-eighth floor (Candice likes a view) and into her loft. I hurried into the bathroom, jumped in the shower to use her conditioner, then got ready while she brought me a few clothing selections.
I opted for a pair of black slacks and a teal sleeveless silk top with a turquoise brooch arranged decoratively at the bosom. Given the fact that I was still hobbling around with a cane, Candice let me have my pick of shoes, and I thanked my lucky stars that she was only a half size up from me. I went with a pair of strappy flat sandals that showed off a recent pedicure.
After I’d made myself presentable, we headed back down to street level and around the corner to the neighborhood café. I’d met Officer Purcell once before when she came up to the office after having had lunch with Candice. It’d been pretty obvious from that first introduction that Purcell had a crush on Candice. It’d also been pretty obvious that she considered me the competition.
I was fairly certain that Candice had filled Purcell in on the fact that she had fiancé, but for whatever reason, the officer seemed to think I was more of a threat than Brice. Maybe it was because Candice and I were business partners. Maybe because we were also best friends. Whatever the reason, I was determined to put on a good face for the meeting.
As we came closer to the café, I saw Purcell sitting outside at one of the tables. She spotted Candice and lit up like a Christmas tree. Then she spotted me and the fuse blew.
I waved enthusiastically and flashed her a big ol’ smile. I’m nothing if not obnoxious. “Play nice,” Candice warned out the side of her mouth.
“Don’t I always?” My smile was as wide as Kansas and my wave began to take on a frantic appearance.
“No,” Candice said evenly. “Which is why I’m telling you to knock it off.”
I lowered my hand and a little of the toothy wattage and waited for my partner to take the lead with Purcell. “Gwen!” she said, extending her arms wide for an impromptu hug with the beat cop.
“Hey, Candy,” said Purcell, squeezing back tightly. I caught her sniffing Candice’s hair. (Ah, Candice Fusco, breaking hearts everywhere.)
They parted and Candice motioned to me. “You remember my partner, Abby Cooper?”
I stuck out my hand like I was drawing a trusty six-shooter. “Good morning, Officer Purcell! It’s so good to see you again! I’m sorry if we kept you waiting.”
Purcell barely looked at me and she gave my hand a pretty limp-wristed pump. “Hi,” she said—which I thought was also a bit limp wristed.
The wattage on my smile amped back up again. “Hey, Candice, how about an espresso?” My tone was perhaps just a weeeee bit tight.
“That’d be great, Abby,” Candice said stiffly, with a hint of warning in her eyes.
“I’ll be back in a jiff!” I gimped quickly away. My personal tolerance for rudeness hovers just a smidge above zero. Rude, mean, or overtly cranky people set me off and often bring out my own inner snarky side. I figured the five or ten minutes it took me to get through the line and order the coffee might be just long enough to cool my jets—lest I say something I might regret.
Unfortunately, at this normally very popular café the line was nonexistent, so my cappuccino and Candice’s espresso came up lickety-split.
I returned outside, juggling my cane, our drinks, and three scones (in an attempt to play nicey-nice with Officer Moody, I’d purchased her a baked good), only to find Candice and Purcell still exchanging pleasantries. Well, Candice was exchanging pleasantries. Purcell was openly flirting.
“That was fast,” Candice said, and not in a way that suggested she was entirely happy about it.
“There was no line,” I told her, taking my seat and vowing to eat my scone quietly. “I brought you a scone too, Officer Purcell,” I placed it in front of her and tucked a folded napkin next to the wrapped bun.
“I’m on a low-carb diet,” she said without even looking at the scone.
My eyes dropped to the tabletop, where I counted to ten.
Candice jumped in quickly. “The reason I called for coffee, Gwen, is that Abby and I are thinking of getting involved in a local missing-person’s case.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked. “Which one?”
I glanced up to see Candice taken aback. “There’s more than one?”
Purcell chuckled. “There’re almost two million people in the Austin metro area, Candy. Of course there’s more than one.”
“Ah,” Candice said. “Good point. We were thinking
of looking into the Kendra Moreno case.”
Purcell scoffed. “Good luck.”
Candice cocked her head. “Tough case so far?”
“Word is that it’s turning into one of the toughest,” Purcell told her. “CSI was all over that house and found nothing—and I mean nothing—to indicate foul play. It’s like the woman just disappeared into thin air. You ask me, she got sick of being a stay-at-home mom, planned this whole vanishing act, and split on the husband and kid.”
“But why would she leave her son?” Candice pressed. “I mean, I heard on the news that the husband found the little toddler alone in the house with no supervision. What mother would just walk out on her child like that?”
Purcell merely shrugged like she didn’t know and didn’t much care. Candice pushed for a little more, though. “Is there any evidence that maybe Kendra was struggling with depression or mental illness?”
“The detectives are still working through all that,” Purcell said, taking a sip of her coffee. “The parents are convinced something happened to their daughter, and the husband’s already lawyered up.”
“The husband’s already got an attorney?” I asked with a meaningful look at my partner.
Purcell kept her eyes on Candice when she answered. “Yep. Which looks a little suspicious, don’t it?”
It did, but for even more reasons than Purcell currently understood.
“Who’s the attorney?” Candice asked almost casually.
Purcell eyed her quizzically. “Does it matter? Defense attorneys are all scum, if you ask me.”
Candice made a note in her pad before backing up the conversation with her next question. “So why do you believe Kendra planned this vanishing act and took off on her own?”
“Well, it’s either one or the other, isn’t it?” Purcell said. “I mean, either the husband did it and we’ll have a hell of a time finding the body—if we ever do—or she ran off because she didn’t want to be a mom anymore.”
I was liking Purcell less and less as the conversation progressed, and I’d started by not liking her at all. Still, I kept my opinions and any further comments to myself.