Bouquet of Lies Part 25

"The alley was behind a bar," Uncle D said. "The investigators think she went out the back. They're still gathering evidence. Witnesses say they think she was with a man, but no one really saw anything. She sat in a dark corner of the place alone for a while. Nursed one drink. She wasn't a regular."

Lacey shook her head. "Why didn't she call me back? She knew I found her. If we met, this wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't be dead."

Uncle D moved to the dining room table and opened a laptop he'd brought with him. "In my experience, could'a, would'a, should'a will only give you a headache."

Lacey eyed the computer. "You got her picture in there?"

Uncle D nodded.

"I want to see." She stood.

He stopped fiddling with the laptop and gave her a serious look. "You think you can identify her?"

"Maybe."

"You're up to it?"

It was nice of him to ask, but she was feeling much stronger. The anger helped. "Yes." She moved to his side and waited for him to pull up a photo of the dead woman's face. She stared, hand on her chest, and cleared her throat. "Why do you think this is Tiffany?"

"Visa card and driver's license in her purse."

"Then she must have borrowed them. Or stolen them. Because this isn't Tiffany. It's Honey."

Twenty-four.

LACEY AWOKE IN the morning to find Darla sitting on her bed, a giggle in her throat and a feather in her hand which she used to tickle Lacey's nose.

"Wake up and look." Darla dropped the feather and dangled her hand so Lacey could gawk at the rock on her finger. "Two carats."

Lacey rubbed her eyes and focused. Since when did Darla care about carats? "Nice," she said, wondering for a moment if the thing was real or if it was cubic zirconia. Not that it mattered. The marriage would be valid either way and Randy might be a lot of things, but she didn't have him pegged as a cheapskate. However, two carats was a bit much for Darla's delicate hand.

Her eyes strayed to the clock. It was eleven in the morning. She'd slept long and hard, never waking once. Murder-no, make that three murders-could do that to you, she thought. She hadn't stayed long at Dan's. Uncle D had insisted on driving her home and she'd gone straight to bed.

She looked at Darla and decided not to tell her about Tiffany. Not yet, anyway.

"I would have shown you last night, but you were already asleep when I got home. Are you sick?" Darla held out her hand and admired her sparkly diamond.

Lacey climbed out of bed. "I'm fine. I should take a shower."

"Turns out Randy wasn't mad. He was just worried about me."

"Uh-huh. But now you've agreed to go shooting and everything's fine."

"That's right." Darla pranced to the door and paused. "Everything's better than fine." Her att.i.tude suddenly s.h.i.+fted. "I know you don't like that. I know you're jealous and you want to break us up. But you'll have to get used to the idea that I'm going to be Mrs. Randall Barber."

Lacey stared at her sister and kept her thoughts to herself. Jealous, no. Worried, yes. You have no idea what you're doing.

"That's just the way it is." Darla admired her ring again.

"Where are you going on your honeymoon?" Lacey's words had the effect of a sudden explosion.

Darla looked up. "Huh?"

"And where will you live after you're married? Randy's apartment?"

Darla's grin disappeared. It was just as Lacey suspected. Darla had only thought as far as the wedding. She had found her prince and hadn't pictured happily-ever-after.

Lacey took her shower and by the time she was dressed, Darla had left with Randy. She decided to check for a report of Honey's murder on the Los Angeles Times website with its crime tracker device. She found a one-liner on Maggot: White male, 41, found bludgeoned to death in his office. In the case of Honey, the homicide database erroneously gave Tiffany's name. White female, 39, stabbed three times . . .

Tiffany . . . Crystal . . . Mother.

Her mother wasn't dead.

Lacey walked down the stairs with a lump in her throat and legs made of jelly. See? This is why she didn't allow herself to view life too seriously. What good was thinking about what might have been?

She reached out and placed her palm against the wall. Mother roamed this house. She looked down at her feet. And walked these stairs. Lacey lifted her chin. She cooked meals in the kitchen. Slept in Daddy's bed. She went out that front door.

Crystal, AKA Tiffany, was no longer an intangible phantom from the past. She was alive and had been living her life only a relatively few miles away.

Lacey sat down on the bottom step and gnawed on a knuckle. Why had her father lied? Why want his daughters to think their mother was dead? Edward knew. If she confronted him, could she make him talk? Probably not. He'd laugh at her misery.

She crossed her arms over her thighs and lay down her head. There were too many questions. Would she ever learn the answers? Would she ever get to talk to Crystal, or would the woman be MIA for the rest of her life?

She eyed her surroundings. What was the saying? If these walls could talk?

Could they talk? Were there clues to what had driven her mother away hidden in the rooms of the house? She looked behind her, back up the stairs. In Harper's bedroom perhaps? Was there a trace of her mother there?

She stood up. Her father's bedroom. His private s.p.a.ce. If she searched it, what might she find? Her father was dead and she had a right to know anything and everything there was to know. She darted up the steps.

The dark-stained hardwood floor creaked as she walked across Harper's chic bedroom to open the curtains hanging from a wrought iron rod. Light spilled in and two tall arched windows and a door that opened to a narrow balcony were revealed.

She eyed the room. Everything was just as he'd left it. Even his cologne continued to scent the air. She looked at the chest of drawers that still held his clothes and literally rolled up her sleeves. She would start there.

After forty minutes, the only thing she found even remotely interesting were the guns that belonged to Edward.

Edward had threatened her with them once, when she was a kid. Normally she kept the things he did to herself, but this time, he'd frightened her enough to make her tattle. She never saw the guns again and a.s.sumed Harper had made Edward get rid of them. But here they were, along with some ammo, in an unlocked case under the bed.

She shoved the gun case with its contents back where she found it and stood up. There was nothing in the bedroom related to her mother.

Disappointed and discouraged, she walked downstairs to his office. It had considerably more nooks and crannies to invade, including a wall of built-ins that incorporated file drawers and book shelves. A ma.s.sive, traditional desk contained plenty of drawers.

She began with the file cabinets and found them packed to the gills, everything neatly labeled and alphabetized. The data was work Harper had brought home, all concerning companies and business deals. She thumbed through every file hoping something would catch her eye, but found nothing related to Crystal.

Randy's name cropped up prominently. Slated to head up a new project Harper was going after with the government, Randy was to get a promotion. A top secret security clearance was required and there were deadlines galore. With her father gone, the project had been cancelled. She remembered Randy saying his promotion was off.

She turned her attention to the desk. The papers she found were the normal stuff: family financials, insurance papers, bills. Since she was now the one to see that things got paid, she made a mental note to go through all of it later. There might be something she didn't know about.

She reached far back in the bottom drawer and came across a locked metal box. She scavenged for a key, but didn't find one. It was probably nothing to get excited about, but her pulse quickened in antic.i.p.ation anyway.

She carried the box into the kitchen, rounded up a screwdriver from a tool box in one of the cabinets, and broke the lock. After a nervous breath, she lifted the lid.

Inside were old photos of herself as a baby and toddler. Some with Harper and some with Grandmama Harriet. How fitting that he would lock them away. Away from his heart? That lump in her throat returned and she swallowed.

There were no pictures of Crystal or Darla. A touch of anger made her jaw twitch. No photos of her sister. What could a little baby have possibly done to deserve such emotional neglect? She pushed a lock of hair away from her face. No point in a.n.a.lyzing her father's lack of parenting skills. It was old news. But still . . .

She pushed on.

The last photo was of Harriet as a young woman. She held an infant wrapped in a blanket. Her smile said she was happy. Lacey checked the back for a notation expecting to see Edward's name but was surprised to find something else. The baby wasn't Edward. Harriet had written: Deborah and Mama.

Deborah? Did Edward have a sister?

Beneath the pictures Lacey found a yellowed newspaper clipping. She unfolded it and read a story about a baby that had been kidnapped. Harriet's baby. Edward's baby sister, Debbie, only six months old.

After several minutes of staring at the old article wondering why this was something she'd never heard about, Lacey called Courtney and read the story to her.

"Here's what I think," Courtney said in response. "It's ancient history. Forget about it."

But Lacey couldn't. She needed answers and didn't want to wait for Edward to get home. Ambus.h.i.+ng him where and when he didn't expect it might give her enough leverage to make him talk. She doubted it, but it was worth a try. She jumped in the Spyder and drove to the country club.

The walls of the club's large game room were covered in mahogany. There was a huge bar, plush leather seating, and portraits of important-looking men. It all had a rich and decidedly masculine feel.

Edward sat at a round table with four poker-playing pals. Lacey wasn't surprised to find him snockered, but was surprised to see that somehow he was alert enough to be winning. His stack of chips was bigger than anyone else's.

He probably cheats, she thought.

She rolled up a red-leather chair and sat next to him. "Edward."

"What the devil are you doing here? Go away."

"Who's this charmer?" one of Edward's poker buddies asked, smiling at her. He appeared to be the youngest of the five. Mid-fifties, maybe.

"This is the anointed one. Play," Edward said.

Lacey remembered her manners and shook the man's hand. "Lacey Bouquet."

Three of the others extended their paws. All apparently had more manners than Edward.

"Play!" Edward snapped.

"Read," Lacey responded as she put the newspaper story in front of him.

He sniffed at it, then looked down his nose at her and added one-hundred dollars in chips to the pot. He was bluffing. Lacey could see he had nothing in his hand.

The man next to Edward matched Edward's hundred.

An old guy with perfect white hair looked up from his cards at Lacey. "What's this anointed? Anointed with what?"

"Money," Edward said. "Quit gawking and play."

"I fold."

"I'm his granddaughter." Lacey tapped the newspaper article on the table.

Edward took a drink. "Yes. My granddaughter. My one and only."

Lacey frowned. "Oldest, not only."

Edward ignored her.

"I'm out," the next guy said, tossing down his cards.

"Tell me what happened to your sister." Lacey tapped the newspaper article again. "Debbie."

"You have a sister?" The man with the perfect white hair asked.

"No." Edward turned to Lacey. "Run along."

"Answer my question."

"What does the article say?" Edward's eyes were bloodshot. They reminded Lacey of a lazy bloodhound.

"That she was kidnapped."

"Then that's what happened." His droopy eyes narrowed. She knew that look. He was about to pick a fight. Her ambush plan had failed. She picked up the newspaper story. "Gentlemen." She nodded, walked toward the exit, and called over her shoulder, "He's bluffing. Ten high."

"You have that fire too low." Uncle Carrick reached for the burner on the barbecue and Dan quickly smacked his hand away. "If that's any indication, this Lacey is a bad influence on you."

Dan chuckled. "She's a good influence on me." He glanced toward the slider where he could see into his house. Aunt Helen sat on the couch with Lacey, turning the pages of a photo alb.u.m. "Aunt Helen likes her. Why don't you?"

Uncle Carrick turned up the burner. "Your aunt likes anyone she can show off your baby pictures to."

"That's not it and you know it." Dan looked at the flames and handed Carrick the tongs. "Cook 'em however you like 'em."

The rotund detective smiled. "I thought you'd never ask. Charcoal outside, blood red in."

Dan turned down one burner, took back the tongs and moved two of the steaks. "But not these two. Now really, why don't you like Lacey?"

"Never said I didn't like her. She's a murder suspect."

"She didn't kill anyone."

"I don't know that yet."