3 Men and a Body (28 page)

Kiki Deerling’s death might be right. But piercing the cloak

of secrecy that surrounded the incestuous industry of

Hol ywood might prove to be impossible. After al , if Kiki’s

family thought an autopsy could reveal that she’d taken

drugs the night she died, they might opt to just leave wel

enough alone.

And let a murderer walk.

30

Carlotta sat in a stiff chair, waiting to be called to have her

arm x-rayed to make sure it was healing properly. And

from the looks of things, it was going to take the better

part of the afternoon. She picked up one of the few

magazines she hadn’t yet read and sighed. Being

incapacitated required a lot of time. And patience.

The entertainment magazine she flipped through predated

Kiki Deerling’s death, showing the young woman out with

friends on the beach, at the hottest clubs, at all the red

carpet events, her pug, Twizzler, in tow. Matt Pearson was

always close by with his arm around her. He’d had “KD”

tattooed on his shoulder. They seemed linked at the hip,

and she looked happy.

Alive.

Carlotta sighed, glancing at the TV overhead playing an all-

news channel. She kept waiting for the announcement

that the Deerling family had ordered the body exhumed

for a ful autopsy, but so far, nothing. And it seemed likely

that the more time that passed, the less likely they were to

want to bring it back up again.

So she would try to remember the woman as she was in

the picture, smiling and happy, rather than stiff and cold,

possibly dead by the hands of someone who’d once loved

her.

“Carlotta Wren?”

At the sound of her name, she jumped up before they

could change their minds. She’d spent thirty minutes being

prepped for X-ray, one minute actually being x-rayed, and

an additional forty-five minutes waiting for the doctor to

review said X-rays.

“You seem to be healing fine,” he announced without

touching her. “Is the Percocet helping to manage the

pain?”

She nodded. “I rarely take them anymore, and I stil have

half a bottle.”

“That’s refreshing. I can’t tel you how many of my

patients use an injury as an excuse to get hooked on

painkil ers.”

“When can I go back to work?”

“How much lifting does your job require?”

“I work retail, at Neiman’s, so it depends. Some days I

unpack boxes, move inventory around.”

“Retail can be physically demanding. My wife has certainly

built up her biceps from swiping her card at Neiman’s.” He

laughed at his own joke. “If you stil feel good in a week,

then maybe you could try going back part-time and see

how you feel. But you should wait a ful two weeks before

going back ful -time, okay? Enjoy your vacation.”

Easier said than done, Carlotta thought as she left the

medical building. She wasn’t sure she knew how to have a

vacation. The road trip that Coop had offered her was the

first time she’d gotten away in years, and that had turned

into a nonstop adventure.

Was it possible that she wasn’t suited to the pampered,

leisurely life that she’d always coveted? Of course, it might

be different if she had the money to keep herself well-

entertained.

But she was starting to realize that a privileged life—a lot

of money and a lot of free time—could be a recipe for

disaster.

She walked to the MARTA station and got on the next

southbound train. The sets of double doors closed and the

train swayed gently as it picked up speed. She looked out

the window, enjoying the sunny view. Atlanta was one of

the most forested cities in the country. The buildings and

trees seemed to cohabitate well.

Someone dropped into the seat next to her. When she

looked over, she did a double take, seeing Wayne Barber

sitting there.

“You turned me in,” he accused, his expression panicked.

Carlotta shrank back. “Are you fol owing me?”

“I can’t believe you turned me in,” he said, grabbing

fistfuls of his own hair.

“Calm down. What do you mean?”

He started rocking in his seat. “Some cop came looking for

me, wanted to ask me questions about Kiki’s death.”

“What did the cop look like?”

“Big guy, tacky tie.”

She almost smiled. So Jack was fol owing up, after all. “Did

you tel him that you suspected Matt Pearson had given

her heroin?”

“No! The cop thinks I did.” He stood up and punched the

air. “Why did you tel him about me?”

“Is there a problem here?” a male passenger a few seats

away asked. He stood, eyeballing Wayne.

The train slid to a stop and the doors opened. Wayne

darted off and ran through the station, disappearing into

the crowd.

“Thanks, anyway,” Carlotta said to the passenger.

She was jittery the rest of the ride home. Wayne Barber

had a history of mental il ness. When Kiki had thrown him

out of the party in Boca Raton, had he retaliated by going

back and strangling her? Taken her necklace as a souvenir?

Was he so grief-stricken by her death because he had

caused it himself? And blaming Matt Pearson because the

man had what Wayne wanted?

At least Wayne Barber was on Jack’s radar. Carlotta toyed

with calling Jack to tel him about the encounter with

Wayne and the news Naomi Kane had revealed to her last

night at the party—about the argument she’d overheard,

and that Matt Pearson had found the body, not Marquita

White, as had been reported. But then he would only ask

her how she’d happened to be at the private party. If he

discovered that she’d informed Kayla Deerling her sister

might have been murdered, Carlotta wasn’t sure what Jack

would do.

She was pretty sure that he wouldn’t shake her hand,

although shaking in general might be involved.

When Carlotta got off the train at Lindbergh, she found

herself looking over her shoulder for any signs that Wayne

was stil fol owing her, but she didn’t see anything

suspicious along the tree-lined route. By the time the town

house was in sight, she had started to relax and anticipate

her return to work. Cruise season was in high gear, and

Neiman’s had lots of in-store fashion events planned.

When she first heard the sound of an engine racing, she

thought it was a motorcycle coming toward her. At the

sight of a primer-paint-covered car speeding along, her

first thought was that she was glad there were no small

children living on their street.

Her second thought was, Oh, my God, that car is going to

hit me.

Carlotta screamed and flailed backward, but the car

jumped the sidewalk and grazed her hip, throwing her to

the ground. She landed on her back in someone’s yard,

racked with pain, waiting to hear the sound of screeching

brakes a sign that the driver would be running back to see

if she was okay. Instead, it sounded as if the car geared up,

then the roar of the engine faded as it sped away.

She was afraid to move, afraid something else was broken.

She heard the sound of scurrying coming from the

opposite direction the car had gone. A tiny black, bizarrely

tufted face appeared, and began licking her cheek

ferociously, in between rabid fits of barking.

Toofers, Mrs. Winningham’s ugly, yappy dog.

Thank goodness the woman wasn’t too far behind.

“Toofers, what is that? Haven’t I told you not to lick—oh!

Carlotta, what happened? Don’t move. I’l get Wesley and

cal 911.”

“Visiting you in the hospital is getting to be a regular

occurrence,” Coop said, standing next to Carlotta’s bed in

the emergency room ward. “I don’t like it.”

She smiled. “You heard the doctor, Doctor. I’m fine, just a

few bruises.” She nodded to Wesley, who was pacing at

the foot of her bed like a caged animal. “Why don’t you

take him to get something to drink. By the time you get

back, I should be ready to go home.”

He nodded and squeezed her hand, then shepherded

Wesley out of the room. In the doorway, they passed Jack.

He came to stand at the foot of her bed and studied her.

Had she given him that wrinkle between his eyebrows?

She didn’t remember it being there when she’d first met

him.

“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked finally.

He walked up to the side of the bed and put his face close

to hers. “If I did, you’d only come back to haunt me.”

“Don’t forget that,” she murmured.

His golden-colored eyes flashed with anger and passion.

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and ran his

thumb over a cut on her cheek. It occurred to her that Jack

didn’t know what to do about his feelings for her any more

than she knew what to do about her feelings for him. They

were too confusing, too mired in other circumstances. He

straightened and put his hands in his pockets, suddenly all

business.

“A uniform picked up Wayne Barber and brought him in,

but the guy seems to be on the verge of some kind of

breakdown. All he can say is that he didn’t mean to hurt

you. In his state of mind, I can’t count it as an admission,

but it’s enough to at least hold him for a while.”

“That’s probably good for his sake, too.”

“Do you remember anything about the driver?”

“No. The windows were tinted. I saw nothing.”

He sighed. “We have an APB out on the car, and it’s pretty

distinctive…for now.”

“For now?”

“Sometimes primer-painted cars are used to perpetrate a

crime, then are immediately run through a paint shop.”

“That doesn’t sound like something that Wayne Barber

would mastermind.”

“No. It sounds like a professional job.”

“Wesley might be able to help you there,” Carlotta heard

Coop say.

She looked up to see Wesley and his boss standing in the

doorway.

“Do you know something?” Jack asked Wesley.

Her brother didn’t say anything, just looked miserable.

Coop jabbed him from behind. “Tel them what you did.”

Coop’s voice and body shook with barely control ed anger.

His uncharacteristic behavior toward Wesley frightened

her more than the car barreling toward her. “Oh, Wes.

What did you do, now?”

31

Even as Carlotta waited for Wesley to confess to whatever

was behind his tortured expression, she was sending a

silent plea heavenward. Please, let this be nothing too

bad, nothing that wil ruin his life.

Wesley’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Last week—”

“Speak up,” Coop commanded.

He cleared his throat. “Last week, one of The Carver’s guys

came to me with an offer. He asked me to, um, help them

get Kiki Deerling’s body.”

“You mean steal,” Coop said. “Don’t try to dance around

with semantics.”

“Yeah,” Wesley confirmed. “He asked me to help them

steal her body.”

Carlotta gasped. “Wesley, no!”

“Why would Hol is Carver want the girl’s body?” Jack

asked, frowning.

“His son Dil on deals to that singing star, Matt Pearson,”

Wesley said. “Dil on provided the heroin for the party in

Boca. When they found the girl’s body, he split and called

his dad, freaking out. His dad told him he’d take care of it.”

“By stealing the body?” Jack asked.

Wesley nodded. “He was afraid that if Kiki had overdosed,

Dil on would get nailed for providing the dope. He worked

it out with someone in her camp that there would be no

autopsy.” Wesley looked up at Coop. “But they were

worried about what would happen once the body got to

Atlanta. I told them that Coop would definitely raise

questions if he saw anything suspicious, so the plan was to

steal the body before we left the morgue.”

“And when that didn’t work?” Carlotta prompted, feeling

sick.

Wesley paled. “I…was supposed to let them know where

we were on the road.”

She closed her eyes, aching for the trouble Wesley was in,

wondering where she had gone so wrong that he could

even consider helping with something so heinous. “That’s

how they knew we were at the restaurant and the rest

area.”

He nodded miserably. “I was supposed to leave the back

door unlocked so they could steal the body at the rest

area. But at the last minute, I bailed. It just wasn’t right.”

He looked at them each in turn. “When Coop said he

wasn’t allowed to own a gun, I thought that meant he

didn’t have one. So I told The Carver’s guys no guns. They

weren’t supposed to start shooting.”

“We all could’ve been kil ed,” Carlotta murmured. In front

of their father. How Hitchcockian would that have been?

“Who did Hol is work with from the Deerling girl’s side?”

Jack asked.

“Her publicist, I think. She said if Kiki went missing, it

would guarantee that she would be famous forever.”

“Marquita White,” Carlotta confirmed. “She was at the

party the night Kiki died.”

Jack looked at her. “How do you know that?”

“I…just do.”

Jack lifted his hands. “So we’re looking at an accidental