Mayhem in High Heels (21 page)

Felix tried again, leaning into the button.

The door of the unit next to Allie's popped open, an Asian woman with a crying toddler stuck to one hip emerging.

"Can you stop ringing the bell, please? The kid's teething and seriously needs a nap."

From the dark circles under Mom's eyes, I could tell she did, too. Ah, the joys of motherhood.

"Sorry, I thought we were ringing Allie's," I said.

"The walls are thin," she explained. "It echoes. Besides, Allie's not here."

"Did she say where she went?"

The woman gave me a rueful grin. "No. Like I said, the walls are thin. I heard her banging around in there a couple hours ago, then slam the front door on her way out."

I glanced at Felix, wondering where Allie had gone off to, if not to meet him.

"So, can you lay off the bell?" she asked, shifting the baby to the other hip as it continued it's wailing. I didn't know how she didn't go deaf from the racket.

"Yeah, sorry," I said, turning away.

"So much for that," Felix said, falling into step beside me.

I nodded, glancing back at Allie's dark apartment.

"Look, maybe Allie is on the up and up and maybe she isn't. But I've got a bad feeling she's not going to be much help with those phone records."

He nodded. "She didn't exactly come through today. So, what do you suggest?"

"Well, Allie said that Gigi kept copies of her phone bills at the office
and
at home. Maybe we could access her home files?"

He grinned. "By 'access' I'm assuming you mean break into her house?"

"Not break! Maybe, kinda
slip
in. For a minute. For a very good cause."

His smile widened, reminding me of a big hungry crocodile. "Maddie, it's always for a good cause."

"So, you're in?"

"We'll take my car," he said, leading the way to his Neon parked up the block.

"Why?"

Again with the crocodile grin. "Unless you've got a lock-picking kit in the glove box, it's the only way we're getting in."

Right.

I never quite got the full story of how Felix learned to pick locks, but from what little he'd said it had something to do with a youth spent in London a private boy's school and a young Felix with way too much time on his hands. Honestly, it was probably better I didn't ask too many questions. (Can we say,
accessory after the fact
?) But, I had to admit, his less than completely moral skills had come in handy on occasion. Me, I'd tried to pick a lock once. Just once. (For a good reason, of course!) I'd ended up breaking my Macy's Visa card in half trying to wedge it in the doorframe. Had to wait four weeks for a new one to come in the mail. And trying to explain to the nice customer service rep in India how I'd damaged the first one? So not worth it.

"But we're not really breaking in. Just..."

"
Slipping
in," he finished for me.

"Right," I said, wedging myself into Felix's Neon. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the pile of newspaper, takeout bags, and computer equipment filling the backseat as we merged into traffic.

"So," Felix said, "any idea where Gigi's house is?"

I shook my head. "We could go back to my place and google her."

"No need." Felix pulled a phone from his pocket and stabbed at the screen. "I'll do it."

"Geeze, am I the only person left in the world who doesn't have Google in her pocket?"

"I'm fairly certain my mother doesn't," Felix responded, typing Gigi's name into the tiny screen.

Considering his mother was a seventy-year-old widow living in the Cotswolds of England, that didn't make me feel much better.

"Here we are," he said, squinting at the screen. "She's got a white pages listing in Pacific Palisades." He read off the address, getting on the 5 south.

Twenty minutes of gridlock later, we merged onto the 10 west, then snaked up the 1 toward the posh ocean side city of Pacific Palisades. While we were a mere block from the Pacific, the air still smelled more of car exhaust than salty sea water, but the multistory glass homes and funky pink stucco crab shacks were a dead giveaway we'd hit the ocean.

We wound around a golf course, coming up on a neighborhood of towering homes in the eclectic California architecture tradition - imposing faux Tudors next to mock Italian villas next to craftsman style cottages on steroids. The address Felix had pulled up was in the middle of the block, one of the faux Tudors, pale white stucco gleaming against dark woods that crisscrossed like ancient beams along the face. A long expanse of lawn separated the home from the street, edged in a tall hedge along the property giving it the illusion of privacy.

As Felix maneuvered his Neon up the winding drive, I did a slow survey of the place.

"Wow. Nice," I said with a low whistle. "No wonder those place cards cost so much."

"We'll park around the side," Felix suggested, indicating another line of thick hedges.

He pulled around, obscuring the car from the front of the property before we hopped out and made our way to the front door. My kitten heels seemed to clack like cannons on the expertly cobbled drive in the silence. Gingerly looking over my shoulder as if expecting vicious guard dogs to be alerted to our presence, I walked up to the front door and knocked. Since the occupant was currently residing in the L.A. County morgue, predictably there was no answer.

I tried the knob. No such luck. Firmly locked.

I peered in the front windows. Inside I could see the furnishing were every bit as showy as Gigi herself had been. A pair of oversized sofas in gold brocade faced a large marble fireplace with some sort of family crest above the mantel.

"What do you think the chances are that a back door's open somewhere?" I asked.

Felix shot me a look. "Slim."

"Slim as in, let's go check it out?"

"Slim as in Kate Moss after a colon cleanse."

"Damn." I really hated bending the law like this. But... a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I stepped aside. "Okay, do it."

Felix sauntered up to the door, cocky too mild a word to describe his swagger, and pulled a narrow black case from his jacket pocket. He slowly unzipped it, revealing an array of instruments that all looked vaguely like flat screwdrivers to me. I waited in silence as he slipped one into the keyhole of Gigi's lock. He twisted back and forth, listening intently for some kind of sign it was working.

I felt distinctly exposed, like at any moment the principal might come by and catch us smoking in the bathroom.

"Can you go any faster?" I prodded, my eyes scanning the empty expanse of lawn for the fiftieth time.

"Not if you want to get in."

I bit my lip, trying to channel patience from somewhere I didn't think I really had.

Finally a small click broke the silence and Felix pushed the door open.

"Yes," I said, moving to slip inside.

Felix held up a hand to stop me, instead going in ahead. He pulled an electronic device that looked like an overgrown pager from his pocket, then paused inside the door, locating a security panel. Two red lights blinked over a keypad. Felix held the pager thingy up to it. Three second later, the lights went from blinking red to steady green.

"Alarm, disabled," Felix said, a distinctly smug smile on his face.

"I'll admit it, you're good," I said, closing the front door behind her.

"That's what all the girls say." Felix winked at me. "So... telephone bill?"

I scanned the entry hall. Marble floors gave way to a sweeping staircase to the right. To the left, open French doors revealed the impressively oversized room I had seen through the windows.

"Upstairs?"

Felix nodded. "All right, let's go see."

I ascended the stairs, Felix a beat behind, our footsteps muffled by the plush white carpeting. I prayed I didn't have any sludge stuck to the bottom of my feet as I gingerly followed the banister upward. It felt eerily quite in the house, as much due to the tomblike silence as the fact that I knew the inhabitant would never again be back here. But I tried to shake it off, focusing on the task at hand.

At the top of the stairs the landing opened up to three different rooms. Through the open door ahead, I spied a large, canopied bed, the other two doors were closed shut.

"I'll take number one, you take two," Felix offered, heading toward the canopy.

I nodded, and opened the door of the first room, pushing into a spare bedroom. A queen-sized bed sat in the middle of the room, adorned with a floral-print bedspread that instantly made me question Gigi's taste. Beside it was a matching nightstand and vanity set. All perfectly accessorized with vases of flowers and pastel candles that had yet to be lit. Your average spare bedroom. No files, no phone records.

"Nothing in here," I called. "You?"

"Not yet," came Felix's voice.

"I'll try number three."

I poked my head in the next room to find a home gym that would have Dana drooling. Dumbbells lined against the wall, floor to ceiling mirrors covered the back of the room, and an array of nautilus equipment with all kinds of complicated looking pulley systems sat in the center.

No file cabinet.

I closed the door and walked back down the hall to Felix's room.

I found him rifling though a dresser drawer, a pair of pink panties in one hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked, striking a hands-on-hips pose.

Felix spun around, caught panty-handed. "Being thorough."

"In her underwear drawer?"

"No stone unturned."

I rolled my eyes.

"Phone bill," I said, enunciating like I was talking to a child. "Not panties." I crossed the room and grabbed the lingerie from Felix's hand, shoving it back into the dresser drawer with a thud. "The poor woman is dead."

"That poor woman is the most sensational murder since OJ
didn't
slip on a pair of black gloves."

I shot him a look.

"I feel horrible that she's gone," he said, putting one hand over his heart in what I'm sure he thought was a very sympathetic gesture, "but me selling fewer papers isn't going to bring her back now, is it?"

"You are sick."

I tore my gaze from Tabloid Boy and let my eyes scan the room.

The canopy bed took up most of one wall, while framed art pieces filled the others. A long chaise in pale peach sat by the window, positioned to take full advantage of the morning sun. Beside it sat a marble end table and a mahogany file cabinet.

And Bingo was his name-o.

I crossed the room to the cabinet and grabbed the handle on the top drawer, pulling toward me. Only it didn't budge. Locked.

I scanned the room looking for a good place to find a teeny tiny key.

Only, what I saw was Felix at the panty drawer again.

"Jesus, have some decency, will you, Felix?"

He straightened up and turned around. A tiny gold key dangling from his index finger.

"Oh. Right."

He grinned, showing off two rows of white teeth. "Did you really think it was Gigi's knickers I was interested in?"

I gulped down a blush. "No. Of course not."

Neither one of us believed that for a second.

Thankfully,though, he didn't say anything, instead slipping the key neatly into the lock and sliding the file drawer open.

Labeled hanging files indicated this was where Gigi had kept her old credit card receipts, gardener bills, insurance papers, and (I did a silent thank you to the gods of snooping) her phone bills.

I pulled one from its file, handing it to Felix.

"This have what you need on it?"

His eyes roved the page, quickly scanning the account numbers.

But he never got to answer me.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires made us both freeze.

"Oh shit."

Instinctively I ducked down behind the chaise, pulling Felix with me, then crab walked over to the window. I lifted my head up, trying to stay hidden behind the thick, damask curtains as I peeked over the sill to see who our unwanted visitor was.

My heart bottomed out my toes as I watched a dark-haired figured emerging from a black SUV just outside the front door.

Ramirez.

Chapter Fifteen

"Figures," Felix mumbled under his breath as he slipped the phone bill into his pocket

"What do we do?" I asked, watching Ramirez approach the house. Like a deer frozen in headlights, I couldn't move.

"The phrase 'beat a hasty retreat' comes to mind."

Right. Good plan.

We crab walked away from the window until I was sure we were out of Ramirez's line of sight, and then we both bolted for the door. I hit the landing a beat after Felix and almost rammed right into his back as the front door opened and he froze at the top of the stairs.

Too late.

Ramirez was already in the house.

I spun around, retreating back into the cover of the bedroom.

Felix crossed my path, ducking into the home gym instead, shutting the door behind him just as Ramirez's footsteps echoed in the front hall.

My eyes scanned the bedroom for someplace to hide. Under the bed? I lifted the duvet.

Crap. Gigi had filled the entire space with back issues of
Modern Bride.

I stood up and started to panic as I weighed my other options. Behind the curtains? Under the rug? Even on my Dana diet the chaise was too skinny for me to really hide behind.

That left only one place.

The closet.

I threw open the white sliding doors and dove inside, shutting them behind me just as I heard Ramirez ascend the stairs.

I made myself as small as I could beside a hanging show caddy (have I mentioned how much I coveted her Prada collection?) and a shelf full of sweaters, praying my bad luck would give me just a one day reprieve.

I held my breath, waiting for any sound to indicate Ramirez's approach. Of course, with Gigis' plush white carpets, I heard nothing. Any footsteps were swallowed up in the mausoleum-like silence.

I did a three count, willing myself to breathe silently as I slowly slid one door open a crack, peeking out into the bedroom.