Spying in High Heels (23 page)

"Yep, men are scum." I was getting into this. "All men should be required to have their marital status tattooed on their foreheads."

"Better yet, tattoo it on their dicks."

Ouch. "So, when was the last time you saw Devon?"

"A couple weeks ago. He said he was going out of town for a while. Bastard. Probably just shacking up with some whore. No offense."

"None taken." Wow, she was really pissed. I wondered if I could goad her into telling me whether she owned a gun. "Man, when I found out about his wife, I was so angry, I could have killed him. I guess someone beat me to it." I laughed nervously.

Andi was quiet.

I prodded a little further. "I sure would like to shake the woman's hand who did it. She did us both a huge favor, huh?"

Silence again. Damn. Maybe I'd laid it on too thick.

Then she spoke in a slow, calm voice. "You want to know what I did?"

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Was I about to hear a murder confession? I was almost afraid to ask. "What?"

"I drove to his house, I snuck into the garage and carved the words 'pencil dick' into the hood of his precious Mercedes." Andi burst out laughing.

Damn. Not the confession I'd been looking for. However, I filed the pencil dick thing away for future reference. Richard did think a little too highly of his Bimmer…

"Mind if I ask where you were two nights ago?" I asked as Andi finally got her laughter under control.

"Yoga class. I'm trying to find some inner peace."

Good plan.

"Oh, hey, one more thing. Um, you don't happen to own a leopard-print thong, do you?" I asked.

"No. Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Thanks again."

I hung up, not feeling like I'd really learned anything. Expect that Andi Jameson had anger management issues. Not that I blamed her. Keying a fifty thousand-dollar car did sound sort of therapeutic. I mentally added her name to the list of contenders for When Mistresses Attack.

I flipped my phone shut and turned around to find Ramirez standing behind me.

I let out a little "Eek!"

"Who was that?" he asked.

"No one. Nobody. Just a friend."

He narrowed his eyes at me and I felt my cheeks growing hot. "This friend wouldn't happen to be wanted for murder, would he?"

I put my hands on my hips. "Just what are you implying?"

"Nothing. But you would tell me if Richard called you, right?"

"Of course I would." Only it came out sounding so weak I don't think either of us was convinced. Which of course made me even more defensive. "Are you saying you don't trust me?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you implied it? Just like you implied you were going to give my grandmother a handful of Catholic babies. I'll have you know I'm not a baby factory. I have good legs! I'm not throwing that away. And I can most certainly have friends call me who aren't Richard. And I can talk to them any time I want without answering to you."

"Oh Jesus." Ramirez rolled his eyes. "What? What is that? That eye-roll thing?"

"You're getting hormonal on me now, aren't you?" Okay, if there's one thing you don't
ever
say to a woman on the edge, it's that she's hormonal.

"I'm
what
? Look, you're the one who came to my apartment last night, Mr. I-can't-keep-my-pants-on. So don't
you
lecture
me
about hormones."

Ramirez grinned, that infuriatingly sexy dimple flashing in his cheek. "I didn't hear you complain last night."

"Yeah, well, I was drunk." He took a step closer. "Are you drunk now?"

"What? No, I'm not drunk now, I'm—" But I didn't get to finish my rant since Ramirez's mouth was suddenly covering mine. I was poised to push him away with enough force to knock that sexy grin off his face, but the second his lips touched mine, the only thing I felt was a serious case of lust. Starting in my chest and settling somewhere between my legs. I grabbed onto his neck, more for support than anything, my body melting like a Her-shey's kiss on a sunny day. That's it. No denying it. I had a case of the I-want-Ramirezes and I had it bad. Just as the backseat of Ramirez's SUV was starting to sound pretty good, he stepped back.

"What was that?" I asked between short breaths. I think I was panting.

He grinned. "That was me proving a point. Any complaints?"

It was official. I hated him.

My head hurt and I think my hangover was back. Only I felt tired, grouchy and squishy stomached all at the same time.

Ramirez was first and foremost a cop. And despite the fact that my grandmother thought he was a good Catholic boy, he was not happily-ever-after material. Or even boyfriend material, for that matter. Besides, I already had a boyfriend. Sort of.

"Look, I, uh, I need to use the ladies' room."

What I needed was a cold shower. And then a shrink. Ramirez the Hormone Machine had me so confused I didn't know what I felt anymore. One minute I was designing Strawberry Shortcake high-tops and wondering when those cute suede boots would go on sale, and the next I was tracking down murderers, dressing as a hooker and visiting porn studios. Not to mention making out with sexy detectives at my mother's wedding. It was all too much.

I left Ramirez in the great hall and rounded the corner into the motel lobby, not even sure where I was going. I walked up to the front desk.

"Excuse me, where's your ladies' room?"

The clerk indicated a narrow hallway. "Down the hall, to the left."

"Thanks." I followed the hallway, ignoring the peeling paisley wallpaper and shag carpeting beneath my feet. In fact, I was so self-absorbed with the
Law & Order
meets
I
Love Lucy
farce my life had become that I didn't even see him until I plowed smack into the man coming out of the men's room.

"Oh, sorry, I—"

I paused. My eyes grew wide, my jaw dropped and my heart did one big thump in my chest. I looked up and stared right into the perfect blue eyes of Mr. Cinderella himself.

Richard.

Chapter Sixteen

"Maddie?" Richard looked wildly from side to side, as if he expected I'd brought the entire mounted Calvary with me. Which I guess I almost had, if you counted the wedding guests. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I tried to answer, but I think I'd swallowed my tongue. It was like seeing a ghost. He was dressed in the same pressed slacks I'd come to expect, his button-down shirt open at the collar, covered by a tasteful sport coat. He looked like he'd just come from the office or a client meeting, instead of being on the run for the last week. I almost wanted to touch him just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating this whole thing.

Either that or smack him across his perfectly shaved cheeks.

"Me?" I finally gasped out, in sort of a strangled cry. "What the hell are
you
doing here?"

"Nothing." Richard shifted from foot to foot, still looking over my shoulder at the empty lobby. "I mean, I, uh, I've been staying here for a few days. I just needed to get away for a while."

I snorted. "Away from Greenway or away from the cops? Oh, I know, maybe away from your wife."

He froze. His eyes met mine. "You know about her."

"Richard, I know everything." Which was a slight exaggeration.

"Look, maybe we should just go up to my room and talk." He looked over my shoulder again.

I bit my lip. I was dying to ask Richard about a million different questions, starting with what the hell was up with Cinderella? But while I mostly believed Richard had nothing to do with the hole in GreenWay's head, I was still a little reluctant to go off alone with him.

He must have sensed it because he grabbed my hand in both of his and looked at me with those sad little-boy eyes that always melted me. "Please, pumpkin?"

I took a deep breath. "Fine, we'll go up to your room." I told myself it was because I didn't want Molly the Breeder to stumble into the lobby and witness me chewing him out for being married to Cinderella. Not because hearing him call me pumpkin suddenly filled me with a longing for a simpler time when deciding whether I should leave my toothbrush in Richard's medicine cabinet was my biggest worry. "But just for a minute," I added. "I have to get back to the reception."

"Reception?" He glanced down at my gown as if just noticing the purple monstrosity for the first time.

"Yes, reception. My mom just got married. The wedding was going to be in Malibu, but weather issues forced us…" I glanced around at the Elk's Lodge chic interior, "… here. You were supposed to go with me, you know."

"Right. Sorry, pumpkin."

Only he didn't look sorry at all. He looked nervous. And he kept glancing back at the lobby like any second he expected someone to come bursting through the doors with guns drawn. Maybe Ramirez.

I shuddered at that thought, suddenly as eager to get Richard out of sight as he was.

I followed him down the hall to the elevators and up to the second floor. He paused outside room 214 and unlocked the door. The room wasn't much to speak of. A double bed covered with a desert motif spread, two watery prints on the wall, and a TV stand and small writing desk in one corner. All standard roadside motel issue. Richard immediately went to the windows and peeked out between the rust-colored curtains.

"Richard, maybe you should tell me what's going on here."

"Nothing's going on. I told you, I just needed to get away."

"Right. And this is really Club Med. Time to quit shoveling the bullshit, Richard."

He crossed the room and sat down on the bed. He still looked jumpy, his body humming with nervous energy. "All right, look, Maddie. I'll tell you. But I don't want you to get mad at me."

Fat chance of that. But I nodded anyway.

Richard sighed. "I didn't mean for things to get this out of hand. And I'm sorry I just left like that, but I couldn't take the chance of anyone following me. I had to get out of there."

"Because of Greenway?"

"Yeah."

I sat down beside him. He looked so pathetic I almost felt sorry for him. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning."

Richard sighed again. Then he proceeded to tell much the same story Ramirez had. Richard had been in debt. So when Devon Greenway wanted to shuffle some money around, Richard had agreed to help set up the dummy corporations in Mrs. Greenway's name for a small cut of the profits. Two million dollars small. (He so owed me a pair of really expensive Blahniks when this was all over.) The plan had been to funnel Greenway's twenty million into Swiss bank accounts, and no one would be the wiser. Only an overzealous accounting clerk at Securities and Exchange had found a minor accounting error. That's when everything had started to go wrong.

To make matters worse, somewhere in all the paper shuffling, the twenty mil had disappeared. Greenway had suspected Richard of taking it, and Richard had suspected Greenway was holding out on him. Neither was willing to leave town without the money, but with Newtone suddenly under investigation, they'd both gone into hiding.

"How do you just lose twenty million dollars?" I asked when he finished the narrative.

"I don't know. We had the money travel through a series of different accounts to lose the paper trail. And it's not in any of them."

"Well, who had access to those accounts?"

"Just Greenway, his wife, and me." Richard paused. He must have read the facts settling on my face because he quickly protested, his voice going

high and whiney. "Look, I know this looks bad, but you've got to believe me. I had nothing to do with killing anyone. I've been here the whole time. Pumpkin, I swear I wouldn't do that."

As much as this new whiney side of Richard was starting to annoy me, I was inclined to believe him. I didn't think Richard had the stomach to shoot a man, never mind drive into the Valley.

An alternative brewed in the back of my mind as Richard got up and checked the windows again. Bunny had admitted that she'd been present at one of Greenway and Richard's meetings. What if Green-way had been as careless with his other lady friends? What if one of the Bimbo Parade was smarter than she appeared? Unfortunately the list of Greenway's bedtime playmates was about as long as my mother's vintage wedding train.

I was about to ask Richard what he knew about Greenway's extracurricular activities when a knock sounded at the door. My stomach jumped into my throat.

Ramirez.

Richard leapt away from the window, his gaze whipping wildly from me to the door.

"Who is that?"

I bit my lip. "Well, I, uh, kind of got a replacement date to the wedding."

"Replacement date?"

"More like a ride, really." With the added perks of knee grabbing and French kissing.

Richard waved his hands in the air. "Look, just get rid of him."

"Open up, police," I heard Ramirez yell from the other side of the door.

"Police!" Richard's voice rose two octaves and he looked like he had ants in his pants, jumping from one foot to the other. "You're dating the police?"

Okay, I wasn't sure how Mr. Did-I-Forget-To-Mention-I'm-Married was making
me
feel guilty. "Sort of. It's that detective who came to see you. Ramirez."

"Detective Ramirez? You brought him here?"

"I didn't bring him. He kind of brought himself." Which was the truth.

"Well, make him go away."

Ramirez banged on the door again.

"Richard, you can't run forever," I reasoned. "You have to turn yourself in."

I moved toward the door.

But Richard stopped me, laying a hand on my arm. "Don't do this to me. Please, pumpkin."

Ugh. I was beginning to hate this pumpkin thing.

As it turned out, I didn't have a choice. Before I could even jerk free of Richard's grip, Ramirez burst through the door, gun drawn. I was pretty impressed. It was very Bruce Willis.

"Shit." Richard retreated to the far side of the room, hands up in a surrender motion. "Don't shoot, I'm unarmed. I know the law. You can't shoot an unarmed man."

Ramirez looked from me to Richard. He raised his eyebrows, silently asking if I was really serious about this clown. At the moment, I was having my doubts.