The Scent of Lies: A Paradise Valley Mystery (29 page)

“It’s too late! You know who I am, what I’ve done. I’m not going to jail again!”

“Again?”

“I’m sorry I have to do this. You seem like a nice lady. Say hello to your husband for me.” Marcela tilted her gun ever so slightly and a loud gunshot split the air between them.

She stood motionless, then, seemingly in slow motion, her gaze dropped down, a look of shock and horror spreading across her face as the red stain spread across her clothing.

“You shot me!” Blood was streaming from a hole in her thigh. “You bitch! You shot me.”

Emily bolted out of her chair with Evan’s gun in her hand, drawing it up to defend herself. She had managed to work the weapon loose and had shot Marcela in the leg right under the opening of the desk.

Marcela staggered backward, her leg a wounded mess with even more blood spurting from the exit wound. With much effort she raised her gun.

Emily fortified her stance and steeled her grip on her own weapon, ready to shoot.

“Drop it,” Colin burst through the door and stuck the steely nose of his handgun against the back of Marcela’s skull, “if you want to keep breathing.”

Marcela lowered her gun weakly and he snatched it out of her hand.

“Hit the floor, hands behind your back,” he ordered.

She did as she was told and only then did Colin re-holster his weapon and shove hers in the waist of his pants. He grabbed his handcuffs and secured her hands behind her back. As he clicked the cuffs shut, he turned to Emily.“Are you all right there, Emily?”

Emily dropped down onto the chair. “Yeah, I think so.” She set the gun on the desk and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Throw me that scarf over there, Emily,” Colin said with urgency.

Emily turned to see the cashmere scarf she had given Evan on his last birthday before he was killed. She retrieved it from the hook and handed it to Colin.

Just then Officer Ernie appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Ernie. Can you call for a paramedic to take this suspect to the hospital? Gunshot wound to the leg. While you’re at it, book her for the murder of Ricardo Vega.”

“This little gal is your murderer? Well, I’ll be. Isn’t she the housekeeper?” Ernie asked.

“She is.” Colin quickly tied a tourniquet around Marcela’s thigh.

“Ouch, that hurts,” she hollered.

“I can’t have you dying on me, Miss Montoya. This will help stop the bleeding until the paramedics get here.”

“Boy, she had me fooled,” Ernie said, scratching his head.

“Don’t feel bad, she had us all fooled.” Colin hoisted her to her feet and handed her over to Ernie. “I’ll be along after a bit to question her.”

“Marcela,” Emily said.

The suspect turned and glared back at her.

“Why did you do it?”

Marcela’s face hardened and her eyes narrowed. “Because that woman was carrying his child and he told her that I was nobody. He said I was just the help.” She lowered her head and Ernie led her out.

* * *

Colin put his arm around Emily’s shoulders and they stood in silence, staring out the window. They watched the paramedics put Marcela in the back of the ambulance and drive off with Ernie’s police cruiser following behind.

“What were you thinking?” There was harshness in Colin’s question. “Don’t you know you could have been killed?”

“I didn’t expect her to show up early.”

“And who’s gun did you use to shoot her?” he asked, looking down at the gun on the desk. “That’s not the one from target practice.”

“Evan’s. I found it taped under the center drawer of the desk right before she came in. I worked it loose from the tape just in time.”

“I’ll say—just in time.” He pulled her into a full embrace. “I don’t think I could go through that again, Emily.”

She knew what he meant—because she had lost someone she loved too—but she was not going to live her life in fear. As terrified as she was, facing down a killer, she learned something about herself. She could keep a level head in the midst of danger. She decided she was cut out to be a PI after all.

Emily looked into Colin’s eyes and saw them full of both affection and concern. “I know what you’re thinking, and as much as I’d like to tell you I won’t ever put myself in danger again, I can’t do it.” She laid her head against his chest and listened to the hard and fast beat of his heart.

“But if something ever happened to you—”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t move forward with this relationship.” She hid her face from him as she said it. It wasn’t what she wanted, but perhaps they needed to be with other people—after the kind of loss both of them had experienced.

“Oh Emily, you can’t mean that.” He placed a gentle finger under her chin and slowly raised her head. She looked up into his face and read his glistening eyes.

“I only meant—”

He covered her mouth with his warm and passionate lips, kissing her so deeply and thoroughly that her head began to spin and her knees went weak. He must have felt her body begin to slip, for he pulled her up into his arms, her bare feet no longer touching the floor.

“Now tell me you don’t want to move forward,” he said.

Chapter 27

Emily stood in her roomy walk-in closet, dressing for dinner with her friends. They would be celebrating solving the Ricardo Vega murder case. With Evan’s things packed up and gone, her clothes took over both sides of the closet. There was so much still to learn about his secrets, and his death, but tonight was for celebrating and she wasn’t going to let thinking about him spoil this wonderful evening.

She and Colin were meeting their friends at Chandlers, the most expensive restaurant in the area and she wanted to look her best. With her curly golden hair piled up in a stylish twist, she zipped up the back of her little black dress and put on her pearl drop earrings. As she picked up her tube of smoky rose lipstick, her phone began to vibrate a reminder, showing there was a voicemail.

She called in for her message—someone must have left it while she was in the shower. It was from Colin, saying a man by the name of Mr. Hamden called him from The Diamond Store and asked if Emily could please give him a call back as soon as possible.

The Diamond Store? What is he up to?
She dialed the number he left and waited anxiously while it rang.

“The Diamond Store,” a young woman cheerfully answered.

“May I speak to Mr. Hamden?”

“Certainly. May I tell him who’s calling?”

“Emily Parker.”

After a short while, the man came on the line. “Mrs. Parker?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Mrs. Parker, this is Alan Hamden. Are you the Mrs. Parker whose husband’s name was Evan?”

“Yes.” She felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering where this was leading. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hamden?”

“I have to apologize, ma’am, but we have your diamond ring at our store. Your husband dropped it off to be cleaned and tightened, but he didn’t come back for it.”

“Mr. Hamden, my husband died six months ago.”

“Sorry, ma’am, I just found that out today. I want you to know we did try to reach Mr. Parker when he didn’t come back after a few weeks. We called the number he left us, but the recording said it had been disconnected. We figured someone would eventually come back for it. With a stone this size, we didn’t think he would simply leave it.”

“How did you find me?” Emily asked guardedly.

“I saw your name and picture in the newspaper with a police detective—the article about the Vega murder.”

“Yes, I know which one you’re talking about,” she said, grimacing at the unwanted publicity. Next time, she needed to make sure she stayed out of the press. Colin was careful to turn his face away from the camera, but it had happened so fast that Emily hadn’t thought about it until after the shot was taken. At least the photo may have gotten her the missing diamond ring back, and the knowledge that Evan had not stolen it from her, but rather he was doing a kind and loving thing.

“I just took a chance, hoping you were the right Parker, so I called the Paradise Valley Police and spoke with the detective a little while ago, explained the situation. He confirmed it and said he would have you call me.”

“Thank you for tracking me down. I’ll be in first thing tomorrow to pick it up. How much do I owe you for your work?”

“You don’t owe me anything, ma’am. After all this time, I’m just glad I found you. I recall your husband telling me he wanted the work done to surprise you for your wedding anniversary.”

Surprise.

“Thank you for calling. I’ll be in tomorrow. Bye now.”

* * *

Colin arrived at Emily’s bungalow and she greeted him with a big kiss. She explained to him about the call and how she was thrilled to find out that Evan had not stolen her grandmother’s ring, as she had suspected. She had been in a cheerful mood before talking to the jeweler, but now she was positively soaring among the clouds.

She slipped on her high heels, grabbed her tiny handbag, and they were on their way.

They were the last to arrive at the upscale restaurant, and the maître‘d showed them to their party. Already seated at a large round table were Alex and Isabel, Jonathan and Camille, along with Maggie and Delia. Colin and Emily took the last two chairs, as the laughter and conversations around the table turned into greetings, welcoming the two of them.

She looked across the linen-covered table at her cherished friends, with the flickering candlelight from the centerpiece casting a warm glow on their faces. She felt very fortunate to have these wonderful people in her life.

Alex clinked his champagne flute lightly with his knife and stood to gain their attention. “I would like to offer a toast, so raise your glasses to our dear friend and hero, Emily Parker, and to our new friend, Colin Andrews. We say thank you for your courage and hard work in solving this case and setting our other new friend, Delia, free.”

“Here! Here!” they all clamored in unison, carefully tapping their crystal glasses together then taking a sip.

“And to my incredible wife, Isabel, for her excellent work in uncovering crucial evidence in the Heaven Scent embezzlement case that led to the FBI’s arrest of that slippery Anna Petrova.”

“Here! Here!” the friends shouted, once more taking a drink in celebration.

“Say, Colin,” Jonathan turned toward him, “did you ever find out who took the shots at Emily?”

“Turns out it was one of Marcela’s cousins,” Colin replied. “He’s in a gang over in Caldwell, and she convinced him to do it for her. Apparently, she had been in a gang herself in Los Angeles. That’s why her mother moved here a few years ago, to get Marcela away from the gang life.”

“And here we thought she was just a quiet little housekeeper. Go figure,” Jonathan remarked, turning his attention back to his sassy redheaded wife.

“Colin,” Emily said, regaining his attention. “I’m happy this case is over, but there’s one thing that has been nagging at me.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s that?” he asked, giving her his undivided attention.

“Andropov said he saw a dark-haired woman wearing something that was light colored, like beige, stabbing Ricardo. When we arrived at Delia’s home that night, wasn’t Marcela wearing something else?”

“Yes, blue pajamas.”

“That’s what I thought. How could Andropov have gotten that so wrong?” she asked.

“I wondered that myself after her confession to you. We’d searched Delia’s home from top to bottom, including the housekeeper’s room, but we never found anything with the victim’s blood on it, except the knife and the robe Delia was wearing that night. So I questioned Marcela about it when she was in our custody. I wanted to know if our guys missed something.”

“What did she say?” Emily asked with growing interest.

“She laughed. Then she told me she had changed out of her tan jogging suit after she stabbed Ricardo, knowing Delia would eventually come down and find him. She had wiped the blood off her hands with the clothing and stuffed it in a gym bag. We didn’t find it because after we questioned her, we told her she couldn’t stay at the house for a few days and she went and packed a bag.”

“And that’s where the bloody clothes were,” Emily remarked.

“Yeah. She pretended she was this shy little housekeeper who didn’t speak much English. That wily woman took the bloody clothes with her in the bag she packed—carried them out of the house, right under our noses.” He shook his head with embarrassment.

“Ouch,” Emily empathized.

“I won’t ever let
that
happen again,” Colin declared.

Dinner orders were taken and the lavish gourmet entrees were thoroughly enjoyed, while conversation among the group never lagged. Occasionally, taking small breaks from conversation, Emily’s gaze danced around the table and she basked in the warm friendships that encircled her.

“Emily,” Delia said, seated beside her. “I have to ask, what is that lovely scent you’re wearing? It smells heavenly.”

“It’s called Truth, by Calvin Klein.”