Page 24 of Toxic Apple Turnovers
“How do you think we met? But before you get any funny ideas, my brothers don’t go around poisoning their clients.”
“Of course,” I say, at least hoping that it’s true.
Everett takes a breath. “If you were to guess who killed her, who would it be?”
Connie tips her head back, her tongue still kneading that pink wad of gum in her mouth. “Okay.” She tucks her chin to her chest, her eyes set directly to mine. “I’m going to say it, but only because we’re all thinking it. Mark Russo needs to be thoroughly investigated for these so-called offshore accounts where he stashes his fortune from the government. But is he a killer? I don’t think so. Yeah, the guy is shady. Yeah, he’s unfaithful—but let’s be honest. Mandy wasn’t tying herself to the dock because this guy was an upstanding moral character. She liked designer shoes just as much as the next girl.”
“Then who?” I elongate the word, and Owlbert flies over as if it were a calling card.
“Janelle Hastings.” Connie lifts a penciled in brow. “About yea tall”— she holds her hand to her forehead—“brassy blonde, enough plastic parts to qualify for a stamp that readsManufactured by Mattel? She had a real beef with the girl.”
“Janelle Hastings?” I shake my head as I try to place the name, and sure enough an image of her standing next to Amanda that night flashes through my mind. “But Amanda introduced her as her best friend.”
Any trace of a smile glides right off her face. “Exactly.”
“Bingo!” someone shouts, and we look over to find Cormack waving a card in her hand.
Connie takes a quick breath. “That witch.” She takes off, and it’s just Everett and me.
“I wasn’t investigating her.” I shrug up at him. “Wewere.”
He wraps his arms around my waist. “I love the we part.”
“And why exactly is there a we when it comes to Noah and you?” I wrap my arms around his neck, and he frowns at the mention of his old stepbrother’s name.
“Because there are some things that we can agree on.Welike you alive and in one piece.”
“Every piece of me misses every piece of you.” I bat my lashes up at him.
“Then let me reintroduce myself.”
Everett lands a soul-melting kiss over my lips that makes me forget everything about poor Amanda, about her so-called best friend, Janelle Hastings, and about where I am and who I am.
Everett’s kiss reminds me of just one thing—exactly how very much he cares for me.
Chapter 9
The Moose Lodge is the setting for this down-home reception, which looks to be hosting about five hundred of the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Frisky’s closest friends.
It’s Saturday night, and, due to a previously scheduled engagement, my linear investigative trajectory, which included Janelle Hastings as my next target, was momentarily derailed. Okay, so it wasn’t derailed just because this wedding was cropping up on the horizon. I can’t seem to figure out where to locate the girl, and Hazel hasn’t returned any of my calls ever since I rejected the six thousand legal tender motivators to help nab her sister’s killer.
Lily and Alex are adorably matching tonight. Her red dress is the very same shade as his tie—and terrifyingly enough, it matches the rage in Naomi Turner’s eyes. Yes, she’s followed us here like a well-seasoned sleuth. It turns out, Lily left on her location services on her phone, and she was easier to hunt down than a mall Santa at Christmastime.
Both Noah and Everett look arrestingly handsome. I myself have donned a simple black dress and heels because I don’t like to stand out when it’s another woman’s day to shine.
I glance into the entry of the Moose Lodge and frown as I spot a sea of little black dresses already bopping to the music. Owlbert is already here, his feathery plumage spinning to the music high above the dance floor. He’s adorable, and I wish I could keep him around long after this fiasco winds down.
The guy up on stage is killing a cover of some old rock song, and I recognize his dark curly hair and prominent chin as the guy I met the night of Noah’s—myengagement party. The lodge itself is a little bit scary with taxidermy busts of every living creature known to man lining the walls of the cavernous room the reception is held in. A group of teenagers angles for a selfie with a ferocious looking bear dripping with fingerlike fangs.
“Mr. and Mrs. Frisky,” Naomi muses as she pulls Noah’s doppelgänger brother in by his long red tie. “I think I like where they’re going with that fancy name of theirs.” She giggles as she pulls him in close. She’s donned a white silk gown that clings to her skin like wet paper. That’s two fashion strikes as far as wedding etiquette is concerned.
Full disclosure: I tried to invite Keelie to our impromptu wedding crashing soiree, but she made up every lame excuse in the book to evade the matrimonial scene. I’m starting to wonder if she and Bear are actually engaged. The Keelie I know and love would never eschew an open bar.
“Mr. and Mrs. Frisky!” Cormack hops into Noah’s arms, and he grunts as he catches her unexpectedly. Cormack has pulled out the big guns tonight, and I mean big literally. She’s dressed in a powder blue number that has some sort of plume built in around the collar that jets out a foot over her head. Lily called her “a peacock in heat” on the way over from the parking lot, and she’s not too far off base with that one. Cormack looks as if she belongs in some sort of a pornographic Valentine’s Day card with her gown that shows off more than it does cover anything up.
Everett leans in. “I think they’re going to get frisky.”
Cormack does some body gliding maneuver as she shimmies down Noah as if he were a stripper pole.