“I won a blender,” she said, holding up the box.
Now she had my attention. “Bring it to my place. I could use a margarita.”
“My boyfriend already said I have to give it to him,” Sandy said. “He’s on this special diet that will increase his creativity and enhance his artistic talents.”
“He does tattoos.”
“It’s art, Haley,” she said.
I stole another look at Sarah. Jeez, doesn’t that bitch ever shut up?
“Couldn’t we break it in with at least one batch of margaritas?” I asked, sounding a little desperate.
“I have to take it to him tonight. Right after I pick up his roommate’s mother from the airport,” Sandy said, then gazed behind me. “Wow, who are all of those people?”
I turned and saw that two Mercedeses had pulled up alongside Sarah’s BMW and Ty’s Porsche. Two men in Armani suits got out.
I didn’t know them, but I knew their type.
“Lawyers,” I said to Sandy. I didn’t add that they were from the Pike Warner law firm because I didn’t want to have to explain how I knew that choice bit of info.
The lawyers, Sarah, and Ty formed up in a tight huddle, which kind of irked me. I wanted to be in the huddle, too. Why did I have to wait for a college degree to get in the huddle?
But I already knew what they were talking about. Liability and damage control.
You’d think they would have a plan already in place, after what had happened here last fall.
“Hi, Haley,” somebody said.
Troy walked up. He was just out of high school, worked part-time in the men’s department, and seemed to be doofing his way through life.
“Wow…” he said, sounding awestruck. “You’re the coolest.”
Apparently, word had gotten around how I’d taken charge of everything in the women’s restroom. And it was pretty cool.
Troy’s eyes were wide and his mouth hung open a little. “I never figured you’d do…that.”
Ty, Sarah, and the two lawyers were on the move now, heading toward Jeanette. I saw my chance, so I hurried over.
I wedged myself into the new huddle, anxious to take my rightful place at my sort-of boyfriend’s side, but Sarah and Jeanette beat me to it. Then I realized that Troy was standing next to me. What was he doing here?
Introductions were made, including Troy—he didn’t say anything, just stared at me, which was sort of embarrassing—and I found out the attorneys from the Pike Warner law firm were Peter McKenzie and Gabe Richards. They were mid-thirties, probably, on their way up the corporate ladder. I didn’t know either of them and, hopefully, they didn’t recognize me.
“Don’t I know you?” McKenzie asked.
Crap. The last thing I wanted to do was go into everything that had happened at Pike Warner last fall.
“We’ve never met,” I said, which was true, but it was possible he’d seen my name on documents that had circulated through the firm.
“Here’s what we’re up against,” Ty said, glancing at his wristwatch. “The store is scheduled to open in less than two hours. If that doesn’t happen—”
“It will be a media disaster,” Sarah declared.
Peter McKenzie glanced down at me and frowned. I knew he was trying to remember where he knew me from. Why wasn’t he paying attention to the huddle?
“We’ll have helicopters circling, camera crews crawling all over the place,” Sarah said. “We do not want to headline the eleven p.m. news. We have to open, as scheduled.”
Troy gulped hard right next to my ear. Why wouldn’t he go away?
“What about the inventory team?” Jeanette asked. “Their work is only half finished. They’re supposed to be out of here by six, and at the San Diego store tomorrow. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll have to reschedule them. That means closing the store another entire day, changing all of our advertising—and you know what that will do to profits, especially this time of year.”
Think, think. I had to think of something. This was a disaster, all right, a marketing and financial catastrophe. Reputation and money were on the line.
I was just as capable as anyone in the huddle—except maybe Troy, who kept breathing on me—of thinking up a solution, but I had to come up with it before Sarah.
Ty nodded toward the store. “I talked to the detectives. They can wrap up everything in a half hour.”
Everybody breathed a sigh of relief. Ty had the solution all along.
He’s so hot.
“That gives the inventory team ninety minutes to finish their work,” Ty said.
“Can they do that?” Jeanette asked.
“They’ll have to,” Ty said.
He’s so forceful, sometimes. It’s way hot.
“So, as long as the police finish up their work in the next few minutes—” Jeanette began.
“We’ll be fine,” Ty said.
Crisis averted. Reputation saved. Financial problem resolved.
I love being in the huddle.
Detective Madison waddled down the loading dock stairs, Shuman behind him.
“We’re shutting you down for the night,” Madison announced.
“What?” Sarah exclaimed.
Tension in the huddle spun up again, higher this time. Ty stepped out in front, confronting the two detectives. Troy circled around to my other side, fixated on my left cheek.
“We’ve got another possible murder victim,” Madison said.
Jeanette gasped. Gabe Richards and Sarah Covington put their heads together and started whispering.
“What the hell is a possible murder victim?” Ty demanded.
“We’ve got to take this place apart, piece by piece,” Madison said.
Sarah whipped out her cell phone and frantically pushed buttons. Richards went for his BlackBerry. McKenzie pointed at me with a big goofy grin on his face and said, “Mount Rushmore.” Troy snorted.
What a couple of idiots. They should be voted out of the huddle.
Never mind about that now. I had to do something to help Ty. His family had shepherded the Holt’s Department Store through many a crisis, dating back to the 1800s. He had five generations riding on his shoulders. I knew I could do something to help.
“We’ve got a missing person,” Detective Madison said. “Possibly a second murder victim, somewhere in the store.”
Shuman looked at his notepad. “The caterer can’t account for one of the servers.”
What?
“None of the other servers recalls seeing her since shortly after they arrived,” Shuman said. “But they report there was a server on duty that nobody recognized. And we found a disguise hidden upstairs in the stockroom.”
A disguise? Upstairs in the stockroom?
“Looks like whoever this mystery person is might have murdered the server, put on her uniform and a disguise, then murdered Claudia Gray,” Madison said.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
That’s me. I’m the one who—
Oh,