Annabelle Archer BoxSet, page 45
part #1 of Annabelle Archer Series
13
Once I’d changed into my sleeveless turquoise sheath dress and black peep-toe heels, Fern draped a black smock around my shoulders and steered me onto a stool. The “Hair by Fernando” space consisted of a square silver mirror suspended below his sign, a stool for brides to sit on, and a table that held his brushes, sprays, clips, and bobby pins. A pair of magazine covers of models he’d styled had been blown up and placed on metal easels to flank the space. It was simple and clean, which seemed like the complete opposite of Fern’s dramatic personal style. But, then again, Fern didn’t need a lot to draw in brides since his personality and wardrobe already filled the room.
Fern’s space stood on the left side of the room near the entrance doors, almost as far away from Christopher’s space as possible. I wondered what the show organizers would do with the disgraced hairstylist’s booth now. Fern couldn’t work fast enough to do hair for the several hundred brides who’d be streaming through the doors in a matter of minutes. I could only imagine the stampede once brides realized there was only one hairdresser doing free updos.
Fern pulled the black elastic from my hair so that it spilled over my shoulders and down my back. “Let’s do something with this perpetual ponytail look you have going on.”
“I don’t always wear it in a ponytail,” I said. “I put it in a bun on wedding days.”
He patted my shoulder. “Way to shake things up, girl.”
“Were you surprised about Christopher?” I asked.
Fern tugged a round brush through my hair. “Well, you might have noticed that he wasn’t my favorite colleague.”
Talk about an understatement. “Yep. I noticed.”
“But between you and me.” Fern leaned close to my ear. “I’m surprised he had the brains to pull it off. He might have been somewhat attractive.” Another understatement. “But I never pegged him for being clever.”
In the reflection of Fern’s mirror, I spotted Detective Reese as he walked into the ballroom. He wore jeans topped with a sky-blue button-down shirt and a brown blazer that was just rumpled enough to look cool. He was one of those infuriating men who looked good in just about anything he put on without even trying. He stopped and surveyed the room until he saw me, then he crossed over to us in a few strides. “Just the woman I hoped to find.”
“Well, that sounds promising,” Fern muttered so only I could hear him.
“How can I help you, Detective?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. Act nonchalant, I told myself. Pretend like he doesn’t faze you at all. Did he grow his hair out a bit?
Reese took a small notebook out of his blazer pocket and tapped his pen on it. “How long has it been?”
“Since?” I said, even though I knew perfectly well what he meant. That’s right. Play it cool.
“Since you’ve shown up at one of my investigations?” he said. “A month?”
“More like two,” I said a bit too quickly. Fern yanked at my hair as he pulled a strand from one side to the top. I recognized the signal.
Reese grinned. “Two, huh? Well, it’s been a pretty dull two months then.”
“We’ve all been staying out of trouble,” Fern said.
Reese studied him. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“You’re so bad.” Fern swatted at him with his hairbrush. “Tell him he’s bad, Annabelle.”
I glared at Fern in the mirror, but he didn’t see me. Now who was making a fool of themselves? I tried to crane my neck around, but Fern yanked me back by my hair.
“How did you get assigned to this case? Don’t you do homicides?” I asked Reese. I caught his eyes in the mirror and tried hard not to notice how they deepened from hazel to a moss green.
“We had a terror threat across town this morning so they called me in on my day off.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
He shrugged and grinned. “I’ve had worse assignments.” He cleared his throat. “You’re one of the witnesses to the crime, correct?”
“Kate and I were a few feet away when it happened.”
Reese scribbled in his notebook. “Did you see anything?”
“Well, the lights were out so no,” I said. “But we heard fumbling with the jewelry cabinet and then Lorinda yelled. Or it may have been the other way around.”
“Did you hear the burglar when they ran off?”
I started to shake my head, but Fern held it straight as he fastened my hair at the top of my head. “I didn’t but Botox Barbie heard someone run by her.”
“Botox Barbie?” Reese asked, grinning.
“Sorry,” I said. “I mean Brianna. She’s the wedding planner doing Botox injections in her booth.”
“You can’t miss her.” Fern fluffed my half-up half-down hair around my shoulders. “She’s extremely blond.”
Reese met my eyes in the mirror again and held them. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
Like that I think your longer hair is sexy and I’d love to run my hands through it? I rubbed my palms on the front of my legs as I forced myself not to stare at him. “Not that I can think of. It happened pretty fast.”
Fern unfurled the smock from my shoulders. “You’re all done. I’ve saved you from Ponytail Purgatory.”
I mentally added Fern to my list of people to kill if Washington ever opted for a purge.
“Okay. I guess I’ll talk to the Botox girl then.” Reese leaned in and tapped his notebook on my knee. “I like your hair down. You should wear it like this more often.”
“Don’t think I don’t tell her that all the time,” Fern called after him.
I stood up, then pivoted and smacked Fern on the arm. “Ponytail purgatory?”
He rubbed the spot where I’d hit him. “What? He said he liked your hair, didn’t he? He came over to talk to you, am I right?”
“About the case,” I said.
“Frankly, I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big deal about these diamonds.” Fern folded the black smock over his stool. “I know they’re part of Lorinda’s display, but it isn’t like they’re real.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The diamonds I fished out of that model’s hair were not real,” Fern said. “If there are two things I know it’s hair and gemstones. Well, I know more than two things, but I definitely know jewelry. And those were not genuine diamonds.”
I stared at Fern. If he was right, none of this made any sense.
14
“Where are we going?” Fern asked as he hurried behind me, weaving through booths and around people. I passed the Brides by Brianna booth and saw her being questioned by Detective Reese. I ignored the fact that she had her hand on his arm and his back pressed up against the table of Botox needles. A part of me hoped he’d get a needle in the backside for smiling back at her.
“To see those diamonds,” I said. As I approached the Goodman & Sons display, I slowed to a stop.
“Well, that’s a new approach for you,” Fern said.
The Wedding Belles area had transformed from simple and elegant to gawk-worthy. Club music emanated from somewhere behind the bar and provided the beat for a pair of hunky guys in skin-tight black T-shirts who were tossing bottles of booze in the air. Kate stood in front of the bar arranging gold-flecked martini glasses into an impressive tower.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
Kate swept her arms open. “This is our bride catnip.”
I had to admit that I had a hard time taking my eyes off the men behind the bar with their very large and very tanned biceps.
“We may not be able to deaden their foreheads,” Kate said. “But we can give them some eye candy and cocktails.”
“Boys and booze.” Fern nodded his appreciation. “Two great things that go great together.”
“Do I want to ask how you found these guys so quickly?” I said.
“Kurt and Alex are craft bartenders downtown,” Kate said. “I’ve known them for years. You know how you go home after weddings and crawl into bed? Well, I go have a cocktail or two.”
“She’s one of our best customers.” The brawny blond from behind the bar said and winked at me.
I did not find this surprising in the least. “So what are we serving?”
Kate clapped her hands. “They’re creating a custom cocktail for us called the Wedding Belle. Don’t you love it?”
I tried not to cringe. It was one thing for our brides to have custom cocktails with cutesy names but I could have gone years without having a drink named after my company. The dark-haired bartender passed me a martini glass across the bar with a light blue concoction inside and a curl of lemon peel dangling from the lip of the glass. “Try it. It’s something new and something blue.”
“Look at you with the wedding lingo.” Fern batted his eyes at the bartender.
I took a sip. The drink was good. I took another sip. Very good.
“Kate asked us to make it a little sweet and a little tart,” the blond bartender said.
“Like us,” Kate said. “Get it?”
“Subtle.” I passed the drink to Fern.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, then downed the drink in one gulp.
“Another?” the blond beefcake asked.
“That’s a hard no.” It would not pay for me to be tipsy when brides started streaming through the doors. Plus, I needed to keep my wits about me if Lorinda’s diamonds really were fakes.
“I’ll have another,” Fern said. “And don’t go light on the liquor.”
I tugged on his jacket. “You can’t get drunk. I need you to inspect those diamond rings again on the down low.”
Fern giggled. “The down low?”
“You know what I mean.” I jerked my head in the direction of the Goodman & Sons booth where Lorinda stood wiping off the top of her glass jewelry case. “Casually admire the rings and see if they’re real.”
Fern sighed. “Then can I have another cocktail?”
I gave him a push. “Yes, but one more and I’m cutting you off. If you drink too much, you start calling all the brides tramps.”
“He does that anyway,” Kate said.
“Au contraire.” Fern shook a finger at her. “I call them all hussies. I only call them tramps when I drink.”
I watched as Fern sidled up to Lorinda’s jewelry case and began gushing over the rings. His act looked extremely convincing, probably because it wasn’t much of an act. Fern was like a bird when it came to shiny objects.
“What’s this?” Brianna’s voice pulled my attention away from Fern. Her hands were on her hips, but her eyes were on our bartenders. “I thought you were giving out chocolates.”
“Change of plans.” Kate leaned her elbows back against the bar and stared at Brianna. “How did you know what we were doing anyway?”
Brianna arched a brow. “I do my homework, and I always know my competition.”
I exchanged a glance with Kate. “I thought you’d never heard of us.”
Brianna opened her mouth, then shut it again. She turned to leave and walked into Detective Reese. She spluttered and giggled and clutched his arms a little too hard before walking back to her booth.
Kate smiled when she recognized Reese. “Fancy a drink, Detective?”
Reese took in our booth with an amused expression.
I felt my face flush. “Don’t look at me. This is all Kate.”
“Guilty.” Kate curtsied.
“It makes a statement. I’ll give that to you,” he said.
“So how’s the questioning going?” I asked, flicking my eyes over to Fern trying on a ring and holding his fingers up in the air. No one could say he wasn’t playing his part to the hilt. I didn’t want to tell Reese what Fern had told me until I was absolutely certain.
Detective Reese stepped closer to me. “Not bad. It’s mostly a formality for the report.”
I tried to think of something clever to say to prolong the conversation, but my mind went blank. All I could think of was how close we were standing to each other, and my pulse quickened. Kate backed away, leaving me standing alone with the detective.
“I wanted to ask you something.” He lowered his voice and leaned into me, resting a hand on the small of my back. “Do you remember the last time we saw each other at your apartment? I wanted to ask if—“
“Mission accomplished,” Fern said as he walked back over to me.
The detective dropped his hand from my back.
“Wait,” I said, not sure if I was talking more to Fern or Reese.
“Yes, don’t go.” Fern grabbed Reese’s elbow. “You’re going to want to hear this, too.”
I tried to meet the detective’s eyes to mouth an apology or an explanation, but he focused on Fern.
“What do I need to hear?” he asked.
“That I was right.” Fern said. “Those diamond rings we found in the model’s hair are as fake as Kate’s winter tan.”
15
Detective Reese tilted his head as he stared at Fern. “So you think that the diamond rings that were stolen were fake?”
Fern shook his head. “I think the diamond rings we found were fake.”
“Meaning?” I said.
Fern glanced behind him at Lorinda. He had nothing to worry about. There was no chance she could hear us over the music coming from behind the bar. “I tried on the same ring two times today. The first time, before the blackout, the diamond was genuine. The second time, right now, it was fake.”
“You’re positive?” Reese asked.
Fern leveled a withering stare at him. “I know my jewelry, sweetie. Those were different stones. I’m not saying there aren’t some very convincing synthetic stones on the market but these are more along the lines of cubic zirconia, so it’s not hard to tell if you know what you’re looking for.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would there be two sets of diamonds?”
“And bad luck for the thief who snatched the wrong ones,” Fern said. “Is it still a crime if what you steal isn’t worth anything?”
“I’m thinking yes,” I said to Fern under my breath.
Detective Reese pulled out his notebook and began scanning his notes. “The real question is where are the real diamonds if the ones we recovered aren’t real?”
“Richard,” Kate called. “Come have a cocktail!”
I turned around to see Richard walk up holding a floor sweeper. He glanced at his Gucci watch. “Brides will be coming through those doors in five minutes. I don’t think now is the time for drinking.”
Kate held out a frothy blue drink in a martini glass. “It’s the perfect time. I promise you it will take the edge right off.”
“Off him or the brides?” Fern asked, and I hushed him.
Richard waved off the drink. “I popped over to bring you this.” He propelled the floor sweeper forward. “Unless you want every bride who walks by your space to leave dragging gold dust with her.”
I took the sweeper and ran it over the section of carpet with the most gold covering it. Some of the dust vanished but a good deal remained. “This may take more than a sweeper.”
Richard frowned. “Well, I didn’t bring my carpet shampooer.”
I pointed to the sweeper. “Wait. Did you bring this with you?”
“Of course,” Richard said. “Hotels never have enough brooms, and finding someone to run a vacuum at the last minute is next to impossible, so I brought my own cleaning supplies.”
I reminded myself to have Richard over to my apartment more often. With his supplies.
“How did you get gold all over the floor?” Reese asked, stepping closer to the gold patch that covered most of our space.
I pointed above our heads. “See all those leaves? Buster and Mack spray painted them and some of the paint got onto the floor.”
“Leaves don’t grow gold,” Mack called over from his booth, where he stood placing the final few palm fronds into a large arrangement. “Not that I’m complaining about the metallic craze. It could be worse.”
“We all got it on our pants and shoes earlier,” Richard said. “Luckily, I also brought stain-remover wipes so my Prada pants were saved.”
“And I wasn’t wearing pants.” Kate gestured to her short shirt and exposed bare legs.
“I wonder.” I pulled Reese to the side. “Can you find out if Christopher and the model have gold dust on their shoes?”
His expression seemed confused, then he nodded. “I can do that. Let me call my guys.”
While the detective walked away from the Wedding Belles booth and pulled out his phone, Buster and Mack joined us.
Kate swept her arms wide. “Care for a drink?”
Both men, confirmed teetotalers, declined her offer but gazed appreciatively at the bartenders flipping bottles and pouring their blue concoction into gold-flecked glasses.
“This is a departure from the original design, no?” Buster asked me.
“You could say that,” I said. “Kate amped it up a bit.”
“We have to compete with the likes of Botox Barbie over there.” Kate gestured to Brianna’s booth with her drink, and a bit of blue liquid sloshed over the side of the glass.
“That girl?” Mack said. “You don’t need to worry about her. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.”
“You know her?” I asked.
“She came into the studio for a ‘meet and greet.’” Buster made air quotes with his fingers. “Claimed she wanted to get to know us but then spent the entire time asking questions about other planners, mostly you two.”
“Really?” Kate glared in Brianna’s direction.
“You two have come up so fast that now you’re the ones to beat,” Buster said.
It felt nice to think of all our hard work paying off but not so nice to think that we were now the planners that other people wanted to knock off. So much for our moment in the sun.
“She asked us to design her booth for the show,” Mack said. “Can you imagine? And she’s never even sent us a scrap of business.”
