Cuff Me (13 page)

T
wo weeks after her and Vincent’s awkward non-kiss and the even more awkward conversation that had followed, Jill was feeling the best she had in months.

She and Vincent were
back
. Really, truly, dynamic-duo kind of back.

And if maybe some distant part of her brain was buzzing with warning that they were merely in the calm before the storm, she ignored it.

She’d given him an opening. Given him a chance to say something… and he hadn’t.

Which was fine. Great. Maybe all his bad moods lately really were just what they seemed: typical Moretti Moods.

She had bigger things to worry about.

Like the fact that she had a wedding to plan.

Like the fact that they still hadn’t caught Lenora Birch’s killer, and it was getting, well, embarrassing.

But neither had the other homicide investigators assigned to the case, which lessened the embarrassment. Slightly.

Everyone had a theory. But nobody had even a lick of proof.

The only
good
news about the whole thing was that the media had backed off. After nearly constant Who Killed Lenora Birch coverage, everyone had tired of the lack of updates.

Nobody more so than Vin and Jill.

They were, however, getting closer. She could feel it down to the tip of her ponytail, and Vincent had been increasingly doing that edgy, snippy thing that meant his brain was working in overdrive.

“I can’t believe she invited us to stay the night,” he griped for about the thirtieth time since they’d left Queens early that morning.

“You have to admit, it would have been convenient,” she said, not looking up from her phone, where she read the latest e-mail from the wedding caterer.

“It’s inappropriate. She’s a suspect.”

“Which is why I politely declined,” Jill said patiently. “Hey, do you think meatballs are too pedestrian? It says here they can stick rosemary in them as little skewers, which sounds kind of nice…”

“It sounds ridiculous,” he muttered.

She sighed and put her phone down. “If you don’t want me to talk about the wedding, you can just say so.”

“I don’t want you to talk about the wedding.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “
Fine
.”

Jill felt irrationally annoyed, which wasn’t fair. Of course Vin didn’t want to talk about the wedding. Not many dudes gave a shit about appetizers and party favors.

Well, Tom did. But that’s because it was Tom’s wedding. And because he was, well… perfect.

Perfection was tiresome.

Jill shoved the thought away before it had a chance to fully form.

What was
wrong
with her?

She was
marrying
Tom.

And yet she couldn’t seem to stop needling
this
man. This man who’d always been there for her, in his crusty, monotone kind of way.

Jill put her phone and her notebook away. No more wedding talk. It always put her in a bad mood.

And if the fact that planning her wedding put her in a bad mood was really alarming, she pushed that thought aside too.

“Hey, has your Spidey sense given you any more tingles about Holly Adams?” she said. “Since we discovered that she wasn’t as forthcoming about her and Lenora’s history as she could have been?”

That was a major understatement.

In Jill’s research to unearth Lenora Birch’s complicated career in Hollywood, there was one name that came up over and over:

Holly Adams.

“I need to spend some time with her,” Vincent grumbled. “I can’t pluck theories out of the air.”

“Really?” Jill asked dryly. “Since when?”

“She wasn’t straight with us last time,” Vincent said. “Which wouldn’t bother me if she hadn’t made such an effort to convince us she was telling all.”

“You’re mad because she played us,” Jill concluded.

He was silent for several moments. “Yes.”

She smiled, surprised at the admission. “Well, she’s an actress. It’s her job to fool people. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“That’s the problem with our growing list of suspects. They’re
all
actors. Speaking of which, how’s the list coming?”

Ah yes. A list. Jill
loved
her lists.

Jill and Vincent’s partnership was a solid one for two reasons:

The first was the most obvious—he was bad cop, she was good cop. They practically defined the cliché.

The second was subtler.

Vin was the feelings guy; the one who paced and observed and pondered until a breakthrough occurred.

Jill was more about the data; she trusted his hunch—always. But then it fell to
her
to figure out how to act on it. Where to look for the proof. How to maneuver the suspect into a confession.

Or in complicated cases like this one, how to narrow down their suspects from all of Hollywood to a viable list.

Jill had spent the last ten days glued to her computer,
most of those with Vincent hovering over her shoulder, which hadn’t been annoying
at all.

“The list is almost done,” she said, stalling.

He glanced over. “You’re not telling me something.”

Jill turned to look out the window, wondering if now was a good time to give him the news, since he was preoccupied with driving, or if it would make him swerve off the road in irritation.

“You know, I don’t think you realize how lucky we are that Holly Adams lives so close to New York,” she said, deciding to ease into it.

“Close? We’ve been in the car for two hours, and we’re not even halfway there. Fucking rush hour.”

Here we go.

“She’s a lot closer than the rest of the suspects.”

He was silent. “Explain.”

“Lenora Birch was an actress, Vin. A
Hollywood
actress.”

More silence. “Tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” he said. “Tell me we’re not—”

“Going to California?”

He groaned. “No. No fucking way. I don’t care how many enemies she has in Beverly Hills, she didn’t die there. The crime was committed in New York.”

“I’m aware of that, thanks. But based on what I’ve learned, if you’re a big name in Hollywood, you’re either in LA, or you’re in New York. There’s a lot of crossover. And four of the names I keep coming across on the Lenora Birch enemy list?”

“Don’t tell me. Do not tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”

“They were in Manhattan at the time of her murder. But they
live
in California.”

Vincent swore softly. “What the hell is wrong with these old folks, all jetting around across the country all willy-nilly?”

“Wait, and you think
they’re
the old folks? Are you kidding me with the
willy-nilly
?”

“Nonna says it,” he grumbled. “And California? Really?”

Jill smiled. “You’re going to look so great with a tan.”

She reached out to playfully poke his cheek and he batted her hand away. “Why don’t we just fly
them
out
here
?”

“Yeah, the department’s really gonna go for that. Flying out four suspects from LAX to JFK, then paying for their transportation, then hotels…”

“Well, they’re not going to go for flying us out there either.”

“Maybe not. But if we chipped in on flights, I’m guessing they’d spot the hotel room.”

“Why the hell would we do that?” he asked.

She stared at him. “Waiting for it…”

“Fuck,” he muttered the second it clicked. “You’re thinking we can see Marco.”

“Come on. You know you miss him.”

Jill knew she was right. She could see it in his stillness.

Jill didn’t know Vin’s other brother as well as she did Luc and Anthony. By the time she and Vin had gotten really close, and she’d been all but welcomed into the family, he’d already moved.

But she remembered him being a good sort—just like the rest of the Morettis.

Handsome as sin, too. Again, just like the rest of the Morettis.

“When?” he grunted.

“I was thinking next week. Enough time for us to get a plan together, but I don’t think we can wait much longer. The captain swore at me for at least an hour yesterday about how our asses were on the line if we didn’t give him an update he could, and I quote, “fucking do something fucking with.”

“I hate California.”

“Of course you do. All that sunshine,” she said sweetly.

Vin flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and then tilted his neck from side to side as though trying to work out a kink, although whether it was in his neck or his attitude, she wasn’t sure.

“We really have to go?” he asked.

“No. But I think we should.”

“Damn,” he breathed softly.

Relieved to have dropped the bomb with relatively little fallout, Jill turned her attention to the world that was whizzing by at oh, twenty miles an hour. Vin hadn’t been joking about traffic being a total bitch.

And it would be even worse in LA. Weren’t they supposed to have the worst traffic, like, ever? And crappy air quality, and…

Oh, who was she kidding?

Jill couldn’t
wait
to go to California, even if it was for work.

With her mother living in Florida, most of her “sunny getaways” involved the Atlantic Ocean over the Pacific. She’d been to California… once. Her parents had taken her to Yellowstone as a kid.

But she barely remembered it, and Yosemite, while lovely, wasn’t exactly the quintessential California described by the Beach Boys, or Katy Perry.

But more than the destination itself was the chance to get away. A chance to get out of her routine, to get some distance from wedding planning and the looming changes in her future.

A chance to… think.

She didn’t know what she needed to think about. Just knew that she needed to.

An hour later, California was the last thing on her mind, because she was too busy trying to stifle her laughter.

Holly Adams was every bit as over-the-top welcoming as she’d been last time they questioned her.

But she’d tweaked her approach, to play up her, um, assets.

In all their years together, Jill didn’t think she’d seen Vincent Moretti quite so uncomfortable. Hell, until today, she hadn’t realized that he
could
be uncomfortable.

But then, he’d probably never had an elderly femme fatale dressed in a red gown—yes, gown—draped all over him before.

“Um, Ms. Adams,” Vincent said, making yet another futile attempt to shift away from the older woman. “You were telling us about the time that Lenora won the
Moonlight Damsel
role?”

“Stole,” Holly said with a smile, setting her hand on Vin’s arm. “She
stole
my role. And my my, do you work out?”

Yes
. Yes, he does, Jill thought, remembering all too vividly that moment when Vincent had opened the motel door sans shirt.

Holly’s arm ran up Vincent’s bicep. Squeezed. Vin gave Jill a panicked look, and she took pity on him.

“Ms. Adams, when you say that Lenora stole your role, what do you mean by that? Did she bribe someone? Sabotage your audition?”

Holly’s attention snapped to Jill and her eyes narrowed. “Why are you two so interested in forty-year-old films?”

“You know why,” Jill said steadily. “It’s the same reason we’re here. Again. You have a murky past with Lenora Birch, and now she’s dead.”

Holly leaned forward, her still-impressive bosom all but heaving out of her dress. Vincent’s eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

“And your best bet is looking at aging film stars?” Holly asked. “I have arthritis. Lenora probably did too. Even if we wanted to try and push each other over the staircase, or however she died, it would take agility and coordination that we don’t have.”

Jill kept her face impassive, but damned if she didn’t agree just a little bit with Holly’s assessment. This whole case was starting to feel like a farce.

A geriatric version of Clue.

“Who do you think did it then?” Jill asked.

Holly sat back with a wave of her hand. “The help? Maybe the driver felt underpaid, or the housekeeper got sick of having to pick up Lenora’s dentures from the coffee table. Someone young and angry, not someone old and tired.”

“I don’t think you’re quite so indifferent to old grudges as you’d have us believe,” Vincent said.

Holly’s hand froze in the process of sliding up his thigh. “Oh?”

Vin flicked his gaze to Jill, who picked up on the cue and reached into her bag. Pulled out a Ziploc bag.

She held it out to Holly, who hesitated briefly. “What’s this?”

“A letter you sent to Caroline Jones four months ago. One in which you said if any of the old crew deserved an early death, it was Lenora.”

Holly touched the bag only for a moment before letting it flutter to the table. The corner dipped into the tea and Vincent plucked it back out again, wiping the moisture away before holding it up to the older woman’s face.

“This is your handwriting, yes? Your signature?”

“That bitch,” Holly breathed.

“Careful now,” Vin said easily. “If Caroline Jones ends up dead, you’re going to wish you hadn’t said that in front of two homicide detectives.”

She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “All I’m trying to say is maybe you should look a little harder at the woman who gave you that letter.”

“She’s not the one that wished an early death on Lenora Birch.”

“How do you know?” Holly shot back. “Do you have her side of the correspondence?”

Vin and Jill exchanged a glance. She had a good point.

“Do you have it?” Holly pressed. “Well, of course not,” she huffed. “
Her
letters are rambling and boring. I throw them out after I skim them. But I can assure you there’s plenty of ranting about Lenora on her end as well.”