Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 02 - Necklaces & Nooses (11 page)

I heard my phone ring and saw it was Cooper. I was excited. It hadn’t been but a few hours since I had originally asked him for the information, so I was glad that it hadn’t taken him long. Maybe it was something useful. I just hoped he wasn’t going to yell at me again for being involved. I really wasn’t meaning to be involved; it just kind of happened, and it was for a good cause.

“Hey, Cooper. That was fast.”

“Unfortunately, it’s because there isn’t much information. I wish I could be more helpful. I pulled up the same petty crime stuff you said your detective had found, but when I dug a little deeper and cross referenced it with James, I did find something.”

“You did?” I said, excited and feeling extremely validated.

“Now calm down. It may be nothing. When you tell your detective, he might decide it’s nothing or to take it further, but leave it up to him.”

“Tell me.” I hadn’t missed the fact that Cooper called him detective but wasn’t going to bring it up. Surely, Cooper didn’t think I liked this guy. Though I did, kind of. Was that bad? I felt guilty, and there was no reason to do so. I was sure Cooper was dating other people. As hot as he was, he had to be. He was a great guy.

“Every law firm usually handles a certain amount of pro bono work. It’s their way of giving back to the community, which is good because at their exorbitant fees, they need to give something back.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, lawyers charge too much. Tell me something I didn’t know. What else?”

“One of the lawyers in James’s firm handled one of Peter’s offenses as a pro bono case. This wasn’t a junior partner or anything, so I highly doubt James would have been involved in any way. Besides, he seems to handle mostly white collar financial crimes.”

“But it’s still a link,” I mused. What did this have to do with Solange, if anything?

“Presley, I did this for you because I would do anything you asked, but I really don’t like you involved in this.”

He was being sweet, and it made my heart hurt, but he was too overprotective. This behavior, while I could understand where he was coming from, was one of the many things that hurt our relationship. He needed to let me be my own person. “Cooper, I promise you I won’t do anything stupid.

“Okay.” He sighed. I could tell he didn’t believe me, and he was probably right not to. I had no intention of putting myself in danger, but it didn’t always seem to work out that way. That lesson I had learned last time.

“Bye, Coop.”

“Bye, Presley. Call me in a couple of days okay?”

“I will,” I said, hanging up. I paused for a minute, not wanting to call Willie right away. I had such mixed feelings about Cooper. If I thought we could make it work, there would be no question of who I would want to be with.

I finally called Willie, and he answered on the first ring like he was sitting waiting for my call. I’m sure he wasn’t, but it was interesting to think about.

“Calling to apologize?” he asked good-naturedly, and I could instantly tell he was no longer annoyed, which made me happy. Not just because I didn’t want him to be annoyed at me, but also because I wanted him to be receptive to the information I was about to give him. I just hoped this didn’t annoy him all over again.

“Fat chance, but I do have some information for you if you’re done pouting over me telling you how to do your job.”

“Have you been doing more investigating?”

“Well, someone has to.”

“Ouch! You’re a tough woman.” He knew I was teasing him, and I was happy to be back on the teasing track rather than the annoyed one.

I filled him in on what I had found out from Cooper. He was good and didn’t interrupt, but when I finished he just sat there. “Well?” I said.

“I’m thinking”

“Care to share?”

“Well, standing alone, I might not think much of it, but coupled with Peter coming into the store, it is a bit of a coincidence. Worth checking out, but you have to promise to let check it out.”

“Okay fine, but you must keep me in the loop.”

“I will if you promise to stop bugging me about my detective skills.”

“Well, if your ego can’t take it…”

“Ha!”

Chapter 11

T
he day after the funeral, I was ready for things to get back to normal, although I knew it wasn’t that simple. While I knew that someday I would need to move on from Silk, and hopefully pursue my writing, I really did enjoy working here. The daily routine was always different, and I loved the clothes, the fashion of it all, and usually the clients as well. As high maintenance as they were, the customers were nice and fun to work with for the most part. They had the money to spend and had no problem spending it if they liked something. That was what made my job easy.

I had arrived at the store early that morning to go through the shipment from yesterday and see what needed to be put out and what special orders had come in. With all the things going on, I felt it would be nice to come in and have a normal routine day and forget, for a while at least, what was going on. I unpacked the boxes and had my usual excitement in discovering new things. Solange always had the best taste, it might not make sense upon first glance, but the end result was good. I had a lot to live up to if I expected to even come close to her ability to choose the right product mix for the store. The clients were used to having unique things, and I needed to make sure they continued to get that or they would go elsewhere.

I turned the steamer on so I could make sure all the garments were in pristine condition when I put them on the sales floor, and I pulled together some outfits to put on the forms in the windows. We liked to change them every few days in order to keep the windows fresh and exciting to the foot traffic we got in front of our store daily. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost time for Lily to arrive. She could assemble the new displays in the front windows while I got the store ready to open for business.

I enjoyed steaming clothes, as it was mindless work that had instant gratification. I was working my way through the rack and thinking mostly about Willie and Cooper and how much they were alike yet different. A knocking on the door jarred me out of my thoughts. 
That must be Lily,
  I thought, as I hung up the steamer handle and flipped the switch off. I walked out of the back room and could see Lily waving to me through the window. I unlocked the door to let her in. “Good morning.”

“Morning, Presley. Been here long?”

“Not too long. I unpacked the shipment from yesterday and started steaming the pieces for the windows. If you want to pull some accessories and start undressing the forms, I’ll bring you up the new outfits, and you can put those together. We have about thirty minutes before the store opens, so I’m going to start getting the business side ready, and then I will call the clients with the special orders to let them know the pieces are ready for pick up.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Lily back to put her stuff away and I walked over to grab her the clothes. I rolled the rack to her in front and then went back to the office to start on opening paperwork, the part I liked least. I just had never been a paperwork kind of gal. I got it done and started making calls to clients whose orders had arrived, and got through a few before I realized it was ten o’clock and time to open the store.

I walked out front with the cash drawer. Lily had just opened the doors, and one of our best clients Shavon Wilson was following her in. Lily rolled her eyes as she walked toward me. Shavon had money to spend and we loved her as a client, but she was a bit on the loud obnoxious side. I was sure she came here more to grill us on the murder than to buy a new outfit, since she had just dropped about ten grand a week ago on a new line we recently started to carry. Even the wealthy had to have their limits, didn’t they? However, I was going to push our new arrivals on her and try not to talk about Solange.

“Hi, Shavon,” I said. “How did you know we just received several new pieces?”

“You know me, Presley, I can sniff out new fashion a mile away.”

I stepped out from around the counter to take her over to the rack. “See? We haven’t even had a chance to put these out yet. Should I pull your sizes? You can go in your normal fitting room.” As soon as I said it, I realized that was the fitting room Solange had been murdered in. Would clients want to go in there? As this was running through my head, Shavon walked away from me to the big fitting room she normally used and closed the door. Maybe my fears were unfounded. I followed behind her to hand her the clothes over the door.

“So, is this the room where they found Solange?”

“Yes, it is.” My voice cracked, and I had to clear my throat. So not only did she not mind using this particular fitting room, but she was also asking questions. Why? To personally observe a murder scene? I shuddered. That was creepy, even for me. Granted, I had been in the room to clean and so had the other girls, but I wouldn’t have sought it out if I were a client. People were odd.

Shavon stuck her head out the door, clad in only her bra and panties. Again I state, some people were odd. “I heard you were the one who found her?” she whispered. Strange, she would whisper, but had no problems with opening the fitting room door in her underwear for anyone to see. But since she was the only one in the store, maybe she wasn’t worried about anyone seeing her.

I nodded, trying to think of the right thing to say that would stop her form asking more questions without offending her—and stopping her from opening her wallet. A good sale from her this morning would go a long way toward helping make up the deficit from being closed. “I did, and I would love to tell you all about it, but I’m under orders not to talk about it,” I whispered back, conspiratorially, handing her the clothes.

“Oh. I understand,” she replied shutting the door.

“You handled that well,” Lily said to me when I walked away from Shavon.

“Thanks. I have a feeling we will need to get used to fielding the same questions over the next few weeks. People are just going to want the details.”

The rest of the day went pretty quickly, and just as I expected, we did get a lot of the clients wanting details. For the most part we were able to use the same line I had used on Shavon, and no one was bothered that we couldn’t share the dirty details. Not giving out information didn’t hurt sales any, and it was a very productive day all in all. By lunchtime I was tired, but in a good way, the kind of tired you get from a hard day’s work.

I needed to call my brother. He had left several messages since all this happened, first asking me to call him ASAP as he had some exciting news, then wondering how I was and making sure I was okay, and then back to begging me to call him the first minute I could. Whatever it was, it must be exciting, I thought, and it made me wonder if he had told our mother yet. She hadn’t called to gossip, and if she knew, that was unlike her. I hadn’t seen him this jazzed in a long time, well for more than ten minutes anyway, and this had lasted almost a week.

My brother Jesse was a free spirit, a gypsy of sorts. He had excelled in high school both academically and in sports, but he said college bored him and dropped out half way through his sophomore year. Since then, he traveled around trying out new, non-traditional professions. He had been a zip-line instructor in Mexico, tried his hand as an actor, and now was in Vegas working as a blackjack dealer. I loved my brother and was somewhat jealous of his ability to flit around and not be harassed by my parents. I definitely felt they had set much different expectations for me than him.

I looked at my watch. I had time before meeting Willie. I hit the call button and leaned back into the office chair.

He picked up after one ring. “It’s about damn time, sis.”

“Hey, cut me some slack. It’s been a crazy week.”

“I know, I know. Just giving you a hard time. Seriously though, how are you?”

“Good. It’s been weird. Almost seems surreal Solange is dead and that I’m the one who found her.”

“What is it with you and dead people?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, first you were involved in Senator Daniels murder and now you find your boss murdered. Don’t you think it’s an odd coincidence?

“I wasn’t 
involved
  in the senator’s murder. I was there for a legitimate reason.”

“You were at the store for a legitimate reason.”

“Boutique.”

“Okay, 
boutique
for a legitimate reason. End result on both occasions: you were involved in murder. Maybe you should be a detective.”

I had no desire to be a detective. Date one maybe, but not be one. “I didn’t call you to talk about me. I want to talk about you and find out what is so exciting in your world that you’ve been stalking me.”

“If you answered your phone I wouldn’t have to stalk, sis.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Now tell me what is so important.”

“I met a girl,” Jesse said, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.

“You meet a lot of girls.”

“This is different. I think this could be the one.” This news definitely made me pay attention. Jesse was more a love’em and leave’em type.

“Continue.”

“Her name is Ashley Griffith. I met her a few weeks ago when she and some friends came to the casino for a bachelorette party.”

“Not hers, I assume.”

“No. I learned my lesson last time from that one. Anyways, Ashley and her friends were at my table, and we flirted and had fun. The next day she came back, and I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see her. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. That night she waited until I got off work, and we stayed up all night talking, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I really do think she’s the one, Pres.”

“I am so happy for you. What does she do? What does she look like? Where is she from?”

“She’s a school teacher, teaches second grade. She is beautiful, blonde, and petite, and comes from a small town in Nebraska. She moved to Vegas with some friends after college for the summer last year and ended up staying.”

“When do I get to meet her?”

“You can come out any time.”

“If only money grew on trees.”

“I did invite her to Thanksgiving.”

“You 
what
! Does Mom know?” He had never, ever, invited a girl over for any family function. He really must be serious.

“Yes. I called Mom a few days ago. I think she’s in shock. I asked her not to call you until I did. I wanted to tell you myself.”

No wonder she hadn’t called me yet. She called every time she thought my brother was doing something that was not what she thought he should do. She complained to me, since she would never criticize him. Even with him telling her not to tell me, I was surprised she hadn’t. This wasn’t something my mom could normally hold in. I was actually looking forward to calling her and talking about this.

“Inviting her to a family event is a big step,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”

“When you meet her you’ll see why I think she’s the right one.”

“Can’t wait.”