Runaway Mistress (25 page)

“I don’t blame you. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

Suddenly it wasn’t Nick she was most afraid of. It was Alex. What if, after she revealed the whole truth about herself, her gentlemen friends over the years and how she’d lived on their generosity, Alex lost all respect for her? But all she said was “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Alice had a tumor that was pressing against her spine, causing temporary paralysis. Sam Gunterson operated on her first thing the next morning. There was a higher than usual risk, given Alice’s age, but she had a strong spirit and pulled through. She had to stay in the veterinary hospital for a couple of days, so that was where Jennifer would spend the afternoons until Alice could come home.

Dear Louise,

I’ll start off by saying that everything is going to be all right. Alice gave me quite a scare last night—she couldn’t get up. Alex and I rushed her to the vet—Sam came in just for her. It turned out she had a tumor on her spine, which he successfully removed. She’s going to be a little weak and wimpy for a while, but Sam is convinced she will make a full recovery. I swear, she took ten years off my life.

Love,

Doris

My dear Doris,

Thank God you were there! I can’t even bear to think of how frightened poor Alice must have been—and how much she must have appreciated you taking such good care of her! Thank Alex for me, too.

Bless you!

Louise

Jennifer was wiping off a couple of the tabletops just prior to retiring her apron, anxious to get over to Sam’s to see how Alice was doing, when Hedda came into the diner to relieve her. The girl seemed to be in a nasty little mood, a very unusual circumstance. Even with all she had to put up with daily, she never failed to have a cordial smile and greeting. Today she didn’t say hello, didn’t look up as she entered and seemed to stow her purse under the counter with a pretty rough thrust.

“Nice to see you, too,” Jennifer teased.

“Sorry,” she said. “I have a lot on my mind.”

“I’m sure. With prom getting so close.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you been shopping for your dress yet?” Jennifer asked, ducking a little to get under Hedda’s downcast eyes.

“No. Not yet.”

“What’s up, kid? Something wrong?”

“Finals. It’s almost time for finals.”

Jennifer grabbed her wrist and dragged her past the grill toward the back door and bathroom. “Hey,” Hedda protested.

“Hey, nothing. I have to get going—Alice is under the weather. But I can’t leave my precious little diner in the hands of such a crab apple. What’s your deal?”

“Nothing, I said. Just got a lot on my—”

“Last week you couldn’t shut up about the dress you were going to get for the prom. Now you have finals on your mind?”

Tears gathered in the girl’s eyes. “I’m not going.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Now, let’s drop it.” She pushed Jennifer aside and stepped inside the bathroom, locking the door.

Memories flooded back to her. Jennifer had never gone to a prom or homecoming. Hell, she’d never gone to
anything!
She’d never been around a school long enough to be asked. And if she had been asked, chances were she’d never be able to float the whole dress issue. But she’d known her fair share of guys in high school, and she knew what they were capable of. In fact, all the heartache surrounding these events was way more crystal clear to Jennifer than any of the glitter and fun of it.

“Come on, Hedda,” she said to the door. She leaned her ear against it. Just barely, muffled in there, was sniffling.

Jennifer went to the cash register and got the key to the bathroom. She unlocked the door and let herself in. “Hey!” Hedda protested from behind the fluffy white toilet tissue that soaked up her tears.

“Look, Hedda, I spent my entire high school career crying by myself in bathrooms. I’m not going to let you start doing it. It’s a terrible habit to get into. Now, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Did Max change his mind about taking you?”

“No. I just can’t go is all.”

“Since when?”

She sighed heavily and impatiently, but the tears rolled down her cheeks despite her attempt to appear annoyed. “Since my mom needed the money for the car insurance and we had to make some choices. Okay?” And she blew her nose heartily.

This was also something with which Jennifer had a great deal of experience. Single mom, a kid or two, no money…The specifics didn’t matter—they just didn’t have much. They lived paycheck to paycheck with very little left over. And Sylvia had to have
her
evenings out now and then….

“Oh, is that all?” Jennifer heard herself ask.

That brought a stunned look from behind the tissue. “Is that
all?
”

“So we’re just talking about a dress?”

“
Just
a dress,” Hedda said with sarcasm. “My mom talked about looking around for a used one. My luck, it would probably end up being one of the mean girls’ hand-me-downs. Wouldn’t that be cool.”

Jennifer reached out to her, using her thumb to wipe away a tear. “That might be easier to work around than you think. I might be able to come up with something.”

“
You?
You’re even less prom-appropriate than I am! I mean, no offense.”

She pursed her lips together and huffed. “While this is true, I also have a fairy godmother right next door. And a couple of saved-up bucks.”

“Swell, but I doubt I could ever repay you.”

“That’s the beauty of it—you wouldn’t necessarily have to. We could come up with a plan—you could help me out with taking care of Alice or something. The details aren’t important—you know?” She broke into a wide grin. “Friends are there for each other.”

“I don’t know,” Hedda said, blowing her nose a final time. “It seems like you’re always there for me, but there isn’t much I can do for you.”

“We’ll see about that. Are you free tonight after work?”

“Yes and no. I have to baby-sit at six so my mom can go to work.”

“Oh, not to worry—we can take care of little brother.” She winked at Hedda. “Don’t give up yet. We’ll get this handled.”

Hedda just looked at Jennifer, unbelieving. “Sure,” she said.

The minute Alex got to work, before the briefing even started, he told his partner everything Jennifer had told him, bringing her up to speed.

“We’re going to be forced to talk to Dobbs,” Paula said to Alex. “There’s no getting around it.”

Alex knew it. In his efforts to locate Barbara Noble he was coming up empty. There was no indication she was dead, but no indication she was alive, either. In trying to trace her movements, he’d discovered she had gone from one vacation home to another, from a spa to a cruise—all out of the country. A couple of phone calls revealed people who claimed to have seen her—but what if that wasn’t really her? Anyone could be a stand-in.

“I just hate to draw Dobbs’s attention back to Jennifer. I’d like to know what he wants from her first.”

“We have to call him before he calls us,” she said.

“You do it,” Alex said. “At least make it look like it’s a police thing, not a neighborhood thing or a romance thing.”

Paula peered at him. “So—it is a romance thing?”

“Well, I’m
trying!
There have been one or two little things clogging up the works! Like a possible murder.”

Paula put the business card from Dobbs on her knee and dialed her cell phone. “You have to admit, if that’s what happened, she has good reason to be scared.” She listened for a second. “Yeah, Dobbs, this is Detective Aiken from Las Vegas Metro. I want to run something by you, might be information you need. We have a C.I. who says he has it on good authority that Nick Noble killed his wife, Barbara.” She listened for a moment. “Well, how we got it was the C.I. claims it happened here in Vegas, at the hotel where he was staying. It’s pretty murky since we can’t get any confirmation from the hotel that the wife was in town, and we haven’t been able to confirm our efforts to locate her.” Again, she listened. “Well, I was told by the concierge of a spa in Costa Rica that she had been there, but she hadn’t been to that spa before, so they weren’t familiar with her. Coulda been anyone, huh? Huh? Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? No, sorry—I can’t give that up. But I don’t think this has anything to do with Noble—our C.I. was trying to trade us anything under the sun for a walk and I just thought I’d give you a call. Better to be safe than sorry, huh?”

She clicked off and looked at Alex. “Barbara Noble is not dead.”

That seemed to knock him back in his chair. He waited for more.

“I doubt Dobbs believes we have a confidential informant, but since he knows we know they’re watching Noble, he was able to verify that Barbara Noble is alive and kicking. But here’s the thing that’s a little strange—he didn’t ask me for any details of the alleged ‘death.’ Why do you suppose that is?”

“Because he knows all about it. Because he knows everyone who was there.”

“You’re going to have to tell Jennifer. And between the two of you, see if you can figure out why she’d be a threat to Noble, since we know she didn’t witness a crime. More important, let’s see if we can figure out what the FBI wants.”

Jennifer would have enlisted the assistance of Rose on the shopping trip in any case, but the issue of needing a car clinched the matter. Besides, the only shops Jennifer knew about were on the strip—Chanel, Armani, Brighten—and she couldn’t help quite
that
much, even if she had once frequented those shops. Jennifer needed some direction for shopping for prom dresses she could afford. And Rose had a black belt in shopping.

“Do you think she’s going to let you buy her a prom dress?” Rose asked.

“I think she’ll show sufficient resistance,” Jennifer said. “She’s really proud. So, worst-case scenario, we do a little shopping, a little trying on, see what’s good, and then go back for the dress later.”

“Ah,” Rose said. “Then we knock her over the head on prom night and pour her into it?”

“Whatever it takes,” she said.

“This is a strange thing you’re doing,” Rose pointed out, unable to resist letting her eyes rove over Jennifer’s attire.

“I know. I hate proms. What they do to girls is offensive to me. Everybody in that age group gets all overwrought at this time of year, panicked at the thought of going or not going. It isn’t really all that important, is it? Which is why, at the age of thirty, I am still thinking about the effect that proms had on me. And why I don’t want Hedda, who has a chance to put on a pretty dress and go, to miss it over a car insurance payment.”

Rose smiled at this. “You don’t want her to regret missing it at thirty.”

“Let’s just try to make this sort of fun. Okay?”

Jennifer phoned Alex at work to tell him what she was doing and to ask if he’d have time to drop by later. He promised to be waiting at her house when she finished the shopping trip. Then she and Rose gathered up Hedda and her little brother, Joey, and headed down the hill to the Henderson Mall. At seven years old, Joey wasn’t very excited about shopping, but it turned out that he was very easily bribed with a promise of ice cream at the end of the evening.

It was only a twenty-minute drive, but it was twenty long minutes as Hedda kept any trace of enthusiasm from her expression. She sat quiet and serious in the back seat next to her brother, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes downcast. “Did you bring any of the pictures of your favorites along?” Jennifer asked her. She shook her head. “Do you have anything in mind?” she tried. Again, Hedda shook her head. “Are you going to speak tonight, or just shake your head?” Hedda raised her eyes and shrugged.

As they were entering the mall, Hedda dragging behind, Jennifer whispered to Rose, “This is more what you’d expect from a girl in Hedda’s circumstance. Ornery. Surly.”

“She usually copes so well.”

“Too well, I suddenly realize,” Jennifer said.

The mood prevailed even as Jennifer and Rose gathered up dresses for Hedda to try on. Hedda went through the motions of fitting and rejecting them one at a time. Jennifer thought it was probably her pride—not wanting to take charity from anyone. Or possibly she feared her mother wouldn’t allow it in the end. And it started to look as though Hedda could get out of this arrangement by failing to find a suitable dress.

But then it happened, as it so frequently did—she was captivated and turned upside down by a slim pink sheath with feather straps. The moment Hedda slipped into it, pulling the straps up over her shoulders, she began to glow.

“Oh, my,” Rose said.

The dress was narrowly fitted and sank into a low V-shaped neckline with a very low back, also in a V, all lined in the same soft pink feathers.

“It reminds me of my boa,” Rose said.

Hedda’s tattoo peeked out from her lower back, just above the dress, and she smiled as she looked over her shoulder to spy it. There was a slit in the skirt on the left side, baring a shapely leg to the thigh. With just the right pair of high-heeled sandals, she’d be the dancing queen.

The color, with her creamy skin and coal-black hair, was stunning. Her burgundy highlights, which Jennifer sincerely hoped she would get rid of for the prom, even complemented the dress. And the feather straps were so unique—the dress didn’t even need jewelry. But Jennifer was already thinking about a small necklace and maybe a thin, sparkling bracelet.

Finding the dress was almost as painful for Hedda as it was exciting. Tears gathered in her eyes and Rose sprang at her with a tissue. “Don’t!” the older woman commanded. “It might water-spot!”

“I can’t do this,” Hedda said. “I just can’t.”

“Don’t be so silly!” Rose said. “Can’t you see it’s more fun for us than for you?”

“It is, Hedda!” Jennifer said.

“My mom probably won’t let this happen,” she said with a giant sniff. “She’s all pissed off about it, anyway. She thinks it is so selfish of me to want to do this. I didn’t even have the guts to tell her about this shopping trip. I said we were going to watch a movie at your…I mean
Louise’s
house.”