There Goes the Groom (7 page)

What if some of her supporters saw the news story about her and pulled their backing?

Worry darkened Kim’s face as she chewed on her bottom lip, a nervous habit she’d seen her sister do countless times before.

When she’d had to bail her out of trouble.

“You really are all right?” Kim asked.

Marci nodded, then realized Kim’s eyes were glued to the road so she mumbled yes.  “I’m sorry, Kim.”

“Sorry?” Kim said, with an angry shake of her head. “Marci, please tell me you didn’t have any idea what Paul was doing.”

Marci wrung her hands together.  “You honestly think I would cheat those people out of their money.” That really hurt.

“I didn’t say that,” Kim said, although her voice cracked as if she doubts had crept in.

The familiar tone -- Kim being the good twin and always doing the right thing -- echoed in her voice.

The Kim she could never live up to.

Marci’s anger sprouted. “So you automatically assume Paul is guilty?”

Kim’s eyes blazed as she swung her head toward her.  “Don’t tell me you’re going to defend him. He left you at the altar and ran from the cops.”

“Maybe he has an explanation,” Marci said, although she hadn’t slept all night for wondering what that explanation could possibly be.

And if Paul was exactly what Detective Muller had said he was – a cheat and a liar.

Of course, she didn’t want to admit that to Kim.

But her insecurities mounted. Had Paul ever loved her?

Was she such a big fat fool that he could have duped her?

“Good heavens, Marci,” Kim muttered.  “If he was innocent, he would have stayed and defended himself. He would have protected you instead of leaving you holding the bag.”

Marci winced and turned to look out the window.

A tense heartbeat passed, then Kim sighed.  “You didn’t tell the police anything, did you? I mean, you know not to talk without a lawyer.”

“I didn’t need a lawyer,” Marci said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Good grief, you did talk.” Kim moaned.

“I told the truth,” Marci said, her chest pounding.

Kim wove through traffic, then turned down Peachtree toward Marci’s condo. “For God’s sake, I tried to bail you out last night but they wouldn’t let me. But I thought you’d have enough sense to keep your mouth closed and request a lawyer.”

Marci folded her arms and clamped her mouth shut.  She knew Kim was just worried about her, and she’d vowed never to put her in a spot like this, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been falsely arrested.

Kim veered into her condo complex, and Marci groaned at the sight of the news vans outside the building.  

“How did they know I was coming home now?” Marci muttered.

“They’ve had someone camped there all night waiting for your story.”

“Well, then I’ll give it to them,” Marci said as she reached for the door handle.

“No, you won’t.” Kim gripped her arm to stop her.  “Austin is waiting to help us get in. You’d better not say a word until we get you an attorney.”

“But I can’t let all my sweet customers think I stole their money. The press can tell them that.”

“Marci,” Kim said, her eyes narrowed. “They can also twist everything you say and find some way to hang this crime on you. So I’m warning you, keep your mouth closed for once.”

Tears stung Marci’s eyes. Did her sister really think she was so stupid?

Austin wove through the reporters, fending them off with a terse “no comment”, then appeared at her door. Kim jumped out, and she and Austin surrounded Marci, herding her toward the entrance to her unit.

The reporters flocked around them, pummeling her with questions.

“Do you know where Paul Pendergrass is?”

“Did you know he was stealing money from people?”

“Did you help him escape?”

Marci bit her tongue. If she’d helped him escape, she wouldn’t have spent the night in the pokey by herself!

Austin threw up an arm to ward them off as they rushed up the steps to her second floor apartment. Two of the blasted reporters trailed them like rabid dogs, but Kim and Austin managed to keep them at bay while Austin unlocked her door.

Marci practically fell inside from Kim’s push, then Austin slammed the door in the vulture’s faces. But instead of relief, her stomach lurched.

Someone had broken into her apartment and ransacked it. The couch cushions were scattered on the floor, the cabinets and drawers wide open, papers littering the floor as if they’d been pawed through.

Then she glanced inside her bedroom and moaned.  The destruction in there was even worse.

Her clothes had been rifled through, underwear hanging from the drawers, the bed tousled, her satin comforter stripped and tossed on the floor, the mattress askew.

Who had been here? And what had they been looking for?

*~*~*~*

A smile curved his mouth. Marci Turner was out of jail.  It looked as if her twin and her husband had bailed her out.

He slid deeper into the seat of his car and focused his camera on her apartment as she entered. The cameras he’d installed while she’d wrestled on that cot in her cell last night would come in handy.

He would know everything little Miss Turner did. Every conversation she had. Every phone call. Every visitor.

And when she connected with Pendergrass – which he had no doubt she would – he’d follow her pretty ass right to the man.

Then he’d have them both right where he wanted them.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Marci’s emotions pingponged like a yoyo.  Fear mingled with the sickening feeling of being violated.

“Who did this?” Kim whispered.

“The cops probably searched the place,” Austin said.

The cops?

Detective Muller’s handsome, dark-stubbled face flashed in her mind. Sexy or not, having a badge didn’t give him the right to paw through her house and tear it up like an animal.

She saw a red negligee hanging over the side of her chest of drawers and grimaced. He certainly had no right to look through her underwear.

Furious, she glanced around for her purse and cell phone. “Did you get my things from the country club, Kim?”

Kim averted her eyes. “I’m afraid the police took them, sis.”

“They took my purse?” Granted it was a knockoff Luis Viton but she’d paid fifty dollars for it! 

“Yes,” Kim said.  “When I went back to the bridal room, they were searching through your wallet.”

So they’d found her emergency stash of extra large neon condoms. Detective Muller probably got a real kick out of that.

“And my phone?”

“The phone, too,” Kim said. “They said they had to log it into evidence.”

Evidence to pin a crime on her. One she hadn’t committed.

Did that irritating mule-headed cop even care if she was innocent? Or did he just get his kicks my manhandling and locking up women?

What had his mama done to him to make him hate women so much?

His nana had her money stolen, a little voice reminded her.

Well, hell, so he
was
protective of one female. Maybe he only cared about women once they hit their golden years…

Furious, Marci stormed through the apartment taking note of everything that had been tossed and torn apart.  Her underwear was scattered on the floor, silk blouses bunched in piles, her waitress uniform in shreds. Her other clothes had been ripped from hangars, some of them turned inside out as if someone had been searching for something sewn inside the damn hems.

And her shoes – she’d carefully organized, stored and stacked them according to season, color and style.

Every box had been opened, the shoes dumped on the floor, the sling backs mixed with the pumps, the pumps throw in with the stilettos. One red heel thrown in with a black sandal. Her pink flats in two separate boxes.

A travesty.

And the worst, someone had slashed her mattress so the stuffing was pouring out like chicken feathers.

Kim moved up behind her.   “I’m so sorry, Marci.”

“Give me your phone, Kim,” Marci said.

“Now, sis,” Kim started.  “Take a deep breath.”

Marci held out her hand, palm up. “Your. Phone. Now.”

Kim tugged her cell phone from her handbag and slid into her hand. “Please, sis, I know you’re upset, but you need to be careful. You don’t want that detective to haul you back in to jail.”

Marci ignored her and stabbed the number for the police department. Seconds later, she asked to be put through to Detective Muller.

“Miss Turner,” the man said in that gruff voice that probably charmed some women out of their pants. “Did you call to confess?”

“No. I called to ask you why you tore my apartment apart. Did you get some sick pleasure out of scattering my underwear across the floor?”

A tense second passed, then Detective Muller cleared his throat. “Your apartment was searched, but I was there. Your things were
not
torn apart.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Marci shouted. “I’m standing here looking at my clothes and shoes. You left my mattress on the floor.  And someone ripped it open with a knife.”

Another tense second passed then Detective Muller sighed. “Are you alone?”

“No, my sister and brother-in-law are here.”

“Stay put,” he said. “And don’t touch anything. I’ll be right over.”

“No— ”

But the detective didn’t wait. He hung up on her!

Crap! She just wanted to vent her rage. She didn’t want the blasted man to come over!

*~*~*~*

Detective Muller’s pulse clamored as he headed to his car.   Unless Marci was exaggerating, which was entirely possible  since he’d pegged her as a drama queen early in his investigation,  someone had broken into her place after the police had searched it. Granted the police had made a bit of a mess but slashing mattresses hadn’t been part of the process.

Of course if they’d been looking at a junkie they would have.

Although they had felt underneath the mattress to see if there were any unusual lumps or seams in case Marci had stashed money inside, but hadn’t noticed anything worthy of further scrutiny.

He punched in Georgia’s number as he peeled from the parking lot and headed toward Marci’s apartment.  “Georgia, did ballistics find anything unusual on those bullets?”

“No,” she said.  “Came from a .38 but didn’t match any recent crimes we have in the system.”

He muttered something low in his throat.  “I’m headed to Marci Turner’s apartment.” He explained about her phone call.  “Could be the shooter so I’m going to have a crime unit search for prints.”

“Yeah, or it could be one of the hundreds of people Pendergrass conned. Maybe they thought Marci hid some of their money in her apartment.”

“Or maybe they’re like us. They think she knows where Pendergrass went and want the information so they can find him,” Cade said. 

Georgia chuckled. “You know if we wait long enough, maybe a group of the old timers will track him down and do our jobs for us.”

Cade laughed as he imagined the seniors beating Pendergrass with their canes and walkers. “Would serve him right.”

“You gonna stake out her place tonight?” Georgia asked.

Cade grimaced. “Yes, I have to.”

“Do you need some company?” She lowered her voice. “Don’t want her hypnotizing you with that little tush of hers so you forget why you’re there.”

Little? Hmm. An image of Marci’s sexy tush flashed in his mind. It was actually plush and curvy which he found a whole lot sexier than those girls that ate like rabbits and had bodies of bones.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve been chasing Pendergrass too long to let anything distract me from finding him.”

Even the voluptuous Marci Turner.

“Good. Then I’ll keep going down the list of victims.  So far, three of the women I’ve talked to still believe Pendergrass is a sweetheart. That he’s not only innocent, but that he’s a saint who’d saved them from a tragic nursing home and ensured them they’ll live their golden years sipping martinis. Another vic’s husband’s hands are too far gone with arthritis to hold a gun steady, and I talked to one ex who said it was his wife’s money and that she deserved to lose it for thinking she was a cougar and flirting with a younger man.”

Cade shook his head and turned off Peachtree Street into Marci’s apartment complex. Most of the apartments in Midtown had security, but hers was an older building that looked as if it needed repairs and the only security was a set of cameras that the police discovered hadn’t worked in a decade.

Of course, she lived here on her waitressing salary.

No wonder she’d jumped at whatever deal Pendergrass had offered.

Even marriage if it she’d thought it meant that Buckhead mansion came with it.

He parked in between an SUV and her sister’s mini-van, then climbed out and strode toward the metal staircase leading to her apartment. Overgrown bushes crowded the corner by the staircase, making him antsy. Why the fool woman had chosen a back unit in the corner escaped him.

There were at least a dozen places for rapists and stalkers to hide.

He automatically scanned the area, senses honed for anything out of place. A dog barked somewhere nearby, and music blared from a beat-up Chevy in the parking lot. Frowning, he climbed the steps, his shoes clacking on the cheap metal steps.

A man’s whistle echoed below him, and he glanced down and spotted someone in a hoody heading around the corner, the tip of a cigarette butt glowing.

Assuming it was a teen sneaking a smoke, he checked his weapon, tugging his jacket over it, then knocked on Marci’s door. The blinds on the front door were wide open, giving anyone who wanted to spy on her the perfect opportunity. Marci’s brother-in law was pacing, his cell phone to his ear.

He knocked again, and a second later an eyeball peered through the door, then the door opened. Kim stood on other side, hands on her hips, her eyes pinning him with contempt.  “I told her not to call you.”

“If someone broke in, she needed to report it,” he said. “Or have you forgotten that someone shot at your sister and her fiancé last night?”