Jeopardy in High Heels (High Heels #12) - Gemma Halliday Page 0,55

her angle." She turned to me. "If Dog had a secret lover, that could open up a whole new motive for his murder."

I raised an eyebrow her way. "You think a secret lover killed him?"

She shrugged, pulling lip gloss out of her bag to reapply. "That letter sounded deep. Like whoever wrote it was really in love with him. What if she found out that he'd done something like, oh I don't know, cheat on her?" She sent me a pointed look.

I laughed. "Okay, yes. So far he's cheated on every woman in his life that we've met."

"So, it's not a stretch to say he might have done that to Secret Lover too."

I nodded. "Not a stretch at all. But who is Secret Lover?"

She pursed her lips together, blotting in the mirror. "I wish she'd signed the note."

"Well, it was poetic. Whoever wrote it could rhyme decently, anyway." I flipped the passenger visor down, checking my own makeup as I thought back to the wording. "Wasn't there something about love from above?"

"Maybe she's religious!" Dana said. "Maybe a pastor!"

I couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped me. "Doggy Z and a pastor?"

She frowned. "Yeah, probably not. Okay, what else did it say?"

I wished I'd had the forethought to take a photo of the note before Tina had whisked it away. "Wasn't there something about an old flame? Like an old flame never dies."

Dana swiveled to face me again. "Maddie, that's it! An old flame. One of his ex-wives!"

"It lives on in my heart," I said, remembering the line. "You could be right," I told her. "Maybe he did reunite with an ex."

"Maybe they rekindled their love, but then Dog cheated on her—"

"Again," I added.

"—right. Again. Which is one time too many, and she snaps and kills him."

"But just which she are we talking about?" I asked.

She sat back in her seat, nibbling on her lower lip as she thought about that one. "Of the three we met, Laura seemed the most broken up at his death."

I nodded. "True. She certainly talked about him as if she still cared."

"But if she'd just killed him, she could have been acting," Dana said, playing devil's advocate.

I shrugged. "All depends on how calculating she is." I paused. "But the other two exes could have been acting too. Pretending to hate Dog, when really at least one of them had been secretly seeing him."

Dana nodded. "Right! And remember how nervous Blakely seemed? It was almost as if she was afraid to spill a secret to us."

"Do you think maybe her secret was an affair with Dog?" I asked.

"The gym's just a few minutes from here," Dana pointed out. "Didn't Blakely say she practically lived there? We could go ask her."

Which did not seem in the least like minding my own business.

But…like Dana said, it was just a few minutes away. And I did have an hour before I needed to pick up the twins. And we did need to drive that direction to get my minivan again anyway. So…

"Okay, let's go see what Blakely has to say."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Dana pulled into the gym's lot and grabbed the last free parking spot. It was obviously prime hours for the Beverly Hills set, who made a career out of going to the gym, the spa, and then back home to tell their personal chef what to cook for dinner.

The bikini-clad receptionist at the front desk informed us that Caitlyn was teaching a Hularobics class. "You're in luck." She smiled. "There are a couple of spots left if you'd like to try it out and join in. They're all in Room C."

"Hularobics?" I asked Dana as we walked in the direction she'd indicated.

Dana just shrugged. "Maybe it's a good core workout?"

I recalled that core workouts were painful and involved a lot of sweating. Two things that weren't a good look on me.

The musical notes of "Tiny Bubbles" greeted us when we walked into Room C, followed by peals of laughter. A group of about 15 women in all shapes and sizes were dancing in a circle around a man seated on a mat playing a ukulele. He was wearing jeans and an orange Hawaiian shirt with large blue flowers printed on it. A multicolored lei was around his neck. He looked like an offspring of Don Ho.

Caitlyn was at the beginning of the conga-like line, stepping in time with the music and shaking her slender hips like a belly dancer. Blakely was behind her