Heart of Gold - B.J. Daniels Page 0,91
to make Greg a good wife,” Amanda said, all smiles.
“You sent me a dead mouse.”
She flinched. “I shouldn’t have done that either. I was upset.”
“Were you also upset when you put eye drops in Greg’s and my chocolate mousse that made us deathly sick?”
”I regret doing that as well. I borrowed Greg’s eye drops from his suit pocket when he went to talk to those other people. I was upset and jealous at lunch that day and I’d had too much to drink.”
“Not an excuse,” Charlie snapped. It was all she could do not to walk out of here and not look back. But she remembered Tara was involved in this wedding now. She couldn’t abandon her. She’d go through with the wedding but then that was it.
“Please don’t back out on me. I’ll beg. Is that what you want?”
“No.” Charlie didn’t want begging. Still the words were hard to say. “I won’t back out.” Only because she was trapped.
“Thank you so much.” Amanda threw her arms around her, hugging her so tightly Charlie couldn’t breathe.
She wiggled free and gulped down the rest of her wine. “But after this...”
“I won’t give you any more trouble. Did you forget? I’m quitting as office manager and starting my own business at home. Maybe the next office manager will like you better.”
Charlie shook her head as she put down her empty wineglass and excused herself, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll see you at the rehearsal.”
SHEP DROPPED THEIR bags off in their room. He had no idea what would happen next with him and Charlie. They couldn’t move forward until Lacey was found and stopped from whatever she had planned. The odds that Lacey had killed her sister in a fit of jealousy were still good. He couldn’t bear the thought that they might never know for certain who the killer was. He wasn’t sure Charlie could live with that uncertainty.
He was trying to find her when he walked by the lounge. A breaking news alert on the television behind the bar caught his attention. He stopped cold as he recognized the face even before he saw the name on the screen.
Jason Harper?
Hurriedly stepping into the bar, he pointed at the television and asked, “Can you turn that up?” The anchor was talking about a hit-and-run accident in Bozeman that took the life of an employee at a local gaming company.
“You know the guy?” the bartender asked.
Shep nodded. According to the story, the police were looking into the accident. Area surveillance cameras had caught a dark SUV plowing into Harper when he came out of a local business and was crossing the street to his vehicle. The SUV was later found abandoned. Police say it had been stolen earlier that day from a south side residence. The news program cut to another story.
“Bummer,” the bartender said, shaking his head. “What are the chances someone stole a car and accidently ran this guy over? Probably some kids out for a joyride.”
Shep wasn’t buying that the driver of that car had been some kid on a joyride. Especially considering that the dead man was Daniel’s roommate and had been privately investigating Lindy Parker’s murder.
He pulled out his phone as he stepped away from the bar. It took a few minutes before Daniel came on the line. Shep introduced himself quickly as a friend of Jason’s from Billings. He wasn’t sure the ruse would work, but he didn’t think Jason and Daniel had been so close that they knew all of each others friends. “I just heard the news.”
“Everyone here is in shock. It’s his day off. He said he had some things to do... I still can’t believe it.”
“This is way off in left field, but Jason told me he was looking into some old murder case involving a girl in Bozeman fifteen years ago. You don’t think...”
“Whoa,” Daniel said. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I just heard he’d done that. Have you met his girlfriend? I think she’s the one who put him up to it.”
“His girlfriend? He did mention a blonde.”
“Yeah, that’s her. Jason told me she was freaky, freaky scary. She was obsessed with death.”
Lacey? “What was her name?”
“I never met her so I don’t know her name and he never mentioned it. I saw her once waiting for him outside of work. A nice-looking blonde.”
“I might mention her to the cops,” Shep said. “Or maybe you already have?”
“You’re right. I should.”
Shep quickly got off the line, more determined than ever to