Frame and Fortune Read online

  I climbed in after her. “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, really concerned that all of the strength seemed to have left my feisty friend.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Ivy.” A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye, although it didn’t ruin her makeup. “The police say they have some very convincing evidence I did it, but they need more solid facts before they can hold me.”

  I let go of the wheel with one hand and held hers. I wasn’t always one for touching, but this warranted some reassurance. When I was a suspect a couple months ago, I had been questioned down at the station. Let me tell you, it was no picnic.

  “That last little warning was more of what I’ve been enduring all day,” Bella continued, squeezing my hand. “The sly innuendos, the outright disrespect. The man found dead was Trev Brewster. Another favorite son in town, second only to my ex. Everyone is convinced I ran off the first favorite after we got divorced, and now they think I’ve killed the second one. This is a nightmare. They are going to do everything in their power to put this one on me. I can’t help feeling someone is trying to take me down after all these years.”

  That did not sound good in any way, shape, or form. Cripes!

  Chapter Two

  I got Bella back to her house and parked her on the couch before rummaging around the quaint kitchen for some tea. My brain kept running over the things Bella had told me. Murder, evidence, sly innuendo…un-frickin’-believable.

  Sure, Bella could be snotty, even standoffish sometimes, and her prickly personality could certainly push people away. But I couldn’t see her killing someone. Unfortunately, I knew I was probably one of the few people in town who would believe only the best about her. Most of the town was still pissed over her “running the favorite son out of town,” as she put it.

  She’d been married to some former high school all-star football player years ago, but the history there was something we’d never really talked about. Every time the subject came up she closed down like a shop on Main at six in the evening.

  The ex had called her around Christmastime, as far as I could remember, but she still hadn’t told me what he’d wanted, or why he’d phoned her. I was almost afraid to ask, since her face turned an unbecoming shade of angry red every time his name came up. Actually, his name never came up because all she’d ever called him was “The Bastard.” From the little I knew, he was a true jerk-wad.

  The tea was in her meticulously (ooh, good word) arranged pantry, which was a far cry from my own food storage that resembled a grocery store gone wrong. Maybe someday I’d try to make sense out of the shelving in my own kitchen, but that was far, far in the future. When the teakettle shrilled behind me, I moved quickly to shut off the burner.

  Pouring the water into two cups, I made the tea and splashed some Bailey’s® Irish Cream into hers. Once back in the living room I put her mug on the coffee table, then took a seat next to her on the couch.

  “So what happened?” I gripped her hand with my free one, waiting for her answer while big fat tears began to fall from her eyes.

  “I’m not sure.” She blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs. “I mean, I walked into the salon this morning and went to get my appointment book out of the office, and that was when I noticed the door on that old walk-in refrigerator was ajar. It hasn’t been used since the caterer sold the shop to me.”

  “I didn’t even know there was a refrigerator back there.” I hadn’t been in the shop often except to get my lovely highlights in my brown hair. Yeah, I’d thought of having the whole color changed to avoid brown, but Bella had talked me down. I wouldn’t look very good as a solid blonde, with my complexion.

  “Not too many people do. Missy Frome, the caterer, had it put in when the shop was her base of operations. Then when she moved and sold the shop to me, we agreed she didn’t have to have it removed. I figured I could use it as storage or something. I’ve never actually put stuff in it, but it was there just in case.” She shuddered. “And now it might be the end of my freedom as I know it.” She sobbed, burying her face in her hands. I felt at a total loss. I was so not used to being the shoulder to cry on.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. And how incredibly lame was that? I was totally out of my depth here, if you couldn’t tell, but I could have at least done better than one measly word.

  Bella wiped a hand over her face, sniffing. I grieved for her. This was not going to do her business as the only women’s salon in town any good. And I couldn’t even imagine what this was going to do to her relationship with Officer Jared. Ben and I had endured some problems a few months ago, but at least he hadn’t arrested me and stuffed me in a jail cell.

  “No, it’s okay.” She blew her nose on a tissue from her pocket. “I just don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I didn’t kill Trev, but I don’t know how to prove it. You know no one’s going to believe me.” She swiped at her face again, but that still didn’t mess up any of her makeup. It was bizarre. I had to figure out what brand she used. Not that I wore makeup often, but this stuff must have been magic. I was simply thankful she threw the tissue away instead of putting it back in her pocket. Ew!

  “We’ll figure something out,” I said, truly believing it. Between me, Ben, and Bella, we had figured out several murders so far.

  Not that I wanted to get involved in another investigation, but this was Bella. I absolutely would not turn my back on the one friend who understood when it was time to hand over the brown. She’d also given me all of her clothes from the time when she had been heavy, while going through her divorce. Gotta love her. And because I loved, I had to help.

  I was confident we could figure this out between my nosiness, Bella’s stakes, and Ben’s private investigator license. But where to start? The first thing I needed to do was get the rest of the story. “So what happened after you found the door ajar?”

  Bella flipped her mahogany hair back over her shoulder. She’d taken it out of the ponytail as soon as we’d gotten into the car outside the police station. “Well, the phone rang before I had a chance to look inside. Then I got caught up in booking appointments for next week for that big wedding Suzy Claymore is having Saturday.” Bella pinched the bridge of her nose between two manicured fingertips, sighing. “Once I was off the phone, I walked over to the door, pulled it open, then reached around to turn on the light inside. When the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flicked on, I saw a guy lying face down on the floor. I started screaming, and I guess Midge next door heard, because she came running over, then held my hand while I called the police.”

  “And they didn’t say what they had on you?”

  “No, no one would tell me anything. They kept asking the same questions over and over again with different words: Did I know the deceased? Did I have a grudge against anyone? How did I know to open the door of an unused room and then miraculously find a dead body? Where was I last night?”

  “God, how awful,” I said, rubbing her back in small circles, wondering if what I thought of as her psychic powers had warned her at all. A couple of times, she’d had the weirdest intuitions about different things, but she absolutely denied she was psychic. I had my own ideas.

  Regardless, in the months I’d known Bella, she was the one unflappable soul I’d met here. This was too horrid for words. “I think we should call Ben and have him get in touch with his friend Dennis at the police department to see what he can find out about the investigation.”

  “That would be great, Ivy. Do you mind if I go lie down in bed with a cold washcloth while you call? I can’t seem to shake this headache.” Her skin was drawn and pale under her foundation.

  I grabbed her arm to gently help her off the couch. “I don’t mind at all. I’ll hang out here for a while. That way you can get some rest away from anyone who comes to harass you. Lord knows they’re all glued to their CBs and police scanners around here. I’ll also use the time to see if I can’t get Ben to find out what on earth the police have on you. Something must be going on to
make them so confident, even if it’s not enough to hold you.” Her eyes started tearing up again. “You just go rest,” I finished lamely. Dang it! When would I ever learn to keep my sneaker out of my mouth?

  “Thanks so much.” She left the living room, heading toward the back of her house. Looking over her shoulder at me halfway down the hall, she said, “I’m not sure I could do this without you. It means a lot to me that you believe I had nothing to do with the murder. I bet a bunch of the people in this town are going to be foaming at the mouth to frame me with this because they think it’s what I deserve. I won’t have much if I don’t get this solved and pronto.”

  That was nothing like the brash, brazen Bella I was used to. She could—and did—stand up to anything that came her way. But this time she seemed so defeated. I couldn’t help but remember feeling the same way after Tarrin was killed at a lingerie party and I was blamed.

  Despite that, it was still eerie how close her words matched my thoughts from earlier. I was back to the psychic thing again, but Bella always said if she were psychic she would be on the lottery numbers so fast my pretty head of highlights would spin.

  After Bella left, I made quick work of calling Ben, my boyfriend—if it was still appropriate to use that word when a woman was twenty-five and said boyfriend was twenty-eight. I was forced to leave a message, but I enjoyed his smooth voice while he told me he wasn’t available.

  As I cleaned up the already tidy kitchen, waiting for his return phone call, I let my mind wander. Who knew how long it would be before the vultures started circling? In the meantime I had other problems hanging on the fringe of my mind. My dad had started to emit noises about Ben making an honest woman out of me and changing the moniker (fabulous word! I lived for big words) boyfriend to husband. Apparently now that the old man was married, he thought Ben should take the plunge, too. I was so not ready for that. Heck, Ben and I hadn’t even talked about it.

  My dad was back to seriously trying to interfere with all aspects of my life. He left messages on my answering machine, threatening to corner Ben if I didn’t say something soon. Like I needed that kind of pressure.

  Honestly, I didn’t even know if I would want to live with Ben yet. He had this couch that was literally held together by duct tape. Which, for a bachelor, wasn’t a problem. The problem lay in the fact that he thought it was the height of fashion and I knew it was trash.

  Worse, though, my dad was now stepping up his progress on corrupting my relationship with Ben. He wanted to force Ben to move beyond where we were now. Take the other night, for instance. I went over to Ben’s apartment, where candlelight illuminated the small coffee table set for two, conveniently located near his ugly but very comfortable couch. I was ready for some yummy pasta and hot monkey love. Needless to say, I barely got to eat my pasta before my dad started calling every two minutes.

  I made it through the first two or three phone calls with Ben’s hands in places best left to your imagination. My dad must have gotten frustrated with me telling him my cell was dropping his calls because Ben’s phone started ringing. Then my dad’s voice came over the answering machine like the proverbial bucket of cold water.

  “Ivy,” he’d said in his booming voice as I tried to drown him out with a particularly effective moan. “I hope you’re not over at this man’s house giving him your body without some kind of commitment. I taught you to value yourself more than that. Remember the cow and free milk.” He kept rambling until finally, blessedly, the machine cut him off, but not before the mood was totally ruined.

  I mooed, trying to get things back on track, but Ben said he couldn’t do it. Damn. I’d so badly wanted “it.”

  Anyway, I dialed Ben’s number again, now, not willing to wait for a call back. I envisioned his sexy shoulders propped back on the duct-taped couch as his deep voice shot through the phone and straight down my spine to my private parts.

  “Hey, Ivy,” he said. “Any more great animal noises for me? Think maybe you can whinny like a horse?”

  “You know what? Don’t go there.”

  He chuckled. My mind conjured his twinkling green eyes, his spiky hair, that sexy as sin dimple I dipped my tongue in every chance I got. Okay, getting—and staying—mad was not going to happen this time. Besides, it was kind of funny once I’d had a little distance.

  “All right, that can be your one freebie, but any more animal references and you’ll be squealing like a pig.”

  “Got it. So to what do I owe the pleasure of your voice in my ear?”

  I got down to business then. I couldn’t hear weeping coming from Bella’s bedroom, but my fertile imagination gave her tears that puddled on her satin comforter as I poured out the story of picking her up from the police station.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” my knight in tarnished armor said.

  “You live a block away, what’s going to take you ten minutes?”

  “Well, if you want the whole town to see me in all my naked glory, I’ll sprint over right now. If not, I need to get dressed before making the trip. I just got out of the shower.”

  I choked—literally choked—on my tongue as it fought with the saliva pooling in my mouth. I heard the distinct click of the phone as he hung up, leaving me with ten minutes to fantasize about the naked body I’d fondled many a time to my delight and his.

  Chapter Three

  Bella’s house was overly neat, which was really not surprising. But after already tidying up the kitchen it left me with a whole lot of nothing to do during those ten minutes while I waited for Ben to move his cute rear end over there. I fantasized the whole time I put away magazines and straightened the pillows that were already straight.

  The doorbell rang before my time was up. I whipped open the door, fully prepared to get in my kissing quotient before we got down to the business of figuring out what had really happened to Trev Brewster.

  But I almost locked lips with a very miserable-looking Officer Jared. His usually handsome, smiling face was drawn and pale. The hair that always looked so shiny and soft appeared flat and dull. His eyes were bloodshot. Not a good look for him at all.

  Once I had heard him talk about himself in the third person. At the time it had made me laugh, asking Ben if he did the same thing. Now, I almost asked if Officer Jared was sad, to lighten his mood. But I stopped myself within a breath of uttering the words. He wasn’t going to find it funny.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked, keeping the door open wide enough to frame my biggie-sized body, but not leaving enough space for him to think he was getting inside.

  “I heard you brought Bella home.” He held his black-brimmed police issue hat in his hands, running it around and around in a circle while keeping his eyes trained on the motion. My heart went out to him, but I knew Bella wasn’t going to want him inside even if she was asleep.

  “Yes.” I kept my answer short, hoping Ben would get here soon. He and Jared had gone to school together, so I felt Ben could handle Jared better than I could. For all the couples’ things we’d done with Jared and Bella, I still didn’t know him that well.

  He looked up at me from under dark lashes. I was surprised to see a sheen of what I thought were tears over his eyes. He blinked before any water could fall, straightening his broad shoulders and running one of his hands over his wavy hair. “You’re not going to let me in, are you?”

  How to answer that? Confrontation and I were not friends, in case this is your first time with me. I could barely stand up for myself some days; how was I going to keep this big policeman out of the house if he really wanted in?

  But I tried. “No, I’m really sorry. I can’t?” Stupid lilting at the end of the sentence that showed my hesitation! I cleared my throat and tried again. “I can’t, Jared. I don’t think now is a good time. Bella’s lying down for a little bit, and Ben should be here soon.”

  He rose up on his toes, peeking over my shoulder.

  “You’re not going to see her. She really is in bed. I wouldn�
�t lie to you.”

  His whole frame seemed to sag in on itself. The hat was turning again, nearly mesmerizing me. I shook my head to clear it, then started to close the door. There was nothing more to say, as far as I was concerned.

  His hand shot out, startling me. He blocked me from closing the door, his eyes hooded, and his whole body bristling with emotion I could literally feel radiating from him. I’ll admit I was a little bit scared—make that a lot scared—until Ben came up behind Jared, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “What’s up, man?” Ben said to Jared, but kept his eyes on me, cocking an eyebrow.

  I hadn’t had time to tell Ben about Jared being the chief cuffer when Bella was arrested. I prayed he wouldn’t invite the man in not knowing what was going on. I attempted mental telepathy, though that had never worked before. Surprisingly it seemed to this time. Either that or Ben was very astute. Yeah, I’d go with that, too.

  Regardless, Jared turned toward Ben and told him, “Take care of both of them. I don’t know what’s going on yet, but I will. Then I’ll be back to talk to Bella when she wakes up. Make sure she knows I won’t take no for an answer, and I won’t ask twice.” With that he walked away.

  In the far back of the house I heard wailing, so I ran away from the man of my dreams to the woman who needed me right now.

  I brought Bella tissues before turning on the shower for her. After retrieving her bathrobe, I left her to soap up and wash off the smell of jail. I figured I had about thirty minutes alone with Ben. And I could do a lot of damage in that short span.

  Trotting back into the living room, I feasted my eyes on my own personal wet dream in the flesh. His gold-tipped brown hair stood up in spikes, enticing my fingers to play. His shirt was buttoned wrong, which showed me he’d really thrown himself together to get over here fast. Sigh. How can you go wrong with a man who haphazardly dresses to be near you as soon as possible?

  He took one quick look at me, scanned the front room in a split second, then swooped me into his arms. Those full lips I loved to lick settled on mine in a heartbeat. My world went up in a haze of lust. If there was a better kisser in all the world, I wouldn’t be able to stand meeting him.