LITMIR.BIZ

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refused the body, said his examiner determined the death accidental and he wasn’t going to do an autopsy. There’s some history between the guy and Coop—they argued. I think they used to work together, but Coop didn’t want to talk about it.”

      Carlotta waved her hands to dismiss the details about Coop—who cared? “Is there going to be an autopsy or not?”

      “Not, from what I could tell. We had to leave the body there because we had another run, but we picked it back up a couple of hours later.”

      No autopsy. She went limp with relief.

      “I’ll be late again tonight,” he said. “Weekends seem to be a popular time to die. Don’t wait on me for dinner.”

      “Okay,” she said, but he was already gone. Another glance at the clock had her jogging into the bathroom for a quick dip in and out of the shower before the water even had time to warm up. As she toweled off, her mind raced ahead to the things she had to do today and suddenly, the events of last night came rushing back full force. Angela Ashford was dead. And Peter Ashford was behaving suspiciously.

      Before her thoughts became paralyzing, she pushed them away and forced herself through her morning routine at lightning speed, pulling a red jersey DKNY “emergency” dress from her closet. A gray cashmere shrug would pass for a jacket and trusty black Miu Miu slingbacks would get her through the day sans Band-Aids. She turned on the local-news radio station, and just as she was flossing her teeth, there was mention of Angela’s death.

      “A Buckhead woman, Angela Ashford, was found drowned in her home pool yesterday. Alcohol is believed to have been involved. In other news…”

      Carlotta paused in her flossing. Two sentences? Angela’s life and death had been acknowledged in two lousy sentences. She was here, now she’s gone, with the implication that her death had been her own darned fault. The woman was no saint, but still, it hardly seemed fair.

      But life wasn’t fair. Hadn’t that lesson been her own constant companion over the past ten years?

      

      Traffic was surprisingly light, so she wasn’t as late as she might have been when she crashed through the door and tossed her belongings into a locker in the break room. Still, Lindy Russell glared at her as she slid into place behind an available counter and offered to assist a customer. Carlotta moved like a zombie through the morning hours. Her department was busy, even for a Saturday, but everywhere she turned, she pictured Angela Ashford’s body lying next to the pool, with water streaming from clothes that she had bought here. She felt detached from what she was doing, as if she were floating above her own body. She kept telling herself that Angela’s death being ruled an accident was a good thing, but her conscience nagged at her.

      Michael appeared midday, his eyes glittering and wide. “Did you hear about Angela Ashford?”

      “I heard,” she offered noncommittally.

      “She drowned,” he barreled ahead, “in her own pool. Can you believe it?”

      “No,” she replied honestly.

      “After that drunken scene that she caused yesterday, I’m not surprised that she fell in. Sad, though.”

      “Yes, it is.”

      He leaned in close. “I have a friend who works in a Botox clinic on Piedmont. She said that Angela was a patient there and always showed up drunk on her ass. Guess it was only a matter of time before she hurt herself or someone else.”

      Carlotta chewed on her lip. Everyone seemed eager to believe that Angela had brought her untimely death upon herself. It did seem like the simplest, neatest explanation…but was it true? She hadn’t particularly liked the woman, but it was starting to dawn on her that she was in a peculiar position to ensure that Angela’s death received more than a passing glance.

      Michael frowned. “Are you okay?”

      Carlotta managed a nod. “It’s just such a shame, to die that way. She was so young and so beautiful.”

      “That’s pretty big of you considering that yesterday the woman tried to kill you.”

      “You’re exaggerating, don’t you think?”

      “No,” he said flatly. “I still think you should have filed an assault charge. Your neck is bruised where she tried to choke you.”

      She covered her neck with her hand. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

      “No,” he agreed, then sighed dramatically. “She’s gone, along with her big fat commissions. Poor you.”

      “Yeah,” she said, trying to mimic his light tone.

      “Of course, there’s always her husband,” he said, wagging his eyebrows. “Not to be tacky, but any chance that you’ll hook up with the grieving widower, or are you two really just friends?”

      I thought you were my friend, Peter had said. But what if he was playing her so that she would protect him instead of revealing that he might have had a motive for killing his wife?

      But how could she report the facts without implicating herself?

      “Hey, I was only joking,” Michael said.

      She exhaled and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s not you. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

      “Hmm. Guilty pleasure or guilty conscience?”

      She flushed under his gaze and murmured, “I need to find an aspirin.”

      “Don’t dawdle,” Michael said softly. “Lindy is watching your every move.”

      With his threat ringing in her aching head, Carlotta moved through the rest of her shift fighting bouts of paralyzing paranoia. If she went to Detective Terry with details about Angela and Peter’s relationship, things were bound to get a lot worse for her, and she couldn’t afford to draw more negative attention to herself at work.

      No, she decided as she clocked out and made her way toward the mall, she would leave Angela Ashford’s death to the professionals.

      And for now, she’d try not to think about the fact that Peter, the love of her life, was now a single man, and what that might mean to her life.

      She wove her way through the Saturday crowds, dodging packs of suburban kids and in-town kids making their rounds, young marrieds on their way to the cinema, and pathetic people like her who had convinced themselves that an evening of window-shopping was better than a date.

      With her new autograph book in mind, she decided to cruise by the Sunglass Hut to see if anyone famous was trying on the new Maui Jim sunglasses. Next to Blue Pointe restaurant in Buckhead and the Fulton County Courthouse, it was the best place in Atlanta for celebrity sightings.

      She had just sidestepped a teenage couple who only had eyes for each other when the back of her neck prickled and she was overcome with the feeling that someone was watching her. She swallowed hard and tried to shake the eerie feeling, chalking it up to the events of the previous day and her frayed nerves. But as she continued walking, the feeling grew stronger. Fighting panic, she turned into the sunglass shop. From the display case, she picked up a pair of retro Ray Ban aviators and jammed them on her face, then adjusted the mirror to see behind her.

      There…a few feet back in the mall stood a man, his torso and face obscured by a newspaper—a cartoonish ruse. She could tell little from the jeans-clad legs other than that he was a big man. Her pulse spiked. One of Wesley’s thugs, following her? Maybe planning to jump her on her way to her car and take her cash?

      Fear coalesced into anger. She punched 911 into her cell phone, then whipped off the sunglasses and charged out into the mall and up to the man, wielding the phone like a weapon, her thumb over the Send button. “I’m onto you, mister, and I’m going to call the police.”

      The corner of the newspaper came down, revealing Detective Jack Terry wearing a dry smile. “I

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