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again. “If it’s an expensive cigar, it couldn’t be that many customers.”

      “Only a handful,” June confirmed.

      Carlotta’s heart began to beat faster, partly due to the nicotine infusion, partly due to the feeling that she was onto something. She puffed on the cigar, then exhaled in a frustrated sigh. “Are you going to help me?”

      June studied her for a few seconds, then leaned forward and used her cigar to gesture to the people around them. “Carlotta, most of the guys in here are decent fellas who come to hang out because their wives don’t want cigar smoke stinkin’ up the living-room curtains. But some of my customers—well, they aren’t the nicest people. Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

      Carlotta swallowed a mouthful of the martini, then shook her head against the sting of alcohol. “No. But this feels…necessary.” Besides, she was starting to get used to having “not nice” people in her life: a fugitive father, lurking loan sharks, a detestable detective.

      June lifted her glass. “Fair enough, darlin’. I’ll give you what you want. But you’d better watch your step. If your suspicions are correct, one dead girl is plenty enough.”

      21

      “Mrs. Susan Harroway,” Carlotta read from the napkin on which she’d written the names that June Moody had given to her the night before, after the cigars had been smoked and another round of martinis exhausted.

      “Harroway is an old Atlanta name,” Hannah said, reclining on Carlotta’s bed in full goth getup and fingering the silver barbell piercing her tongue. “I don’t know a Susan in particular, but I’ve catered parties for various Harroways.”

      “I’ll ask Michael at the store. Maybe he’ll know something about her.” Carlotta worked her mouth from side to side. “But June told me the woman said the cigar was a gift, so that could mean her husband, her father, a brother.”

      “Or a boyfriend,” Hannah added.

      Carlotta frowned. “Not everyone cheats on their spouse.”

      “Sure they do, if they live long enough. Who else is on the list?”

      “Dr. Joseph Suarez. I looked him up in the phone book and he’s a plastic surgeon. His office is in Buckhead.”

      “A plastic surgeon in Buckhead? Ooh, big surprise.”

      “Michael mentioned that he had a friend who worked in a clinic where Angela got Botox injections. Maybe Dr. Suarez works there.”

      “Hmm. Next name?”

      “Bryan D’Angelo. June says he’s an attorney and I got the feeling that he’s a little shady.” She bit the end of her fingernail. “Maybe Liz Fischer knows him.”

      “Who’s that?”

      “Wes’s attorney,” she said dryly. She hated the thought of calling the woman. Liz’s history with Detective Terry made her even less palatable in Carlotta’s eyes.

      “Do you have a beef with Liz?”

      “She was my dad’s attorney, too.”

      “Oh?” Hannah’s voice rose in curiosity, probably, Carlotta presumed, because she rarely mentioned her father.

      “What about Dennis Lagerfeld?” Carlotta asked to redirect Hannah’s attention.

      Her friend squinted, as if the name was familiar.

      “His is the last name on the list. June said he used to be a professional athlete.”

      “Oh, right,” Hannah said, nodding. “Receiver for the Falcons, maybe ten years ago. Man, he was fucking gorgeous. I wonder if all that muscle has gone to fat.”

      “There’s no obvious connection to Angela.”

      “They could have met anywhere—at a party, at the club, at a day spa.”

      “Or he could be a client of Peter’s,” Carlotta murmured. Mashburn and Tully prided themselves on representing the investments of athletes and celebrities. Part of the reason she had first begun collecting autographs when she was a teenager was due to the access her father had once had to famous people.

      “So what if you find out that one of these people does have a connection to Angela Ashford? Are you going to confront them, Nancy Drew?”

      “I don’t know.” Carlotta sighed. “I’ll cross that bridge if I get there.”

      “Any news on whether there’s going to be an autopsy?”

      “No. I haven’t talked to Coop since the funeral.”

      “What, you need an excuse to talk to the hunky undertaker? Step aside and let me at him.”

      Carlotta smirked. “You just want to have sex in a coffin, don’t you?”

      “Doesn’t everyone?”

      “You need help, you know that?”

      Hannah smirked. “So have you heard from the grieving husband?”

      Carlotta laid the napkin on her nightstand. “He’s called a few times.” Six, to be exact. “But I haven’t answered.”

      “Did he leave messages?”

      “Just that he called and would like to talk to me.” In the last couple of messages, though, she’d detected a bit of desperation in Peter’s voice.

      “Are you going to call him?”

      “Probably,” she admitted. “Eventually.”

      Hannah held up a pack of menthol cigarettes. “Want a smoke?”

      “Yes,” Carlotta said, then moaned. “No. I have such a headache after smoking that cigar last night…of course, the martinis probably didn’t help.”

      “I can’t believe you didn’t take me with you.”

      “You were working.”

      “Still.”

      Carlotta smirked as she reached for a cigarette. “I’ll take you back sometime—you’d love it. Everyone there looked married.”

      Hannah clapped her hands. “This is great. I thought when you gave up the party-crashing, you were going mainstream on me. But then you kissed a married man, and now you’re smoking again!”

      “I can’t afford to start smoking again. I’m already broke, and do you know how much cigarettes cost these days?”

      “Yeah,” Hannah said holding up the box of cigarettes from which Carlotta had taken a smoke. “I kind of bought these. And for someone who’s always broke, you always seem to always have money to spend on clothes.”

      Carlotta looked at her closet that was too full for the double doors to close. Designer bags and shoes, belts and coats, dresses and jeans bulged past the door frames. She thought of the money from her pawned engagement ring that was rapidly dwindling. “Too bad I can’t sell some of this stuff.”

      “You can,” Hannah sang. “eBay.”

      “Under the rules of Wesley’s probation, we can’t have a computer in the house.”

      “Oh. Bummer.” Then Hannah brightened. “I know a place—Designer Consigner, in Little Five Points. They’ll take all this name-brand crap off your hands.”

      Carlotta frowned. “For how much?”

      “You set your price, and they add a percentage. You get paid when it sells, and you know this shit will sell, like, instantly.”

      Carlotta picked up the purse she’d carried last night—last season’s Coach, but still in prime condition. And she had at least two dozen more like it, all different brands. Even if she could

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