“Don’t worry about it.” Dee picked up a chicken breast, then put it back on her plate. She hesitated. “I need to ask you something. It’s personal.” The dining area was devoid of other diners, but Dee still spoke in a low voice. “In the past when I was going through tough times, I saw a professional. You know . . . a therapist. I’ve been thinking that with everything being so chaotic in my life lately, it might help to talk to someone again. My L.A. therapist retired and I don’t want to do Zoom with a new person. I wondered if you know anyone in the area I could talk to.”
“I understand. You’ve been through so much. I get how it might help. Hmmm.” Elmira thought for a moment. “There is someone in Goldsgone.”
“Really?” Dee said, brightening.
“But she’s a sex therapist.”
“Oh,” Dee said, taken aback. “Did not expect that.”
Elmira took a slug of beer. “From what I hear, she’s got a busy practice. There’s not a lot to do around here, so you wanna get that right.”
Serena floated down the store’s main aisle to the café, stroller in front of her and gauzy, taupe maxiskirt wafting behind her. A tuft of blond hair peeking out from the young mom’s baby sling identified its occupant as baby Emmy, which meant Oscar was in the stroller.
“I have news,” Serena said in a singsongy voice, once she reached them. She took a seat at their table. “They dropped all charges against Marisa.”
“I’m not surprised,” Dee said. “Shawn and Michael’s murders have to be related. I don’t see how Marisa could have physically killed Shawn and dropped his body into our pool. Not without an accomplice. And she doesn’t seem to know or even like anyone around here.”
“Plus, she’s been in L.A. ever since she posted bail,” Serena said. “So she alibied out. That’s how you say it, isn’t it?”
“It’s one way.” Dee grimaced. “Something I never needed to know until the last few weeks.”
“Also,” Serena continued, “Marisa was able to prove her fingerprints were on Michael’s phone because she borrowed it to make a call when she stopped by his cabin to drop off all his physical materials after he fired Callan. Scripts and stuff. She’d left her phone at our house and wanted to call the Cateau Marmont, where she’d boarded her kitty, and yell at them because their live feed dropped out briefly. The manager confirmed Marisa screamed at her for ten minutes and she’s still traumatized by the call.”
“Well, Callan must be happy,” Elmira said. “He’s got his trusty assistant back.” Not a fan of Marisa’s, she injected a touch of sarcasm into her delivery.
A tiny hand emerged from Serena’s baby sling. Serena held out her index finger and Emmy clutched it, emitting happy coos. “Callan’s in a terrible mood. You know how having an assistant who would kill for him made him even hotter as an agent? It turns out that even though Marisa’s been cleared of the charges, the fact the police thought she might have killed for her boss made her the hottest assistant in Hollywood. She got a ton of job offers and quit working for Callan to be a VP of Development for a production company. Callan is super upset, because now he’ll have to grovel to her to sell his clients and projects. And you can bet she’s going to milk that.”
Dee couldn’t help but pick up on a hint of schadenfreude in Serena’s voice.
Elmira’s phone blared an alert, startling all three women, along with Oscar, who responded with a sharp bark to let them know he was on the job if needed. Elmira checked the message and her face clouded.
“There’s a fire in the woods above Little Valley Road.” Dee and Serena exchanged concerned looks. “That’s on both our ways home.”
Elmira stood up. “I gotta close up and put on my volunteer gear.” Her phone blared another alert. “ ‘Volunteers not needed, the inmate crew is there and has it under control,’ ” she read out loud. “The road is open,” she said to the others. “You best head home, to be safe.”
Dee and Serena took her advice, rushing to their cars. Dee let Serena exit first, and the charcuterie artist zoomed off in her hybrid SUV. Dee soon followed. She anxiously scanned the sky for flames as she grew closer to the fire’s location. About a mile ahead, she saw a plume of smoke shrink and dissipate, confirming the inmate crew’s success. Dee released a relieved breath and continued to drive.
She was about to pass the crew’s staging area, on the north side of the road, when a compact sedan pulled out in front of her. She couldn’t miss the license plate. Encased in a frame bedazzled with rows of sparkling crystals, it read JEWLR. The driver accelerated and roared off, disappearing around a bend in the road.
Dee took this in. She only knew of one jeweler in the area: Owen Mudd Jr. The same Owen she’d seen hurrying down the hill at the Golden on the night Michael’s cabin burned down. Could Owen be an arsonist? The thought chilled her. She’d genuinely liked the jewelry shop owner when they’d met. But being nice to potential customers didn’t rule out a dangerous and lethal secret he might be keeping. What if Michael had found out? And Shawn? He could have killed them both to save himself.
She wondered if she should share the scenario with Raul. She didn’t want to risk alienating her and Jeff’s law enforcement ally by tossing wild theories at him like a clueless true-crime armchair sleuth. I’ll run it by Jeff first, she thought as she pulled into the Golden’s parking area. It might be a case of the storyteller in me spinning out.
Dee got out of the car. She turned on the high-powered flashlight she’d taken to carrying at night and flashed it around the perimeter, making sure Stoney and company weren’t paying the Golden a visit. The motel appeared to be bear-free, and Dee was about to start toward her apartment, when the flashlight’s beam illuminated something sparkly attached to a leaf in the pool.
Dee bent down at the pool’s edge. She put her hand in the water and gently waved it and the leaf toward her until it was within reaching distance. She removed the leaf from the water and stared at the object lying on top of it: a fake nail painted a blinding orange with miniature gold rickrack painted on its tip. Dee knew exactly to whom the nail belonged: Verity “Yes-that-Donner” Gillespie.
Now, this, Dee thought triumphantly, is a clue.
She clutched the nail in the palm of her hand and traversed the short path to her front door. She was about to go inside, when she saw the shadow of a hooded figure.
“Jeff?” she called. “If you scare me again, I swear I’ll hurt you.”
There was no response. Heart racing, Dee beamed her flashlight at the woods. Suddenly a powerful shove sent her sprawling to the ground. The flashlight went flying; then Dee felt excruciating pain as an assailant brought down the force of it on the back of her head.
CHAPTER 29
After briefly passing out, Dee slowly came to. Feeling groggy and nauseous, she reached into her pocket for her phone, but it wasn’t there. Her head spun as she felt the ground around her, finally locating it. Dee heard a loud, repetitive sound and tried to place it. After a minute or so, she realized it was Nugget, barking with a furious urgency. She picked up her phone and tried typing in her password. After several failed attempts, she rested it on her chest and closed her eyes, too weak to continue.
Nugget transitioned from barking to desperate howls.
“Nugs?” a familiar voice called. “Dude, you okay?”
Footsteps clomped toward her over dead pine needles. She tried to yell “Help!” but it came out in a whisper.
Jeff’s horrified face loomed over her. “What the f . . .”
“Help,” Dee finally managed to squeak out.
* * *
The next hour was a blur, but by the end of it, Dee found herself back in the unhappily familiar confines of Gold County Medical Center. A neurological examination and CT scan led to a diagnosis of a grade 1 concussion and an overnight hospitalization for observation.
She had a visitor in the morning—Raul. “No Ranger O’Bryant?” she asked the sheriff. She adjusted her position in bed, trying to get comfortable. Her whole body ached, as much from her fall on the hard ground as from the blow to her head.
“He’s laying low since the bungled arrest of Callan Katz’s assistant,” Raul said, failing to suppress a grin. “She’s threatening to sue.”
“I doubt she will. Knowing Marisa, I bet she’ll make a lot of noise to keep the story alive as long as the attention benefits her. Then she’ll move on.”
