Deadly in High Heels (17 page)

Unless, that is, I showed up at midnight as requested.

I tried not to look like I was checking out every single patron at the luau for suspicious signs as I listened to the pounding drum beat and watched the spectacular finale of the dancers' performance. I was careful to keep a neutral expression, trying my best to imitate Ramirez's blank cop face, even though I couldn't, my gaze straying again and again to the assembled crowd. Of course, it was possible that someone not in attendance at the luau had sent the text, but as I catalogued the pageant personnel, there didn't seem to be anyone missing.

Which made me wonder if it had come from someone not involved with the pageant at all. Someone like Xander Newport, or Donatella Curcio. Had they seen something that pointed to Jennifer and Desi's killer? Possibly something that hadn't even made sense until now? I felt like I'd talked to everyone involved with the pageant about Jennifer's death at this point. Maybe something I'd said or a question I'd asked had jarred loose a memory.

Then again, there was always the possibility that the text had come from the killer himself, and this was his attempt at getting victim number three alone. I fought back a chill at that thought, despite the warm evening.

A few minutes later, the dancers hurried off into the night to hearty applause, and dessert was brought out to even more applause. Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt decided to take theirs back to the room to enjoy on the balcony. Dana and Marco went to refresh their drinks, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I watched absently while the other attendees slowly started to disperse, some forgoing the desserts entirely, others carrying their plates back into the hotel with them. Before long, the group had thinned considerably.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't notice Maxine until she fell into the chair beside me, unsteady in the sand in the Gucci stiletto sandals I'd admired from underneath her bed. They looked just as good from out in the open, and I took a moment to admire them while she tried to corral her long blonde hair extensions in the ocean breeze. "It's pretty out here, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Very pretty." Although the fire dancers had departed, the flickering tiki torches circling the area continued to provide a peaceful, intimate ambiance.

"I just can't help but think about everything that's gone on." She pointed with her chin out beyond the tiki torches to the darkness. "How do we know someone's not out there watching us right now?" She shuddered. "I'm not going to be the last to leave tonight, I can tell you that."

"Did you come with Whitney?" I asked.

Maxine nodded. "You bet I did. I don't go anywhere alone now. And I don't think you should, either."

I gave her a sharp look. Was that honest concern or a threat? Maxine was staring out toward the ocean, her eyes narrowed against the breeze so that she looked almost…calculating. I wondered for the first time if perhaps Maxine wasn't as dumb as she seemed, if she
had
actually been the one who'd sabotaged Jennifer by stealing her bikini top, and maybe even killed her to get a leg up in the competition. Maybe she wasn't even as clumsy as she seemed. Maybe it was all an act to deflect suspicion while she murdered her way toward the top of the pageant rankings.

The thought sent a chill shimmering up my spine. I fought the sudden urge to leap from my seat and get as far away from her as I possibly could. "I'm not taking any chances," I said, choosing my words carefully.

"Good." She nodded her approval. "I like you, Maddie. I'd hate to see something happen to you."

Now
that
sounded like a thinly veiled threat. I was finding it hard to swallow. My mouth was dry.

"Well, it's just about curfew time. I think Whitney's waiting for me to head back upstairs." She pushed herself out of the chair, her heels stabbing into the sand as she stood. "I wouldn't want to get in any trouble on the last night."

"No," I agreed, my voice faint. "You wouldn't want that."

She tottered off in her stilettos with a cutesy little finger wave. I forced myself to stay put and give her a five-minute head start before I called it a night myself and hurried back into the hotel. I was halfway through the lobby on my way to the elevators when I realized Don still hadn't made an appearance since the discovery of Desi's body in the auditorium. Kind of strange, considering she hadn't missed a single day prior to that. It made me wonder again if a guilty conscience was keeping her away.

I took the elevator to the twelfth floor, but instead of turning toward my room, I went in the opposite direction, toward Marco's, where I hoped my husband would be. I hadn't seen Ramirez all day, and I wanted to hear what he'd learned about Xander's alibi.

Luckily, I found Ramirez alone in the room, wearing jeans and little else. No shirt, no shoes…and with the way he looked, there were no complaints from me.

"Hey, babe," he said, before pulling me into his arms and giving me a lingering kiss that went a long way toward calming my nerves.

"Hey, yourself," I replied when we finally came up for air. "That's the best greeting I've had all day."

Ramirez shot me a grin. "It better be."

I glanced around the room and noticed that the TV was on in the corner, tuned to ESPN. It seemed that he'd been lying on his bed watching some sports highlights. There was a half-empty bottle of beer on the nightstand.

Ramirez hit the
mute
button on the remote as I sat on the foot of his bed. "So how was the luau?"

My mind shot straight back to Maxine's strange comments and their potential hidden meaning. In the bright, comfortable hotel room with my homicide detective husband, I now felt like maybe I'd been reading too much into them. "Oh, you know. You've seen one luau, you've seen them all."

"Uh-huh." He studied me. "You want to tell me about it?"

"The luau?" I shrugged. "A pig, some alcohol, a lot of desserts. The end."

"Maddie…" This time he snapped off the television and tossed the remote on the bed. "What happened?"

He knew me so well. And just, maybe I
wasn't
reading too much into the beauty queen's words. Maybe Maxine was crazy as a loon and planned to mow through all the remaining states to snatch the Miss Hawaiian Paradise crown. I did a deep breath. "I think Maxine might have sabotaged Jennifer. Or maybe Whitney did. But one of the two, for sure, but I'm leaning toward Maxine."

Ramirez's expression didn't change. He'd traveled this road with me before. Plus he was way better at the cop face. "And you think this why, exactly?"

Uh-oh. Not sure I wanted to confess to sneaking into their room and hiding in the closet and under the bed, not to mention going through their things. Even though I had found the bikini top, the search itself had been a tad in the gray area of legal, and Ramirez was a cop, first and foremost. Well, also a stud muffin, but mostly a cop. And I wasn't in the mood for a lecture on the legalities of
not
breaking and entering.

I thought fast. "Just some comments Maxine made at the luau," I said with deliberate vagueness.

"Like
I sabotaged Miss Montana
?" Ramirez asked.

I grinned and swatted his arm. "She wants to win. It's not outside the realm of possibility that she'd do anything and everything she could to beat the competition."

"So what you're saying," Ramirez said slowly, "is not that she sabotaged Jennifer. It's that she might have killed her."

"That's what I'm saying," I agreed. "Only I didn't say it—you did."

He took a drink from his beer and offered me the bottle. "And you're
not
saying it why?"

"Things she said to me at the luau," I said. "Like telling me to be careful. That she liked me and would hate to see something happen to me."

"Sounds vicious," Ramirez joked.

I shot him a look as I took a sip of beer. "It's not only what she said, it's how she said it."

"And how did she say it?"

I thought about Maxine's narrowed eyes, staring out over the ocean. Like she was considering the best way to bump off Miss Nevada or something. "Almost too sincerely," I said finally.

Ramirez just looked at me. "What a witch."

"You had to be there," I told him.

"Guess so." He took his beer back and drank some.

"Then there's the clumsiness," I went on. "She falls all over the stage during the dance numbers. She fell over Desi's body! And she fell into the chair on the beach tonight. I mean, no one can be that clumsy, can they? It's got to be an act."

Ramirez tilted his head to look down at my heels. "How high are those things?"

I pulled my feet under the chair, mostly out of view. "Four inches. But we're not talking about my heels."

"Fine. How high are
her
heels?"

At least five, maybe even six inches. Compared to some of the other girls, Maxine was a little vertically challenged. She wore stilettoes on steroids. I glared at him. "What's your point?"

"I think I made my point." Ramirez sipped his beer.

I crossed my arms. "Okay, it's not just what she said. Maybe there's something else."

"Thought there might be."

His smugness irritated me. "Maxine has Jennifer's stolen bikini top in her dresser drawer," I blurted out before common sense could stop me.

That got his attention. He lowered the beer bottle, his eyes fixed on mine. "How would you know that?"

No way was I admitting to breaking and entering. He could glare at me all night long. I wasn't cracking. "I was on my way back to the room earlier," I said, "and the maid was working in there and she had the door propped open like they do, and—"

"And she had the dresser drawers open, too," he prompted. "And the bikini top was lying right on top with a 'Jennifer' nametag on it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Okay. So I
might
have slipped in and looked around for a
few
minutes. It was worth it, though, don't you think?"

"No," he said flatly, "it was not. What if she or her roommate had come back to the room and seen you?"

"She didn't see me," I said. "I was under the bed." Oops. Well, I don't know how
that
slipped out.

Ramirez didn't say anything for a while, but I could see the muscles in his jaw working. "You were under the bed," he said finally.

I nodded. "And let me tell you, the housekeeping in this place leaves a lot to be desired. You should've seen the amount of dust under there."

He wasn't amused. "Maddie, I'm beginning to get the feeling you actually like putting yourself in harm's way."

I shot him a dirty look. "Oh, come on! That is so unfair. Not to mention sexist. You go chasing after killers on a daily basis, but do I lecture
you
on safety? No."

"Not the same thing. I'm a
trained
homicide investigator."

I ground my teeth at the emphasis he put on the word trained—after all, this was not my first murder rodeo either—but considering I'd yet to decide what to do about the potential midnight meeting by the pool, I decided to let it go. "Fine. So how did your very official police investigation go today?" I asked instead.

"Maddie…"

"What? I can't even
ask
about an investigation?" I blinked my eyelashes up and down in mock innocence.

"Fine." He shook his head, his expression softening finally. "Xander Newport was at the Curling Wave until closing time. So unless he hired someone to do his dirty work, he's in the clear."

My shoulders slumped a little. "He has witnesses?"

"Only every female in the bar," Ramirez said. "He hit on all of them, including the transgendered one. Turns out the guy's a creep but not a killer."

I was disappointed, but not totally surprised. Xander might have had a motive to kill Jennifer, but there had never been a reason for him to murder Desi. And I doubted that there were two killers on the loose. "So Xander's in the clear," I said, mostly to myself.

"Sad, but true." Ramirez stood up and pulled me to my feet, his hard, bare chest pressing against me. "Happy now?"

"Not quite," I told him, tipping my face up to his. "But maybe you can fix that." I gave him a suggestive smile.

"You better believe it," he agreed, lowering his mouth to mine. His arms tightened around me, fitting me more closely against him, and I wound my hands into his hair, breathing in his musky scent as a little sigh of satisfaction bubbled up and escaped me.

"You two need to hang a sock on the doorknob!" Marco called out from the doorway. "Give a boy a sign, already!"
I groaned, and Ramirez reluctantly pulled away. I erased my lipstick from his lower lip with my thumb, seeing the frustration evident on his face.

Trust me, right there with you, pal.

Marco took off his floppy beach hat, tossing it on the nearest bed, and bustled across the room, waving a drink in his hand. "I just heard the funniest story from Ruth Marie. You would not believe what she did to become Miss 1962—" He stopped when he noticed our expressions. "Wait, was I interrupting something? 'Cause I can go amuse myself for a while." He took in Ramirez's bare torso. "All night, if need be."