One Hit Wonderful Page 15

  “So what did Lieutenant Graham have to say?”

  Nate shrugged, apologetic. “He didn’t offer much hope of finding the guys who did this,” he told her, and reached out to link his fingers with hers.

  “Figures.”

  “He said to give him a call when you get around to figuring out what’s missing, and if anything else happens.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “He also said it might not be a bad idea to install a security system. I’m sorry.”

  She frowned. “What? Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I didn’t think to have a security system installed before you moved in.”

  “Oh Lord,” Lily sighed, and rolled her eyes. “It’s not your fault my apartment got robbed,” she told him firmly. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself, and if I thought I needed a security system, I damn well would’ve installed one myself.”

  He blinked. “You would’ve?”

  “Well, I’d have hired someone to install it,” she amended, and made him smile. “This isn’t your fault, okay? Nor,” she said, her voice going firm, “is it your responsibility to hire someone to clean it all up.”

  “I knew you didn’t like that.”

  “I really don’t. But,” she said, looking around the room with a sigh, “I really don’t want to clean all this up by myself either.”

  “Smart girl,” he said with approval.

  “But I want to go through the bedroom.”

  “Lily,” he began, and she held up a hand to forestall him.

  “I don’t like the idea of strangers going through my clothes, my personal things,” she told him. “I’ll leave the kitchen, the living room, even the bathroom for the cleaning service to handle, but the bedroom is mine. Anyway, I still have to go through and see if anything’s missing.”

  “You can do that after the crew is done. I don’t want you to have to deal with it,” he told her, and she softened in spite of herself.

  “I’m a big girl,” she reminded him. “I’m not going to crumble at your feet, I promise. What time did you tell the cleaning company to be here tomorrow?”

  “Eight thirty.”

  She nodded. “That’ll work. I’m off tomorrow, so while they’re working in the rest of the apartment, I’ll tackle the bedroom.”

  He frowned. “I have a conference call with the studio tomorrow morning about the movie score.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, biting her cheek to prevent the grin.

  “But I won’t be able to be here with you.”

  “I’m a big girl,” she said again, and rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. “But thanks for wanting to help.”

  His face took on a mutinous expression. “I don’t like it.”

  “I know.” She patted his arm and started walking toward the door. “Do you have an extra toothbrush I can borrow?”

  His expression didn’t change. “Why?”

  “Because I think mine is floating in the toilet,” she said, “and I don’t want to use it.”

  His face cleared a bit when he realized she was planning on staying the night with him. “Sure, I bet I can dig one up.”

  “Great,” she said. “But I want my hot fudge sundae first. No two-bit burglar is going to keep me from my ice cream.”

  “Atta girl,” he said, and draped his arm around her shoulders as they walked companionably back to the house.

  * * * * *

  The cleaning service showed up at eight fifteen the next morning while Lily was still in the shower. As a result, by the time she got to the apartment they already had the kitchen halfway cleaned and were scrubbing the mascara stains off the bathroom floor.

  Per Nate’s instructions, they’d left the bedroom alone, so the destruction of the night before was largely undisturbed. Lily merely sighed, rolled up her mental sleeves and waded in.

  She tried to block the sense of violation from her mind as she gathered up clothes and jewelry. To her relief, she realized that most of her clothes weren’t ruined, just very, very wrinkled. Some of them had come into contact with nail polish that had spilled out of a broken bottle of “Trailer Trash Red”, but that looked to be accidental damage and was limited to a few t-shirts that could be easily replaced.

  In fact, as she worked her way through the room, she realized that aside from the slashed pillows, almost nothing had been deliberately damaged. As happy as she was about not having to replace her entire wardrobe—some of her work clothes were damn expensive—she was growing increasingly confused.

  “Why wreck the place if you’re not going to really wreck anything?” she muttered, shaking out a very wrinkled Donna Karen blouse.

  Nothing had been taken either, as far as she could tell. All of her jewelry had been dumped, scattered around the room, but it was all there, even the expensive stuff. Her electronics hadn’t even been touched, and if the motive had been robbery, they would have been the first things out the door.

  “Even easier to fence than the pearls,” she muttered. “It’s just weird.”

  She moved to the closet, determined to finish putting the bedroom back in order. She could hear the cleaning crew moving through the rest of the apartment, efficiently putting the kitchen back in order, scrubbing the spilled makeup from the bathroom floor.

  She blocked it out and opened the closet door. “Fuck.”

  Everything—shoes, purses, clothes…everything—had been pulled off the shelves and piled in the middle of the floor.

  Her organizer’s heart ached, but she sat cross-legged on the floor and reached into the pile.

  More of the same, she realized as she sorted through the pile. Lots of chaos, no destruction. She let her mind wander as she worked methodically, folding slacks and stacking shoes. She couldn’t come up with a motive for the intrusion. It obviously wasn’t robbery, as nothing was stolen. She might have subscribed to the theory that they’d been interrupted before they could take anything, but since they had time to completely destroy the place, that didn’t wash.

  It certainly felt like a personal attack. “Threw my panties all over the room,” she muttered, and unearthed a pair of Jimmy Choos from the pile. It didn’t get much more personal than that in her book. Still, if someone had really set out to hurt her, they would’ve done more than just make a mess.

  “That’s what they did,” she decided, her voice bouncing off the empty walls of the small room. “They just made a mess, and damned if I can figure out why.”

  She pulled another pair of slacks out of the pile of clothes, frowning at the swath of white silk that clung to them. “Bridget’s wedding dress!” she realized, and tossed the slacks aside to pull the dress out of the pile.

  She pulled it up by the bodice and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it looked intact. She got to her feet, intending to shake it out and hang it back up, but when she pulled it completely free of the rest of the clothes, she gasped.

  The skirt had been slashed to ribbons. It hung in tattered strips from waist to hem, hundreds of them, making the gown look like…

  “Like a ten-thousand-dollar designer hula skirt,” she realized, and sat back on the floor with a thump.

  “Lily?”

  Her head whipped around, a scream lodged in her throat. “Jesus, you scared me half to death.”

  Charles stepped into the closet. “I scared you? I come to see if you want to grab lunch on your day off and find your house looking like a tornado tore through it. What the hell is going on around here?”

  Lily had a hand pressed to her still racing heart. “I was…sort of robbed.”

  Charles looked away from the pile of clothes on the floor to eye her curiously. “You were sort of robbed. How does one get ‘sort of’ robbed?” he asked, using his fingers to make quotation marks in the air. “You either get robbed or you don’t.”

  She shrugged. “They ransacked the house but didn’t take anything.”

  He crouched next to her on the floor. “You weren’t here when this happened, were you?”
<
br />   She shook her head. “I was at Nate’s house, and realized I forgot my cell phone. When I came back to get it…”

  He winced. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  She gave the comforting hand on her shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks.”

  “What’d the cops say? You did call the cops, right?”

  “We called them, but they don’t hold out a lot of hope for finding whoever did it.”

  “Bummer. But at least they didn’t take anything.” He frowned. “Wait, that’s weird. If they weren’t going to steal anything, why’d they break in?”

  “I don’t know, but it gets weirder.” She scooted around on the floor so she could look at him without twisting her neck around. “They ransacked the place, right? I mean, completely destroyed it.”

  “I figured that’s why you had a team of cleaners in there working, you usually hate hiring people to do that kind of stuff. Must have been pretty bad.”

  “It was.” She grimaced now just thinking about it. “Everything out of the cupboards and shelves, every drawer pulled out and emptied. All the bookshelves in the living room. They smashed all my makeup and toiletries.”

  He grabbed her arm. “That eye shadow you just picked up at Nordies?”

  “Ground into dust.”

  “Fuckers.”

  “Tell me.” She sighed. “Nate hired the cleaners so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.”

  “That was sweet.”

  “Yeah, but I told him I wanted to clean the bedroom. You know, strangers touching my clothes…”

  “Right.” A private person himself, Charles was in complete accord with her.

  “It was the same,” she said with a sweep of her arm. “Everything pulled out, shoved over. But get this, except for slashing the feather pillows…”

  He grinned. “Bet that was a hell of a mess.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Feathers fucking everywhere. But except for that, they didn’t actually destroy anything. I mean, it was a mess, but as soon as I send everything to the cleaners it’ll be good as new again. Except for this.”

  He looked down at the dress in her hands. “Is that Bridget’s Vera Wang?”

  “Yeah, remember I wouldn’t let her throw it out? I took it to see if I could get the blood out of it.”

  “I remember. I still say you should’ve let her trash it. It’s not like anyone can wear it to get married in again, it’s got bad mojo.”

  “Moot point now,” she told him, and held up the dress.

  “Holy shit!” Charles gaped at the tattered skirt. “Oh my God, they did that to a Vera Wang?”

  She frowned at him. “You told Bridget she should burn it.”

  He waved a hand, eyes still on the dress. “That was like, a ritual, to get rid of the bad ex-fiancé vibes. But this…” he shook his head, reaching out a hand to brush it against the skirt. “This is just inhumane.”

  “Funny you should mention ex-fiancés.”

  “What?” Charles was focused on the ruined dress. “What about it?” He looked up at her, and his expression cleared. “Wait, you think Max did this?”

  “Charles, this was the only thing—the only thing in this entire apartment that was purposefully, irrevocably destroyed.”

  “What about the makeup?” he asked.

  She waved that off. “It probably smashed when they dumped it out of the cabinet. I’m telling you, it had to be him.”

  Charles shook his head. “Lil, with anyone else you might have a point. I mean, it’s certainly crazy enough to have been Max—”

  “More than,” she agreed.

  “But breaking and entering?” He shook his head again. “So completely not his style.”

  “Hmm.” Lily chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I agree, it’s a little too hands-on. But it’s sneaky and cowardly enough for him.”

  “You’re getting paranoid in your old age,” he told her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Try to follow me, here. I figure Max wants something from Bridget, which is why he’s calling her, and calling us to try to find her.”

  “Okay, that tracks for me.”

  “Up until now I assumed that what he wanted was some kind of a reconciliation, to get back together with her.”

  Charles snorted. “Fat fucking chance.”

  “But what if I’m wrong? What if he doesn’t actually want her back but wants something from her? Something he thinks she might have given to me before she left town?”

  Charles frowned. “Like what?”

  Lily shrugged. “That’s where I get stuck.”

  “Well, did she give you anything before she left?”

  “Just the dress, and I think it’s obvious he didn’t want that.”

  Charles eyed the tattered pile of silk and lace. “Or he thought it was hidden in the skirt. Either way, he’s nutso.”

  Lily chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Bridge put all her stuff in storage before she left, right?”

  “Yeah, at that place just down the road from your old apartment.” He waved a hand. “One of those climate-controlled warehouse places.”

  “You helped her move right? Did she give you a key?”

  He shook his head. “The unit has a combination lock on it.”

  “Do you know it?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, why? Oh no,” he said, and scrambled to his feet.

  “Come on.” She got to her feet and hurried out, still clutching the dress. She dodged one of the cleaners mopping the hallway floor to catch up to him in the kitchen. “We have to go look.”

  “No, you have to go look,” he corrected. “I have to go get a facial.”

  “Come on, Charles.” She put a hand on his arm when he turned to go. “Whatever Max is looking for could be in the storage unit.”

  “You don’t know that Max is looking for anything,” he argued. “For all you know, a couple of college kids could’ve broken in here.”

  “Would a couple of college kids leave an iPod and a brand new laptop completely untouched?” She pointed to the bookshelf.

  “Probably not,” he muttered. “Why don’t you just call Bridget and ask her?”

  “She’s not answering her phone, remember?” She saw him wavering and lowered her voice. “Come on, just a few hours.”

  “Why don’t you call the cops and tell them what you think?”

  “Because right now it’s just a theory,” she told him. “I’d feel like an idiot telling the cops and having them question Max if it’s nothing.”

  “But you don’t feel like an idiot telling me.”

  She grinned. “Two hours, tops. If I don’t find anything by then, I’ll give up.”

  He sighed and headed for the front door. “Fine.”

  She grabbed her purse, pausing to stuff the ruined dress in the large garbage can the cleaners were using in the kitchen, and followed him down the stairs. “Thanks, Chuckie.”

  “Don’t call me Chuckie,” he said automatically. He jerked his head toward the house as they stepped outside. “Aren’t you going to tell Nate where you’re going?”

  Lily glanced guiltily toward the house. “No. I don’t want to bother him while he’s working.”

  “Right,” Charles said knowingly.

  “Just get in the car, Chuckie.”

  “Don’t call me Chuckie.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “God, this place is disgusting.”

  Charles rolled his eyes. “No it’s not. It’s perfectly clean. Just because it’s not as ordered as you like it—”

  “It’s not ordered at all!” Lily stood with hands on hips and surveyed Bridget’s rented storage unit. Boxes were piled high, furniture placed here and there, loose items tucked in around them with no discernable rhyme or reason.

  “How’s anyone supposed to find anything in here?” she asked.

  “Well, we didn’t exactly think we’d be coming treasure hunting,” Charles told her dryly. “We just thought we were storing stuff.”

  “I des
pair of you,” she told him, and sighed. “Okay, let’s get started. You take those boxes over there,” she pointed to the far side of the unit, “and I’ll take the ones on this side.”

  “I hate you for making me do this,” he said, and picked his way across the unit.

  “You’re getting a free spa day out of it, so quit your complaining.”

  “What are we supposed to be looking for anyway?”

  “Something that looks as though Max would want it badly enough to break into my apartment for it.” She caught Charles’ incredulous look and threw up her hands. “I don’t know! Just start looking.”

  He grumbled and opened a box. “So how come you didn’t want to tell Nate where we were going?”

  “He was working, some big conference call with the movie studio on his current project,” she said, and popped the lid on a plastic storage bin full of winter sweaters. “I just didn’t want to bother him.”

  “Sorry, I gotta call bullshit on that one,” Charles said, and shot her a speaking look. “We practically snuck out of there. I’m surprised you didn’t try to push the car down the driveway so he wouldn’t hear the engine and become suspicious.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Hey, this is mine!”

  Charles looked over to see her holding up a purple cowl-necked sweater. “You gave it to Bridget last November because you said it made you look like a big blonde grape.”

  “Oh right.” She frowned. “She looked amazing in it, as I recall.”

  “She’s got the tits for it,” Charles agreed.

  “Shut up.” Lily folded the sweater, resealed the box and went on to the next.

  “So are you going to tell me what’s up with Nate, or am I going to have to guess?”

  “He’s a little…overprotective,” she said.

  “Because of the break-in?”

  “No. Well, yeah, because of that. But about Max too. I told him about the phone calls, that he was bugging Bridget in Hawaii. He asked me to tell him if Max called me again, he thinks he might be dangerous.”

  “And you think…”

  “That he’s being silly and overprotective.” She closed the second box and started going through the drawers of a desk. “Max is a weasel, but he’s spineless. He’s not dangerous.”