Bond, Stephanie - Body Movers 05 (17 page)

his eyebrows high.

“I watch TV,” she murmured.

“My nephew here is studying forensic pathology,” Dr.

Abrams said, clapping Kendall on the back.

“It’s just my first year, and I’m not real good at it,” Kendall

said miserably.

“You wil be,” Abrams assured him, then headed toward

the door. At the entrance, Abrams turned back. “Carlotta,

have you talked to Cooper lately?”

“Not for several days,” she admitted.

“I couldn’t reach him today and frankly, I’m worried about

his state of mind.”

Carlotta bit her lip. “I heard he was working in the morgue

lab.”

“That’s right. I think it was someone’s idea of keeping him

busy. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, and all that.”

“Someone?”

“Someone above me who thinks he can be saved,” the

man said, then walked out.

His comments left her even more worried. Abrams had

worked with Coop for years, had even reported to Coop

before his fall from grace. Abrams had been privy to

Coop’s meltdown after he’d drunkenly declared a car

accident victim deceased when, in fact, she’d been alive.

Abrams had a reference point for Coop that she didn’t

have, so as much as she didn’t want to believe that Coop

was slipping into destructive behavior, it was looking more

and more as if he was.

“What do we do now?” Kendall asked her, gesturing to the

body, his eyes wide.

“Why don’t you go see if they need help with the gurney,”

she suggested.

He loped out of the room. Carlotta positioned her back to

the windows, slipped her cel phone out of her pocket and

surreptitiously snapped a few photos of the victim and the

surrounding scene. There were no signs of overturned

furniture in the room or any other disturbances.

Carlotta stared down at the stil body of Marna Col ins, and

her heart wrenched. “Who did this to you?” she

whispered. “How did he earn your trust?”

“What are you doing here?”

Carlotta jumped and slid the phone back into her pocket

as she turned to see Maria Marquez standing there. “I got

called in to move the body. So, The Charmed Kil er strikes

again.”

“What makes you think this is the handiwork of The

Charmed Kil er?”

Uh-oh. Her mind raced. “Why else would the GBI be

here?”

The detective’s eyes narrowed. “If any details about this

murder get out, I’l know where they came from.”

Carlotta swallowed hard, glad when Wesley, Hannah and

Kendall arrived with the gurney and body bag. The guys

lifted the body while she and Hannah situated the body

bag and zipped it closed around the victim, a stomach-

clenching final act. They wheeled the body out to the van

and loaded it in the back.

Carlotta quickly changed back into her dress in the

shadows of the van. Since Jack didn’t accost her, she

assumed he’d left the area. The guys dropped her and

Hannah back at the country club before taking the body to

the morgue.

“I might make the end of the auction after all,” Carlotta

said as they walked back inside. “Are you sure you’re okay

to come back?”

“I’m good,” Hannah said. “I don’t want those bitches to

think they ran me off.”

Inside, they separated, with Hannah moving toward the

kitchen and Carlotta toward the table where she and Peter

were seated. The abrupt change in environment was

jarring, moving from the bleak sadness of a crime scene to

celebratory excess.

Rainie Stephens was on the stage announcing the winners

of the prizes of the silent auction. Carlotta felt the

woman’s gaze on her, but shrugged it off. She lifted a glass

of wine from a serving tray and headed back to her table.

“Carlotta! Yoo-hoo!”

She knew that voice—couldn’t seem to escape it. She

pasted on a smile then turned to greet Patricia Alexander

who was clinging to the arm of a dark-haired guy in an il -

fitting tux who looked a little less happy to be there than

she did. “Hi, Patricia.”

“Carlotta, meet Leo Tennyson.” The woman beamed, her

eyes big as she stroked the man’s arm. Her bracelet tinkled

with the charms that col ectively, at least in Patricia’s

mind, pointed to him as being The One. “Leo is a

professional baseball player.”

“I think you mentioned that,” Carlotta said with a smile.

“Hel o, Leo.”

“Hel o,” he said, his tone and body language bordering on

surly.

“What team do you play for?” Carlotta asked out of

politeness.

“The Gwinnett Braves,” he said. “It’s the farm team for the

Atlanta Braves.”

“That’s very impressive.”

“Isn’t it?” Patricia broke in, rubbing against him. “We’re

late because Leo had practice. I guess you’re here with

Peter?”

“That’s right.”

“That should have all the tongues wagging.”

“Er…I should get back to my table,” Carlotta said,

gesturing. “Nice to meet you, Leo. Goodbye, Patricia.”

Carlotta threaded her way through the crowded ballroom,

then slipped into the empty seat next to Peter. He looked

over and grinned in surprise.

She squeezed his hand under the table. “Told you I’d be

back.”

He looked so happy that guilt swel ed in her chest—and

gratitude. She was fortunate to have someone in her life

who cared for her as much as Peter did.

“And the winner of the trip for two for a deluxe romance

package to Las Vegas,” Rainie announced, “is Peter

Ashford!”

Carlotta conjured up a smile while the room erupted in

applause. Deluxe romance package? To Vegas?

“Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Peter asked, squeezing her

against him.

“Yes,” she murmured. Across the table, Tracey Lowenstein

smirked at her and applauded halfheartedly.

Carlotta tried not to panic—hopeful y the trip was stil

weeks or months away. Nothing had to be decided

tonight. She clapped politely as winners of the remaining

auction items were called out, and at Rainie Stephens’s

announcement of the impressive figure that had been

raised for the local animal shelter through the night’s

ticket sales, auctions and individual donations. She waited

for Peter to ask her about the body-moving job, but he

didn’t. She had missed dinner, but enjoyed a few forkfuls

of cheesecake with her wine, and slowly the ugly events of

the Col ins crime scene dimmed until they seemed surreal.

She glanced around at the beautiful people in the beautiful

room. There was a certain comfort in being insulated from

the unpleasantries of the world.

Afterward, she and Peter danced to big-band tunes with

other couples on the dance floor. Since Dr. Lowenstein

hadn’t returned, Tracey sat glowering at her while Peter

spun her around expertly. He was tall and graceful and she

felt sheltered in his arms. She’d forgotten how wel their

bodies fit together. When she was away from Peter, she

had trouble remembering details about his face, the way

he smel ed. But when they were together, she could

almost fool herself into believing they’d never been apart.

On the drive home, Peter was funny and charming. She

found herself studying his profile and tingling with

pleasure that he wanted her. The man didn’t mind that her

family name was sul ied, that she lived in a substandard

part of town, that she was up to her gapped front teeth in

debt and that she had totaled his Porsche.

It had to be love.

When they entered his house, it was very late. The wine

was stil coursing nicely through her bloodstream, making

her limbs loose and her smile permanent. Anticipation

swirled in her stomach as they climbed the stairs to the

second floor, hand in hand. Would he ask her to spend the

night in his bed? Did she want to?

At the top of the stairs, he turned toward her and pul ed

her into his arms for a languid kiss. She opened her lips to

him, inhaling the musky scent of his skin and his cologne,

reveling in the texture of his tongue as he explored her

mouth thoroughly. She ran her hands over his muscular

arms, registering how his body had changed from a boy’s

to a man’s in the time they had been apart. Her body

molded to him, yielding to the unique ways he awakened

her. Her breasts grew heavy, her thighs moist. They were

two grown, single, consenting adults, she thought, leaning

into him to increase the intensity of the kiss. There was

nothing to keep them from enjoying each other’s bodies

tonight.

Peter lifted his head, abruptly ending the kiss. “Good

night, Carly,” he said. Then he walked to his bedroom door

and disappeared inside.

Carlotta stood there for a few seconds, perplexed and

zinging all over. She wondered briefly if this was what it

felt like to be zapped with a stun baton.

She was stil breathing hard when she closed her bedroom

door behind her. Was Peter not leaping at the chance to

bed her out of a sense of nobility…or was he simply

playing hard to get?

She reached up and massaged an aching breast. Whatever

he was doing, it was working.

After changing into pajamas, she moved aside her father’s

file and pul ed out the high-school diaries she’d brought

with her, each one of them padlocked. She used the tiny

tasseled key that fit al of them to unlock the first one,

imprinted with the year that she’d been a freshman. The

sil y, girlish entries made her smile as she relived her

anxieties about high school and fitting in. There were

names of girlfriends she vaguely remembered and girls

whom she thought would be lifelong friends, but that

hadn’t happened.

There were cheerleading tryouts and sweetheart dances

and tests to take. Shopping excursions with her friends,

birthday parties, vacations with her family. She especially

enjoyed reading about her parents and noticed that she’d

written about them as if they were older friends rather

than authority figures.

She skimmed the first-year diary, then moved on to her

sophomore one and found the entry that she’d been

looking for.

Dear Diary,

Today I met a boy named Peter Ashford. Isn’t that the

grandest name? Peter Ashford. He’s so handsome I can

barely write about it, my heart is beating so fast. He could

have any girl in the school, and he wants me. I’m the

luckiest girl in the world.

Carlotta closed the diary and hugged it to her chest. Peter

was arguably the most eligible bachelor in Buckhead. He

could stil have almost any woman he wanted, and he

wanted her. She was incredibly lucky.

From the nightstand her phone rang. She glanced at it and

sighed.

Jack.

She wasn’t ready to be pul ed back into the real world, but

she’d told him she’d help him. Carlotta set aside the diary,

then connected the call. “Hi, Jack.”

“Did I interrupt anything?”

“I wouldn’t have answered if you had.”

“So Ashford hasn’t made his move yet, huh?”

“That’s so none of your business.”

“I know, but I have to ask. Okay, what do you have for me

on the murder?”

She told him everything Officer Childress had relayed,

from the description of the charm left, to the fact that the

scene had been sanitized, plus what she’d found out about

the victim and time of death from Abrams.

“Damn, you’re good,” he said at one point. “All I’m missing

are pictures from the scene.”

“I took some on my phone—do you want them?”

“Christ, did anyone catch you?”

“Marquez almost did. She threatened me against leaking

anything. I think she suspects something.”

“As long as she can’t prove it. Bring your phone tomorrow

when you come down to take the polygraph. I’l off-load

the photos and get it back to you before you leave.”

“Okay. Listen, Jack, I’m concerned about Coop—he seems

to be M.I.A. Wil you check on him?”

“Wil do. Frankly, though, I’m more worried about you.”

She hesitated, then said, “I’m fine.”

“I could come over to tuck you in. In that big house,

Ashford wil never know.”

She laughed into the phone. “Thanks anyway, Jack.”

He made a rumbling noise.

“What are you doing?”

“Rubbing your red panties on my face.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

Carlotta disconnected the call and groaned, thinking about

the men in her life. One guy was wil ing to bed her, but

offered no commitment. One guy wanted a commitment,

but was hesitant about the bedding part. And one guy had

seemingly withdrawn from the competition altogether.

Minus ten. Minus ten. Minus ten.

15

Carlotta walked into Peter’s kitchen humming a happy

tune, but stopped short when she saw Angela Ashford

sitting on the granite counter, dressed in a black trench

coat and tall black boots.

“Good morning,” Angela said sweetly. “I made coffee.”

“Thanks,” Carlotta murmured warily, then walked to the

pot.

“So, Carlotta, how does it feel?”

She looked back to the beautiful, green-eyed blonde while