Killer Hair (8 page)

The view from where she stood was compelling. She admired his physique for a moment, suddenly aware that other women were marking their territory around him with invisible welcome signs. The heady charge of testosterone was in the air. She could feel her blood pumping.
Where did he come from?

Polly stood by preening, waiting for him to notice all six feet of her. She tossed her hair. A pro at hair tossing, Polly tried to look up flirtatiously, but it was difficult from her height. However, the man seemed preoccupied with the buffet. No doubt he was used to women gathering around his star quality. It gave Lacey a few extra moments to stare.

Angling for a better look, Lacey managed to move in closer to pick up a glass of wine. He turned around and bumped her. He had eyes the color of summer grass and long lashes under thick arched eyebrows. Not brown, they were merry leprechaun eyes. All too soon she realized she knew him.

Oh my God. It can’t be Victor Donovan, the tumbling tumbleweed.
She was knocked for a loop and nearly spilled her wine.

Donovan had still been chief of police in Sagebrush, Colorado, six years ago, when she fled her job as a reporter on the local rag there. He would be thirty-eight now.
Damn, he’s still handsome. The jerk.
Donovan had spent two years flirting mercilessly with Lacey, who’d covered the cops beat for the
The Sagebrush Daily Press
. She always believed he did it at least partly to distract her from getting the news. Vic hit on her constantly until it became a joke all over town. Lacey hated being the butt of jokes. It was a small town, with a very small police station. It was difficult not to physically bump into each other, which occasionally they did. The sparks were palpable. She refused him for many reasons. Conflict of interest for one. For another, he was married, albeit separated, both legally and by about four hundred miles. Vic said he didn’t care. But she did. It was very simple. She was Catholic.

All this was played out in front of the cops, witnesses with knowing looks and winks. Lacey wondered if they had bets on the odds of her saying yes to Vic. They probably had a pool going on when he would nail her. She wished she could go back and be more clever about the whole thing, more witty, instead of so painfully green. She took a deep breath.
Relax, Lacey. It was years ago. He’ll never even remember me, let alone recognize me.

He studied her. His eyebrows went up and his mouth curled into a grin.
Does he have to have such a nice jawline?
He’d been crossing her mind for no good reason: spring, drinks on the balcony, Tony’s new boots. She glanced down. Donovan was wearing well-worn cowboy boots. She’d forgotten how awkward he always made her feel.

“Lacey, Lacey Smithsonian? Wow. It is you. What are you doing here?”

She looked around to see if anyone was staring. Only wide-eyed Stella and a few other stylists, who had all snapped to attention. It was understandable, with the sudden hormonal charge in the air. Estrogen was rising. Stella nodded her obvious approval. Jamie made a thumbs-up gesture. Leonardo looked bemused, while Polly looked offended. She hated it when a petite woman walked off with an available tall guy.

“Well, well, well. Victor Donovan. Nice seeing you.” Lacey just wanted to get away from him. As far as she was concerned Polly could have him. Lacey spun on her heels, but not quickly enough.

“Not so fast.” He grabbed her arm and spun her around. “I haven’t seen you in what—five years? Six years?” He glanced quickly at her left hand. “Let’s catch up.”

“Let’s not.” She removed his hand from her arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Gotta go.”

“You’re not still mad at me?” He looked surprised. “Damn, I never could figure that one out.”

“Me neither. Probably some kind of toxic reaction.”

Vic laughed, showing strong white teeth. “I’m a changed man, Lacey. Older and wiser.”

“A wise old wolf?”

“Wolf! I’m a puppy dog, Smithsonian.” Lacey glanced at his left hand. It was still bare, but that didn’t mean anything. “And I’m not married anymore, Lacey.” It irritated her that he noticed her looking. “Don’t worry. This time around we should just be friends.”

“What do you mean, ‘this time around’? What do you mean, ‘friends’?”

Vic wasn’t wearing a scent, but something was making her dizzy. She reached for a canapé to keep her strength up.

“I mean friends. Purely platonic. What do you say?”

“I’d say just what the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Colorado?” She didn’t need a “friendship” with Vic Donovan.
Why aren’t you back in some rattlesnake den where you belong?

“Why aren’t you?” He steered her to an empty table back by the wig heads. Every female eye—and a few others—followed them.

“I live here. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m living here too. Sort of. I didn’t realize I needed your permission, Smithsonian. Is there an application to fill out?”

“You’re living here? Since when?”

Vic explained that he had moved back East in stages, first from Sagebrush to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as chief of police for a three-year stint, and finally all the way back to Virginia. Now he was helping his dad run his security consulting business, which these days had way too much work, and Boyd Radford was a brand-new client with a major employee theft problem. Vic’s dad was slowing down and he wanted Vic to take over the company, but Vic was on the fence. He still had a house in Steamboat Springs. Lacey recalled vaguely that Vic was a military brat who had grown up all over the country: grade school in Colorado Springs when his dad was at NORAD, high school in Alexandria, Virginia, when Dad went to the Pentagon. Now he was staying out in McLean, near his folks’ house, trying to decide whether to buy a place of his own here. He’d been in town all of two months.

“And you just hadn’t gotten around to calling me yet.” Lacey smirked. She regretted it the moment she said it.

“I didn’t even know you were here! I thought you were still in Denver someplace, where your folks are. Besides, why should I call you? You don’t even like me.”

Lacey had spent an eventful two years covering Vic and his cops at very close range back in Sagebrush. She had followed him through homicides, suicides, scores of bar fights and drunken car wrecks, and even a case of stolen dynamite that drew a crowd of obnoxious federal agents. Vic had brought her along on the hunt, over the objections of the arrogant clods from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He was a natural as top cop, at dealing with people, the press, the crusty ranchers on the town council who couldn’t see why he needed patrol cars newer than Fred Flintstone’s. Lacey had developed her reporting skills in self-defense. She learned how to get Vic and his cops to tip her off on the dirt at the county sheriff’s office, and she used the sheriff and his deputies to get the inside scoop on Vic and his boys. And she’d have scooped up Vic in a minute and quit the police beat, if he’d really been unattached. If he hadn’t been such a roving lover boy. And if the whole town hadn’t been watching them as if they were
Days of Our Lives
.

“I like you fine, you big jerk. So why’d they kick you out of Steamboat?”

Vic snorted in exasperation. “Steamboat and I are fine, thank you. But corporate security is where the money is, and to move up in law enforcement I’d have to tackle a bigger city with bigger headaches. Or else run for county sheriff. We still elect ’em in Colorado, you know. And you remember how much I love politics.”

“Let me get this straight, Vic. You’re moving to Washington, D.C., to get away from politics, and you’re trading being chief of police for counting shampoo bottles in a rat-infested warehouse? Wow, good career move.”

“Well, it looks like your career is booming too, Smithsonian. I suppose you’re living in the District with your wacky old aunt, what’s her name? Minnie? Mamie? And I see you gave up on the newspaper biz. I should have figured a stylish gal like you would end up being a hairstylist. I bet you’re terrific at the old cut and curl.”

Lacey felt hot blood rising to her cheeks. “I am not!” she said, much too loudly. Eyes that had drifted away snapped back to their table. “A hairstylist? Do I look like a hairstylist to you? I am a reporter! I have my own column! In a major daily Washington newspaper!”

Stella appeared at Lacey’s shoulder, drawn like a magnet to the sound of righteous indignation.

“Yeah, you bet. Lacey’s a hell of a reporter. She’s the best thing that ever happened to
The Eye Street Observer
.”

“Oh,
The Eye Street Observer
,” Vic said grandly. “That’s different. I guess you must be too big a talent for
The Washington Post
.” Lacey steamed silently. “Isn’t
The Observer
some sort of
Thrifty Nickel Super Shopper
kind of rag?”

Lacey opened her mouth, but it was Stella’s voice she heard.

“No way!
The Eye
is totally like a real newspaper. And Lacey is the best fashion reporter in Washington, bar none.”

“Stella, please—” she began.

“You write a fashion column?” Vic said. “About funerals? A little ghoulish, isn’t it, Lacey, taking advantage of some poor kid who killed herself in a really messy way?”

“I invited her,” Stella bellowed, shoving all her might into Vic’s face. “And she is here to investigate a murder, not a suicide! It was murder, damn it, and Lacey is going to get to the bottom of it.”

“Stella!” Lacey didn’t know which of them made her angrier. Stella gave her a big wink just as Boyd Radford grabbed Stella’s arm and pulled her away.

“Right.” Vic was laughing now. “The fashion expert is going to solve a murder. Remember to wear your high-heel gumshoes.”

Lacey fixed Vic with a steely glare. “I’m a good reporter, Vic. You know I am. Stella may be right about this thing. And reporters investigate crime all the time, remember? You ever heard of an investigative reporter?”

“Yeah, I know how investigative reporters really investigate. Someone else does the dirty work. You pull a few quotes, a little rewrite, and presto! Instant Pulitzer.”

“Hey, I’ve worked the cops beat. I know how to dig up my own—”

“Sure you do. You’re the big-city fashion reporter now. So you can spot those killers—how, exactly? Because they have that killer look?”

“Who the hell do you think you’re fooling, Vic Donovan? I know all about you. You were the top cop in a town where you practically had to buy your own bullets. Where a major crime wave was getting your skis ripped off, or kids chasing cows with a stolen tractor. Where the big sex scandal was when the massage parlor opened and the ministers shut it down. You only had one real first-degree murder the whole time I was there. But did you ever solve that one, Marshall Dillon? So don’t you try to tell me how to investigate a murder!”

Lacey stood up. She wished she hadn’t finished her wine; she would have loved to throw it at him. It would make a perfect moment. Just then the sound of a tray of canapés crashing to the floor distracted them. Jamie and Michelle were picking up the debris. Lacey followed Vic’s gaze to see Radford yanking Stella behind the screen of the shampoo area. Boyd seemed to think the screen was soundproof, or else he assumed Vic and Lacey were keeping the house fully entertained.

“What kind of crap are you pulling now, Stella? You can’t do this to me!”

“I’m just telling your new security expert the truth. It wasn’t suicide.”

“Don’t be a moron.”

“I am not a moron, you bully.”

“The cops say she killed herself.”

“For crying out loud, Boyd, you’re taking the word of D.C. homicide cops? What do they know? What do they care about a lousy hairstylist? You know what they told me when I said, ‘Look at that haircut’? ‘All you chicks got bad haircuts.’ Good God!”

“Get it through your thick crew cut. Angela killed herself. That’s bad enough. Any more negative publicity will hurt Stylettos,” Boyd said. “And me.”

“Well, maybe you’ve got something to hide. I don’t.” A stinging slap was heard from behind the screen. Lacey jumped back on Vic’s foot. “Sorry,” she whispered. He steadied her, then let go.

A red-haired fireball stormed out and Boyd followed a moment later, rubbing the side of his face. He avoided Lacey’s eyes and plowed his way to the bar.

Lacey pulled Stella to her side. “Stella? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but that jackass has got something to worry about, once you start asking questions.” Stella was obviously energized by her little scene. “Lacey is going to investigate the hell out of Angie’s death. She’s the best damn fashion reporter in this sleazy town.”

“I’m sure she is,” Vic said.

“One thing about Lacey, she really understands nuance,” Stella confided.

“Oh, she always did,” Vic said.

Lacey had heard more than enough. She grabbed Stella’s arm in one hand, her purse in the other.

Boyd Radford watched them steam toward the exit. He glared at Stella, still rubbing his jaw. “Now I suppose all our dirty laundry will be hung out to dry in that cheap rag of a paper. And she’s
your
friend, Stella. You can have a friend or a job. You decide.”

Lacey turned at the door just in time to see Josephine approaching Boyd with an evil smile on her face and a full wine-glass in her hand. She looked him in the eye and threw it in his face.

“It just isn’t an event without you causing a scene, is it, Boyd?”

Damn, I wanted to do that,
Lacey thought.
Why is my glass always empty?