Page 41 of Accidental Murder
A breeze kicked up and blew glitter into her mouth. She twisted away from the camera to pick her teeth. In the distance she spotted a man with dark curly hair manning a glare shield. He was standing beside one of the columns. He leaped to the ground.
Kayla’s heartrate kicked up. Was he Ashley’s killer?
“Psst, Venus.” Cupid elbowed her. “Are you okay? You moaned.”
The man sprinted in Kayla’s direction. Not until he drew closer did she realize he couldn’t have been more than five feet four inches. Way too short, according to Mrs. Tennyson.
Mikhail rushed to Kayla. “What’s going on?”
She floundered for an explanation. “That man . . . I thought I knew him. I’m sorry.”
Mikhail put his hand on her arm. “Babe, I know you’re going through a rough time, but you said yes to the gig.”
My agent said yes,she wanted to cry out.
“Take a moment. Get centered. And relax your forehead. You’ve got crease lines.”
In the distance, Kayla saw her uncle, who, true to his promise, had come to watch the shoot. He was standing beside Margaret Thornton. Both appeared concerned. Kayla couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she imagined their conversation was about her being stiffer than a statue.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The moment Mikhail announced, “Take ten!”the costumer flung a shawl over Kayla’s shoulders.
“Thank you.” Kayla stepped off her pedestal, her neck muscles as tight as coils and her lower back aching from posing. Luckily, her uncle and Margaret, with their anxious glances, had left the set. “Do you have my purse?” she asked the costumer.
“Over there.”
Kayla retrieved her cell phone and chose a spot by one of the columns. She dialed the first client whose last name started withM. Unable to reach him, she left a message and repeated the exercise. When she got hold of an artist in Carmel, nerves took over. Words tumbled out of her mouth. “Sir, I’m Ashley Macintyre, Kayla’s sister. She told me something you’d prefer to be kept secret.”
“Ha!” The man laughed. “Fine. If you want to blab to my fiancée, go ahead. I planned to tell her this weekend. Big deal. I wear a toupee. So what? Sure, losing my hair used to make me question my virility, but now, I’m thinking of going bald. Take the honest approach, right? That’s what Kayla said to do.”
His toupee. Of course. Kayla wished she could hide in a hole. Some secrets were nothing burgers. Certainly not worth killing over.
Next, she called the five clients whose last names started withN. She left messages for each of them. She paused when she landed on Cindy Norton’s name. Anxiety rippled through her.Earlier during the pose where she and Cupid had turned to face the sun, Kayla had flashed on Cindy. Was she in danger? Kayla tapped in Cindy’s cell phone number.
After two rings, a woman answered with what sounded like a tentative, “Hello?”
Kayla recognized Cindy’s voice and sighed with relief. “Hi, it’s—” She hesitated. “It’s Ashley, Kayla Macintyre’s sister.”
Cindy hung up.
Stunned, Kayla stared at the phone’s screen. Was William with Cindy? Had he ended the call?
Searching for a way to decompress, she set aside the brief conversation and gazed at the lagoon. A gentle breeze generated a series of rhythmic waves from one end of the water to the other. She remembered instructions she’d received in a meditation class and attempted to count the waves:one, two, three.
Then she noticed movement. To the right.
A man darted behind a column. He emerged on the other side. He stared at Kayla with cruel eyes. He was tall enough to be the killer, but the brown delivery uniform didn’t make sense.
He swung his gaze from Kayla to Mikhail’s pony-tailed assistant. In a burst of energy, he raced to her and handed her a package. Parcel distributed, he jogged to a UPS truck Kayla hadn’t noticed before.
What an idiot, she thought sourly. No man in brown was pursuing her. No height-challenged grip was out to get her. She slogged to a nearby director’s chair and slumped into it.
It wasn’t until Mikhail summoned everybody to set that she noticed she’d missed a call. From Eve.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Megan felt raw and exposed.Again she questioned her choice of vocation. More deaths had occurred in her district in the last three days than had occurred in the entire month of December. It was the holidays, for heaven’s sake. What the heck was going on? Prior to the events of last week, she never would have considered changing careers. Tension headache number twelve arrived in force. She took a sip of hour-cold coffee and rubbed the knot in her right shoulder.
