Seven

“Wow, this is a beautiful house,” I murmured as Jace stopped the rental car next to the curb. “A quiet street and a million dollar top-of-the-hill view.” I took out my phone and pulled up the recording app to keep verbal notes.

The GPS had pinpointed the address on El Pico in El Cajon that Brittany Hollingsworth had on her Marry Me application. From the exterior, she was already living like a princess. No wonder she'd been so excited when she’d spotted Prince Dante from across the courtyard.

The show hadn’t started filming, and the bachelor hadn’t been revealed; yet Brittany recognized Dante, or thought she had, and according to Taylor, in the bathroom she had unwittingly told Lemon about seeing him. Lemon couldn’t let Brittany leave the bathroom and ruin the surprise, so she “accidentally” ran her lipstick over Brittany’s dress. Lemon fast-talked her into letting her take the dress to get the lipstick out while Lemon let her wear the Donna Karan blazer all without ever leaving the bathroom.

Taylor quickly had Brittany’s things packed and hustled her out of the hotel, along with the two other contestants Brittany already told, stopping any royal leaks. It worked beautifully, but now Brittany may have a serious grudge against Taylor for cutting her out of a chance at being a real princess.

Jace opened my door, and we stood looking up the big driveway. I took a picture of the house and also of an older dark blue Honda Accord parked near the portico, a tall open space with a roof that served as their front porch. “At least it looks like she’s home.”

“That car doesn’t fit with this house,” Jace said.

I looked up at him. “If I had my choice between a nice car and a nice house—I’d spend the extra dollars every month on the nice house and drive a cheap car.”

Jace’s lips dipped into a slight frown. “Is that why you drive an old car?”

Not that it was any of his business, but I could tell he was worried about me—again. “When Harry died, I used part of his insurance to pay off what was left on the mortgage. So, I don’t have a house payment.”

Jace lifted his gaze to the house in front of us. “That was good,” he said quietly, nodding.

“Let’s go see if that car belongs to a housekeeper, or if Brittany can’t afford a new car.”

“And if she is here, then she isn’t in Phoenix trying to kill Taylor. That car does fit the profile of the one that shot at you.”

“But the last attempt was Wednesday night—two days ago. She could’ve easily driven back here by now, especially if she thinks the police are looking for her car.”

I walked ahead of Jace, watching for any signs in the windows that someone saw us approach. No one met us at the door, so I rang the bell and waited until a woman peeked out the blinds. From the brief glance I got of the woman, she didn’t look as if she could compete against beautiful young women on any reality show. Jace was right about the car.

When the door opened, I knew she wasn’t Brittany, although she might’ve been her mother. She was about my mom’s age, or rather, how old she would’ve been if she were still alive, with neatly styled hair and wearing an apron over her dark blue slacks and matching button down shirt.

“Good morning, ma’am. My name is Maxine Larabee.” I motioned over my shoulder at Jace. “And this is Jace Atmore. May we speak to Brittany Hollingsworth, please?”

“Brittany? Why would you think to come here for her?” the woman asked, wiping her hands on the apron.

“Um…” I was tempted to glance at Jace, but I held the woman’s gaze instead. “We were led to believe she lives here.” That made the woman’s hand freeze in place while her mouth took on a distinctive frown, bringing with it innumerable deep lines as if to emphasize her unhappiness.

“That little twit. I knew Mrs. Brooks should’ve asked for more references before hiring her.”

“So Brittany doesn’t live here, but you do know her?” Jace asked.

The woman gave us another good look. “Who are you?”

I took out my identification and showed it to her. Jace held out his wallet, showing his, too. “We’re private investigators, and we need to question Ms. Hollingsworth about a case we’re working on. Do you know where we can find her?”

“Yes, I’m sure we still have her business card. I’ll be right back.” She closed the door, leaving us outside.

“That wasn’t very hospitable,” Jace said. He leaned his considerable shoulder against the doorframe while slipping his wallet into his back pocket.

“Maybe not, but it sounds like they’ve had some not-so-pleasant dealings with Brittany. And to find out she used this address on her application…I’d be a little ticked off, too.”

Jace lifted his face skyward. “At least the weather is nice.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said, gazing out over the city toward the ocean. I couldn’t actually see the water from this far inland, but I felt the cool effect of the ocean. “I wish we could get to the beach while we’re here.”

“We could eat lunch there, at least.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea.”

The front door opened, and the woman passed me a small card. “Here—this is her business card. Now, please leave poor Mrs. Brooks alone. She doesn’t need any more aggravation.” The door closed with a heavy thud.

“All-righty then.” I held up the card so Jace could see it too. “Brittany Hollingsworth, Interior Design, LLC. It has an address with a room number. It might be her office.”

“Or it might be an apartment. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Let’s go.”

Thirty minutes later, we stood outside the address on the card.

“This…” I inhaled a deep breath, not wanting to verbalize Brittany’s deception, but I took a picture of the building for my files.

“Is an apartment complex,” Jace finished what I was going to say.

The two-story structure had sump block walls, an iron archway fencing, with a swimming pool in the courtyard. “It’s not horrible, as far as apartments go.”

“I’ve lived in worse,” Jace added.

“So have I. Let’s find number fifteen and see if Brittany is home.” We took the concrete stairs up to the second floor. The place seemed deserted. Being Friday morning, most people were probably at their day job. I pressed the button next to the door and listened for the sound of the bell.

“I don’t think it works.” Jace reached around me and knocked three times. We waited for a couple of minutes without getting a response.

“I think she’s out.” I looked around before trying the doorknob. It didn’t budge. “Do you have your lock picks?”

“Always.” I moved aside far enough to let him get to the lock and I used my body to conceal him playing with the knob. Less than a minute later, he said, “Got it—”

Jace went inside first. I stayed close on his heels, trying to be as quiet as I could while I closed the door. I was amazed at how silently Jace moved from the living room through the hallway. He disappeared into another room for a moment. When he came back out, he walked quicker. “It’s empty. We better do this fast.”

I knew what I wanted to find. First, I checked a small hall closet for that stolen red blazer. The closet was full of clothes, mostly black and white T-shirts, some in various shades of brown, and blue, and stretchy black pants, all crammed together, but no red blazer.

I then went into the bedroom. There were two closets taking up one whole wall. I pushed the first sliding door open. She’d organized her casual shirts according to color and sleeve length, and everything hung on the same kind of white plastic hangers. She had her pants and blue jeans hung up, too.

I closed the door before moving to the next closet. It too was full. “She’s a clothes horse.” There were dressier shirts, grouped together in colors, mostly earth tones and blues, as were the assortment of dress slacks and skirts. They looked very similar to what I wore, as a matter of fact. She did have a few fitted jackets, but they were all in black. I frowned. My color selection was as stilted. The boldest color in the whole closet was a light green.

Tucked in the far end of the closet was a clothes bag. I pinched it. It wasn’t empty. I lowered the zipper enough to expose red wool. “Perfect…” I took a picture of that part of the closet before taking out the bag. I removed the blazer from the bag and laid it on the queen-sized bed.

“What are you doing?” Jace asked.

“Retrieving stolen property.” I looked at the label. “Donna Karan New York, size two.” It seemed in flawless condition, although I found a tube of lipstick in the right pocket. “Hmm, Tom Ford red.” I remembered seeing Lemon wearing red lipstick on the show, and only red lipstick. She never varied from that true red. Usually blondes wore pinks, but not Lemon. And not every woman could pull off that shade.

How about Brittany? I went to her bathroom and started going through the vanity drawers until I found her lipsticks—none were from Tom Ford. Of the seven tubes I found three were Perfect Mauve, one in Beige Suede, two in Deep Rose, and another one in Purple Passion.

“What did you find?” Jace asked from the doorway.

“I found this lipstick in the blazer’s pocket.” I showed him the bottom. “I’ve compared it to Brittany’s collection. They don’t match. They’re not even the same brand.”

“What does that mean?”

I walked back into the bedroom and replaced the lipstick into the right pocket, where I’d found it. “It tells me that the probability of this belonging to Lemon Beauchamp is high.” I smiled at Jace. “This blazer will get us that interview with the future princess of Monterra.”

“We need to rule out this suspect while we’re here,” Jace said, before going into the front room.

I pushed around the clothes again, looking for something to carry the blazer in that wasn’t a piece of Brittany’s matching luggage. I found a department store suit bag that I transferred the blazer into with the nice wooden hanger. After I closed the closet doors, I carried the suit bag by the hanger and went out into the living room. I needed my hands free so I draped it over the arm the love seat.

“Have you found anything that shows Brittany was in Phoenix within the past week?” I asked from the other side of the laminated counter dividing the kitchen from the living room. Jace was staring at the fridge.

“Didn’t you say that the first incident—the one with the razor blade in her omelet—took place on Saturday morning?”

“Yes, that’s right.” I came into the kitchen to see what he was reading. He pointed at a printout of a concert ticket stuck up on the fridge by a small sunflower magnet. It had a black marker slash through the middle, and I took a picture of it. “This was from this past Friday night. Thompson Square at the Sycuan Casino at eighty-three dollars a ticket. That’s not something you skip for a grudge.”

On the counter next to the fridge were stacks of computer printed grocery coupons and a pair of scissors. They, too, were photographed. “Especially when you live modestly.”

“Maybe she’s just a couponer by nature,” Jace said as he opened kitchen drawers.

“I don’t think so. It’s very time consuming.” I know. I used to do it.

I moved to the dinette set where three of the four chairs held thick over-sized binders. I placed one on the table and opened the cover. “Wallpaper and fabric samples, hmm.”

In the large canvas bag sitting on the fourth chair was a metal measuring tape and other things necessary to hang wallpaper, plus a few packets of paint chips. I took some quick pictures.

“Evidently, she works out of her home. I think we need to see if we can get Lemon to speak to us and find out if there are better leads than this.” I turned off the recording app and put away my phone. I had enough evidence to comfortably scratch Brittany from our list of suspects.

Jace quit searching to gaze at me. “Are you ruling Lemon out as a suspect?”

I marched over to the loveseat to retrieve the blazer. “Not a chance—at least not until I see her eyes when I tell her about how Taylor was almost run down.”

“And the razor blade?”

“You bet. Let’s go find a quiet place to hold a teleconference.” I held up the suit bag. “This should get us our invitation.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll just fly to Monterra and ask the future princess in person.”