Page 22 of To Die For

I sucked on the straw and downed a sizable gulp of margarita. The tequila taste wasn’t very strong, which was fortunate, or I’d have been on my butt before I was halfway finished with the thing. “I like burritos rancheros. Beef.”

It was amusing watching him watch me while he gave the order. I took another big sip through the straw.

“If you get drunk,” he warned, “I’m going to take pictures.”

“Why, thank you. I’ve been told I’m a very cute drunk.” I hadn’t, but he didn’t know that. I had actually never been drunk before, which probably means I had an abnormal college experience. But I’d always had cheerleading practice, or gymnastics—or something unexpected, like an exam to take—and I didn’t think any of those would be a happy experience while suffering a hangover, so I simply stopped drinking before I got drunk.

The waiter brought a basket of hot, salty tortilla chips and two bowls of salsa, hot and mild. I resalted half the tortilla chips and dug one into the hot salsa, which was delicious and definitely hot. Three chips later I broke out into a sweat and had to reach for my margarita again.

Wyatt reached out and moved my vase—my glass—out of reach.

“Hey!” I said indignantly.

“I don’t want you getting pickled.”

“I’ll get pickled if I want.”

“I need to ask you some more questions, which is why I didn’t want you to leave town.”

“Nice try, Lieutenant.” I leaned forward and retrieved my margarita. “For one thing, the detectives are working the case, not you. For another, I didn’t seeanythingother than a man was with Nicole, and he left driving a dark sedan. That’s it. Nothing else.”

“That you know of,” he said, snatching away my margarita just as I guided the straw to my mouth for another sip. “Sometimes details will surface days later. For instance, the car’s headlights. Or the taillights. Did you see them?”

“I didn’t see the headlights,” I said positively, intrigued by the question. “The taillights . . . hmm. Maybe.” I closed my eyes and replayed the scene in my head. It was shockingly detailed and vivid. In my imagination I saw the dark car sliding past, and to my surprise my heartbeat picked up in response. “The street is at a right angle to me, remember, so anything will be a side view. The taillight is . . . long. It isn’t one of those round ones; it’s a long skinny one.” My eyes popped open. “I think some models of Cadillac have taillights that shape.”

“Among others,” he said. He was writing down what I’d said, in this little notepad he’d evidently dug out of his pocket, because it was bent like a pocket dweller.

“You could have asked me this over the phone,” I pointed out acerbically.

“Yes, if you were answering your phone,” he replied in the same tone.

“Youhung up on me.”

“Iwas busy. Yesterday was a ballbuster. I didn’t have time to worry about your car, which, by the way, I couldn’t get anyway because you didn’t bother giving your keys to me.”

“I know. I mean, I didn’t know then. I found them a little later. But the paper only identifiedmeas a witness and that made me feel uneasy, and Tiffany was whining, so I rented wheels and came to the beach.”

He paused. “Tiffany?”

“My inner beach bunny. I haven’t had a vacation in a long time.”

He looked at me as if I’d grown two heads, or had admitted to having multiple personalities or something. Finally he asked, “Is there anyone besides Tiffany living inside you?”

“Well, I don’t have a snow bunny, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve been snow skiing once. Almost. I tried on those boots and they’re so uncomfortable I can’t believe people actually wear them without having a gun held to their heads.” I drummed my fingers. “I used to have Black Bart, but he hasn’t shown up in a while, so maybe that was just a kid thing.”

“Black Bart? He was your inner . . . gunfighter?” He’d started grinning.

“No, he was my inner maniac who would go berserk and try to kill you if you hurt one of my Barbies.”

“You must have been hell on the playground.”

“You don’t mess with a girl’s Barbies.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I have the urge to grab a Barbie and stomp it.”

I stared at him, aghast. “You’d actually do that?”

“Haven’t in a long time. I must have gotten the Barbie-stomping out of my system by the time I was five.”

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