Page 12 of The Accidental Detectives

Just like the onesBrendawore…

Chapter

Four

Brenda has some splainin’ to do…

I tooka picture of the fingernail, cursing the cops for missing it. I don’t know what good it was going to do me, but you can bet your ass I’m gonna wanna know why one of the same nails Brenda wore was stuck on Owen’s nightstand.

When I looked behind it, I noted there was an outlet for the lamp sitting on the surface, and the torn remnant of the cord sticking out the back—like someone had yanked it out of the lamp. Maybe that’s what he’d been strangled with, and she’d broken a nail in the middle of ripping it from the lamp?

My phone rang again with “She’s a Lady,” Wanda’s ringtone. I dug it back out of my stupidly uncomfortable blazer and barked, “What?”

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me after you abandoned us! Where are you, Dark Lord?”

I paused, holding the phone away from my ear and listening. Shit. Someone was unlocking the damn door. I clicked my phone off and put it on silent, ceasing all movement.

“Yeah. You heard me,” a gruff male voice growled. “Those knuckleheads in forensics screw shit up all the time and you know it, Dunst. I’m gonna give the place a once-over just in case that dingbat Sharna missed something. The only suspect we have is the broad who met him on Facebook, but the wife claims this guy Owen said his profile was cloned and he had proof like a day or so before he was knocked off. Doesn’t make a shit’s worth a sense. But this Brenda Bronkowski had motive.”

There was a pause and some heavy breathing, and then the male voice said, “Yeah. She was probably pissed about findin’ out he had a wife and kids and she whacked him. I’m betting she didn’t even know she was catfished. It’s pretty cut and dried, dummy. Now we just need somethin’ to connect her to him. Ya know, the physical evidence the DA’s always bitchin’ about? And we need to find that Brenda Bronkowski and bring her in for questioning… At least it’s a place to start. Don’t call me up and cry about how you can’t find her—look harder!”

His heavy footsteps moved toward the small hall leading to the bedrooms—which meant I had to split, and fast.

I cracked the fingerprint-smudged window open and looked out to see the parking lot below. Crap. I was gonna have to jump.

Crawling out of the window, I clung to the ledge in my stupid heels while I cursed my BFFs for making me wear them, closing the window as gently as I could. I didn’t think about where I’d land, I was just thinking about getting the hell out of there before I got caught.

Unfortunately, I landed in a dumpster and a cloud of stench.

“Fuuuck!”

I was rustled around in the junk, ungluing my feet from the debris, when I heard Wanda call out, “Found her!”

Marty’s exquisitely highlighted blonde head peered over the top of the dumpster, a light dusting of snow icing her coat. “It’snothing less than you deserve, you deserter.” She held out her hand to me, her lips thin.

I grabbed it, letting her yank me up. “Listen, if I had to stick around and listen to you two yahoo’s kvetch about eyeshadow colors, I was gonna yak.”

“Why are you in the garbage, for heaven’s sake?” Wanda asked, hands on her hips.

Straightening my shoulders, I yanked my gloves off and threw them over my shoulder. “I put my time to good use, that’s why, and if you don’t get off my hump, I’m not gonna tell you what I found out.”

Hauling myself out of the dumpster, I jumped to the ground, brushing someone’s leftover pieces of pizza off my skirt in disgust.

We began to walk toward Marty’s SUV, Wanda looping her arm through mine, cozying up to me. “You show us yours, we’ll show you ours,” she cooed, as we sloshed through the parking lot, my ankles wobbly.

“I’ll show you mine when we get back to the castle. I can’t think with all this shit on my face. Though it does explain why Marty’s head’s so empty.”

Wanda giggled, playfully swatting my arm. “Be nice, vampire. Marty just pulled off the makeover of a lifetime and we got ourselves a clue.”

Marty came up on the other side of me, hooking her arm through mine. “Yeah,” she crooned. “Be nice to the empty head or she’s not going to give you the wipes to remove the adhesive from your fake eyelashes.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “You wouldn’t fucking dare…”

She winked before she ran toward the SUV and called out, “My head is so empty, I might not remember where they are!”

Back at thecastle in the murder basement, I’d changed back into my jeans and a hoodie after Wanda coaxed Marty into giving me the damn wipes to get the gunk off my lashes.

Plopping down in my office chair, I caught Bertrand making a beeline for me, camera in hand, but I stopped him with a withering glance. “Back away. I just crawled out of a garbage dump to get away from a cop. I’m not ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”

---