Evening Bags and Executions(31)

I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket—we’re not supposed to keep our phones on us, but oh well—and called Shuman. I hadn’t heard from him and he’d been on my mind since I saw him at Starbucks. I wanted to find out if the LAPD had made any progress in Amanda’s murder, but mostly I wanted to see how Shuman was holding up. I’d never met his family or his friends, so I didn’t know anyone to ask, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to call Detective Madison.

Shuman’s voicemail picked up. I didn’t know if that meant he wasn’t up to talking to me or if something else was going on. Like maybe, despite being relieved of his official duties, he was out looking for Amanda’s killer himself.

Can’t say that I blame him.

I left a message, then hung up and called Marcie. We talked until it was time for my shift to end—which, I know, was kind of bad, but I needed time to recover from looking directly at those awful fashion show clothes.

We discussed the purse party a girl in her office building wanted us to throw, then plotted strategy on locating that awesome Enchantress bag.

After we hung up, I went to the breakroom, clocked out, grabbed my purse—a really fantastic Coach tote—from my locker and, as was my custom, made it out the door ahead of just about everyone else.

Holt’s had cut back on the parking lot lighting—they claimed they’d gone green, but I think they just wanted to save on the electric bill—so it was kind of dark. The lot was emptying out really quickly. I headed for my Honda, fishing in my bag for my keys, then stopped in my tracks.

A black Land Rover was parked next to my car—Jack Bishop’s Land Rover.

I’d called him earlier today about Heather Gibson Pritchard who, according to Mom, had taken off for South America suddenly. Jack hadn’t answered his phone, so I’d left a message asking him to call.

I hadn’t expected to find him waiting for me after work, but there he was.

Seeing Jack’s Land Rover parked next to my Honda caused my heart to beat a little faster—he’s way hot.

Yeah, yeah, I know that was really bad of me because I have an official boyfriend, and—

Hang on a minute. I don’t have an official boyfriend anymore.

The driver’s door opened and Jack got out. He had dark hair and a square jaw that looked great sporting a day’s worth of whiskers. He wore denim jeans, boots, and a henley shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

Oh, wow, he looked really hot.

I hadn’t seen Jack since the night he’d come to my apartment when, I’m sure, he had something way different in mind but ended up comforting me after Ty and I broke up.

Ty? Ty? I’m thinking about Ty now?

We’d broken up. He hadn’t called me—in weeks. He’d left all that stuff in my apartment—for me to clean up. He’d broken my heart and cast me into a serious breakup fog I’d only recently recovered from.

Jack was standing just a few yards in front of me looking way hot. I shouldn’t have been thinking about Ty at all.

Jack crossed the parking lot to meet me. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me. He smelled great.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

I couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t using his Barry White voice.

I have no defense against the Barry White voice. “Great,” I said, forcing a little cheer into my voice. I gestured to the store. “Just working.”

Jack nodded but didn’t say anything.

Jeez, was this awkward or what?

“You called,” he said, oh so politely.

“Yeah, I was wondering if you could help me out with something,” I said.

He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at me.

I gestured to our vehicles parked a few yards away, and said, “Do you want to get some coffee, or something?”

“Here’s fine,” Jack said.

Okay, this was totally weird—and completely unlike Jack.

“There’s this guy named Andrew Pritchard,” I said. “He’s a client of Pike Warner and he works at—”

“I know where he works,” Jack said.

“He got married a couple of months ago—”

“I know.”

What the heck was going on? What was up with Jack?

Since I’m not big on suspense, I said, “You’re being really weird. What’s wrong?”

The cool thing about talking to a man was that he would give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. None of this whining around, playing coy, or dragging it out like women did—honestly, I don’t know how men stand us sometimes. Good thing we’ll have sex with them, otherwise they would probably think we are just too much trouble.