Evening Bags and Executions(8)

Detective Madison glared at me, as if he actually expected me to confess to the murder.

“Don’t leave town,” he told me, and stomped away.

Like I was going somewhere—my honeymoon, maybe? I didn’t have a fiancé, a serious boyfriend, not even a kind-of boyfriend, because I’d broken up with my official boyfriend—which I was perfectly all right with. Really.

I left the bakery.





I loved my apartment. I’d spent tons of money and maxed out an impressive number of credit cards to decorate it just the way I wanted. It was situated in an upscale complex in Santa Clarita just off the 14 freeway, allowing for a quick dash to Los Angeles—as long as traffic wasn’t slowed to a crawl, which could happen without rhyme or reason at most any time of the day or night. Still, I loved it there.

I swung into my usual parking space and got out of my Honda. As first days went, this one hadn’t been so great, but at least it was over and I was still employed. I headed for the staircase that led to my second-story apartment, pretty sure I could hear my emergency package of Oreos calling to me from my kitchen cabinet, when someone jumped out of a car parked nearby.

“Haley, hang on a minute,” Marcie called.

I hadn’t even noticed that she was parked a few spaces down from mine. Jeez, had she gotten a new car or something?

“You didn’t text me,” she said, “so I came over.”

I’d forgotten that she’d mentioned coming by my place tonight when I’d seen her at lunch.

We headed up the stairs together and walked down the exterior hallway to my apartment. I opened the door and went inside.

“I checked online for the Enchantress bag,” Marcie said, following me into my living room. “I looked everywhere but—oh my God.”

Marcie froze. Her eyes widened. She rotated her head slowly, taking in the entire room, then turned to me looking more horrified than when, a few weeks ago, a girl we knew told us she got her hair styled at one of those discount, so-called salons and actually suggested we should do the same.

“What happened to your apartment?” Marcie asked.

I’d told her about the changes Ty had made when he lived here. Apparently, she’d forgotten.

“These are the things Ty left here,” I explained. “I told you. Remember?”

“Yeah, but—why is it like this?” she asked.

“He hasn’t finished installing everything yet,” I said, and placed my handbag and keys on the little table beside the door.

“What is that thing?” she asked, pointing to what could easily have been mistaken for a partially assembled, one-man tank sitting in the middle of my living room. It was surrounded by nuts, bolts, all kinds of metal parts, a thick orange extension cord, and several power tools.

“It’s a grill,” I told her. “The Turbo 2000 Mega Grill. It’s got ten burners, twelve hundred inches of grilling space, side burners, a warming oven with two settings, it’s all stainless steel, and has the most BTUs of any grill on the market today.”

“Why is it sitting in the middle of your living room?” she asked.

“Ty hasn’t finished putting it together yet,” I said.

“And the television?” she asked, pointing. “Oh my God, is it bolted to your wall?”

“Ty bought it for me, after realizing my old one needed upgrading,” I explained.

“Why are all those wires and cables dangling from your wall?” she asked.

“He put up the cables with duct tape because that’s all he had at the time,” I said.

Marcie eyed the artwork that used to hang on my wall and was now stacked up beside the sofa, and the chairs that used to form an inviting group and now sat at odd angles against the wall. She waded through the mound of bubble wrap, packing paper, and brown cardboard containers piled up near my patio door.

“Why is all of this trash still here?” she asked.

“He hasn’t had a chance to take it out yet,” I said.

Marcie pushed past me into the kitchen and pointed to the freezer Ty had purchased and filled with five hundred pounds of meat.

“You haven’t gotten rid of this?” she demanded.

“Well, no,” I admitted. “It’s full of food and it would be wasteful to throw it out.”

“Haley, what is going on with you?” Marcie asked.

Seeing my apartment through Marcie’s eyes did give me a minute’s pause. Yeah, okay, I’d let things go lately. A few things were out of place, needed picking up, but it wasn’t a big deal. Really.

“I knew something was wrong,” Marcie said, and began pacing back and forth across my kitchen. “I should have come over sooner.”