| |
I bolted out the door, pushing Laurie’s stroller as I went. I had every intention of confronting Mrs. Lozano.
Like I said, she now had motivation to murder Kelly on two separate fronts – even if her sister, Carla, had been the one to sign over the salon during the takeover. She certainly would have taken this personally.
And, taking out the potential daughter-in-law that didn’t pass muster was an added bonus.
I caught up to Mrs. Lozano as she was leaning over her driver’s seat to place the bunch of coffees in her passenger’s seat. I cleared my throat, and once she had set down the coffees she stood upright and turned to look at me.
“Kate? May I help you?” she sounded so innocent, but honestly I felt disappointed in myself for not seeing this before.
“Do you own the nail salon next to Jane North’s spa?” I asked.
“Not technically,” she said with outright honesty. I realized now that this had been her game the entire time. Sprinkle a little bit of truth in with the lies to throw you off her trail. She’d admitted to my face she hated Kelly, but she had calmly assured me that that had been in the past – making me think to myself why in the world would this woman admit to hating someone who had just been murdered if she was the murderer?
She threw me off her trail by simply being honest and only lying when necessary, and I had bought it hook, line, and sinker. And, I could tell she was about to do it again.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, it belonged to my sister’s husband. He died a few years ago, and then my sister took over. But, she got really sick and passed away fairly recently. That sort of left me to clean up the mess of this business deal she’d made,” Mrs. Lozano said with a slight smile as though it didn’t bother her.
“You’re talking about the hostile business takeover,” I said. “The one where Jane pressured your poor sister-in-law, who sounds like she was on her deathbed at the time, into signing half the business over to her. That’s pretty harsh. I’m sure you have some resentment, am I right?”
Mrs. Lozano flinched ever so slightly. “Well, I do know that Jane had hired a bunch of lawyers to write up that contract. And, Jane knew that Carla was sick. I would hardly call that ethical business practices – pressuring a dying woman into signing a contract with more loop holes than you could possibly imagine. My brother-in-law and Carla had left that salon to my daughter and me, so you can imagine that—”
“Sonya, right?” I asked. “Yeah, I met her – lovely girl. I’m sure you were frustrated about what happened to your family.”
“Frustrated, yes,” she said. “But, it’s in the past, I assure you, Kate.”
Yeah, I was so not buying it.
Mrs. Lozano was starting to get ever so slightly flustered, and I could tell. She was a good liar, I’ll give her that. Obviously, tip toeing around it wasn’t doing it. I decided to go head on. “So, you figured you could just kill two birds with one stone, right? You and your daughter plotted to get rid of Kelly. It’s obvious you didn’t want her around; you told me yourself you wanted yours son to marry someone else. You told me you couldn’t stand Kelly. Having Kelly die at Jane’s spa would hurt her business, so you would get your revenge for the way she treated your family while they were sick. And, you had Sonya switch out the Stevia and prompted Kelly to have a coffee.”
Mrs. Lozano looked at me with this hideously angry face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Are you sure about that, Mrs. Lozano?” I asked. “I guess you knew the cameras were down since your daughter works in the salon next door, huh? Well, guess what, one camera was still working the day Kelly died. Guess which one?”
Mrs. Lozano turned pale and for a moment I thought she was going to faint.
“Which one was working?” she whispered, and I could see her perfectly manicured nails tapping the side of her leg in anticipation.
“The one right in front of the storage room,” I said. “And guess who goes in there with a box of Stevia?” I crossed my arms and leaned on the handles of Laurie’s stroller. “Sonya.”
Okay, so now I was fibbing a bit. There was no way the police could identify Sonya in that video, but it certainly was not Mrs. Lozano – I just wanted her to think that I had them.
Mrs. Lozano clenched her fists at her side. “You think you’re so smart,” she spat. “You’re not even a real PI. My daughter may have switched out the box of Stevia, but I was the one who knew how to work the sauna. How’s your mother doing, by the way? I never asked if I managed to kill her or not. I saw them drive you both off in an ambulance that day.”
The jab at my mother nearly put me over the edge. But hey, I’m a professional. I can’t run off the field just because someone insults my mommy.
Besides, I knew she was just trying to get under my skin.
“So,” I said. “You had Sonya switch out the Stevia, and you had her help you drag the containers to the sauna. But, you were the one who hooked the carbon monoxide up to the sauna, right?”
“And in doing so, I took out Kelly and have tainted Jane’s reputation enough to appease me,” she said with a look of devilish satisfaction.
I could hardly believe this woman.
Kelly seemed like such a wonderful person; I could hardly imagine the type of person Mrs. Lozano was to so willingly cast a life like Kelly’s aside for a revenge scheme.
Sure, her brother-in-law and sister had been done wrong by Jane, but it certainly wasn’t murder worthy.
Mrs. Lozano smiled again, baring her teeth at me. “With everything that’s happened, Jane’s going to have to close down shop. If my sister’s business is going down, then so is hers.”
My smile widened, and I could tell that made her uncomfortable. “Thanks,” I said and reached into Laurie’s stroller. “Thanks for holding that for me, sweetie,” I said, flashing my phone that was still currently recording our conversation.
Mrs. Lozano’s face was quite priceless.
She paused, contemplating the repercussions. Then she lunged in my direction, and I pulled my arm back to keep her from snatching the phone.
That wasn’t what she was going for, though. She grabbed the handle of the stroller and pushed with such ferocity that it made my stomach drop.
Laurie squealed excitedly, but my head exploded in panic as I watched the stroller zip down a slight slope into the parking lot.
I bolted after her, my heart racing. When I spun around on my heels, Mrs. Lozano snagged my cell phone and ran in the opposite direction toward her car.
At that moment, I couldn’t care less about my phone. I chased down the stroller before Laurie could ram into a parked car – or worse – behind one that was backing up.
I’m sure her stroller only rolled down that slight slope for less than four seconds before I caught up to her, but it felt like I was chasing her for an eternity.
I looked into the stroller, and Laurie laughed like it was a game. “
Thank goodness,” I said, and I looked back in time to see Mrs. Lozano whipping her car out of the parking lot.
I grabbed Laurie out of the stroller and gave her a proper hug and kiss.
My poor baby!
I think this was the angriest I’ve ever been in my life. I couldn’t believe that woman had actually pushed my baby.
She was going to regret this. I was mama bear on fire now!
I raced into the coffee shop, and saw a number of patrons standing up and staring in my direction; they had evidently witnessed the confrontation with Mrs. Lozano pushing Laurie.
“Oh, gosh, there was a baby in that stroller!” one woman shrieked. “Are you okay? Why would she do that?”
“I need a cell phone – now,” I said, and a young man handed his over quickly.
I was seething – nothing like how Laurie was cooing and waving at all the people in the coffee shop who were staring at her like she had just survived a nuclear blast.
I took a breath, but that did not calm me down even a little bit.
I was outraged.
Mrs. Lozano was going to see the inside of a prison cell if it killed me.
