28: Unbearably Tempting

 

 

No prints. No DNA.

That had been Gordy’s latest update from the lab. It had been a longshot, since whatever the little metal cylinder was, it had likely fallen off something passively. The guys from the security company who were looking at the keycard scanners hadn’t found anything either. None of the other readers were broken, including Salma’s office door, and there hadn’t been any duplicate entries on the log from last night that couldn’t be explained.

I still thought someone had gotten into Salma’s office, and her behavior all that afternoon convinced me that she thought the same. Every time she passed the hallway that led to her office, she slowed and looked at the door. I’d seen her actually dart down the hall to check on her office at least four times in the last two hours. There was something in that office she didn’t want anyone else to see. Gordy was chomping at the bit to get back in there, but couldn’t go searching through her office without either her approval or a search warrant, and he wasn’t going to get either one in the near future.

We were stumped and running out of time.

“Eliza,” Salma said frantically as she rushed up to me, “why aren’t you in makeup yet? You, of all people, should be back there letting them attempt to fix this.” She waved her hand in front of my face. While I was pretty sure she was referring to my bruises, the gesture took in a lot more and I frowned.

“I was about to go,” I told her. “I’m just putting the finishing touches on my recipe.”

“You finally picked one?” she demanded. A big sigh of relief flowed out of her. So much for her earlier confidence in me. “Do it later. Go, now, and get those bruises taken care of. What happened to you anyway?”

“Door to the face. It was an accident.”

“Well, I sure as hell hope it wasn’t on purpose.” She grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the row of makeup stations that had been set up along the back wall. “Go!”

I went, reluctantly. I wore makeup when it made sense. While working in a hot kitchen, it did not make sense, but Salma had insisted…even before Baxter squashed my face. Now she was adamant. I trudged over to the only empty makeup station. The second the stylist saw me, she cringed.

“Sorry,” I said, gesturing at my face.

She blinked and her despair was gone in an instant. She plastered a smile on her perfectly painted lips and gestured for me to take a seat. “No worries at all. I can handle this.”

I didn’t trust her assessment after seeing her initial reaction. The splotches under my eyes looked like someone had taken a permanent marker to me while I slept. Nothing was covering that.

“I’m Trinity. You’re Eliza, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, how’d you guess?” I asked with a snort.

I was not the favorite person around here lately, not with all my questions and running into people while I frantically tried to get ready for the live show. Nobody seemed to mind Morales asking a thousand questions, or even bumping into people. I’d seen him turn and nearly knock a cute girl over, and she’d just beamed up at him and apologized for being in the way. I accidentally trip one guy carrying an armload of mini marshmallow bags and suddenly I’m getting screamed at. They were marshmallows, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like they hurt him.

Trinity just chuckled and started slathering something cold and gross feeling onto my face. It felt like she was frosting me, as if I were meant to be part of the edible centerpieces on the judges’ table rather than a participant. My fingers were itching to wipe it all off, but I knew Salma would yell at me, so I sat on my hands and ran through my recipe in my head as Trinity worked what I hoped would be her magic.

Quiet whispering to my left pulled me out of my thoughts all too quickly.

“…actually read through the entire contract?” a female voice asked.

“Some of it,” a male voice said. “Why?”

“If I actually win this thing…my lawyer is already preparing a counter offer.” She huffed. “No way Salma is getting rights to all my recipes.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and that’s not even the worst of it. No way I’m signing that contract if I win. Nobody in their right mind would.”

“Why hold the contest then, if the contract is so ridiculous the winner wouldn’t even sign it?” the guy asked.

The woman sighed. “Who knows? I’m just hoping this gets me some recognition and a better job.”

Their whispering moved somewhere else and I was left trying not to let my jaw fall open while the stylist was smudging lipstick onto my lips. So that was Salma’s game. She’d lost the battle against even having the contest, so she’d made sure the contract for joining the show was so ridiculous the winner would bail before the spring season even started. Mia would look like an idiot when all the publicity for the contest ended in a huge letdown for fans. It would give Salma the last piece of leverage she’d need to take back control.

“How would you like your hair?” the stylist asked when she finished making me look like someone else.

I was afraid to speak and mess up the ten pounds of makeup I was wearing, but I did my best not to destroy it and asked, “Will Salma flip if you just put it in a ponytail? It’ll be in my way otherwise.”

Trinity grinned. “Of course! Most of the others have done ponytails or buns, too.”

I glanced down the line of contestants still getting dolled up and realized she was right, even about a few of the guys. I sighed, relieved I wouldn’t have to spend the night blowing beauty queen curls out of my eyes. Like I needed any more distractions than I already had. Trinity quickly got to work and pulled my locks up into a high ponytail. Then she curled my hair, because that mattered when baking. Clearly, I was not meant for TV.

“Hey,” Morales said as he walked up. “You look like you again!”

“Uh, thanks?” I said.

His gaze slipped to Trinity. “Nice work.”

“Thanks, Chris,” she said. Her flirty grin brought red to Morales’s face.

Chris? When had he gotten to know the stylists?

“When you’re done here,” he said, looking at me again, “could I borrow you for a minute?”

I glanced around the bakery for Salma. When I didn’t see her, I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Why? Where’s Gordy?”

“I can’t find him. He must have stepped out for something.”

There were several other cops milling around the bakery, including Spencer, unfortunately. Morales got along with Spencer about as well as I did, so I understood why he wouldn’t go to him for help, but why not one of the others? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t ask in front of Trinity.

A few more pointless curls later and I was released. Trinity waved goodbye to Morales. He nodded, turning red again, and dragged me toward Salma’s office. I could only cross my fingers his hastiness didn’t mess up my makeup and hair and get me yelled at again. On the way, I told him about the conversation I’d overheard. The frown he was already wearing deepened and he picked up his pace. I was relieved when we came to a stop a few feet from Salma’s office door. The wall had several framed awards and magazine covers, but nothing I found particularly relevant to the murders.

Finally, I gave up and asked, “What am I looking for?”

Pointing above the frames, Morales motioned toward a vent of some kind. It was an old fashioned type of vent cover. A large iron, square one with a pretty Victorian design. I wasn’t sure what it was for, though. Heating? Cooling? Pure ventilation? I shrugged. Taller than me, Morales could reached the bottom left corner of the vent. He tapped a hole, where I suspected a screw was supposed to be. “Okay…”

“That screw was there before I left last night.”

That seemed like an odd thing to notice. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He nodded firmly. “I was stuck out here for an hour waiting on Salma to leave. Gordy ordered me to walk her to her car. I got bored after I read everything in the frames and I starting counting the designs in the vent. I know all four screws were there last night, tightened down. Now look.” He gestured at the other three screws still in place. “They looked like they’ve been taken out and put back in.”

“How can you tell?”

“There are fresh scratches next to some of the heads.”

I squinted up at them, resisting the urge to ask Morales for a boost like a three-year-old. There were definitely scratches. I was hardly an expert on fresh versus old scratches, but they did look newly made just based on the lack of dust. I looked at the vent as a whole, sizing it up. Literally. “Do you think someone could crawl through there?”

“Someone small.”

“Does it go straight into her office, or is it some kind of duct?”

Morales shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

I was going to get in trouble for this. “Boost me up.”

“What?”

“To see into the vent. Lift me up.”

He hesitated, only acting when I glared at him particularly sternly.

“Gently,” I said as he put his hands on my waist. “Salma will kill us both if I mess up all of Trinity’s hard work.”

He nodded and lifted me up a few feet. I hooked my fingers in the gaps and pulled myself up a little higher so I could see clearly. What I found wasn’t a dusty air conditioning vent. I was looking straight into Salma’s office. I suspected vents like this might have been common in older buildings. Even with exhaust fans, Mrs. Osgood still insisted Sonya inspect the building’s bathrooms for mold once a month.  No venting at all would almost guarantee a mold problem.

At first, I wondered what good it would do to unscrew just one side of the vent. There was another vent cover on the inside of the office. Then, I realized the two sides were connected. A metal plate ran around the inside of the vent, covering the inner portion of the wall that would have been left exposed otherwise. I wondered if unscrewing one side loosened the other side as well. I was just about to tell Morales he could put me down when someone joined us in the hall.

“Morales, could you quit staring at Eliza’s ass,” Baxter drawled.

Startled and embarrassed, Morales dropped me. My feet hit the ground and my knees buckled. I crumpled to the floor and smacked my head on the wall. Morales gasped while Baxter snorted. A second later, Morales was apologizing and helping me up off the ground. Baxter just watched, casually holding the bottle of whiskey I’d asked for in one hand.

“Thanks a lot,” I grumbled at him. “That hurt, and it messed up my hair.”

“Your hair?” he asked dryly. It was undoubtedly the first time a complaint of that nature had ever passed my lips.

Dusting myself off once Morales had me back on my feet, I stalked up to Baxter and pointed a finger at him menacingly. “I think you’re trying to make me look stupid on TV. First my nose, now this.”

“You’re the one who broke her nose?” Morales asked, maybe a little alarmed but definitely a lot curious.

“It wasn’t broken.” Baxter gave the young cop a condescending look that clearly told him to beat it.

I had to give Morales credit for not backing down. “What happened?”

Instead of defending Baxter, I kept my lips firmly zipped.

Annoyed that I had clammed up, Baxter level his gaze at Morales. “Bad timing with a door. Gordy is looking for you. You should go find him. Now.”

Morales glanced at me for confirmation, and only when I gave it did he excuse himself to go find Gordy and tell him about the vent cover and the contract no one would sign. “Why are you so mean to him?” I asked, still grumpy over being dropped.

“He irritates me.”

“You irritate me,” I countered. “Why did you make him drop me like that?”

Baxter’s eyes darkened. “Because he was staring at your ass and I didn’t think that was appropriate.”

“He was not staring at my ass, and you couldn’t care less about what is or isn’t appropriate,” I said. “You were jealous.”

“He shouldn’t be staring at your ass.”

“He wasn’t!”

Baxter crossed his arms, the bottle of whiskey still in one hand. I had half a mind to snatch it from him and either throw back a large glass of the amber liquid or whack him over the head with the bottle. I did yank it from his hand, but I restrained any violent urges.

“Next time you don’t like someone staring at my ass, whether they really are or not, could you at least wait until they put me down before calling them out on it?”

“Do you plan on being in that position again any time soon?” he questioned.

I scrunched my nose at him. “You never know with me. Besides, I have a nice ass, so it’s a distinct possibility. Get a handle on your jealousy before I end up getting dropped farther than a few feet. I twisted my ankle a little.” My mouth fell into a pout, but Baxter offered no sympathy.

“Why don’t you call Puck to kiss it better?”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “At least when he feels threatened about our relationship he tells me good luck and that he loves me. What’s your tactic? Sarcasm and injury?”

“Oh, so now we have a relationship to feel threatened about?” he asked. He tapped his chin as though he had to consider this new revelation.

Annoyed, I turned away from him, wincing a little when my ankle smarted. I started to walk back toward the kitchen when Baxter said, “My tactic is to be exactly who I am.”

I turned and gave him a withering glance. “Who you are right now is an asshole.”

Stepping forward casually, as if we weren’t in the middle of an argument, he stopped only a few inches from me. “What would you do if I started calling you babe and writing songs about you and telling you I loved you every few seconds?”

“I’d think you’d lost your mind,” I said with a snort.

He shrugged, as if he’d proven his point.

“I’m not asking for that,” I argued.

“Then what are you asking for?”

“To not be dropped, or otherwise injured because of you. Is that so hard?”

Baxter stepped a little closer, though that was hard to do. When I backed up, he caught my waist and pulled me in. “I’m sorry that moron dropped you. I didn’t expect him to do that.”

“He’s not a moron. He’s just young and easily embarrassed,” I said as I unsuccessfully tried to step back again. Baxter held me tight against his hips. Only the bottle of whiskey I was holding between us as a shield kept me from melting against him the rest of the way. Damn him for smelling so good.

“I’m sorry you got hurt because of me,” Baxter said, his voice suddenly soft and will-breaking. “I can make it up to you later.”

“How?” I asked before my brain could stop my lips from moving.

The corners of Baxter’s mouth turned up wickedly. “Do you really want to know?”

In that moment, I really, really did. This time, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

Baxter chuckled and leaned down next to my ear. “Then I guess I’ll just have to surprise you,” he said, low and unbearably tempting.

“Eliza!” Salma shrieked.

It was a terrifying enough sound to pull me out of Baxter’s arms.

She stormed down the hallway toward me. “I have been looking for you everywhere! It’s almost time to start! What are you doing back here?” she demanded. Only then did she seem to notice Baxter. She scowled at him, then turned to yell at me again. “No making out with your boyfriend after your makeup is on. Honestly, do you have no common sense at all?”

“But, I…” She grabbed my hand and started hauling me down the hall. “The vent…I was…”

“I don’t care,” Salma snapped. “Get over there with the other contestants and try not to embarrass me!”

I glanced back at Baxter for help, but he only waved goodbye. Traitor.