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out of town. Pretty convenient timing.” He paused. “Just make sure she gets her skinny ass on that tour bus tomorrow.”

five
    “Was that your car on the news last night?” Jill Bernelli asked as she offered up a cute basket full of her outstanding cranberry scones. Jill’s a secretary at Templin and Tobin, the law firm where I work as a corporate paralegal. We’re in the Orange County office, a satellite office of the mothership based in Los Angeles. Mike Steele is the managing partner of the OC office. Jill is also the wife of Sally Kipman, one of my high-school classmates. Together for many years, Jill and Sally got married this past New Year’s Day in a small ceremony that Greg and I attended. Feeling magnanimous and in love himself, Steele paid for their honeymoon in Hawaii, but not before extracting the promise from Jill that she would be back in the office bright and early the day after she returned.
    “My car was on the news?” I asked, feigning surprise.
    “Don’t play dumb with me, Grey,” Jill said, addressing me by my last name as Steele did. She only did that when she wanted to cut through the bull—or rather my bull. “I saw you pull into the parking garage this morning in a different car, and even though they blocked out the license plate, the vehicle on the news looked just like your car, right down to the I brake for Ben and Jerry’s bumper sticker.”
    “Got me,” I said and took a big bite of scone. Jill should be working for the FBI instead of Gregory Shipman.
    “So what’s the story?” she asked. “I promised Sally I’d worm it out of you and call her.”
    “Good grief,” I said after taking a slurp of coffee. “Is that why you brought the scones? Did you think you could bribe the information out of me?”
    “Yep,” she answered honestly. “Both you and Steele are putty in my baker’s hands, although he’s a tougher customer. With him I usually have to throw in a chocolate bundt cake or blueberry muffins on the side to get what I want.”
    “Nice to know I’m such a pushover.” I wiped my mouth with one of my good linen napkins—a piece torn from the paper towel roll I kept in my office.
    “So what’s the story?” Jill pressed. “Sally’s waiting for my call, and she has a busy day.”
    “Well, pardon me if I hold up her schedule,” I snapped.
    Jill smiled at my sarcasm. She could roll with it like a pro. After all, Sally was the queen of snark, and Steele was no slouch in that department either. I was the featherweight of the group. “According to the news last night,” Jill said, not missing a beat, “a body was found in the trunk of a car at a Long Beach car wash yesterday—Twinkle Clean. Isn’t that where you go?”
    “A lot of people go to Twinkle Clean.” I took another bite of scone and took my time chewing and swallowing. Across from my desk, Jill sat in front of me with the serenity and patience of a Tibetan monk. Over the years, she and Sally had become very important in my life, and not just at the office. Even though Sally and I were frenemies in high school, we’ve now become close; I consider them both like sisters, as I do Zee. I trusted and loved them. Sally had been a bridesmaid at my wedding.
    “Yeah, that was my car,” I finally admitted after swallowing the bite I’d masticated into pulp. “And yes, a dead body was in the trunk.”
    “Did you know the dead guy?” she asked, picking at a corner of one of the scones in the basket, which was now sitting on my desk.
    I shook my head. “I didn’t have a clue who he was or how he got there.” Which was true. I hadn’t known who he was when he was found. I wasn’t ready to tell Jill what we’d discovered since. I still needed to sort that information out for myself.
    “Yes!” Jill cried. No longer calm and collected, she pumped a victory fist into the air. Her head bobbed with excitement, each thrust causing her cropped brown hair to shimmer like short fringe on a suede