Free If Looks Could Kill by Kate White

He told her he was like the manager of that Starbucks but he’s
     really just the assistant manager. He told her his family in Colorado was rich, but that’s not true, either. After she broke
     up with him, he kept calling her, bothering her.”
    “Was he still annoying her?”
    “I think he finally took the hint, if you know what I mean.”
    “Was she seeing anyone else yet?”
    A long pause.
    “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Heidi told me she was taking a break from guys. She wanted to, like, take some time to
     herself. But . . .”
    Janice leaned back in her chair and lowered her head, her hands in her lap. Her blond hair cascaded down in front of her face.
    “But what?”
    “Heidi claimed she didn’t want another boyfriend, but I can’t picture Heidi without a guy,” she said, glancing up through
     a fringe of hair. “I almost got the feeling . . .”
    “Yes?” I urged delicately, not wanting to look as if I were pouncing.
    “I almost wonder if she was seeing some guy but didn’t want to introduce me to him. Like . . . like she was embarrassed of
     me or something.”
    Her plump lower lip began to tremble and a tear squeezed out from behind each eye.
    “If only I’d talked Heidi into going out with me Saturday night, she might be alive,” she wailed. “I would have seen her getting
     sick and I could have helped her.”
    “Janice, you shouldn’t feel that way,” I said. “We don’t know yet how she died. There’s probably nothing you could have done.”
    Little George chose this moment to hurl his bobbie across the large square coffee table, overturning an empty liter bottle
     of Diet Dr Pepper, which then skidded onto the floor. It seemed like a good time to exit.
    “Look, Janice,” I said, standing, “I better let you get back to work. Let me give you my number, and if you’ve got any questions,
     call me at
Gloss
—I work with Ms. Jones—and just leave a message.” I handed her a card with my phone numbers, and she gave me her cell phone
     number on a scrap of paper.
    “What were you going to tell me, though?” she asked as she walked me to the door. “You said Mrs. Jones wanted you to get in
     touch.”
    “We just wanted to be sure you were all right. We know what good friends you and Heidi were.”
    “Oh, yeah,” she said.
    “I don’t know anything about the funeral,” I said, stopping by the door. “I assume it will be held in the town where Heidi’s
     relatives live. Did you know anything about her family? Did she ever talk about them?”
    “Her parents were dead. She had this aunt she hated. She didn’t want to talk about her—she said she was a witch.”
    She bit her lip then, as if she were deliberating about saying something. I stood very, very still, waiting.
    “Look, there’s one thing I need to mention,” she said finally. “I loaned Heidi a pair of earrings about a month ago and she
     kept forgetting to give them back. Do you think I’m going to be able to get them? They cost like forty dollars.”
    “Of course. I can ask Carlotta to look for them.”
    She described the earrings—dangly gold with a pearl on each end—and I said good-bye. Once outside I flagged down a cab, and
     as it headed toward Cat’s I pulled out my notebook and began jotting down notes from my conversation.
    I hadn’t gathered a ton of info, but what I had was interesting. Point A: According to Janice, Heidi didn’t drink or do drugs,
     which, if accurate, put the kibosh on the idea that her death might have resulted from an overdose. Of course, she could have
     ingested too much of something without knowing it. As Paul had said, she may have been slipped a date rape drug.
    Point B: Heidi had told Janice that she wasn’t interested in dating right now, but, like Janice, I was dubious about this.
     Twenty-two-year-old girls don’t take sabbaticals from boys and booty—at least intentionally. It sounded as though something
     were cooking, something that Heidi hadn’t