Free Unzipped by Lois Greiman Page B

meld of unqualified certainty and quiet affront, which was amazing, because I’d seen her at auditions. She wasn’t going to be the next Meryl Streep. In fact, Pamela Anderson had nothing to fear. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Ms. McMullen is the consummate professional. But if you’ll give me your phone number I’ll make certain she calls you at her earliest convenience.”
    Thirty seconds later he’d given her six methods of contacting him and proposed twice. It was like that with Elaine.
    She hung up the phone and crossed her arms over her gravity-defying chest. “Tell me.”
    “I just borrowed it,” I said, but there was a twist of guilt in my gut that made me hungry for dark chocolate. Being fresh out, I shambled into my office, trying to ignore the spot from whence they’d removed Bomstad’s dead body.
    She followed me in. “Tell me everything and start at the beginning.”
    My head was starting to pound. “There’s nothing to tell.”
    “Christina Mary McMullen,
nothing
is what’s been going on with you for the last year and a half.
Something
is when you steal a guy’s Porsche and park it smack dab in front of your office building!”
    I considered arguing. In fact, I opened my mouth to do just that, but finally I plopped my head onto my desk and groaned through my eyeballs. “Holy crap, Laney, I’m in deep shit.”
    She grabbed a chair and scooted it across the floor. I could hear it being dragged along. “Because of the Porsche or because of the dead guy?”
    I moaned again, but the front bell rang simultaneously, interrupting my pity fest. And it had promised to be a good one.
    She lifted one finger in a request to hold that thought, donned her professional persona like a feather boa, and marched through the door.
    “Can I help you?” she asked, but the next voice brought my head up like a muskie on a hook.
    “Lieutenant Rivera.” There was a slight pause. I assumed he was showing her his badge. He had a tendency to whip the thing out like an Olympic medal. “I need to speak with Ms. McMullen.”
    “Lieutenant . . . Rivera is it?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I’m sorry, but she didn’t feel up to coming in today.”
    “That’s understandable.” His voice was unmistakable, as deep and dark as I remembered in my nightmares. “She’s been through quite a shock.”
    “It’s a terrible shame. I’m Elaine Butterfield, by the way,” she said. I could imagine her extending her slim hand and wondered if he would pass out when her arm squeezed up against her breast. She’d dropped better men with a hello. “Elaine Butterfield.”
    “You’re her secretary?” So he’d survived the handshake. Impressive, but I was still betting on Elaine. She’d been called Brainy Laney in elementary school. About the time she started filling out, the middle-school boys had thought of a few less cerebral monikers, but she’d had the last laugh; she’d only dated outside the district, operating on the idea that fraternizing with your schoolmates was tantamount to incest.
    “Secretary and actress,” she corrected, but her tone was, as usual, self-deprecating.
    “Is that what you were doing on . . .” He paused as if to check his notes. “August twenty-fourth?”
    “Audition,” she said. “For one Silvia T. Gilmore, Attorney-at-Law, tough but with a soft side. You have a very nice smile, Lieutenant.”
    I rolled my eyes. Rivera’s smile made him look like a cannibal at a fat farm, but maybe he’d given her the genuine article. I was almost tempted to peek around my door frame just to see if there was such a thing.
    “So you weren’t in the office when Bomstad arrived last Thursday?”
    “Had to make it all the way across town. You know how the Five is once we working slobs punch out.”
    “But you’ve met Bomstad before. On previous visits?”
    “He seemed like a nice guy.”
    “How nice?”
    “Clean fingernails. Nice shoes, that sort of thing.”
    “And what about his relationship