Free Die Smiling by Linda Ladd Page B

anything like that. She’s got a lot of pride and self-respect, and she’s strong. She works out on weights every day and runs three miles.” I was watching her face and saw the exact moment that the fact hit her that her sister hadn’t been strong enough to fight off her killer. She burst into fresh tears and buried her face in her palms. This was not going well.
    Bud draped an arm around her and pulled her head against his shoulder. I could barely stand the pained expression on his face. This was tearing him up. I went on, but tried to be gentle. “Do you have Carlos Vasquez’s address and telephone number?”
    â€œI think it’s the same as it was when she lived with him. She’s the one who packed up and moved out when they split. The two of us own a nice little beach house up the coast near Hollywood, pretty far away from all that stuff going on in South Beach. She’s been living there alone since I moved up here.”
    â€œOkay.” I thought about things for a minute or two. “Was she down there recently? Before the Kansas City gig, the last one she won?”
    Brianna nodded. “She always scheduled a week or two off between pageants. She was in San Diego earlier this month, then spent a week at home in Florida, I think, before she flew to Kansas City. The only reason she entered the pageant here was so we could spend time together. We’d grown apart the last few years. She thought it was kind of rinky-dink after the big-city ones. I encouraged her to come early so she could meet Bud, so I guess this is all my fault!”
    She dissolved into a torrent again and I sat mutely and watched Bud soothe her. He was doing a pretty good job of it, and I felt like an interloper in a private, intimate moment and wished I could get up and leave, but I couldn’t. I hated interviewing friends, especially distraught friends. I gave her some more time to calm down, and she eventually did.
    I said, “Did Hilde have any other boyfriends, other than this Carlos guy?”
    â€œNo. There were others in her past, of course, but I don’t think she’s kept in touch with any of them.”
    â€œWere they down in Florida, too?”
    â€œUh-huh, yeah. Some were. Hilde and I both moved down to Miami for college. You know, the beaches drew us. We both went to the University of Florida.”
    â€œWhere did you live before moving to Florida?”
    She hesitated. “Maine. A little bitty place near the Canadian border.”
    Bud seemed interested in this direction of questioning, so I suspected he was learning stuff he didn’t know about Brianna’s background.
    â€œI understand that the two of you were close?”
    â€œOh, yes. We were always together, lived together and everything, until the last few years when I moved up here.”
    â€œWhy did you move up here, Bri?”
    Again, a bit of hesitancy. “I don’t know, really. I didn’t like the humidity in south Florida. It made my hair kink up. And it was too crowded for me, way too many people everywhere you went. I came up here once for a fashion seminar over at Cedar Bend Lodge and just fell in love with the lake. It was so quiet and peaceful with all these pretty views. It reminded me of the place where we were born.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you go back there if you missed it so much?”
    Bud was frowning, like he didn’t like where I was taking this, but Bri’s past was pretty much Hilde’s, too. And pretty murky, at that. I wanted to know who and why and what and where. I’m pushy that way.
    â€œI guess because both my parents are gone now. Nobody’s left up there on the farm. It’s been closed up for years and is even more out in the sticks than this is.” She stopped, coughed a little, and delicately moistened dry lips some more. “Bud, would you mind getting me a bottle of Evian? It’s in the fridge.”
    â€œSure,