Free Killer Blonde by Elaine Viets Page B

ready and were prepared for some career-saving smooching. But Vicki’s posterior had vamoosed, and they weren’t sure if Minfreda would be sitting on the departmental throne.
    â€œOur CEO took his own sweet time deciding, too. Evaluation week was canceled for our department, but that made everyone even more nervous. It wasn’t natural.
    â€œMr. Hammonds’s announcement came the Monday after evaluation week. We found his memo on our desks first thing in the morning.
    â€œIt said that Vicki had resigned. Period. That was all on that unlovely subject. Then the memo said, ‘Because of her impressive record and innovative ideas,’ Minfreda was our new division head and the head of our department.
    â€œThere was no explanation for why Vicki resigned and no mention that she’d stolen Minfreda’s ideas. Mr. Hammonds couldn’t admit that he’d made a mistake promoting Vicki. I had the feeling that Minfreda would always be a little tainted because of her connection with the episode. Not too tainted, though. Minfreda was now the highest-placed woman in the company.
    â€œThere were whoops of glee throughout our department. We were finally, officially, Vicki-free. ‘Congratulations, Minfreda, I knew you could do it,’ Bobby said, though he knew nothing of the kind.
    â€œâ€˜I’ve been behind you one hundred percent,’ said Irish Johnny. With his knife at her back.
    â€œJimmy just said, ‘Congratulations, blondie, you deserve it.’ He was the most honest of the three boys.
    â€œOh, the celebration we had in Harper’s bar that night. By rights, I should still have the hangover. Minfreda didn’t join us. She was smiling but subdued.
    â€œShe moved into her new office the next day, and she looked like she’d been born behind that partners desk. That dark wood and burnt-orange walls made her golden hair into living fire.
    â€œAs one of her first acts, Vicki’s pink office was dismantled. The purloined walls were removed, the pink shag carpet was thrown out, the window and its hijacked sunshine were restored to the whole department.
    â€œThe staff saw this decision as a sign that Minfreda really cared about office morale. I suspected she had other reasons. Now all trace of Vicki’s reign—and her removal—was gone. But things were about to get sticky.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Helen said.
    â€œThe cops showed up. And then Minfreda started acting strange.”

Chapter 10
    It was almost midnight. The moon rose white and cold.
    Helen heard odd rustlings in the bushes near the pool, then a terrified squeak was cut short. South Florida was a strange, primordial place, freshly ripped from the swamps. Predators of all kinds abounded. What did anyone here know about their neighbors?
    In Helen’s hometown of St. Louis, everyone was connected in some way. One phone call, and Helen would know all about a man: where he went to high school, if his dad carried a briefcase or a lunch box to work, if his mom was a church lady, a lush—or both.
    In south Florida, people have no families and no pasts. We are all freshly remade and newly hatched, Helen thought. Including me. Including Minfreda, who may or may not have been a murderer.
    â€œIt was nearly three weeks later when the police investigated Vicki’s disappearance,” Margery said.
    â€œHer sister, Val, called them after Vicki didn’t show up for a birthday dinner. It was Vicki’s birthday this time. Val and Vicki weren’t close, but they never missed their birthdays. Val didn’t even have a key to her own sister’s house. The cops broke in Vicki’s door and found the typed good-bye letter. Oddly, it was the letter that made Val suspicious.
    â€œâ€˜Vicki has never given me anything I’ve ever wanted,’ her sister said. ‘She wouldn’t give me that Mustang. She’d sell it and take the cash.’
    â€œIt was