Free Bats and Bling by Laina Turner Page A

strongly that something was off about this whole situation.
    “Can I bring you anything else to try?”
    “No. I’m about done here. I have an appointment I have to get to,” she said in a hurried manner like she was all of a sudden in a rush.
    I walked back out and handed the dresses to Angela. “Can you out these back on the hangers and back on the floor. They might need to be steamed they got a little crumpled up.”
    “I’ll say,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
    “Thanks. Where’s Katy?”
    “She went to the back to look for something,” Angela said.
    “Thanks.” I walked to the back stockroom and found Katy looking through some boxes of new merchandise we hadn’t had time to unpack.
    “Do you know if that Chinese Laundry dress we ordered in deep red came in yet?” she asked me.
    “I don’t remember checking it in, why?”
    “I have a customer I think it’d look perfect on but that’s ok. I’ll just have to call her when it comes in and get her to come back. In the meantime I can sell her something else today. Did you see more people came? I told you they would come.”
    “Wait a minute before you go back out there,” I said stopping her as she started to walk through the door back out to the sales floor not concerned at the moment with sales.
    “What?”
    “When I was cleaning dresses out of Belle’s fitting room I saw her phone and she got a text from Craig. You know, Veronica’s husband.”
    “And?”
    “Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
    “Why? She was friends with Veronica so it stands to reason that she would be friends with Craig.”
    “I don’t know. It seems odd to me. She’s out shopping and texting her dead friend’s husband?”
    “I think you’re letting your imagination get the best of you.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think she’s hiding something. I mean Willie said they hadn’t been able to find Craig and yet he’s texting Belle. Is she hiding the fact that she knows where he is?”
    “Maybe she doesn’t know where he is or maybe the police haven’t asked her. Maybe she doesn’t know the police are looking for him. Presley, there are several reasons that are plausible.”             
    I put my hands on my hips. “Why are you coming up with so many reasons to dispute my theory that Belle knows something,” I said playfully.
    “I’m not trying to rain on your parade just trying to play devil’s advocate,” she said smiling.
    We walked out on the sales floor and I saw that Belle was up at the register purchasing the one dress out of the several she’d tried on and an idea popped in my head.
    “Hey,” I whispered to Katy. “Do you care if I leave for a bit?”
    “No but where are you going?”
              “I’m going to follow Belle and she were she goes from here.”
    “Presley! That’s insane. What if she sees you and thinks you’re a crazy stalker and calls the cops.”
    “She won’t see me and if she does I’ll worry about it then. I just have a feeling she knows something that can help us figure out what happened.”
    “The brooch has been found. Why does it matter?”
    “Don’t you want to know who killed her?”
    “Yeah, but I’m in letting the police figure it out. You should be too.”
    I just looked at her.
    Katy shook her head. “Well I know I can’t stop you when you have an idea in your head so go on.”
    “Thanks,” I said and ran back to get my coat. I got back up to the front just as Belle was walking out. It dawned on me that she might be driving somewhere and I was parked in a different spot than our customers and would never be able to get to my car in time to get back to the customer lot and see where she was headed. However, she turned down the block opposite to the lot so maybe I was in luck and she was going for a walk. I stayed about twenty feet behind her so she wouldn’t notice me but I honestly didn’t think there was much chance of that. She hadn’t