Frosted (Moreno & Hart Mysteries) Read online

  It took Krista ten seconds to process that Gretchen, Bridget, Gracie and ‘Moon Girl Number Two’ were in fact the same person.

  “And what did the police say?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “The champagne!”

  “Oh—I didn’t tell them. Because, like, they didn’t think the note was anything, why would they care about the champagne?”

  No one was this stupid. And she’d been married to this stupid for five minutes. Okay, it had been five months, from vows to divorce papers, but she didn’t remember Adam being this dense.

  “What did you do with the champagne?”

  “Uh—I threw it out. It was bad.”

  “And the notes?”

  “I don’t remember. They’re probably at my apartment.”

  “Did you take the garbage out before you came here?”

  “Oh—no, I have a maid for that. She comes every Wednesday at noon.”

  The champagne came Wednesday night. Krista couldn’t assume that it wasn’t there when Adam and his hookup came home—but if it wasn’t, that meant someone had walked into his house and left it while Adam and Moon Girl were doing the horizontal cha-cha in his bedroom. That alone was creepy.

  She was going to have to call in a favor. A favor she really didn’t want to call in.

  “Is it okay with you if I send a colleague over to your apartment to retrieve the notes and the bottle and send them to a lab for fingerprints and testing?”

  He smiled. “You’re brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “That’s why you pay me,” she muttered.

  Trina finally broke away from Scarlet and came over. “Is everything okay?” she asked, glaring at Krista.

  Adam smiled broadly. “I knew Krista would solve everything.”

  “Nothing’s solved yet,” Krista said.

  “Let’s go to the room—there’s a hot tub and—”

  “No hot tubs. Scarlet and I need to get to work. Just tell us where we’re staying.”

  Scarlet gave her a look and Krista mouthed, later, and they followed Adam, Dave and Trina up to the third floor. The elevator opened with a special key into a large foyer. Straight ahead double doors opened into a spacious living room. Suite B. A door to the left was marked Suite A and the door to the right was marked Suite C.

  “Do you have this entire floor?” Krista said, peering through the open doors. Three of Krista’s houses could fit inside this place.

  “Just A and B,” Adam said. “I wanted C so I could bring up some of my buds from the film, but the bride and groom have it for their wedding night, so they wouldn’t rent it out.”

  A woman in a bikini was sitting on the couch eating ice cream and watching soap operas on a large-screen television. “Adam!” she squealed and jumped up. She paused the television. She had the biggest boobs Krista had seen outside of a porn movie. “You’re just in time to watch my scene.”

  Adam rushed over and said, “Great!”

  Jumping up and down, the girl pressed play. Krista edged over to see what the excitement was about. A few seconds later Ms. Boobs came onto the screen in a tight shirt and miniskirt, carrying a tray. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Carter?” she said.

  Mr. Carter looked her up and down and smiled. “Not right now, Cindy.” Then his wife or girlfriend hit him in the arm and said, “That’s why I don’t trust you!”

  Boobs squealed and hugged Adam while she jumped again. “I finally got a line! You know what this means?”

  Scarlet muttered, “I need a beer. No, a shot of tequila. Two shots of tequila and a beer chaser.”

  Krista could use a shot of tequila right now. “Adam,” she said in her firmest voice.

  He turned to her. “Oh, Krista, hey, this is Tammy.”

  “Tiffany,” the blonde said.

  “Tiffany. She’s one of the bridesmaids in the wedding and we ran into each other last night of all things! We had a scene together last year in that crime show you used to like.”

  Tiffany Boobs beamed. “Adam recognized me right off. And I didn’t even have a line! I was Jane Doe Number One, a corpse! They said I took direction very well.”

  “Oh my God, where’s my gun,” Scarlet muttered. “I need it. Now, Krista.”

  “Adam, room,” Krista ordered.

  He tilted his head at her. “You need to see my room?”

  “Mine. My room. Scarlet’s room.”

  “Right through there,” he said. “I told you this place was big. You have to share a bathroom—is that okay? You guys have Suite A. So you have a private entrance and all—so, it’s like better than a regular room, right?”

  Krista would share a bed with Scarlet if that meant she could get away from her ex for five minutes.

  But Adam looked very concerned that she’d be unhappy with the room. He wanted to impress her. Why?

  “I gotta go,” Tiffany said and kissed Adam with a loud smack.

  She waved her fingers at Dave and Trina and walked out. In a bikini. In the middle of December when it was forty-five degrees outside and would hit twenty-five as soon as the sun went down.

  Krista grabbed Scarlet’s hand and pulled her in the direction Adam pointed. She yanked Scarlet through the door at the end of the hallway into a bedroom and shut the door behind them.

  “I will never tease you about Adam again,” Scarlet said. She shrugged off her backpack and dropped it on the bed. “You were not lying. In fact, understatement of the decade.”

  “I was twenty-one. It was Spring Break. I was an idiot.”

  “He’s cute. In a Golden Retriever kind of way. But I think Golden Retrievers are smarter.”

  “There were some benefits ..., but I was blinded by lust.”

  “Is there a case or not?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Maybe? He thought he was being followed then a bottle of champagne showed up in his kitchen. His girlfriend for the night made mimosas in the morning and puked. There was a suspicious note that said, I know where you live.”

  “Did he call the police?”

  “He says he did after the first note. He probably did. But he said the police can’t do anything and he’s probably right about that. His apartment is in Redondo Beach. Do you think your brother could get a copy of the report? I hate to ask—”

  “Consider it done. He can check on the evidence, see if there were prints.”

  “Adam threw the bottle away. And he doesn’t know what he did with the two notes.”

  Scarlet frowned. “I guess I can head back to the city and grab them. He’s paying extra for gas.”

  “It’s a three hour drive. Longer, because of Friday traffic. No, I’ll call Mac.” Mac was their part-time assistant. He was a student at CSU Fullerton and would probably leave them as soon as he graduated because they couldn’t pay him what he was worth. But he was smart, a whiz at computers, and liked the flexible hours.

  Scarlet shook her head. “What if someone is really after Adam? Mac isn’t prepared to defend himself. I guess I could ask John. Adam will give us permission to go inside, right?”

  “Yes,” Krista said. “I hate to ask your brother, but the alternative is worse.”

  “What alter—oh, I agree.”

  R.J. Flynn, the investigator who worked for a scumbag defense lawyer, was one of the few people they could call to assist, and Krista did not want to ask for a favor. Ever. Krista couldn’t honestly say that she didn’t like R.J. Not anymore. She did. A lot. She just didn’t want to. He had this tall, dark and dangerous thing going that Krista forced herself to ignore every time she was in the same room with him.

  Almost every time.

  They’d been rivals ever since Moreno & Hart opened its doors, often competing for the same jobs. R.J. usually won because, well, he was really good at what he did. He was really good at a lot of things, actually, and on the few dates Krista had been crazy enough to go on with him, she’d gotten the distinct impression that his talents extended way beyond his
work. From what Krista could tell, R.J. was good at everything.

  Problem was he knew it, too, and he had no trouble walking around with that arrogant can’t-touch-this swagger.

  Scarlet had originally hated R.J., but he was starting to grow on her after he’d dug around for information that helped exonerate a friend accused of murder.

  And that was the other problem. R.J. had done a lot of things lately for both her and Scarlet with no strings attached—including passing a few paying jobs over to Krista. Well, there were some strings. He’d wanted a date. And then he’d wanted a kiss...

  “No R.J.,” Scarlet said emphatically. “I’ll call John. Mac can then take the notes and the bottle to a private lab.”

  “That’ll cost a fortune.”

  “He paid us upfront, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So he should be good for additional expenses.”

  Scarlet was right. Krista had insisted on payment upfront. She didn’t think Adam would do it. But he’d wired the money into their bank account yesterday afternoon, including a thousand dollars a day for expenses—three days in advance.

  “I’ll get Dave and Trina’s full names and have Mac run a background on them as well,” Krista said.

  “They didn’t talk to me. I stood in front of them for ten minutes while you were interrogating your ex and they talked like I wasn’t in the room. And worse, they talked about food. Now I’m hungry.”

  Krista pulled an energy bar out of her purse and tossed it to Scarlet. “Adam hates being alone. I’m worried that they’re using him, especially now that he has a good gig with the Moon Drop franchise. If that movie does half as well as people think it will, his popularity will skyrocket.”

  “The faster we know what’s going on, the faster we can get out of here.”

  “I thought you wanted to ski.”

  Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Not this bad.” Then she looked around the huge room, taking in the king-sized bed with six pillows, the sofa, the giant television, plus a floor-to-ceiling window with a mountain view. “This room is bigger than my entire apartment.”

  “My bedroom is bigger than your entire apartment,” Krista said. Scarlet was staring out the window and looked surprisingly sad. “Hey, what’s really been eating you these last couple of weeks?” She thought back. “Thanksgiving—it started around Thanksgiving. Did something happen with your dad?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing, Scarlet.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe this thing with Alex and me has run its course.”

  Krista hoped Scarlet was wrong. Detective Alex Bishop was the only thing that had stopped Scarlet from going psycho-stalker on the Vartarians. Problem—there was no proof that they were behind the ambush that nearly killed the two of them.

  At first, Krista had thought Alex was the next in a long line of cop-lovers that Scarlet had gone through over the last three years. Scarlet never stuck with any of them for long. Within a month, she’d dump them or do something purposely to screw up the relationship. It happened so regularly that after she and Alex had been dating a month, Krista kept waiting for Scarlet to come over with a bottle of tequila and celebrate another failed relationship. (Scarlet celebrated break-ups—her partner had a warped sense of humor.)

  Scarlet and Alex had been going pretty hot and heavy for three and a half months. Krista liked Alex—he was good for her best friend. After everything that happened three years ago in the ambush and the subsequent fallout, Scarlet deserved a good guy who cared about her. And it was clear to Krista—even though Scarlet and Alex hadn’t said anything—that they were both serious.

  “Run its course?” Krista shook her head. “Not on Alex’s end.”

  “Why do you say that?” Scarlet glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, and Krista saw a side of Scarlet that she’d never seen before. Scarlet was insecure about her relationship. She’d never been insecure, especially with men.

  Krista was going to press Scarlet to find out what really happened around Thanksgiving, but a terrified scream echoed through the suite.

  Chapter Two

  Scarlet was two steps behind Krista only because she’d taken five seconds to pull her gun from her backpack. They rushed into the living room, both searching for the threat.

  Krista’s ex stood in the middle of the room with Trina, the acting coach. He was holding her in an odd way—one hand under her breasts and one hand on her back.

  “Did you feel it?” Trina asked.

  “Wow,” Adam said.

  “What the hell?” Krista shouted.

  Adam and Trina jumped. Scarlet circled the room to make sure they hadn’t missed something, but she had the distinct feeling that she’d gone down the rabbit hole and landed in an alternate universe.

  “You have a gun,” Adam said, his eyes tracking Scarlet. “Why do you have a gun?”

  “When someone screams like they’re being attacked by a knife-wielding psychopath, I prefer to have a lethal weapon,” Scarlet snapped. She ascertained that there was no danger in the room and holstered her gun. She was no longer a cop, but she still wore a holster threaded through her belt in the small of her back. She’d carried a firearm for twelve years as a cop and still felt naked without it.

  Adam stared at her as if she’d spoken Greek.

  “Translate for him,” Scarlet said to Krista.

  “Adam, what are you doing? We heard Trina scream.”

  Adam was still wary of Scarlet and stepped closer to Krista. “You don’t have a gun, do you?”

  “Yes,” Krista said. “Answer the question.”

  “We’re, uh, Trina is teaching me to project better. It’s actually kind of cool,” he said. “I can feel her voice in her diaphragm and back. She really helped me in Moon Drop, and I want to do better next time.”

  Scarlet watched as angry-face Krista turned to sweet-face Krista. Adam Brock was like a little boy. He was excited over the simplest things and wanted to please everyone. Scarlet could see Krista falling for him six years ago. He had the hot surfer-dude appeal and award-winning smile, all blond and California, a lot like Krista herself. But Krista had a working brain, and Scarlet suspected God had been distracted when He got to Adam. He seemed to have given him a double dose of good looks, but skimped on IQ points.

  “Warn me next time,” Krista told Trina.

  Scarlet said, “Krista, I’m going downstairs to find our bags and call John.”

  Krista looked panicked at the prospect of being alone with her ex. She glanced at Trina and said, “Trina, right? We need to talk. And I need to talk to Dave as well.”

  “Sure, if you think it’ll help,” Trina said.

  When it was clear Adam was going to stay, Krista said, “Adam, I need to talk to Trina alone.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because.”

  “Oh. Okay. We’re going skiing though. We want to get up the mountain by noon.”

  “Scarlet, that’s all you,” Krista said to her. They’d already agreed that Scarlet would be responsible for protecting Adam outside of the hotel, including on the slopes. Which was fine by Scarlet, she loved skiing.

  Scarlet walked over to Adam. He stepped back. She kind of liked it. Good cop, bad cop. He should be scared. If someone really was out to get him, he was a sitting duck—not just because he was up here on this remote mountain, but because he was so naive he’d never see a threat coming.

  “Adam, listen up. You do not leave your hotel suite without either me or Krista with you, understand? That includes skiing. We need your complete itinerary for the weekend, every place you plan to be, when you plan to be there, who’s going with you. Got it?”

  He nodded, eyes wide, and glanced at Krista. “What am I supposed to do right now?”

  “It’s nearly eleven,” Krista said. “Go to you room, get ready for skiing, and wait for me to get you. Scarlet will handle the ski run while I talk to hotel security.�
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  “Okay. Thanks, Kay. I mean it. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come.”

  “We’ll find out what’s going on. We’re going to send someone to retrieve the champagne bottle from your trash and look for the notes. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure. The key’s under the mat.”

  Scarlet wanted to hit him upside the head. “You leave the key to your apartment under your mat?”

  “It’s an extra.”

  “That’s an obvious place.”

  “Exactly! It’s so obvious that no one would think to look for it there.”

  Scarlet opened her mouth then shut it. She had nothing to say.

  Krista walked her to the door. “I’ll talk to him about the key,” Krista assured her. “After John goes over there.”

  “You sure you don’t want to ski with him?”

  “Absolutely not. You promised me you wouldn’t leave me alone with him.”

  “I’m sure Trina and Dave will be skiing too. You know how I love small talk.”

  “Adam is great on the slopes. You’ll be able to keep up with him. I haven’t been skiing since ... well, since college.”

  Scarlet let out a long sigh. “I’ll do it. That’s why I wanted this job anyway.” Skiing, the money, and the fact that she was avoiding her boyfriend.

  Scarlet left. She’d almost told Krista about what was going on with Alex, but thinking it through, she’d realized that she still wasn’t certain where she stood with him. She’d thought they had something more than sex between them. The sex was fabulous, and then they’d started to spend more time together. Her place. His place. She now expected to wake up next to him in the mornings. And then ... One night he had to work, the next he had paperwork, the next he had switched shifts with someone else. She had the distinct impression that he was avoiding her.