Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries by Warren Nancy

Author:Warren, Nancy [Warren, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Ambleside Publishing
Published: 2011-12-02T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

We understood Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought That one might almost say her body thought.

--John Donne

“You probably want to be careful saying things like that to a cop,” Luke said.

She shook her head in a sort of manic fashion so her loose curls slapped her cheeks. “I’m not being cute. Believe me. You’ll find out soon enough. Ask about her enemies and you’ll hear about the big fight Nicole and I had earlier today.”

“What kind of fight?”

“Well, not a fistfight, obviously. It was more of an old fashioned shouting match. I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

“Like what?”

“I didn’t threaten to kill her or anything. I didn’t like the woman but I would never…”

“What was this fight about?”

She blew out a breath with enough force she could have extinguished a centenarian’s birthday cake. “It all seems so ridiculous now. Nicole is – was -- in direct competition with me for a prestigious sales-volume based award. I didn’t like her methods. I thought she was pressuring her associates to buy more stock than they needed or could afford. She thought I was trying to sabotage her.” She thought back to the awful scene earlier that day. “We both said some things we shouldn’t have. It wasn’t one of my prouder moments.”

She felt her brows squeeze together in a frown, thought screw Botox, and let herself wrinkle. “There’s one more thing. She accused me of sending her threatening notes.”

“What kind of notes?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t send them. At the time I thought she made them up, but now...”

“Email? Handwritten?”

“Email. She told Orin Shellenbach about them, too. He might know more.”

Detective Henderson nodded. Frank. She hadn’t known his name was Frank. “The 9-1-1 call came in just before midnight. What were you doing between ten and midnight?”

She noticed she was picking at her nail polish. It was a disgusting habit, one she’d willed herself out of when she began selling Lady Bianca and really taking care of her appearance. But now she couldn’t seem to stop herself. A flake of pink polish and a lone diamond sparkle flicked from her nail and landed on her lemon-colored skirt.

“I came back to the hotel after dinner and Orin Shellenbach was waiting for me. He’s the VP of –”

“We know who he is.”

They must have talked to him after the first woman was murdered. She gulped. “He took me across the street to Starbucks for a meeting.”

“Kind of late to have a business meeting.”

“He’d heard about the fight. He wasn’t exactly thrilled. Read me a bit of a lecture.” She had almost all the polish off her index finger nail. By scraping hard with her thumb nail, she lifted a ribbon of polish from her middle finger. “Some other women came in while we were talking so I got up. I really didn’t want an audience and besides, we were done.”

“So you left the coffee shop alone?”

“Yes. Then I went for a walk.

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