Man with the Muscle. Julie Miller
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with people huddling under blankets, women wearing their escorts’ suit jackets over designer dresses, one man sitting at the back of an ambulance with a blood pressure cuff around his arm, and many others silently weeping.
It was true. It hadn’t been some cruel tabloid rumor that had blipped past on her local internet news site.
Gretchen was dead.
The certainty of it hit her like a punch to the gut and, for a moment, she sagged against the open door, her shocked breaths forming frosty clouds in the damp November air. How? Why?
Screeching brakes alerted her a split second before the glare of headlights spun around the corner half a block away, hitting her square in the face. A television news van. Audrey turned away and closed the car door, instinctively shielding her face from the unwelcome intrusion.
There was already a slew of other reporters here, searching for someone noteworthy from the wealthiest and most powerful of Kansas City society to give them a sound bite. And more of those underground bloggers who’d broken the news of the murder half an hour ago were probably mingling with the guests, texting away.
But Audrey was in no mood to be a media darling tonight. Gretchen’s death was personal. Private. She needed answers. She needed this to make sense. This was the second friend she’d lost in the past two years. Her mother had died the year before that. Standing around and waiting with the others would only give her time to feel, to remember, to hurt. And to have that kind of weakness caught on tape and posted in the public eye would only make the grief that much tougher to deal with. If she ever wanted to be known as something more than Rupert Kline’s little princess, then weakness wasn’t something anyone here was going to get a chance to observe.
With newfound resolve giving her strength, Audrey buttoned up the front of her cashmere blazer, stuffed her keys into the pocket of her jeans and slipped through the suits and cocktail dresses of the party guests gathered outside the front gate. They parted like zombies, shocked and murmuring, as she made a beeline for the uniformed policeman standing by the driveway’s wrought-iron gates. “Excuse me, officer? I’m a friend of the family.”
Her father had taught her that standing as tall as her five feet five inches allowed and walking and talking with a purpose usually convinced people that she belonged wherever she wanted to be. But the young officer wasn’t fooled. Leaving one arm resting on his belt beside his gun, he raised his hand to stop her. “I’m sorry, miss. No one’s allowed to come inside the gate.”
She tilted her chin to argue that she belonged here. “My father and Mr. Cosgrove went to Harvard together. I don’t think he would mind …”
And then she saw the two detectives—one tall and light-haired, jotting notes, the other shorter and darker—talking to a pair of crime scene investigators, each wearing their reflective vests and holding their bulky kits in their hands. What were they doing outside the house? Had something happened on the grounds, as well? The blip she’d seen on her laptop said the victim had been found in her bedroom upstairs.
Why weren’t they interviewing suspects? Taking pictures? Why were they just standing around? Didn’t they know what a beautiful soul Gretchen had been? How much her parents and friends had loved her? Why weren’t they tearing that house apart to find out who’d killed her?
Audrey took a deep breath to cool her frustration, wishing she’d taken the time to don a suit and high heels instead of quickly pulling on jeans and a jacket over her pajamas. She’d been up late working at home instead of attending Gretchen’s party where she might have been able to do some good by kick-starting the investigation and putting these people to work. With no makeup and her hair hanging down to her shoulders in loose waves, she knew she looked more like a teenager than a grown woman. But she wasn’t about to let her appearance stop her anymore than had the two red lights she’d run speeding across town to get here.
She’d known Gretchen Cosgrove since kindergarten. Their adult paths had taken them in different directions, but they saw each other at social functions like this one often enough to keep in touch. A friendship like that didn’t die. A woman Audrey’s own age shouldn’t die.
“Please.” She reached into her back pocket and looped the lanyard with her Office of the District Attorney identification badge around her neck. The job was new, her switch from private practice to public prosecutor a calculated bid to establish her independence beyond the shadow cast by her father. She hadn’t had the opportunity to pull rank without her father’s influence to back her up yet. But this was as good a time to try as any. “I’m an officer of the court. I’m sure there’s something I can do to help.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the officer apologized, “but my orders are strict. Nobody crosses the cordon tape until SWAT clears the scene, not even the commissioner herself.”
“I don’t understand. Wasn’t the body found a couple hours ago? The crime scene is getting cold.”
His gaze dropped down to her ID badge. Apparently, the judicial emblem held enough sway for him to lean in to whisper. “There may be a bomb inside.”
“A bomb?”
He put a finger to his lips. “That’s what the note with the body said. Captain Cutler said until we know more, we don’t want to say or do anything that will cause a panic.”
Cutler. She knew that name. That meant his SWAT team was on the premises, and that Gretchen’s death might not be the only tragedy KCPD had to worry about. Audrey glanced around, recognizing many of the guests in attendance. There was the party planner Audrey had hired herself in the past, Clarice Darnell, along with her staff—servers, caterers, parking attendants. These were friends, colleagues, acquaintances Audrey had met at society events similar to this one. They were already traumatized by the news that their hostess tonight had been murdered. She didn’t wish more trouble on any of them. “No. We wouldn’t.”
“You can check with me later,” the policeman offered. “I’ll let you in as soon as Captain Cutler gives the okay.”
She nodded her thanks. “In the meantime, is there someone in charge I could speak with to get some details about what’s happened? It’s already on the internet. Rumors are going to fly if we don’t contain this.”
“Ma’am, all I’ve been told is to keep people back—”
“Never mind.” She put up her hands, knowing she was pushing too hard, knowing he was just doing his job, knowing she wouldn’t get her answers here. “Thank you.”
“Audrey?”
She turned at the familiar voice and hurried to meet the tall blond man striding toward her. “Harper.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her clear off the ground, squeezing her tight as he wept against her neck. “She’s gone, Audrey. Gretchen’s gone.” She held on tight and rocked back and forth with him. “I loved her, you know.”
“I know. We all did.”
He gulped in a shuddering breath and eased his grip enough so her toes could touch the ground. “We were always together at school—you, me, Gretchen, Charlotte, Donny, Val and the others.”
Audrey rubbed circles at the collar of his gabardine suit, inhaling his familiar scents of tobacco and aftershave, sharing the loss with him. Their whole group of friends through high school had been tight, and though their lives and jobs had taken them in different directions after graduation, they’d found a way to keep in touch, trading calls and notes, coming together in times of tragedy like tonight.
“I used to think you were the one.” Harper sighed, recalling the brief time they’d dated in high school. “But when I got back from law school, something about Gretch had changed. She was still as beautiful and fun and goofy as ever, but …”
“She grew up.” She’d seen the new maturity in the once-capricious Gretchen, too.
“I asked her to marry me. We were going to announce it tonight.”
That