Party Crashers

employee discount, it's an impossibility."
    Carlotta put her hands on Jolie's shoulders. "I have a system."
    Jolie was instantly wary. "What do you mean?"
    "Buy the outfit at your discount, wear it to a big bash tomorrow night that you simply must attend with me, then return it." She lifted her arms in a happy "see?" shrug.
    "I can't do that," Jolie said, shaking her head. "It wouldn't be honest." Then she squinted. "What bash?"
    "It's a big reception for journalists—some kind of award nominations are being announced. I'm going, and you have to go with me."
    Jolie gave her a wry smile. "You mean crash with you?"
    Carlotta grinned. "All the best people will be there."
    She thought of Roger LeMon. "Some of the same people we saw the other night?"
    "Sure, that pack runs together."
    She'd like the chance to get close to Roger LeMon to find out more about his relationship to Gary, and why he cared that she had connected them. But how could she do that when he already knew who she was?
    Jolie looked back at her reflection. She didn't look like herself . "Carlotta, do you think I could borrow one of your wigs for tomorrow night?"

Chapter Nine

    JOLIE SAT SLUMPED IN HER CAR, questioning her judgment for agreeing to meet Carlotta in the parking garage of the hotel. Sitting in the dimly lit structure, she was an easy target for anyone who might have followed her. Not that she'd noticed anyone following her, but between Gary's stealth, Roger LeMon's secrecy, and Detective Salyers' perseverance, she couldn't be certain.
    Except surely Gary wouldn't have the cojones to tail her in her own car.
    She glanced at her cell phone display: 2 MISSED CALLS. Salyers had called twice yesterday, twice today. Jolie wondered if she were breaking some kind of law by not answering and not returning the detective's calls, but she'd promised herself that she'd call Salyers tomorrow about Roger LeMon, regardless if she learned something solid tonight. She picked up the folded sheets of paper she'd printed last night after researching her subject on the Internet.
    Roger LeMon was thirty-four years old, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in finance, worked in the Buckhead office of LeMon and Pride, Ltd., the investment company his late father had founded. By all appearances, the man was a success in his professional and in his personal life. Recipient of various humanitarian awards for philanthropic contributions, winning member of an Atlanta tennis club, on the board of a local business college, on the vestry of his church. Married to Janet Chisholm, lived in a gated neighborhood in Buckhead, no children that Jolie could find a record of. And no direct link to Gary that she could pinpoint, other than the photograph.
    On the opposite end of the parking garage, headlights appeared, then a dark sedan...slowly climbing the ramp...turning into the aisle where she had parked. Carlotta had told her to look for a white Miata convertible, so she slumped lower and watched in her side mirror for the sedan to pass by.
    Instead, it stopped...directly behind her car, trapping her. Tinted windows hid the face of the occupant. Realization of her stupidity hit Jolie full force, and she scrambled for her cell phone. The hypocrisy of calling the police now was not lost on her, but she didn't care. And how petty was it that she was thinking if she were shot wearing the jumpsuit, she wouldn't be able to return it?
    The tinted window started to buzz down just as she punched in 9-1-1. Oh, God..."they" were going to get her. Her heart pounded in her ears so loudly, she could barely hear the phone ringing.
    "Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?"
    Jolie opened her mouth to unload on the answerer, her eyes riveted on the car window as the top of Carlotta's head appeared, then her gapped grin. Jolie sighed in relief. "Operator, I'm so sorry, I made a mistake."
    She disconnected the call, then climbed out of the car, irritated with herself. "I thought you were driving a white convertible!"
    Carlotta frowned. "My battery was dead. I had to borrow my brother's car."
    "Oh." Jolie gave herself a mental shake. She was either going to have to go to the police or calm the heck down.
    Carlotta handed a Mui Mui shoe box out the window. "I have your shoes, but put the box in your car so you'll have it to make your return tomorrow."
    Jolie put the empty box in the trunk, already dreading the return tomorrow. Would Michael know she'd worn them tonight?
    "Get in,"