Party Crashers

do you mean, I won't approve?"
    Carlotta twisted in her seat and backed out of the parking place, then pulled toward the entrance of the apartment complex. "Well...some dealers are allowing customers to keep a vehicle for twenty-four hours before they actually buy the car, so...I'm trying it out." She grinned.
    Jolie gave her a wry look. "You have no intention of buying this car, do you?"
    "This muscle-head wagon? None whatsoever."
    She couldn't be too self-righteous, Jolie reminded herself, not while she wore over two thousand dollars' worth of jammies that she planned to return. She sat back in her seat, marveling over the way Carlotta connived to get what she wanted. On the surface, it didn't seem right...yet she wasn't doing anything illegal. Besides, was it really so different from bending the rules on tax returns?
    A small part of her admired Carlotta's cheekiness. The woman's obituary was bound to be more interesting than her own.
    From the backseat, Jolie gave directions to a north Buckhead neighborhood where the streets were narrow and the homes were enormous. Old money had built the McMansions, and new money had upgraded them. Sammy Sanders' house was an expansive two-story white home with yellow light blazing from the multitude of windows. The structure sported a dozen different roof angles, various verandas and offshoots of smaller buildings (the servants' quarters?) connected by breezeways, testimony to at least a half dozen additions.
    "It's a freaking compound," Hannah murmured.
    Jolie nodded her agreement. She remembered it being impressive in the daylight, but at night it was downright imposing. With its circular drive lit by dozens of lights, it resembled a country club more than a residence. "Looks like things are in full swing."
    "One of the party-crashing rules," Carlotta said. "Never be the first person to arrive."
    "Or the last person to leave," Hannah added.
    "She has a valet," Carlotta said, her voice ringing with approval. She pulled up behind two other cars from which coated people were alighting. Jolie felt a tiny surge of relief that she wasn't the only person who felt compelled to cover her sleepwear in public, but she was starting to get nervous about crashing a private party...especially Sammy's party. She shifted, hoping the dress shields were protecting the expensive silk chemise from her nervousness.
    A coated and gloved man was leaning down to address the drivers, then taking their invitations. The people two cars ahead appeared to have everything in order and were assisted from their car. The occupants of the Jaguar in front of them, however, after much head-shaking and shrugged apologies from the ticket-taker, were sent away. Jolie swallowed. "How did the invitations turn out?"
    "My brother had to tinker with it some," Carlotta admitted. "The first pass looked better than Sammy's original, so he had to downgrade the print resolution."
    Jolie bit back a smile as they pulled up and Carlotta zoomed down her window. "Hello," she said in a perfect imitation of the Buckhead bourgeois.
    "Good evening, ma'am," the man said. "Invitations, please—one for each guest."
    "Of course," she cooed, handing over the cards.
    The man glanced at them, then nodded and smiled. "Leave your key in the ignition and the valet will park your car." He opened Carlotta's door, then tore off a ticket and handed it to her when she stepped out.
    The man stepped back and opened Jolie's door. She gave him her hand and stepped out into the night air that fell around her like a cold sheet, raising chill bumps...and concern. Suddenly spooked, she turned to look at the car behind them, half expecting to see Gary following her. But the driver was female...and wearing a fur coat, she noted wryly.
    Because the winters in Atlanta were so short-lived, women who could afford fur broke them out at the first frost, without fear of the paint-throwing PETA people who targeted soirees in New York and Los Angeles. Jolie suspected the animal rights activists subscribed to the belief that everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line was armed and anyone who flung red paint on a Southern woman's coat might get themselves shot.
    Which probably wasn't too far off the mark, she thought, remembering the handgun tucked into Sammy's designer purse. She smoothed her hand over her trusty all-weather coat—so old, it bordered on retro. Unless there was a group of polyester activists she wasn't aware of, she was safe from paint slinging.
    When