Make Me Up (Killer Style 3)
Page 9
Drea shook her head. “Mrs. Orton is a regular.”
“How would you gauge her mood? Did she seem upset? Angry? Scared?” He jotted notes down.
“She was snarly, but that was par for the course with her.”
He glanced up. “With you or with everyone?”
That earned him a chuckle heavy on the bitter and light on the humor from Drea. “She didn’t discriminate when it came to throwing her attitude around.”
“Take me through what happened.”
“She came in upset.” Drea shivered and rubbed her bare upper arms. “Supposedly she’d caught her husband with another woman.”
Reggie didn’t pounce, but the tension in his large frame dialed up from ten to one hundred. “How do you know that?”
“Fergus told me.”
He flipped through his notes. “The butler?”
She nodded. “I’m not sure if that’s his exact job title, but yes.”
“And was Mr. Orton home at the time?” Reggie continued with the interrogation, keeping his focus mainly on the notepad, but no doubt noticing every detail about Drea’s body language.
“No.”
“What happened then?”
Drea shrugged. “She sat in the chair, and I applied her makeup.”
“Did you use anything unusual?” Reggie gave Drea his full attention. “Anything new?”
She shook her head. “Like I told you before, Mrs. Orton was very particular about what makeup she wore. It was always the same brands. Every time. The only change up was the colors used.”
“So you used the makeup she provided?”
“No. I brought her preference with me.”
“And Mrs. Orton had the seizure right after you applied the lipstick?” Reggie’s voice was dead serious.
Drea nodded.
That little tidbit set off Cam’s warning sirens. Not good.
Reggie closed his notebook and deposited it in his inner jacket pocket. “Can you think of anything else?”
Drea opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head.
Christ. So she had a possible motive, opportunity, means to kill Natasha Orton, and she was obviously holding something back. She may not be the only suspect, but even Cam had to admit she was a mighty good one.
Chapter Four
A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: Serving its purpose without obstructing the view. - Sophia Loren
As she strutted across the police line, Drea sucked in a sweet breath of freedom. The city’s summer stink—a mystery mix of hot dog water and urine—wafting up from the sewer grates had never smelled so sweet. Even if her escort was Cam Hardy, who’d insisted on driving her home.
“Here we are,” Cam said.
She stopped dead in her four-inch Jimmy Choo leopard-print pony-strap sandals. “You have got to be kidding me.”