Choose You, page 5
When she looked back over her shoulder and could no longer see the foyer, she had no idea which door she’d come through, or how she would ever find her way back.
Suddenly, she was aware of beautiful piano music, filling the air. Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude if Daisy wasn’t mistaken. She only knew it because Ed Fortune had been quite an accomplished pianist and had played the same piece often.
Conrad paused at another set of solid double doors. “The East Sitting Room.”
Pushing them open, he let her pass through first and then announced loudly, “Mrs. Freeman? I have your detective.”
Daisy passed through, momentarily stunned by the size of the room. Every surface of every wall was covered in artwork—some modern, some classical. Again, a mishmash. There were pedestals with golden and marble statues set out at intervals around the large space. Sitting room? It looked more like a museum.
“Well,” a voice snapped from somewhere among the artistic clutter, “it’s about time! What did you do, walk here?”
CHAPTER FIVE
At that moment, Daisy thought she wouldn’t like Olivia Freeman, either.
It was nothing that she hadn’t dealt with before. She was used to dealing with entitled, snobby, and demanding employers. It seemed to go along with their tremendous wealth. She just hated having to juggle dealing with their wild emotions while trying to get to the bottom of the case.
She cleared her throat, trying to locate her client in the huge, cluttered room. All she saw were paintings, gold tapestries, and naked statues glinting everywhere. “I’m sorry, ma’am—”
“Oh, it’s all right.” The voice turned soft, and suddenly, something popped off the bench next to an enormous grand piano and walked toward her.
The woman was startlingly beautiful, with porcelain skin, her blonde hair pulled back neatly in a headband. She’d mentioned something about a skincare line, and Daisy had to admit that the woman had incredibly flawless skin, almost airbrushed, without a freckle to be seen. Her eyes were a light green, and she was wearing a flowing peach-colored garment that touched the ground. Her bare feet peeked out as she bridged the distance between them and linked an arm through hers.
“I can tell you are just the woman I need. I get so lonely here,” she said as she led her deeper in the room. She moved gracefully, with the posture of a model. “People ask why I don’t stay here with my husband, and can you blame me? This place is absolutely dreadful.”
Olivia showed her to a luncheon spread of finger sandwiches and tea that was fit for a magazine cover.
“Sit, sit! Let’s chat, shall we?” She made a big show of fluffing her gauzy caftan before lowering herself like a proper debutante into her chair.
Chat? Daisy wondered if the woman had called her for companionship, more than to find out what had happened to her husband. And she had to admit that there was something odd about her—for a young trophy wife and social media guru, she behaved with such class, as if she’d been raised taking etiquette classes. Olivia passed her the sandwiches, remarking on which was which, then poured her tea and asked her how she liked it, like a true hostess.
“Just tea is fine,” she said, taking a china dish onto her knees and nibbling at the sandwich. As she did, she realized her manners. Taking a cloth napkin from the tray, she dabbed at her lips. “I’m so sorry about your husband. It must be a shock.”
Olivia nodded. “Marv was the best of men. He was wildly creative and had the most giving heart. He was an entrepreneur, like myself. When we met, I felt a kindred spirit. He was the one who encouraged me on all my businesses. Who gave Livi wings.”
“Livi?”
She pulled the teacup from her lips gently. “My skincare line. Prevents aging. I’ll see that you get some.”
“Thanks.” Daisy figured the veiled insult was warranted, considering the lack of sleep she’d had in the past few days. “But you are . . . how old are you?”
She smiled. “Twenty-six. But it’s important to get started with skincare early before the effects of it catch up with you. That’s Livi’s brand. We cater to the twenty-something. And I’m the face of it. I started it when I was twenty-two, and my mother told me she wished she’d taken better care of her skin when she was younger. By the time you really need it, it’s already too late.”
It’s probably too late for me, then. But at least Olivia’s offer to give her some wasn’t insinuating that Daisy was looking old. “How old was Mr. Freeman, then?”
“Eighty-two. I know. We had quite the age difference. But, like we always told everyone, love has no age.”
“Beautiful,” Daisy said because Olivia was staring at her, clearly proud of herself for saying something so profound. “When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“A month ago? I told you that I was in Japan. I remember the last thing he said to me. He squeezed my cheek and told me to be good. He was so cute.” Tears filled her eyes, and she looked up at the ceiling, blinking, obviously trying to stop them from falling. “I never liked this terrible house, and now, knowing he died here, I like it even less. I never used to stay here. Even when I was in Beverly Hills, I’d stay at my own place.”
“Oh, you have a place?”
“Yes. I have a beautiful house. It’s being painted, or else I’d have met you there. But . . . ” She shuddered. “The police really don’t want people poking around here, either. But it’s our house—well, my house, now, I suppose, so what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Between you and me, that Duncan is an idiot.”
“Duncan? You mean, is he the detective?”
She reached into her caftan and handed Daisy a business card. Ted Duncan, Homicide Detective, LAPD. “He told me to contact him if I heard anything. But I won’t. He seemed very brash and not my taste at all.”
“He’s managing the case with the police?”
“That’s right. They were here when it first happened, combing over the place like locusts. I wasn’t here, you see, but Conrad told me.”
“Then I’m not sure what I can do for you. I heard though the grapevine that the police might be close to making an arrest.”
She paused with the tea to her lips. “Oh? Who told you that?”
Now that Daisy thought about it, the news probably wasn’t from a very reliable source. The man on the plane next to her? What did he know? “I thought I heard . . .”
She shook her head. “If they are, they’ve got the wrong person. I was told they think that our housekeeper Samara Brousseau was stealing from us, and Marv caught her in the act. But I don’t believe that.”
Samara. The woman who had called Daisy before Olivia had. She’d been worried and had wanted help. Daisy had been trying to get in touch with her to no avail. Would she have called Daisy if she had been guilty of murdering her employer? Likely not. “You don’t believe she was stealing from you?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure she was. I think many of them do. Marv didn’t pay very well, so they do what they have to do to survive. I don’t blame them. I think that’s why she ran off.”
“She’s gone?”
Olivia nodded. “She ran the day he was killed. She was one of the few servants who doesn’t live on the premises.”
“She doesn’t? Why?”
“I’m not sure. The police have been looking for her. But they’re wasting their time. I tell them this, but they don’t listen to me. They call me the trophy wife, the stupid one, I’m sure. But I am not stupid. I know that while they’re looking for Samara, the real killer is out there and getting away with it.”
Daisy set her plate down, only a couple of nibbles taken from the sandwich. “Would you mind giving me a tour of the place?”
She rose to her feet. “Of course. I’ll give you a tour of Marv’s quarters, and the place where his body was found. If I gave you a tour of the entire grounds, it would take most of a week.”
Daisy looked for irony in the woman’s face but saw none. “Do you know how many rooms this mansion has?”
She shook her head. “It’s not possible to say, since there were so many wings added on over the years. I estimate at least five hundred.”
Daisy gaped as she followed Olivia through another set of double doors into a room that was decorated like something out of an African safari—with animal pelts on the walls, leopard print lampshades, a rug of zebra hide, and thick leather couches. Again, cluttered with trophies—hunting trophies, including deer, elk, an entire buffalo head on the wall, as well as giant birds of prey, suspended from the ceiling. There were hunting implements—guns and spears—all over the walls too. Her eyes caught on a full taxidermy bear on a dais positioned on two legs, mouth open menacingly as if about to attack. Daisy didn’t notice the desk at the far corner until after her eyes had volleyed around the place twice. “This was his office. It is pretty creepy.”
“He liked to hunt?”
“No. But he thought he might like to one day. When he decided that he didn’t want to anymore, he didn’t change the room. He just built a new one. This was his office. But he had a new one, built just off his bedroom when he decided on a different theme. Come.”
It was quite the trek to Marv’s wing, and by the time they got there, Daisy was sure she would never find her way back to the front foyer. She’d been completely turned around. Olivia guided her into room after incredible room, each one more ostentatious than the next.
“That’s his bedroom,” she said, pointing to some double doors. “And that door over there is my quarters. Not that I ever use them.” She winked and swept past.
Finally, at the end of a hallway, she opened double doors to a full-sized movie theater.
“Marv spent most of his time here,” she said, pointing to a single seat in the front row. The rest of the seats looked practically brand new. But the red fabric on the edge of the one middle seat was worn pink. “He’d watch movie after movie. He never got tired of it.”
“I heard that in recent years he became more of a shut-in.”
She pressed her lips together. “We were happy, so happy, when we were first married. He would take me places. People said meeting me was like the fountain of youth for him. But gradually, he slowed down again. I don’t think he’d left Castle Paradiso in a year.”
“But you have?”
She seemed a little taken aback. “Of course. He didn’t mind. Live your life, he always told me. Don’t let me slow you down. So, I didn’t.” For the first time, Daisy noticed a wrinkle on Olivia’s perfect face, right on the center of her forehead. “I know how it must look. If it wasn’t for Samara, I would be the top suspect. But I loved my husband deeply.”
She was right; Olivia Freeman had everything—motive and opportunity. But to Daisy, it didn’t fit. If the police were after Samara, then that meant they weren’t looking at Olivia. She should’ve been happy to just let them go about their business of arresting Samara. And yet, Olivia believed Samara innocent. Not only that, but she’d also brought in Daisy to help find the real killer. Daisy had dealt with other past clients who’d turned out to be the killer, but she didn’t think Olivia was one of them. Hollywood might have been filled with actresses, but if Olivia was one of them, she deserved an Academy Award.
And though she was a little eccentric, as most people were in this town, Daisy liked her. “I see that. What put them onto Samara, do you think?”
“I will show you,” she said, opening up another series of doors at the front of the theater. They went down another narrow hallway, through a doorway, and down a long, sweeping, curved stairway, past a hallway with a wall of windows overlooking a gorgeous indoor pool with numerous waterfalls, a slide, and a tiki bar.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Daisy remarked.
Olivia didn’t even look at it. “I hear it was once the sight of many Hollywood parties. I’ve never been in there. We haven’t had a party since our wedding.”
The woman said it matter-of-factly without any emotion. “You liked parties?”
“I liked the parties my husband could attend with me. Without him, what was the point?” she mumbled as they went farther and farther down a series of hallways, each with a black-and-white chessboard floor and golden sconces everywhere.
“This wing was unused,” Daisy said, noticing the cobwebs billowing from the chandeliers. The floor was covered in dusty footprints.
Up ahead, Daisy saw the yellow tape for the police line. She expected Olivia would stop there, but she simply lifted the tape and passed through, holding it up so Daisy could follow.
“You think we should be doing this?” she asked, reluctant.
“They said they have everything they need.” She waved a dismissive hand and motioned her toward a room with furniture covered in sheets. She pointed to a corner. “The body was there, or so I heard. There were no fingerprints anywhere, but they noticed Samara’s footprints in the hall outside. And some of the other servants said that they’d seen her here before. They thought she may have been hiding her loot here, so she could take it out when the coast was clear.”
“You agree with that?”
She nodded. “Yes, but I don’t think Marv surprised her. I think he was dead when she got here, and realizing she’d be a suspect, she wiped the place clean of fingerprints. She only forgot the footprints.”
“Ah. They had a murder weapon?”
“Yes. They said one of the knives from the silver set that was kept in the kitchen. We never used it. It was still . . . still . . .” She covered her mouth with her hand, and Daisy understood. Still in the body.
“I understand.” She looked around some more, moving aside sheets, stooping to take in the place where Marv had been found, but it was already cleaned up. She pulled the sheet off yet another piano, the third she’d seen since she arrived in the house. “Thank you for this.”
As they walked back the way they’d come—at least, Daisy thought it was the way they’d come—Olivia said, “You’ll help me, right?”
Daisy nodded.
She smiled gratefully. “Good. I need someone who will believe me when I say Samara is the wrong tree to bark up.”
“I believe that.”
Olivia blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“Because Samara called me. Before you did. She knew she was in trouble. And that she was about to be arrested, and she wanted help. If she was really guilty, she would’ve just run.”
“What?” Olivia’s eyes went wide. “Oh, now that makes sense. Your card. I found it in the foyer. She must’ve left it there. I wonder who she got it from?”
“She said it was a friend of her employer.”
“Oh? I wonder who?”
“Do you know someone named Goldie? I solved a case for her once.”
“Yes!” she said, grabbing Daisy’s arm. Apparently, Goldie got around and was spreading her name far and wide. “Oh, is she a friend of yours? Now that I think about it, Samara used to keep house for her years ago when she lived around here. Oh, poor thing. She’s probably scared to death, had no one to turn to. You will help me, then? Not just me but Samara. She was a good housekeeper. I don’t care that she was stealing from this household. I came from nothing too. So, I understand desperate circumstances. I just want the girl’s name to be cleared.”
They turned a corner, and miraculously, Daisy found herself in the same foyer she’d been in when she first arrived. With all the walking and turns they’d made, she felt like she was no longer in California. “Do you have any idea who might have done this, then?”
“The only person I could think of—the only person Marv ever didn’t like—was Betty.”
“Betty?”
“Betty Freeman. His ex-wife. They’ve been divorced twenty years. But apparently, he’d kept her in his will, even though they fought like cats and dogs. Last I heard, she lived over on Sunset—in a house Marv bought for her.” She rolled her eyes. “I never met her. But I hear she’s a piece of work. So if I was going to peg anyone, I think I’d start with her.”
“All right,” Daisy said, but as she reached for the door, she realized she didn’t have a rental car. “Oh, do you think Conrad would be able to drive me there?”
“Absolutely,” she said, lifting her phone and speaking into it like it was a two-way radio. “Conrad, you’re needed.”
She waited for a moment, until a voice said, “Be there in five.”
Olivia smiled. “Good. Now, Miss Daisy Fortune, please find the person who did this. We’re all depending on you!”
CHAPTER SIX
As Daisy sat in the back of the limo, reviewing her notes, she couldn’t stop her head from swinging up every time the car swept past another jaw-dropping sight. Though Castle Paradiso was by far the biggest, some of the homes in this neighborhood were beyond belief.
“So, did you learn anything?” Conrad asked her, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“I learned that Olivia Freeman seems very nice. I wasn’t expecting that. From what you said . . .”
“I never said she wasn’t nice,” he corrected, though she clearly remembered what he had said, which sounded much like the same thing. I don’t find it necessary to like the people I work for.
“She clearly feels terrible over Mr. Freeman’s death, though.”
He nodded, and it seemed as though there was something on the tip of his tongue. Something that needed to be coaxed out.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you indicated that it wasn’t necessary to like your employer, and since I could tell you did like Marv Freeman, it seems to me you were indicating your dislike for Olivia Freeman. Can you tell me why?”
He pressed his lips together and turned away from her, looking out the window as he made a turn onto a main road. “I don’t want to speak ill . . .” he said as the car coasted to a stop at a red light.
Daisy found the car flanked by two sleek sportscars in bright yellow and red. Their convertible tops were down, the drivers looking oh-so-sophisticated in their dark sunglasses and designer clothes. “It’s part of a murder investigation. And it could help me find whoever did this.”
_preview.jpg)
