You Had Me at Halo(44)

“Don’t be silly. Vince isn’t evil. You’re not evil, right?”

“No, I’m not evil,” Vince assured them both.

“Well why doesn’t Fluffy like him, then?” Gemma clutched at her purse in panic. “Oh no, please tell me you didn’t kick her, because if so, even if Holly’s stuck in the same body as you, I just don’t think I’d be able to talk to you anymore.”

“Of course I didn’t kick her.” Vince sounded just a bit outraged.

“Well, what then?” Gemma narrowed her eyes and shot him a glinty gleam.

Vince let out a reluctant sigh. “I guess it’s a positive that I never had any credibility to begin with because it probably would’ve gone straight out the door.”

“Vince, please. Just tell us what happened,” Holly tried not to chew on his lip. But for some reason this was important. After all, he was a nice guy. She didn’t want to find out he was cruel to animals.

“Do you remember how cold it was last November? Like really, really cold.”

Gemma nodded her head. “Holly used that as a great excuse to buy the most adorable cashmere coat you’ve ever seen.”

“It was gorgeous wasn’t it? Hey, now that I’m dead, perhaps you should have it?”

“Isn’t that a bit weird to be wearing a dead person’s coat?”

“Of course not,” Holly assured her before she realized that Vince was rolling his eyes. “Anyway, back to Fluffy.”

Vince made a sound that could possibly be construed as a sarcastic snort. “Well, one day when I got to work Fluffy was doing the rounds of the workshop, wearing a blue sweater.”

“And?” Holly was still confused.

“And it had a big F in the middle of it.”

Gemma stared at him blankly.

“Well, I thought it was funny. I mean dogs are covered in fur. It’s designed to keep them warm. They don’t need clothes to do the job. It’s dumb.”

Holly could feel her eyes widen. “You laughed at Fluffy?”

“You shouldn’t do that. Dogs are very sensitive,” Gemma added.

“Yeah, and apparently they have a very long memory as well. Look can we stop talking about this now? It’s embarrassing enough that a twelve inch dog holds a grudge against me, but it’s worse that people know about it now.”

“So you’re sure you didn’t do anything else besides laugh at the sweater?” Gemma double-checked.

“Scout’s honor.” Vince lifted his hand up in something that made him look more like a trekkie than a Boy Scout and Gemma seemed satisfied, but before she could say anything else, the front door swung open and Rochelle Jackson emerged.

She was wearing some sort of oversized pink belt, which was masquerading as a skirt, with an equally non-existent piece of material on her top half.

For a step class?

And boy, she had enough perfume on to kill flies. Honestly the girl was a walking tart shop. But the thing that made Holly and Gemma really drop their jaw was the size of Rochelle’s hair. It was like a Dolly Parton wig, but without Dolly’s spunkiness to pull it off.

“Do you think the fact that Todd’s single again has gone to her head?” Gemma whispered.

“Something’s gone there,” Vince agreed as they slunk further down behind the bush.

It seemed to take Rochelle ages to lock the door and even longer to redo her hair but finally she walked over to her car, and the minute she finished grinding the gears and driving off down the road, Holly jumped to her feet. It looked like this was it.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


“Right,” Gemma barked. “Go, go, go. And please Holly, don’t do anything stupid like stop and read her diary or try on her clothes. We want this to be a quick operation. Just go in there, find the pills and out again. Agreed?”

“Of course. I’m only here for another day. The last thing I want to do is spend my time in Rochelle Jackson’s bedroom.”

“Okay then. Well I’ll stay here and keep a watch out, and if I see anyone coming, I’ll call you.”

“Agreed.” Holly nodded as she hunched her shoulders and ran toward a group of brightly colored pots. As she lifted up the second one, she turned around and gave Gemma the thumbs up. As predicted, the key was there. Thank goodness it wasn’t like Todd’s where you needed three codes and a swipe card just to get through to the foyer. She was fairly certain that retinal scans were just around the corner.

“You do know this is breaking and entering don’t you,” Vince reminded her as Holly twisted the door open. “Not wanting to be a spoilsport but if we were to get caught, I’d probably be in big trouble.”

Holly glanced down and once again reminded herself that she was in the body of six-foot guy. Vince was right. If the police came around, he would be in big trouble. Mind you, so would she, since she would fail her mission.

“It’s all right,” she said in a decisive voice. “We just won’t get caught.”

“Comforting.” He sighed. “Very comforting.” However he made no protest when she stepped in over the threshold and shut the door behind them.

Rochelle’s apartment was a tribute to too much money and not enough sense, but thankfully Holly had been there before so she didn’t pause too long to stare at the mock plaster nude statues that adorned the cream and gold hallway. However, she couldn’t quite miss the huge portrait of Rochelle, which was hanging up the top of the stairs.