Fanny Packs and Foul Play (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

walked
into the L.A. Affairs office the next morning, Mindy was on the
phone jabbing buttons on the console as if she were sitting in
front of a video poker machine in Vegas—and looked as frazzled and
desperate as a weekend gambler on an all-night losing streak. This
didn’t make me feel so good about myself.
    It was a stretch for me to have patience with
Mindy, even under the best of conditions and, really, conditions
hadn’t been all that great for me lately.
    Marcie had told me I’d been kind of crabby
and I realized that, as always, she was right—and that no matter
how difficult my life had seemed to me lately, it was a heck of a
lot better than Veronica’s, Patrick’s, and their families’.
    I decided I should definitely stop acting
like such a crab-ass and be nicer.
    “Are you ready to party?” Mindy asked, as the
lights on her telephone blinked frantically and she held the
received away from her ear.
    “Yes, I am,” I told her, then smiled and went
on my way.
    I swung by my office and dropped off my
handbag—an adorable Chanel tote that perfectly complemented my gray
checked pencil skirt and white sweater—and went to the breakroom.
Several employees were in there making themselves a cup of coffee,
and chatting.
    Kayla, my L.A. Affairs BFF who was also an
event planner, was heating a muffin in the microwave. She was about
my age, tall, with dark hair and a curvy figure.
    “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she
asked.
    Okay, this wasn’t the best topic for me to
discuss so early in the morning—I mean, jeez, I hadn’t even had my
first cup of coffee yet—especially on the heels of my decision to
be a nicer person. Kayla had no way of knowing that, of course. The
what-are-you-doing question prior to any holiday was standard among
friends and acquaintances.
    “My mom is having the family over,” I
said.
    Really, I wasn’t sure exactly what Mom had in
mind for the day or who she planned to invite—except for some
unsuspecting guy who was destined to be set up with my sister. Mom
had probably told me the details but I’d drifted off.
    “What about you?” I asked, as I got a cup
from the cabinet.
    “Everybody is going to my aunt’s this year,”
Kayla said. “I have to be at a client’s house until mid-afternoon,
so the family is holding dinner until I get there.”
    Wow, that was nice. I had no idea what time
Mom was serving but I was pretty sure it would have nothing to do
with my schedule—more likely the time that she’d assigned to the
caterer she’d hired.
    “See you later,” Kayla said. She grabbed her
muffin and coffee, and left.
    I filled my cup, added a few sugars and a
generous splash of French vanilla creamer, and headed out. At the
door I turned back, grabbed two bags of M&Ms from the snack
cabinet, and went to my office.
    I settled into my desk, sipped my coffee, and
got down to work. First things first, was my policy when starting a
new day, so I immediately updated my Facebook page, checked my bank
balance, and read my horoscope. I was debating whether to look at
the Neiman Marcus or the Nordstrom’s web sites for an
if-I-don’t-find-one-soon-I’ll-die handbag when I noticed three
phone messages from the day before, all from the same person,
someone named Mr. Douglas.
    Huh. That was weird. I wasn’t handling an
event for anyone by that name.
    Then it hit me—that was the guy who’d called
yesterday wanting an immediate appointment with me to, no doubt,
talk about an event for his wife or girlfriend. I’d told Mindy to
get rid of him, but he’d called back several more times, it
seemed.
    Why the heck did he keep calling? Didn’t he
get the hint?
    Yeah, okay, I’d decided just a short while
ago to be a nicer person, but that didn’t necessarily include
spending weeks or months putting together a fabulous occasion for a
man desperately in love with someone who wasn’t me.
    Veronica and Patrick Spencer-Taft flashed in
my mind. During the occasions when I’d