Body Movers: 3 Men and a Body. Stephanie Bond
Look what people are saying about the BODY MOVERS series …
“Bond keeps the pace frantic, the plot tight and the laughs light, and supplies a cliffhanger ending that’s a bargain at twice the price.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1
“BODY MOVERS is one of the most delightful series I have read in quite some time. Stephanie Bond shows her audience what a wickedly funny mystery should be all about.”
—Suspense Romance Writers
“This series is simply splendid. Vivid, quirky, flawed, wonderful people fill its pages and you care about what happens to them. Like the prior volume, it is replete with humour as well as action. I can hardly wait to see all these characters again.”
—Huntress Reviews
“Here’s to Carlotta’s future misadventures lasting a long time.”
—RT Book Reviews, four stars, on Body Movers
“This is a series the reader will want to jump on in the very beginning. It’s witty, sexy and hilariously funny.”
— Writers Unlimited
“Body Movers is signature Stephanie Bond, with witty dialogue, brilliant characterisation, and a wonderful well-plotted storyline.” —Contemporary Romance Writers
Body Movers:
3 Men
and a Body
Stephanie Bond
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, thanks to my great editors Brenda Chin, Margaret O’Neill Marbury and Dianne Moggy for your support and for the guarantee that as of this date, the series will last for at least six books! Thanks, too, to my agent Kimberly Whalen of Trident Media Group for handling the logistics, to my critique partner, Rita Herron, for your unflagging support. Chris, my wonderfully creative husband, you continue to be my rock.
And thank you to my dear, dear first-grade teacher, Miss Alice Sue DeHart, for your cover quote. Somehow you taught first and second graders every subject in the same classroom, all day, between wiping faces and tying shoes and kissing boo-boos. You made learning fun, and books special. Miss DeHart, you are still fabulous. Thank you for being a part of my life for over thirty-five years.
1
Carlotta Wren bumped her cast against the door frame leading from the kitchen to the living room. “Son of a …” She bit back tears as pain lit up her entire left arm. Although she was lucky the fall from the balcony of the Fox Theater hadn’t resulted in more serious physical injuries, the prospect of another four weeks in this clumsy cast left her frustrated and antsy.
It wasn’t enough that she couldn’t do her job at Neiman Marcus at a time when she desperately needed the money (short-term disability paid only partial wages). But yesterday when Peter Ashford had brought her home from the hospital, he’d shown her a ring he’d had made for her—her Cartier engagement ring, which he’d recovered from the shop where she’d pawned it, with two more large diamonds mounted, on either side of the original stone. The past, the present and the future. He would keep it for her, he’d said, until she was ready to make a decision.
And on top of everything else, her brother, Wesley, was missing.
Wesley was supposed to have picked her up at the hospital yesterday in a taxi, and when he hadn’t shown, his boss, Cooper Craft, had offered to go look for him. As of last night, Coop hadn’t found Wesley, but Carlotta was hopeful that her brother would turn up this morning. He’d come strolling into the house, whistling, with a mouse in a jar to feed his snake, Einstein, oblivious to the fact that Carlotta had barely slept last night, worrying about him….
Worrying about Wesley seemed to be her fate in life. She’d raised him since he was nine years old, when their parents had skipped town so their father could elude charges for investment fraud. Over the past decade, they’d heard from their parents only through a handful of postcards … until recently.
When a look-alike had stolen her identity and been murdered, Carlotta had agreed to fake her own death. The D.A. wanted to try to smoke out her parents and in exchange, they’d offered to suspend Wesley’s probation for hacking into the courthouse computer records. But Kelvin Lucas, the D.A. who’d been denied the chance to prosecute her father, Randolph Wren, had reneged on his deal when her parents hadn’t shown.
After Carlotta had alienated Wesley for going along with the plan.
After she’d put her friends and coworkers through the traumatic ordeal of thinking her dead.
And after she’d slept with Detective Jack Terry, her temporary live-in bodyguard.
What no one knew was that Carlotta’s father had shown up, in disguise, and he’d recognized her, even though she was also in disguise. She hadn’t known it was him until later, when she’d found the note he’d slipped into her pocket: “So proud of you both. See you soon. Dad”
The scrawled words left her conflicted. During her parents’ long absence, Carlotta had worked up a powerful resentment. Sometimes, she even cheerfully hated them. Leaving without saying goodbye. Leaving her to finish raising Wesley when she was just a few months shy of graduating high school and barely equipped to take care of herself. Leaving no money, only a paid-for town house in a transitional section of Atlanta that was a far cry from the palatial home in Buckhead that they had lost.
College had no longer been an option. The only real expertise she’d had was … clothes. Her father had been a wealthy investment broker; Carlotta had worn nothing but the best since she could dress herself. Thankfully, she’d been able to turn that dubious skill into a career in retail. She’d been a top salesperson for most of her years at Neiman’s … until lately, when her life had seemingly exploded with complications and new relationships.
And old ones.
“Did shithead make it home yet?”
Carlotta turned to see her friend Hannah Kizer standing there, hands on hips. Dressed in pink pj’s with white bunny rabbits and without her severe goth makeup, Hannah looked almost human—pretty, even.
“Not yet.”
“Have you heard from Coop?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t worry. Wesley can take care of himself, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“I wish you were right, but history has taught me otherwise.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Getting dressed is an aerobic workout. Thank heaven for front-closure bras.”
“Yeah, I had a broken arm once. Men wanted to jump in bed with me. I guess it made me seem vulnerable or something.”
“Or less likely to eat your prey?”
Hannah gave her the finger, then dropped onto the couch, picked up the remote control and turned on the small TV. When the picture came on, it was warped. “What happened to your big-screen TV?”
Carlotta sat next to her friend and pointed to the living room window, still covered with the boards the police had tacked in place. “Taken out during the drive-by shooting. I’m waiting for a new window to be delivered and installed, but we can’t afford to replace the TV. Wesley shouldn’t have bought it, anyway,” she grumbled. “We could’ve used that money for other things.”
Like