Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) by Dorothy Howell

problems.
    I pulled up Mom’s email and scrolled through her inbox until I found messages referencing the guest list. Just as I’d expected, Mom was being Mom. The other members of the committee had sent her the names of those people who would attend. Mom had just cut and pasted them onto the list.
    That’s my mom’s idea of heading up a committee.
    I clicked on the file containing the guest list. On the drive over here I’d come up with a new identity for Jack, one that would let him walk through the Staffords’ front door with ease, though I still thought rappelling onto the roof from a helicopter would be more fun.
    I entered his name on the list as “Jackson Blair.”
    I pulled up Mom’s email again and dashed off a quick message announcing to the other committee members that Jackson Blair, entrepreneur and philanthropist, and owner of Blair Group International in South Africa, had graciously accepted her invitation to attend blah, blah, blah. I signed Mom’s name and hit “send.”
    Yeah, okay, this was a little risky but I felt like I had it covered.
    If someone mentioned it to Mom—and I knew someone was bound to do just that—I was sure she’d roll with it. The list had over one hundred names on it and she couldn’t possibly know every one of them.
    Occasionally, Mom’s vanity came in handy.
    With the party just days away, I doubted Ty would be back from New York in time to attend.
    Of course, if he’d ever call me, I’d know.
    But no way was I staying home—not with Jack there. I wasn’t missing out on a totally cool clandestine investigation with a totally hot private detective—oh, and I wanted to get Brooke’s daughter back for her, of course.
    I added Ty’s name and my name to the guest list, then logged off of Mom’s computer and left the house.
    Everything was in place, everything had been done.
    All I needed to do now was find a fabulous gown to wear—and an awesome handbag, of course. The Breathless wasn’t right for this occasion, but I knew there was a purse out there somewhere that was.
    I headed for the mall.
     
     

Chapter 6
     
     
     
    Leaving Mom’s house, I called my best friend Marcie and asked her to go shopping with me. She couldn’t make it because of a family thing. It was a major disappointment, but we decided to get together later. She promised to bring this month’s
Cosmo
. It was their Quiz Blow-Out issue, and we absolutely had to find out where our lives ranked on important matters such as flip-flops, up-dos, little black dresses, finding a boyfriend, keeping a boyfriend, and, of course, dumping a boyfriend.
    I was tempted to hit the mall on my own. I hadn’t bought a new purse in a while and the Breathless was burning in my brain like a star atop a Christmas tree, but I fought it off.
    I can be strong like that when I have to.
    Instead, I phoned Jasmine. I told her Nikki had given me her number, and gave her the whole my-friend-needs-a-roommate story. She said to come over. I hit the Starbucks drive-thru and got a mocha frappuccino—my favorite drink in the entire world—then headed out the 210 toward Canyon Country.
    I hung a right off of Soledad Canyon Road onto Camp Plenty Drive and parked at the curb outside her apartment building. You could tell the complex had been there for thirty years, or something. The buildings were stucco with red tile roofs, the trim painted an I-love-the-80’s green.
    I left my car and followed the sidewalk back into the complex, then hoofed it up some steep concrete stairs to the second floor. The place looked clean enough and the area seemed safe.
    Jasmine answered the door. I expected her to look pretty much like the other elf actresses, and she did—mid-twenties, brown hair, brown eyes, able to squeeze into size two blue jeans without holding in her stomach.
    “Yeah, great, come in,” she said, after I introduced myself.
    I stepped into her living room. A little kitchen was off to the left, and I saw a hallway that I