“Oh, good. Timmy,” Noelle said, reading his nametag. “I’m glad you’re here. We’ll have the eggs benedict, that plate of salmon, like the one over there, a bowl of lobster bisque, and some grapes. Do you have grapes today?”
“Yes, Miss Tremain.”
“Excellent. And put a rush on my order.” She rubbed at her (very flat) stomach. “The baby’s hungry.”
“Of course, Miss Tremain.” Relieved, he rushed away.
“Waiter,” Brenda called.
He ignored her, continuing on.
Noelle propped her elbows on the tabletop. “Perhaps you didn’t know, but my family owns this place.”
Scowling—or, she would have scowled if her features weren’t frozen in a perpetual look of contempt—Brenda tossed her napkin on the table. She patted her too-pretty-to-be-her-natural-color silver bob. Her hazel eyes were more green than brown, her eyebrows thin and shaped into the perfect arch. “I’ll leave, then.”
As she made to rise, Noelle whipped out an arm and grabbed hold of her wrist, jerking her back down, unconcerned by any brittleness she might have in her bones. Or, you know, initiating contact with one of the undead. “You’ll stay there, or I’ll do more than carve my name in your face. I’ll bend you over the table and carve it in your f**king ass,” she said in a sweet tone of voice. She even smiled. “This is a murder investigation, and you will help us.”
Plastic-looking skin became chalk white. But when Brenda spoke, her voice was strong, dripping with vinegar. “Do you talk to your own mother with that filthy mouth?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. My mouth is a lot filthier when I talk to her.”
Hector’s lips quirked at the corners, his dimples revealed one moment, gone the next.
Noelle’s heart skipped a beat. Have to stop noticing things like that.
With her free hand, Brenda grabbed her napkin and slammed the material back into her lap. “Fine.” Fury must have been smoldering inside her, because her frail body vibrated like a volcano ready to erupt. “But this is the last time I shall ever visit this establishment.”
“Oh, no. Hector, do you have a tissue to mop up my tears?” Noelle released the woman and reclined in her seat.
Chin lifting, Brenda snapped, “Your mother will hear about this.”
“Please don’t forget to tell her I dropped the F-bomb, abused my family’s good name, and—I know this hasn’t happened yet, but it will—danced on the tables. I can have Timmy write everything down if you think you’ll forget.”
“You’re as reprehensible as I’ve heard.”
Hector spoke up for the first time since sitting down. “Talk about her like that again, and I’ll haul your ass into lockup on so many charges your attorney will be filing motions to dismiss for a year.”
Noelle’s eyes widened. He’d just defended her. Hardass Hector who let nothing and no one bother him had just defended her.
Damn it, he was giving her whiplash with his personality changes.
“Now then,” she said after clearing her throat. “What did Agent Smith ask you? And what were your answers?”
“Shouldn’t you know that already?” Brenda huffed.
“Enough lip. Talk.”
A beat of silence, a shake of her silver head. “He asked if Bobby had mentioned what he’d been working on lately. I said no. He asked if Bobby was dating anyone. I said yes, a filthy piece of gold-digging trash. He asked if I knew where the girl was. I said yes, Bobby’s home, since they were living together. And that was it, the entire conversation.”
Details they’d already possessed, but now the murderer knew them, too. And Noelle was now confident the caller was the murderer, and edging toward confident that the sex ring was at the center of everything.
“You had dinner with Bobby the night of his murder,” Hector stated. “What did the two of you discuss? Besides your new daughter-in-law.”
“She is not my daughter-in-law.” Brenda lifted her wineglass, sipped. “But if you must know …”
“I must.”
“Nothing. First thing he did was introduce me to the girl, as if I would support his choice. As if I would accept her, an alien.”
Prejudiced bitch. Though Noelle had spent some time with Bobby, she’d had no idea his family-life was as harsh and unforgiving as hers. She could just imagine what the old bat had put Bobby through in his too-short life. The negative comments, the conditional love. If there had been any love at all.
Perhaps their mothers had been separated at birth. “Did Bobby mention where he met Margarete?” Hector asked.
“No.” An uncaring shrug. “But then, I didn’t care to know. I told him to marry that sweet Kerry Jones and finally give me a grandchild. He declined.”
“A travesty. I’m sure you would have been as maternal a grandmother as you were a mother,” Noelle said dryly.
“Yes,” Brenda said, deadpan, clearly unused to sarcasm.
“Did you hate your son?” Maybe she was asking for the case, or maybe she was asking because Brenda’s answer would mirror her own mother’s, and she was curious.
Another shrug. “I hated what he was doing with his life.”
Expected, but still disappointing. “Enough to kill him?”
“At times.” Brenda finished off her wine. “Does my answer surprise you? Well, it shouldn’t. He was an embarrassment, Miss Tremain, and he did the things he did just to strike at me.”
Yeah. That was why.
“Her name is Agent Tremain,” Hector snapped.
I won’t look at him. I won’t be thrilled about his ferocity.
Brenda paid him no heed. “I’m sure your own mother understands my predicament.”
“Bobby was in love with an otherworlder, Miz Marks. He wasn’t a murderer or a drug addict or a child molester.” She purposely omitted the part about his as yet unproven participation in otherworlder slavery. “What did you have to be embarrassed about?”
Haughty chin lifted, Brenda said, “A child is a reflection of his parents. So what did I have to be embarrassed about? Everything. But did I kill him? No. He cut me a check every month, paid my bills, whatever they happened to be. If I were capable of murder, I would have gotten rid of the alien.” As she spoke, a vein pulsed in her forehead.
Bitch was too kind a word for her.
“Now you have access to his entire fortune,” Hector said. “He left everything to you.”