Unfashionably Dead

Chapter Eight

For old times' sake, I float through the revolving door to the lobby. I linger next to the fountain and watch as the spurts of water slow down to a trickle and the swirls stop altogether. With the guard absent, the room is eerily silent.

I sit on the rollback couch, unbothered by my inability to sink a couple inches into the cushions. I'm more concerned about my death.

Why can't I remember it?

It doesn't make sense that I jumped or that I drunkenly fell out of the window. My handwriting was too coherent, too neat for either of those explanations. Someone pushed me out the window, and I'd bet my Blahniks that Margaret is my murderer. Why else would she have gone into the apartment, if not to clean up the evidence? And how did she get a key? Lanie wouldn't have given one to her, but Margaret easily could have taken mine.

But did she hate me enough to murder me? She obviously wanted my shoes, but if I were going to kill someone for their shoes, not that I would, I can't imagine tossing the person out a window with the shoes still on her feet. But this is Margaret. Who knows what goes through her mind at any given moment? She definitely doesn't like me, and perhaps that's deserved on my part, but she shouldn't have slept with Adam. She was supposed to be Lanie's friend, too.

Maybe I wasn't the target. The thought terrifies me.

Grant said it himself that Lanie and I resemble each other. We've been asked since we first met if we were sisters. I never really saw the resemblance, but it's there, even if she would clearly be the pretty one. We both have high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. I'm a good two inches shorter and ten pounds heavier than her, and my auburn roots peek through the blonde dye-job, but in the right lighting or if the person were behind us, it would be easy to mistake us for one another, especially when I was wearing heels.

Someone else was in that apartment, and I think he or she probably pushed me when my back was turned, possibly as I looked out the window. I would have scratched, punched, done anything to put up a fight had I seen the danger headed for me.

What if Margaret saw an opportunity to remove Lanie from the picture so she could have Adam all to herself? It's plausible, especially if Lanie and Adam are trying to work things out. And if Lanie was the intended victim, what's to stop Margaret from striking again?

Knowing I won't find my answers here, I rise from the couch and glide to the elevator. The button doesn't light as my finger pokes it. Shoulders hunched, I step through the door, rise through the shaft, pass through the elevator, and then exit it onto the seventh floor.

"Well, what do we have here?" a drawling voice says as I turn to the right. "How are you doing, Cheline?"

Omigosh! Someone can actually see me. Thank god. I think I'd go nuts if the only person who answered me back were myself. 

My attention catches on the suit that I saw earlier and works its way up to his gorgeous turquoise eyes. They seem to sparkle underneath the hall light.  It's my dead boss, alive...er...dead in the...flesh? I had such a crush on him when he was alive.

"Well, my heel is broken, I'm wearing these ungodly clothes, and I died today. How about you, Oliver?" How else is a ghost supposed to respond?

He tilts his head from side to side, like he's trying to figure out what to say. "About the same, plus a few months."

I glare at him. At least he's nicely attired in his suit.

"What?" He seems genuinely bothered by my lack of response. He waves his hand through his wavy, brown hair.