All or Nothing by Elizabeth Adler

gulped the rest of her coffee and put the empty mug back on the table. “Get your clothes on, honey. We are going out.”
    Marla groaned, looking at the rain trickling down the bank of floor–to–ceiling windows that were supposed to frame a bird’s–eye view of the Pacific Ocean.
    Her apartment was as glamorous as Marla herself, a big––3,400 square feet––ocean view condo on the eleventh floor of a glossy white marble building in the Palisades. The floors were pale limestone, the kitchen black granite and steel, the bathrooms––three––blond marble and glass. The huge expanse of windows offered a view of Pacific Coast Highway immediately below, and across from that, the beach with the waves rolling in and––on most days––the surfers.
    It was almost as sparingly furnished as Al’s place, except Marla called this style “Comfortable Minimalist.” Overstuffed taupe sofas; deep–jewel–toned Oriental rugs; an aluminum console teetering on spindly legs in the hall; a single crystal vase three feet high holding a tall branch of pussy willow; white Phalaenopsis orchids in the bedroom and an antique Chinese bed in scarlet and gold lacquer that was like a small room with panels that closed around it like little doors, supposed originally to keep out the drafts of ancient China.
    Al thought Marla’s home was exactly like her, a place of many facets, many moods. What he didn’t understand was how she could afford it.
    He was never one to beat about the bush. When he wanted to know something, he asked.
    “Dad, of course,” she had replied. “He bought it from the floor plan as an investment a couple of years ago. Sometimes it’s useful, him being in real estate.”
    Which brought Al’s thoughts right back to the missing Laurie Martin again.
    “It’s raining out,” Marla said. “Besides, I thought this was
our
day. Our lazy let’s–not–get–dressed–for–anyone–let’s–not–see–anyone–let’s–not–talk–to– anyone–about–business day!”
    “Honey, are you or are you not my assistant? We’ve got a murder on our hands and our murderer is still out there. How can you spend a Sunday lazing on the couch, reading a newspaper and watching TV, knowing Vickie Mallard and her family are going through hell?”
    Marla sat bolt upright, remembering her role as assistant P.I. “You hard–hearted bastard. Even cops get a day off. And I’ve already put in four days at my other job. Plus I have tests to prepare for tomorrow.” She was planning on giving her law students a surprise test; see how much they had actually learned in the last couple of weeks, trip them up, jolt the little bastards awake . . . she was sure some of them slept through her classes.
    “No, you’ve gotta ask yourself this, Marla. Here’s Laurie Martin, a single woman living alone in a nice condo she bought two years ago. She drives a Lexus 400––leased from a local car dealership. Her payments are prompt, her credit cards are current, as are her accounts at a couple of department stores, and she has no bank loans. We know she was quiet socially. No real friends, more like business acquaintances. She attended a local Baptist church regularly. No family members have come forward. She has never been married. Laurie was, in every respect, a loner.
    “And that’s something else that puzzles me. Laurie was quite a looker, in that bouffant blond kinda way. So how come there was no boyfriend? No parties? Not even nights out with the girls at the office?”
    “Beats me.” Marla thought about it, frowning. “You think she had something to hide?”
    Al beamed at her. “That’s exactly what I think, honey. Now all
I
have to do is find out what that was.”
    “We,” she corrected him. He lifted a puzzled eyebrow. “What
we
have to find out. Remember me? Your assistant.”
    He grinned. “How could I forget?”
    Laurie Martin’s condo was in Laguna Beach, a cute little town––part artistic, part