I sat down.
She set her shoulders and pinned me with her gaze, nothing weak about it. “I know what you really do for a living.”
My body froze while my mind raced. Over my oath of silence. The files I’d carefully hidden or destroyed. The lies I’d had to tell her, my housemate, my family, and now Connor’s family too. How had she figured it out?
“I do understand why you’ve had to lie.” She helped herself to a cookie from the plastic container I’d left on the table. “I’m not even angry about it. But there’s no point going to such lengths to hide it from me now that I know.”
My heart thudded along like a talentless three-year-old playing the bongo drum. Would they fire me? Or would they do worse than that? If there was one thing the Taste Society took seriously, it was secrecy. A Google search wouldn’t reveal a scrap of genuine information about them. How was that possible in this day and age? Especially with the number of people who knew of their existence. How they contained the leaks was something I’d avoided thinking about too closely.
“They can’t be mad at you for it,” Etta said like she’d been reading my mind.
Maybe that’s how she’d figured it out. Maybe she can read minds.
I shook my head, hoping to knock the silliness out of it.
If Etta could read minds, she was careful not to show amusement or alarm at my thoughts now. I remembered how, when I’d first met Etta, I’d suspected her of being a spy. Perhaps I should’ve listened to those instincts, as far out as they were…
“They don’t need to find out that I know,” she continued. “Same with your clients. Those highfalutin folks are awful precious about their privacy, but my knowing won’t do them any harm. It’ll be our secret. No need to look so anxious.”
I forced a nod. “Okay. Thanks.” My shoulders felt stiff—like the poop I was up to my neck in had caked and dried. “How… how did you figure it out?”
She finished off the rest of her cookie before answering. “I thought you’d never ask. It was simple—or should I say, elementary, my dear Watson. Get it?” She flashed a smile. “When I found out that you and Connor worked together, I looked him up and saw he was in private investigation and security. Since he was so rich, I figured he must have been working for rich people, and that made the whole classified angle make sense too, seeing as they can be snooty about that sort of thing. Anyway, because you have no discernible skills or qualifications in investigation and security—I mean, for Pete’s sake, you don’t even like guns—there was only one job description that made sense. You’re a honeytrap!”
My mind boggled. She thought I was like one of those women in James Bond?
“That explains your widely varying wardrobe too. One day you’re in clothes that have never been in fashion, the next you’re the height of chic. At first I figured you wouldn’t be any good at that either. No offense, you’re cute and all, but you’re not exactly a smooth seductress. But then I realized that’s probably why you’re so good at it. You’re so naive and genuine that they’d never suspect a thing.” She slapped her leg and cackled as if this was the best joke she’d ever heard.
I cracked my own smile, fighting like hell to keep my warring emotions off my face. Relief. Horror. Amusement. Fear at this new lie I’d have to embrace. “Very clever,” I said. “You should’ve been an investigator yourself.”
“Funny you should say that.” Her eyes pinned me again. “That’s why I’m telling you this. Because we have a case to solve.”
3
I was afraid to ask. “A case?”
“Yes. Abe’s been arrested.”
She was talking about Abraham Black, the hired muscle who’d once tried to break my bones. He worked for the debt collection agency my loan shark back in Australia had enlisted to punish me when I was behind on my payments. Etta had since adopted him as a friend, mostly because she thought he was sexy.
My feelings for him were in a different category altogether. “What was he arrested for?”
“Murder.”
“Shit, Etta. He’s a bruiser. He probably did it.”
“That’s the same dumb-ass attitude that the police have. Just because his DNA’s on the guy who went and became a root inspector—”
“Wait, became a what?”
“You know, the victim. He’s checking out the grass from the other side. Taking a dirt nap. Going into the fertilizer business. Cashing in his chips. Basting the formaldehyde turkey—”
I held up a hand even though a morbid part of me wondered how long she could go on. “Got it.”
“So we need to help clear Abe’s name.”
I still found her casual use of his first name weird. “Hang on a minute, why should we get involved? Let the police and the justice system do their work.”
“I already told you. They’ve got the wrong attitude. It’s an open-and-shut case as far as they’re concerned.”
“Maybe because it is.”
She shot me a worse glare than the one she’d pulled out when I tried to give her a lesson on gun safety. It was true I wasn’t a big fan of firearms, but I was a fan of safety. Etta was more casual about such things.
“Abe didn’t do it, Isobel.”
Oh boy, here came another lecture.
“Haven’t you heard of innocent until proven guilty? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
And I was, a bit, since she put it that way. When Mr. Black wasn’t trying to break my bones, he seemed like a nice enough bloke.
“Okay, say he didn’t do it, what makes you think we can prove that? Didn’t you just finish telling me that I had no discernible skills in investigation work?”
“Well sure. But you must’ve picked up some tricks working as a honeytrap, right?”
I studied her face. Etta was a thrill seeker. In dangerous situations, she was in her element, whereas I was focusing on controlling my bladder. At present, there was too much excitement in her expression for comfort. But there was also a lot of righteous indignation and concern for her friend.
“I’ll think about it,” I told her. “But now I really need to get ready for work.”
“Absolutely not,” Connor said when I phoned and filled him in on Etta’s proposal. I was driving to Vanessa Madison’s house because she’d wanted to make sure I scrubbed up well enough to pass muster before my first public appearance. That and she needed to give me final instructions.
I overtook the car in front of me. If I got green lights and minimal traffic all the way, I might not be late. “That’s what I thought you’d think, but Etta’s a hard woman to say no to.”
“Say it anyway.”
I snorted. “Sure, I remember when you stayed in the car so you didn’t have to face her wrath. And you don’t live next door to her.”
He let silence trickle down the line while I overtook another car.
I whooshed out a breath. “I’ll think about it.”
Connor remained quiet. He was master of using the power of silence to get people to talk, or in this case, concede.
Instead of conceding, I changed the subject. “So what are you up to tonight while I’m rubbing shoulders with some of LA’s most privileged women? Don’t you dare say it’s classified.”
“I’m having a quiet night in.”
“Really?”
“You told me not to tell you it’s classified.”
Ugh. “Right. Well, I’m pulling into the driveway, so I’ve gotta go. Enjoy your quiet night.”
Before I left the car, I reviewed my mental notes on the brief the Taste Society had given me. It was an unusually short Shade assignment. Since threats to someone’s life or career were rarely fast to resolve, most lasted months and sometimes even years. But Vanessa Madison only required me for seven days.
The WECS Club prided themselves on their charitable donations, but their most renowned annual fundraiser was “A Scandalous Cause.” It was a calendar that featured “tasteful, artistic, sensual” photos of the women from the club.
For charity, naturally. Each beautiful, buffed, and surgically enhanced woman was posed and shot by fashion photographer Richard Newton, and the resulting photos were whittled down to the top twelve by superstar fashion designer René Laurent.
Hard to tell whether the good they did for each year’s chosen charity outweighed the harm they did to women’s rights.
The photo shoot was scheduled on January first, just a week away, and that was why Mrs. Madison had enlisted my services now. It was the biggest ego fest I’d ever heard of, and the winners would have a full twelve months to lord it over the losers.
Of course, the original photo shoot had been scheduled a month ago, leaving plenty of time for the calendar to be produced and delivered for the new year. But it seemed one of the women’s sabotage attempts had gone awry. On the day of the shoot, the fashion photographer must have eaten something intended for one of the contestants and had been taken out of action by a dreadful case of diarrhea. Because he was in such high demand, the earliest he could reschedule was New Year’s Day. Which was why the claws had come out yet again and why Vanessa had hired a Shade. It was up to me to ensure not a pimple or rash marred her skin, that her body didn’t retain water, and that her digestive system stayed in excellent health.
The Madisons’ maid let me in and showed me to a living area that was decorated similarly to the parlor but on a larger scale. Vanessa and a slender, dark-haired teenager who must be her daughter were sitting on the two lounges farthest apart. Vanessa with her spine straight and ankles crossed, and her daughter leaning against an armrest with her legs stretched out over the pale cream upholstery.
Vanessa beckoned, and I went to her like a well-trained dog. Her daughter might have paid more attention if I actually was a dog. She didn’t bother to look up from her phone when we were introduced.
Wonderful to see an inflated sense of self-importance runs in the family.
I was wearing a floaty, mid-length beige skirt with matching three-inch heels and a white blouse. It was over the top and ill-suited for what was essentially a waitress role, but I’d wanted to please my new client.
Good dog.
Vanessa was dressed to intimidate in a deep red evening gown, red lipstick, and hair pinned into an elaborate updo. She practically oozed power, and I wondered what kind of man would choose her. Someone equally powerful? Or someone wanting to be led?
“What does Mr. Madison do?” I asked since no one else was talking.
The daughter snorted. “Anything with tits.” Then she flounced off, perhaps before her mother could yell at her.
Vanessa, however, was unperturbed. “I send her to be educated at the prestigious Frederick Academy, and that’s how she ends up speaking,” she said dryly. “Whatever they’re teaching her there, it’s not manners.” She gave a slight shake of her head—just enough to make her red hair catch the light. “My husband’s a stockbroker. And we have an open marriage. He merely tends to take more advantage of it than I do.”
Well, that was more information than I’d bargained for. She was so calm about it, as if it didn’t bother her in the least. I almost believed she didn’t. But there was a hint of tension around her mouth that made me remember she was a master of politics and power.
The game said if you couldn’t control someone, you made it look like they were doing what you wanted anyway. If that wasn’t possible, you could circumvent any power they’d won by convincing the other players that their actions had no impact on you. It seemed a lonely way to live.
Somehow I didn’t think Vanessa would appreciate my sympathy.
She gestured for me to sit. “Now that my daughter has kindly gone out of earshot, let me run over tonight with you.”
If the Westside Elite Charity Social (WECS) Club was a nest of vipers, then my client was the Queen. Beautiful women orbited around her in clouds of swirling perfume and swishing fabric like she was the center of their universe. Even those that resisted the pull found their eyes slanting in her direction, monitoring, waiting, scheming.
The exclusive clubhouse was a graceful colonial building in Brentwood that overlooked lush, manicured gardens with an overabundance of rose bushes. Utterly impractical for the Los Angeles environment. The entire top floor had been turned into a single ballroom that served as a social and dining area, while downstairs boasted a full range of leisure and fitness offerings, from beauticians and masseuses to a gym with a pool. Tonight’s get-together was on the top floor.
“I’ll ignore you,” Vanessa had warned me, “so that they’ll ignore you. It’s nothing personal.” While the decision was strategic, we both knew she’d prefer to ignore me under normal circumstances as well. “Once they’ve dismissed you as beneath their notice, you can listen in on their conversations and tell me things I need to know.”
“That’s not part of my job description,” I’d protested.
She’d counted out five one hundred dollar bills and slid them across the table. “It is for an extra grand. You’ll get the rest on January first when you’ve proven yourself.”
I’d bitten my tongue and taken the money.
Now I stood on the outskirts, my back to the wall, waiting to be summoned like a condemned poison taster for an ancient king. She had a glass of wine in her hand but never sipped it.
True to her word, I was, for all intents and purposes, invisible.
I was also trying not to breathe. Expensive fragrance coated the air. Alluring, exotic, fresh, or playful, it didn’t matter. Each of them affected my abilities to taste and smell clearly.
We’d done a whole course on this during my Shade training. There were three issues at work: olfactory fatigue which reduced your overall sense of smell and was caused by smelling new scent after new scent; olfactory habituation, whereafter being exposed to the same scent for a length of time, the body temporarily filters it out so you can’t smell that particular scent; and olfactory irritation or distraction, where your sense of smell is temporarily impaired by strong or irritable scents.
Experts were uncertain whether these impairments were caused physiologically by the scents coating the olfactory receptors or psychologically through the brain’s processing of information from those receptors. To combat this, we’d spent months smelling every base note commonly found in relevant poisons, learning them intimately and visualizing them to make it easier for us to register and identify them in unideal situations.
I was listening to a heated debate over the merits of Botox versus Dysport when Vanessa beckoned me forward. Did these women know that both of those drugs had been developed from the same bacterium that caused life-threatening botulism?
“I’m hungry,” Vanessa said. “Find me something to eat.”
“Yes, Mrs. Madison.”
She’d made arrangements with the kitchen staff. I was her spiritual food adviser, whatever the heck that was, and would oversee her meals myself to ensure they matched her aura. In reality, I would go to the kitchen, choose a meal option I could taste without ruining the presentation of the food, then serve her myself and watch like a hawk to make sure no one slipped anything into it after I’d already tested it. My eyes felt tired already.
I wound my way through the clusters of women, hoping to overhear something that would be of interest to Vanessa. Almost everyone was talking about their beauty preparations for the calendar photo shoot, except one pair boasting about their cherubs’ achievements at the Frederick Academy and another who said something about a gun. The last made me pause, but their voices were hushed and I couldn’t pick up any more without being obvious about it.
Before entering the bustle of the downstairs kitchen, I stepped outside for a moment and dragged in lungfuls of clean air. It was nearing dusk, but the rose gardens were artfully illuminated by night lights. I admired the sight while breathing deeply to refresh my mind and sense of smell before performing the tasting. For good measure, I buried my nose in the crook of my arm. It was a technique professional perfumers used to bring their olfactor
y sense back to its normal baseline, and one of the reasons Shades used low-scented beauty products.
In the kitchen, today’s appetizers were soft-shell crab, heirloom tomato and pancetta ravioli, beet, walnut, and goat’s feta salad, or a seafood velouté. I opted for the velouté, which from what I could see was just a fancy word for white sauce, because it would be possible to taste without leaving obvious marks on the presentation. That and I didn’t feel like salad.
I tasted the velouté carefully. The scallops, shrimp, and oysters were fresh and tender, and the white sauce was the perfect blend of creamy, salty, and tart. It crossed my mind that if Connor and I didn’t work out, I should see if the chef was single.
I dismissed the idea seconds later of course. While I had, on occasion, allowed my stomach to overrule my brain, I liked to think I was smart enough not to let it dictate my love life.
In addition to the obvious ingredients, I could taste lemon juice, dry vermouth, fish sauce, and at least four different fresh herbs. I wanted to eat more, but I’d already established it was clear of poisons.
As I carried it up the stairs and navigated my way through the women milling around the ballroom, I was grateful my years as a barista had prepared me for the challenge. Until a jostle to the back of my elbow sent a wave of that delicious velouté slopping down my shirtfront.
“Isobel Avery, is that you?” said a voice that was unpleasantly familiar. “What a shame. You seem to have spilled something.”
I turned slowly to delay the moment of our reacquaintance for a few meager seconds. “What are you doing here?”
Emily Lin flicked her long black hair away from her lovely oval face and eyed my chest where the warm, creamy fish sauce was seeping through to my skin. “Same as you, I’d bet. Only I’m doing a better job.”
Yep, that was the Emily I knew and disliked. She’d gone through Shade training with me, and the two of us had been top of the class. Instead of bringing us together, it had turned her into the closest thing I’d ever had to an arch nemesis. Ultra-competitive, she’d been determined to beat me at every test, and she wasn’t afraid to play dirty to do it.
Eat, Pray, Die Mystery Box Set Page 47
