With a few keystrokes, I disconnected.
Then I shut down the system.
This shindig’s done, and so am I.
First, home, I thought. A hot bath. Afterward, if I asked real nice, maybe Malone would bring over a pizza.
I slid open the bottom drawer in the desk, removing my purse, doing my best not to leave puddles anywhere except the carpet.
Somewhere beyond the walls, I heard sirens, and I knew I should get my dripping arse outside with the rest of the evacuees. It probably wasn’t kosher for me to be inside the building at this point, even if the fire had been put out and no one was really in danger.
“Goodnight, Gracie,” I said under my breath and took a couple steps toward the door when something stopped me.
“Uhhh.”
What the hell was that?
I had to strain to reassure myself that I hadn’t imagined it.
“Is someone here?” I asked, my heart doing a nosedive as I looked around me, seeing nothing but the expensive furnishings in Marilee’s sitting area.
Wait.
Two objects resembling small black birds lay dejected on the floor.
Were those Kendall’s black Jimmy Choos?
I took a few steps nearer, rounding the kidney bean-shaped coffee table, spotting a blob of crimson on the carpet.
Blood?
Man, oh, man, oh, man.
I swallowed, making myself go closer still, only to realize that the red blot was no stain. It was the broken bud off a rose boutonnière.
What was going on?
A chill went through me, one that had less to do with my drenched state than my fear that I wasn’t alone. “Hey, is anyone here?”
“Uhhhh.”
There it was again.
I swallowed hard and tentatively crossed the Berber, stepping around the leather sofa and seeing a closed door that I knew led into Marilee’s private loo.
“Kendall? Is that you?” I asked in my loudest voice, leaning my cheek against the wooden panel and placing a hand on the knob, which I turned without resistance.
I pushed the door open and spotted a black shape, crumpled on the tiled floor. I smelled a rank odor before I saw the puddles near the toilet bowl.
Ohmigod.
My purse slid from my grip and landed at my feet.
This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
“Kendall?”
I crawled toward the unmoving form and peered down at the dark hair with the near-white streaks, at the pale, pale face with tear-stained cheeks and vomit-stained Dolce & Gabbana dress. Her eyes remained closed, lips parted just wide enough to emit another feeble moan. Her stocking-clad legs splayed beneath her short skirt, and her arms sprawled on the tiles, limp as a rag doll.
I reached for her hand, and the silver bracelets jingled as I pressed it between mine. Her skin felt so cold.
“Kendall, can you hear me?” I said and attempted to push back the sterling bangles to check for a pulse at her wrist, but there were six inches of them at least, too many to deal with. Instead, I placed my fingers at the side of her neck, right below her jawbone. All I could feel was my own heartbeat, pounding through my ears.
She couldn’t be dead, I told myself. She wasn’t. Dead girls don’t groan. She’d just had too much to drink, got sick, and passed out, right? That had to be it.
I leaned over her. “Sweetie, wake up, please.”
Ahh.
Was that an exhaled breath?
Or had I imagined it?
Damn.
What to do? What to do?
Sliding around her, I cupped her head in my hands and set it on my lap, brushing the hair from her face, bending down to touch my cheek to her lips, hoping to feel her breath on my skin.
But I couldn’t tell, didn’t know what was real and what my adrenaline-crazed mind was making up.
I shook her shoulders gently—“please, honey, wake up”—until I realized I could be doing more harm than good. Reaching out, I snatched a plush towel from the rack and set her head down upon it.
C’mon, Andy, think.
I considered grabbing my cell from my purse and calling 911, until common sense reminded me that help was nearer than a phone call.
I thought of the sirens I’d heard and figured a shiny red truck with hook and ladder was parked out front already with firefighters running all over the place.
“Hold on, okay?” I begged Kendall and squeezed her lifeless hand before slipping out of my heels and scrambling to my bare feet. I didn’t want to break my neck if I took off running. “I’ll go get help and be right back,” I said over my shoulder as I sprinted from the bathroom and took a curve around the sofa.
The door ahead of me, I had a hand outstretched toward the knob when the lights flickered.
On. Off. On.
Like the lighting at a disco.
I flung open the door.
Off went the lights.
Only they didn’t go back on again.
Damn.
Panting as if I’d run a marathon, I stood with the black surrounding me, waiting for my eyes to adjust.
You’ve got to be kidding, right?
Was this some kind of cosmic joke? Bad karma from wearing Escada?
I tried to stay calm as I fumbled forward, my fingers guiding me into the hallway. Lapsed Presbyterian that I was, I found myself praying that nothing else would go wrong, wondering what the hell else could.
Because, so far, this night had been one freaking disaster after another.
Chapter 11
I couldn’t see a thing, not the tip of my nose much less my hands stiff-armed in front of me.
A vague breeze, like a rush of warm breath, blew across my cheek, and something hard hit my shoulder, enough to spin me around. Flailing awkwardly, my knuckles brushed against the wall, and I flattened myself against it, turning my head, first left and then right.
“Who’s there?” I called out, still feeling the sting in my shoulder, my nerves all but shot to hell.
I listened for the soft patter of footfall on the carpet, but all I could hear was the noise of my heart, pounding as ferociously as a symphony bass-drum crescendo.
Whoever it was had been in a hurry.
And obviously knew his or her way around, because I didn’t hear any loud thumps or mangled cries of someone banging into a solid object.
Where was I?
After a moment to get my bearings, I gravitated toward the emergency exit that led out the back of the building, feeling spooked and wanting out of there. I fumbled my way to the door, nearly crying with relief when I found it and pushed it wide. Greedily, I breathed in the muggy night.
Looking out, I spied the rows of cars Dewey had parked and the stars blinking down from high above me. But I didn’t spot a single human.
Then I stopped, stepped back, and let the door close, shutting myself in.
If I’d gone out, it would’ve locked behind me, and I was more afraid of leaving Kendall alone inside the building than anything else.
So I turned around.
The alarm had been disabled—thankfully—and so had the sprinklers, the absence of sound in the dark further dulling my senses, making everything so ungodly still. Though there was quite a racket going on inside me. My thoughts were darting in every direction, and my heart seemed ready to leap from my chest.
Here and there, I squished in puddles I’d left on the carpet during my retreat; though I couldn’t see as far down as my toes, I was sure my feet were dyed as pink as the fabric of my discarded slingbacks.
Mentally, I kicked myself, knowing I should have followed Kendall when she’d run out after Marilee’s tirade, hating that I’d been unkind to her earlier. I’d virtually ignored her so she’d let me be.
Why was it so hard to do things at the moment but so easy to look back and wish we’d done them differently?
As I groped my way past the maze of offices toward the once-burning kitchen, I muttered every four-letter word I co
uld think of. I don’t know that it made me feel any better, but somehow it soothed my nerves.
I turned what I felt to be the last corner when voices floated toward me, growing louder the nearer I moved toward what should have been the hallway’s end.
When I saw rays of bright light floating through the gloom, I didn’t waste a second. I started calling out, “Help! I need help, please!”
Every minute was precious.
I kept wondering if I’d left Kendall for dead, or very close to it.
What if she’d stopped breathing? How long could a person go without oxygen? Wasn’t it something like five minutes?
“This way . . . I’m over here!”
The rays of light swung at me, and I squinted as bright white beams filled my eyes until I squeezed them closed and saw spots behind my lids.
“You injured, ma’am?” someone asked, sounding miles away.
“I’m fine . . . except for some temporary blindness.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that.”
They lowered their Maglites.
I blinked until my vision cleared. “There’s a girl who’s in trouble . . . Kendall Mabry . . . she’s sick . . . she won’t open her eyes . . . I’m not sure if she had too much to drink or what, but she’s not good . . . not good at all”—I ran out of breath.
“Stay put, ma’am, please, we’re almost there,” a second equally masculine voice advised, as if I was going anywhere—the words accompanied by the slop-slop of their boots as they slapped through water, wading toward me.
I suddenly felt the earth move under my feet. Well, small vibrations as the firefighters stomped ever closer.
Within moments, hulking shadows emerged from the pitch, moving near enough for me to make out slightly more than their dim silhouettes.
“I’m afraid she might be . . . oh, God, please, let’s hurry.” I pulled at the heavy cuff of the nearest coat as I explained exactly where Kendall was and how to get there through the winding hallways. Until it seemed I had talked too much, for too long, and so I turned, ready to take them to Kendall myself.
But a gloved hand caught my arm, holding me still.
“Stay put, ma’am,” Fireman Number One insisted. “Can’t have you running around without shoes in the dark. You might get hurt.”
What the hell did he think I’d been doing before they found me?
A walkie-talkie crackled, and Fireman Number Two radioed for the EMTs to get inside pronto. His coat brushed my shoulder as he headed off in the direction of Marilee’s office, his heavy gear making him clunk as he ran.
“I should really go back . . . she needs someone with her . . . I shouldn’t have left her alone,” I said, panic rising, and my teeth started to chatter.
Though Number One wasn’t letting loose. “I can’t let you do that, ma’am. It’s not safe.”
“But, I need to . . .”
“We’ll take care of her, ma’am. Trust me.”
Like I had any choice.
I stopped struggling, and he released me.
It seemed forever before the paramedics finally appeared, paddleboard and gearboxes in tow. My firefighter-jailer gave them split-second instructions before they jogged off to save the day.
They’d make sure Kendall was okay, wouldn’t they?
More beams of light weaved, voices swarming all around me. The orange stripes on their coats glowed through the gloom.
“Ma’am? Let’s get you out of here, all right? I don’t want you walking through the water in your stocking feet, not in the dark. You could cut yourself on debris.”
Debris?
Like Amber’s crispy-fried hairpiece?
“Okay,” I said into the shadowed face, wondering how he was going to get me out if I didn’t walk.
I figured maybe he’d sweep me off my submerged feet into his burly arms and whisk me from the building à la Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman.
“You got something on under that pretty dress?”
“What?” Was he asking if I had on panties? “Yeah, of course, I’ve got on something.” Was my savior a perv? It would be just my luck, wouldn’t it?
“All right then, upsy daisy, little lady,” he said, making me feel all of five years old. Without warning—unless I counted his loud grunt—he grabbed my waist and tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I would’ve squealed with surprise had he not knocked the air from my lungs by that less than delicate maneuver.
So much for the Gere/Winger scenario. The only way my hanging across his torso could have been construed as anything romantic would have been if I were wearing burlap and had REAL IDAHO stamped across my tush.
“You okay, ma’am?”
At least he was polite.
“Oooph,” I expelled, sounding weird upside down, as though I had plugs on my nose and couldn’t breathe.
My head hung down his back, my legs dangling against his chest. His hands held my thighs to keep me in place, and his shoulder jabbed into my gut as he marched through the studio. I could only hope that my aforementioned panties weren’t on display.
Or worse.
Grabbing a coarse handful of coat, I hung on for dear life, gritting my teeth to keep my jaws from clunking together, unable to see anything but the back of his boots from my vantage point and wondering if this night wasn’t near about the lowest point in my life, or somewhere in the direct vicinity.
The slosh of water and the chatter from walkie-talkies tickled my ears, and I could feel the movement of others around me, occasionally brushing past without warning, setting my hair to standing on end.
When he pushed open the glass front doors, and we emerged into the night, even more racket greeted us. Raised voices and shouts and the hum of engines. Humid air descended with the force of a damp blanket. Somebody called my name, but I couldn’t tell whom, not with the blood rushing to my head. Nor could I see, considering my vision was limited to the pavement.
“Down you go,” Mr. Fireman uttered and lowered me to earth far more gently than he’d swung me up.
“Please, take care of Kendall,” I said instead of a “thank-you,” but I’m sure he understood.
He nodded, his big fireman’s hat bobbing, before he walked away and was swallowed by the crowd. So many people in so little space. Uniforms running around, weaving in and out of the mass of evacuated party guests. A hook and ladder truck, several police vehicles, and an EMT van clogged the parking lot. The squad cars had their bubble lights going, swirling blue and red across wide-eyed faces.
Pausing to catch my breath, I glanced at those hunkered around me, folks who looked as frightful—and frightened—as I felt. I wanted to find Marilee and tell her about Kendall, but I found myself turning back to stare at the building, waiting for them to bring her out. I had to know she was all right.
My toes curled against the warm asphalt, and I wrapped my arms around my middle, not sure of what to do. If I’d been abducted by aliens and released in the middle of a cornfield, I wouldn’t have felt any more confused.
“Andrea, sweetie?”
My shoulders stiffened.
I brushed wet strands of hair from my cheeks, glancing up at the purple tint of the evening sky. Passing cars sent waves of light flashing over the parking lot again and again. Moths attracted to the glow of streetlamps swam happily within the soft orange haloes.
Everything else seemed to go on as normal, but I wasn’t deceived.
“Andrea? For goodness’ sake! We just arrived to find the fire trucks and the police. I was petrified something had happened to you. Who was it that carried you out? The strapping fellow who had you slung over his shoulder. Is he single, do you know?”
The cultivated drawl asking those absolutely inappropriate questions made me want to laugh out loud. Or cry with relief. I was torn between the two, though I was leaning toward crying.
“And you thought there’d be no eligible men here tonight. How wrong you were, sugar. T
here are plenty of them. You should listen to your mother now and then.”
Chapter 12
When I faced her, it was all I could do not to burst into tears.
As always, she looked magnificent, dolled up in ivory Chanel and matching satin pumps, not a hair out of place. Though she certainly appeared out of place in the parking lot full of drenched partygoers who’d had the misfortune of arriving on time and witnessing the fireworks—and waterworks—in Marilee’s make-believe kitchen.
“Sweetie?”
My expression must’ve looked as soggy as the rest of me, because she opened her arms, and I stepped inside.
Until she held me, I hadn’t realized how badly I was trembling. She rubbed her hands over my arms, trying to warm me up. Considering that my mother was not what you’d call “a hugger,” this was powerful stuff.
“Andrea, good Lord, where are you shoes? And your purse?”
I drew back and sniffled. “Inside,” I confessed, hating how choked up I sounded, hating that I felt so out of control. Maybe it was the alcohol I’d drunk before I’d stumbled upon Kendall, but I felt precariously close to meltdown. “The shoes are a disaster. And I’m sorry about the dress.” I plucked at the drooping sequins.
“Who cares about a dress and a pair of shoes? As long as you’re safe. You weren’t injured, were you?” Her fingers clung to mine, and I thought I felt her tremble, too.
“No,” I assured her.
“Thank God.” She tucked her hand beneath my chin, and I pressed my cheek into her palm for the longest minute. Then she made a clucking noise and started in, “I ran into Janet Graham, and she filled me in. My word, it’s a wonder no one was hurt.” She lowered her voice. “I still can’t believe there was a fistfight between Marilee and Amber Lynn, that their misbehavior started a fire. Good heavens, what were they thinking?”
Obviously, they weren’t thinking at all.
She pressed her mouth into a hard line, pausing before she added, “The fire chief said they’re not letting anyone back in until daylight. Marilee’s beside herself. She yelled at the police first, telling them she wanted Amber Lynn arrested. Then she started howling for Justin, but no one seems to know where he’d gone. After that, she rattled on about set repairs and tape delays. I think Dr. Cooper gave her a shot of something to calm her down, thank heavens.”
The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Page 11
