Out of Mind coa-2

by Stella Cameron

  She said it all with a straight and serious face.

  “You don’t really know me,” Willow pointed out.

  “Of course she does,” Vanity interrupted. “By now she knows almost as much about you as you do. Chloe is excellent at ferreting out all the things you thought nobody knew.”

  “And I know all this talk about you being involved in the murders is rubbish,” Chloe said. “The police don’t have any leads. The fact that you’ve even been mentioned shows they don’t have any evidence at all.”

  Wooden blinds rattled beside an open window.

  Willow glanced at them, but they had stopped moving.

  She made a few more notes.

  “Do you have to work, Willow?” Vanity asked.

  Willow felt Chloe’s disapproval at her friend’s question, but she said, “I do. Independence is very important to me. I’ve always wanted to be able to take care of myself. That’s not so easy when you’re a member of a very close family.”

  Vanity’s eyelashes fluttered. “Believe me, I know what you mean,” she said. “I don’t have a close family, but I know all about having to work to maintain one’s independence. I always make my plans well in advance. Modeling is for the young, and I don’t want to try to hang on doing commercials for wrinkle treatments. I’ve got a very promising modeling agency.”

  “Congratulations,” Willow said, softening toward Vanity.

  “Bring your wine,” Chloe said. She got up and left the kitchen with Willow and Vanity behind her. “I don’t suppose Val gave you the complete tour.”

  Without saying much other than which room they were in, Chloe took them through the house. Each space was flawless. A library and adjoining sitting room brought a grin of delight from Willow. “I could live in these two rooms,” she said. “They are so elegant, but cozy at the same time.”

  “You like them a lot, then?” Chloe said.

  “I do.”

  They wandered through the ground floor, finishing in a long, narrow conservatory on one side of the house. Since it couldn’t be seen from the front of the house, Willow had not known it was there.

  Vanity insisted they put on smocks before venturing deeper. “Some of the plants have sticky residue,” she said.

  “Heavenly,” Willow said, genuinely charmed by a plethora of shrubs clearly used primarily as a backdrop for dozens and dozens of orchids. A path made from tiny mosaic tiles set in a pattern of interlinking circles ran through the center of raised beds of blooming gardenias. The soil smelled rich.

  “It’s amazing,” Willow said, strolling slowly and stopping frequently to look more closely at a bloom. She glanced anxiously at Chloe. “This is very specialized. Obviously, you already have a very able gardener.”

  “The conservatory is Vanity’s,” Chloe said. “She takes care of everything here. There’s no room for this sort of thing where she lives, so we gave it to her as a gift.”

  Surprised, Willow made more admiring sounds. She reached the far end of the glass-and-copper space and stopped again to peer inside an elaborate birdcage that stretched from floor to ceiling across one corner.

  All she saw among the beautifully natural enclosure beyond polished brass bars was one small, bright green parakeet and an open-fronted cabinet filled with supplies. “Sweet,” she said. “Lucky bird.”

  “He should have a mate,” Chloe remarked.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Vanity said.

  Val and Preston met them in the foyer. Val hugged Willow as if they were old friends. “I gather I didn’t make a very good tour guide the first time. Did Chloe show you your rooms yet?”

  “What about me?” Vanity said, throwing her arms around him.

  Willow was deeply unsettled by Val’s question. “I should get back,” she said. “My sister has my dog, and I don’t like to take advantage.”

  “What kind of dog?” Preston’s dark gray eyes made Willow uncomfortable. “It’s so good to see you again, by the way. I was worried when I couldn’t find you after our little storm. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I’m great,” she said. He didn’t need to know anything about Mario.

  Chloe took her by the hand and rushed her to the wide staircase. She didn’t stop hurrying until the two of them were upstairs and she had quickly shown a number of bedrooms and bathrooms. In what she said was her office, a room done in yellows with a floral theme, and a tiny mosaic desk with fragile legs, she snatched up a black leather-bound book with brass corners and tucked it under an arm.

  They hurried on to the next door in the corridor.

  “This is where we’re hoping you’ll be comfortable,” Chloe said, throwing open a sumptuous sitting room in shades of dark blue, light blue and silver-gray. “The bedroom and bathroom are through here.”

  Willow felt breathless and trapped, not that she intended to be pressured into doing anything she didn’t want to do.

  “What do you think?” Chloe asked when they stood in the sitting room again. “I tried to imagine what you might like, but everything can be changed again. You loved the library. We can make this a sitting room and library combined. And if you’d prefer warmer colors, I’ll get swatches for you to choose from.”

  “This is a lovely suite,” Willow said neutrally.

  Small and blinding, a tiny patch of glaring blue light pricked high up behind Chloe. Willow glanced up, saw it shift inches to the left, then more inches, before it slipped behind the dark blue draperies. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see someone with a high-powered flashlight. No one was there.

  “You have your own entrance,” Chloe said, walking to glass doors Willow had mistaken for windows behind the blue draperies. “There are steps that go down to a path that runs past the conservatory. You’ll come and go as you please. Of course, whether or not you’re here in your off time is up to you. We might as well keep the daybook in here now, since you’ll be the one using it. I’ll pass invitations to you with a yes or no.” She smiled and put the black book on a rosewood table in front of the doors.

  “We have a lot to think and talk about,” Willow said, still thinking about the bright light. “I’ll get back to you soon.”

  Chloe couldn’t hide her disappointment, but she nodded. “That’ll be fine. But Val and I are a bit adrift until you can start. He’ll be devastated if you don’t join us. So will I.”

  Turning away, Willow headed for the stairs. When she checked behind her, Chloe hadn’t followed yet.

  Willow hesitated, waiting and wondering if she should go back, but she couldn’t discard the possibility that Chloe was trying to manipulate her into a job she wasn’t sure she wanted, and not because of the rooms they’d offered her to live in. She wouldn’t have to use them at all, or she could set up an office there if she wanted to. The potential job conflicted her. It could be wonderful, and the saving of Mean ’n Green. She would be able to keep all of her staff—something that seemed doubtful with business falling off as it was. But Willow wasn’t sure she could feel comfortable around the kind of people the Brandts ran with.

  That bright blue light still bothered her. It could have been no more than a reflection off some piece of glass. When she moved, it could have appeared to move, too. Only that hadn’t been what it was.

  She had the thought that Ben might be up to something and continued on slowly to the head of the stairs. Chloe still didn’t follow.

  “Do you like it?” Preston asked as she walked down to the main floor where he waited. “Chloe’s worked like a demon to get it done quickly.”

  She didn’t trust herself to say anything, but she smiled at them and started back to the kitchen to get her briefcase. Packing her folders away, she noticed how her hands shook. She had no cause to be nervous.

  With that thought she picked up the briefcase. It fell open because she had forgotten to close it, and she watched in annoyance as pieces of paper slid all over the floor.

  Dammit, she was a basket case. As fast as she could, she gathered e
verything up, and this time she remembered to close her briefcase properly.

  The sliding door to the garden banged open, and Vanity came in with another bottle of the wine they had shared earlier. She wiggled it. “Can’t start off with good stuff and expect to enjoy anything less,” she said. “It’s a good thing Val has a private stash of this in the cabana. What do you think of the rooms Chloe got ready for you?”

  “They’re beautiful,” Willow said, noncommittal.

  She left Vanity opening the wine and returned to the foyer.

  A cracking sound make her jump. “What was that?” There was another thud.

  Val dashed to join Preston and Willow, and they all looked to the staircase.

  Chloe had slammed into the railing along the upper corridor. She stared, rocking her head, blinking, as if she couldn’t see, not making a sound. She backed off and returned for another collision, harder this time.

  Willow screamed and ran for the stairs. Rotating over the railing, Chloe swung, her limbs flailing, to fall onto the stairs themselves.

  “Chloe,” Val yelled. “Oh, my God.”

  Vanity came running.

  Slowly at first, then gathering speed, Chloe bumped downward, hitting the stair treads and jerking into grotesque angles. Tiny specks of blood sprayed on walls and the stairs.

  A yell broke from Val, and he dashed to her, ineffectually trying to stop her from flopping onto the marble tiles.

  “Oh, my God,” Preston said, striding forward.

  Willow gasped. The woman’s eyes were stretched wide-open, but they were dying. Willow saw the glazing without going any nearer. Even at a distance, long red welts on Chloe’s face and neck were shocking against her white skin. Her head sagged to one side, the face in Willow’s direction. More speckles of blood immediately splotched the pale marble.

  “Did you hear anything?” Preston said faintly. “Did she scream?”

  “No,” Willow whispered.

  Vanity sobbed, and she shook all over. “Chloe,” she said through stretched lips. “What’s happened? Chloe?” She heaved as if she would throw up, but gathered herself and looked at Willow. “Get out, now. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “No, stay,” Preston shouted. “The police will want to talk to you.”

  “Leave,” Vanity said, moving toward the rest of the group. “For your own sake. Hurry.”

  Chapter 19

  “What are you doing?” Willow asked, running along the Brandts’ front path toward Ben. “Chloe Brandt is dead in there. Get back in the van. We’re leaving.”

  “Dead, how?” Ben looked past her at the house. He should have followed his instincts and “accompanied” her inside, only he expected her to start figuring out if he was around even when she couldn’t see him. That could get ugly.

  Willow breathed too hard. She gulped and said, “I think someone killed her. It’s looks like what happened to Billy Baker and Surry Green—no, not exactly like that. But there’s something really weird. I need to get away from here.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Ben took her by the elbow and walked her back to the Brandts’ open front door. “Before we got to the end of the block, someone would be telling the police your van was here.”

  Willow dug her heels in, and they stood there, staring at each other. “What am I thinking?” she said, blinking rapidly, her green eyes horrified. “This is insane of me. Of course I shouldn’t be leaving, but…”

  “But, what?”

  “I—They said I had to get out of there. No excuses, though. I shouldn’t have panicked like that.”

  Sirens howled, growing closer, and Ben led Willow into the front hall of the house. One of the women he had noticed at the party, underdressed in black now, as she had been in white that night, talked into a phone and tapped the toe of one high-heeled sandal. She looked into Ben’s eyes and kept on looking.

  “You called out to me, you know,” he said to Willow under his breath. “Did you know that? That’s good. We’re making progress.”

  She slanted him a disbelieving glance. “I just tried to run away from a dead woman who was talking to me ten minutes ago. I’m a heel. You find the strangest times to celebrate little things.”

  Ben put an arm around her shoulders, managed not to wince and gave her a solid hug. “You’re the best. You’re also human.” Her hand slipped behind his back, and he knew he would walk on broken glass for more chances to hold her.

  “I’m going to get hung up here,” the woman on the phone said. “You don’t need to know why, Carl, and neither do they. Make the calls and tell them we’ll get back as soon as we can.” She closed her phone.

  Ben took in the two men present, one with surfer-blond hair and an athletic build, the other elegant, dark and very well dressed, bending over a female corpse wound into a heap of grotesquely twisted limbs. Both men had been at the party he’d crashed to keep tabs on Willow. He went to look down on the woman’s face.

  She was a mess, but he was certain he had seen her before. He wasn’t sure where. It could have been at Fortunes. Yes, this woman had known Poppy. They had worked on a charity event together.

  “Who are you?” the blond man asked, his voice breaking. “Get away from her. Stop staring—she doesn’t like being stared at.”

  “Are you her husband?” Ben asked.

  “Yes. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I came to pick up Willow,” Ben said. There was scarcely any clear skin to see in the mass of raised and bloody welts that covered the woman’s face and neck. “Damn, I’m sorry. The police are arriving now.”

  “We need an aid car,” the blond man shouted. “Get her to the hospital.”

  Willow’s fingers clutched tightly at Ben’s. He glanced down at her and frowned at the puzzled expression on her face.

  She felt him looking at her. “Are you okay?” she said vaguely. “Don’t worry so much.”

  He let the odd remark go.

  “I told you to get out of here,” the woman said, looming over Willow. “This is one hell of a nuisance. The police will pounce on you and if we’re really unlucky, they’ll haul you away on some pretext. They don’t have anything to go on that I know of, so you could become their dream come true. You’ll be the so-called suspect in custody so the police can keep people calm while the search goes on.”

  “This is Vanity,” Willow said. “And Chloe’s husband, Val Brandt, and Preston Moriarty.”

  Preston looked toward the upper story. “We’re going to have to go up there. Whoever did this to Chloe could still be there.”

  “Wait for the police,” Ben said. “We don’t want to mess up any evidence.”

  The sirens arrived outside and car doors slammed.

  The foyer felt hushed, but Ben sensed the promise of all hell breaking loose.

  “Out now,” Vanity said, actually grabbing Willow’s wrist. “There’s time for you to leave through the back. We’re going to need you more than ever. You can’t help us if you’re locked up. Go! Now!”

  Willow jerked her arm away.

  “Maybe we should want to keep an eye on Willow,” Preston said with the kind of smooth innuendo Ben despised.

  “Calm down,” Val said. “You’re not helping Chloe. Any of you. Willow should be here. The police will think it’s funny if she isn’t.”

  “I feel sick,” Willow said.

  “Breathe deeply through your mouth,” Ben told her, although the scent of death already fouled the air.

  “The flowers,” she said. “Sickening.”

  Funeral parlor was Ben’s last thought before the first wave of uniforms stepped through the door.

  “Cynical,” Willow murmured. “Bored. Determined. Jaded.”

  This wasn’t the time or place to get excited, but Ben knew he was looking at a woman coming fully into her powers—whether she wanted to or not. He wanted it for her, all of it. And he wanted it for himself. She was picking up emotions and still didn’t have enough control t
o stop herself from singing them out loud.

  “NOPD, Sergeant Deneuve,” a sergeant in the lead said. “Who’s the victim? Who made the call?”

  “I did,” Preston Moriarty said. “This lady is Chloe Brandt, Val’s wife.” He indicated Val Brandt, who appeared to have sunk into shock.

  The sergeant swiveled his square jaw and thrust it forward while he sized up the rest of them. “You’re a Millet,” he said flatly, moving his gum from one side of his mouth to the other while he regarded Willow.

  “Yes,” she said in a firm voice that made Ben grin. “Willow Millet. I’m the one with the Cadillac household engineering firm, Mean ’n Green. You need it, we do it—better than anyone else.”

  “Uh-huh.” The sergeant was a serious man. “The same outfit hanging out around two murder scenes yesterday. And wasn’t your family mixed up with the so-called alligator scare?”

  “Hey, Sarge.” Another policeman shoved his head through the door. “We got press and press and more press. What d’you want to do?”

  “Keep ’em back,” the sergeant said. “No closer than the other side of the street. And get the tape up. Call for reinforcements for when civilians start arriving.”

  “We’ve already got people from around here,” the other cop said.

  “Do I need to know this?” Sergeant Deneuve said. “You know what to do. Do it.”

  Two plainclothes detectives walked in, huddled with Deneuve and went carefully upstairs.

  Ben could hear excited voices in the street, and the occasional shriek.

  The arrival of Dr. Blades wearing green scrubs with a white coat flapping from his thin shoulders meant Willow could put off answering the sergeant about the Millets’ former involvement—only months earlier—with another series of bizarre deaths.

  Crime scene personnel straggled in carting equipment, and a photographer started snapping away.