The crowd had thinned drastically. A few smokers lingered on the balcony but the festivities were about to begin. I didn’t care I was missing out on dinner and a bad cover band for the night, but I did want to know what was going on under that roof. I wished someone would show up with a banner that said “I killed Patrick and am prepared to frame Samantha Kidd if necessary so I can get away with murder,” but if that banner existed it seemed to have been traded in for satin evening clutches and beaded shoes. Even murderers cleaned up well, I thought. I blindly accepted someone connected to the crime would be at this event but once the crowd disappeared behind the heavy wooden doors I was as in the dark as I’d been all along.
A limo pulled up to the steps. The driver hopped out and circled the front of the car, opening the passenger door. Maries Paulson stepped out, and the driver handed her a small, flat briefcase. Bursts of camera flash illuminated her lavender fur stole and the dark aubergine lace dress fit so well it appeared to have been sewn on her body. The pile of shiny curls atop her head had lent a regal quality. She moved like a movie star on the red carpet.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, allowing the media to capture her better angles and I knew this was my only chance to speak with her. “Ms. Paulson!” I called out. Her head turned toward me and a thousand flash bulbs crackled. She shielded her gaze and scanned the individuals clamoring for her attention. I stepped toward her, not sure she had heard me. “Maries?”
“You have no right to be here,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m here to represent Tradava, like I told you,” I said, confused by her unexpected animosity. I dropped my voice. “I didn’t say anything to anyone.”
She pointed a finger at me, her manicured plum-black fingernail like a self-defense pistol ready to fire my direction. “Don’t pretend to know me or to be my friend. More than one person has contacted me about you. I trusted you and put myself in danger. Patrick hired you as the trend specialist at Tradava no more than I’ve become the Queen of Sheba. I don’t know what role you played in his murder, but I intend to find out.”
I searched her face for signs she was acting for someone else’s benefit, but Botox injections had made her face unreadable. I didn’t know what had changed from earlier that day when we’d spoken. I looked at the briefcase she held, then, realizing what was inside, stepped forward again. “Ms. Paulson, wait!” I reached out for her arm and she flung off my touch.
“Don’t–Don’t!” her fingers fanned out in an aggressive manner and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I would rather throw this money in the river than give it to a manipulative bottom feeder like you.” She turned away from me and advanced up the stairs.
“But you said—I thought we—I’m trying to help—”
“Approach me one more time and I will make sure you never work in this industry again.” Halfway up the stairs she turned back and scanned my outfit from head to toe. “On you, that’s a waste of six yards of fabric.” She turned back toward the crowd and it parted, giving her room to ascend the stairs. She paused by a security officer standing by the door and pointed one finger my direction. He leaned in and looked straight at me.
Chapter 25
I jogged to the bench and ducked behind it, watching the conversation between Maries and the officer. She handed him the briefcase, then lit up a cigarette. He disappeared inside. Her burning ember marked her presence, until it went out. A high voice, from the bottom of the steps, pulled me out of my thoughts. “Ms. Paulson!”
The designer stopped in the doorway and looked down. A scrawny figure in a purple velvet tuxedo bounded up the stairs after Maries. Michael Dubrecht, Patrick’s assistant and self-proclaimed designer. Was this it? I wondered. Was this the moment when someone demanded a hundred thousand dollars from Maries, no police present, in exchange for my safety?
You’re no more the trend specialist than I’m the Queen of Sheba.
If Maries no longer believed I was the trend specialist, she was no longer concerned with my safety. Which meant, I was on my own.
Michael’s chin jutted from side to side as he spoke, in a manner befitting a two-hundred-pound diva with attitude, not the ninety-eight pound weakling he was. I half-wanted Maries to kick sand in his face. She smiled and shook his hand, then turned away and left him behind. He jumped to grab the handles before the doors closed and narrowly slipped inside.
I swiped on another coat of lip-gloss and took a deep breath. With caution, I approached the museum, looking for an opportunity to enter. There was too much at stake to leave, but I couldn’t risk being identified. Not now. I avoided the main doors and walked around the perimeter of the imposing building to look for a back door.
I circled the museum, my heels puncturing the ground with every step. I made slow progress, avoiding the dry leaves that begged to be crunched underfoot. I popped a few more espresso beans into my mouth and continued. The darkness cloaked me and I dropped my guard. That’s probably why I jumped when a beam of light shot through the darkness and a voice called out asking me what I was doing.
A groundskeeper held a giant flashlight in my direction. Think fast, Samantha, and don’t worry too much about telling lies or telling the truth. Say something to make him go away. My heart raced and my hands grew sweaty inside my gloves.
He stood there waiting for me to talk. His flashlight cast about two thousand degrees of heat in my direction. Like Detective Loncar’s office, it wasn’t the best circumstance for thinking under pressure.
The wind bent the branches overhead, which inspired me to speak. “My cat ran up one of these trees and I’m trying to find him.”
He flashed the light up into the trees and we heard a few birds fly away. “Up there? Where’d he come from?”
Keep talking. “I live over there,” I motioned to the houses behind the Museum. “When I got home from work he bolted out the door and ran over here. I think he might have chased a squirrel or something and now I can’t find him.” I almost believed the words as I spoke them. In their own strange little way they sounded plausible. Cats escaped and chased squirrels up trees all the time, I was sure of it.
He flashed the light around while I silently begged him to stop. He was drawing attention to the exact spot where we stood, and all of my efforts for undercover work were starting to feel hopeless, until some rustling in one of the nearby trees endorsed my lie. I held my breath for a few seconds, not sure if he bought my story or not.
“I think he’s up there,” he said, motioning toward the tree beside me. “I have a ladder inside the shed. I’ll help you get him down.”
“That’s okay, Sir. I can get him.”
He looked me up and down, scarf-wrapped head to Dalmatian-printed toes, then looked me straight in the eye. I knew the jig was up, and thought it might have been better to abandon my quest instead of lying, because he was going to be pretty mad if I told him the truth now.
“Little lady, how do you think you’re going to get a cat down out of a tree dressed like that? I don’t think those shoes were made for scaling maples.” He shined the light on the path and walked toward the building.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I tried my best attempt at cute, helpless female. I normally hated that routine, but it was the only thing to keep this charade going.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I followed him to the building, hoping against hope he would lead me to a door that would get me inside. Instead we reached a separate building where he had the necessary tools and machinery to maintain the grounds, and my hopes fell.
“Try to be quiet, though, because there’s a big event going on in the museum tonight.”
“I noticed. But they can’t hear us out here, right?”
“This shed has an underground passageway that connects to the museum. If we make sounds out here they might echo through the passageways and someone might come to check it out. I was supposed to be out of here long before this thing started tonight, and as much as I
want to help you, I don’t want to lose my job over a lost kitty.”
His comments explained why he was speaking so quietly, and I think he attributed my newfound silence to what he’d said but really I was thinking over phrases like “underground passageway that connects to the museum,” and “I was supposed to be out of here long before this thing started tonight.” I thought for a second about trying to pull the pins from the hinges on the door, but that might be an actual crime since it was on public property and I was not currently chaperoned by someone who could approve such an act. My newfound comfort with danger notwithstanding, I thought it best to avoid actively breaking the law.
He handed me a rope net. “Hold this.” He gently closed the door to the underground passageway and inserted a key into the door to relock it. I tried to hide my disappointment. He then walked to the wall of the museum where a ladder leaned along side of the building. I wondered how I had missed it earlier.
“Don’t just stand there, missy, grab an end and help me move this thing. I can’t do it myself.”
I tossed my handbag down on the dewy grass and grabbed the other end of the ladder, juggling it with the net. We maneuvered to get it propped up against the tree. I knew we weren’t going to find a kitten up there but was obligated to go along with my story.
“Do you see him?”
“No. He might not be up this tree.” I was getting antsy, wondering how I was going to ditch this guy and continue my search now that he had decided to do his good deed for the day.
“Look. It’s this tree or nothing. If the little guy isn’t up here, you ain’t gonna find him tonight.”
“Okay, maybe he is in this tree.”
“Well? You gonna climb up and check or not?”
“I’m not so good on ladders.”
The look on his face told me I didn’t really have a choice. “You said the little guy ran out the door and took off this direction up a tree. He probably climbed too high and now the little fella is scared. I got a couple of cats at home myself. Once they’re scared they won’t come running to anybody, they want to hear a familiar voice. I don’t plan to let you call out to him from down here while I go up and chase him up further. You better get up there and call him. Take your shoes off first. You’ll have better luck on these rungs.” He pointed toward the net. “Once you get him, put him in the net and hang it down to me. He’ll hang on tight until he’s down, and you can come down to get him. Hurry up ‘cause I don’t have all night.”
I had no choices left but to climb. The ladder bowed in the middle and might as well have been a hundred rungs high, neither of which strengthened my waning confidence. I kept climbing, soon becoming hidden by leaves, wondering if I would be lucky enough to find a random kitten trapped thirty feet up in a maple tree. Probably not.
“You see him?” The groundskeeper called up to me.
“Not yet.”
“Call his name a little.”
I couldn’t subject Logan to my lie, so I named my fake kitty. “Max, here Max,” I called softly, and made kissing noises in the air. The stupidity of the situation was not lost on me.
Ten minutes and no kitten later I climbed back down. “No luck. I think it’s another tree.”
“I can’t stay here anymore.” He looked up at the sky for several seconds, moonlight bouncing off of his full face, then looked back at me. “It looks like it’s gonna be a clear night tonight. The ladder will be fine if we leave it out, I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll help you move it to another tree but then, you’re on your own.”
I became the ultimate Johnny on the Spot, carrying the ladder to the next tree, nearly bounding over him in my enthusiasm to get the fake search over. The groundskeeper made his apologies and left me alone to conduct my rescue mission, ignoring the thanks I called to his back.
Again I climbed up the ladder. With a little maneuvering I positioned myself in a fork in a branch. I gingerly sat, praying for it to hold me. I was temporarily distracted from the danger of looking for a murderer by thoughts of being found, unconscious, outside of the event, because the branch where I’d sat had broken under my weight.
I strained my eyes to take in every detail of the event. Round tables covered with white cloths took up much of the ballroom. Each table held an elaborate floral centerpiece arranged around a miniature bust form. Along the side of the room, on a raised, lighted platform, stood three mannequins draped, toga-like, in black fabric. Next to each mannequin was a sign holder that held a capital letter: A, B, C. Four spotlights shone down from the ceiling, three illuminating the mannequins and one shining on an empty pedestal next to the letter D. This event was called the Designer’s Debut. My suspects were all present and accounted for, representing their collections. But the mannequins draped sloppily in black cloth lacked the originality expected in fashion.
I looked for familiar faces in the crowd, scanning the audience systematically, left to right, clockwise around the table, then moving on to the next seating arrangement. This would have been a whole lot easier if 90 percent of people in the fashion industry didn’t choose to wear black.
Empty seats peppered the ballroom. I guess when nature calls, you have to answer. Better change that train of thought. I was trapped in a tree with literally nowhere to go. Three tables back along the far side I recognized Red’s hair. I didn’t recognize anyone else sitting at her table. I continued my search of the crowd. On my way back up the second row—I was snaking right to left on every other row to keep track—I spotted Nick and Amanda at the back of the room. Off to the side I spied a small figure in purple, crouching in the shadows.
I drew my attention back to Nick and Amanda. Watching them get along so well made me feel all kinds of alone. Alone and up in a tree. What was I doing? This was crazy. I wasn’t going to discover anything.
At that moment the band stopped playing and a speaker came up on stage. I couldn’t hear what he said but watched as the crowd entertained polite applause. He looked to the side, as if expecting someone to appear. A few awkward moments passed as he leaned into the microphone again but didn’t speak. Heads in the crowd twisted at varying angles, looking around.
Something was wrong.
I started to lose my balance and grabbed a branch in panic. It snapped off in my grip and my earlier fears became a reality. I reached for another limb. Several leaves snapped off in my grip and fluttered through the air. The caffeine had made me jumpy. When I felt I’d regained stability, I looked into the room and swore Nick was looking right at me. Was that possible? I was pretty far away from him, and he really had no reason to be looking for me in a tree outside of the event.
Wait a minute. He was starting to know me pretty well. He had lots of reasons to look for me in a tree. He looked at the empty stage then back up to the window. I froze, hoping to blend in with the background and seem like a figment of his imagination. Anger shaped his face, with a crease between his brows and a firm, hard jaw line. He stood abruptly, pushing his chair toward the table so hard the seat back bounced when the two collided.
Maybe he was going to check on Amanda, who now that I thought about it had been gone for a long time. Maybe he was going to come outside and check on what he thought he saw in the tree. He looked side to side before pushing through the swinging doors that led to the exit.
I wasn’t going to stick around and let him find me. I fled down the rungs of the ladder. It was dark. And something—someone—stepped away from the shadows close to the back wall of the museum, then receded into darkness.
I wasn’t alone. Someone had been watching me while I watched the gala.
For a moment I was as rooted to the ground as the tree I’d been sitting in. I heard the crunch of leaves under a foot—close. Closer than the shadowy figure had been. Someone grabbed at my arm. I tried to yell but no sound came out. I twisted my torso and ran past the museum to the road. The heel of my left shoe stuck in the ground, but I kept running. I jumped into the first taxi in a line of several and po
unded my open palm against the back of the driver’s seat.
“Go! Go, go, GO!” I shouted frantically, slapping the plastic partition with each word. He peeled away from the curb with a squeal of tires. I turned around at the first stop sign and squinted through the dirty rear window. A man stood in the middle of the road.
If he had wanted me dead right now, I would be.
It was close to midnight when I got home. I triple-locked the front door, pushed a folding metal chair under the lock and angled the sofa up against it. I carried Logan with me to the bathroom where he sat outside the sliding shower doors while I stood under a jet of hot water. As the spray pummeled my head and pooled around my ankles I knew what I should have known all along. There was only one way out.
I turned off the water, turbaned my hair, and walked, naked and dripping, down the hallway, to the phone. The number was easy enough to remember.
“This is Samantha Kidd. I’m done playing games. We need to talk about Patrick’s murder.” By the time I hung up the phone, I wondered if I’d just sealed my fate.
Chapter 26
The rapid-fire assault on the front door jerked me upright like a limp puppet about to perform. Between stints of pacing and regret that had lasted until close to three in the morning, I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I felt the touch of the man who had grabbed for me at the museum. Exhaustion had kicked in somewhere around four thirty and I’d crashed on a makeshift bed of cushions from the sofa that was pushed up against the front door. Now, foggy from being pulled out of a sleep I never thought I’d find, I fought to wake up.
The pounding persisted. I pushed my feet into slippers and moved the sofa away from the door. By the looks of the sunshine, it was well into morning. Two men stood on my doorstep. One I recognized, the other I didn’t. Neither looked pleased.
“Detective Loncar, come in,” I said.
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