Dyed and Gone

by Beth Yarnall

  “Detective? A police detective?” I turned to Dave. “Has there been a crime?” I put the proper shock and fear in my voice. “Am I safe?”

  “Yes, yes. We take great care with our guests’ safety here at the Raine. There’s no problem. No problem at all.” Dave handed me another card. “Please accept a complimentary brunch at Mangé, Raine’s beautiful Zagat-rated restaurant overlooking the pool.”

  “What’s your name?” Detective Kennedy asked me.

  “My name?”

  “Detective.” Dave sounded like he was on the verge of a stroke.

  Detective Kennedy shifted his weight, leaning toward me, nearly nose to nose. “Your name.”

  “Azalea.” Oh, crap. Why’d I give him my real name?

  “Azalea what?”

  “Detective, please,” Dave whined, wringing his hands like a wet dishrag.

  “Azalea Smith.” Way to go stealth girl.

  Detective Kennedy looked like he either wanted to roll his eyes or arrest me. “What room are you staying in, Ms. Smith?” He coated “Smith” with so much sarcasm it had multiple syllables.

  I bumped out a hip and propped a hand on it, trying to match his attitude. I figured the more I acted like an aggrieved guest, the more likely they’d believe it. “I’m in 3853. You want to come in for a drink?”

  Right away, I could tell my attempt fell short.

  “Kennedy,” the potbellied Detective Platt called from the open doorway of suite 3848. “She’s requesting a lawyer.”

  “Shit,” Kennedy muttered. With one last hard look at me, he marched off down the hall, his ragtag band of techs and officers following in his wake.

  Dave monitored their departure until the suite door closed behind them, and then he turned to me with a grin so huge it looked like it hurt. “Are you enjoying your stay with us here at the Raine?”

  “I was. What happened? Why are the police in that suite?”

  He blinked, then blinked again. Ratcheting his smile up another couple of notches, he recited, “The Raine is considered to be one of the finest hotels in the world, having earned the coveted AAA five diamond, the Mobil five-star, the Forbes five-star, and the Michelin five-star ratings. The Raine also made Forbes Award history by earning five-star ratings in every category—hotel, restaurant, and spa two years in a row.” He jabbed another card at me. “Please accept this card for a complimentary spa service of your choice.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “It would be my pleasure to escort you to the elevator.” He gripped my elbow and steered me toward the elevator bank.

  I glanced over my shoulder back down the empty hallway. “There were so many police officers. I hope it’s nothing—”

  “The Raine Hotel boasts one of the largest casinos in Las Vegas at over one hundred square feet. Please accept this fifty-dollar casino credit with our compliments.”

  We waited for the elevator in silence. I was afraid if I opened my mouth again he’d make me a partner in the hotel. But it was eating me up not knowing what happened in suite 3848. As soon as the doors whooshed closed on us, beginning our descent, I started in on him again.

  “I think some of those people might have been crime-scene techs, you know, like on CSI? You can be honest with me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  His robotic smile still in place, Dave turned to me. In the close proximity of the space, I could see that the strain of holding it together had carved hollows under his bloodshot eyes and his mechanical grin showed signs of slippage. “Do you golf? The Raine Golf Course is the only one on the Las Vegas strip and was codesigned personally by Mr. Steve Raine.” He produced another card. “Please”— he put so much emphasis on the word, it became more of a prayer than a request— “accept this card for a complimentary round of golf.”

  I took the card he offered and gave up trying to get any more information about what had happened from poor Dave. As the silence settled over us, I thought about all I’d seen and heard in that hallway.

  In the suite, the police were holding a woman who had asked for a lawyer. I got that much. But who? And why? Could that woman be Dhane’s killer? What would they do with her? Bring her to the police station, most likely. If she’d asked for an attorney, then she was probably considered a suspect.

  The elevator doors slid open. Dave bolted, leaving a fading, “Have a pleasant stay at the Raine Las Vegas!” in his wake. I looked around for something to do with myself. If the police were going to take that woman into custody, I figured they would most likely escort her out the front. Detective Platt seemed to enjoy irritating poor Dave, and Kennedy didn’t strike me as someone who cared what people thought.

  I spotted a small grouping of chairs with a good view of the elevators and front door. This was where I’d wait. I knew it was silly, but having met Dhane just that one time, I felt connected to him. Plus, I felt a sort of responsibility for having been there when his head had been, ah…found.

  Then there was his relationship with Vivian. I also felt tied to Dhane through her. Plus, if I were honest, I’d have to admit my rampant curiosity was burning holes through me.

  I checked my phone, but still nothing from Vivian or Juan Carlos. Lowering myself into the plush leather chair, I sighed. Where are they?

  I thought about calling our hotel, but I didn’t have the number or a fancy phone to look it up on. Instead, I texted them both again, with lots of exclamation points.

  Watching people come and go, I mentally played Does the Carpet Match the Drapes? It’s a game Juan Carlos made up where you try to figure out who colors their hair and what their natural color really is. But after half an hour, I got bored. It seemed like no one in Las Vegas had natural hair and most of them had bad do-it-yourself drugstore dye jobs. The worst were the men with their shoe polish black, she’s-into-me-for-my-youthful-looks-not-my-buckets-of-money, painted-on hair. Yeesh. You’d think with all that money, they could afford to spring for a colorist to do it right.

  I was busy admiring a gorgeous brunette’s walnut-and-caramel-highlighted locks when Detective Kennedy’s fiery mane caught the corner of my eye. He’d just gotten off the elevator and had turned to look back at a blond woman escorting another woman from the elevator.

  The air backed up in my lungs, constricting my chest. Before I knew it, I was standing, then walking toward them, my arm outstretched. “Vivian!”

  Viv twisted toward me. She gave her head a small shake, stopping me midstride. Then her gaze darted away and it felt like the door she’d closed on me earlier had just been bolted shut. Shocked, my feet sticking to the floor, I stood there like a stranger, watching Detective Kennedy haul my best friend and business partner out of the hotel, her hands cuffed behind her back, and into a waiting police car.

  Chapter Five

  Three things happened at once. Detective Kennedy spotted me through the glass doors. Juan Carlos called me back—I could tell by his ringtone. And I sat down hard, right there on the exquisite Italian marble floor. Just plopped down on my behind while people continued to mill about, walking around me as if guests threw themselves to the ground in the middle of plush hotel lobbies every day. If they gave me an askance look, I was too overwhelmed to notice.

  Vivian arrested!

  Her story about knowing Dhane trickled back to me, the holes in it even more glaring than before. What had she been doing in Dhane’s hotel room? Why would they arrest her? What had she done? They couldn’t think she had anything to do with his death. Unless…

  Several Raine employees rushed me, hovering over me like nervous mothers. One of them asked the group if they should call Dave.

  “Please, don’t do that,” Detective Kennedy said from above me. “Ms. Smith will be just fine. Won’t you?” Gripping me by the upper arms, he hauled me up. “Atta girl. Why don’t we sit down, have a nice chat?” He steered me to the chair I’d been sitting in. “Have a seat.”

  One of the Raine employees, a chubby-cheeked girl with an explosion of freckles, leaned over
me and shook her head with a frown. “She looks kinda pale. You aren’t going to be sick, are you?”

  Her question flung the rest of the group into twitching panic.

  Kennedy threw up a hand. “She’s fine.” He made a shooing motion, his attention never wavering from me. “Go.”

  The freckled girl looked like she wanted to argue for a moment , then thought better of it and faded away with her coworkers.

  Kennedy sat down opposite me. He didn’t have that creepy, searching gaze Detective Weller had. His was more direct, like a laser beam or a bullet. “Well?” he asked.

  I stared at him. He stared back. We went on like that for several long moments. All the while, thoughts ping-ponged around in my head. I was concentrating so hard on keeping it together that I didn’t realize my nails had pierced the leather on the arm of my chair until Kennedy tried to pry them loose.

  “Easy. You’ll hurt yourself.” He folded my hands into my lap, sat back, and asked the question that made me want to vomit on his shoes. “You want to tell me how you know my suspect?”

  “Suspect?” Oh, cripes. Hearing myself say it aloud was almost more than I could take. I propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rubbed at my throbbing forehead, willing my stomach to be still.

  “You want to tell me who you really are? Or do you want me to haul you in and find out my own way? I can guarantee it won’t be pleasant. We have this new officer—her specialty is cavity searches. Hagatha just loves a good strip search—”

  “Azalea,” I answered.

  “Yeah, I gathered that much upstairs. What’s your full name?”

  “Azalea March.”

  He nodded, his suspicions about me confirmed. “And how do you know Ms. Moreno?”

  I swallowed back the rising bile in my throat and swiped the sweat off my upper lip. “Vivian?”

  He dipped his head.

  “We’re friends.”

  “Okay. Are you really staying in suite 3853?”

  “No.”

  He inclined his head again. It was an annoying, arrogant gesture and I was beginning to see why they called him King Kennedy. “What were you doing upstairs?”

  I bit the inside of my lip.

  Relaxing back, he rested his arms on the chair, giving the air that he had all day to wait. My dad used to use this technique and I hated it, mostly because it worked so well on me. And he’d had to use it so often. I’d been a rather precocious child.

  But what to say? I had been snooping around, trying to figure out why a dead man sent me a note for a clandestine meeting? Right. Vivian’s having been found in that suite combined with my skulking around the hallway outside of it did not look good. For either of us.

  I suddenly viewed Detective Kennedy’s questions with new trepidation. At best, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. At worst, I was an accomplice to whatever it was he thought Vivian had done.

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. Anything I said would only make me look guilty and confirm his suspicions about Viv. So I did the impossible. I said nothing.

  “Hagatha especially likes brunettes,” he provoked.

  Thinking of Viv, I bit my lip harder. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, but I held my ground.

  “That usually works.”

  I blinked. He was kidding around with me.

  “Oh, good, you got my joke. I find humor helps to put people at ease.” His smile creased the corners of his eyes, making him look almost reptilian. Initially I’d thought he was kind of handsome, but now he repulsed me. Some of what I was thinking must have shown on my face because he backpedaled. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can leave and I can help your friend.”

  “Help? Now there’s a joke.”

  He bowed his head. “From your point of view, I can see how that might be difficult to believe—”

  “Difficult? No, not really. I’m sure Your Highness helps all kinds of innocent people.”

  His brows shot up his forehead. “I see you’ve done more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Crap. He’d nailed me for the eavesdropper I was. I crossed my arms over my chest and put on my best defiant face.

  “You can be as pissed as you want, but you will answer my questions. Either here, or after you’ve sat in a jail cell for a few hours. Your choice.”

  He wasn’t going to give up. If I went to jail, I couldn’t help Viv, who was the real person in trouble here. My mind raced to find a plausible explanation for my being in that hallway. The most believable lies always held a measure of truth. So that’s what I decided to go with—the truth…sort of.

  “Dhane asked me to meet him at his suite. He gave me his card key.” I pulled the key out of my purse and handed it over as proof.

  “Why were you meeting him?”

  I arched a brow, hoping he’d draw his own conclusions and I wouldn’t have to answer his question.

  He bobbed his head. “I see.” He pulled out a notepad and pen. “And how long had the two of you been together?”

  “We’d just met.”

  He looked up sharply. I’d surprised him. Good. I’d rather he thought I was a slut than a criminal.

  “When did you meet?”

  “After his Hjálmar presentation.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes.”

  Detective Kennedy bent his head, hiding his expression in his notebook. “Do you always visit the hotel rooms of men you’ve just met?”

  “No.” My answers came easier, but like watching a rattlesnake shaking its tail, I didn’t trust Detective Kennedy for a minute.

  “Where were you between the time you met Dhane and your visit to his hotel room?”

  “At the convention center.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  I thought about Juan Carlos and his finding Dhane’s head in a doll bin. I thought of Lisa and Richard, who had also been there. I worked out the best person to use as an alibi. “My friends Lisa and Richard.”

  “I’ll need their contact information.”

  In the middle of handing over their info, my phone rang again. Juan Carlos. I ignored it.

  “Where are you staying?” Kennedy asked.

  “The Luxor. Room 617.”

  He closed his notebook. “I’ll want to talk with you again. Stay available.” He got up.

  That was it? I couldn’t let him leave without finding out about Viv. “Wait. What did you arrest Vivian for?”

  “Murder.” He dropped that little bomb, watching me for a reaction.

  “Murder? No, that can’t be right. You have the wrong person. Vivian would never—”

  “She was found with the body.”

  “No.” It was too much. I dropped back into my chair from the weight of it.

  Detective Kennedy seemed to soften from my reaction. “You’re scaring the Raine employees.” He motioned toward Freckle Face and her cohorts, hovering at the edge of the reception desk. “Go back to your hotel. I’ll take good care of your friend.” Then he turned and walked away without a backward glance.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called Juan Carlos back. “Where are you?” I shouted loud enough to earn a few stares.

  “Oh my God! Where are you? Where’s Vivian? What is going on in this crazy world?”

  “Juan Carlos. Focus here. Tell me where you are.”

  “My hotel room.”

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t move!”

  I snapped my phone shut and leaped up. I was in a taxi, rolling down Las Vegas Boulevard, faster than you could say “hot in Vegas.” The rich didn’t seem to have to wait long for anything, that’s for sure. I could get used to this.

  Juan Carlos whipped open the door as soon as my knuckles hit the wood. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the room. “Where have you been? Where’s Viv? Do you have any idea what they did…? What I had to…?” He shook me harder with each question.

  “Have you been drinking?” He reeked worse than a bar-room floor.
“There better be some for me.” A large hand handed me a glass of amber liquid and I took a gulp without hesitation. “Argh, it burns. In a really, really good way. Thank you.” I took another hit, sure I was seeing things. “Richard?” I turned to Juan Carlos. “What’s he doing here? I thought you two hated each other.”

  Richard held up his flask.

  “Oh, who can hold a grudge when I pulled a…and his head was…and I was…and then it…and then you…and then they…”

  Richard splashed more whiskey into Juan Carlos’s glass. “He’s calmed down quite a bit, actually. You should have seen him after the cops got through with him.”

  Juan Carlos took a big gulp and threw himself on the bed, wrapping an arm over his face for added drama. “They broke me…beat me till they got what they wanted. Which was nothing. How would I know how it got…that I would…that he was…”

  “He’s almost forming sentences again.” Richard tipped the flask into Juan Carlos’s mouth. “That’s a good boy.” Richard held Juan Carlos’s hand. “Do you want me to sing for you again?”

  Juan Carlos nodded without dislodging his arm from his eyes.

  As Richard sang Juan Carlos a song that sounded like some kind of Greek lullaby, I dropped into a nearby chair and set aside my glass of firewater. How was I going to tell Juan Carlos that Vivian had been arrested? What was I going to do about it? I ground my fists into my eyes, pushing back the tears that wouldn’t help Vivian and would only upset Juan Carlos more.

  Richard’s song ended and the only sound was Juan Carlos’s soft snores. I looked up to find Richard considering me with a sympathetic smile. He placed Juan Carlos’s glass on the nightstand and came over to sit with me. For a while we both watched Juan Carlos sleep.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  My gaze stayed on Juan Carlos. “They arrested Vivian for Dhane’s murder.”

  He muttered something in Greek I was sure his ma wouldn’t have approved of.

  “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” I recovered my glass of whiskey and took a sip.

  “How did you find out?”

  I relayed everything that had happened since Detective Weller had called us into the interrogation room. When I finished, he issued another Greek expletive.