***
I did need an extra application of my wonder concealer the next morning, but I was feeling confident and excited. I left my room in search of coffee and noticed Eduardo standing at the edge of the parlor. He’d just clicked off his phone, and he looked like he was bullshit. Then he slammed the wall, and I watched the cracks travel out from the point of impact. Yeah, he was bullshit. My turn to bring him coffee.
I poured two cups and got halfway back when Aubrey and Jimmy came through the door.
“Surprise!” Aubrey flung herself at me, and I just about had time to put the cups down on a nearby end table. We hugged like a couple of lunatics.
Meanwhile Eduardo summoned Jimmy to the other end of the suite. Cat and Cisco appeared to greet our visitors, and we settled down for a chat over breakfast. It was a good twenty minutes before Eduardo and Jimmy showed up. After more hugs and kisses, the two of them sat down and joined us like nothing ever happened.
From that point on, the day was a complete whirlwind. The flagship store and spa was up-to-the minute in décor and services, and it was packed with product. The Glori logo was everywhere. And my photos were everywhere, which was cool. I dragged Aubrey over to a wall that featured a huge photo of the two of us doing a song at the Commerce Convention. We giggled like a couple of schoolgirls. I didn’t care, I was having fun.
The place was packed with celebrities—Broadway stars, musicians, artists, actors, sports figures, you name it. Glori’s Uptown was the place to be. I made sure to have my picture taken with everyone. Then I grabbed Cat, and made sure she got in the pictures. I never had to worry about Aubrey—she knew how to get attention.
Believe it or not, my friends from Beverly Hills showed up, too. Becky, my new shoe partner, and my old friend Tamara Everett were there talking me up to anyone they met.
By the end of the day, Diana Black was flying, and so was I. Sales were through the roof, and the appointment book was packed solid for months. I’ve got to say, Diana did put together a phenomenal staff. I climbed on top of the reception desk and gave a thank you speech to end the event. All in all—a great day.
It wasn’t until late that evening when I returned to the suite, that I remembered Eduardo’s little meltdown. After Cat and Cisco settled into their room, I knocked on Eduardo’s door. He opened it with the phone to his ear and handed it to me. “It’s Nita.”
I got into a half hour conversation with Nita and gave her a blow by blow description of every little thing that transpired at the opening. She told me she wished she could have been there, but she was hard at work on her new solo album, and the deadline was looming. Plus all the security issues. I understood.
When we were finally off the phone, I got right to the point. “How come you smashed the wall this morning? What happened?”
He fell backwards on the bed with his hands over his face and groaned. I stood over him. “Eduardo?” I moved his fingers so I could see an eyeball. It looked bloodshot.
He sat up to face me, his secret agent face returned. That worried me. “The guy Darla Wilde accused of being the mastermind and financier of this plan to murder everyone—”
“Albert Santoro, the drug dealer, right?” I don’t know when I turned into a sleuth, but I surprised myself at my bold conclusion.
“Yeah, you’re right—Albert Santoro.”
“Yeah? Yeah?”
“He died of a heart attack this morning in his prison cell.”
“Oh. That’s good isn’t it? No… wait. That’s bad. Okay, okay. Did he already pay the people to kill us?”
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, I woke up with the realization that this whirlwind tour was almost over. I had one more commitment in Washington DC, and then I could go home—if I wanted to. Every bit of my focus had been to get through the opening.
Now, I had no solid plan, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go home to the house that Alain had built for us. I missed the family there, but I didn’t think I had the strength to live in that house alone. I didn’t even know if he intended to let me live there. After all, he paid the bills on it.
And then there was that small issue of the assassins out there just waiting to shoot me in the ass—or worse.
The phone rang, and I was told Alain and I were confirmed to attend the state dinner the following evening as guests of the President and First Lady. I blustered to the woman on the other end, but apparently she didn’t understand and hung up on me. Great.
I marched around the suite looking for Eduardo. As I opened my mouth to complain about this situation, he took me by the arm, aimed me at the couch, and landed there beside me. “Glori, I know you’re going to be upset about this, but the White House expects Alain will accompany you to the state dinner tomorrow. They want to honor both of you for your roles in saving the President’s life.”
I fell onto his shoulder and he wrapped me in a hug. He spoke to the top of my head. “You’ll be okay. This will work out for the best. I have to get back to Salzburg tonight. Alain will make sure you’re safe.”
Yeah, safe and Alain weren’t words I’d use in the same sentence.
Before Cat, Cisco and Eduardo left for Salzburg, I tucked envelopes of photos in their bags. There must have been over a hundred of them taken at the opening. I figured everyone would get a kick out of them. Then I hugged them all goodbye.
Aubrey and Jimmy stayed in the suite another day, so I wasn’t alone that night. Alain showed up in the early afternoon to escort me to Washington.
Aubrey talked his ear off, as I assembled my luggage. It sounded like she was promoting me like a great new car or a vacation property or something. By the time we got on the road to the airport, we were both laughing over Aubrey.
The President and First Lady were cordial to us and appreciative that we had saved the President’s life. Alain would even be getting another medal. Not that there was an inch of space left on his uniform for another one. My hero.
And as I sat there sipping my water, thinking I, Glori Coulson, was a guest at the actual White House, well, women came up to me and told me how much they loved my cosmetics and my shoes. They asked where they could get them. I felt like I should hand out business cards. Of course, I didn’t. But it was really cool.
The whole event went pretty well, considering. Alain and I didn’t have to say much to each other. There were plenty of other people to talk to.
But on the drive back to the hotel, I couldn’t stay silent. “I’m a joke with all the secret agents, huh?”
“What?”
“Well, everyone is goin’ on about me being a hero killing the bad guy with a shoe. But I was just a little irritation to the guy. Like a gnat, huh?”
“Glori, you were amazing.”
“But I didn’t come close to killing him.”
“You brought our attention to a man who was about to shoot the President. He could have easily succeeded if you hadn’t taken action. You certainly threw off his aim.”
“But when I go back over it in my head, I didn’t even knock him over. He fell down because you shot him.”
Alain looked at me like “duh.”
I sighed a sigh of relief. “It takes one to kill one.”
He grinned at me and shook his head. At least my conscience was clear.
When we arrived back at the hotel, I did not ask him to leave the doors to our adjacent rooms open—for security reasons, if you know what I mean. I took a shower, got in my cozy pajamas and took my phone to bed. As I wondered who I could call at this hour, it rang. It was my kick-ass shoe partner, Becky. Perfect.
Since we had phenomenal publicity over my supposedly saving the President’s life with my shoe, she was in orbit to hear every last little detail about the evening. Then she asked me to head out to Beverly Hills for a meeting with some important shoe people.
I decided it might be a good idea, since Salzburg could be tricky. I really missed Cin and my family out there, but the thought of being back at “our” house
still terrified me. Now I had an excuse to stay in the U.S.
I comforted myself with the fact that the weather in Beverly Hills was spectacular, and I couldn’t be sure what it’d be doing in Salzburg, if I went home. I drifted off to sleep, happy to have some of the confusion relieved, at least for the moment.
***
When we arrived at the airport in Washington that morning, I informed Alain in the most matter-of-fact tone I could muster. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m on Flight 44 to L.A. My gate’s that-a-way, I think. The gate for New York is right down there. Let’s check in.”
I tugged at the luggage cart with minimal success. Since Alain stood like a statue in stony silence, I spun on my heel, hoping to flag down a skycap.
“You forgot?” He didn’t look pleased. I probably should’ve waited till the luggage issue was resolved before I sprung it on him.
“Yeah, Alain, I have a last-minute business meeting in L.A.” I tried to sound nonchalant, with just the right tone of apology.
He kicked the cart, and my luggage went tumbling down like a house of cards. I glared at him.
He kept a fierce eye on me and took out his phone. Yeah, he was pissed. He paced around with the phone to his ear, and when a nice-looking pilot stopped to help me with my suitcases, he gave the guy such an evil eye, he excused himself and ran.
It turned out, instead of ordering up a new bodyguard for me, he booked himself on my flight. Now I was pissed. If we weren’t going to be together, why were we together?
Yeah, that was a chilly flight to L.A. By the time we landed, he informed me Klaus was on the way to take care of me. But that would take time. In the meantime, I was stuck with Alain.
You’d think I’d have been grateful, but I was so off kilter with him around, I couldn’t even think straight. I’d forgotten that bullet hole in my sweatpants. His line about being ordered to take care of me kept replaying in my head. All I wanted to do was move on with my life.
We did the old adjacent hotel room thing again. He left the door open, and I could hear him slamming his stuff into drawers as I chatted with Becky on my phone. I waited for him to go into the bathroom, and then I bolted out the door. I could finish unpacking later. I caught a cab to meet up with Becky at one of my favorite cafés in Beverly Hills. This’d be an excellent way to take my mind off my troubles.
She waved me over to the table. “Guess who I found here?”
It was Tamara Everett. The three of us hugged like it’d been a hundred years since we’d seen each other.
We discussed shoes and state dinners and cosmetics for I don’t know how long. I felt so much better. Then Becky spilled it. “You won’t believe the kick-ass shoes I have stacked in my spare bedroom. They just arrived yesterday, and I’m over the moon, I’m so excited. They’re even more incredible than I’d hoped.”
Before you could say “kick-ass shoe,” we were in Tamara’s limo headed for Becky’s condo. We were still jabbering away about our new shoe business.
Tamara said, “I was in Rome not too long ago, and I bought some shoes there you’ve got to see. The leather is soft as velvet, and the styling—I haven’t seen anything like them in New York or L.A. Maybe you can get some inspiration from them?”
“Cool.” I looked over at Becky, our official shoe designer.
She shrugged. “Sure.” It seemed to me, she was already happy with our line. But she was polite to a fault.
I always figured you need to keep tabs on the competition. So I nodded when Tamara suggested we stop by her place to take a look. Knowing her, she had a whole room full of the latest and most exclusive designers’ shoes.
“Cool,” Tamara said. She slid off one of her shoes and noticed a smudge of some gunk that wasn’t going anywhere when she tried to scrape it off with her nail. “Ick, I’ve got to take a toothbrush to this.”
It was like a light bulb went off in my brain.
***
How could I have been so stupid? Darla Wilde told me Tamara’s dad, Senator Everett, was a huge drug dealer. She told me David killed him. It wouldn’t have been impossible for her to find out David did it, if people like Dr. Payne knew. Dr. Payne did our friend Kendra’s nose. Rumors spread. It sure wouldn’t be too hard for Tamara to put two and two together.
And I just happened to be practically family with the guy that killed her father. And, knowing there were threats to our lives, I got into a car with this woman. Duh.
And I needed someone to bring up toothbrushes used in unique ways, to realize I was in a bit of danger here? And the “piece de resistance:” I went and purposely evaded the one person who could probably save my life.
I needed to get a grip. To use my favorite new word: how would I placate this woman?
Okay. Okay, I was an actress—I could handle this. “Hon, I’m feeling a little sick. Driver, can you stop the car?”
“Oh, we’re practically home, Glori. You’ll be fine.” Tamara didn’t even look up from her shoe.
“No, really.” I gripped my stomach with one hand and reached for the door handle with the other. The limo was crawling along. I could jump if I had to. But the door handle did nothing. “Tamara!”
Becky shot me a worried look.
“Calm down. Don’t be a baby.”
“Baby? I’m sick. You want puke all over your car?”
“Use your bag.”
“Huh?”
Becky and I looked at her like she was nuts. I jerked the door handle furiously. It was useless. It was time for kick-ass shoes.
***
Alain was seeing red. Glori had some nerve, running off like that. She should have known better. He should have known better. He should have insisted Eduardo stay in the U.S. He could take care of her.
How did he let himself in for this shit? As he headed out the door for the hotel lobby, his phone rang.
It was David. “Alain, Debbie just updated the painting of the back of the limo. There’s a shoe and a toothbrush falling out the window. She just now put a license plate on the back, and Jimmy is confirming the registration. The shoe must be Glori’s. What does a toothbrush have to do with this?”
Alain was back in his room, collapsed in a chair. “A toothbrush? I have no idea. But Glori is nowhere to be found. She ran off on me.”
“She ran off? What? Wait. Eduardo’s saying Darla was stabbed with a toothbrush. He told Glori, and it upset her.”
“Is this limo driving through Beverly Hills?” Alain decided he should get to his car.
“Yes, I recognize a sign on one of the buildings.”
Alain raced to his car. “Where am I going?”
“Jimmy just confirmed it. The vehicle is registered to Tamara Everett. Shit! How could I be so stupid?”
***
Alain noticed the limo as it approached the gates of the Everett residence.
Was that the heel of her shoe coming through the window?
He gawked at the limo two cars ahead, and saw Glori throwing herself on top of Tamara Everett. A catfight with Glori and Tamara Everett, daughter of the notorious U.S. Senator. How could he have been so slow?
His phone rang.
Eduardo’s voice was frazzled. “It’s definitely Everett’s daughter. Cat’s hysterical—crying.”
Alain strained to see what was going on in the limo. “Yeah, I’ve got them in sight. Glori ran off with Tamara Everett and her shoe partner—Becky something. It looks like they’re having a knock-down, drag-out in the limousine. I’m not in a position to shoot out the tires. It’s getting dark, and there’s heavy traffic—they’re just pulling up the drive to Everett’s estate. The gates are closed. There are three armed guards. I’m going to get a closer look.”
“We’re on our way. Lambrecht’s on the line to Pearson.”
***
Luckily, the neighbors next door to the Everett residence were out for the evening. Under the cover of darkness, Alain let himself into their home and climbed into the attic. The tiny window overlooking the per
imeter of the property was a perfect vantage point.
He could see the Everett mansion was now a well-manned armed camp. He reported to his colleagues the faces he recognized as the “Who’s Who” of Interpol’s most wanted.
Then he noticed a man lit up in the lamplight by the front entrance. One of the gang members was an associate of the now dead assassin “Z.” Debbie’s “lamp on a stand” paintings flipped through his mind. He remembered David’s concern over her last in the series, the canvas lit up with the letter “Z.”
Tamara Everett must have had some connection to Z. That couldn’t be good news.
Adrenaline surged. This was one fight he had to win—for Glori.
***
Tamara’s place was crawling with a bunch of smarmy men with guns. Some hulky guy with a Mohawk dragged Becky and me out of the limo and into the foyer. A guy with a video camera filmed us as we were led into the parlor and thrown onto a large sofa. There we sat, me with my hair and makeup a disaster, at least I felt like it was. Becky was bawling her eyes out. She most likely figured it was curtains.
Tamara was out of sight for a while, and we weren’t allowed out of our seats. I explained to the guy with the camera that I needed a bathroom break to fix my makeup, but he wasn’t buying it. The guy with the gun kept telling me to shut up. But then another guy with a gun was trying to come on to me. Probably not a real disciplined group, but they sure were scary. I tried to stay calm, and remember all their faces and any names they mentioned, in case I survived and had to go to court.
Then I occupied myself with itemizing all the furnishings in the parlor. I’ve got to say, Tamara always had impeccable taste. The place was posh.
Once I started to calm down a bit, I realized Tamara must have gone to some lengths to orchestrate our little surprise meeting. How did she know I’d be meeting Becky at that café? What was she planning to do to us?
In the Name of Glori (The Redemption Series: Book 3) Page 18
