She grinned. “What happened to your hair?”
“What? Nothing,” I said self-consciously, combing through my curls with a free hand.
“Looks like you had a lot of sex,” Carmen called from her stool. I snapped my head towards her and she shrugged. “What? It’s just something I can tell.”
“Mika?” Addison asked eagerly.
“Because I just have so many other men banging down my door,” I hissed, still prepping my cameras.
“You used to,” she responded, picking up the empty camera bags so she could form a pile just to the right of the set. She pulled an empty foil from a pocket on the side of a camera bag and gave me a wicked smile. I snatched it away from her, trying to hide my blush. I had no idea how it had gotten in there. “Magnum,” she whispered. “Very nice.”
“Hush,” I hissed.
“Who else were you talking about? That was banging your door?” Carmen asked, curiously from her stool. She leaned closer, as if preparing herself to receive an amazing secret.
I’d have giggled if I wasn’t so irritated with her. “Banging down my door. It’s an expression and it’s none of your business,” I snapped.
“James,” Addison told her smugly.
Carmen sucked in her cheeks and glared at me. “Now you’ve done it,” I muttered, fixing Addison with the evil eye.
Addison shrugged and smiled. Turning back to me, she continued on about the food for the shoot as though she hadn’t just introduced a reason for an all-out smack down. “Anyway, Roberto said that the restaurant fixed a few dishes. Lots of rice, though. I’m not totally sure how she’s going to cover herself without food falling off the plates. We’ve always done fruit and cartons and such. This is all…well…unpackaged. I don’t know if we thought it through well enough.”
“Need any help?” Rory called, coming around the corner.
“We have a tarp, don’t we?” I asked him, glancing around the set area.
“Yup,” he responded. “And it’s never been used. Need it?”
I eyed the colorful array of plates that sat awaiting their turn to be photographed. “We sure will,” I told him slowly. My mind was alive with ways to get Carmen as messy as possible. Suddenly, I wasn’t so bothered to be there.
Photographing the beautiful plates of food had been a challenge, but we’d managed to succeed. Several times we’d handed Carmen, who was wearing only a lacy nude thong under her purple bathrobe, two plates at a time. She’d tip them towards the camera, covering her breasts in the process, and I’d snap away as food slowly slid down the plates and onto the tarp. “My feet are getting wet,” she’d complained a few times. “Stuff is splashing on me. Do you have a shower in here?” We didn’t. I enjoyed telling her as much.
“The price of beauty,” I’d called when she gave me a particularly withering glance after I asked her to smear some sauce along her collarbone. “Now give me smoldering siren.”
“What?” She asked, dumbly.
“Look sexy,” I’d clarified. She did. Did she ever.
Later, I was sitting alone in the studio. Carmen had washed up in the sink, changed and headed back to her hotel. For some reason, her limousine had disappeared and Addison, jaw tight and angry, agreed to take our colorfully spoken Bolivian back to her hotel.
I was flipping through the digital screen on my camera for the hundredth time, admiring just how perfectly the shoot had turned out when I heard footsteps behind me. “Tarp is cleaned up and drying. Dressing room is wiped down. Do you need anything else before I head out for the evening?” Rory asked kindly, coming up behind me. Looking at the photos over my shoulder, he whistled low and long. “Don’t tell Addison I said this, but Carmen is even more beautiful in person than she is on the big screen.”
“In appearance maybe,” I answered. “But her personality sucks.” Shutting off the camera, I flipped open a side compartment and pulled out the memory stick. “All yours,” I told him. “Use appropriately.”
“I’ll get these uploaded first thing tomorrow,” he promised, ignoring my snark and tucking the small drive into his shirt pocket.
I heard my phone vibrating in my purse. Standing from the stool and stretching, I hurried over and pulled it from the side pocket. I’d been hoping for a call from Mika, but when I checked the caller ID, I was confused. “Hey,” I said to Addison. “Everything okay? I was expecting you back, already. Rory and I are getting ready to head out.” There was a loud sniffle and then a gut wrenching wail from the other side of the phone. “Addie?” I asked alarmed. Rory’s head snapped up and he looked at me curiously, the concern in my voice evident. “What happened? What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“The hotel,” she gasped out between sobs and sniffs. “Carmen’s dead and- oh, Marian, I think I need a lawyer.”
“Oh no,” I said quietly, shaking my head at Rory, who had come to stand at my side. I pulled the phone away from my ear and tapped the speaker button so that he could hear more easily. “Rory’s here with me. Talk to us. What’s going on?”
Addison sniffled. “Carmen is dead,” she answered again, miserably.
There was a long pause, Addison’s sniffling the only sound. “I think I just hallucinated,” Rory answered finally. “Could you say that just one more time?” Addison wailed in a way that a wounded baby animal would cry for its mother as buzzards eagerly circled overhead. My heart began to hammer as my blood pounded in my ears. Up until that moment, I considered myself fairly adaptable in sticky situations. I’d had a gun pointed at me more times than I’d like to admit but always seemed to come out on top of the situation. Nothing had prepared me for this. Was Addison responsible for Carmen’s death? The two hadn’t exactly hit it off but surely Addie wouldn’t kill Carmen. That was taking her detest a bit far. “Take a deep breath,” Rory was telling her when I snapped back into the present. “Have you called the police?”
“Yes and they’re coming. She said not to hang up but I had to. I had to call you,” Addison answered. “I don’t know what to do. What am I supposed to do?”
“Call the police back,” I practically screamed into the phone. “Call them back right now. We’re on our way!”
“What if they arrest me?” she whined.
“Why would they need to arrest you?” I asked warily.
“Um-”
Rory motioned for me to follow him outside. We tore down the walkway and into the gravel parking lot where his flashy silver car was already started by remote and awaiting our arrival. Rory had been kind enough to give me his beat up green Suburban after my own car had been blown to smithereens by that crazy killer named Barry. Rory had then purchased a beautiful silver Audi. Don’t get me wrong, a poor person like myself can’t exactly beat a free car. But I’d take Rory’s over mine any day of the week. It purred like a lion.
“Addison, I’m hanging up now,” I told her through puffs of breath. “And when I hang up, you’re going to call the police back immediately. Do you understand me?” I opened the passenger door and slid inside, slamming the door behind me.
Just then, I heard a loud knock on the other end of the line.
“Paramedics!” Someone yelled.
“Hold on,” she whispered in a very small voice. I kept waiting for the click that she’d disconnected but it never came. I couldn’t bear to do it myself, but she’d pressed the phone up against herself, muffling the conversation she was having with the EMTs.
I looked at Rory, who had just pulled us onto the main road and shrugged, helpless. Nodding in understanding, he plucked his own phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1. “What’s your emergency?” asked the dispatcher after the third ring and customary greeting.
“We need police at the Grand Hotel on Kilbourn Avenue,” Rory replied. “There has been an accident.”
Just then, Addison wailed on the other end of the line and I could only clutch my phone tighter, words escaping me. “Marian, I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know,” I soothed. “I k
now you are. But we’ll be there soon.”
Rory continued to feed information to the dispatcher. It wasn’t a lot of information but it was enough. Our studio was only an 11-minute drive to the hotel, though it felt like hours with all of the red lights we were hitting. The Audi screeched to a delicious stop in a no parking zone right in front of the main doors where several police vehicles were already parked and devoid of officers. I could see an ambulance zooming away in the distance but didn’t know if they’d just been here or if they were rushing off to another emergency. Rory and I leapt from his car and began to run towards the large glass doors of the hotel. “Hey, you can’t park there!” cried an attendant as we ran past him.
“Take it!” Rory called, tossing the attendant his keys. “Valet. Tow. Whatever!”
We hurled ourselves past the doorman. Rory made a beeline for the elevator but I called his name and shook my head. We’d need a key to get into the Presidential Suite. I raced over to the front desk and babbled out my name and information just as I heard the sounds of Addison speaking with the police through my speaker phone. “I need to get upstairs!” I almost screamed, finishing my story quickly and shoving my phone at the desk clerk, who continued to look at me like I was a deranged stalker. Granted, so far as she knew, I was. It was probable that the hotel staff had not yet been alerted to an emergency. In fact, if that was Carmen that was being sped away by ambulance, she’d probably been snuck out through a side entrance to avoid scrutiny. I saw the desk clerk make a motion towards a security guard who stood rigid in the corner. “No!” I cried. “No, no, I have to get upstairs to see Carmen Suarez!”
The busy lobby paused at my outburst. The only sound for a few moments was the distorted noise coming from my phone’s speaker as Addison babbled unintelligibly to police. Suddenly, the lobby was awash in excited titters. So this was where Carmen Suarez was staying! I looked helplessly at Rory, who shrugged, having no clue what the magic words to get upstairs were himself. There had to be a way to let the clerk know without sending everyone into a massive panic about a potential murderer in their midst.
“Marian?” I heard someone ask behind me.
I spun to see James standing just as surprised as when we had first seen one another only a few hours earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “James!” I cried, happy at last to be in the same room with him. “I need your key. We have to go upstairs.”
James hesitantly pulled out his wallet and began rifling around for the key that could get us access to the Presidential Suite. The security guard continued to stare at me, unsure if he should intervene. The desk clerk was nervously typing, glancing up every so often to check if I’d moved away. When James finally withdrew the key, I snatched it from his hand and darted to the elevator, where I pushed the “up” arrow repeatedly until the doors dinged open. “Wait up!” James called, jogging after me. Rory, who had been waiting near the elevator the whole time, quickly stepped inside just before the doors began to close. “Hey!” James cried, picking up speed. “Hold the doors.”
I swung my arm across the sensor and forced the double doors to open again. James, panting, slid in next to us. An elderly couple who was moving excruciatingly slowly waved for us to wait but I hit the door close button. “I’m sorry!” I called out to the woman, who was utterly appalled by my behavior. Not that I could blame her. It was a really nice hotel. Really nice people probably stayed here. The kind of people that held elevators for their fellow guests. But when your best friend might have murdered one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, what’s more important- decorum or hauling your ass upstairs?
“What the hell?” James asked, aghast by my rudeness. I didn’t answer. I just slid the plastic key into the slot above the buttons and pressed the prominent P. “What’s going on?” James asked, turning to Rory.
Rory just shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure.”
I was still clutching my phone but the line had gone dead in the elevator. The ride seemed to take forever. I prayed that it had all been some terrible joke. That the doors would open and Carmen and Addison would be laughing like hyenas. Granted, I’d probably kill Addison myself if that happened, but one could hope that nothing terrible had actually happened.
The doors dinged open directly into the Presidential Suite. The marble-clad entryway was eerily quiet. The only sounds were coming from the living room a few feet away. Hushed voices. The occasional unencumbered wail of misery. After glancing around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I tiptoed quickly down the hall towards the sound of voices. Rory and James followed quickly behind. Before I turned the corner, I took a deep breath. I had no idea what I was about to see. I turned to Rory and James. Swallowing hard, I gently touched Rory’s arm. “Brace yourself,” I warned him gently. He nodded and closed his eyes for a moment to center himself.
In the living room, nothing seemed entirely out of the ordinary at first. Addison was sitting on the plush white leather couch in the same outfit she’d worn when she left with Carmen. She was surrounded by police officers. No one else had arrived yet, save for the EMTs I’d overheard — but they were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps that had been them roaring away in the distance as Rory and I had arrived.
When Addison heard our footsteps and she turned to face us, there was no denying that something was seriously wrong. Her charcoal sweater was drenched in blood. When she stood, I saw that so, too, was her colorful pencil skirt, her hands, and even part of her face and neck. My knees felt weak but I stumbled forward. “Addie,” I whispered, reaching out to take her hand.
“Don’t touch Ms. Dawes, please, Ms. Moyer,” said Kip, a middle-aged officer who I’d worked with several times over the years. He worked the downtown beat and was almost always first on the scene in the area between the hours of 2 and 10pm. He and Addison had butted heads many times over information for various news stories she had written. Nonetheless, he was just a big softie trying to protect the inner-city from the horrors of modern-day crime. His hair was short and dark, while his mustache was as thick as an oversized caterpillar, curling slightly at the ends. His eyes were kind and gray, but his voice was always gruff with emotion. His partner was a woman in her late 20s, with hard eyes, uneven skin and a serious ponytail.
“What’s going on?” I asked Kip. The other two officers that were present were just coming out of what I presumed to be a bedroom. I recognized them both but wasn’t sure of their names, so I just nodded my greeting.
“Ms. Moyer-”
“Marian.”
Kip sighed. “Marian, I need you and your friends to go back downstairs.”
I shook my head. “Can’t do that,” I told him. I wasn’t totally sure where I got the nerve to stand up to him, but I realized that I wasn’t just putting up a front, either. I steeled myself for his response.
“You’ll disturb the crime scene.”
“Is Carmen still back there?”
Kip hesitated. “Ambulance already took her.”
“When did they get here?”
“Before you,” he answered briskly.
“But we-”
“Ms.-I mean, Marian-”
“Please,” I asked pleadingly. “Please just let one of us stay with Addison. The others can wait in the entryway.”
“You, of course, mean downstairs in the lobby,” he corrected.
Dagnabit. “Of course.”
Kip sighed again and I could see him debating with himself. He turned to James and squinted. “You the PI? The one that helped solve that case about the missing girl up north?” Kip was talking about Riley. I was a bit irritated by this. After all, I’d been there, too — she was my niece after all.
“That’s right,” James answered smoothly, even though his face was surprised.
“You can stay,” Kip told him. Turning to me, he added, “you two need to go downstairs.”
“What?” I cried, baffled, as the two officers I didn’t know so well stepped over to see us down. “I’m the crime scene photographer around h
ere! I know more about-”
“I know,” Kip cut me off. “But please. I just don’t think it’s wise, given your relationship with Ms. Dawes.”
I cut a look to James, who seemed incredibly unsure of himself. He wasn’t often unsure of himself. Suddenly it dawned on me. He still had no idea what was going on. He could see Addison, plain as day, drenched in blood. But Carmen, the woman he was clearly with — if even only on a sexual basis — was missing, taken away in an ambulance from what he’d heard. He couldn’t handle this. He wasn’t ready. Rory needed to break it to him gently over a cocktail in the hotel bar. “Kip, James is…was…er, is in a relationship with the victim,” I blurted, immediately regretting my choice of words. I slapped a hand over my mouth and turned to face James, but it was too late. They’d escaped.
Kip and James both snapped their heads towards me. “Wait, Carmen is a victim in-” James started, but I drew my wits about me and cut him off, turning my pleading eyes back to Kip.
“You can’t let James be the one to handle this,” I urged Kip.
“You’re telling me that Carmen-” James started again, but I held out a hand to silence him and continued to stare at the officer in charge.
Eventually Kip sighed and pointed to James and Rory. “You two. Downstairs.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” James asked. “Is Carmen dead? Why is Addison covered in blood? What the hell is going on?”
“Downstairs,” Kip repeated firmly. James balled his hands into fists and I saw Kip’s hand move to his taser, which was perched on his belt. As the other two cops stepped next to Kip, James eventually relaxed and turned to me. “Marian,” he said, deathly calm. I swallowed hard. “Please tell me. What’s going on?”
I shrugged miserably. “I honestly don’t know all of the details.”
“Is she-”
“I don’t know. And you can’t think like that.”
“But-”
I sighed and placed a hand on his arm. “James. I need you to go so that I can find out. They’re obviously not talking to me until you leave. Please. I’ll get you information as soon as I know more. It could take some time.” Turning to Rory, I added, “Call Mika. Call Janet. Call Carly. Call everyone that we’ve worked with on any case ever. And ask Janet if she knows a good lawyer.” I tossed him my cell. “You know the code?”
Alllison Janda - Marian Moyer 03 - Scandal, Temptation & a Taste of Flan Page 4
