Festive in Death

by J. D. Robb

  He held out a small, wrapped box. Eve eyed it suspiciously.

  “Is it something she’s going to slather on me?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Open it, find out for yourself.”

  She dealt with the fussy ribbon, tore at the shiny paper.

  The classy box had the name of the jewelry embossed on the lid.

  Ursa.

  The generational family-run shop which had provided her with a solid lead on another killer. She remembered Ursa—the dignified older man who’d been so appalled he’d purchased antique watches stolen from dead parents by their ungrateful and murderous son.

  “You pay attention.”

  “To you? Always.”

  “I don’t know what it is, but it means a lot you went there.”

  “It’s a good place, as you said. Run by good people. They asked that I give you their best.”

  She shook the box, heard the soft rattle. “This probably is.”

  He laughed. “We all agreed it suited you.”

  She opened it. It was some sort of comb. From its jewel-encrusted peak fell a rich medley of diamonds and rubies.

  “Trina will know how to work it into your hair.”

  “You always figure out another way to hang shiny things on me.” She shook it lightly, watched the stones dance. “It moves. It’s really beautiful. It looks old—in a good, classy way.”

  “Early twentieth century, reputedly a wedding gift from groom to bride. A few generations later, the fortune was squandered, and this, among other things, was sold. Mr. Ursa acquired it in an estate sale a couple years ago, and—he tells me—kept it in the vault, waiting for the right person. He thought you were, and so did I.”

  “Since you’re giving it to me now, I bet it goes with whatever I’m wearing later.”

  “I believe it does. You can judge for yourself, but I hope you’ll wear it.”

  “I’ll wear it.” She stepped up, kissed him. “Even though I’ll have to suffer through Trina sticking it in my hair.”

  “That’s love.”

  “Looks like. And so we’re even . . .”

  She went to her desk, opened a drawer, took out a small box with the same wrapping and ribbon. “One for you, early.”

  The flicker of surprise, the half smile told her she’d caught him off guard. “Really?”

  “You’re not the only one who can think about stuff.”

  “Apparently not. And it seems Ursa knows how to be discreet. He never mentioned he’d seen you.”

  “Maybe you got there first—but in that case, same goes.”

  Like Eve, he shook the box, then unwrapped it. He couldn’t begin to guess as buying jewelry of any kind wasn’t on her radar. But inside a small white flower made of mother-of-pearl and platinum nestled.

  “You don’t go for the shiny stuff—nothing but a wrist unit for you. But two can play. It’s a lapel thing. A white petunia.”

  “Yes, I see. Your wedding flower.”

  When he looked up, when those fabulous blue eyes met hers, she saw she’d hit the mark.

  “He made it. Mr. Ursa. I can’t take much credit. I just asked him if he could make up this little thing, and he did the rest. Small because you don’t go for the flash, but personal, I figured. And it holds on to the lapel with this little super magnet, so no pins or holes. His idea.”

  “You had it made for me?”

  “He did the work.”

  “It couldn’t mean more to me. The thought, or the symbol. The day you carried these flowers is one of the best days of my life.”

  She gave him a smirk. “One of?”

  He drew a gray button out of his pocket. “The day I met you, the day this dropped off that hideous suit you wore, is another.”

  “Sap.”

  “Guilty.”

  “Me, too.” She moved in, held him close. “I’m feeling pretty lucky. Even decorators, florists, caterers, and Trinas can’t take that away.” She tipped her head up. “It almost makes me want to have a party.”

  Laughing again, he kissed her.

  “Aw, look how sweet you look!”

  Eve glanced over, watched Mavis Freestone bounce in. She wore red tights with boots of the same color that slicked up toward the crotch a sparkling white top barely managed to cover. Her hair was a tumbling mass of silver-streaked blue.

  “It can’t be that late,” Eve said.

  “I’m early. Way early. I came with Trina. She wanted plenty of time to set up. Leonardo’s hanging with Bella until later, and he’ll zip uptown after the sitter comes. I figured I could get dressed here, surprise him, because my outfit is fan-mega-tastic. And even if he did design it, he hasn’t seen me in it yet.”

  She danced over to them, fairy-like, even on the skinny heels of her boots, wrapped arms around them both. “Merry-squared! I so totally love Christmas and you guys and everybody else.”

  “How do you feel about caterers?”

  “I’ve got goodwill pumping out of my pores. Extreme.”

  “Then come with me.”

  • • •

  When Mavis stepped into the ballroom she gasped. Then she squealed. Then she bounced.

  “This is ultramazing! Holy wow, Dallas, it’s like a vid set or a fairyland. It’s like both and with elegante tossed in.”

  Eve took a long look. The massive trees, the lights, the flowers—the plantings that looked as if they grew out of pristine mounds of snow. All the pale gold, shimmering over tables and chairs, the bold red, the bright white, the arbor of greenery and crystals around the fireplace, combined to just that. Ultramazing.

  A woman in sharp black marched in, gave Eve the eye. “Why isn’t the terrace bar set up? We don’t have time to stand around doing nothing.”

  Mavis patted the woman’s arm. “She’s so totally not one of you. She’s the boss. Hey, you guys are going to pass drinks, too, right? The bubbly for sure. And little nibbly food. I so abso-poso love the bubbly and little nibbly food. If you need to practice, I’m all in for volunteer. Hey, Dallas, maybe you should have nibbly trays in that other room, you know the one. People hang in there sometimes, and nibbly trays would be mag.”

  “Nibbly trays,” Eve directed the woman in black, “in the salon where the gifts are displayed.”

  “Of course. We’ll set that up.”

  “Great.” Eve turned to Mavis. “Anything else?”

  “Oh . . . let’s see.”

  For the next few minutes, Eve entertained herself watching Mavis send the head caterer scrambling to comply with suggestions, wishes, additions. Because it was Christmas, she opted for mercy, and pulled Mavis away.

  “That was fun,” Mavis commented.

  “Not for her, but yeah. Best, everything’s under control, I kept my part of the deal, and Summerset can polish it all off.”

  “Now we get to groom. My favorite pre-party activity.”

  “Why?”

  Mavis hooked her arm through Eve’s. “Because it feels good, it smells good, and when it’s all done, you look good. But we’re not going to look good.”

  “We’re not?”

  “Hell no. We’re going to look ultramazing. Take it easy on Trina, okay?”

  “Again, I say why?”

  “She’s still a little whacked about finding the dead guy. Sima’s dead guy. She’s been putting on the brave since she’s looking out for Sima, but she let it drop with me. So I know she’s still pretty whacked about it. Most people don’t find dead bodies unless they’re you. Finding them, I mean, not being them.”

  “She wouldn’t have found a dead body if she hadn’t been where she shouldn’t have been. Okay, okay,” Eve muttered when Mavis just looked at her.

  “It’s worse maybe because she knew him and really didn’t like him.”

  “Nobody really li
ked him.”

  “Sima did. Mostly.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Nope. I don’t use Buff Bodies. I started using Fit Plus. It’s ‘plus’ because they have all these parent/kid classes, or kid classes. We all go, my honey bear, our Bellisima and me, when we can. Or one of us goes with Bella. Completely family friendly, so we like it. But I know Sima a little, and Trina gave me the whole lowdown on the dead guy before he was dead, and more LD after he was. She’s a little bit freaked you’re going to arrest her for something, but you’re not. Right?”

  “I would if I could just to keep her out of my hair. Literally.”

  With Mavis, Eve turned into her bedroom.

  Trina stood, quietly arranging what Eve thought of as her instruments of torture on some sort of table beside some sort of salon chair. Another table—a massage table, Eve recognized—stood in front of the simmering fire.

  “Hey!” Her voice bright, Mavis bounced to Trina. “Dallas is all done, and early! We can get this part of the party started. How about we have a drink?”

  “I want a shower,” Eve said. “But go ahead.”

  “When you’re done, if you’d come out in just a robe,” Trina said, voice subdued, eyes on her tools. “We’ll start with the massage and body glo.”

  “What the hell’s a body glo?”

  “It’s a hydrator with a light sheen. We can test it on your arm to make sure you approve. I also brought the no-sheen if you decide against it.”

  Eve narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like the real Trina, with her brisk bossiness and sneaky ways. But she liked this fake, mealymouthed Trina even less.

  “Whatever.” Eve spotted the gift bag on her dresser, poked at it, noted Trina’s name on the tag. Roarke had, as promised, seen to it.

  “This is yours.” Eve picked up the bag, pushed it at Trina.

  “What?”

  “A thing. A Christmas thing.”

  Eve turned away, started toward the bath, spun back when she heard the blubbering sobs.

  Trina, with her tower of swirly hair, wept into her hands while Mavis cooed and stroked.

  “Shit. Shit! Why is she doing that? Stop doing that. I mean it.”

  “It’s my fault. Sima’s a wreck, and it wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t seen him. He’d still be dead, the fucker, but she wouldn’t have seen him so she wouldn’t be so bad. It’s my fault. And you gave me a present.”

  “I’ll take it back if you stop that. I don’t even know what the hell it is. Roarke did it. Go find Roarke if you’re going to do that.”

  “I thought, what if I’d talked her into going and whoever killed him was there, and killed her. I thought—”

  “Snap out of it!” Eve slapped out the order, causing Mavis’s mouth to drop open in shock, and Trina’s head to jerk up.

  “What-if’s aren’t dick. It didn’t happen. It’s not your fault she went there. Did you drag her kicking and screaming? And even then, he’d’ve been dead anyway. He was a shit. An asshole. A rapist. A blackmailer and a cheat. I’ll find who killed him because that’s my job, but if she’s wasting tears over him, somebody needs to tell her she’s just stupid. And if you’re blubbering over what can’t be changed anyway, you’re stupid.”

  “Dallas,” Mavis began.

  “Shut up a minute. You want what-if? What if she’d gone back in there to get her things or to confront him, and found him herself? Alone. Without you there to hold it together? She didn’t have the first clue what to do. You did. You tagged me. The fucker deserved more than toeless socks and itching powder—not that it was your place to give that to him—but he didn’t deserve dead. He deserved a couple decades in a cage, but am I blubbering because I don’t get to give him what he deserved? So snap out of it.”

  There was a moment of absolute silence. Then Trina sniffed. “You’re right. You’re fucking A right. And when I’m done here I’m going back and having a come-to-Jesus with Sima, even if I have to get her drunk first.”

  “Great. Now that it’s settled, I want a shower.” She remembered, pulled the box from her pocket. “Roarke wants this in my hair.”

  Trina opened it. Both she and Mavis oooohed. Both she and Mavis swiped tears from their cheeks, looked back at Eve.

  “It’s a total winner,” Trina decreed. “I’m going to do something different with your hair.”

  “What? No. No, you’re not.”

  “Not with the cut or color. For Christ’s sake, have I fucked up your hair yet?”

  “No, but—”

  “You get a piece of art like this to wear in your hair, your hair should earn it. I’m going to think about it. Get the shower, but don’t use any scent. I’m going to take care of that.”

  “I don’t want to have—”

  “You don’t know what you want. I’ll take care of it. You’d better get in there and wash up. Unless you want me to take care of that, too.”

  “Keep out of the bathroom.” Eve stalked off.

  Real Trina was back. Maybe, if she’d given it time, she’d have liked fake Trina. Now she’d probably never know.

  It could have been worse, Eve supposed. She could have been attacked by flesh-eating cows. No one would ever convince her cows didn’t occasionally enjoy a meaty snack.

  So it could’ve been worse.

  She told herself so while Trina slathered stuff on her—the mostly naked her—and Mavis cheerfully babbled. To take her mind off what was going on, Eve knew very well, especially when Trina shifted gears, shifted her, and layered some sort of toxic-looking green goo all over her face.

  Then told her to relax for ten minutes.

  Who could relax with toxic-looking green goo all over their face, that was possibly literally toxic?

  But Mavis stuck a glass of champagne in her hand, and eagerly sat while Trina started painting Mavis’s face with the arsenal of paints, brushes, powders, and God knew what else she armed herself with.

  Apparently, from the conversation Eve tried to ignore, Mavis had been through the green goo stage—self-inflicted—that morning.

  The goo came off, and as far as Eve could tell didn’t take her skin with it. More gunk went on, with Mavis chattering as she stripped down naked. It always puzzled Eve how some people could be naked without a single qualm.

  Fortunately, Mavis dressed again in a teeny-tiny sparkle of a dress that made Eve think of a prettily wrapped present, right down to the shiny bow on Mavis’s ass. She slid on high, thin-heeled shoes with skinny straps that wound around her ankle, hung a trio of glittery balls on each ear, an army of glittery bracelets on one arm halfway to the elbow, all while chattering away.

  It was sort of fascinating, Eve decided, even admirable in a way, and God knew it was hard not to be amused and happy with Mavis shining up the room.

  “Oh, that’s just the right lip dye,” Mavis decreed. “Subtle, barely there. Just slicking them up, highlighting their shape.”

  “It’s all about the eyes,” Trina said wisely.

  Eve studied the sparkling gold and silver glitter on Mavis’s eyelids. Felt her entire being clutch.

  “I don’t want my eyes all glittered up like that. No offense, Mavis.”

  “Totally none taken. Glittery eyelids are so not Dallas.” She did a little spin, studied herself in the mirror. “And so completely me. Abso-mag on me, Trina. Party perfect. Yours, too,” she added, turning back to Eve. “In a Dallas way. Promise.”

  She crossed her finger over her heart. “Hey, Treen, if you have time, can you do a temp boob tat for me? I’m thinking a little Christmas tree with two presents under it. Bella on one, Leonardo on the other.”

  “Sweet. Yeah, no prob. Soon as I’m done.” She stepped back, gave Eve the long, beady eye. “Yeah, yeah, that’s going to work.”

  She moved behind the chair. Out of the corner of her eye, Eve sa
w her pick up a tube, squirt some of the gunk that looked distressingly like cum in her hand.

  “Do you have to do that?”

  “It’s a good product, especially good for your hair.”

  She pulled, tugged, scrubbed, then picked up a tool that looked—distressingly again—like a very skinny dildo.

  “What is that? What does that do?”

  “Magic,” Trina said, and went back to tugging.

  “What are you spraying on it?” Eve demanded. “Why are you spraying stuff on it?”

  “Because it’s my job.”

  “Chill,” Mavis advised, circling the chair. “Ooooh, I get it. Oh yeah, way uptown, Trina. Soft and sexy, right?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Define sexy? My commander’s going to be here, and probably the chief. With spouses. I don’t need sexy hair.”

  “Chill.” Trina echoed Mavis’s word, but her tone was a lot more forceful.

  “It’s the center deal,” Mavis began. “She doesn’t like it.”

  “What center? My hair has a center?”

  “I mean you. I’m explaining to Trina how you don’t like the center spot when it’s not cop stuff. It wigs you a little. But, you know, it’s your party and hello, Roarke, so it just is.”

  She picked up Eve’s glass, put it back in Eve’s hand. “Drink your champagne. You’ll toggle around some.”

  “I don’t want to toggle around. I want to be finished with this part.”

  “Nearly are. Mave? Hand me the comb, will you?”

  “A-plus class,” Mavis commented as she passed the comb to Trina. “Okay!” she added as Trina placed the comb. “Trina, you’re the bestest of the bestest.”

  “Solid,” Trina agreed, but to Eve’s consternation, did more spraying.

  “My hair’s what’s going to be solid if you keep that up.”

  “Done. Take a look.” She swiveled Eve’s chair around to face the mirror.

  It was a shock but not a jolt, which was something anyway. Her face mostly looked like her face. Her lips were kind of red, but the dye was sheer and pretty subtle. And no glittery stuff on her eyes, so that was a big plus. Instead she looked more defined, she supposed, and fussier with the pale gold on the lids, and all the darker stuff blended in wherever.