Killer Getaway (4 page)

 

Chapter 5

A
T 8:30 A.M.
the next morning, we convened a poolside meeting at the house on Bahama Lane to download and dissect the appearance of Chef Gianni in Magnolia Beach.

The reaction among our group wasn't too positive. Gianni's a genius with seafood and pasta, but he wouldn't receive four stars on a Yelp review as someone you wanted to spend your vacation with.

“When did Gianni get here?” Bootsie asked, buttering a homemade carrot muffin. “Because if he's been down for a few days, it was probably him behind the wheel of the Death Chevy the other night. He definitely hates Jessica enough to run her down in an alley.”

“Gianni loves me!” protested Holly, who was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, stretching in anticipation of a 10:00 a.m. workout class. “I spent seventeen thousand dollars on one dinner he catered last summer. He wouldn't run me over with a Chevy.”

She paused for a second. “Well, maybe he would.”

“He'd kill you in five seconds if you were standing in the way when he was going after Jessica,” Joe told her, forking into a fluffy spinach and Manchego omelette that Martha had customized for him. He'd arrived with Sophie ten minutes before, dressed in impeccable khakis and a crisp lavender shirt, but with slightly bloodshot eyes, courtesy of his Scotch-­and-­Xanax hangover. The omelette seemed to be having an invigorating effect, though, and his hands were no longer trembling as he forked in the awesome egg dish.

“Gianni told me last night that he only got to Magnolia Beach yesterday,” Holly shrugged. “So he couldn't have been the one who almost ran us over. Though, obviously, he could be lying.”

Holly took one for the team the night before when she invited Gianni and his dark-­haired companion to go out for drinks at Tiki Joe's while the rest of us finished dinner at Vicino. This gave Holly time to pump the Italian chef for information about his new restaurant, and it also got Gianni out of Vicino before he caused even more of a scene.

During the two-­block stroll to Tiki Joe's, and, subsequently, over a ­couple of rums at its convivial bar, Gianni told Holly that he and his new girlfriend, whose name was Olivia and who was an aspiring model/actress/singer, were staying at The Breakers, along with a small entourage of staff and decorators who were installing the interior of his new Magnolia Beach restaurant.

“It's going to be mostly seafood—­that's the
mare
part—­and some pastas and grilled meats. The space was the old Peacock restaurant, which closed a ­couple months ago, so it has a full kitchen already, and should be easy to get up and running quickly.

“And of course, Gianni's a hundred percent sure he can charm the Lilly Pulitzer pants off the Magnolia Beach crowd,” Holly told us, sipping black coffee.

We all nodded, knowing that Gianni can in fact be incredibly charismatic.

It's hard to explain, but his muscles, tattoos, and trademark gold earrings somehow take on a sexy bad-­boy vibe when Gianni turns his attention on women and gushes over them. At age thirty-­nine, with a bunch of “Best New Chef” honors in the world of foodie magazines, the guy has star quality.

“The crazy part is,” Holly added, “Gianni's calling his new place a pop-­up restaurant, since that guarantees a lot of media coverage. And he's got a deal with HGTV to feature Gianni Mare on
Restaurant in a Weekend
!”

A
T THIS NEWS,
Joe choked on a bit of spinach, Sophie pounded his back with tiny be-­ringed fists to try to dislodge the offending veggie, and we handed him glasses of water. We all avoided eye contact with Joe, who—­once he finally gulped down the wayward bite of omelet—­looked like he'd be reaching for the anxiety meds again any minute.

Restaurant in a Weekend
is a show in which a team completely overhauls, remodels, and installs a new eatery in about twenty-­two minutes. At least, that's how it looks when you watch the show, and it seemed—­given the fact that Gianni's sign had announced he was opening his new place tomorrow night—­that the turnaround really was incredibly quick.

I mean, there had been a restaurant on the site of Gianni Mare before, so it wasn't a total makeover, but this was still a bold move and a PR coup for Gianni.

HGTV's a subject no one brings up around Joe, because a ­couple of years ago, he'd submitted a casting tape to the network and had been told that unless he was a super-­hunky contractor in a tight T-­shirt and ripped jeans (preferably with an identical twin or equally hot brother), or a gorgeous girl who had a working knowledge of carpentry, he could forget about getting a decorating show. Joe doesn't really work out, is an only child, and he would never wear ripped jeans, so that had been the end of his HGTV dreams.

Clearly, though, some bitterness lingered.

“That's the tackiest thing I've ever heard!” Joe said, pushing aside his breakfast. “Cheap publicity stunt.”

“I've gotta call my editor,” Bootsie said, standing up and punching at her iPhone. “Gianni's pop-­up thingy sounds like a Page One story for the
Bryn Mawr Gazette
.”

Her eyes took on a happy gleam. “I'm going to get him to reimburse me for the four tanks of gas I used getting down here—­just as soon as I get some more eggs!” She got up and made for the kitchen.

“What's really important, though, is if Gianni's the one who tried to run over Jessica and Holly the other night,” I pointed out as Bootsie reemerged from the house and sat down again.

“You know, at first, I figured that Chevy had to have been after Jessica, since she's not that likable,” Bootsie told us. “But a theory came to me while I watched Martha dish out these eggs. The death car could have been actually going after
Holly,
” she pointed out, loading a piece of toast with butter.

From her spot on a yoga mat, Holly's eyes widened, taking on the expression of a frightened fawn.

“I don't have any enemies!” she told Bootsie. “One lady at the Glutenator class got mad when I tried to pay her to give me her spot near the instructor the other day, but usually ­people like me. Especially sales­people. I mean, I've tipped everyone in town! The ­people at both Hermès and Lanvin are my new best friends!”

“That's true,” Joe nodded. “And you've been spending
a lot
lately.” He gave me a significant glance indicating that we needed to talk over the Holly spending situation, which worried me.

“Yeah, Holly's a walking ATM—­no one's gonna want her dead,” Sophie added. “I'm thinking it probably was some drunk in that car. Magnolia Beach just isn't the kind of place where ­people flatten ­people in alleys. Maybe it was just a fluke!”

“Not to change the subject from Holly being about to get killed, but I'm heading to the tennis tournament down in Delray Beach,” Bootsie told us, forgetting her theory about Holly's would-­be killer and grabbing her tote and keys. As usual, her attention span rivaled that of a gnat. “There are some hot guys playing today.”

“I'll meet you down there,” Holly told her, “if I'm still alive by lunchtime.” She paused for a minute as she scrambled up from her yoga mat. “Maybe I should hire a bodyguard! Everyone in Miami has one.”

“That reminds me,” piped up Sophie, slurping foam from her cappuccino, “did I ever tell ya about the time in South Beach when my ex invited a whole bunch of girls he met at the pool at the Fontainebleau back to our suite at the Setai? I came back from shopping at Saks, and one of them had gotten a bellboy naked, and was about to—­”

“See you this afternoon!” Holly said, thankfully interrupting Sophie's reminiscences. “Also, I'll ask around at The Breakers and find out when Gianni checked in. Maybe he got down here by Tuesday, and he
was
the hit-­and-­run driver!”

“I need to skip the tennis til later. I gotta go home and do more lawyer stuff,” Sophie told us sadly, forgetting her story about the bellboy as she gathered up a giant Gucci handbag. “This frickin' divorce is more work than my old job selling concrete.”

“I'll drop you back at your place, Sophie,” Bootsie announced.

As Joe and I climbed into the Caddy, I heard Bootsie ask her passenger, “Whatever happened to that bellboy at the Setai?”

 

Chapter 6

“I
S SHE THE
one from the Spice Girls?” asked Adelia a bit tipsily. She was in a pink caftan today and an equally large pair of sunglasses. It was 10:00 a.m. chez Earle, where we sat at an outdoor table shaded by an umbrella and a ficus hedge. Ozzy the butler was holding Adelia's drink on a little silver tray as she looked over Joe's sketches and magazine tear sheets, one featuring a party hosted by David and Victoria Beckham and held under a vast and very opulent canopy lit by about seven thousand dangling lanterns.

The magazine clippings were supposed to help Joe sell Mrs. Earle on his idea for a custom tented ceiling design for her pool hut, which he'd seen in
Coastal Living
. This was the specialty of a West Palm Beach design house called, naturally, La Tente.

“Absolutely!” Joe assured his client. “This Beckham party? Tented by La Tente. That royal wedding a ­couple of years ago in Monaco? They tented it. The firm is owned by a French ­couple who can tent the crap out of anything,” he told Adelia. “Tenting is huge right now.”

I'd have suggested he use slightly older celebrities to convince Adelia, more along the lines of classic Hollywood stars like Sophia Loren, who'd probably tented something at one point in her fabulous life, but Joe hadn't asked for my input. Instead, he peremptorily ordered me to go through his tote bag and find La Tente's estimate, which he'd printed out but hadn't had a chance to review yet.

I'd somehow been dragooned into a job as Joe's temporary Florida assistant, which I wasn't sure I'd agreed to, and felt a bit grumpy about. But I had to hand it to Joe: Galvanized by his nine-­day design deadline (now down to eight days), he arrived at Adelia's with a tote bag of fabric samples, magazine tear sheets, and sketches at the ready.

It was Saturday, but Frank, a carpenter Channing and Jessica had recommended after working with him on Vicino, was already at the gazebo, measuring to replace the exterior woodwork and install bench seating within the structure.

“The tenting sounds nice,” Adelia said, gazing with mild interest at the photos Joe had placed in front of her. “What do you think, Ozzy?”

“Beautiful,” replied her houseman patiently. Mr. Osbourne seemed to be an especially sweet-­tempered guy. Adelia was a genial lady, but the constant margaritas and the guns had to be a bit wearing on a day-­to-­day basis.

I found the paperwork from La Tente, glanced at the total, and my vision got blurry and I had to sit down. The tenting, including fabric and labor, would cost thirty-­six thousand dollars.

“For the pavilion, I'm thinking we'll go with a blue and white theme, and do the ceiling in a gorgeous blue and white stripe,” Joe told her. “Think Grace Kelly at the beach club in
To Catch a Thief
.”

I discreetly handed him the estimate for this blue and white striped masterpiece. He took one look, swallowed hard, and stuffed it back in the tote, apparently deciding to nail Adelia with the hefty price tag at a later date.

“That all sounds real cute,” Adelia told Joe. “Just remember, sugar, you got eight days to finish this job. I know decorators. Getting you to finish a job is like nailin' Jell-­O to a tree.”

“Frank's got his circular saw set up in your driveway, Adelia, and he thinks he'll have most of the woodwork done by Tuesday at noon,” Joe assured her. “Then we'll start with the new floor, the lighting, the painting, and, obviously, the tenting. Tell those poker ladies to get ready for a pool house that'll knock them on their asses!”

“I
CAN'T BELIEVE
I'm saying this after my toes were in Stage One frostbite for the last six weeks . . . but it's really hot!” I told Bootsie an hour later as I fanned myself with a printed program featuring photos of Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova. We were sitting in the stands of the Delray Beach Tennis Center, which turned out to be a small stadium in the center of an adorable beach town.

“And,” I added, looking at the scene in the tennis stadium and the palm-­tree-­lined street beyond it, “this town is kind of awesome!”

Delray Beach, though only twenty-­five minutes south of the serene and peerless shops of Palm Avenue, felt like a funky village in the Florida Keys. Reggae and Cuban music poured from speakers along Atlantic Avenue, its café-­lined main street, and cool ­couples, both gay and straight, sipped coffee at shaded tables. Colorful pillows lined outdoor banquettes on the patios of restaurants. Shops and boutiques offered everything from cute dresses to ornately decorated cupcakes to vintage furniture. And though it was only 11:00 am, a festive island air percolated through the whole town.

I loved the formal precision and manicured hedges in Magnolia Beach, but I felt my shoulders instantly relax as soon as we drove into Delray Beach. If Magnolia Beach was the incarnation of a black-­tie ball, then Delray was the fun backyard barbecue where everyone got tipsy on mojitos under strings of party lights, and ate quesadillas and guacamole. It was amazing to have two such diametrically different places just miles apart on the coastline.

I texted a few quick photos of the scene to John Hall in California, giving him a quick update on Adelia, Gianni, and Waffles. John's a really sweet and polite guy, so he always says he likes to hear what my dysfunctional posse is up to, even if he's likely more interested in things like bovine breeding trends.

“Delray is where my parents had their honeymoon,” Bootsie told me, her eyes on the court where two handsome tennis players, one from China and the other Australia, were battling out for a third set in the already steamy sunshine. “Look at that serve!”

I tried to follow the guys and the rocketing tennis balls on the court, but frankly, other than the fact that they were both cute and tan, I couldn't muster up much enthusiasm about the actual game.

“My brother Chip was conceived right down the street at Crane's Hotel,” Bootsie continued. “Mummy said she had no idea what was coming her way after the wedding, but boom! One night at Crane's, and she was knocked up.”

“What a beautiful story,” said Joe, climbing into the seat next to us, followed by Holly. While everyone else in the stadium was in shorts, T-­shirts, or workout clothes, Holly had on a crisp striped sundress and flat Hermès sandals. She wasn't even sweating. “I might need to visit this Crane's place just so I can fully envision Chip's conception.”

“When does Javier Guzman-­Ferrara play?” Holly asked, pushing up her sunglasses to scan the sidelines. “He's the only reason I'm here.” She pointed at a gorgeous dark-­haired guy in his early thirties doing some stretches by the main court. “I'll just go say hi to him,” she said, getting up again. “I sat next to him once on a plane.”

“Javier Guzman-­Ferrara?” shouted Bootsie, swiveling her attention away from the action on the court to ogle the handsome guy Holly had indicated. “The dark-­haired, muscular Spanish guy who once beat Rafael Nadal? I'll come with you!”

“Okay,” said Holly, not sounding all that thrilled about Bootsie accompanying her. “If you really want to.”

“Is Sophie going to join us?” I asked Joe, as Holly and Bootsie took off toward the hot tennis player.

“She's still Skyping with her lawyers,” he said gloomily, flagging down a passing drinks seller for a Diet Coke. “She thinks Barclay's really dragging his feet getting the divorce finalized. And it seems like he's out of town, because it takes about forty-­eight hours to get the simplest question answered. We've been waiting since last Monday to find out if he wants his cashmere sock collection returned, which somehow ended up in a chest of drawers at Sophie's new house back in Bryn Mawr.”

“If they're negotiating socks, they must be close to being done with this settlement, right?” I asked.

“You'd think so,” confirmed Joe. “I mean, cashmere socks are pricey, but at six hundred and fifty an hour, fighting over footwear doesn't seem like the greatest use of time for the top two divorce firms in Philly.”

“I hate to bring up the obvious, but once Sophie is officially single again, isn't she going to want to make things legal with you?” I asked Joe, unable to resist a slightly evil impulse to torture him by raising the topic of getting hitched. I'm pretty sure Sophie's already been pushing for him to propose as soon as she's divorced, and I'm equally positive Joe's scared to death of getting married. He froze, Diet Coke sloshing onto his loafers.

“I mean, you two seem so happy together, and you could have a big wedding at Sophie's new house,” I said merrily, enjoying a bit of revenge for having been forced into the role of Joe's new design assistant. “Since Sophie's mere weeks away from being legally free to walk down the aisle again, you could start looking at wedding tuxedos anytime now. . . .”

I paused for a second, my eye catching on a familiar figure seated in the stands just above where Holly stood.

“Look!” I gasped to Joe.

“What, you mean Holly flirting with the tennis guy?” said Joe, following my gaze. “Holly always flirts when she's mad at Howard. Last year, it was the golf pro at the club, the one from Scotland who looked like Tom Brady in a cable-­knit sweater. She doesn't actually fool around with them or anything.”

I know it's rude to point, but I couldn't help extending my finger to indicate the familiar face—­above a set of incredibly muscular female shoulders—­I'd just spotted in the Delray tennis stands. “Not Holly. Four rows up from where Holly and Bootsie are standing. Blond. Braids like Heidi. In a black track suit.”

Joe stiffened, and a look of fear gripped him.

“I see her,” Joe moaned. I noticed that below us, Bootsie had just picked out the same woman in the crowd, seated mere feet from where she and Holly were chatting with Javier.

Bootsie's jaw dropped, and she turned to stare at me as I nodded a grim confirmation to her that I'd noticed the braid-­wearing spectator as well.

“Gerda,” moaned Joe, burying his face in his hands. “How the hell did she end up in Florida?”

“M
R.
S
HIELDS FLEW
me down,” Gerda told us a few minutes later.

“Barclay's here?” Joe said, blanching.

Joe did his best to keep the fact that he was dating Sophie on the lowest possible profile. Sophie, however, wasn't quite as discreet, posting gushy Facebook missives to her “Honey-­Bunny Joe.”

She lovingly depicted on Instagram every meal and movie night they shared, tweeting descriptions of how much fun she and Joe were having together, how he rocked her world and reminded her of the Nicki Minaj song “Anaconda.”

Meanwhile, Barclay had made it clear in regular drunk-­texts to Sophie that he wasn't exactly happy that his soon-­to-­be ex was dating at all—­and he was especially mad it was Joe, her interior decorator. Barclay, a developer of new homes all around the Philadelphia area, hadn't been all that complimentary about Joe's design work, either. This was because Joe had renovated the enormous house Barclay now inhabited in Bryn Mawr—­back when Sophie was living in it, post-­split.

Gerda, an Austrian-­born Pilates instructor, once saved Sophie's life, and when she showed up on Sophie and Barclay's doorstep several years ago, the softhearted mafia wife didn't have the heart to ask Gerda to leave.

Sophie initially kept their marital domicile—­and Gerda—­when she and Barclay split, he relocating to a condo over in Haverford. When Holly, Joe, and I met Sophie last spring, her house—­a Disney-­castle-­style edifice—­featured Swarovski crystals on every possible surface and a lot of tables featuring carved cherubs. Joe tried to give the house a make-­under, removing much of the gold plating and smoked glass in favor of tasteful wainscoting and soothing oyster wall colors. But the house still retained the feeling of a Vegas high-­roller suite. As much as Joe tried, it just couldn't be un-­glitzed.

Finally, Joe convinced Sophie to just give the house back to Barclay in the divorce and start over, which is when Sophie bought her current charming, rambling farmhouse.

Barclay, meanwhile, was furious that Joe stripped a lot of the glitzy elements from the casino-­style house, and was having the whole place painted purple again, with the floors done in a jazzy white and purple mosaic featuring his initials in the front hallway. He was doubly pissed at Joe: first, for dating his estranged wife, and second, for all the money he was spending to re-­glitz the house.

To make matters worse for Barclay, his doctors had ordered him to go on a strict diet for the entire fall and winter.

This worked out fantastically for Joe, because Sophie—­using the time-­honored tradition of reverse psychology—­had gotten Barclay to hire Gerda to oversee his weight-­loss program.

When Gerda lived with Sophie, she was always nagging both Sophie and Joe to do things like eat kale and give up vodka. As Joe told us, if there's anything that kills romance, it's having a live-­in Pilates teacher from Austria in the next room.

“Mr. Shields rented a house,” clarified Gerda. “In Magnolia Beach.”

“What!” Joe groaned. “I've gotta call Sophie. I can't believe Barclay followed us here! What a stalker.”

“I might get in trouble with Mr. Shields if Sophie find out he's here in Florida,” said Gerda, looking as nervous as I'd ever seen her, which wasn't all that nervous. Gerda is nothing if not stoic, and doesn't fluster easily. She once fell flat on her face from atop the bar at the Bryn Mawr Pub and emerged totally unscathed.

“Mr. Shields, he said he tired of cold weather, and he not going to tell Sophie he's staying two blocks away from her,” Gerda elaborated. “His lawyers told him stay away from Sophie—­no stalking. I think maybe we keep it secret that you know he's here in Florida. Okay?”

We all considered this. No one wanted to see Barclay. No one wanted Sophie to have to deal with him. And Joe looked terrified. Barclay is a little scary, given his onetime mafia ties and also because of his sheer physical bulk. Even down sixty pounds, Barclay's still roughly twice the size of Joe. We agreed to make sure Sophie didn't throw a tantrum about her ex being in town.