On the Avenue (7 page)

Mullen made a sour face. “I'm divorced.”

“A good-looking guy like you?” It was Lex's voice this time. She was standing directly behind Park, and now she feigned a ditzy smile as Detective Mullen blushed. “I find that
so
hard to believe.”

“So do
I,
” Coco said with mock seriousness, a hand to her chest.

“Well, you know, this is all very flattering, ladies,
but I do have a few questions to ask you,” Detective Mullen told them sternly. He flipped open his notepad and began riffling through the pages. “Now, I was told by the security guards that right before the body was discovered, you all ran into the coatroom and then closed the door. Why was that?”

“We were trying to outrun a psychotic paparazzo,” Madison said. “We were very lucky. I thought he was going to kill us.”

“Uh-huh. And had you ever seen this …paparazzo before tonight? I mean, since you girls are used to being photographed all the time.”

“Never,” Lex said. “He was short and fat and bald.
And
he tore my dress.”

“Right,” Mullen mumbled as he wrote. “So it was you four girls being chased by this man. And you didn't see where he disappeared to?”

“No, we didn't.” Park bit down on her lip. “It wasn't actually us four. I had a … guest … with me.”

Mullen glanced up at her. “Yes, I know. Jeremy Bleu. I guess you have no idea where he is right now, huh?”

“I don't know,” Park admitted. “Everything got so crazy after we … saw the body … and, well, when we came out here, he was gone.”

“He ditched us,” Lex chimed in.

“He did
not,
” Park cut in sharply. She stared at Detective Mullen. “I'm sure Jeremy has a positively
good reason for not being here. Like I said, this was all just a misunderstanding.”

“Jeremy Bleu not being here is the same thing as Jeremy Bleu fleeing a crime scene, Ms. Hamilton,” Detective Mullen snapped. “How well do you know Mr. Bleu? Is this characteristic of him?”

A silence fell as Park considered her response. Was she supposed to tell Detective Mullen the truth?
We met each other tonight, Detective. The attraction between us was intense and I just wanted to jump his bones.
Totally not! The truth sounded way too slutty. She sighed and said, “I haven't known him for very long. But I do know that he's smart and polite and very thoughtful.”
And completely gorgeous. Don't forget completely gorgeous.

“At what point this evening did you first see the victim?”

The girls glanced at each other. Lex, still cradling Champagne to her chest, shook her head. “We first saw Zahara Bell in the coatroom. She was absolutely dead by the time we got there.”

Mullen kept writing in his notepad. “Think back now. When you first started running down this corridor, did you see anyone else standing here, or even close by?”

“I was the first one to run down the corridor,” Madison answered. “I didn't see anybody.”

“What made you run down this particular
corridor? Big museum here. You could've gone down any corridor.”

The edge of suspicion in Detective Mullen's voice was very slight, but it angered Madison. “We were being
chased,
for God's sake,” she told him sharply. “When a crazy person is chasing you, the most common reaction is to run away. Don't they teach you that when you become a cop?”

Detective Mullen dealt her a cold stare. “We're not talking about me here, Ms. Hamilton. We're talking about you—
all
of you. Where's this paparazzo you're talking about? Where's Jeremy Bleu? A murder has been committed, and I'm not getting very convincing answers from any of you.”

“We're telling you all we know,” Park said firmly.

“And how well did you know the victim, Zahara Bell?”

“We knew
of
her, and of her stature as the world's greatest fashion editor,” Lex replied. “But none of us had ever met her personally.”

Detective Mullen flipped through to the front of his notepad. “From what I was told a few minutes ago, your father's company sponsored this gala here tonight. You mean to tell me you invited guests you've never met?”

Madison sighed. What was the point of trying to explain philanthropy to a cop? It was blue blood versus blue-collar, and the two simply didn't mix.
“That's exactly right,” she said. “In our world, Detective Mullen, people can know each other without ever meeting each other.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That doesn't make sense.”

“Sure it does,” Madison told him. “You knew my sisters and me before meeting us a few minutes ago, didn't you? That's because we live in the public eye. Same thing with Zahara Bell. I had hoped to meet her tonight, but …”

“But what?” Detective Mullen asked.

“But she didn't make it, obviously.” Madison had to shut her eyes against the memory of Zahara Bell's body. She felt even worse when she remembered that the body was still behind that closed coatroom door, with that heinous scarf as its last accessory.

“So then, I guess you haven't found him yet,” Coco said, breaking the momentary silence.

“Found who?”

Coco rolled her eyes. “The killer.
Helllooo?
”

Detective Mullen glared down at her. “What makes you so sure the killer is a
he
?”

“Oh, come on. Get real.” Coco chuckled.

“It's totally obvious,” Lex said under her breath.

Park and Madison nodded firmly.

“Is that what you girls think?” Detective Mullen said. “You think only men are killers and criminals because of the statistics you've read in some magazine? Well, lemme give you girls a quick lesson—”

“It has nothing to do with statistics.” Madison cut him off. “It has to do with obvious common sense. And glaring evidence. Zahara Bell's killer was a man. There's no doubt about it.”

“Of course there isn't,” Park said. “I can't even believe we're discussing this.”

Detective Mullen crossed his arms over his chest. “What evidence? What the hell are you girls talking about?”

“Didn't you see the body, Detective?” Lex asked him, her tone incredulous. “There's an ugly black scarf around Zahara Bell's neck. It doesn't even
remotely
go with the dress she's wearing. It's not even the right season. It's a mismatch. Only a man could have killed her that way and not noticed how
bad
it looks. A woman wouldn't have anything like that still out of fall storage.”

“A hetero man,” Coco chimed in. “I mean, that's important, since we're building a profile of the killer.”

“Oh, totally,” Madison agreed. “A heterosexual man with no sense of style. The kind of man who wears black loafers with navy blue pants. Or boot-cut jeans with white sneakers. Hideous.”

Detective Mullen, standing there in black loafers and navy blue pants, didn't say a word.

“Let me tell you,” Lex said excitedly, “if the killer had been a woman, all the signs—the evidence— would have been a lot sleeker. A scarf like the one
around Zahara Bell's neck would not have even entered the picture.”

“Not one that looks like alpaca,” Coco offered. “Something like raw silk, maybe, or maybe even cashmere.”

“I would never ruin a cashmere scarf,” Park said. “Especially not if it meant
leaving
it around some-one's neck. Though I guess if it was completely, noticeably last season …”

“True, but you get my point.” Lex looked at Detective Mullen. “So you see, it's obvious that we're looking for a male killer. The scarf around Zahara Bell's neck was absolutely
not
a part of her outfit.”

Detective Mullen sighed. “And how do you know that for sure, Ms. Hamilton?”

“Because that dress is my—” Lex bit down hard on her tongue, and the nick of pain made her fingers clench. Champagne barked and squirmed against her chest.

“That dress is your
what
?” Detective Mullen asked, taking a step toward her. “Finish your statement, Ms. Hamilton. Do you know something about the dress the victim is wearing? Or about the way in which she was killed?”

Lex didn't speak. She glanced nervously at Madison, then at Park. Both of them looked pensive. As the silence hung on the air, Lex felt her heartbeat kick up several notches.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It was still so damn confusing—her own one-of-a-kind dress on a
dead woman's body. She didn't understand it, so how the hell was she supposed to explain it?

“Ms. Hamilton?” Detective Mullen prodded. “You wanna speak up?”

“It's… well …” Her voice trailed off. She gulped. “It's just that the victim, Zahara Bell, is wearing my dress.” Even as the words rolled off her tongue, Lex couldn't help noticing how ridiculous they sounded. Ridiculous. Stupid. And impossible. But nonetheless true.

“What? What did you just say?”
Detective Mullen looked as if he'd been slammed in his baseballs with a really big bat. “You'd
better
start explaining that one!”

Lex gave him the abbreviated version: the Triple Threat fashion line; her own gorgeous designs; original pieces that were all hanging in her private closet back home. No one could have gotten their hands on them. Very few people even knew she was about to launch her own line, and so she had no idea how Zahara Bell had snagged that particular dress. Fair enough?

Flushing a vibrant and highly unattractive shade of red, Detective Mullen began scribbling a series of notes onto his pad. He wrote and wrote. His fingers moved across the pages furiously. After what felt like five minutes, he trained his eyes on Lex. “Tell me something, Ms. Hamilton … when did you report this theft to the police?”

“Theft? I never reported any theft because I
didn't know the dress was missing until I saw it on the body,” Lex told him.

“So you never look in your closet at home?”

“I go into my closet all the time, Detective. But I can't
see
everything that's in it at one time.” Lex stared at him, exasperated. “My closet at home is about ten times the size of that horrible little coatroom. I wore the dress we're talking about a long time ago and it never occurred to me to look for it in my closet. But that's definitely it.”

“So then, who do you think broke into your apartment and stole it from your closet?” Mullen asked, an edge of sarcasm in his tone. “Do you think the victim, Ms. Bell, was a thief?”

Madison sighed loudly. “Why are you asking us police-related questions? It's
your
job to investigate.”

“And that's exactly what I'm doing. As it stands now, the victim is clothed in a dress that was hanging in your home. You all happened to find her body. You girls are also hosting this event. And …” Mullen flipped to the last page of his pad without taking his eyes off them. “And one of you has a penchant for jewelry. An interesting mix, if you ask me.”

Park cleared her throat. “What does my penchant for jewelry have to do with anything?”

“Oh. Didn't you know?” Mullen asked a little too coyly. “Zahara Bell was wearing the Avenue diamond tonight, and now it's missing. Torn right from her neck, apparently.”

“The Avenue diamond!” Park shouted, her eyes bulging. “
The
Avenue diamond?”

“Holy shit,” Coco whispered.

“Yes,” Mullen replied. “
The
Avenue diamond. You wouldn't happen to know anything about
that,
would you, Ms. Hamilton?”

Park bit down on her lip. Instead of launching into a roll call of facts about the miraculous and stupendous Avenue diamond—or its personal connection to the Hamilton family—she said, “We had nothing to do with this murder, Detective. We were all just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Mullen's voice rose. “You girls expect me to believe
any
of this? It's obvious that this isn't a simple coincidence, and I think it's despicable that you would try to use your celebrity to weasel your way out of this. It's also apparent that there's a lot about this crime you're not telling me.”

Madison gasped. As Detective Mullen's words echoed through the corridor, her jaw dropped, her eyes flashed, and her shoulders stiffened squarely. “How dare
you
speak to
us
that way!” she snapped. “My sisters and I are not going to stand here and allow you to try to drag us through the mud because you don't want to do your job and find the man who killed Zahara Bell. That's what's
apparent.
”

“Our publicists will tear the whole police department apart when they get wind of this,” Lex added.

Mullen laughed at that. “Your
publicists
? Go home and tell your daddy to call some
lawyers,
not publicists.
That's
what you girls will need. Good lawyers.”

“Fine,” Park replied calmly. “Does that mean we're free to go?”

“For now, yes.” Mullen flipped his notepad shut. “But I'll be speaking to all of you tomorrow.”

As Mullen turned to go, Madison, Park, Lex, and Coco watched two uniformed officers emerge from the coatroom, rolling the stretcher that held Zahara Bell's body neatly zipped in a body bag. Gasps echoed through the corridor. The chatter of voices filled the air.

“Gross,” Coco said, cupping a hand over her mouth.

They all turned their eyes toward the crowd. Suddenly, a figure began moving through it, pushing his way to the front. It was Theo West. And despite the chaos of the moment—his wavy hair was scraggly, his face was sweaty—he looked hot.

Madison froze as he came striding in her direction.

“I just heard what happened,” he said quietly, standing very close to her. “I just can't believe it.”

Madison nodded dumbly. She caught a whiff of his cologne and felt as though her knees would buckle. But instead of melting at his feet, she threw her head back and bravely met his eyes. “Neither can we,” she answered. “It's tragic.”

“Are you okay? You weren't hurt or anything, were
you?” His right hand came up and landed softly on her shoulder.

The motion, Madison realized, was involuntary. She felt his fingers hot against the side of her neck, and his thumb swished along her skin in a gesture that was unconsciously tender. She lost herself in the moment. She lost herself in his eyes. Everything around her disappeared and suddenly there was only the two of them. There was the memory of their last, secret kiss and the electric tingle of his touch.