Too Pretty to Die (27 page)

Somehow, I couldn’t believe Miranda DuBois would sink as low as having an affair with Sir Dick. He was—how shall I put it?—yucky.

“This way, my sweet,” Mr. Uttley uttered, and quickly dragged me around one of the fabric screens to somewhere quite a bit nearer the moaning noises, as they were louder and intermingled with subdued voices.

If only I had a flashlight to better see what was going on—then again, maybe I’d scorch my eyeballs and burn in Hell if I could—but the spotty candlelight did give me a good enough idea.

From the ceiling hung a gauzy web of netting, which I guessed to be the canopy that Dick Uttley mentioned. Below it, within the weblike folds, I could make out lots of moving parts atop a round mattress.

Body parts.

And some of them were glowing in the dark.

I thought of the party favors in the silver bowl and I gulped.

Good heavens, but there was an orgy going on, right in front of me. If it hadn’t been so dark, I would’ve seen absolutely everything.

Ugh.

Call me a prude, but this wasn’t my cup of tea.

In fact, if Uttley hadn’t been clinging so tightly to my arm, I would’ve set off in a run.

“If I might unburden you of your clothes, my darlin’, we can get on with it,” Dick Uttley murmured in my ear. “Or get it on, anyway.”

He leered, and I felt his hands move across my shoulder blades, toward the buttons that ran down the back of my dress, and I knew I’d never watch Uttley on Channel 5 again without wanting to shout
You old pervert!
at my TV set.

“Stop it,” I said, batting at his arms.

Which only made him grin wolfishly. “Ah, you like it rough, do you? Well, I can do that,” he said, and grabbed at my hardly biblically proportioned breasts.

I reacted instinctively and, for the second time that evening, lost a glass of champagne.

Only this time it was no accident.

I tossed the bubbly right in Dick Uttley’s face as he sputtered and screeched, “I should kill you, you little witch!”

He grabbed blindly at me, but I sidestepped him and turned to flee. I teetered and tottered on my high-heeled boots, moving as fast as I could around the gauzy canopy with the bodies writhing beneath, while Dick ranted and raged somewhere behind me. Thank goodness he was even slower.

I zigzagged around another of the partitions, my heart banging like conga drums in my chest.
Get me out of here!
my brain kept screaming as I pushed past people and candlesticks and the odd table or chair, ultimately running smack into the arms of another man.

Oooph.

I dropped the crystal handbag and it hit the floor with a clatter. I dared not even think how many of the tiny beads may have shattered on impact.

The dude I’d plowed into swayed against me, my shoulder having slammed into his chest, and I heard his grunt as he caught me around the waist.

Another lech, I thought instantly, and reached up to push him off; but he held on firmly. “Hey, hey, slow down,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I murmured, my pulse continuing to race, “if okay means getting pawed by a cologne-drenched creep twice my age.” I glanced up at him through the dim, seeing the outline of an oval face with a smooth pate.

It took a second for my brain to whir, and then I recognized Dennis Bell, the computer wizard who sold more desktops and laptops than all the others combined. Wasn’t he married?

And he picked up chicks at the Caviar Club?

I guess being a rich geek made it a lot easier to get a little sumpin-sumpin on the side.

Hooey.

He let me go and bent down to retrieve the Judith Leiber bag from where it had fallen near my feet. The crystals caught the glow of candlelight and flickered. “You’d better kept a tighter grip on this”—he pressed the bag into my hands—“my wife has a few, so I know what they’re worth.”

“It’s not even mine.”

“Oh. Well, it’s hard to lose what isn’t ours to begin with, eh?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Whatever that meant.

“You might want to duck into the ladies’ room,” Dennis Bell suggested, cocking an ear. “I think I hear that cologne-drenched creep, and he’s headed this way.”

With that, he walked off, heading toward the red velvet drapes, and I figured he was leaving. Maybe going home to that wife he’d mentioned, because it was hard to believe anyone would bring their spouses to a party meant for hooking up with other swingers.

I didn’t have much of a chance to dwell on the guy, because I heard Dick Uttley’s nasty voice, too, raised above all other sounds, saying something about “tossing that little witch out.”

Being that I was the “little witch” in question, I figured it might be a good idea to scram altogether. Forget the ladies’ room.

I was just about to make for the velvet curtains when I spotted a slick-looking dude coming through them.

Oh, Lord.

Milton Fletcher.

The conniving cur!

He was no Beluga!

Well, okay, neither was I. Still, I didn’t like that he seemed to be turning up everywhere I went. It made me nervous, the way he was following me around, sticking his nose in my business, or Miranda’s business, anyway. My nose had already butt in first, which made it rather crowded. One of us would have to go.

So I spun around, diving for the nearest door and throwing myself into a pitch-black room. I had a feeling it wasn’t the loo, or someone would’ve left the lights on, wouldn’t they?

No matter.

I figured I’d wait there a few minutes, long enough to slow down my pulse, and then I’d get out of the nightclub as fast as my stiletto-heeled boots would carry me.

Dirt or no dirt.

Janet could ream me out for all I cared. I was going home where I belonged.

My breaths sounded loud at first, doubly noisy, in fact.

Like I wasn’t the only one breathing in the room.

A throat cleared—it wasn’t mine—and I heard the tiniest click as a light went on, illuminating a blond-haired man with a pale mustache, sitting behind a desk, muscled arms leaning on the desktop.

“You hiding out, too?” Lance Zarimba asked.

My hand went to my heart and I made a little
eeep
sound.

“My God,” I croaked. “You scared the crud out of me.”

He smiled sheepishly, his wide shoulders shrugging. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just figured I was here alone.”

I took a tentative step toward him. “In the dark?”

“Well, it wasn’t much darker than out there.” He swung a thumb in the direction of the door.

And I realized he was right.

“Plus it’s quieter,” he said. “All that shouting. What’s old Dick pissed off about this time?”

“Me,” I admitted.

“What’d you do? Swipe his Viagra?” Lance suggested. “Knock off his toupee? Call his wife to come and get him?”

I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was nerves, but I burst out laughing.

Lance grinned all the wider and leaned back in the desk chair, hands clasped at his flat belly, looking like he owned the place. For all I knew, he did.

“C’mon and sit down,” he said, and gestured to a nearby chair. “You look amazing, by the way. I almost didn’t recognize you. Andy Kendricks, right?”

“Man, you have a good memory.”

“I told you you’d look like a million bucks if you just spent a little time in front of the mirror, didn’t I? It was true.”

“Okay, rub it in.”

“I just did.”

At the time he’d said it, I’d been more than a tad miffed. Then, it had seemed insulting. Now, I decided to take it as a compliment and let it go at that.

“Not a bad place to hide,” I said, and walked over to the leather chair in front of the desk and settled into it, tucking the bejeweled bag at my side.

Sitting primly, hands on my knees, I looked around the room, at the French art deco posters and small bronze sculptures. There was a makeshift bar set up on the credenza behind the desk. I saw an open bottle of champagne in a silver bucket with spare glasses nearby, and I noticed then that Lance had a nearly empty flute perched atop the desk beside a goose-necked lamp.

All the comforts of home, I mused.

“Is this yours?” I asked.

“This office?” He bent forward, leaning over the desk again.

“The club,” I clarified.

He looked confused. “The Caviar Club?”

“No, Bébé Gâté,” I said, finding the direction of his thoughts rather interesting. Telling, even.

“Ah. No.” He shook his head. “It belongs to a friend of mine. He lets us have parties here, so long as we let him join in.”

He lets us have parties here.

Did that sound a little proprietary, or was my suspicious nature just in overdrive?

“Are you enjoying yourself?” His question caught me off-guard, and I wasn’t sure whether to lie or be honest.

I settled for something in between. “It’s been an
interesting
evening so far.”

It reminded me what was going on outside, beyond the closed door, and I thought again of Miranda and the photo I had seen where Lance Zarimba appeared to have his tongue in her ear.

It made me wonder if Lance was as benign as he seemed on the surface. Or if he had a darker side, one that came out in his private life, when he wasn’t downsizing pores at Dr. Sonja’s boutique.

I reminded myself that quizzing Lance about Miranda was a big reason I’d come to the Caviar Club tonight. Then again, if he had something to do with her death, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hang out with him unchaperoned.

“You’re not a member of the club, are you, Andy? I know you haven’t been to a party before, have you?” he asked, and I shook my head. “You’re a friend of Cinda Lou Mitchell’s, right? She tagged you.”

“Yes.” I raised my chin and met his eyes, channeling my mother as best I could, not wanting to look freaked out, like I was up to something.

I felt suddenly nervous, like he was about to unmask me. It’s a good thing I’d rolled on the Secret.

“Is there something wrong with that?” I asked, doing the narrow-eyed thing that my mother could do when making a point that always had me itching to slide under the table.

“Not when the girl getting tagged is as lovely as you. It’s the whole reason behind the club, putting pretty people together. And you happen to be very pretty.” He lifted his champagne glass and casually drained it.

“Is that how Miranda DuBois got in?” I found myself asking. “Was she tagged by a Beluga?” I even went so far as to say, “Maybe by you?”

Lance didn’t answer.

“You liked Miranda a lot, didn’t you?” I pressed on, daring to suggest, “I saw some pictures of you with her, so I know how close you were.”

His eyes went wide, and I knew I’d struck a nerve.

“I’ll bet Dr. Sonja didn’t appreciate your, um, growing affection for another woman. Or was it just Miranda in particular she didn’t care for? Is that why Sonja ruined her face?”

Way too quickly, he replied, “Miranda was a beautiful woman, one many of the members found attractive. As far as Sonja’s being jealous of her, I imagine Miranda inspired jealousy in plenty of females.”

Sometimes even generalities were revealing, I mused.

“Got it,” I told him.

“Do you really?” His shoulders stiffened, and I noticed his hand close so tightly around his empty champagne flute that I half expected it to crack. “No, Andy, I don’t think you do. I don’t believe you understand what happened with Miranda at all.”

“Why don’t you explain, then, Lance,” I said carefully, deciding it would be unwise to piss the guy off. He was twice my size, with arms as big as my thighs. “I’m all ears,” I offered. “I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. It was Sonja who hated Miranda, not you.”

He stared at me stonily for a long moment, and I debated excusing myself and getting the heck out of there, as had been my intention a few minutes earlier. Sometimes it paid to listen to one’s gut, and mine was grumbling pretty loudly.

Well, geez, if he was going to clam up, I wasn’t going to hang around.

“Perhaps I should go,” I murmured, and picked up the beaded bag.

I was halfway out of my seat when Lance stood up, begging plaintively, “Please, don’t leave. I want to talk about Miranda with you. You’re so different . . . so, well, normal compared to everyone else.”

The different part, I bought.

But calling me
normal
?

If Malone had heard that, he would’ve laughed his head off. I was having trouble keeping a straight face myself.

Maybe Lance Zarimba wanted someone who could be straight with him. It sounded like he might be ready to knock that chip off his shoulder. Why shouldn’t I be the one to catch it? Then I could hand it over to Janet for her story, before I washed my hands of this whole mess.

I sat back down, saying, “Thank you. I think.”

“I mean it. You’re easy to talk to, Andy.” He got up with his glass, turned his back to me and refilled it before he glanced over his shoulder to ask, “Would you care for some champagne?”

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know.” I wasn’t much of a drinker, and I’d already had a glass, nearly two. And I didn’t want to be sloshed when I arrived back at the condo. Brian was likely worried enough about me already. Had he called my cell and talked to Janet? I only hoped whatever excuse she’d used wasn’t so far out that he’d get worried and send a posse after me.

“Just one glass. C’mon,” Lance insisted, keeping his back to me. “Please, stay, and I’ll fill you in on my relationship with Miranda. I want you to see my side of things.”

So he
did
want to get something off his pumped-up chest.

I was willing to bet that whatever guilt he felt was gnawing at him like a chain saw.

I heard the
glub-glub
of the bubbly being poured into a crystal flute, even though I hadn’t agreed to anything yet.

“I really shouldn’t—” But he cut off my protest.

“Please, Andy. Don’t make me drink alone,” he said, which I found very funny, considering that’s exactly what he’d been doing—alone and in the dark—before I barged in.

The guy was odd, no question about it; but perhaps he realized confession would be good for his soul. Besides, there were at least fifty people in the club, just beyond the closed door to the room. I felt pretty sure he wouldn’t try anything, not when we weren’t really alone.