I stopped there.
“Hey, Em,” I said, closing the distance between us—and thankful my gag reflex had disappeared along with my soul. “What were you doing this morning?”
She cocked an anemic eyebrow that let me know she suspected something. “I was with you.”
“Before that.”
She whipped away from me. “Why do you ask?”
I sized Emerson up. If Bea was right—and I couldn’t put much stock in that, as she was boobs over brains—and Reginald’s death wasn’t a suicide, could someone like Emerson be responsible?
I shrugged. “Just curious.”
Emerson crossed her arms in front of her chest—or attempted to, as her horrid interpretation of sleeves swallowed her up—and flared her nostrils. “Nicolette and I were working at the apartment.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to determine if there was something in her voice, her stare that would indicate absolute guilt. I like to think my super-vampire sense would make me particularly good at reading a breather’s emotions, but no.
“Stop staring at me.”
“Ms. LaShay!” I felt an arm snake through mine before I heard Jason Forbes’s deep voice—but not before I saw Emerson’s face tighten, her eyes sharp as naked swords.
“I was hoping to catch you. I see you and Ms. Hawk are getting acquainted.”
I put on my most dazzling smile and nodded. “We certainly are.”
Jason pitched his head toward mine, his lips just brushing my ear. “I’d like to talk to you about one of your designs.”
I kept grinning, enjoying Emerson’s pallor.
It was at the precise moment that Jason put his hand on my arm that I saw Emerson lurch forward, in the most melodramatic fall I’d seen in lifetimes. I watched the deep, red zinfandel swish from her bowl glass, up, up, up and out, and then I felt the liquid seeping through my dress, dripping over my collarbone, droplets slipping down through my décolletage.
And then all hell broke loose.
I forgot that Jason Forbes was within wetting distance and screamed, “You bitch! You did that on purpose!”
A slick grin rushed across Emerson’s lips before her expression snapped into one of mock apology and horror. “Oh, dear, oh! I’m such a klutz. Please, do send me the dry-cleaning bill.”
People had started to circle now, looking sadly at my spoiled dress—few things moved fashionistas like wounded couture.
“If you were worth anything as a designer, you’d know that you don’t dry-clean hand-dyed, vintage Versace.”
Emerson cocked her head, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Are you sure that’s Versace? I think you may have been taken, sweetie. I did the full Versace catalog when I was there,” she said, her voice rising on Versace. “And I really don’t recall seeing that particular number in their annals.”
I’m usually known for keeping my cool. But tonight, my cool was wrapped around Emerson Hawk’s scraggly neck. Before I realized it we were in a full-on girl-fight, complete with hair pulling and feline scowls. Had my entire life and fashion career not been on the line, I would have gone full-on Lestat on her ass and left picking subpar designer out of my teeth.
“I swear to God I’m going to murder you!” I growled.
“With what?” Emerson wrinkled her nose. “Your polyester excuse for couture or one of your gag-worthy designs?”
“Ladies, ladies, ladies!”
I felt strong arms snaking around my waist and suddenly I was off the ground, being pulled backward. I craned my neck to see who my savior/new attackee was and harrumphed when I realized it was Pike. I had expected Jason, but found him standing a few feet away, grinning like someone was about to inflate the ring and fill it with mud. I was so flabbergasted and annoyed that I wasn’t even able to take the time to appreciate being wrapped in Pike’s arms, or how devastatingly handsome he looked in a slim-fitting deconstructed tuxedo, his hair half slicked, half I-just-rolled-out-of-bed sexy.
He yanked me a good ten feet from Emerson and her weapon of couture destruction but I could still see the sick smile on her face and my rage boiled again.
“Put me down!” I said between clenched teeth. “I’m going to rip her throat out. I don’t care if she’s your girlfriend.”
Pike dropped me with a thump. “My girlfriend?”
I waved at the air. “Ex, whatever. She ruined my dress. On purpose. She’s a snarky little snake in the grass.”
“Shh, shh, shh. Nina, relax. She is a—what did you call her? Snaky snark? She’s that, which is why you’re not going to let her get you tossed out of this competition.”
The anger in my gut was slowly, barely, starting to pull back. I glanced at Pike’s earnest expression and then back over my shoulder at Emerson, who was being led toward the back patio, leaning on some poor waiter as if she’d been actually wounded.
Three more minutes and she would have been.
The tone in the restaurant went from high piano notes and polite laughter to throaty “did you see those two go at it?” whispers and averted eyes.
Pike handed me a glass of soda water and a thick cloth napkin. I dabbed at my dress delicately, each wine-soaked dab stabbing at my patience a little more. I cut my eyes out toward the patio where someone was trying to engage Emerson in conversation, but she looked up, locked my gaze, and offered a slick, ugly smile.
“Game on, bitch,” I muttered under my breath.
“What was that?” Pike asked.
“Nothing.”
“So, why did you think Emerson was my girlfriend?”
I tossed down my now wine-soaked napkin, something like ruined-man resignation floating over me. “Because that’s what she told me.”
Pike kind of grinned and crossed his arms in front of his chest, the motion pushing aside the collar of his shirt just enough for me to see a smooth, tanned length of neck and collarbone. I could see the beginnings of a thick black tattoo and I had to clench my jaws—and my knees—to keep from examining it closer. “And did that make you mad?”
His eyes sparkled with the kind of mischief that shot adrenaline and hormones throughout my body—dead or not. I licked my lips and tossed a length of slick black hair over my shoulder. “Do you want it to make me mad?”
Pike shrugged, took a long pull on the beer I didn’t know he was holding. “Nah, I just didn’t want you to feel bad.”
I blinked my confusion. Was he just a terrible flirt . . . or really that dense?
His eyes dropped to my dress. “You should probably get out of that dress.”
Another zing pinballed throughout my body. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad flirt after all.
“There’s a dry cleaner about a block down. Ask for Mrs. Cho; she can get out anything.” Pike turned on his heel and left me standing, wet, confused, and annoyed in the center of the party.
I left shortly after, grumbling the whole cab ride home and doing that odd, legs apart, my-dress-is-soaked-and-chafing kind of walk. All I wanted was to pull on my cozy cashmere sweat suit (terry cloth is so passé) and sink my teeth into a still-warm blood bag. And that’s what I would have done, if that stupid blackbird—he was taunting me, I was sure of it—hadn’t been pacing on the front stoop.
I paused and glared down at the thing, waving my hands but keeping my distance. “Shooo! Shooo! You shouldn’t be walking anyway. Fly you little bastard!”
The thing paused, cocked its disease-infested head and spread its wings wide as if it understood me.
Nina LaShay: bird whisperer.
Then it snapped those wings against its little bird body and glared.
I chanced a swift kick and a sprint when a damp bugle bead started to dig into my flesh. I felt the flap of the blackbird’s wings and snapped the door shut on its protesting scowl.
“I warned you!” I screamed, pressing my face up against the glass in the door. The bird fluttered down to the stoop again, unharmed but, I thought, with a murderous look in its eye.
I was going to
have to hire an exterminator.
The following morning I was hell-bent on restoring my reputation or, failing that, blowing everyone on the judging panel away with my incredible designs. Which was why I was at the Fashion Institute when most breathers were pulling their pillows over their heads or indulging in their last half hour of REM sleep. Though New York was truly a city that never slept, it did seem to take the occasional doze—apparently between four-thirty and five A.M.—because it was decidedly, delectably calm right up until I keyed the passcode at the Institute. I was halfway through the four-digit super-secret code when the front door slammed open and I went chest to chest—then butt to cement with—
“Pike?”
He was still dressed in his cocktail-hour deconstructed tuxedo but this morning’s look was for more deconstructed than it was tuxedo. His carefully disheveled hair was actually disheveled and he sported a spray of dark stubble over his upper lip and chin. He brushed a hand over the would-be beard when he glanced down at me, his eyes wild and disturbingly alive.
“Oh, Nina, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” It came out as one long string and I avoided the hand he offered, suddenly strangely suspicious. He may have once (yesterday) been my gorgeous future soul mate, but he was tainted by fashion thief Emerson, and was now running out of a building where my designs were supposed to be safe.
I pushed myself to standing, feeling my eyes narrow as I scrutinized him, and saw the barely imperceptible way his head reared back from my examination. There were no telltale bulges where he might have hidden my patterns or design notes—and I looked carefully, examining every bulge.
We vampires like to be incredibly thorough. I like to be incredibly thorough.
I smelled beer on Pike’s morning-after breath and his whole countenance was agitated, guarded.
“Are you high?” I asked, my arms crossing in front of my chest.
Pike actually stopped and seemed to settle, his pale lips quirking upward. “High? May have had a few beers to wash down my Wheaties but nothing more. What are you doing here?”
“I have a show to prepare for. And a passcode. How did you get in here? Why did you get in here?”
Pike’s sudden coolness ticked all the way through him and he patted the black camera bag that crossed his chest. “Working. I was here working.”
My eyes raked over his attire and I cocked out a hip. “You were up all night shooting designs for designers who were fast asleep in their own homes? Or, you know,” I said and licked my lips, trying to conjure up the best word. “Dead?”
Pike was unfazed. He actually looked cooler than before as he eyed me. “And I’m supposed to believe you were one of those fast asleep at home?”
Truth was, I’d spent my evening starring as Roxie Hart in an off-Broadway production of Chicago. Well, not so much an off-Broadway production as a karaoke bar with beer-stained carpet, but this grungy photog didn’t need to know that.
I just raised my eyebrows until Pike rolled his eyes. “I don’t only work for the Institute, you know.”
He brushed past me as though that were all the explanation I needed and even though his pain-in-the-ass quotient went up to about a thousand, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek and notice that his regular ass quotient still hovered somewhere between perfection and breathtaking. I watched him hail a cab with lightning speed, the yellow thing disappearing down the street.
I rode the crotchety old elevator (what is it with breathers and their need for all things retro?) up to the design studio and felt little butterfly flaps of anxiety in my belly. I have dreamed of having my own little studio since the early 1900s—you should have seen Coco’s little place in Paris!—and now, because of this design opportunity, I had it.
Well, almost.
One of the enormous benefits of this competition was that both Emerson and I were awarded top-notch design studios— outfitted with the latest and greatest of everything—in which to baste, steam, slice, and create the designs for each of our competing lines.
The enormous matching drawback was that each of these incredible studios shared floor space with each other. I had a bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and hanging closets at the front end of the room; Emerson had an identical setup on her side. We each had huge drafting and cutting tables, dual sewing machines, maiden forms, and steamers. As designers, all we needed to bring were our designs, our fabric bolts, and our personal tools. Where I traveled with a lucky pair of scissors, a seam ripper called Marie Antoinette, and a pincushion in the shape of a mushroom, I was fairly sure that Emerson only packed a tape recorder and a notebook titled “Designs I Stole.”
But it was nice this morning as the sun started to break through the heavy gray fog and the entire studio was peaceful, quiet, and Emerson-free.
I went to work outlining a new design and when the spark of inspiration slipped from the page and pointed at my rack of newly designed dresses, I couldn’t help but snatch one from the rack and grab my lucky scissors.
Only, they weren’t there.
I tore apart my pink-rhinestoned tool kit and then went to work opening every drawer and yanking open every closet. Finally, I dropped to my knees in a desperate hope that my lucky pair had slipped from their holster. I patted and searched until my knees felt knobby and raw—and I was facing Emerson’s side of the room.
I felt my hackles go up, a hot stripe of rage going from the base of my head to the end of my spine.
She did it.
Emerson Hawk stole my lucky shears.
I heard the electric lock tumbling downstairs, the ping! and rush of elevators coming to life as the people started to make their way into the building.
There wasn’t much time.
I sprinted the fifty feet across the room and grabbed at Emerson’s drawers, tearing through them like a burglar with a serious mission. In the back of my head I heard the footsteps and early-morning chatter as students and designers closed in on our room and when I grabbed the handle of Emerson’s closet door—the one marked “personal”—I was in such a fury that I didn’t care as the voices closed in.
I should have.
It all happened in one elongated second—my hand closing on the knob; the voices of the contest director and models breaking over the threshold. Me pulling the closet door open. Emerson line-driving me from the darkness.
“What the—?”
“Oh, my God!”
“Are they fighting again?”
Though Emerson jumped out of her closet and pummeled me—then lay there like a dead weight—she was no match for my strength so I quickly rolled her off me, but in that millisecond my nostrils twitched and my mouth started to water. It wasn’t her usual noxious scent. It was something very, very different.
Heavy. Metallic.
Blood.
I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes bulge when I stared at my blood-covered hands, at the smear across my blouse.
And then I looked at Emerson.
“Oh, my—” I started to kick away, felt the inane need to put distance between me and her.
“What’s wrong with her?” one of the models asked.
“Is she okay?” Jason Forbes rushed toward me and Emerson. “Are you okay? What happened? If you ladies can’t—” Jason paused, looked down at Emerson, and then crouched slowly. A chalky white washed over his face. He glanced at me and I knew exactly what the hard look in his eyes meant: Emerson Hawk was dead. When I crawled over to see for myself, I wished I was, too.
Sticking out of Emerson’s concave chest were my lucky scissors. And it didn’t take an X-ray to figure out that their sharp double-blades were wedged firmly and deeply into her silent heart.
From the moment Emerson’s lifeless body hit mine to the second she was being zipped into a slick black coroner’s bag could have been five minutes or five hours. The studio was a buzz of muffled conversations and accusatory glances. I wanted nothing more than to crawl back to the cool, dark cave of an apartment and sort out what had
just happened—and what it meant. I was ready to dash when a fat, round detective sidled up to me, flipping open his little leather notebook and breathing at me with his coffee breath. I had expected Officer Hopkins, but the gentleman before me was built like a fireplug and wearing his ill-fitting cotton-poly off-the-rack suit like it was an Armani.
“I’m aware of the previous case but I’m not at liberty to talk about it.” He shifted his eyes as though everyone were about to pounce in an attempt to overhear us.
“It just seems odd that they’d send a detective out for this case but not Reginald’s.”
“You are Nina LaShay, right?” the detective said, completely ignoring my question.
I nodded silently, my arms wrapped around my chest, gripping my elbows.
“I’m Detective Moyer. You were the last to see the decedent alive, were you not?”
“Well—no, not that I know of.” An image of Pike rushing out looking disheveled and nervous flashed through my mind, the image flitting so quickly I didn’t have time to dwell on it. “I saw her last night and then,” I gestured to the closet door, still gaping open, its emptiness a quiet screech that Emerson Hawk was dead.
“Then you found her this morning.”
“She . . . kind of . . . found me.”
“Were you and the decedent friends, Ms. LaShay?”
I wanted to focus on answering the detective’s questions, but every time he asked me anything, he smacked his lips in a weird kind of final gesture and it was turning my stomach. “I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly. We were colleagues. And competitors.”
If I hadn’t been staring at Moyer’s fat, pale lips making that stupid smacking sound, I would have thought better of telling this man—who was tapping the end of his pen, looking thoughtfully at me—that I might have had motive to kill Emerson. I thought of Hopkins and his accusatory stare and then longed for it as Moyer’s eyebrows went up. He poised the pen over his notepad as though he were about to take down some frantic confession, and any inch of confidence I was harboring wilted.
“Isn’t it true that you two got into some kind of argument last night?”
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