Justine felt the hair on her forearms go prickly tight. She leaned toward her own window, ignoring the cold seeping in. I should’ve let the scarred bastard take her.
Three card keys were waiting at the Radisson’s front desk. James led them past a closed restaurant at the base of an atrium. A glass elevator, pasted to the side of the cavernous space, slid up the floors. Empty tables below shrank to abstract patterns. James went to his room without a word.
“Your room is next to mine, Vienna.” Justine pointed to the door.
Vienna didn’t move. Her eyes were bright. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
It sounded like a sexual gambit to Justine. Who knew what it sounded like to Vienna. Justine felt sticky sand in her eyes. Dead tears and no sleep and no patience. She put her hand over the lizard tattoo. “Come on then.”
“I don’t have bed clothes.”
“I have a spare nightshirt—at least I think it was forwarded.”
“I don’t have a toothbrush.”
“Ring the desk.” It felt like a mistake the second she said it.
Vienna changed in the bathroom, emerging under a sleeveless cobalt tee that draped across her thin shoulders, down her modest chest to her knees.
Justine was surprised how handsome she was. Not dazzling, but well-proportioned for her lanky frame. Bookish in a way that many men found attractive. Large, clear eyes, freed from the hell glasses. Irises flecked brown-gold under the hotel’s warm lights. Her tortured hair needed a machete and conditioner, but it had strong tints of red that could be accented. A little color for the cheeks—sunlight would do wonders there. Delicate wrists. A manicure …
Justine turned away. I’m too tired to be codependent. “I’m going to rinse off,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Ten minutes in the shower amounted to a technical knockout. Weave and bob around the exhaustion all you want, but you won’t be standing much longer. Would Vienna expect sex? Maybe she’s asleep? What if she isn’t? Doesn’t matter. Justine turned the water off.
Vienna was curled up on the left edge of the bed. Tiny under the king-sized spread.
Justine turned on the reading lamp before cutting the overhead lights. She knew she would never again cross any floor in the dark. Feet under the covers, she switched off the light.
“Did you really think I’d done it?” Vienna’s voice was a scraping monotone.
Justine was too tired to construct acceptable lies. “I didn’t know what to think. It was so wrong. So impossible. Like he’d been standing at the sink to shave or wash his face. And then someone just came in and shot him.”
“But you told the police it might have been me.”
“Yes.”
Vienna was silent.
“I shouldn’t have.” Justine put a hand on Vienna’s back. She felt the ragged breathing of tears. She cries too much. Was it Asperger’s? Some of it fit—crying was often associated with autism—but Vienna failed to display several core symptoms. The human condition is defined by having no definitions. Another line from her med school days. “It’s over. You need to sleep.”
“Okay.” The shaking slowly stilled.
Justine was left with the one thought she’d pushed away since Grant’s murder. You don’t feel his absence. She told herself it was because he turned out to be a liar and likely a killer as well. But that was beside the point. She was sorry he was dead, even if he was a bad man. But that was a long way from missing him.
Does that make me bad, too?
There was no answer, but finally facing the question somehow brought relief. Emotional knots loosened. Justine slipped into dreamless sleep.
She was alone when she awoke. The blue T-shirt folded at the foot of the bed.
“Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” Her mother’s wryest summation of bad news.
Justine showered and pulled an olive shirt and khaki capris from the closet. Urban camouflage for models. She was almost to the door when James knocked. “Going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Why not?”
“Your dead lover isn’t even cold, and there’s a woman in your room calling the front desk for a toothbrush. For added fun, the ex turns out to have a five-star police record. My favorite headline so far is, ‘Lezzies Leave Loser.’ Neanderthal elements of the British press have always been addicted to alliteration.”
Justine glared at him. “Since when have you given a rat’s ass about gossip columns?”
“Since your career started swirling down the drain.”
“I need to go.”
“Why?”
“I have to find her.”
“Would you care to tell me and my splitting headache why?”
Impossible to explain. California sunshine washing over the lawns of Stanford; fear locked away behind a false smile. The children inside Felton Gables, imprisoned by something far more crushing than concrete walls. Justine’s failure turning malignant, growing evermore bitter. “I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
“You don’t know where she lives.”
“You do.”
James shook his head. “The four dozen reporters outside have clouded my memory.”
“Fine. Go tell them I’ll have a press conference at five.”
“Wrong answer. You need to disappear for several weeks.”
“Five o’clock. If they’re waiting here they can’t be following me. Square it with management.”
“You’ll never find her. You don’t even know her last name.”
“Don’t ever sell me short.” Justine pressed toward the door. Hargrave surrendered with a show of open hands.
Justine had long ago learned to access kitchen exits: lady in distress, please help. She stepped into an alley a block away from the front door, breathing through her mouth as she marched past reeking Dumpsters.
Vienna’s pinafore was the answer. It wasn’t a fashion meltdown, it was a uniform. Since Europeans preferred male waiters, Vienna would be working at a pastry counter or coffee shop. Someplace close, in the tourist haunts of Lower Town. Justine couldn’t see Vienna taking the bus, let alone driving. Start in the Grand Place.
Success in under thirty minutes. Vienna inside a gelato store, a sign on the door flipped to FERMÉ. There was a man pressed against the stainless counter, a Nikon DSLR in his right hand; lanyard looped to his knees. An oily black tattoo lay coiled on the back of his forearm, showing a series of swept curves tapering to points.
Vienna cowered against the wall. It seemed so familiar.
I hear the only reason she got accepted into med school is she does her professors. No way her test scores are legit. What a skank. I’ve got a buck-fifty, ask her if she swallows.
The past twisted inside Justine in a jagged feedback of rage. Only now it was Vienna, defenseless against a storm she couldn’t see coming.
Justine was inside before the man had a chance to turn from Vienna. She grabbed the dangling lanyard, jerking the camera from the man’s grasp. He turned to her, recognition widening his eyes.
“Justine Am.” He pushed his left hand through over-long brown hair, revealing black, triangular ear studs. Justine saw his thoughts—the prize he thought he had. Justine Am goes crazy, read all about it.
Justine opened the camera’s side panel and ejected the memory chip. “Come out of there, Vienna, if this cocksack found you, others will follow.”
Vienna sidestepped around the counter and with a quick skip stood beside Justine. Her voice was louder than Justine remembered. “He took my picture and asked about you and about our relationship and if you tied me up when we boffed or if I tied you up and I don’t know what ‘boffed’ is supposed to mean.”
“Nice.” Justine smiled her hate. She dropped the Nikon’s memory chip into her capris’ oversized pocket.
The photographer
’s grin didn’t slip. “You’re sinking fast.” His teeth were white and straight, but somehow too small for his mouth.
“You’re one to be talking.”
He shook his head. “Do you have the star?”
“Have what?”
“Once panic sets in, the dying won’t stop. Give me the camera and we can talk.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Famous last words.”
Sometimes when I don’t like people I do mean things. Justine turned to Vienna. “He grabbed your shoulder, isn’t that right? He kept reaching for your ass. Isn’t that what you’re going to tell the police?”
Vienna blinked while Justine prayed the girl was smart enough to go along. “Okay,” she whispered.
“I saw it all,” Justine said.
“I don’t scare so easily,” the photographer said. “My record is clean.” His voice was too cavalier. A small push …
“Too bad we have your picture of her alone. Get a lawyer, asshat, because I’ve seen hers, and he has a real attitude problem.”
The man’s smile drained into thin, pale lips. He took a single step and jumped toward Justine. She was a kid again, back on the tennis court at home. Scott picking on her. She hadn’t meant to hurt him so badly.
Justine stepped into the photographer. Oldest defense in the world. Her left knee connected with his groin. She felt air explode from his chest as he collapsed. She dropped the camera next to him, heard the lens crack.
“Vienna.” She gestured to the door, even as the man began losing his breakfast. “We need a quiet place to talk, somewhere close.”
Vienna nodded. “Vik’s is on the second floor of—”
“Go.”
Through medieval streets for three harried minutes before Vienna entered an alley. Up a creaking set of stairs to a coffee shop. It wasn’t much beyond blue walls surrounding a few aluminum tables. The coffee cups were squat cylinders of uniform white. The archaic register sported a no smoking sign. The perfect hidey-hole for Vienna, who was likely asthmatic on top of everything else.
Justine took a corner seat away from the railed windows.
“I have to get back,” Vienna said. “He might take something.”
“I doubt he’s off the floor yet.”
“But—”
“Do you have the owner’s phone number?”
“Yes.”
“Does he speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
Vienna repeated a series of digits in her flat voice. Justine punched them in her BlackBerry and waited for an answer. The conversation took five minutes.
“It’s taken care of,” she told Vienna.
“There was more to it than that—you spoke longer.”
“He’s seen the news. He knows it will get worse. You’ve been fired.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s my fault. When you called the front desk for a toothbrush last night, someone snitched. Word got around that a woman was sleeping in Justine Am’s room. What a scoop to find her first. Others will follow.”
“Others? Paparazzi?”
“Of course.”
Vienna looked at the table. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Write your memoirs and get rich. Just make shit up. No one will care as long as it’s juicy.”
“Please don’t joke. I don’t want to go back to London.”
“You won’t have to. News is only worthy until the next scandal. Forget fifteen minutes, you’ll be lucky with fifteen words on Twitter.”
“I don’t have much money.”
“I’ll pay the equivalent of your salary until you get back on your feet.”
Vienna’s face was as blank as her apartment’s impossible floor. When she spoke, Justine strained to hear. “I wanted to, yeah? I didn’t know what was expected and I didn’t know how to ask and it didn’t seem right the first time but maybe I could do better.” She took a quick breath. “And now your boyfriend is dead and I know you’re all big time and I’m so thick no matter what I do.”
It took Justine a second to realize what Vienna was talking about. What do I say?
“I couldn’t figure why you went to my apartment in the first place,” Vienna continued. “Then I remembered who you were with at the club. A girl and three boys. I work with them. They dared you, didn’t they?”
“I’m sorry, Vienna. It was cruel.”
“They picked me because I’m ugly.”
“Wrong.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Justine shook her head. “It was because I’m American—which means prude—and your friends thought that made the bet more clever. I was bored enough to go along with it.” She realized how terrible it sounded, but Vienna gave no reaction.
“They were paid to do it,” Vienna said.
“Likely by the same species of sleaze monkey that tracked you down.”
“But wouldn’t they have set you up with someone pretty?”
Justine frowned. “You read too much—especially too much written by lonely old men.”
“What does that mean?”
“You think physical looks mean much in a crowd where half the tits and asses were ordered out of a catalogue?” She leaned forward and whispered, “Ninety percent of the men on that dance floor would have done you in a heartbeat, if only you looked ready. Attitude is everything to these people. You looked like a deer in headlights, so they thought it would be hilarious to send a Ferrari your way.”
“I don’t know anything about dancing. I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can. You might need a little coaching at first, but…” Her voice trailed off. You tried this back at Stanford, remember? You know it’s pointless. Give it up.
“Yes?”
Justine looked inward and felt the rage staring back. “When I was in third grade, my brothers fit a cardboard racecar body over a wagon. I wanted to be the first to try it down a steep hill near our house. I ended up with a broken arm. My father joked that while other people had angels and devils pitching advice from their shoulders, I had a dumb-ass.”
“What does that mean?
Justine tried again. “You know those bad ideas you got back in school, when the world was going to hell and you wanted to tell everyone to piss off?”
“I was taught at home.”
“Then it’s time you learned. I’m sick of worrying about things I can’t control. I’m sick of feeling guilty for not feeling guilty about Grant. I’m doubly sick of being Justine Am without having any fun at it.” Justine flashed a tight grin. “Besides, Miss Unemployed, neither of us have anywhere to go today and I’ll be damned if I am going to sit in a hotel room and sulk.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about.”
“Something shoulder-length. No ponytails; with your physique they would attract the wrong attention.”
“My physique?”
“You would look fifteen in tails.” Justine held up her hand to cut off a reply she knew would be self-derogatory. “We’ll go sophisticated. Something sleek, assuming we can add body to your hair.”
“You want me to get my hair cut?”
Justine laughed. “Not the phrase I would have used, but yes. And new glasses, something retro librarian. Smart is sexy. That’s your first lesson. For attire, A-line full length, and flats or modest pumps. If we have time for something formal, maybe a knockoff Chanel. Shorter kitten heels to match.”
“Is this an American thing?”
“Didn’t you ever play dress-up with dolls?”
“I never played with dolls.”
“Why not?”
“They told me bad things.”
Miles of bad road there. “Well, you’re in luck, because this year’s black is black, and that’s perfect for our studious girl.”
Vienna shook her head. “I was just fired, yeah? I don’t have any money.”
“I do.”
Vienna’s eyes
narrowed. “How much?”
“Your second lesson is to never ask about money. Shall we get your hair beat into shape?”
“They’ll find us—the photographers.”
“Paparazzi are like lions. They look threatening in a pack, but they spend most of their lives loafing in the shade.”
Vienna remained quiet, waiting for explanation.
“Most will stay at the hotel,” Justine said. “Why go on a wild goose chase when they can hole up at the nearest bar and get a picture when I return?”
“But one found me,” Vienna protested.
“All the more reason not to go back,” Justine said.
“We should hide,” Vienna said.
“Wrong. No sulking in hotel rooms, remember? We avoid busier tourist areas and only go into shops that won’t rat us out and we’ll be fine.”
Vienna swallowed and brought her left hand to her mouth.
Justine closed her eyes. I can’t do this. “No more chewing your nails. We’ll pick up some clear polish. We don’t want to draw attention to your fingers until they grow out.” She looked at Vienna. An uncertain smile in answer as Vienna lowered her hand. And out of nowhere an utterly illogical thought: maybe Vienna can.
6
Outside Vik’s, Vienna looked to the Palais de Justice de Bruxelles, looming on Galgenberg Hill. History flowed across her thoughts in a rainbow slick.
In the twelfth century, Galgenberg Hill housed a lepers’ colony. The stench of rotting flesh …
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