by Kate White
“Someone who would definitely know,” I replied. “I have to admit I was taken aback when I heard it. Here she’d gone to all that trouble to conceive, and then, poof, she decides to make it go away. Was it because of Tommy?”
Whitney snickered in disgust.
“But of course,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “She was besotted by that pathetic man from the moment she met him.”
“Did he say something to her about not wanting kids?” I asked.
“I assume so,” Whitney replied. “He’d hardly want a groupie showing up backstage wearing a damn Snugli. Or maybe Devon just thought it would get in the way of all the hot sex they were going to have. God, the mere thought of sex with him is enough to make me gag.”
“Did she tell you about the abortion?”
“What do you think?” Whitney snapped.
My mind was racing. I needed to get the answers right so she’d keep talking.
“I bet she didn’t,” I said after a moment. “Because you and Cap must have been there for her through the fertility treatments, right? Cap was always there for her. It would have troubled you to learn she’d just callously ended her pregnancy. And”—a thought suddenly snagged my brain—“you’re a conservative Christian, right, and against abortion? You would have been very upset for that reason, too.”
“Abortion is a sin,” Whitney said fiercely, nearly spitting out the words. “The worst of all sins. The victims are the most innocent creatures in the world. It wasn’t even Devon’s baby. Not any part of it.”
“Was the sperm from anyone she knew?” I asked, barely above a whisper. I was afraid of the testers overhearing us and of Whitney suddenly clamming up.
“Yes, an ex-boyfriend,” she said. “I think he only agreed to donate his sperm because was he was too stupid to know it would actually produce a baby.”
“But are you saying she used an egg donor, too?”
“Unfortunately Devon’s eggs weren’t nearly as pretty as her face. She was in the throes of early menopause.”
“And the egg donor? Was that someone she knew as well?”
Staring at me, Whitney took a breath that made a slight wheezing sound and let it out very slowly. The rims of her eyes were even redder now, as if blood might start spurting from them any second.
And then the truth hit me hard—she was the donor. In some odd way the thought had been slowly forming in my mind all morning. I felt fear begin to slosh inside me, like water in the hull of a boat.
“The baby was yours, wasn’t it?” I said. “Or at least the egg was.”
Whitney squeezed her mouth shut tight, as if she were fighting to keep the rage inside her. Then a wicked little smile snuck onto her face.
“You’ll never be able to prove it,” she said. “It was all handled very hush-hush.”
“But why?”
“Why?” she shrieked. “Because of Cap. He’d done everything for that selfish bitch. And he was always on call twenty-four/seven. It was almost over for her as a model, and as an actress she made Paris Hilton look like some Academy Award winner, but she’d run through tons of her money and she needed the work. So Cap launched her singing career. But despite all that, she was starting to make little noises of discontent. ‘Cap, you need to do more for me.’ ‘Cap, I’m not happy.’ When she said she wanted to get pregnant, it became his problem, of course.”
“She must have been freaked when she heard about her medical issue.”
“You got that right. It turned up when she first went in for artificial insemination. Silly me, I’d done a story on egg donors and actually encouraged the next step. But she didn’t want anybody’s eggs. She met a few donors and they made her think of her disgusting mother. So Cap begged me to do it. He knew I didn’t want children myself. And that way Devon would owe him.”
“How did you find out she hadn’t miscarried?”
“Oh, I was very clever,” Whitney said. “Almost as clever as Little Miss Bailey Weggins. I tricked one of the nurses at the OB’s office into telling me. They’d learned of the abortion when the doctor who’d performed it had requested some records. I’d had my suspicions, though, right from the beginning. Devon had a hard time looking me in the eye after the so-called miscarriage. And then, when she didn’t try to conceive again over the past year, I knew something was up.”
I flashed again on what Cap had told me. He’d said he’d relayed to Devon that Whitney had been in touch with the OB, and Devon shouldn’t have trouble conceiving again. But Devon had probably guessed that Whitney had been snooping and had learned about the abortion. That’s why she’d seemed so scared when I saw her.
“It must have been awful to learn the truth.”
“Awful?” Whitney said savagely. “If that’s what you call it when you find that someone has taken a four-month-old fetus—with your blood—and destroyed it like a piece of garbage.”
The wind tore across the terrace again. From where I sat I could see only the gray, smudged sky and the tips of a few high-rise apartment buildings. Thankfully, far off in the kitchen, the testers were still chatting and laughing.
“So you killed her,” I said. I knew it was true. I knew just from looking at those red-rimmed eyes. The modeling agency story might be legit, but she’d offered it up just to throw me off her trail—because nothing else had worked so far.
Whitney flashed another one of her wicked smiles.
“Again, you’ll never be able to prove it,” she said smugly. “There’s nothing linking anything to me.”
“Devon fed nicely into your hands with her anorexia, didn’t she?” I said. I knew I should get the hell out of the apartment, but I needed to know the truth.
“Yes,” she said. “It was almost like a gift from God. At first I thought it had started again because she was so damn worried about her career, but I honestly think her conscience might have finally been catching up with her. She’d murdered her child so she could have Tommy, and then Tommy kicked her to the curb.”
“Was her death this weekend just a coincidence? I mean, you couldn’t really predict when the Lasix would do its magic.”
“No, but I knew it might happen. You see, I’d already started the process at the spa. That’s the reason I’d invited her away. And though I couldn’t bear spending another weekend in that bitch’s company, it gave me a wonderful opportunity to load up the Lasix every time she set her water bottle down. When I saw her stagger off to her room, Saturday night, I knew the end was near.”
An answer started to form—to a question that had bugged me for days.
“Wait—did you call extension seven that night?”
“Oh, you’re smart, aren’t you, Bailey? You see, I started to worry it would seem odd that we hadn’t checked on her, but then I changed my mind and hung up. Sometimes, the less done the better.”
“Why did you take the ipecac from the bathroom, then? That could only arouse suspicions.”
“I had no idea you’d seen it. I’d learned about ipecac when I was doing my news story and told Devon about it at the spa, knowing she’d be tempted to try it. But I couldn’t be sure she hadn’t told that idiot Tory that I’d talked about it. If the cops found the bottle, they might eventually connect it back to me. You really made me angry with all your poking around. If you’d just minded your own business.”
“You snooped in my room, didn’t you? You checked out my computer.”
“You left me no choice, did you?”
“And as I started poking around even more, you came after me. You thought getting me suspended from Buzz might shut me down, but when that didn’t work, you tried to kill me. Who was the man in the gypsy cab?”
“None of your business,” Whitney said snidely. “And trust me, you’ll never find him.”
“How did you discover I was going to be downtown? Tommy told you, didn’t he?”
“No comment,” she said. “I can’t let you know all my secrets.”
“I bet you were talking to
him about the funeral or something to do with Devon’s death, and he mentioned he’d be seeing me.”
“There’s no proof of that or anything else.”
“The police will call the doctor. They’ll find out you knew about the abortion.”
“That hardly proves I killed Devon,” she said.
“They’ll talk to Sherrie, they’ll find out you told her to call my boss. And when they see you were trying to shut me up, they’ll start trying to link you to the fire.”
“Oh, please, Bailey, don’t you get it?” She’d raised her voice again, the rage simmering just below the surface. Wasn’t she worried about the testers hearing, I wondered. “Sherrie’s on a six-month bender. No one’s going to get anything out of her about me, and those local yokels in Pennsylvania aren’t ever going to have a confab with the local-yokel cops in upstate New York. As far as the world is concerned, Devon Barr basically starved herself to death. And if anyone manages to feel bad about that, they can buy the fucking album.”
She was probably right. Collinson seemed smart enough, but how would he tie it all together? Was Whitney going to get away with murder? I knew I had to do something.
“Maybe the cops won’t figure out it was murder,” I said. “But I bet if I tell Cap, he’ll put the pieces together and realize I’m telling the truth.”
She shot up from her chair then, making me jump in surprise. “Don’t you dare bring Cap into this!”
I rose slowly from my own chair.
“Why not?” I said. “Because you know he’d leave you in a second if he found out? He might even be willing to try to point the cops to evidence.”
Her whole body seemed to droop at that moment and she flung her head back and forth.
“You can’t tell him!” she screamed. “I won’t let you.”
“But how much better for you to tell him than for him to find out from the cops,” I said. “He must know how you feel about abortion. He’ll understand.”
“No, no, no,” she yelled. And then suddenly she was taking off across the room toward the terrace door. She grabbed the handle and flung the door open. I could feel a rush of cold air even from where I was standing. Whitney stepped outside and, to my horror, flung herself against the outer wall of the terrace. My God, I thought, she’s going to jump.
“I need some help,” I yelled, into the bowels of the apartment. Then I rushed outside.
“Whitney,” I said, coming up behind her. “Don’t be crazy. You—”
Before I could say another word, she spun around and slugged me in the face with her fist.
I stumbled backward and simultaneously raised my arm to my face, anticipating another strike. She struck again, this time at my chest. Though the fabric of my coat absorbed the blow, the force of her punch made me stagger backward even more, until I backed into the outside wall of the terrace. I tried to right myself, ready to hit back somehow, but then she charged me, hurling her body into mine. Using the palm of my hand, I shoved hard into her shoulder, trying to push her away. As I raised my hand to strike her again, I felt her hand reach between my legs. I gasped in surprise and confusion. It took me a second to realize that she was trying to hoist me up. She was planning to throw me off the terrace.
Chapter 22
Terrified, I yanked my left arm to my body, pointed the elbow toward Whitney, and with all my strength, drove the elbow into her face. She reeled back and doubled over. I braced myself for another charge, but when Whitney looked up, I saw that she was starting to wheeze. A second later she collapsed into a sitting position on the floor of the terrace
“Help me,” she muttered. It didn’t seem like she was faking it. “Please. My inhaler.”
“Where is it?” I yelled.
“In my purse.”
I charged back into the apartment, raced the length of the living room, and grabbed the brown hobo bag off the hall table. It would take extra seconds, but I needed to alert the women in the kitchen to call 911. I propelled myself down a hallway toward the still-constant sound of chatter until I found a huge, sprawling kitchen. But there was no one there. My eyes followed the sounds to a TV on the wall—it was playing a tape of some kind of cooking class. There had never been anyone in the kitchen at all.
I tore back out to the terrace. Whitney was wheezing heavily, searching desperately for air. I upended her purse, letting the contents splatter at my feet—keys, pens, a makeup bag, wallet. In the middle of the mess I spotted the inhaler. I snatched it and handed it to Whitney. Like a robot, she flipped off the top with her thumb. She pulled it to her mouth and pumped. Then pumped again. She continued to wheeze, harder, and her eyes grew wide with fright.
“It’s empty,” she said hoarsely. “Help me.”
“Have you got another?” I yelled above the wind.
She flopped her head every which way, and it was impossible to tell if she meant yes or no, but then she flung her right arm toward the door.
“Where?” I was screaming now. “In the bathroom?”
No answer. Just desperate wheezing, her hands clutching her throat. I raced back into the apartment, toward where I assumed the master bedroom was. En route, I grabbed a phone and hit 911.
“There’s a woman here having a bad asthma attack,” I said. “You must send an ambulance right now.” I rattled off the address.
“Does she have an inhaler?” the operator asked after I’d given the key information.
“Yes, but it’s no good. I’m trying to find another.”
“Try to keep the person calm. Tell her to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth.”
The idea of me calming Whitney down seemed preposterous. I’d located the bathroom by now, and I pawed through the medicine cabinet, spilling cosmetics and prescription drugs onto the counter. No inhaler. I tried the bedside tables next, with no success. After that, with adrenaline coursing through me, I made a desperate stab at the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cupboards. Still no luck. Trying to calm Whitney seemed the only course of action.
I’d left the terrace door open, and the living room was now frigid, with wind whipping through it. When I stepped outside, I saw that Whitney was lying sprawled out on the cement floor, totally still. Bending down, I realized that she didn’t seem to be breathing. I tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her bluish lips, but there was no response. In desperation I picked up the inhaler. Was it really empty or just stuck? I turned it over. On the flat end was a small puncture hole, as if it had been stabbed with a sharp object.
I glanced back at Whitney, tears of anxiety welling in my eyes. It was pretty clear she was dead.
Five hours later, I was sitting in one of Landon’s armchairs, bundled up in a thick sweater and sniffling and dabbing at my nose with a tissue. An hour earlier, a Godzilla-sized cold had suddenly invaded my system, in about the time it takes to say, “Please no, I so don’t need this right now.” My throat throbbed and my head ached. Landon had just served me a bowl of homemade lentil soup, but I was having a hard time even tasting it.
“I feel so guilty,” Landon said. “I’m sure I’m the one who gave you this dreadful cold.”
“Stop,” I said. “I’ve been freezing my ass off in barns and on balconies for the last few days, and I probably have no one to blame but myself.”
“And Whitney, of course.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “And Whitney.”
The EMS team had arrived less than ten minutes after my futile attempts at mouth-to-mouth. Two patrol cops had followed practically on their heels. And not, it turned out, because of my 911 call. Someone from a nearby high-rise had seen the struggle on the terrace and alerted the police to it. Thankfully they had included the fact that a woman in a light-colored blouse was trying to give a woman in black the heave-ho over the edge. This provided me with a certain amount of credibility as I tried to explain my role in such a fucked-up mess to first the patrol cops, and then second, at greater length, to the two detectives who arrived at the scene about fift
een minutes later.
I was asked to accompany one of the detectives to the precinct, which was good because it spared me coming face-to-face with Cap—though I managed to catch a glimpse of him charging into the building just as I was being driven away in an unmarked police car. His face was drained of blood.
At the precinct I gave my statement in as much detail as possible, and when I was done, urged the detective to call Officer Collinson. They talked for at least fifteen minutes, with the detective standing far enough away from me that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He eyed me, though, through the entire conversation. I had a feeling Collinson was giving him an earful about what a bad girl I’d been. I knew I would have to call Collinson later and try to make peace with him.
“You can go now,” the detective said, after snapping his phone shut. “But please be available tomorrow. We’ll need to talk to you further as we pursue this matter.”
On the cab ride home, I tried Beau but reached only his voice mail. As I disconnected I saw that I had a message. And lo and behold it turned out that my old friend at Buzz, Nash Nolan, had phoned. Automatically I started to dial in his number and then stopped. I didn’t have an ounce of desire to talk to the dude at the moment.
As soon as I reached my apartment, I did a quick search about asthma on the Internet and then staggered into a hot shower. It was while I was toweling off that the cold virus staged a sneak attack on my system, which sent me to Landon’s for over-the-counter cold remedies and sustenance. He always seemed to have both.
“Does it bother you?’ Landon asked me quietly. “That you couldn’t save her?”
“Yes,” I said, sniffling. “Though I probably shouldn’t care—she thought nothing of turning me into a big, ugly splat on Amsterdam Avenue. You know, I just read on the Internet that cold air can trigger asthma. Whitney had obviously started to have an attack when we were in the apartment, but she was in such a rage about me threatening to tell Cap that she clearly wasn’t thinking straight. She made her situation worse by luring me outside.”
“Did her inhaler just malfunction?”