Diane Vallere - Style & Error 02 - Buyer, Beware

by Diane Vallere

  “The answer is no. I don’t see the connection to any of those motives. But she’s trying to keep me from the dedication.”

  “You feel pretty positive something’s going down at that dedication?”

  “I do.” I waited for him to order me to stay home, or to tell me my active imagination had run away from me into a fourth dimension.

  “This Mallory George said you’ve been secretly filming her in the office. That’s a violation of privacy.”

  “You were secretly recording her! How is that any different?”

  “Where’d you get the camera?”

  “A friend who is looking out for me.”

  “I thought that friend was in Italy.”

  “Different friend.”

  “What’s his motivation?”

  My eyes flickered to Dante, who stood in the kitchen watching a pot of water. “Same as yours.”

  “Put him on the phone.”

  “No can do. I’ll have him call you.”

  Dante locked eyes with me, and I snapped the phone shut.

  “Detective Loncar wants to talk to you. Here’s the number.” I scribbled it on a paper towel and tossed it into the sink. “Call him, don’t call him. It’s up to you.”

  Dante snatched the phone and dialed the number with his thumb.

  “Detective?” he said into the phone. I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. Then Dante dropped the hand that held the phone to his side and told me to go back into the bathroom while he finished the conversation without me.

  And just in case you’re wondering, I knew Dante was purposely keeping the tone light, and Detective Loncar wouldn’t be listening to me if he didn’t believe maybe I might be right. And having two men converse secretly over how to best protect me while a potential killer orchestrated one last hit did nothing to calm my nerves.

  So I called the other man who would have something to say about my current situation.

  35

  After I left a message with Nick that included phrases like, “I need to talk to you,” “Things have gotten out of hand,” and “Please don’t think I am a drama queen needing attention, but even the cops are starting to listen to me now,” I hung up and waited.

  And stared around Dante’s bathroom.

  And at his shower.

  A shower would feel good. A shower would go a long way toward cleaning my aura, or at least the smell of fear that had begun to travel in small circles with me.

  I opened the door to the bathroom. Dante was still on the phone, making notes on a lined steno pad. Fine. Let them figure out I was right. For the next half hour, it was going to be their problem and not mine. Yes, I said half an hour. For once it wasn’t my hot water bill.

  I locked the door and peeled off my clothes, tossing them into a pile next to the sink. The water sprayed the walls of the shower, producing a cloud of steam. I climbed in, dunked my face under the spray and doused my hair. It felt good. It felt better than good. I rested my forehead against the walls of the standup shower, and the insistent pulse beat down on my shoulders and back. Tensions calmed. Muscles relaxed. I lathered the bar of Ivory soap into a foam of suds and washed my face and body like I was exorcizing a demon. I repeated the routine with Dante’s shampoo and conditioner and then sat on the floor and let the water wash over me like a tropical rainforest. I could sit here for hours. I could sit here all night. I didn’t have to ever come out of here again, except maybe for the occasional bite to eat. For the first time in days, I was totally relaxed.

  Then a shadow appeared on the other side of the shower curtain and a deep voice broke my trance. “Time’s up.”

  The water suddenly shut off, and I was left sitting in the middle of a shower. Naked. With Dante on the other side of the flimsy plastic curtain. I jumped up, and in an attempt at modesty, turned my back toward the curtain. A fluffy white towel appeared over the curtain rod.

  “Can I have some privacy, please?”

  Dante’s shadow hadn’t moved from the shower while I stood dripping into the drain. I reached over the curtain rod and eased the towel down, wrapping my torso.

  He pulled the plastic curtain aside as I secured the corner by my bust line. “Get dressed. We’re going to the college.”

  “Detective Loncar thinks there might be some truth to what you’re saying, but he’s not ready to admit Kyle is the wrong guy. It appears as though your new ‘evidence’ started a ticking clock on the amount of time they have to tie everything together with a big bow.”

  “So we’re going to the college tonight? I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “This isn’t a date.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I bolted from the house and all I grabbed was your duffle bag. I don’t have anything to wear to shake down a killer.”

  “Your term papers must have been fun to read.”

  “I majored in the history of fashion. I didn’t need to use phrases like ‘shake down a killer’ when writing about Emilio Pucci.”

  He shoveled his hand under a neatly folded pile of clothes. “Put these on. They should work.”

  I flipped through the pile. White shirt and work pants. “Are these your clothes?”

  “Let’s not get into where they came from. Hurry up and change.”

  I turned back into the bathroom and dressed. The button-down, collared, short sleeved shirt was part of a uniform. The name Doris was embroidered onto a red patch sewn over the right breast. The pants were a men’s flat front boxy cut, narrow fit through my hips and ridiculously full at the waist.

  “Hand me the duffle bag,” I said through the cracked door.

  He fed it to me. I unclamped the black nylon shoulder strap, adjusted the length of it, and clamped it over the waistband of the pants like a cinch belt, creating the kind of paper-bag waist that made Isaac Mizrahi famous. I rolled the cuffs of the pants up until they were slightly above my ankles and then buckled my feet into my blue patent leather T-strap sandals.

  “I’m ready,” I said and left the bathroom.

  He walked toward me and reached his hands on either side of my head, flipping the collar up.

  “Good idea. The flipped-up collar works,” I said, catching my reflection in the glass of a framed pin-up girl from the forties.

  “Put this on.” He lowered a skinny blue necktie, already tied, over my head like a noose.

  “That might be a little much.”

  “These people are going to expect you to have on some kind of weird getup.”

  “Why? It’s not a costume party.”

  He stood back, eyed me up and down, and tightened the necktie. “Because they know you, and you always have on some kind of weird getup.”

  “I resent that.”

  “The tie is wired with a transmitter. If you speak clearly I’ll be able to hear everything you say or anyone close to you says.”

  I fingered the tie. “This tie is bugged?”

  “Yes, and it cost more than two hundred dollars, so don’t spill anything on it.”

  “That’s pretty cool.” I cocked my head to one side and smoothed the blue silk back down.

  We arrived at the college about twenty minutes later. Dante spun the bike around the mostly empty parking lot and then pulled under a couple of maple trees that kept us out of sight.

  “Get off.”

  “You could be a little more polite, you know,” I said, stepping down on my right foot and hopping backward so my left leg could swing over the back of the motorcycle. I unbuckled the helmet and hooked it onto the clip.

  “This isn’t the time to joke around, Samantha. Are you scared?”

  “Yes I’m scared.”

  “Good. You’ll be more careful if you’re scared.”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Then why did you tell me to get off?”

  “I’m not coming in with you.” He handed me the duffle bag. “McQueen’s in here. You need to put him on the pl
atform where the real statue was.”

  “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “Listen to me. You need to have a reason for being here. McQueen is your reason. If anybody says anything, you say you’re there to replace the statue. If things get hairy, you put him on the pedestal and you leave.”

  “Okay, sure. I can do that.”

  “I’m going to be able to hear whatever you hear, but if you stand too close to something with background noise, I’ll have a harder time. So try to stay away from general noise.”

  “But I’m the bait.”

  “McQueen’s the bait.”

  “So I’m what dangles the bait. I’m the fishing wire?”

  “Try not to get tangled up.” His eyes held mine for too long. I couldn’t read his thoughts, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Can I pretend you’re Nick again?”

  He looked at me for a couple of seconds and then touched my cheek. “Good luck, Tiger.” He revved up the motor and pulled away, scattering pebbles over the toes of my shoes.

  I hoisted the duffle from the ground and scaled the steps to the business school. Nobody else was around. I pulled McQueen from the duffle and stuck him on the pedestal, and then left out the front door. After descending the stairs, a shiny red sports car sped into the lot and shot directly toward where I stood.

  36

  Kyle got out of the car and slammed the door shut. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Where is he?” he yelled as he ascended the stairs. He stumbled halfway up.

  Andi followed more slowly. She grabbed my arm, her eyes wide with fright. “The police couldn’t charge him with the crime so he was released. I was watering his plants at his apartment when he walked in. I told him what you figured out and he freaked. You have to stop him. I’m afraid he’s really going to do something bad.”

  I pulled away from Andi and ran after Kyle. “He’s not here, Kyle. Nobody’s here.”

  “How did that get here?” he asked, staring at McQueen.

  “Tony wanted it here for the dedication.” I moved closer to the glass case of trophies and then took a step backward, into the hallway that led to the lecture hall.

  He stood rooted to the marble floor, staring at the statue like he’d seen a ghost. “That bastard. He must have the police in his pocket if he got them to release evidence for his event.”

  “That’s not the one that he used—” I cut myself off. Kyle had been in love with Emily; she’d been his future. Whether or not the statue in front of us was the one that had been used to bludgeon his fiancé, it hardly was a point worth mentioning.

  I watched Kyle, as he stared at the statue. I wasn’t sure if he was capable of moving. I’m not sure what I expected of him, grim determination or quiet mourning.

  “You put this here, didn’t you?” he asked. “He asked you to put it here and you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you trying to prove? She’s dead. The love of my life is dead and nothing is going to bring her back. Not taking on Tony Simms, not shutting down Vongole, not a single thing you or anybody else can do. I have to try to move on, to learn to get up and go every single day without her. Can you imagine that? Learning to live without the love of your life?”

  Kyle was not in a good place. His eyes were bloodshot, more so than they’d been when he arrived. A vein pulsed alongside his eyebrow. He spoke carefully, like he needed to make extra effort to get the words out clearly.

  Andi remained in the parking lot. She looked scared. I made a face at her and waved her closer when I thought Kyle wasn’t looking.

  “Kyle, why don’t you let Andi drive you home?”

  I walked Kyle to the door and guided him to the steps out front. It seemed like yesterday that Eddie and I ran down those steps with the Puccetti statue hidden in my handbag. I held Kyle’s arm as he descended the stairs. He walked to his car in a trance. I didn’t know if he had tuned it all out up to this point, if seeing the statue that had killed Emily had triggered something that he’d been able to keep buried behind emotional walls, and I was afraid to ask.

  Andi looked at the keys, at me, and then at Kyle. “I can’t drive stick.”

  Kyle aimed his remote at the car and sat in the driver’s seat. The car didn’t start. He slumped over the steering wheel, his shoulders shaking with sorrow.

  As I stepped away from the car, I realized the one thing I’d wanted by bringing the fake Puccetti here was to elicit a response from someone. I knew the person who had used the statue to murder Emily would have a hard time with the sight of it on its pedestal. From the looks of Kyle Trent, he was the definition of “hard time.”

  Had Detective Loncar been right all along?

  I had to talk to Dante. I backed away, up the stairs, and into the admissions hall. After the door closed behind me I turned around and looked at the pedestal. The Puccetti statue was gone.

  I looked over my left shoulder at the parking lot. Exhaust puffed from the tailpipe of the red car. As I turned to my right, something wooden and solid like a baseball bat swung at me connecting with my left cheekbone.

  The momentum knocked me over, and I landed on all fours. A foot connected with my midsection, knocking me to my side. I curled up and wrapped my torso with my arms. Pain from the blow to my face yielded tears that blurred my vision. Something dropped to the floor next to me.

  It was the statue.

  I forced myself onto my hands and knees, fighting each movement like a battered Rocky Balboa. I slowly moved down the hallway to the bathroom where I’d hidden after stealing McQueen a week ago. I reached up to the handle and pulled myself into a standing position. After I opened the door, I moved across the black and white checkerboard floor and bent over the closest sink, splashing cold water on my face. A rock smashed through the small glass pane of the crank window in the tiny lavatory, landing in the sink next to me.

  “What just happened?”said Dante’s voice through the now-shattered window.

  “Somebody hit me.”

  “What? Speak more clearly. Your voice is muffled.”

  I glanced down at the tie, now wet in patches thanks to the water I’d splashed on my face.

  “Samantha, I can’t hear you anymore. Get out of there. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “Kyle’s here. I think he’s drunk. He freaked out when he saw McQueen.”

  “I can’t hear you. Move closer to the window.”

  I stepped around the broken glass on the floor and looked for Dante through the metal frame. “Kyle. Red sports car. He shouldn’t be driving.”

  “I’ll try to catch him. Meet me out front and be careful.”

  A toilet flushed behind me. The stall opened and Nora stepped out, squirting two pumps of pink soap into her hands.

  “So you came after all? Tony wasn’t sure you would.”

  “Tony’s here?”

  “In the lecture hall. He changed his mind about the dress rehearsal. Said he had something to do tonight and wanted to get it done during the day. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”

  I turned to face the mirror, my reflection next to hers. My cheek was turning purple.

  She spun around. “Samantha! What happened?” She grabbed a handful of paper towels, ran them under cool water, and turned around and held them gently against my face.

  “I-I’m fine.” I pushed her away. “I’m not sure what happened.”

  “Let’s get you out of here. I’ll take you home.”

  “Not yet.” I backed away from her, into the rose pink metal door to the stall.

  “What’s wrong?”

  My face throbbed, and I couldn’t think straight. When I looked at Nora, I felt like someone was hurling neon Frisbees at me. I was having a hard time standing up.

  “Can you give me a couple of minutes? I’ll meet you out front.”

  “Sure, if that’s what you need.” She tucked her sandy blonde bobbed hair behind her ear and left.

  I smacked the
tie a few times and moved closer to the window. “Dante? Are you out there?” There was no answer.

  I splashed more water on my face and dried off as best as I could. When I pulled the door to the bathroom open, I looked up and down the hall. There was no sign of Nora, no sign of anybody.

  I couldn’t risk going out the front door. Not when I didn’t know where Dante was, or if someone was waiting out there to ambush me. I crept the other direction to the lecture hall and ducked inside the heavy doors.

  “Samantha, I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it,” Tony Simms said. He was the picture of calm, or, he would have been, if he hadn’t been tied to a folding metal chair.

  The door closed behind me. “Watch out!” Tony called.

  Someone pushed me into the back row of seats, but I threw my arms out in front of me and broke my fall by landing in the velvet-covered theater seats. I heard the sounds of metal clanking against each other. I sat up and saw Andi feeding a padlock through a heavy chain that secured the lecture hall doors.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “He’s going to pay for what he did.”

  “Andi, this is crazy. Call the police. Let them arrest him. This isn’t our job.”

  She stared at me as though she didn’t understand what I was saying.

  “He has to pay,” she repeated. “I’ll never have a life until he pays.”

  “I’ll help you,” he said. “Let Samantha go.”

  “You’ve done enough!” she spat at him. She stormed down the aisle and screamed at him. “You can’t control me. You can’t touch me!”

  “Andi, calm down,” I said.

  She pulled a gun out of her pocket. Something wasn’t right. It was as if the plastic game pieces had popped from the board game Concentration and everything I thought fit didn’t. But as the pieces fell into new and different arrangements, the scattered information pointed me in an entirely different direction.

  “Andi?” I said, backing away from her.

  “Shut up!” she screamed. I didn’t know which of us she was yelling at.

  Could Dante hear us? Where was everybody? Where were Nora and Kyle and the cops?