In the morning, I joined Gitta for breakfast. Upon seeing me, she said, “Honey, you need some under-eye concealer.” She whipped some out of her purse and offered it to me.
I restrained myself from slapping her hand away. “Uh . . . no thanks.”
After we ordered duck confit Benedict and cinnamon-brown sugar brioche French toast from Jason, Gitta said, “Harriet, I spoke with Kevin last night. He’s so steady and dependable. He calls when he says he will. It was never like that with my two late husbands.”
“That’s great, Gitta,” I said. “I’m glad for you.” And I meant it. Gitta had been used by rich, powerful men all her life—she deserved better.
“And you know what else?” Gitta went on. “I’m not as worried about myself anymore. I understand now what you said about me not being a teenager and therefore not being in danger here.”
Wow. Progress.
“I think I’m getting close to finding the killer,” I said. “So you just keep focusing on your recovery.” Of course, I did not clue her in on why I thought I was getting close—because someone had tried to kill me. That would propel her right back into panic mode.
After the meal, Gitta went to get a hot stone massage and Dead Sea salt body scrub, while Daniel, who was back on the day shift, ushered me to the small classroom for another educational lecture. “Today you’re going to learn about conditioning,” he said.
“Hair conditioning?” I knew all about that from my former life, when I’d spent hours in salons undergoing hot-oil scalp treatments.
“No, a different kind.”
“Physical conditioning?” I knew about that, too, from my new life as a Krav Maga mistress.
“I’ll let Dr. Stillwater explain,” Daniel said. “Here we are.” He left me at the open doorway.
A few of the water sprites and surfer dudes were gathered in the room. Stillwater strode in on her high heels with her trademark self-assurance, wearing a gold-toned sleeveless dress that matched her hair. Seeing me, she strolled over, sat down, and laid a hand on my knee. I recoiled at her touch.
“How are you doing, Hailey?” she asked, gazing at me intently with her golden eyes—the eyes of a killer?
“I’m okay.”
“The visitor log shows the Contessa von Phul came to see you last night.”
“Yeah, we’re, uh, old acquaintances. She’s who I called on your phone last night.”
“Yes, I saw that on my phone log.”
“She came to tell me Lior’s going to be okay, so now I’m okay, too. Thanks for asking.” I watched her for a reaction to the news, but she maintained her placid smile.
“Yes, I already called the hospital myself this morning,” she said. “I’m extremely relieved.”
Sure she was. Relieved that she hadn’t killed the wrong person. That could get messy.
“And don’t worry, the police are investigating,” she said.
Yeah, that made me feel a whole lot better.
“All right, then,” Stillwater said. “If you need to talk, I’m here.”
Right. As if.
She rose and proceeded to the front of the room. “Folks, today we’re going to debrief last night’s club experience.”
Seriously? Did she expect the group to dissect and deconstruct who had flirted with whom, who had backstabbed whom, who was the best—and worst—dressed, and all the other morning-after bullshit?
“How did you all feel in the club?” she asked.
Oh, please. Discussing f-ee-ee-lings? That was even worse. Apparently, the others agreed with me, as they sat silent.
“Anxious, perhaps?” Stillwater prompted.
Heads bobbed. Then the chatter started.
“I felt out of place.”
“I didn’t know what to do with myself.”
“It was torture.”
“Man, I just wanted a shot.”
“And a line.”
Laughter broke out.
“Exactly,” Stillwater said. “Do you know why you had these cravings?”
Yeah, I knew why I’d craved my Hennessy—because Lior had almost been killed, for God’s sake. Maybe by this woman.
There was silence again.
“Because we’re addicts?” one of the water sprites ventured.
“Skyler, you’re not addicts,” said Stillwater. “You are people with the disease of addiction. Your disease does not define who you are. But I have another point here. The reason you experienced cravings in the club is because of Pavlovian conditioning.”
Okay, so this wasn’t a bunch of addicts, it was a pack of dogs.
“I’m sure many of you took Intro to Psychology class in high school or college. So you remember that when Pavlov paired the sound of a bell with food, his dogs began to salivate merely at the sound of the bell.”
I doubted this group could remember much of anything. But it did ring a bell for me.
“The bell is what we call a conditioned stimulus,” Stillwater lectured. “It elicits a response due to its association with the unconditioned stimulus—the food in this case.”
“So, you’re saying if we put a dog in a club it will salivate?” a surfer dude asked.
Stillwater smiled. She may have been a murderer, but she evidently had far more patience with the dim bulbs of the world than I did. “No, Tyler, what I’m saying is, you all are conditioned to the pairing of alcohol or other drugs with a club environment. Whenever you’ve been in a club in the past, you’ve used and gotten high. Now you expect the same high when you enter a club. When that high doesn’t come, you crave it. So we need to work on decoupling the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.”
She went on to talk about how it was necessary, early in recovery, to avoid the people and places that were associated with getting high, and to develop coping strategies for dealing with those situations when they arose later on.
“That is why we put you in that simulated environment last night—so you could viscerally experience the dangers it poses to your sobriety, yet remain in a safe place here at The Oasis.”
Yeah, right. Safe from a fake nightclub, maybe. But not safe from a real murder.
Chapter 15
ALL THE TALK of salivating dogs got my own mouth juices flowing, ready for lunch. I found myself anticipating a bell to ring, summoning us for chow. And I was not disappointed. Stillwater’s phone chimed Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
“That’s our signal that this session is finished,” she announced. “We’ll break for our midday meal, then each of you has activities scheduled for this afternoon.”
The pack filed out. I was in the lead, which I guess made me the alpha dog. My nose tracked savory scents of simmering sauces to the dining room. At the entrance, I found Gitta with her son, Lars, together with the Contessa and her actual dog, Coco, all waiting for me. The sight of the Contessa sent a stab of fear through me.
“Is Lior all right?” I asked her.
“Oh, yes, he is continuing to recover as expected. That is not why I’m here.”
I let out my breath. Okay. He was going to be okay. That meant I would be, too. But I was still confused at the sight of her. Had she spent the night in this place?
Oh wait—her Chanel suit was a pastel blue this time instead of the prior night’s pastel pink. Coco’s ribbon had been swapped out to match. Gitta wore the same silk sheath she’d had on this morning, while Lars sported his Boca Country Day uniform of khakis, white button-down shirt, and navy blue blazer with insignia on the breast pocket. Apparently, he was on lunch break from his nearby school. He’d probably popped over in the family’s Bentley.
There was no need for introductions, since Gitta and the Contessa were well-acquainted from their circles in Boca’s high society.
Gitta grabbed my arm in her
habitual frantic manner. “Her Highness has news for you,” she whispered.
Already? Oh yeah, she was the Contessa.
Before we could speak further, Jason, the server, approached. “May I seat you ladies—and gentleman?” he asked with a nod to Lars.
We followed Jason to our usual table in the back, threading our way through clusters of seated patients. I spotted Lisa, the prostitute ring leader/drug dealer, at the table next to ours, attired in a low-cut Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. She was in animated discussion with a handful of male and female patients. Must have been a business power lunch.
Jason handed us one menu to share. Jeez, why didn’t they print up some more menus already? It wasn’t like The Oasis was under a budget crunch. They could just charge the patients for the cost of the engraved, gilt-edged papers and leather covers.
As soon as Jason departed, I whispered to the Contessa, “You’ve found out who sent the photos of Cody Keys and Jordan Mitchell to the Inquisitor?”
“What?” said Gitta and Lars simultaneously.
I shushed them with a wave of my hand.
“Not entirely,” the Contessa said, giving Coco a sip from her water glass. “According to Theresa Spadola’s sources, the photos were e-mailed from an account bearing the username ‘acquanaturale.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
I thought for a moment. Something about it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it just then. “I have no idea.”
“I can do some hacking to find out who’s behind that username,” Lars piped up.
We all stared at him, including Coco, who took a momentary lapse from her laps.
“And . . . Jordan Mitchell is here?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
“No.” Gitta and I said simultaneously. But each of us was responding to different things.
“Lars, you will not get enticed by that strumpet,” Gitta said. “You are heading to MIT, remember?”
“And no, you will not do any hacking,” I said. “As if you didn’t know, that’s illegal.” Hey, it was one thing for me to conduct it, something else for me to condone it.
“Mom!” Lars dragged out the word to three syllables. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. I knew Lars was a good kid—an adult, really, in taking care of Gitta—but occasionally an adolescent peevishness seeped through.
“Your mother’s right,” I said.
“Miss Harriet is right,” Gitta said at the same time.
Wow. Gitta and I were rarely on the same page. Either she really was recovering from addiction and babeness, or I was manifesting maternal instincts. Yikes.
“Is that the young lady who is a twerp?” the Contessa asked.
“The word is ‘twerk’, your Highness,” Gitta said. “It’s a . . . form of dance.”
“Indeed,” the Contessa sniffed.
“Hellooo?” I said. “Can we focus on the matter at hand?”
“Yeah, the case,” Lars said, leaning forward on the table, apparently having come out of his funk.
“Actually, I meant lunch.” So sue me, but I was still salivating. C’mon, admit it—you can’t think when food is on your mind.
The four of us huddled around the menu. The Contesssa, Gitta, and I decided to split a bistro shrimp scampi pizza and pear-endive salad, while Lars, the health nut, went for the vegan Boca Burger on a twenty-grain bun with a side of quinoa-cashew mix and a glass of aloe juice. Jason took our orders and our menu, which he handed to the table next to ours.
“Well, thank you for getting that information, your Highness,” I said. “I just wish I knew what it meant.”
“Quite so,” the Contessa said.
“There is another thing,” I said, looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. The madam, her employees, and customers seemed to be engrossed in making a deal. I figured drugs and sex riveted them more than our conversation.
“I found out that the deceased adolescents—Demarcus, Angel, and Kenyatta—as well as Jessica, the girl who was stabbed, and Amber, the one who stabbed her—all attended the same school—Sterling Heights Academy.”
“But of course,” the Contessa said. “I could have told you that.”
Sure, if I’d known to ask. I nearly snapped at her but bit my tongue.
That was the thing about an investigation—you couldn’t seek something if you didn’t know you needed to look for it. You couldn’t sift the crucial from the trivial until it all came together in your head.
“So, what’s the school connection?” I asked the Contessa.
“Well, you know I fund beds here at The Oasis for foster children. As you can imagine, many of them struggle academically. Sterling Heights is a charter school that provides individualized attention. Its specialized teaching approaches allow vulnerable children to succeed. In the mainstream public schools, they would fall through the cracks.”
Jeez, she sounded like she’d memorized some promo brochure.
“I see,” I said. So Sterling Heights was not a prep school for the privileged, as the name would suggest. Of course, Boca was king when it came to slapping on glittery labels.
“And in fact,” the Contessa continued, as Coco, who had dozed off, snored in her lap, “Sterling Heights has worked miracles with these children. Since its new principal arrived two years ago, the students’ standardized test scores have skyrocketed. The school has gone from an F to an A in the state’s grading system.”
“Yeah, but their lacrosse team sucks,” Lars said.
“Young man, may I remind you that we should not speak ill of those less fortunate than ourselves,” the Contessa said.
“Just sayin’,” Lars mumbled. Then he went on, “It’s like they don’t even want to be out on the field. It seems like all they want to do is sit on the bench and read their textbooks.”
Jason arrived with our order. Coco awoke, ears perked and nose sniffing the air. The Contessa picked shrimp off with a salad fork and gingerly fed them to her.
I, on the other hand, tore into the pizza like a rabid dog. Gitta ate the salad, while Lars, sullen again, bit into his Boca Burger.
Now that my calorie craving was satisfied, my mind was able to think again.
“You know,” I said, “I’m following a couple leads here at The Oasis. This photo leak and . . . well, something else.” They didn’t need to know about the hidden reading stash. “But now that I know that these kids all went to the same school, I have to wonder if that is where the real motive behind these violent acts lies. What if I’ve been on the wrong track all along?”
Gitta, the Contessa, and Coco chewed that over in silence, but Lars sat straight up again.
“I can help you,” he exclaimed.
I narrowed my eyes. “How?”
“I can go undercover in the school. I can observe what’s going on, talk to the kids, hunt for clues.”
Jeez. That was all I needed—a fanatical little PI apprentice. Save me.
“No!” Gitta and I said.
Coco jumped and proceeded to choke on a shrimp.
“Oh my god!” the Contessa screamed. “Liebchen!”
The madam and her group at the next table stopped their negotiations and stared. Jason rushed over, tore the beast from the Contessa’s grasp as it gasped for breath, and squeezed it like a tube of toothpaste. The shrimp dislodged, flew in a graceful arc, and landed in the madam’s cleavage. The woman screamed, and the pandemonium shifted from our table to theirs.
Jason handed the trembling Coco back to the Contessa. “Can I get you all anything else?” he asked.
We shook our heads.
“Awesome, dude,” Lars said, bumping fists with him.
“I am most grateful, young man.” The Contessa reached into her Chanel bag, pulled out a pair of Benjamins, and hande
d them to Jason, who smoothly slipped them into a pocket.
“Glad I could be of service,” he said.
No doubt.
“So, as I was saying,” Lars said after Jason departed.
“And as we were saying,” I said, “no, we are not risking your safety by putting you in an environment where there may be danger.” True, the deaths and the attacks had occurred at The Oasis, not at the school. But still, if the motive behind them was at the school, the place could well be perilous.
“So, what? Like you’re going to go undercover there yourself?” Lars said. “No offense, Miss H., but I don’t think you’d pass for sweet sixteen.”
Great, kid. Thanks for the subtle reminder that my Big 4-0 was looming—tomorrow. And dammit, I had no good comeback to that one.
“C’mon, Mom, let me do it,” he said.
“No, Lars. I couldn’t stand to have anything happen to you.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said. “I’ve been taking care of you my whole life.” He glared at her.
And she had no good comeback to that one. Neither did I. His statement was sad but true.
We all looked at the Contessa, the ultimate Boca arbiter.
“I am in accord with you, young man,” she said at last, clutching the dog, who had once again nodded out following its near-death experience. “As much as I hate to think so, Harriet may be right that the source of these sinister acts is outside of The Oasis. And I believe you can be trusted to be both safe and discreet.”
The kid beamed.
“I shall call the principal,” the Contessa said. “You will begin classes this very afternoon.”
Chapter 16
AFTER LUNCH, LARS and the Contessa took off to get him enrolled at Sterling Heights, intending to stop at a mall first so that Lars could swap out his preppy attire for something more befitting his new undercover persona, like a pair of low-riding baggy pants and droopy hoodie. Gitta headed down the hall to have some sinister-sounding brain-wave stimulation procedure.
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