Panty Raid

by Diane Vallere

  I called down to the front desk. A woman answered. “Could I speak to Jacques, please?”

  “Who? Oh, hold on.” She covered the phone, but I could still hear her. “It’s for you.”

  “Be there in a sec,” I heard Jacques say in the background—without a trace of accent. I suspected the concierge was as fake as The Left Bank.

  “Bon soir,” he answered. “Theees ees Jacques.”

  “Are you sure it’s not Inspector Clouseau?”

  “Meeees Keeed,” he said. “Is your new room satisfactory?”

  “No, it’s not. This is a smoking room, which you failed to mention. I need a different room, and I need someone to help me with my bags.” I took a breath. “And I need you to update the note I left for Mr. Nick Taylor to tell him what our new room number is going to be.”

  “Very well. Come down to ze front desk and I’ll have a new room for you when you arrive.”

  I returned to the lobby. Jacques was ready for me.

  “You’re all set. Heeere ees a new set of keys. You’re in one of our most special rooms on ze seventeenth floor. Our bellman has already been notified. I’ve updated ze note to Mr. Taylor should he inquire about your whereabouts. Is there anything else I can do for you this evening?” He glanced at the clock behind him. “My shift is almost over.”

  “That’s all, Jacques.”

  I checked into the third room of the day (it was fine) and unpacked. Took a shower. Read the room service menu. Twice. They purported to serve twenty-two different versions of mac and cheese, and I called down to inquire about three of them. I redressed, this time replacing my Louboutins with Tretorns. When I opened the hotel room door to go looking for Nick, I found him standing on the other side.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said and stumbled into the room.

  “I’ve been looking for you, too. Where have you been? What is going on? You dropped a bombshell on me and then took off with the guy you were mad at. Help me out, Nick.”

  Nick ran his hand over my hair. “Kidd, I am so sorry,” he said, and then he collapsed onto the bed and passed out.

  5

  The next morning, I let Nick sleep while I ordered room service. The food arrived twenty minutes later via Fred, and after signing the bill, I shook Nick awake. “Nick,” I said. “Are you alive?”

  He groaned and rolled over. “Water,” he croaked.

  I handed him a ten-dollar bottle of Perrier from the mini-fridge. He drank half. I held out two Tylenol. He swallowed them and finished the water. He handed the empty bottle back to me, and I handed him a cup of coffee from room service. He set the cup on the nightstand and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

  “What happened last night?” I asked. “You dropped a bombshell on me about killing a woman in college and left, and the next thing I know, you and Marc Rico are being kicked out of a casino. You probably have to do something pretty bad to get booted from a casino.”

  “Yeah, about that…” His voice trailed off. “We talked. It’s been a long time, so it was a long talk. We’re good now. It’s water under the bridge.”

  “It’s not water under my bridge.”

  Nick sat up. Last night, I’d been so mad at him, I slept in the other king-sized bed. Somewhere during the night he’d stripped off his clothes, and now the covers rested at his waist. His curly hair was rumpled, and his face was scruffy from not shaving for a day. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, the only signs of his wild night.

  “Come here,” he said.

  “Not until you tell me what happened.”

  “Marc’s getting married today. It’s a quiet ceremony because the press would go ape over something like this. He didn’t have a bachelor party planned or anything, so I bought him a couple of drinks.”

  “You two had more than a couple of drinks. I saw you. You were escorted out of Flush for making a scene in The Heart Club.”

  “Kidd…”

  I moved from my bed to the edge of Nick’s. “You told me a woman is dead because of you and Marc, and then you disappeared. The next time I saw you, you were drunk with the guy you claimed not to be all that close with. You threw a champagne bottle at the wall. How can you honestly think I’m going to let this go?”

  “Do you want me to get into this now or after I shower?”

  “Now.” Nick reached out for my hand, and I pulled away. “I’m serious. But talk fast, because you don’t smell so fresh.”

  Nick ran his hands through his hair, back and forth a few times, and then dropped his hands to the sheet. “Marc and I went to college together,” he started.

  “At I-FAD?”

  I-FAD was the Institute of Fashion, Art, and Design. I-FAD was Pennsylvania’s answer to Parsons, FIT, FIDM, and Otis. If you couldn’t afford the move to New York or Los Angeles but wanted a creative background to help break into the fashion industry, I-FAD was your college. I knew several people who had attended, including Nick’s maybe former girlfriend, Amanda Ries. (I’d never pinned him down on the accurate classification of their past relationship and had reached a probably-better-off-not-knowing plateau.)

  “Yes. We were friends. Not best friends, but friends. He was on the business track. I was in design, but I tacked on a business major toward the end, so our paths crossed. I-FAD is predominantly a fashion school, but they have a top-notch curriculum on the business side.”

  “Does this—” I started tentatively “—have anything to do with Amanda?”

  “Not how you think.”

  That wasn’t no. The room was still dark since I’d chosen not to wake Nick with the flood of early morning sunlight, but the glow of the desk lamp cast unflattering shadows under his eyes. “I had a girlfriend in college. Her name was Pamela Martin. She was my first serious relationship.”

  I metaphorically pulled on my big girl panties (too bad they didn’t come in a 3-pack).

  “Pam was Amanda’s roommate,” he said.

  “That’s how you met Amanda?”

  “In a roundabout way, yes.” Nick took a pull on his coffee. “Marc had a thing for Pam. I knew it and she knew it. I always suspected she liked the attention, and it turns out I was right.”

  “She cheated on you?”

  “No, she was too honest for that. She broke up with me first, but they were inseparable within a week, so Pam didn’t need a lot of time to get over me. Marc obviously didn’t think there was a problem either.”

  Nick stared into his coffee cup, and I stared at him. Nick and I had known each other for a long time, but we didn’t know much about our respective pasts. There hadn’t been many serious relationships for me. My hardest breakup was when the deli counter guy and I stopped seeing each other. I had to walk an extra four blocks to get good salami after that.

  I stood up and pushed the room service cart closer to the bed. Pretty sure I needed comfort food to get through this.

  As if reading my thoughts, Nick looked up. “I was twenty, and life seems a whole lot different at that age. I learned a life lesson and moved on. It took a while to get over what happened, sure, but that’s how it goes.”

  I picked up a piece of bacon and tore it in half. The crisp snap might as well have been a shotgun blast for the sound it made interrupting the silence. Nick turned to the pillow and punched it. His chest muscles rippled, and I got temporarily distracted.

  “Marc gets easily bored. It’s probably how he became a billionaire, because he’s always taking risks and pursuing opportunities. That’s how it was with Pam. He wanted her when she was with me, but after he got her, he didn’t want her anymore. I watched him grow disinterested until he just moved on to someone else.”

  “How did Pamela take it?”

  “Not well. She came to my room and begged me to take her back. She was a wreck. I’d never seen her so upset. I tried to calm her down. She spent the night on my sofa, but the next morning I told her we weren’t going to get back together. I kne
w I wouldn’t get past the way she moved on to Marc so easily and I would always wonder if that was going to happen again.” He paused for a moment. “She was found dead later that day.”

  “How?”

  “She killed herself. Overdose on painkillers.” His eyes focused on the sheet gripped between his hands. The fabric was taut, and his knuckles were white.

  I put my hand on Nick’s arm. “You didn’t kill her,” I said.

  “I know that. But still, if I could do things differently, I would.”

  “You rejected her when she was upset, but you’re not to blame.” I bit my lip. “Marc’s not, either. What he did was in poor taste, but Pamela made the decision. Not either of you.”

  “She needed someone to look out for her, and she turned to me. And my pride was too damaged to see that at the time. I wasn’t there for her.”

  “Nick, you did what you did because it was right for you. You can’t control what someone else does. You can only control yourself. Your decision speaks to your integrity, not your damaged pride. Break-ups hurt but most people get over them with ice cream and wine. Maybe Fritos.”

  Nick’s hand moved off the sheet and grasped my fingers. I squeezed back. As he looked at me, I saw the depths of pain that the memory caused. Nick had never spoken of that night, and I imagined he’d processed Pamela’s suicide the way people work through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

  Or had he stalled somewhere in the process, tucked the memory deep down where it wouldn’t confront him daily, and moved on? Was that why he’d been so angry that he’d thrown the champagne bottle? If Pamela was his first real relationship, then there was no way her suicide hadn’t left an open wound. I hated knowing Nick carried that sadness within him, but it made him more vulnerable than just about anything I’d learned about him since we’d met.

  “Take your shower,” I said. “We’ll talk more when you get done.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly how much of Nick I was going to see when he threw the covers back, so I averted my eyes until the flash of Burberry boxers appeared. He crossed the room and shut the bathroom door behind him. I collected the various plates and mugs and loaded them back on the cart. I rolled the cart away from the bed and pulled the curtains open.

  Sunlight streamed into the room. Sunlight that on any other day would have represented possibilities, fresh starts, and new beginnings. I looked up at the top of the Eiffel Tower, smiled, and then looked down at the base. Where the sunlight illuminated something else.

  The body of Lydia Moss in her Marry Rich: Pending T-shirt, matching panties, and tacky white veil lying seventeen floors below us on the sidewalk between The Left Bank and Fake Paris. Our third room in less than a day and this one came with a view of a body.

  6

  I feared the worst. Lydia’s face was the color of antique lace in need of cleaning, and her body was in an awkward position. Her long chestnut hair moved with an infrequent breeze. The tacky veil lay on the ground next to her. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been angry. What had happened between last night and this morning? Nick had been so schnockered he’d passed out. Had Marc passed out too? Nick said Marc and Lydia were to be married today.

  I grabbed the phone and called 911. I had my suspicions, but someone official with access to Lydia’s body on the ground had to confirm it. After completing the call, I sank onto the bed with the receiver in my hand.

  I forced myself to look at Lydia’s body again. An ambulance parked on the sidewalk and men in white uniforms surrounded her. One stooped next to her and checked for a pulse. He looked up and shook his head.

  Two others joined him and helped straighten her out and roll her onto her side while they eased a lowered gurney up next to her. Words were printed on her panties in the same font as her Marry Rich T-shirt, but I was too far away to read them. As they eased her onto the gurney, her arm fell away from her body under the blanket, and I spotted a glimpse of gold and diamond. Her engagement ring.

  I immediately reached for my own engagement ring. My hands were shaking. My knees buckled, and I sat, my butt catching the edge of the lip-shaped sofa. The technicians covered her with a dark sheet. They raised the gurney and rolled it to the ambulance.

  The sounds of the running water stopped. Nick was going to come out soon enough. I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen, and the oh, no reality of Marc’s future wife dying after hearing the story about Pamela Martin’s death years ago made the timing awful. The bathroom door opened.

  “Nick,” I said. “Something horrible—outside—Lydia—”

  He rushed across the room and looked down. A white towel was draped around his hips and another one around his neck.

  “She’s dead?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I took Nick’s hand. “I already called the police. I’m going to call hotel security next.”

  He nodded and looked away from the window.

  ***

  I was not unfamiliar with police procedure. By the time the police arrived at our room, I was ready for them. With Lydia’s body being part of our Left Bank room view, it was a given we would change rooms again. I packed up what I’d unpacked yesterday, emptied the coffee pot into our mugs, and wheeled the room service cart into the hallway.

  At first, I considered pulling the curtains shut to block out the view, but it seemed somehow disrespectful to ignore the bride-to-be, so I left the curtains open. The ambulance had departed, but a separate team remained to establish a perimeter around where her body had been and to keep curious onlookers back. Within minutes, the biggest attraction in Las Vegas was the sidewalk. I couldn’t ignore what had happened even if I wanted to.

  Which I didn’t. Because in one teensy, tiny, roundabout, don’t-want-to-think-about-it way, Lydia and I had something in common. We were both here with men to whom we were engaged. Nick and I kept postponing the conversation about setting a date, and now, Marc and Lydia’s date would never come.

  There was an urgent knock on the door, followed with, “Police.”

  I stole a peek at Nick. Technically, he was closer to the door. He was busy typing something on his phone and appeared to not even hear the knock. I left my view from the window and let the police in.

  The man in front was thirtyish, with a short, military haircut and a clean-shaven face. He wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, and a green tie printed with colorful poker chips. He was flanked by two men in dark police officer uniforms and another man in a suit with a pin that said, “The Left Bank.”

  “Ms. Kidd?” the man with the poker chip tie asked.

  “Yes, I’m Samantha Kidd,” I said. I held the door open, and the small entourage entered.

  “Detective Marbury.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

  “And I’m Alain Remie, manager of The Left Bank,” said the man with the hotel nametag. Beads of sweat dotted his hairline. “Ms. Kidd, The Left Bank would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused to you by this unnerving event. I’ve arranged for our bellman to collect your things and move you to a larger suite.”

  “I don’t want a view of the Eiffel Tower anymore,” I said.

  The detective interrupted. “Mr. Remie, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Ms. Kidd and Mr. Taylor before you make the arrangements for their new room.”

  “But of course,” Mr. Remie said. I briefly wondered, did French people automatically apply here, or were their applications bumped up to the top of the queue because it endorsed the hotel theme?

  Detective Marbury led me across the room to the window. Outside the glass, a black curtain had been raised around the sidewalk where Lydia’s body had been. The curtain blocked off the street side view first. A small van parked by the sidewalk. I stared, transfixed, while people moved about doing an efficient job of managing the crime scene.

  Despite the number of people who’d arrived with him, Detective Marbury was in charge. He stood next to me, watching the wor
kers like I had. But unlike me, Detective Marbury appeared to be emotionally detached from the scene.

  “Ms. Kidd walk me through this morning.”

  “Sure. I drew the curtains last night—you know, it’s bright out there—and Nick came in late—”

  “Nick?”

  I pointed across the room to Nick, who had traded his towels for casual clothes. “Nick Taylor.”

  “How do you know Mr. Taylor?”

  “We’re engaged,” I said. I held up my left hand as if serving up evidence. Detective Marbury glanced at it and nodded. “Nick and I had breakfast. When we finished, I opened the curtain. That’s when I saw Lydia.” He looked like he expected me to say more. “I don’t know much more than that,” I said truthfully.

  Marbury nodded again. It was a cut and dry statement. He’d move on to Nick, Nick would say the same thing, and Marbury would leave.

  “You called the victim Lydia. How do you know her?”

  Oh, yeah, that. “I met her yesterday outside Flush Casino. I’m here to cover Intimate Mode, the lingerie trade show, for the department store where I work. You know about the trade shows, right?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I went to register, and Lydia was there. She’s a lingerie model.”

  “Do you know all of the lingerie models?” he asked.

  “No, just one.”

  “This one?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. I was starting to think he only nodded when I said something of interest. If he thought it was interesting that I knew Lydia from her modeling career, I could only imagine how interesting he’d find it that Nick was out with Lydia’s fiancé last night.

  Oh, no. Nick and Marc had been out drinking. Nick had stumbled home late and passed out. Marc had, no doubt, not seen Lydia because it was after midnight and it’s considered bad luck for the groom to see the bride on their wedding day. I had no idea what time they were planning on tying the knot, but he might be waiting for her at the hotel chapel right this moment.