The Ghost and the Dead Deb

remembering names or people, so he wasn’t sure which guest it was. And we do have several young, single women staying with us. Your friend Dana Wu was one of them.”

“If it was Angel Stark, then that would mean she did return to the Inn last night—even if she never made it to her room.”

Aunt Sadie spoke up. “I don’t suppose Barney recognized the fellow?”

“I asked him that very question, but he said he only saw the man’s back, from a distance in the dark.”

“When was Angel Stark scheduled to check out?” I asked.

Fiona made a face. “Technically, she had the room until noon today,” she replied. “But Ms. Stark hasn’t checked out or settled her bill, and her luggage is still in the room.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I could hear the breeze rustling the elms on the other side of the window.

“Hmm,” said Fiona. “Perhaps we do have a mystery brewing. Shall we mention it to the Quibblers? They did help out during the Timothy Brennan mess.”

“I have a feeling that the Quibblers will have plenty to quibble over at tonight’s meeting,” Sadie predicted. “The littering fines alone have got them crazy.”

“True,” Fiona replied.

“But we need more information on Angel—on what may have happened to her,” I pressed.

We halted our conversation long enough to allow a middle-aged couple to pass through the foyer.

“Look,” Fiona whispered when we were alone again. “I can’t let you into Ms. Stark’s room—that just wouldn’t be ethical. But what I can do is go up there myself and have a good look around. And if I do come up with something . . . anything . . . I’ll let you both know. If it looks urgent, I’ll phone. Otherwise, I’ll bring any information I learn to the meeting tonight and we can discuss.”

I nodded, pleased with myself that I’d persuaded her—and wishing Jack could have seen it. “Also, Fiona, if you haven’t yet finished reading All My Pretty Friends . . .”

“Only two chapters left to go!”

“Oh, very good,” I said. “I’d like you to bring the book tonight. It may come in handy.”

Then the grandfather clock in the foyer bonged on the hour. Realizing the time, I quickly stood. “We better go,” I told Fiona. “Mina is holding the fort all by herself. If there’s an afternoon rush she’ll be overwhelmed.”

Fiona rose to show us out. At the double doors we paused under the drooping fronds of the potted palms.

“Just one last thing,” I said. “I saw another one of your guests outside. A young woman, long blonde hair and longer legs. Sort of a Paris Hilton clone who has that patrician-disdain thing down pat. Brainert was thumbing through Angel’s book and thought she looked like the photo of Kiki Langdon, Bethany Banks’s closest friend. Could that be true?”

Fiona opened her mouth to reply but didn’t. Instead, she gazed over my shoulders, eyes wide, pointing.

I whirled to find the woman in question right behind me. Even more surprising, my super-chic sister-in-law, “La Princessa” Ashley McClure-Sutherland, was standing next to her, resplendent in pristine white slacks and sleeveless shimmering pink silk blouse, her salon-highlighted blonde hair tamed into a slick yuppie ponytail and her French-manicured hand lazily fanning herself with the Providence Journal’s society page. It was obvious from their expressions that the two of them had overheard me. They both looked like they’d just sucked on a lemon.

“Are you gossiping about me again, Penelope?” said the Paris Hilton clone, her perfectly lined and expensively glossed lips forming the words with fashionably blase haughtiness.

Meanwhile, my lips—coated with the current flavor of lip balm stocked by Koh’s grocery—refused to form a coherent word, let alone an entire sentence. I just stood there, dumb as a post.

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize me, cousin,” the woman continued, her eyes level with mine.

Desperately I searched my mind for a memory hook.

I got nothing.

Fiona attempted to break the Titanic-worthy glacial wall. “Oh, ah, Ms. Langdon,” she chirped. “How very nice to see you this afternoon. Did you enjoy your time on the sun porch?”

The freeze queen ignored Fiona’s query and fixed her shark-blue expression on me.

By now I’d recovered from my initial shock. First I greeted my sister-in-law, then I met Kiki Langdon’s disdainful gaze with a hard look of my own. “I’m sorry,” I said evenly. “Have we met before?”

Suddenly, Ashley cut loose.

“My God, Penelope,” she cried. “Don’t play innocent with me. Ever since you let—” She gritted her movie star teeth, a cool $50,000 in dental, according to my late husband. “Since Calvin died, I mean, you’ve done nothing but hurt my family.”

“What?!” I cried. The McClures cast as victims of my cruel and evil machinations was certainly a unique perspective. One I didn’t share.

“You poison Calvin’s only child against his relatives, you shun our offers of financial support. On top of that, you come back to this town—for what? To set up in some pathetic, barely break-even, small-time business!”

I was ready to protest, but Sadie leaped into the fray. “More honest than you lot of inside-traders.” Her veined hands clenched into fists as she moved menacingly toward Ashley.

You, go, Sadie, I thought, seeing Ashley step back, her sneer faltering. I wasn’t surprised. My elderly aunt’s temper had reached the level of local legend. There was that pick-pocket she’d spotted while reading on the Quindicott Commons and had beaned with a frontlist Anne Perry from two benches away. And, of course, everyone knew the story of the shoplifter whom she’d caught stuffing a Hammett first edition down his pants. She’d taken him out with a Patricia Cornwell to the head.

“I’m talking to Pen about a private family matter,” Ashley told Sadie, her disdainful tone turning almost whiny. “She deliberately hurt her own cousin on one of the most important weeks of her life.”

If this was a joke, I was waiting for the punchline. “Hurt my own cousin?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play innocent with me. It won’t work. You invited that Stark creature to speak at your bookstore, didn’t you? ’Nuf said.” With that, Ashley’s French-manicured fingers shoved the Journal into my hands, then she grabbed Kiki’s arm, pushed past us, and swept up the stairs.

Aunt Sadie, Fiona, and I stood in stunned silence for a moment.

“What just happened?” I asked as Sadie took the paper from my hands.

“Oh, dear,” she said, skimming the newsprint. “I understand now.”

“What?”

She held it up, her finger pointing to the big, bold letters of a society page headline:

Engagements Announced

EASTERBROOK-LANGDON

Donald Easterbrook, Jr. of New York and London to Katherine “Kiki” McClure Langdon of Greenwich. Newport wedding planned . . .

“Oh, hell.” For the life of me, I didn’t remember Kiki Langdon. I did vaguely recall pretty, little blonde “cousin Katherine” from McClure family functions long past. From Ashley’s perspective, however, the sin was understandable—and her outrage, for once, truly justified.

Bethany Banks’s murder had come and gone with the usual glaringly intense then fading press coverage—yet never once had the names of Bethany’s prominent friends been bandied about on a national scale.

With Angel Stark’s new book, all that had changed. Without knowing it, I’d rolled out the red carpet to a woman whose brand-new instant best-seller had dragged the name of my late husband’s cousin—and her new fiance—through mud higher than an L.L. Bean boot.

CHAPTER 11