ten to eleven. Didn’t Killegrew say they were going to cut
the meeting off at ten-thirty?”
“I think so,” Renie replied. “That’s about when we heard
the noises in the hall.”
“Dear heaven.” Judith rocked back and forth on the floor.
“We have to do
Renie gestured at the phone. “Should we at least try to call
for help?”
Judith hesitated. “Yes. We have to.”
“I’ll do it.” On wobbly legs, Renie went to the phone.
Judith averted her eyes from Leon’s pathetic body. If the
little man had seemed wizened in life, he now appeared utterly wraithlike in death. But, Judith thought, that’s what
he’d become—a wraith. She felt an unaccustomed bout of
hysteria surging up inside.
“Damn!” Renie slammed the phone back in place. “I can’t
get a dial tone! The lines must be down.”
The announcement snapped Judith out of her emotional
slide. She started to get up, still trying not to look at Leon.
“We can’t do anything about that,” she said, using the
counter’s edge to pull herself to a standing position. “How
do we deliver the bad news?”
Renie twisted her hands together. “Nadia, I suppose. We
start with her. Or should it be Margo? She’s p.r.”
“Stop sounding like a corporate clone,” Judith said, more
severely than she intended. “Wouldn’t it be better to go to
Frank Killegrew?”
Renie considered. “Maybe. Yes, you’re right. Let’s do it.”
But the cousins had no idea which room belonged to Killegrew. Bewildered, they stood in the dimly lit second- floor
corridor and scanned the various doors.
“To hell with it,” Renie finally said, and knocked at the
one in front of her. There was no response; she knocked
again.
“Maybe,” Judith whispered, “that was Leon Mooney’s
room.”
Renie grimaced. “You might be right.” She moved on to
the next door on the right.
Only a single knock was required before the cousins heard
noises inside. Then Andrea Piccoloni-Roth, attired in a lavender satin robe, opened the door. Seeing the cousins, she
blinked twice and gave a little start.
“What is it?” she asked in a low voice.
Renie swallowed hard. “It’s Leon Mooney. I’m afraid—I’m
really sorry, Andrea—but he’s dead.”
In a flurry of lavender satin, Andrea Piccoloni-Roth collapsed onto the brightly colored Navajo rug.
“It would have been nice,” Renie said as Judith tried to
rouse Andrea, “if they’d included the company medical chief
on this trek. Not to mention their head of security.”
Judith didn’t respond. Her concern was for Andrea, who
