me over to brunch or something.” She turned to look at me with a question in her eyes.
I jiggled my arms as I put them up in capitulation. “I promise, when we get back, we’re on for French toast.” I made a point of saying
“Pink, you shouldn’t have mentioned the French toast. It made me think of food and that I’m hungry.” She rummaged in her messenger bag and came up with an open bag of almonds that seemed to have a higher ratio of lint. I was touched when she offered it to me first. We huddled together and tried to share our body heat as we blew white bits off the stale nuts.
It seemed to get darker and colder, and every breeze that rustled the trees made us shiver more. I thought I heard something in the distance, but I was afraid it was just my imagination. Then Adele heard it, too. As it got louder, there was no mistaking the thwack of a helicopter. It was so cold now it burned, but with the hope of being rescued, my heart felt lighter.
It was too soon to celebrate. The helicopter began making a sweep and shone its powerful light down, but it was nowhere near us. I jumped up and down and waved my arms as if it would help, but the helicopter didn’t alter its course.
“We have to do something to get their attention. I don’t suppose you have any reflective tape in your bag or a flashlight.”
Adele rummaged around and came out with the tiny flashlight that projected a heart and the word
“People always make fires to get attention,” Adele offered.
I was going to mention the fact that any wood on the ground was wet and wouldn’t the snow just put a fire out anyway, when I had an idea.
The saucer sled was sitting where we’d left it. “We could make a fire in this.” The helicopter seemed even farther away now.
“Give me your bag,” I demanded. Adele held back and said something about me being jealous because I didn’t have mine.
“Are you nuts? We could die here and you think I want your bag because I don’t have mine?”
“I’m sorry, Pink. Me saying that was just a symptom of hypothermia. It’s supposed to make you irrational.” I rolled my eyes to myself and thought maybe Adele was always suffering from hypothermia.
She handed over her bag and I started to take out all the receipts and scraps of paper. I piled them in the sled. I went through her crochet stuff and took out the wooden hooks.
“You can’t take those,” Adele protested. “They’re handmade and one of a kind.”
“You think your skeleton is going to be crocheting with them?” I said, taking them from the bag. I found a couple of skeins of cotton yarn and the pad of Post-it notes she used to keep track of her work.
Adele started to say she needed the yarn to show Barbara how to crochet, but even she realized she was being ridiculous and stopped herself midsentence.
“Now we just need to light it,” I said.
“Isn’t there something about rubbing two rocks together,” she offered.
“Give me that little flashlight you have. Maybe I can use it to find some rocks, though I’m not sure just any rocks will do.” She took out the love light. Seeing a heart with the word
“Give it to me,” I said. For the first time, I noticed the other end. “Adele this is a lighter.”
“Really?” she said, completely surprised. I flicked it, and we both jumped up and down before I touched the flame to the pile of stuff. The paper flared and then the cotton yarn and finally the wooden crochet hooks caught. Then we hugged each other and crossed our fingers the helicopter would see the fire.
I was afraid to look. This was our only chance. If the fire went out, we’d have nothing else to burn. Was it my imagination or was the thwack getting louder? Then I was sure. Adele and I looked up and were bathed in the spotlight. We started jumping up and down again to make sure they saw us. It circled and lowered and set up a huge wind. Finally it hovered just above the ground. I saw someone in a bright-colored helmet leaning out. I didn’t stop to think about being scared, but just grabbed Adele’s hand and we ran toward it.
I felt a pair of arms pull me inside. Adele came in after, and we both fell into seats. A voice barked for us to buckle in and the helicopter took off.
You could say we’d been saved by a hook.
They dropped us off on the desert floor. Several police cars and an ambulance were waiting. They wanted to take us to the hospital, but I insisted we were fine and had to get to the benefit. I told the cops about D. J. abandoning us and the doll with the media card in her underpants that I was sure had some crucial evidence in a murder. I was pretty sure I convinced them we weren’t delirious from the cold. Reluctantly, two of the officers agreed to give us a lift.
The real A-list benefit was taking place right next to the tent where we’d been in the first place. There was no problem getting past security since Adele and I had two cops with us.
We might have looked a little worse for wear, and the shiny Mylar blankets we were wrapped in might have given a slight impression that we were aliens. I could only imagine what my hair looked like from seeing Adele’s before she put her big hat back on.
There was some kind of toast going on, but it stopped when we came in. Along with our escorts, we walked up to the table where D. J. was sitting. For a split second, he looked shocked to see us, then he recovered. He got up and ran toward us.
“There you are,” he said in an angry tone. He told everyone, but mostly the cops, that we’d wanted to see the aerial tramway and he’d gone with us, but we’d rushed off and left him. He’d finally found his way back to the tram and thought we’d gone down before him. Luckily for him, he had a compass on his watch and a windbreaker in his fanny pack. He walked back to his seat. “Here’s you stuff,” he said, pushing my tote bag on me. I immediately took the doll out and checked its underpants. No surprise, the media card was gone.
CHAPTER 36
“PINK, IF ONLY I’D HAD THOSE HOOKS,” ADELE SAID. We had finally made it to our room. Both of us had had a hot shower and we were dressed in hotel robes. We’d splurged and ordered room service.
“You didn’t really think Barbara was going to invite us to stay at the banquet and let you give her a crochet lesson?” I said. Once the doll had come out, everything got crazy. Becca saw it first and left her chair to rush up to us. What were we doing with Robyn’s doll? she had demanded. Derek joined his wife and I didn’t have a chance to answer before D. J. did it for me. I, he explained, was friends with the woman who everybody thought was responsible for Robyn’s death and I was trying to help her beat the wrap.
“She came here because she thinks you people killed your own daughter and son,” he said to the celebrity pair. Becca started to cry, Derek looked angry, and everyone else seemed confused.
Barbara Olive Overton stepped in and strongly suggested we leave.
Needless to say, nobody wanted to hear our side of the aerial tramway story. Who would believe that the nicely dressed author would try to kill two women wearing shiny blankets. Even the cops who’d come in with us gave us dirty looks. We’d made the top celebrity couple cry.
What could we do but take our silver blanket capes and go. Talk about personas non grata.
At least, now we were warm, dry and working on dessert. “Pink, you might as well just give up,” Adele said as she picked off one of the strawberries on her cheesecake. “You might be sure that D. J. killed Robyn and her brother, but where’s the proof? Where’s even the motive?”
“On that media card,” I said with a sigh. “And he probably has cut it up in little pieces and scattered them in the desert by now.”
“Now that we’ve been saved,” Adele said, “are you still going to invite me over?” She reminded me that just as she’d offered, she had added the crochet trim to my Chanel-style jacket. She had me there. To my surprise, the embellishment she’d added was actually tasteful, and instead of stuffing it in the back of the closet with clothes I never wore, I’d put it in the front.
As soon as I said yes, she tried to pin me down to a date. I said I’d have to check my calendar. “Pink, if you knew anything about your BlackBerry, you’d realize you could keep your calendar on there.”
