So Pretty It Hurts

the edges, slicked back on both sides, and he smelled of talc. On the table in front of him was a large glass of tomato juice with a celery stalk sticking out of the top. Still into the Bloodies, it appeared.

“You certainly don’t disappoint, Ms. Weggins,” he announced cockily when he saw me.

“In what regard?” I asked, pouring a cup of coffee.

“Your story is already up on the Buzz Web site. You’ve beaten everyone to the punch.”

“Cap and Scott knew it was being filed. I was straight with them.”

“I’m sure you were. It’s amazing, isn’t it, though? You so often seem to be around when a dead body turns up.”

“I guess I’m just a lucky girl,” I said.

“Whatever the reason, I’d be a little careful if I were you.”

“And why is that?” I asked, taking a seat in an armchair across from him. His provocative banter on the walk yesterday had been fun, but today it seemed slicked with meanness. I wondered if it reflected the number of Bloody Marys he’d consumed so far today.

“The police are always suspicious of too many coincidences,” he said. “Coincidences, you see, have a nasty habit of calling attention to something.”

“Ahh, good point,” I said. “Do you think I might be a psychopathic killer and not even know it?”

“Or just a ruthless opportunist,” he said, faking a smile.

I didn’t like his tone one bit, but I wasn’t going to get all pissy about it. I needed to be on his good side so he’d talk to me.

“Why not file a story yourself? Don’t you have a blog on the Huffington Post or someplace like that?”

“I’ve decided to go the more traditional route on this one. I’ll probably do a more in-depth story for Vanity Fair.”

“I look forward to reading it. How was your interview with the police, by the way?”

“Mercifully brief,” he said. “There was really nothing for me to contribute. I did get the feeling, though, that the police are considering foul play. You saw the body—what do you think?”

“There was no sign of that, from what I could see. Off the record, I’m thinking that her death might be connected to an eating disorder. She wouldn’t be the first model who died from one.”

He stared at me for a moment, not saying anything.

“Well, let’s face it,” he said finally. “The only thing she ever did with her food was rearrange it on her plate. It was like watching someone play three-card monte. One minute the green beans are here, and the next minute they’re over there.”

So Richard had observed that, too. “It might have caught up with her this weekend,” I said.

“Well, she never seemed ill, if that’s what you mean. Bored, yes—unless Tommy was around to lock eyes with—and a tad tipsy last night.”

That was possibly the best example in history of the pot calling the kettle black.

“Do you think there was anything going on between Devon and him?” I asked. “Or was it just for show?” I suddenly remembered something Richard had said at breakfast the day before. “I mean, you mentioned yesterday that you’d heard people scurrying around in the hallway during the night. Maybe they reconnected.”

“Haven’t a clue, since I never opened my door. She did seem to come and go a lot, always disappearing. She may have just been sneaking off for a ciggie all those times. You know how models love to smoke.”

“Do they? I wouldn’t know.”

He shrugged his shoulders irritatedly, as if my cluelessness annoyed him. “You just have to look at the paparazzi shots. Kate Moss is always waving a cigarette.”

He checked his watch suddenly, an obvious gesture of wanting to be done with our conversation. He stuck his reading glasses in the V of his sweater, flipped over the cover of his iPad, and rose to leave. Had I done something to make him so eager to exit?

“You’ll excuse me, won’t you, Bailey? I’ve got to go cancel my dinner plans for tonight.”

“Do you have an update on the road?”

“Our lovely hostess Sandy informs me that a plow is headed this way. But I’d been planning to be back in the city by five, and there’s no way that’s going to happen.”

“One question before you go. Did you, by any chance, call extension seven last night? Just before two thirty?” I was tipping my hand, but I needed to know if he was the caller.

He paused midmovement. By the expression in his red-rimmed eyes, I could tell that the question greatly intrigued him.

“Ahhh, is this an important clue you’re giving me a hint to?”

“Not really a clue of any kind. As you may have heard, Devon called that girl Laura for water during the night. About an hour and a half later the phone rang again, but no one was there. Devon was dead by then.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

What next, I wondered? I needed more answers, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. People were obviously in their rooms, catching up on sleep or praying for the plow to arrive.

When I reached the foyer downstairs, planning to return to my room yet again, I noticed that several rain ponchos had been hung on a row of pegs on the wall. Having viewed the weather only from windows over the past twelve hours, I decided to grab a poncho and head out to the deck.

It looked surreal outside, like a scene from a movie about a planet in a distant galaxy. Fog rose from the ground in patches all through the woods, as if there were smoldering brush fires. It had stopped raining, and the temperature seemed to have dropped again.

I took three steps out onto the deck and jerked in surprise when I spotted Tommy in the far right corner, the same spot where Cap and Devon had stood late Friday night. He was jacketless, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and a cell phone to his ear. It couldn’t have been a private call because he didn’t bother to lower his voice when he spotted me.

“Fuck it, man,” I heard him say. “I’m not going to do that. So just fuck it.”

The person on the other end must have offered a plea on his or her behalf, because Tommy listened for a bit, his face pinched.

“Like I said, fuck it,” he said finally. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He flicked the cigarette over the rail of the deck and dropped the phone into the pocket of the oversize white shirt he wore above jeans so tight the only thing left to the imagination was genital skin tone.

“Hi,” I said, walking toward him. “You want a poncho? There’s a bunch of them inside.”

“Why would I want a poncho? It stopped raining.”

Okaaay.

“How you doing?” I said, trying again. “This must be pretty upsetting.”

“Ya think?”

I wasn’t sure what to try next. He seemed to be making it clear he didn’t want to talk to me. But then he leaned back against the wet wooden rail of the deck and looked at me intently, as if we were two people who had things to say to each other.

“Devon was my lady for six freakin’ months, you know,” he said. “We weren’t an item anymore, but we were—I don’t know, connected still on some cosmic level.”

“Why did you break up?”

He shrugged. “I got a little distracted on my summer tour, if you know what I mean. That didn’t sit well with her at all. I couldn’t stand the nagging, so I took a powder.”

“And now you’re with Tory?”

“Yeah. For now. My IQ is shrinking just being with that bitch.”

“Any guesses about how Devon died?”

“Nope. She was as fit as a horse as far as I knew.”

That was a stretch, considering she had probably weighed about ninety-five pounds sopping wet.

“I mean, she smoked, she drank,” he added, “but she didn’t do hard drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Was she anorexic or bulimic?”