So Pretty It Hurts

made one of them snap. I’m gonna grab the two candlesticks on the dining table—can you start rooting around in the drawers and see if you can find one of those lighters Sandy was using last night?”

My eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and I could make out Jessie moving clumsily toward the island. I reached the table, snagged the two taper candles in antler holders, and then met Jessie by the island. She’d found the lighter, and we lit the two candles. With the tapers partially illuminating the room, we then located two chubby candles in hurricane lamps on a side table and lit those. I carried the antler holders downstairs.

“I couldn’t reach Scott,” Christian said, handing me back my phone.

“He should be here shortly,” I said. “Here.” I passed him a candle.

“This ought to be fun,” he said. “A night in a house with no lights and a dead body.”

I was tempted to add, Oh, and let’s not forget that the master key to all the bedrooms is missing.

There was an explosion of voices suddenly. The power outage had clearly sent people scrambling in this direction, hoping to find candles or flashlights. I stepped into the foyer to see Cap, Whitney, Richard, and Jane emerge from the door to the passageway. They were followed thirty seconds later by Tory and Tommy, looking disheveled. It was hard to tell if they’d been in the middle of makeup sex or a slap fest. Everyone demanded to know what was going on. Before I had a chance to even offer an opinion, the front door opened and Ralph and Scott burst into the foyer, toting large flashlights and stomping hard to knock the icy snow off their boots.

“Tell me it’s just a fuse,” Cap said.

“Unfortunately not,” Ralph said hoarsely. “The ice seems to have knocked out a power line. But we’ve got plenty of flashlights.”

“What about heat?” Whitney asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Scott said. “But the great room and guest bedrooms all have gas wood-burning stoves. Ralph will light them.”

“But how are we going to get out of here?” Tory wailed. “I’ve got a job tomorrow, and it pays four thousand dollars. They’re going to kill me if I don’t show.”

“We’re all in the same boat, Tory, so why don’t you just shut the hell up,” Tommy snapped. Ignoring them, Scott directed the beam of his flashlight toward the candle I was holding. “There are more of those upstairs. Why don’t we go up there?”

We all traipsed upstairs and huddled together in the center of the room. Using his torch to guide him, Scott opened a cabinet filled with votive lights, tapers, and pillar candles. By the time we were done lighting them all, the great room looked like something out of medieval times.

“Do you know what I think?” Scott asked the group. “I think we could all use a drink.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Richard added.

“Why am I not surprised?” Whitney said, all the southern charm missing from her tone.

“Whitney, please,” Cap pleaded. For the first time I realized just how truly frayed people’s nerves were.

“What?” she said mockingly, her nearly transparent blue eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “Am I just supposed to sit around and act all sweet when he gets liquored up, slurs his words, and won’t take his eyes off my breasts?”

“But Whitney, I assumed you liked it,” Richard said. “Otherwise why make such a point of showing them off?”

“Shut your stupid mouth,” Cap said, taking a step toward Richard with muscles tightened.

“You can stare at my tits if you want,” Jane said. “I won’t mind—and they’re even real.”

“Everyone, please cool it,” Scott declared firmly. “The road isn’t passable unless you’ve got a four-wheel drive, and the weather isn’t fit to drive in anyway. That means we’ve got to spend the night here together whether we like it or not.”

That was funny—whether we like it or not. I wondered who he thought belonged in the former group.

“Besides,” he added, “I’m sure Devon wouldn’t want us at each other’s throats. Let’s all be civil, okay?”

His suggestion lacked passion, but it did the trick at least. Cap’s muscles relaxed and Richard slunk off into the shadows. Scott asked who would like wine, and after several people raised their hands in the dim light, he opened two bottles and began pouring glasses. We accepted our drinks and then gathered in various clusters on the couches and armchairs. No one said much of anything, though we had to listen to Tory wail on her cell phone to someone at her agency about the need to cancel her shoot tomorrow. I emailed Nash with an update.

At one point Jessie wandered over to the island, and I followed a minute later.

“Remember I said I felt like I was in a horror movie?” she said. “Well, I was kidding then. But I’m not now. I’m starting to feel spooked. What if Devon’s death wasn’t natural? What if someone’s cut the power? What if we’re all in danger?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” I told her. “I have no idea how Devon died, but I do know that we had exactly the kind of storm that knocks down power lines. I really don’t think there’s anything fishy going on with the lights.”

I was doing my best to sound calm—and I really didn’t think the power outage was intentional—but the situation was definitely creepy. Tomorrow morning couldn’t come soon enough.

The somber mood of the room lifted a tiny bit when Sandy and Laura arrived and laid out the remains from the antipasto lunch we’d had the day before. Sandy apologized for the leftovers (without actually sounding sorry), and explained that she hadn’t expected to serve dinner to everyone.

People pulled closer around the coffee table and began to make idle small talk—everyone except Tory. She had taken her plate over to the dining table and sat sulking in the dark shadows at the far end of the room. At the risk of having a drink tossed in my face for supposedly flirting with her man on the deck earlier, I headed over there and pulled out a chair next to her.

“I hope you don’t think I was actually making a play for Tommy earlier,” I said quietly. “That’s not my style.”

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” she said. “I just want to get out of here. This is like some freaking catalogue shoot that never, ever ends.”

“This can’t have been an easy weekend for you. That whole thing Devon pulled Saturday night—her coming on to Tommy in front of everyone.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “It wasn’t nice, but I don’t want to say anything bad about her. I hear it’s bad luck to say something nasty about a dead person.”

Gosh, where did this girl get her information?

“I hear Devon actually introduced you to Tommy,” I said.

“Yup.”

“That’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? A lot of girls wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing their ex-boyfriend with a friend.”

“She said she didn’t care. I mean, she was kind of upset when they broke up, but she said she got over it.”

“What kind of time was she having this weekend? Whenever I saw her, she seemed to be a bit on edge.”

“I dunno. I didn’t actually talk to her all that much. Plus, it was hard sometimes to know what she was really thinking. She liked to keep things to herself.”

“Did you notice how thin she was—and how little she ate?”

“That’s our job—to be thin.”

“But there’s thin and there’s thin. Do you think she was suffering from an eating disorder?”

Tory shook her head back and forth, lifting the shiny black layers of her hair.

“People always say stuff like that about models,” she said after a moment. “I think most of the time they’re just jealous.”

“Did you happen to see a bottle of ipecac syrup in her bathroom? That’s something people use to induce vomiting.”

“I never went in Devon’s room the entire weekend. I was too busy in mine—if you know what I mean.”

She stood up, leaving her plate on the table, clearly done with the conversation.