So Pretty It Hurts

she let on. She wanted him back. And she brought me to Scott’s to be some kind of—what do you call it? Scapegoat?”

Gosh, the girl made an olive seem smart.

“Did Devon seem scared at all to you lately?”

“No. What would she be scared about?”

It was becoming clear that what had freaked her on the day she died—“Someone knows something”—might have surfaced this past weekend. Somehow I was going to have to figure out what it was.

“There’s something else I’m curious about, Tory. Have you ever heard of Lasix?”

She twisted one side of her mouth as if she were concentrating.

“Is that the surgery for your eyes?” she said. “Where you don’t have to wear glasses anymore?”

I couldn’t totally fault her for that one—they did sound the same.

“No, Lasix is a diuretic. Had you ever heard of Devon using it?”

She shook her head. “No, never heard of it,” she said.

I’d been watching her closely, and nothing in her face suggested that this information was making her uncomfortable. It could be because she truly had no idea what I was talking about—or because the dull, slack expression she usually wore was incapable of betraying what was really crossing her mind.

I decided to go down another road and see where that took me.

“How’ve you been doing in light of all this? It must be hard to have that kind of weekend and then go right back to work.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “I mean, what are you gonna do?”

“Speaking of work, I hear you may start using Cap—to help manage your career.”

“Who told you that?” she demanded. There was a flash of anger in her deep, hooded eyes, and I was glad she wasn’t holding a drink.

“I forget—someone this weekend,” I said. “But that’s good, right? He did so much for Devon’s career.”

She began rooting through her python bag—to avoid eye contact, I suspected.

“I’m not sure what I’m doing,” she muttered. “I wanna keep my options open for now.”

“What about Tommy? Is he still in the picture?”

She jerked her head up.

“That guy is such an asshole,” she declared. “I can’t believe I ever looked twice at him. He goes around as if he’s the rock king of the world, and his last album sold about seventy-five thousand copies. I dropped him off Sunday night—he’s got a suspended license, so I had to drive his Jag—and told him to not even think of calling me.”

“Do you believe Tommy and Devon were up to more than flirting this past weekend?”

“Who the fuck cares?” she said. She shook her head back and forth. “Maybe. You saw how they were acting, right? Plus,” she added after a second’s pause, “he disappeared later Saturday night— for about an hour.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck jump to attention.

“What time was that?”

“Around one. He’s such a turd.”

“And you think he went to Devon’s room?”

“When he came back, he said he’d been in the big barn the whole time—having a cigarette and a brandy. He said that he couldn’t sleep. But what the asshole didn’t know was that I went up there looking for him, and he wasn’t there. I was tempted to knock on Devon’s door, but I’m not going to stoop to that kind of thing. He comes back an hour later and tells me I must have showed up at the moment he went to the head.”

“Did you know that Devon was pregnant last winter?”

“Pregnant? By Tommy?” The idea seemed to freak her out.

“No, it was around this time last year—before she met him.”

“But where’s the baby?” she asked. Good question. Maybe I hadn’t given the girl enough credit.

“She apparently miscarried at around four or five months. You didn’t know about it?”

“I didn’t know her last winter. We got to be friends this past summer.”

But of course. Devon and Tory lived in that world of instant friendships that then ended up lasting about four seconds.

I shot another quick look at my watch. I needed to haul butt. I told Tory I had another appointment but might touch base with her later, which seemed to really thrill her. Then I asked for Tommy’s cell number.

“I’ve got a few questions for him, too,” I said, in case she thought I might be making a play for the guy.

“You know what would be funny,” she said, writing it down. “You should publish his number in your magazine—so he gets a billion calls.”

“I’ll run that by the editor. I have just one last question for you. Was Devon having any problems with her modeling agency?”

“We have different agencies, so I didn’t really know what went on at hers. But I’ll tell you one thing: she and Christian practically never talked last weekend. Every time he was on one side of the room, she went to the other.”

Not having known the players and their relationships, I hadn’t picked up on that, but as I flashed back through the weekend, I realized I’d never seen them interacting.

“Why invite him then?”

“I don’t think she did. Scott must have.” But Scott had told me Devon had dictated the guest list.

I said a quick good-bye and flew out of there. Knowing that finding a cab would be a bitch, I opted for the subway instead. As the train shot through the tunnel, with me squashed in a mound of parkas and wool coats, I tried to ignore the knot in my stomach and turned over what I’d learned from Tory. Tommy had left his room Saturday night and had probably popped into Devon’s. But that raised plenty of questions. Devon had seemed unsteady when she went back to her room after dinner, and in hindsight it was clear she was already in a precarious situation physically. And around one thirty she had called Laura, complaining of feeling ill. So it was hard to imagine her being up for any fireworks in the sack. Why had Tommy hung around, then? Had he tried to help her? And if so, why hadn’t he said anything about it? Perhaps he’d been more forthcoming with the police, but I doubted it. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who made nice with cops.

Up on the street, I yanked my BlackBerry from my purse and called Jessie. Please, please pick up, I begged, and sighed in relief when she did.

“Look, I’m apparently in some kind of trouble with Nash,” I told her. “Have you heard anything?”

“No, nothing,” she said, lowering her voice. “What kind of trouble could you possibly be in? Our Web site is getting a zillion hits thanks to your story. He should be giving you a fucking raise.”

“And you haven’t seen anything weird or tense going on there? I’m wondering if someone scooped me on some part of the Devon Barr story.”

“No, nothing weird . . . Oh, God, wait a minute. One of the lawyers was down here earlier—the scary one with the long chin who makes your bowels loosen the minute you see him. He was in Nash’s office with the door closed for about fifteen minutes. I figured some celebrity was threatening to sue our ass off.”

“When was this?”

“About an hour ago.”

“I’m almost there now, so I’ll see you in a few.”

I knew it might not be connected, but considering the lawyer had been in Nash’s office immediately before I’d received the call, there was a good chance they were related. Lawyers paying house calls to editorial floors often meant a threat of either libel or invasion of privacy. I racked my brain, trying to think of anything I’d included in Web site stories that might have set off a stink, but I couldn’t come up with a thing.

I spilled out of the elevator onto the floor just five minutes later. I dropped my coat and bag on my chair, accepted Jessie’s look of support with a grim smile, and headed for Nash’s office.

“Come in and close the door,” was all he said when I popped my head in.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I took a seat. He wore a stern, almost stricken expression I’d never witnessed on him before, even after the worst tussle with a Hollywood publicist. I did my best to keep my panic under