So Pretty It Hurts

Chapter 13

It actually felt good to be outside because the cold air was like a compress against my red-hot cheeks. As I hurried toward the subway, Beau returned my call. I blurted out the story to him.

“Bailey, this is all going to work out,” he said reassuringly. “They can’t possibly end up buying this story.”

“But right now it’s my word against Devon’s mother’s, and they seem to have no confidence in my word.”

“Can you think of anything you said to this woman that she might have misconstrued?”

“But that’s the point, I never spoke to her. She’s making the whole thing up.”

“Look, I want to see you as soon as possible, but I’ve got six people showing up at my studio any minute. What if we meet at my place at about ten?”

“That would be great. I guess I’ll just go home first and try not to throw myself off my terrace.”

“I’ve got an idea,” he said after a pause. “Do you have my key with you? You can go straight to my place. There’s food in the fridge, and you can make yourself dinner.”

“Uhh, sure. I’d love that. Thanks.”

“You know where the wine is. Just open a bottle. I’ll call you right before I leave.”

For some reason just talking to Beau had eased my misery a little. Plus, I felt a quick giddy rush from his suggestion that I let myself into his place. A few weeks ago we had agreed to exchange keys to each other’s apartments just in case one of us arrived before the other, but as of yet there had never been a time when it was necessary. Encouraging me to go to his pad alone tonight seemed to nudge our relationship forward a little.

As I hurried to the subway, I called Jessie and filled her in on what I hadn’t been able to share in the office.

“I can’t effing believe this,” she whispered. “What are you gonna do?”

“Try to get to the bottom of it. I don’t want to put you in the middle or jeopardize your situation, but will you keep me posted if you hear anything?”

“Of course.”

“And use your cell to call me, not your office line. You don’t want them to know you’ve been talking to me.”

Twenty-five minutes later, I was turning the key in the lock on Beau’s front door. It felt positively weird to be entering his place by myself. As I opened the door, I caught traces of the exotic, musky fragrance Beau wore and the lingering scent of wood smoke from the fire the night before. I flipped on a light, pulled off my coat and boots, and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to chase away the feeling of doom.

In the kitchen I rummaged through the fridge and turned up a few ingredients for a salad. I threw them into a bowl, made a vinaigrette dressing, and then opened a bottle of wine. It was simple fare, but I didn’t need to think too hard. I brought my plate and wineglass into the living room, set them on the coffee table, and after grabbing my composition notebook and a pencil, plopped onto the floor with my legs spread along the length of the table.

My mind had been racing since I left Nash’s office, trying to grasp what was going on, but my thoughts had all been a terrible jumble. Now, in the warm solitude of Beau’s tenth-floor apartment, with the city sounds so muffled I could hardly hear them, I finally had the chance to try to sort out the mess.

From my vantage point, there were a couple of reasons that Sherrie Barr might tell people I’d been trying to extort money from her. One, she was hoping she’d pocket some dough from it. Perhaps in a drunken stupor she’d convinced herself that if she claimed someone on the Buzz staff was harassing her, management would turn over cash to shut her up. But that didn’t explain how she had my phone number.

I decided the more likely scenario was that someone had convinced Sherrie to do it in order to create trouble for me. It would have to be someone who had sway over Sherrie and/or was offering her big bucks to do it.

If so, why? Because I was digging deeper into Devon’s death and looking aggressively for answers?

I set down my fork and reached for my pencil to make a few notes. Just then Beau’s landline rang from his office, making me jump. I wondered if I ought to pick up in case it was Beau, but I realized that he would have called my cell phone. After four rings the machine picked up, and seconds later, I heard a deep, slightly imperious- sounding voice that I recognized instantly as Beau’s mother. I’d met her only once, at lunch, but it was a voice you couldn’t forget.

“Sweetheart, give me a call later, will you? I’m trying to nail down our Christmas plans. I told your brother and sister we’d discussed the Caribbean, and they’re both game. Your father doesn’t care where we go, as long as it’s warm. But do let me know for sure. It’s going to be hard to find a flight as it is.”

Funny, my name hadn’t been raised at all. If Beau’s family hightailed it to some posh Caribbean resort for the holidays, would I be asked to join them? Highly doubtful, it seemed. I should have known. Beau’s mother had been perfectly pleasant to me over lunch, but hardly embracing. I had the feeling she didn’t like the idea of Beau with any girl, but something about me particularly set her off. I figured she considered that my job reporting celebrity crime was just a few notches above doing lap dances at Scores.

What would I do for the holidays if Beau took off for a hot spot like St. Kitts or Jamaica? My mother had called two weeks ago and announced that she’d been invited to spend Christmas week in Mexico—in San Miguel de Allende—with a retired professor she’d once taught with. Figuring I might want to be with Beau, she’d asked if I’d mind. I’d given her my blessing, assuming I would be hanging with my new boyfriend.

I took a swig of wine and returned my gaze to my notebook, trying to concentrate on Sherrie Barr. Damn, I thought. Why did I have to overhear that call?

Two minutes later the phone rang again. Great, I thought. Maybe it was his mother again, calling back to remind him to take his Flintstone vitamins or floss his teeth. But it was a different female voice: flirty and fun—and with a British accent.

“Hello, Beau, it’s Abigail,” she said. “I’ve been back from Turkey for about a month, and it’s taken me this long to clean the grime from under my nails. My thesis is done, and I’m coming to New York for some holiday shopping. I’d love to see you. Can you give me a call?”

My heart was in my throat as she rattled off a UK number.

“Oh, Andre sends his best, by the way,” she added. “I bumped into him in London recently. You remember him, right? He was the German student who stayed in the room next to ours.”

Room next to ours? If my legs had felt liquidy during my phone call from Nash, my entire body now seemed like a big floppy cloth doll. I flung my head back onto the rug and just lay there, unable to even move. In fact, I was barely able to breathe.

I could not freakin’ believe it. When Beau had headed for Turkey, I’d imagined the worse—namely a gorgeous archaeology student, brown as a nut from the sun, totally falling for him. But later, after we reconnected, he shared stories about Aphrodisius, and it had seemed as if the experience there had been almost monastic. Far more dust than lust—and all supervised by an elderly German. He’d even talked about lying in bed a few nights wondering what in hell he was going to do about us. I guess he’d forgotten to point out that while his brain tossed around thoughts of me, there was a chick named Abigail lying butt naked in the crook of his arm.

Summoning every ounce of energy I could find, I propelled myself onto my feet. I carried the dishes into the kitchen, resisting the urge to hurl them at the wall. After pulling on my coat and boots, I departed, slamming the door so hard that one of the pictures hanging in the corridor bounced a couple of times.

As I hunted down a cab, I called my next-door neighbor Landon, and to my relief he was home.

“I’m in one of the worst jams of my life,” I said. “Please tell me you don’t have an apartment full of dinner guests.”

“I have a miserable cold, but I’d love to be of assistance. Come now. Just wear a mask.”

I stopped at my apartment first, dropped off my stuff, and grabbed a bottle of brandy from the cabinet where