So Pretty It Hurts

my left butt cheek but fortunatly that was the only damage. I thought of how reassuring it would be to talk to Beau, but even if things were fine between us, I would have resisted the urge to wake him so late.

When I finally slipped into bed, I felt a little bit better. I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep anyway, so I tried to go back over everything in my mind. I was positive that the driver who picked me up was the same one I’d seen earlier in front of the Living Room. Obviously he’d been trolling for someone to rob or rape. I decided to let the bar know tomorrow so the management could keep an eye out for the guy.

I still had no sense of where he had been taking me or why. One thing seemed odd. If he were going to rob me or rape me, why not just pull over on one of those deserted streets when we first came off the bridge into Brooklyn? Maybe he had wanted to find an even more secluded spot. I was also still baffled by the words he’d hurled at me: Stop. Be a body. He’d had a faint accent, one that I couldn’t place, but I was pretty sure I’d heard him right. Had it been some kind of a sexual threat? I had no clue.

I eventually fell asleep around four and woke at eight the next morning. I felt like shit, but I had my breakfast meeting with Scott and I had no intention of taking a pass on it. I did my best to look presentable—Scott, after all, was a player, and I sensed I’d extract more if I catered to that part of him. I wore my black suede boots, a tight black pencil skirt, and a plum-colored silk blouse. But the circles under my eyes had darkened badly. By the time I was done with my makeup, you could have taken an elevation level on the amount of concealer I’d been forced to apply.

I was the first to arrive at the cafe-style restaurant, and I grabbed a private table at the back of the room. I asked for coffee but then instantly changed my order to tea. I still felt completely on edge from the night before, and I was afraid anything with too much caffeine might make me jump out of my skin.

Scott was nearly twenty minutes late—and I almost didn’t recognize him. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a long black cashmere coat. Not the kind of look that went with skeet shooting.

He slid into the chair, shook off his coat, and with a flick of his chin, summoned the waitress to our table pronto. He smelled of expensive, manly cologne.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”

“Uh, I guess I’ll try the asparagus and goat cheese omelet,” I said.

And then I felt dumb because all he ordered was coffee, black.

“How are you doing anyway?” I asked once the waitress was gone. There was something supertense going on in his jawline that made even his face look different today. It was tough to accept that this was the same Scott who had bounded down the stairs to greet Jessie and me with a big, boyish grin on his face.

“Well,” he said, cocking his head to the left, “my hot new recording artist died at my house, and for the next two days most of the world assumed I’d loaded her up with cocaine—but other than that I’m just fine.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to meet in the middle of all this,” I said.

“I’m a little surprised you could make the time,” he said. There was a tiny edge to his voice as he spoke. “I figured things must be crazy for you at work. Though I’m a little confused. I turned on the Today show yesterday morning, and there’s some guy on there from Buzz talking about Devon Barr as if the story was his exclusive. Don’t tell me your boss doesn’t think you’re mediagenic enough to chat with Matt Lauer.”

Scott never took his nearly black eyes off me as he said it, and I could feel a rush of blood headed for my cheeks, like a mob of paparazzi that has just spotted Lady Gaga coming out of a building wearing only a couple of Band-Aids. He’d either somehow heard that I was in the doghouse or he just had brilliant intuition.

“I do media appearances occasionally,” I said, fumbling a little as I spoke. “But if I’m still in the middle of a story, I might hand the press part off to somebody else.” Lame, I knew, but it would put me at a disadvantage to admit the truth to Scott Cohen.

“Oh, is that it?” he said, disbelievingly. “Well, who am I to know how your wonderful brand of journalism works?”

So that might explain why he was goading me. He obviously felt burned from all the coverage over the past few days, and saw me as entrenched in the enemy camp.

“What I’d really like to concentrate on for the moment is Devon and this past weekend,” I said, rushing off the subject. “I have a few big concerns.”

“As long as we’re still off the record, I’m willing to talk with you,” Scott said. “Because I’ve got a vested interest in knowing as much as I can. That incident with the doors still bugs the hell out of me. Why would someone pull a fucking stunt like that?”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to discuss. Have you any idea yet who might have done it?”

“The cops checked for fingerprints on the branding iron and apparently didn’t find any. Of course, what good would it do? They don’t have any of the houseguests’ prints to compare anything to.”

“And you didn’t turn up any clues yourself?”

“Just a small one courtesy of Cap on Sunday. His bedroom was at the base of the stairs in the guest barn, and not long after the time you took your spill, he woke to the sound of someone bounding up the stairs.”

That seemed to be another clue pointing to Jane. Because she was the only one on the top floor besides me, Jessie, and Devon—and Devon sure as hell hadn’t done it. Scott eyed me questioningly, as if he suspected I knew something. But I wasn’t going to out Jane to him.

“Let me think about that,” I told him. “Anything else that emerged later? Anything that Ralph or Sandy might have noticed?”

“About the night raider?”

“Or about Devon. Her death. Things leading up to it.”

“What do you mean? What are you suggesting, exactly?”

“Frankly, I’ve been wondering if Devon might have been murdered. Like I mentioned to you on Sunday, she told me she was afraid that someone knew something. And then suddenly she was dead.”

He shook his head, borderline exasperated. “I know you were hot on some theory like that last weekend, and I admit I had moments of concern—the stuff pinched from her bathroom, the missing keys. But the police were very clear. She died due to her eating disorder.”

“But what if someone pushed it along a little? She kept complaining that the bottled water tasted funny?”

Scott snorted. “Wait, are you suggesting someone doctored the water? Yeah, Devon complained about the water, but she also said the sheets were itchy and the sink in the bathroom didn’t drain fast enough. And besides, who would want her dead? She was making a load of money for most of us.”

“Do you think there’s any chance Cap and Devon were having an affair?” I asked.

“No way,” he said emphatically. “Skinny rocker was more her type. Though I sure as hell hope she appreciated all Cap had done for her. When he first took her on, I bet he thought her career would evolve into something beyond modeling—movies, or even reality TV, a la Heidi Klum. From what I hear, though, she was a total dud in front of a video camera. But then he found out she could sing, and he really pushed her. I believe her career as a performer could have been big. I’m not talking Rihanna or Katy Perry big, but still, a major success.”

“You said you hope she appreciated Cap. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Devon was fickle. She changed her mind easily. I don’t think there was any immediate danger of her dumping Cap, but I could see he was very careful with her—bending over backwards to please her. When she said itchy sheets, he made damn sure they got changed.”

“And what about her relationship with Christian? Could that have been strained?”

“Strained? I hardly think so. She asked me to include him.”

“But Tory told me Devon gave him the cold shoulder all weekend.”

“Maybe she was—”

He’d been gesturing as he spoke, and when he paused, his hand did too, midair above his coffee cup.

“What?” I prodded.

He made a noise, halfway between a laugh and a snort.

“There may have been something up, now that I think about it,” he said. “I’d arranged the place cards on the table for dinner and Sandy told me that at around seven o’clock, Devon came in and switched a few of the cards around. I figured it was so she could sit next to Tommy and fondle his groin with her foot. But originally she’d been seated next to Christian. Maybe the real story was that she didn’t want to sit next to him.”