She wished she could believe that Kali had forgotten that she was out-of-place here among the well-dressed women who were sending their food back half-eaten, but she saw a small hand reach up every now and then to straighten a barrette. She saw the lively eyes dart from table to table, checking to see whether the other girls were eating their sandwiches with their fingers or their forks. She might even have compared the small diamond engagement ring on Faye’s left hand to the massive rocks on the other women’s hands and earlobes, but maybe Faye was the one chafing under the conspicuous weight of the other women’s jewelry. She wished she could tell whether they were judging her for her clothes or for how much she was eating.
Maybe these women who belonged here had already dismissed her as unworthy. Or maybe they hadn’t noticed her at all. Faye wasn’t sure which one was worse.
No, they were looking. She could see them now, mother and daughters, their appraising eyes raking over a woman in sensible sandals and a girl in a faded dress dotted with elephants. She hoped Kali hadn’t noticed, but a girl who cared enough about her appearance to sneak into the bathroom and decorate her hair was old enough to feel the pressure of social judgment.
The scones distracted them both from the scrutiny of their peers, and that was a good thing.
“Best biscuits I ever had, but they’re just biscuits with blueberries stirred in. Don’t know why they call ’em scones. Laneer grows blackberries. Reckon I could make these with blackberries instead of blueberries?”
Faye said she thought that would be delicious, but Kali was already musing that Laneer’s plums would make marmalade that was just as good as the orange marmalade ladled over her scone. And then another towering multi-tiered tray arrived, this time loaded with desserts, and Faye decided that she and Kali were going to rise the challenge of eating every last one of them, calories and all, and to hell with any judgment that might radiate from the socialites around her.
He was not surprised to see his quarry exiting those cage-like doors, side by side and right on schedule, because Chez Philippe didn’t serve afternoon tea forever. He had a gift for predicting the motions of people who didn’t know they were being watched and, sure enough, Faye and Kali turned to walk down a short passageway, just as he’d expected. It led to the exterior door he had known they would use.
He rose, put some cash on the table, and headed for another door nearby. From there, he could easily trail them from BB King Boulevard to their car. This was going to be easy.
He had spent the afternoon waiting for a sign. If Faye had ever once left Kali’s side—to go to the bathroom, perhaps, or to pay a bill while the girl watched the ducks—he would have snatched her then, knowing that he was meant to kill the woman and spare the child.
This hadn’t happened, so the converse must be true. He was meant to kill them both.
As Faye approached the door to BB King Boulevard, her step slowed.
“Kali, did you want to take a taste of what we just ate to your Uncle Laneer and Sylvia?”
“Don’t have anything to take them. You told me it wasn’t polite to put anything in my purse.”
“It’s not. But the hotel’s got a bakery in the lobby over there. I bet they sell the same stuff, plus a lot more.”
Kali turned on her heel and said, “Show me where.”
It was as if the woman and child had dropped down a rabbit hole, and he really didn’t think there were any rabbit holes in the Peabody’s grand lobby. They had been mere steps from the BB King door when he last laid eyes on them. By the time he exited his own door, they should have been right where he wanted them: close enough to tail but far enough away to be sure they wouldn’t see him. Soon enough, he would judge that the time was right. They would see him but it would be too late.
He risked stepping back into the lobby a single time, scanning the area around the fountain, in case the little girl had demanded to see the ducks one more time. Woman and child were not there.
When his prey were dead and buried, it would do him no good to be visibly obvious on the Peabody’s security cameras, prowling around the lobby mere moments after his victims were last seen. He couldn’t afford to keep looking for them, but they had to leave the hotel sometime. Until then, he needed to content himself with hovering on the sidewalk in an unobtrusive spot, waiting for them to emerge.
Having secured a big bag of goodies for Laneer and Sylvia, Faye looked at her watch. “We can’t go yet! You have to see this.”
The crowd around the fountain had grown too much to get near and Kali was grousing that she couldn’t see the ducks, but Faye said “Hang on,” and situated them in an area near the elevators where the crowd was thinner. Within seconds, a recorded Sousa march blared and Faye patted herself on the back for her good timing.
A red carpet stretched from the elevator’s gleaming door to the stone fountain, and it carved an opening in the crowd, because nobody dared to step on the carpet. As the music played, the five mallard ducks descended a set of carpeted stairs and sashayed down the carpet, flicking their tails and waddling with determination. Faye thought that Kali might actually die of joy as the ducks proceeded along their triumphal route.
Perhaps ducks can read human minds. Faye was telegraphing unfocused thoughts at the ducks that said mostly, “Make her happy,” and the green-headed drake seemed to have heard her. He stopped right in front
