“If I do my job well,” she said, “you should be able to move restlessly up there, and it would just seem like the water moving around you. It’s one of the reasons why I’ll paint you where you are, so I can be certain that, if you can’t hold the pose very still for very long, it won’t look like anything other than the rippling water.”
“That sounds absolutely fabulous,” she said. “Will you have cameras and photos? Because I really want some for my own portfolio.”
“That won’t be an issue,” Cayce said. “So, go get ready, and I’ll meet you in that far corner of the room.”
“She’s got an innocence to her,” Frankie said, as she darted away.
“She absolutely does. There’s also a certain luminescence to her skin, and I’m looking forward to painting her.” Not to mention that her open and accessible energy would be a joy to work with.
“And she was just one of the random ones?”
“We get hundreds of portfolio files sent to us,” she said. “She’s one of the four I initially picked.”
“You know something? Now I know why.”
She laughed. “I do know what I like. It’s just not always that easy to find it.” She looked over at him. “Now, what about you? Have you got work to do?”
“I do,” he said. “I’m working on the lighting, and I always want to make sure the lights are perfect, but I can’t finalize things until the models are mostly done.”
“Good thing you’ve got the lead on that,” she said. “My problem is that I know when the lighting is not right, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
He laughed. “That’s why we work well together. You go do your new model, and I’ll tinker with the lighting. I’m fascinated by what you said about the rippling water.”
“I’ll check back in a few hours,” she said, “and hopefully we’ll pull it off.”
He gazed at her, smiled, and said, “You always pull it off.”
*
Richard looked up as Andy approached.
“Somebody just called in to say that Naomi didn’t show up for a modeling job.”
Richard’s gaze narrowed, and he didn’t speak for a moment. “Naomi, Naomi?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Shit. Do we have an address?”
Andy held up a slip of paper. “Let’s go.” They bolted outside, and Andy said, “We need to find out if anybody has seen her.”
“Exactly.” They made it to her place within about twelve minutes. As they parked out in the street, they looked around. “This is a pretty high-class area for her, isn’t it?” Richard asked.
“Remember what Elena had for an asset base was surprising too,” Andy said.
“But it wasn’t her money, not originally at least,” Richard replied.
“She did make good money though,” Andy added.
“Do you think Naomi does?”
“I can’t imagine it,” Andy said. “Even if she did, how consistent would wealth be with a temperament like hers?”
“Who knows? Honestly, I’ve felt a little out of my league on this case in terms of knowing much about the people and the work involved.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Andy said. “Naomi’s been pretty upset these last few days, according to her agent who called it in.”
“Are we thinking she might have harmed herself?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, “but who knows. We’ve seen stranger cases.”
“Absolutely.”
As they walked in and headed up to her apartment, they knocked on the door. There was no answer.
After another knock, somebody came out in the hallway and asked, “May I help you?”
They turned to look at a tall, slender, well-dressed male in his mid-thirties, staring at them with a surprised look on his face.
“Do you know Naomi?”
“Very well,” he said. “Why?”
“We have a report that she didn’t show up for a modeling shoot and that nobody can reach her.”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Naomi is prone to drama.”
“But doesn’t she need to show up for her shoots?”
At that, the younger man frowned. “Good point. She definitely needs the work, and she would never miss that. Not with what the lifestyle means to her.”
“What’s your name?” Richard asked. “And how do you know her?”
“Derek,” he said with a smile, reaching out and shaking their hands. “Naomi and I have known each other for decades. Do you want to go inside and check to make sure she’s okay then? I can do that,” he said, as he pulled out keys and inserted one into the lock.
“You have a key to her place?” Richard asked, frowning.
Derek looked at him. “It’s my apartment,” he said in a dry tone. “Naomi likes to pretend it’s hers. She does pay me token rent, albeit begrudgingly, but she’s constantly digging at me that it’s too high and that she should be paying less.”
“And what is too high?” Andy asked.
“She pays me twelve hundred a month,” he said.
The two men exchanged glances, then looked at him.
Derek nodded. “She has a sense of entitlement. I could easily get twice that for this place.” He opened the door, and they stepped inside to see an absolutely gorgeous apartment, very artistic looking, very contemporary.
“This is your place?”
He nodded. “The apartment is mine. The furniture is hers.” The furniture was just a shade less luxurious than the rest of the place.
“What is her money situation?”
“Right now, it’s really sad. She can’t afford to have lost the job she was offered or to be late for another.”
“But she is very temperamental and known to cause issues. Has she been fired from sets before?”
“Unfortunately, all the time.”
“So maybe you can tell me why you’re still friends then?” Richard asked him.
Derek looked at him in surprise. “My friendship is not dependent on her financial or mental or emotional status,” he said. “We were friends in kindergarten. That hasn’t changed.”
The two detectives stood here in the landing.
Derek said, “I’ll be right back.” He walked toward the bedroom, calling out, “Naomi, are you here?”
The detectives
