All was quiet.
I found a pot of coffee in a stainless steel carafe and a note from Darling saying she was in town until early afternoon and to make myself at home.
I took my coffee out to the pool. It faced the east and was bathed in warm sunlight.
As soon as I’d settled into the lounge chair I heard the phone ring in the house. Damn it!
I sprinted inside and grabbed it. “Darling’s place.”
“It’s me.”
Dante. Thank God.
“I spoke to the attorney. He doesn’t think they have enough to arrest you, so you should be safe to come back to the city. He said if they want you to come in, he’ll accompany you, but it can’t be until tomorrow. He’s in court today.”
“What if I don’t want to talk to them tomorrow either?” I asked. I began opening cupboards, looking for something to eat. For a woman with Darling’s healthy appetites, there was very little edible in her cupboards. Some weird protein powder canisters and Kombucha jars and some funky-ass Scandinavian crackers. I plucked a cracker out and stuck it in my mouth. I spit it out. It had the consistency of cardboard and tasted worse.
“You can talk to him about that. You two have a meeting at ten tomorrow morning. He’ll come to the hotel.”
“Fine,” I said. This was all such a pain in the ass. I opened the refrigerator door. The inside looked more promising.
“I just picked up your dress.”
“Say what?” I said, grabbing a bag of onion bagels out of the refrigerator. Score. If I could find some lox, cream cheese, and capers...
“For the gala.”
“Oh fuck.” I’d tried to forget about the gala.
“I couldn’t decide between black velvet, red silk, or white satin.”
He paused dramatically. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m holding my breath,” I said sarcastically.
“At first, I thought the red silk,” he said triumphantly. “With your black hair? Mama mia!”
“Isn’t red a little, I don’t know, flashy?” I had searched every inch of the refrigerator and there was no cream cheese. Ridiculous.
“It’s a gala, Gia. Flashy is good. All the other women are going to be wearing as fancy as they can. They’ll probably break out all the family jewels. That’s why you’re not wearing any.”
“No jewelry? Cool.” I honestly could give a fuck. I hated to admit it, but I wondered what that opera diva was going to wear. The woman James was going to marry. Ugh.
“But I decided against the red and against the jewels.”
“Do tell,” I said and stuck the bagel slices in a toaster I found on a bottom shelf in a cupboard.
“You are going to wear a black velvet dress.”
“K,” I said. I took out some butter thinking, What kind of house has bagels without cream cheese?
“You’ll wear it with your Louboutin stilettos and no jewelry except the ring that Nico gave you.”
“Perfect,” I said, eyeing the toaster oven as my stomach grumbled.
“But you are going to wear the reddest lipstick I can find,” he said. “That will be the final touch.”
“I’m down for that,” I said.
“You might not want to eat today.”
“Fuck that,” I said watching the bagel turn brown through the oven’s little window.
“The velvet dress is formfitting and backless. It’s simple, sexy, and elegant.”
“I love you, Dante.”
“I know.”
“You just love me because I’m your real life dress-up Italian Barbie.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“When can I come home and start getting ready?” I said, peering out the front of Darling’s house.
“Tony should be there any minute. I called him earlier.”
“I better run,” I said.
After I hung up with Dante and scarfed down my bagel, I wrote Darling a note.
“Next time I host you at the hotel. Spa day, baby. Love you.”
By the time I brushed my teeth and threw my things in a bag, Tony was out front.
We listened to Otis Redding and James Brown all the way back.
We had the sort of comfortable relationship where we didn’t need to fill the silence with needless chatter, but when he pulled up in front of the hotel, he turned to me.
“Everything okay, boss lady?”
I smiled. “I think so. I didn’t kill anybody. At least not the people they’re saying I killed.”
He nodded solemnly. There were no secrets between me and him.
We’d both seen the dark side of life and that was part of our bond.
I smiled at him and patted his grizzled cheek. “You are a prince among men,” I said.
He cleared his throat and I paused, my hand on the door handle. He usually avoided mushy conversations, but he obviously had something to say.
“I left my violent life behind a long time ago, as you know. But there are a handful of people in this world I’d kill for. And you should know you’re one of them.”
I felt tears prick my eyes.
“I feel the same way, Tony.”
Twenty-Nine
When I got up to my room, the black velvet dress was hanging in the front of my closet. I would have to talk to management about coming in my room. I didn’t like it one bit. I quickly looked over at my laptop. I’d placed a hair strategically on the keyboard, so when I closed the lid, it stuck out a bit. The hair was still there. Good thing.
I wouldn’t abide people snooping through my stuff.
I wasn’t worried about the regular employees at the hotel. I was worried about someone in management using delivery of my clothes as an excuse to snoop in my room. As far as I knew nobody was wise to the investigation but Dante and I, but you just never knew.
Since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to look at my top three suspects. It was a way to distract myself from thinking about the cops investigating me.
Even though Maxwell Carlton was dead, that didn’t mean he was no longer a suspect in the embezzlement. In fact, hearing he’d made a bid to buy the hotel made him even more of a suspect in my book.
I
