watched in annoyance as pieces of paper slid all over the floor.
Dammit, she was a basket case. As fast as she could, she gathered everything up, and this time she remembered to close her briefcase properly.
The sliding door to the garden banged open, and Vanity came in with another bottle of the wine they had shared earlier. She wiggled it. “Can’t start off with good stuff and expect to enjoy anything less,” she said. “It’s a good thing Val has a private stash of this in the cabana. What do you think of the rooms Chloe got ready for you?”
“They’re beautiful,” Willow said, noncommittal.
She left Vanity opening the wine and returned to the foyer.
A cracking sound make her jump. “What was that?” There was another thud.
Val dashed to join Preston and Willow, and they all looked to the staircase.
Chloe had slammed into the railing along the upper corridor. She stared, rocking her head, blinking, as if she couldn’t see, not making a sound. She backed off and returned for another collision, harder this time.
Willow screamed and ran for the stairs. Rotating over the railing, Chloe swung, her limbs flailing, to fall onto the stairs themselves.
“Chloe,” Val yelled. “Oh, my God.”
Vanity came running.
Slowly at first, then gathering speed, Chloe bumped downward, hitting the stair treads and jerking into grotesque angles. Tiny specks of blood sprayed on walls and the stairs.
A yell broke from Val, and he dashed to her, ineffectually trying to stop her from flopping onto the marble tiles.
“Oh, my God,” Preston said, striding forward.
Willow gasped. The woman’s eyes were stretched wide-open, but they were dying. Willow saw the glazing without going any nearer. Even at a distance, long red welts on Chloe’s face and neck were shocking against her white skin. Her head sagged to one side, the face in Willow’s direction. More speckles of blood immediately splotched the pale marble.
“Did you hear anything?” Preston said faintly. “Did she scream?”
“No,” Willow whispered.
Vanity sobbed, and she shook all over. “Chloe,” she said through stretched lips. “What’s happened? Chloe?” She heaved as if she would throw up, but gathered herself and looked at Willow. “Get out, now. You shouldn’t be here.”
“No, stay,” Preston shouted. “The police will want to talk to you.”
“Leave,” Vanity said, moving toward the rest of the group. “For your own sake. Hurry.”
Chapter 19
“What are you doing?” Willow asked, running along the Brandts’ front path toward Ben. “Chloe Brandt is dead in there. Get back in the van. We’re leaving.”
“Dead, how?” Ben looked past her at the house. He should have followed his instincts and “accompanied” her inside, only he expected her to start figuring out if he was around even when she couldn’t see him. That could get ugly.
Willow breathed too hard. She gulped and said, “I think someone killed her. It’s looks like what happened to Billy Baker and Surry Green—no, not exactly like that. But there’s something really weird. I need to get away from here.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Ben took her by the elbow and walked her back to the Brandts’ open front door. “Before we got to the end of the block, someone would be telling the police your van was here.”
Willow dug her heels in, and they stood there, staring at each other. “What am I thinking?” she said, blinking rapidly, her green eyes horrified. “This is insane of me. Of course I shouldn’t be leaving, but…”
“But, what?”
“I—They said I had to get out of there. No excuses, though. I shouldn’t have panicked like that.”
Sirens howled, growing closer, and Ben led Willow into the front hall of the house. One of the women he had noticed at the party, underdressed in black now, as she had been in white that night, talked into a phone and tapped the toe of one high-heeled sandal. She looked into Ben’s eyes and kept on looking.
“You called out to me, you know,” he said to Willow under his breath. “Did you know that? That’s good. We’re making progress.”
She slanted him a disbelieving glance. “I just tried to run away from a dead woman who was talking to me ten minutes ago. I’m a heel. You find the strangest times to celebrate little things.”
Ben put an arm around her shoulders, managed not to wince and gave her a solid hug. “You’re the best. You’re also human.” Her hand slipped behind his back, and he knew he would walk on broken glass for more chances to hold her.
“I’m going to get hung up here,” the woman on the phone said. “You don’t need to know why, Carl, and neither do they. Make the calls and tell them we’ll get back as soon as we can.” She closed her phone.
Ben took in the two men present, one with surfer-blond hair and an athletic build, the other elegant, dark and very well dressed, bending over a female corpse wound into a heap of grotesquely twisted limbs. Both men had been at the party he’d crashed to keep tabs on Willow. He went to look down on the woman’s face.
She was a mess, but he was certain he had seen her before. He wasn’t sure where. It could have been at Fortunes. Yes, this woman had known Poppy. They had worked on a charity event together.
“Who are you?” the blond man asked, his voice breaking. “Get away from her. Stop staring—she doesn’t like being stared at.”
“Are you her husband?” Ben asked.
“Yes. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I came to pick up Willow,” Ben said. There was scarcely any clear skin to see in the mass of raised and bloody welts that covered the woman’s face and neck. “Damn, I’m sorry. The police are arriving now.”
“We need an aid car,” the blond man shouted. “Get her to the hospital.”
Willow’s fingers clutched tightly at Ben’s. He glanced down at her and frowned at the puzzled expression on her face.
She felt him looking at her. “Are you okay?” she said vaguely. “Don’t worry so much.”
He let the odd remark go.
“I told you to get out of here,” the woman said, looming over Willow. “This is one hell of a nuisance. The police will pounce on you and if we’re really unlucky, they’ll haul you away on some pretext. They don’t have anything to go on that I know of, so you could become their dream come true. You’ll be the so-called suspect in custody so the police can keep people calm while the search goes on.”
“This is Vanity,” Willow said. “And Chloe’s husband, Val Brandt, and Preston Moriarty.”
Preston looked toward the upper story. “We’re going to have to go up there. Whoever did this to Chloe could still be there.”
“Wait for the police,” Ben said. “We don’t want to mess up any evidence.”
The sirens arrived outside and car doors slammed.
The foyer felt hushed, but Ben sensed the promise of all hell breaking loose.
“Out now,” Vanity said, actually grabbing Willow’s wrist. “There’s time for you to leave through the back. We’re going to need you more than ever. You can’t help us if you’re locked up. Go! Now!”
Willow jerked her arm away.
“Maybe we should want to keep an eye on Willow,” Preston said with the kind of smooth innuendo Ben despised.
“Calm down,” Val said. “You’re not helping Chloe. Any of you. Willow should be here. The police will think it’s funny if she isn’t.”
“I feel sick,” Willow said.
