change the decorations. What do you think about the flowers?”
The Potted Ladies had already transferred galvanized buckets filled with white flowers through a side gate and they were lined up in front of a hedge. They were adding set pieces to the collection—also white.
Vanity tapped her fingernails against her teeth. “I think red.”
“Bloody hell,” Preston muttered.
“Spray them,” Vanity said.
“Leave it to me,” Willow told her. “Really, Vanity, don’t worry about a thing. As long as you can answer our questions as we go along, you have nothing to worry about. We’ll take care of the event and the cleanup.”
“Red flowers?” Val said vaguely.
“It’s the color of love,” Vanity told him, placing a palm against his cheek. “Like your love for darling Chloe.”
He nodded.
“I prefer to use theatrical costumiers for these things,” Willow said. “I can get Sybil Smith over to talk about what you want to wear,” she told Vanity.
“We’ll all need costumes. Including the help. Everyone. I want it absolutely perfect. Venetian! That’s it, Venetian is what we want. Jesters…”
She rushed from the kitchen, and Willow heard her voice raised all the way to the foyer. Vanity was demanding the attention of whoever was “in charge for the authorities.”
Marley cringed. “So it’s a Venetian masquerade. I’d better get started with the calls. Do I ask if they need any advice on getting costumes in a hurry? Or say they don’t have to be in costume if they don’t want to?”
“You don’t know our friends,” Preston said, slapping Val on the back. “They’ll be in costume and they’ll knock your socks off. Excuse us. Come on, Val, we’d better stick with Vanity.”
“Is she cracking up?” Val said.
“Close,” Preston said.
Willow caught the door before it could close behind the two men and followed them out. She also wanted to see what the police were up to. The staircase was going to be integral to Vanity’s extravaganza.
“Val,” the woman called when she saw him. “Your wedding video. Have that on hand, please. We’ll use that as a backdrop to the toast tomorrow evening.”
Through the front door walked Nat Archer with the detective whose name Willow didn’t remember, and both Gray and Ben.
“Didn’t you already do that?” Vanity said to a technician in a white coverall. He was suctioning the stair risers, sucking fibers into a clear bag attached to a powerful vacuum.
“No, ma’am.”
They could hear heavy footsteps overhead.
“When are you going to be finished?” Vanity asked.
“Still not sure, ma’am.”
“Above your pay grade to know that?” Vanity said, her nose wrinkling. “Who
She finally noticed the four men who had just arrived. “What do you want?” she asked. “You can’t just come walking in here.”
“You met Detective Fist and me last night and earlier today,” Nat said. “We have more questions, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“We know more than we did last night,” Nat said, frowning.
Vanity stared blankly.
“We can see how things go here, but we may have to ask you to come downtown later. Willow, stay where I can find you.”
Ben didn’t take his attention from Willow’s face. She had to look back at him, and he didn’t attempt to hide his longing. And something else. Cautiously, she reached toward his mind to ask what was wrong.
She was shaken when she realized he knew what she wanted, but was shutting her out.
“I have to leave,” Vanity said. She turned to Preston. “I need to get over to the agency for an hour. I completely forgot. Could you drive me, darling?”
“Of course.” He pulled keys from a pocket in his khaki shorts.
Marley hurried away to the office she had been using, catching Gray’s hand and pulling him with her as she went.
“Would you rather come downtown now?” Nat asked Vanity.
“Go on into the sitting room,” Val said. He looked worried. “Vanity was Chloe’s dearest friend. She’s under a lot of stress.”
Nat made a sympathetic noise.
“I’m not talking to you now,” Vanity said. “It’ll have to wait.”
“I’m afraid it can’t. What I need to ask first is what you were doing around the dance hall on Rampart yesterday.”
Chapter 27
“Why do they want to talk to me?” Vanity said, her voice pleading. She gripped Ben’s forearm, and her long nails dug in hard. “Why don’t they all go away and leave me to grieve in peace?”
Ben had been introduced to Vanity for the first time right after Chloe’s murder, which didn’t make them buddies. He had recalled when he met Chloe. She had come to Fortune’s to see Poppy about a charity project.
“It’s a hard time,” he said, patting Vanity’s hand. “Best get the formalities out of the way. They’re only routine.”
“He’s not acting like they’re routine.” Vanity nodded to Nat. She sounded whiny. “If it was, he could wait until we’ve honored Chloe, couldn’t he?”
“Ma’am,” Nat said, casting Ben a sympathetic look. “Time is really important in these investigations. Things change fast. The longer we take to go over everything, the less chance we’ve got of finding anything that could be useful in our investigation.”
A flash of brilliant red hair, and a knifelike glare from a pair of greener than green eyes, and Willow put herself in the center of the melee. Her attention was focused on Vanity—when it wasn’t pinning Nat or Ben.
“You’re grasping at straws,” she announced. “And you’re deliberately trying to scare Vanity.”
Nat’s eyebrows shot up and he looked questioningly at Ben.
“Willow?” Ben said, as mildly as he could. “What is it?”
“This isn’t a good time to patronize me,” she said. “You’ve made it clear how close you really feel to me. You shut me out. Nat, this doesn’t seem like much of a way to run an investigation to me.”
Nat looked at her askance. “I’m sure you’ll explain what you just said later. Bucky, go ahead and make sure they’re ready to monitor the interviews from downtown.” He sounded tightly wound, and evidently Willow sensed it, too, because she took a step backward.
“Willow,” Ben said urgently. “Over here.”
She tried to stand her ground, but he placed an arm around her and walked them rapidly away from the group. “What d’you mean, I shut you out?” he said.
“A little while ago I asked you what was wrong, what was going on, and you ignored me. I felt the wall go up.”
He smiled before he could stop himself.
Bad move.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Willow said. “I’m tired of your family putting me down.”
She caught him off guard. He kept his hold on her and waited for her to look at him. He shook his head, nonplussed.
