For some odd reason, that stomach flu hit me full force again.
"Excuse me," I said, bolting up from the sofa. I made for the front doors as quickly as I could. Air. I needed air. I'm pretty sure I knocked into at least three people, spilling one woman's drink all over her corset in my mad rush to get outside.
Once there, I doubled over, leaning on my crutches as I took in big lungfuls of night air that smelled like car exhaust and rotting vegetables.
In a moment, Dana was at my side.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked, putting a hand on my back.
"Yeah. Sure. Fine."
"You're a terrible liar."
Unlike some people.
Okay, so I guess I hadn't ever asked Felix point blank if he'd been sleeping with the victim, but that was a hell of an omission. What else had he failed to mention?
Then one terrible thought occurred to me. He'd been the one to find the diamond necklace in Gisella's room. Had he known where it was all along? Had he been in on it with her? He had said it was insured. Collect once from the insurance company, a second time when he sold them on the black market? Would Felix stoop that low?
Problem was, I didn't really know Felix's stooping limit. Granted, his paper was single handedly to blame for ruining more than one celebrity marriage with their rumor mill, but that was a far cry from sticking a shoe in someone's neck.
My shoe.
My stomach lurched again and I leaned over, fully expecting a repeat appearance by my ham and cheese.
"Do you really think this could have been Felix?" Dana asked, voicing my thoughts.
I shook my head. "I don't know." I paused. "Maybe." Another pause. "No, definitely not." I bit my lip. "Probably not?"
He'd been in Paris the night of her murder, in the same hotel. The victim was his girlfriend, presumably stealing his jewels.
"I've got to talk to Felix." I pulled my cell out of my purse, dialing his number, my hands shaking harder than the Northridge quake. Unfortunately, it went straight to voicemail. Shit. I flipped it shut and threw it in my purse, taking my anxiety out on my Motorola.
"Hey," I said, addressing Mathew, who was fully engrossed in an article in the World News section.
He waited a beat before looking up. When he did he blinked at me as if seeing me for the first time. He looked back to his paper. Then to me again.
"It's you!"
I looked down at the Times in his lap. Sure enough, there was my mug smiling back at me. Okay, so I wasn't totally smiling. It was a candid shot taken outside the Plaza Athenee as I'd tried to muscle my way through the paparazzi. From the look on my face, it was probably when one of the cameramen had knocked into Wonder Boot. I looked either constipated, pissed off, or in pain.
Or, as Mathew had interpreted it, dangerous.
"It's not me."
He looked from the paper to me and back again. "It sure looks like you."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, yes, the picture is me. But I'm not the killer. I didn't do it. I'm innocent. Which is why I'm here trying to clear my name."
Mathew looked wary. "You sure?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure! Do I look like I could hurt someone?"
Mathew looked me up and down. Then behind me at the S &M club he'd just taken me to.
"I didn't do it," I said again.
Finally he shrugged. "All right, if you say so. But if I hear of any dead bodies showin' up at that there club tomorrow, I'm turning' you in to the police, Missy." He wagged a knobby finger at me.
"Fair enough. Listen, do you happen to know where a Lord Ackerman lives?"
He hunched his bushy eyebrows down. "Can't say's I do. He have a place around here?"
My turn to shrug. The problem was I had no idea where Felix stayed when he was in England. I knew he had an impressive home up in the Hollywood Hills, but as it was becoming clearly apparent, beyond the basics I didn't know much about Felix's life at all.
"Any idea where we could find an address for him?"
He shook his head. "Google?"
Luckily, I just happened to know a pair of Googling fiends.
I whipped out my cell, dialing Mom's number. She picked up on the third ring and I could hear loud music in the background.
"Hello?" she shouted.
I held the phone away from my ear.
"Mom, it's Maddie."
"Hey, hon. Say, where are you? Ramirez has been tearing this place apart looking for you."
I cringed. I was so gonna be on his shit list when I got back. But, if it got me off the front page, I'd say it was worth it.
"Dana and I are following a lead. Listen, I was wondering if you could do something for me?"
I heard a sound like a war whooping in the background. "What?" Mom yelled.
I resisted the urge to cover my ear. "Where are you?"
"Mrs. Rosenblatt and I dragged Pierre out to a champagne bar. Mrs. Rosenblatt's on her second bottle and dancing the Cancan."
I had a sudden unwelcome vision of Mrs. R's muumuu hiked up to her knees, her thunder thighs kicking heavenward. I shuddered.
"Listen, could you do something for me when you get back to the hotel?" I yelled into the phone.
"Sure. Shoot, Mads."
"I need Felix's address." I filled her on in all I'd learned at the club. (Okay, maybe not all I'd learned. I left out the parts about the leashes and paddles.)
"Okay," she said when I finished. "We'll hit the business center as soon as we get back."
I thanked her (though I wasn't entirely sure she heard me over Mrs. Rosenblatt's hollering) and hung up.
"Now what?" Dana asked.
It was late, I was tired and my stomach still felt wobbly thinking about Felix and the massive fast one he'd pulled over on me. "Let's get a room somewhere."
We piled back in the cab, and asked Mathew to take us to a hotel nearby, preferably one that wouldn't make my Visa wince. Jean Luc had taken care of the travel expenses for the Paris trip, but they didn't cover a detour into London. And, with my designs in police custody, I wasn't entirely sure my bank account had any hope of growing beyond Hamburger Helper size in the near future.
I leaned my head back on the vinyl seat, watching the dark London streets whiz past the window at a rate that sent nausea washing through me again. The more I thought about it, the more foolish I felt for ever trusting a guy like Felix. I'd been the one pleading with Ramirez to get him out of jail. What if it turned out he belonged there? I knew Felix had a moral compass that pointed just this side of North, but had he really offed his girlfriend? Even worse, would he have framed me for it?
I had to admit at that part my stomach clenched the worst. Not that I'd thought I meant anything to Felix. I didn't. And he meant nothing to me. We weren't even friends. More like acquaintances that sometimes bumped into each other.
Lips first.
I closed my eyes, willing myself not to think about it.
Mathew pulled us up in front of the Queen's Cozy Inn and let us out. He gave me one backward glance in his rearview mirror, eyes still wary, before collecting his fare and pulling away from the curb. I had a bad feeling that if Dana and I didn't find the real killer soon, that was the kind of look I was doomed to for life.
After handing over my credit card to the frizzy haired girl on duty behind the desk, Dana and I were shown to a room on the second floor. The bed was standard issue, the duvet a pastel floral print. A scarred dresser sat at one end, a tiny bathroom the other. A television set with rabbit ears sat on the dresser and above that hung a framed lithograph of Queen Elizabeth. The Ritz, it was not. But I didn't care. All I wanted was sleep. Hopefully in the morning things would make more sense.
The room was dark. A single lamp gave off a dim red glow, bathing the room in a light eerily reminiscent of blood. I held my breath, searching through the darkness for him. I wasn't sure who I was looking for, but I knew I had to find him. People were everywhere, bumping up against me, crowding in from all angles. Then I heard the crowd cheering, yelling, hollering. I fought my way through them, pushing and shoving, straining on tip-toe to see around them. He had to be here somewhere. I fought my way through the growing crowd to the front. And, there in the center of the room, standing under a bright red spotlight, was Mrs. Rosenblatt, wearing a leather corset and wielding a long, leather riding crop.