“Why don’t you just chill, Tory.”
“I need you to be with me right now,” she said, her teeth chattering from the cold. “I’m going out of my mind in this place.”
“You’re gonna need Botox if you keep scrunching your face up that way. Why don’t you go back to the room, and I’ll be there in a minute.”
“So you can be with her? You wanna fuck her like you wanted to fuck Devon?”
“How could I want anyone else when you’re so freakin’ brilliant in the sack?”
“I hate you,” she screamed with a hard, fast shake of her head. In the minute she’d been standing outside, her hair had become coated with sleet, turning it into a shiny black helmet. I decided it was about time to extricate myself from this lover’s skirmish, and besides, my feet were now soaked.
Before I could move, Tory turned and stormed back into the barn. Tommy watched the door slam and then moved closer to me, his body dripping wet.
“Why don’t we finish this later,” he said, though I wasn’t sure what exactly we were supposed to finish.
Rather than trail behind them into the foyer and possibly end up in the midst of round two, I descended the short set of wooden steps on the side of the deck and made my way toward the small barn. I pulled the hood of my poncho tighter, since the sleet was practically coming down in sheets now. As I looked up I saw Scott emerge from the direction of the outbuildings. He didn’t look like a happy camper.
“Anything up?” I called out.
“More problems with the damn road. I’ve got a guy out there now, and Ralph is feeling better, so he’s gonna help. The problem is, it’s starting to freeze again. We’ve got a layer of ice forming.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Nope. Sandy’s putting out lunch now. It should be ready any minute.”
He hurried off, and I fought my way through the sleet, headed back to my room. Detective Ray was holding guard outside Devon’s door, sitting on the old straight-backed chair I’d seen at the desk in her room. The door was closed, and I assumed the crime scene personnel had departed.
“How’s the work going?”
“It’s going,” was all he said.
“Is Detective Collinson still here?”
“He’s returned to town with the coroner.”
Before entering my room, I tapped on Jessie’s door. She had creases on her left cheek that indicated she’d just finished napping.
“Where the heck have you been?” she asked. “You look like you’ve been out reporting on a hurricane.”
“I was just checking out the scene outside.” I relayed the bad news that Scott had told me about the road—and told her there was a chance that we might be spending another night on the property.
“Oh, great—though at least that keeps us at the center of the story. I’m on my way back to resume eavesdropping.”
I told her that I’d be up shortly, but as she started to leave I reached out and touched her arm.
“One more thing, Jess,” I said. I told her about the missing set of keys.
“That’s rich,” she said ruefully. “It’s getting more like a horror movie every second.”
Back in my room I checked the Internet to see how the word was spreading about Devon’s death. CNN and People were running several quotes from Cap, which implied he’d been in touch with them directly. CNN and the New York Post also had some very general quotes from Collinson, who said the cause of death had not yet been determined and was under investigation. And TMZ had a mix of quotes from fashionista types paying tribute, and gossipmongers speculating about the cause of death. One theory was a drug overdose.
As I stood up, I felt suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue. I’d had only a couple of hours of sleep the night before and it was now catching up with me. I fell on the bed, telling myself I would grab just a short catnap.
When I woke, my head was throbbing and my mouth was gritty. Staggering toward the bathroom, I checked my watch and was surprised to see the time. 1:14. I’d been asleep for over an hour. I needed to hustle back to the great room and see what was going on.
I opened my door and peeked down the hall. Detective Ray was no longer standing guard, but I saw that Devon’s door had been padlocked.
I couldn’t believe my eyes as I passed through the passageway. In the gloomy afternoon light the trees glistened, their snow-covered branches now coated in a top layer of ice. Though it was absolutely enchanting out, it meant none of us was probably going anywhere anytime soon.
Jessie and Laura were the only ones around. Laura was clearing away dishes on the counter, and Jessie had her feet up on one of the sofas, reading a book.
“How are you holding up, Laura?” I asked, coming up to her.
“Okay, I guess.” She didn’t make eye contact with me.
“After we realized Devon was dead and you went to get Scott, you never went back into Devon’s room, did you?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” she said. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“Someone went back into Devon’s room, and I’m anxious to know who it was.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“Okay, fine. Any more thoughts about who the second person to call extension seven was?
“What?” she asked defensively.
“You told me you got a second call on extension seven—at about two thirty.”
“If I’d known who it was, I would have told you then.”
My, my, she seemed awfully testy.
I picked a sandwich off a platter before Laura whisked it away, and then joined Jessie on the couch.
“Where the hell is everybody?” I whispered. “Are they all holed up in their rooms?”
“Whitney and Cap were up here earlier. They each had a glass of wine and a sandwich and barely said two words. He looks weird, all pinched and stuff. The second detective—the one who was guarding the door—came by for coffee and then left, saying they hope to be back later to pick up the body. Oh, and Scott was up here for a bit. I couldn’t even look at him.”
“Any word on the road?”
“Not good. It seems like we’re all going to be bunking down here again tonight. By the way, at what point does a body begin to stink?”
“By tonight it’s going to smell pretty ripe.”
“Oh, fabulous.”
“I still need to talk to Christian and Tory. I guess I’ll wait around here for a while, and then I might have to start banging on a few doors.”
“Laura mentioned that Sandy was going to be serving an early dinner—at around six. So people should start to surface then.”
For the next few hours, Jessie and I hung in the great room, drinking coffee from an insulated carafe that Jessie had brought over to the coffee table. At around five, with darkness descended, we suddenly heard a burst of noise from the level below, as if three or four people were talking at once. It took me a minute to realize that it was the television in the media room. I went downstairs to check out who was there.
Christian was alone in the darkened room, staring at CNN on the screen.
“You okay?” I asked.
“About as well as can be expected,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“I assume you’ve spoken to people at the modeling agency, right?”
“Of course. Everybody’s in shock—total shock. But I don’t know if I should be talking to you. You’ll just feed it all to Buzz.”
I gave him the off-the-record line I’d offered everyone else.
“Well, I don’t have much to talk about anyway,” he said, finally looking at me.
“This must be a blow to the agency.”
“Absolutely. Devon was one of our top girls.”