Chapter Five

Three things happened at once. Detective Kennedy spotted me through the glass doors. Juan Carlos called me back—I could tell by his ringtone. And I sat down hard, right there on the exquisite Italian marble floor. Just plopped down on my behind while people continued to mill about, walking around me as if guests threw themselves to the ground in the middle of plush hotel lobbies every day. If they gave me an askance look, I was too overwhelmed to notice.

Vivian arrested!

Her story about knowing Dhane trickled back to me, the holes in it even more glaring than before. What had she been doing in Dhane’s hotel room? Why would they arrest her? What had she done? They couldn’t think she had anything to do with his death. Unless…

Several Raine employees rushed me, hovering over me like nervous mothers. One of them asked the group if they should call Dave.

“Please, don’t do that,” Detective Kennedy said from above me. “Ms. Smith will be just fine. Won’t you?” Gripping me by the upper arms, he hauled me up. “Atta girl. Why don’t we sit down, have a nice chat?” He steered me to the chair I’d been sitting in. “Have a seat.”

One of the Raine employees, a chubby-cheeked girl with an explosion of freckles, leaned over me and shook her head with a frown. “She looks kinda pale. You aren’t going to be sick, are you?”

Her question flung the rest of the group into twitching panic.

Kennedy threw up a hand. “She’s fine.” He made a shooing motion, his attention never wavering from me. “Go.”

The freckled girl looked like she wanted to argue for a moment , then thought better of it and faded away with her coworkers.

Kennedy sat down opposite me. He didn’t have that creepy, searching gaze Detective Weller had. His was more direct, like a laser beam or a bullet. “Well?” he asked.

I stared at him. He stared back. We went on like that for several long moments. All the while, thoughts ping-ponged around in my head. I was concentrating so hard on keeping it together that I didn’t realize my nails had pierced the leather on the arm of my chair until Kennedy tried to pry them loose.

“Easy. You’ll hurt yourself.” He folded my hands into my lap, sat back, and asked the question that made me want to vomit on his shoes. “You want to tell me how you know my suspect?”

“Suspect?” Oh, cripes. Hearing myself say it aloud was almost more than I could take. I propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rubbed at my throbbing forehead, willing my stomach to be still.

“You want to tell me who you really are? Or do you want me to haul you in and find out my own way? I can guarantee it won’t be pleasant. We have this new officer—her specialty is cavity searches. Hagatha just loves a good strip search—”

“Azalea,” I answered.

“Yeah, I gathered that much upstairs. What’s your full name?”

“Azalea March.”

He nodded, his suspicions about me confirmed. “And how do you know Ms. Moreno?”

I swallowed back the rising bile in my throat and swiped the sweat off my upper lip. “Vivian?”

He dipped his head.

“We’re friends.”

“Okay. Are you really staying in suite 3853?”

“No.”

He inclined his head again. It was an annoying, arrogant gesture and I was beginning to see why they called him King Kennedy. “What were you doing upstairs?”

I bit the inside of my lip.

Relaxing back, he rested his arms on the chair, giving the air that he had all day to wait. My dad used to use this technique and I hated it, mostly because it worked so well on me. And he’d had to use it so often. I’d been a rather precocious child.

But what to say? I had been snooping around, trying to figure out why a dead man sent me a note for a clandestine meeting? Right. Vivian’s having been found in that suite combined with my skulking around the hallway outside of it did not look good. For either of us.

I suddenly viewed Detective Kennedy’s questions with new trepidation. At best, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. At worst, I was an accomplice to whatever it was he thought Vivian had done.

I didn’t trust myself to speak. Anything I said would only make me look guilty and confirm his suspicions about Viv. So I did the impossible. I said nothing.

“Hagatha especially likes brunettes,” he provoked.

Thinking of Viv, I bit my lip harder. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, but I held my ground.

“That usually works.”

I blinked. He was kidding around with me.

“Oh, good, you got my joke. I find humor helps to put people at ease.” His smile creased the corners of his eyes, making him look almost reptilian. Initially I’d thought he was kind of handsome, but now he repulsed me. Some of what I was thinking must have shown on my face because he backpedaled. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can leave and I can help your friend.”

“Help? Now there’s a joke.”

He bowed his head. “From your point of view, I can see how that might be difficult to believe—”

“Difficult? No, not really. I’m sure Your Highness helps all kinds of innocent people.”

His brows shot up his forehead. “I see you’ve done more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Crap. He’d nailed me for the eavesdropper I was. I crossed my arms over my chest and put on my best defiant face.

“You can be as pissed as you want, but you will answer my questions. Either here, or after you’ve sat in a jail cell for a few hours. Your choice.”

He wasn’t going to give up. If I went to jail, I couldn’t help Viv, who was the real person in trouble here. My mind raced to find a plausible explanation for my being in that hallway. The most believable lies always held a measure of truth. So that’s what I decided to go with—the truth…sort of.

“Dhane asked me to meet him at his suite. He gave me his card key.” I pulled the key out of my purse and handed it over as proof.

“Why were you meeting him?”

I arched a brow, hoping he’d draw his own conclusions and I wouldn’t have to answer his question.

He bobbed his head. “I see.” He pulled out a notepad and pen. “And how long had the two of you been together?”

“We’d just met.”

He looked up sharply. I’d surprised him. Good. I’d rather he thought I was a slut than a criminal.

“When did you meet?”

“After his Hjálmar presentation.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Detective Kennedy bent his head, hiding his expression in his notebook. “Do you always visit the hotel rooms of men you’ve just met?”

“No.” My answers came easier, but like watching a rattlesnake shaking its tail, I didn’t trust Detective Kennedy for a minute.

“Where were you between the time you met Dhane and your visit to his hotel room?”

“At the convention center.”

“Can anyone verify that?”

I thought about Juan Carlos and his finding Dhane’s head in a doll bin. I thought of Lisa and Richard, who had also been there. I worked out the best person to use as an alibi. “My friends Lisa and Richard.”

“I’ll need their contact information.”

In the middle of handing over their info, my phone rang again. Juan Carlos. I ignored it.

“Where are you staying?” Kennedy asked.

“The Luxor. Room 617.”

He closed his notebook. “I’ll want to talk with you again. Stay available.” He got up.

That was it? I couldn’t let him leave without finding out about Viv. “Wait. What did you arrest Vivian for?”

“Murder.” He dropped that little bomb, watching me for a reaction.

“Murder? No, that can’t be right. You have the wrong person. Vivian would never—”

“She was found with the body.”

“No.” It was too much. I dropped back into my chair from the weight of it.

Detective Kennedy seemed to soften from my reaction. “You’re scaring the Raine employees.” He motioned toward Freckle Face and her cohorts, hovering at the edge of the reception desk. “Go back to your hotel. I’ll take good care of your friend.” Then he turned and walked away without a backward glance.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Juan Carlos back. “Where are you?” I shouted loud enough to earn a few stares.

“Oh my God! Where are you? Where’s Vivian? What is going on in this crazy world?”

“Juan Carlos. Focus here. Tell me where you are.”

“My hotel room.”

“I’ll be right there. Don’t move!”

I snapped my phone shut and leaped up. I was in a taxi, rolling down Las Vegas Boulevard, faster than you could say “hot in Vegas.” The rich didn’t seem to have to wait long for anything, that’s for sure. I could get used to this.

Juan Carlos whipped open the door as soon as my knuckles hit the wood. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the room. “Where have you been? Where’s Viv? Do you have any idea what they did…? What I had to…?” He shook me harder with each question.

“Have you been drinking?” He reeked worse than a bar-room floor. “There better be some for me.” A large hand handed me a glass of amber liquid and I took a gulp without hesitation. “Argh, it burns. In a really, really good way. Thank you.” I took another hit, sure I was seeing things. “Richard?” I turned to Juan Carlos. “What’s he doing here? I thought you two hated each other.”

Richard held up his flask.

“Oh, who can hold a grudge when I pulled a…and his head was…and I was…and then it…and then you…and then they…”

Richard splashed more whiskey into Juan Carlos’s glass. “He’s calmed down quite a bit, actually. You should have seen him after the cops got through with him.”

Juan Carlos took a big gulp and threw himself on the bed, wrapping an arm over his face for added drama. “They broke me…beat me till they got what they wanted. Which was nothing. How would I know how it got…that I would…that he was…”

“He’s almost forming sentences again.” Richard tipped the flask into Juan Carlos’s mouth. “That’s a good boy.” Richard held Juan Carlos’s hand. “Do you want me to sing for you again?”

Juan Carlos nodded without dislodging his arm from his eyes.

As Richard sang Juan Carlos a song that sounded like some kind of Greek lullaby, I dropped into a nearby chair and set aside my glass of firewater. How was I going to tell Juan Carlos that Vivian had been arrested? What was I going to do about it? I ground my fists into my eyes, pushing back the tears that wouldn’t help Vivian and would only upset Juan Carlos more.

Richard’s song ended and the only sound was Juan Carlos’s soft snores. I looked up to find Richard considering me with a sympathetic smile. He placed Juan Carlos’s glass on the nightstand and came over to sit with me. For a while we both watched Juan Carlos sleep.

“What happened?” he whispered.

My gaze stayed on Juan Carlos. “They arrested Vivian for Dhane’s murder.”

He muttered something in Greek I was sure his ma wouldn’t have approved of.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” I recovered my glass of whiskey and took a sip.

“How did you find out?”

I relayed everything that had happened since Detective Weller had called us into the interrogation room. When I finished, he issued another Greek expletive.

“What should we do?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” A knot of sickness lay heavily in my stomach, turning the whiskey sour. “I’ve been asking myself that question since I saw her handcuffed and perp-walked out of the Raine Tower Suites.” I set my glass back down. “I guess we have to try to help her. What else can we do?”

“Okay. What’s our first move?”

Richard looked at me with so much expectation, it nearly tore me open. I dropped my gaze to the ostentatious hotel carpeting, trying to summon a droplet of the courage he expected from me.

“The Hjálmar booth. And then we’ll see if we can’t spring Viv from the Big House.”

Richard and I shot Juan Carlos a startled glance. Either he’d been faking sleep or our conversation had woken him up. He looked focused and ready for action, not at all like the wreck he’d been earlier.

“What did you hear?” I asked him.

“Almost all of it. Vivian needs our help and we’re going to give it to her.” Juan Carlos swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He weaved a little and grabbed his head.

“Easy.” Richard rushed to his side. “Here, have some water. And we should probably get some food in you.” He looked to me.

“Right. Okay. We’ll grab some food, then head down to the convention center. But first we need to call James.” The thought of calling Vivian’s boyfriend gave me some measure of courage and purpose.

“Oh, I forgot all about James. That’s a good idea. He has that hot friend who’s a cop. Call him—he’ll know what to do.”

I shot back the rest of my whiskey, my cheeks burning as badly as my stomach lining.

The hot cop Juan Carlos was talking about was Alex Craig. We’d met at Vivian and James’s New Year’s party. He’d asked me out. We went on a couple of dates and had hit it off…or so I’d thought. He said he’d call and then had somehow lost all knowledge of how to use a phone. He was the reason I’d sworn off men and had been binge-buying Laura Ashley dresses.

As much as I hated to admit it, he was probably Vivian’s best chance. Still, the idea of my having to deal with this particular police officer was right up there with having a root canal or a gynecological exam by a doctor with unusually large hands.