The High Museum of Art, a stark white and gracefully impractical series of interconnected buildings, proved a challenging place to infiltrate. Designed like an enormous cylinder plopped into an even more enormous cube, with narrow white stairways looping around the periphery and white columns looming like pale tree trunks, its Stent wing was a place of dizzying confusion. Especially for someone clomping about in unfamiliar clogs with two dozen white roses blocking her view.
I came in the lobby as instructed, through the glass crossover and up the coiling staircase, winding higher and higher as I passed the cold-eyed marble statues, the blown-glass Tiffany bowls. On the fourth floor, two employees in black sweaters chatted next to the fire extinguisher, their attention locked on a group of teenagers rollicking dangerously close to a ten-foot-tall stainless steel dish that fractured and reflected the room back upon itself in shards of light and color.
The Anish Kapoor. I patted my back pocket for Gabriella’s note. Then I ducked into the service elevator and took it straight down to the ground floor where it opened—as promised—into the piazza’s back entrance. The service portal. I held my roses high and stepped into the scurry and bustle.
Getting into the white tent was a snap—all I had to do was keep up with the streaming tide of waitstaff. Inside, the tent buzzed with conversation so effervescent it practically bubbled, and I knew that Chelsea was somewhere in that froth of color and laughter. I also knew that she was protected by a boundary of velvet ropes and discerning eyes. The guests knew it too. They realized they were on display, and they expected to be—like all precious art—defended from the sticky fingers of the riffraff.
I kept a brisk pace, using the flowers as cover. Memories flooded my brain, and I tried hard to ignore them. The spring dance. The winter formal. The inevitable lectures that resulted when I violated some protocol of daintiness and womanhood. The main area smelled like hair spray and perfume, but close to the buffet table, I caught the scent of fresh bread, the salty tang of prosciutto. My stomach growled, and I pressed a hand to it.
Across the room, in the VIP corner, the Amberdecker sisters held court. Evie wore a lady-like suit—navy, with white piping—but as I watched, she discreetly turned her wrist and checked her watch. Eager to get back to work. I put down the flowers, picked up a tray of sparkling wine, and made for Chelsea, who stood as far away from her sister as she could get and still be in the VIP area.
She was impossible to miss, dazzling in a cobalt halter dress, her shoulders glowing with an Aspen tan. Her honey-colored bob rippled with expert highlights, showcasing brilliant blue eyes and softening her assertive jawline. She was an Amberdecker, all right, to the manor—and the manner—born.
I stepped behind her. “Excuse me, Ms. Amberdecker?”
She looked my way, her smile polite. “Yes?”
“We need to talk.”
The wariness solidified into annoyance. “Who are you?”
“A friend of the family. And unless you want me to start blabbing the name Lucius Dufrene over the place, you need to head to the ladies’ room—by yourself—where we can talk without being disturbed.”
She glared, hard, the softness evaporating. “What do you want?”
“I want to do this discreetly.”
She put two and two together, made her decision. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Make it two. And if anybody besides you comes for me, I start talking, and don’t think for a second—”
“I heard you!!” she hissed, then turned away.
I’d been dismissed. I waited ten seconds to make sure I wasn’t being beset by bodyguards, then I collected my roses, straightened my shoulders, and went into the restroom to wait for her.
***
I’d been perched on the edge of the marble vanity for barely sixty seconds when Chelsea blew in like a petite hurricane. “Who the hell are you?”
“Tai Randolph.”
She made a face. “Evie put you up to this, didn’t she? Well, you tell her to go back and dig in the dirt some more, I am not asking Jeremy for any more money! She’s on her own with that damn exhibit!”
“Evie? No. This isn’t about her at all.”
Chelsea put her hands on her hips. “You’ve got five seconds to explain before I call—”
“Your fiancé, I know the drill. And he’ll have some nicely dressed men with hardware on their belts come and escort me out. Then he’ll threaten to take every penny I own. He’ll ruin me.” I sighed. “Been there, done that, got the restraining order. But see, here’s the thing. I can’t call fancy lawyers. The only real weapon I have is my mouth. And I am not afraid to use it.”
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
“You don’t. But you will have to talk to the police. Who will be calling once they learn your little secret, which they will. Lucius Dufrene’s life is about to be an open book, and your part in it is bound to come out. The part before he got skeletonized on your family’s property, I mean.”
Her lip twitched, and the color drained from her face. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Regardless, without an explanation, you’re looking like Grade A Prime suspect material. So you can explain to me, and I can explain to them, or you can—”
She put a hand to her mouth, pressing hard, shaking suddenly. “I didn’t…I never…”
I snatched a stool from the vanity and shoved it behind her. She collapsed on it, her complexion greenish. I’d suffered enough hangovers to recognize the signs of imminent upchuckery, so I reached behind me and grabbed the wastebasket. She snatched it away from me and heaved her brunch into it.
“Goddammit,” she hissed, then shoved her face inside and retched some more. I let her get it out. Finally she stopped heaving and put the wastebasket on the floor. I snatched up a handful of paper towels, wet them, and handed them to her without a word.
She accepted them just as silently, then turned on the stool and faced the vanity mirror. She wiped her mouth, then pulled a travel toothbrush and a mini tube of toothpaste from her purse. I noticed the bracelet—turquoise and silver beads with one large bead pressed tight against the pulse point of her wrist—and realized this was no hangover she was battling.
“That bracelet not working?” I said.
She leaned forward, patting her cheeks with the wet paper. Didn’t reply.
I gestured to her wrists. “I used to work on a dive boat, so I recognize a motion sickness bracelet when I see one. The terrycloth bands work the best, but I guess those would clash with your outfit.”
She swished a mouthful of water in her mouth, then spat it in the sink. Kept her eyes on her reflection.
“How far along?” I said.
She kept ignoring me. I understood. I also knew that she’d completely misunderstood my threat about her “little secret” and I felt a pang of guilt.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t care if you got knocked up or not, and neither do the police. None of my, or their, business. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone caring in this day and age, but whatever. Like I said, your business. I do need to know about Lucius, though. So tell me what I need to know, I’ll leave, and you’ll never see me again.”
“We were screwing,” she said, pulling a tiny pot of foundation from her purse. “He worked on Richard’s crew one summer. I was bored. He was hot. What else do you need to know?”
“Any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
She glared at me. “Why would I kill him?”
“Did he hurt you?”
“What? Hell no!” She returned her attention to the mirror. “You want to find out who killed him, you gotta find somebody who cared. And I didn’t.” She turned in the seat and looked at me. “Didn’t care when we were doing it, didn’t care when he left. Found a replacement in two seconds flat.”
“Rich, good-looking girls always can.”
“Damn straight.”
“Your mama and sister and fiancé cool with this?”
She glared again.
“Ah. They don’t know.”
She blinked at me, and for a second I thought I saw tears. Or maybe a flash of real emotion. And then I understood. She was, after all, throwing up in a trash can, her purse tricked out like a morning sickness field kit. There was a wedding coming up, a hastily assembled one, and there didn’t have to be. If there was one thing a rich woman could get in Atlanta, it was a discreet way out of her particular difficulty.
I lowered my voice. “You either really do love him, or you really love his money. I can’t tell which.”
She ignored me. She had the mascara wand out, her eyes dry now. “I had no reason to kill Lucius. No one in my family did. He didn’t matter that way.”
“So you and his girlfriend didn’t have a fight?”
“Cat? And me?” She made a noise of disgust, pulled out her lipstick. “That chick is batshit. She texted me once, called me a whore. I told her that if she tried to contact me again, I’d have put her away, like straightjacket put away. I was not interested in her redneck drama. If you’re looking for somebody who hated Lucius, talk to that dumbass with the skateboard and the stupid tattoo.”
“You mean Fishbone?”
Chelsea applied an expert layer of berry-colored lipstick, her eyes on the mirror. “Yeah, him. He and Lucius were always fighting, drugs and money, money and drugs.”
“Fighting arguing or fighting fighting?”
“Both.”
“About what?”
“Mostly that Lucius had ditched him for a smarter, better partner. Some guy he met online.”
“Do you think Fishbone could have killed him over that?”
She shrugged, pursed her lips in the mirror. “Don’t know, don’t—”
“Don’t care, right. Got it.”
She popped the cap back on the lipstick and slipped it in her purse. She stood, then stepped around me and headed for the door, dismissing me as easily as she had Lucius and Cat and Fishbone. We were all the same to her—redneck trash. He’d been good for a quick roll or two, but I was merely an inconvenient obstacle.
She paused at the door. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, you will pay. I will hurt you where you live. I promise you.”
And in that second, as the words hit me right between the eyes, Chelsea Amberdecker looked exactly like her mother.