High Heels and Holidays (25 page)

“You're right. I'm getting a little tired of explaining you, to tell you the truth—especially if any of the network newshounds picked up anything on a scanner and show up. The department doesn't need another exclusive Holly Spivak-Alexander Blakely television circus,” Wendell said, flipping his notebook closed. “Besides, I don't want Maggie to be alone, even if it's you I'm sending to her. Who else should we be watching? I left Bernie's list back at the homicide table.”

Saint Just mentally ran down the list, picking and choosing. “There's Bruce McCrae. J.P. is babysitting him, I believe is the term. Maggie, of course. And Felicity Boothe Simmons. The rest have all either fled the metropolitan area or are, alas, recently deceased.”

“Felicity Boothe Simmons? Oh, God, not that space cadet. She'll demand protection.
Loudly
. Count on it.”

“A problem easily solved,” Saint Just said helpfully. “I'm sure Maggie would be more than willing to open her home to Miss Simmons for the duration. You do plan on solving these murders sooner rather than later, don't you,
left
-tenant, I would most sincerely hope? I said Maggie would be
willing
to house Miss Simmons. I am not saying that she will be particularly overjoyed to do so. Therefore, it goes without saying that we will look forward to frequent updates from you.”

“I'll be sure to keep you in the loop,” Wendell said with what actually looked to be a bit of a sneer. He moved to stab his hand through his shaggy hair, but then stopped as he noticed he was still wearing the latex gloves. “Go away now, Blakely. Just go away. You've got to have something else to do besides driving me nuts.”

Saint Just thought of the computer disk in his pocket. “As a matter of fact, I do. I most certainly do. But may I first say how very gratifying it is to be working with you again,
left
-tenant.”

“Yeah. It's freaking terrific. We're a hell of a team.
Go
!”

Chapter Eighteen

A
S they rode the elevator to the thirty-seventh floor of Felicity Boothe Simmons's building, Maggie leaned against the wall of the car, still trying to come to grips with the idea that Jonathan West was dead. Murdered.

“Poor guy,” she said, sighing. “His last book? It was named to, I think, four different worst books of the year, most disappointing books of the year—that sort of thing—lists. You know, media critics' polite way of saying
loser
. I can't imagine what that feels like—to see your book on a list like that. I just know I don't ever want to know how it feels.”

“And you won't, my dear,” Alex assured her. “I won't allow it.”

“
You
won't allow it? God, Alex, I should start following you around with a pen and notepad. I mean, that was a funny line—not. Now, quick, tell me again why I had to come here with you. I'd almost figured out which iPod I'm going to order for Sterling. All I have to do now is compare prices.”

“You know why you're here. You're a woman, Maggie. Felicity is a woman. I think she'll handle the news better, coming from you.”

“Me? Me who can't stand Faith—
that
me? You're such a cockeyed optimist, Alex.”

“Yes, thank you. Now isn't this odd. Gates lives on the third floor, West resided on the sixth, and here is Felicity, on the thirty-seventh. In New York, it would appear that the higher up you live, the more affluent the building.”

“And I'm on the ninth floor. I remember. Hey, did you get a look at that foyer downstairs? It's furnished better than my condo.” As the elevator slid soundlessly to a halt and the doors opened, she added, “And no wisecracks. My condo is furnished just fine, thank you.”

“You have a three-foot-high pink plastic flamingo in the corner of your bedroom.”

“Yeah? So? Kirk gave it to me last year as some kind of joke, I guess. I may have gotten rid of him, but I sort of like the flamingo. Does it bother you? That Kirk gave it to me, I mean?”

Alex used his cane to hold open the elevator doors until Maggie belatedly realized she hadn't moved, and stepped out onto the plush carpeting. “No, my dear. It offends me aesthetically. Ah, this is Felicity's door. I neglected to ask. Does she live alone?”

“I'll just pretend you meant that as a serious question. Get real, Alex, who'd live with her?” Maggie looked at the door. Damn. Felicity's building foyer was better than hers. This door was better than hers. Higher, wider—and there were two of them; actual double doors, sort of carved, sort of antiqued. “She's got Christmas wreaths hanging on her doors?” she said. “Okay, they look good. I could do that, you know. A nice live wreath, with pinecones, a pretty red ribbon. Then I could post a twenty-four-hour guard so that somebody doesn't rip me off. Of course, if I wired it just right—”

“Maggie, dear heart, would you care to ring the bell?”

“—maybe with a live grenade,” she told him, completing the thought as she shot him a dirty look, because he knew what she knew—that she was only delaying the inevitable. “Her assistant told me she'd be home by one. I told you that. I could have just phoned her and told her about Francis and Jonathan. I still don't see why we had to—oh, all right, all right, I'm ringing. Look, see me ringing the bell.” She frowned. “I don't have a bell. Why does she have a bell? The concierge already called her. Why don't I have a concierge? Why do I have Paul the putz?”

“Maggie, hello! Oh, and Alex, too. I could barely believe it when Pierre called up to say I had company. Come in, come in—I've been just
dying
to show you my new place. I only moved in a month ago, you know. No, of course you don't. I didn't get my housewarming present yet, did I? Naughty, naughty.”

Maggie glared at Alex, who had the decency to shrug his shoulders in an apologetic way before she followed Felicity
Boobs
Simmons into the large, marble-tiled foyer with at least a fifteen-foot ceiling and a crystal chandelier that could have played the stunt double in
Phantom of the Opera
. A huge round table sat in the middle of the foyer, a two-foot-high vase on top of it, loaded with a fresh flower arrangement that had to stand another three feet high. “Wow, Faith, this is really . . . something.”

The foyer opened into an enormous living room, salon, saloon—whatever it was, it was freaking
big
, and decked out in gold and white and—good God—
pink
, and in the style of Louis XIV or XVI, or one of those Louis. Heavy silk draperies slathered all over twenty-foot-high windows, puddling on plush white carpeted floors. A white fake Christmas tree decorated all in pink and silver that nearly reached that ceiling was backed by the wide, curving marble staircase that led to an exposed balcony and the second floor of the unit (she had a second floor!). The tree was lit with a million small fairy lights. Revolving. It probably even snowed on itself.

“Check around, Alex,” Maggie said as Faith made herself comfortable on a white-on-white silk brocade couch that could probably comfortably seat thirty-two people. “She may have stashed Marie Antoinette here somewhere.”

“Maggie? Are you just going to stand there? You've seen fine furnishings before, surely?”

“You can take the snark out of Brooklyn Heights, but you can't take the snark out of the woman, or something like that. You know what I mean,” Maggie said to Alex out of the corner of her mouth as she smiled at Faith, then spread her arms as if to encompass the entire room. “Why do I feel this sudden hunger for cotton candy?”

Felicity's tinkling laugh affected Maggie like knuckles on a cheese grater—meaning the sound wasn't so bad, but it was still damn painful. “I'll take that as a compliment, Maggie. It is delicious here, isn't it?”

“Oh, yeah. Delicious. Who's that over the fireplace?” Maggie asked, gawking at the life-size painting. “The guy leering over the nursing-mother redhead.”

“Derek Whitehead, of course, modeling for my latest cover. I don't know the female model's name—they're so interchangeable, aren't they. That's the original art. I have all my covers in oils—the rest are back there, in my suite of offices; I'll show them to you later. I plan to always have the current cover above the fireplace. So you like it? Oh, I know you're positively salivating, aren't you! I won't tell you what I paid for the place, but if you thought five million you'd be thinking
much
too small. But what do I labor so hard for, if not to allow myself a few creature comforts?”

“A warm bath and fuzzy slippers are creature comforts, Faith. Chicken noodle soup and bread and butter with sugar on it are creature comforts. Just call this place what it is, okay? You, showing off.”

“Yes, I am, aren't I?” Faith said, giggling again. “I can afford to.”

“Three weeks, wasn't it?”

Maggie's allusion to the staying power of Felicity's latest hardback on the
NYT
finally took the smile from the woman's face.

“You were mean, Maggie. Suggesting that Bernie has found someone to replace me. Oh, yes, I knew what you were doing. You know, you may have saved my life at the last We Are Romance convention, and I'm grateful, but there is a limit to what I should be forced to endure from you. I was never anything but a loyal friend.”

“Yeah, sure you were. Right up until the minute you forgot to invite me to your cocktail party at
WAR
because you wanted it limited only to your fellow
NYT
authors. The year before that conference, Faith, you and I roomed together and shared doggie bags we'd brought back from the Toland Books dinner, because we were so short of cash. Remember those days, Faith?”

Felicity waved away the question as she smiled over at Alex, who had been admiring a bust of some Greek goddess and doing the typical man thing of ignoring two women who were obviously indulging in a distasteful catfight. “I'm dying to hear your opinion of my new home, Alex. You English have such exemplary taste.”

“It's quite
you
, Felicity,” Alex said, and Maggie bit back a giggle of her own, because she knew a dig when she heard one—which Felicity did not.

“Oh, thank you, Alex,” Felicity trilled. “Ah, and here comes Trixie, my assistant. Honestly, I don't know how I'd exist without her. You understand, don't you, Maggie? I mean, how does one possibly answer all one's fan mail without an assistant? All those requests for bookmarks, autographed photographs. Oh, and Trixie arranges my speaking schedule, of course—just a million things I couldn't possibly have time for if I wanted to continue writing my books, pleasing my fans. Trixie, come here, dear. I want to introduce you to my good friends and you can then get them whatever they want to drink.” She eyed Maggie up and down. “Diet soda, Maggie?”

Fun was fun, and all of that, but it was time to shut Faith up, damn it. “Francis Oakes is dead and so is Jonathan West and they both got dead rats in the mail and threatening poems and we've figured out that somebody is after all the authors who contributed to
No Secret Anymore
—some weird serial killer with his own reasons that nobody understands because we were figuring someone was out to avenge Jonathan, not kill him—so we know you got a dead rat, too, and your life could be in danger and . . . well, and Alex here figured you should know and take precautions.”

Felicity's carefully painted mouth had dropped open somewhere around
some weird serial killer
. “What are you talking about? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Maggie Kelly, and you just said it to frighten me. Shame on you!”

“I did not!”

“Oh yes you did. I know you, Maggie. You're mean. And to say that I received a dead rat in the mail? That's ludicrous.
You
might get one, I can see that. But my fans would never do such a thing. None of my readers would ever send me a dead rat.”

“No, only your friends,” Maggie said with a grin.

“That's it, Maggie, mock me. But I know my fans. They
love
me. They send me afghans they've knitted for me. They send me homemade cookies, needlepoint bookmarks—Fruit of the Month!”

Maggie snapped her fingers as she turned to point a finger at Alex. “That's it. I can get Tate a year's worth of Fruit of the Month Club stuff. Smother him in grapefruit. Barrage him with Bartlett pears. Drive him crazy with boxes of... of kumquats.”

“Maggie, dear, your mind is wandering,” Alex pointed out as he polished his quizzing glass with a fine linen square of cloth.

“Oh yeah, right,” she said, turning back to Felicity once more. “You had to have gotten a dead rat, Faith, everybody else did. Okay, not Kimberly D'Amico, but she lives in Missouri and we think they ran out of postage—”

“Or rats,” Alex supplied helpfully, holding up his quizzing glass now as he examined a bit of jade in the form of a butterfly.

“Right, or rats. Something. But everyone else got dead rats and poems. Everyone who lives in this area got a dead rat, and now two of those people are dead. Murdered. You got one, Faith, so don't lie and say you didn't and try to blow our theory.”

“The hell with your theory. I did not get a dead rat, Maggie Kelly.”

“You did so.”

“Did not!

“Did too!”

“
Did not
!”

“
Did
—”

“Ladies, ladies, please. Miss—Trixie, is it? Pardon me for saying so, but you seem a bit uncomfortable. Is there by any chance something you'd like to say?”

Maggie turned her attention to the rather mousy young woman who was one of those people who seemed capable of becoming invisible. “Yeah, she doesn't open her own mail, does she? Trixie? Did Faith get a rat?”

“Uh. Um. Ms. Felicity? I'm afraid you did, ma'am. One day last week, I really don't remember the exact day. It was digusting, ma'am, and I threw it down the chute the moment I saw what it was. If there was a poem, I didn't see it. I only saw the rat. I . . . I'm sorry.”

When Felicity just sat there on her lovely white brocade couch, both manicured hands to her silicone-enhanced breasts, her BOTOX-plumped lips moving soundlessly, Maggie looked at Alex and asked, “Okay, now what?”

“In a moment, Maggie. There are those who were not born with your admirable resilience,” Alex said, walking unerringly to a large armoire that, when he opened the upper doors, revealed a mirrored bar. He poured both Felicity and the assistant glasses of wine and pressed them into their hands before asking of Trixie: “What do you remember of the package, my dear? Most, I'm afraid, have been destroyed, and although we doubt the perpertrator was kind enough to include a return address, I would like to hear just what you remember about what you saw. Do you think you can do that?”

“Thank you.” Trixie drank down half of the wine, then nodded furiously. “It was . . . it was just one of those bags, you know? From the post office? I'm sorry, but I don't remember a return address. I could feel that there was a box or something inside the package, something the size of a shoe box, I thought, and when I pulled it out, it was gift-wrapped, so I opened it and—”

“It was
gift-wrapped
? Alex, you didn't mention that before. Was my rat gift-wrapped?” Maggie asked.

Alex shook his head. “No, my dear, it was not.”

“Ha!” Felicity exclaimed in triumph, lifting her glass in a salute, as if she'd just won some sort of contest.

“You're pathetic,” Maggie told her, shaking her head. “And so am I. We've got two murdered writers, Faith, and you or I could be the next target.”