Yolanda glanced up as Rhonda Gagne sashayed into the shop carrying Lady, her Chinese crested dog, who was hairless except for a few tufts of white fur. "Manuel, what do you really want? I am busy."
He sighed. She hated when her brother sighed; it made her feel like such a little sister. "The ransom note," he said. "I want to see it."
Turning from Mrs. Gagne and the pooch, Yolanda replied, "I can't."
"Of course you can. Get it from Elinor."
"I can't," she repeated. "I'm busy."
"Yo, please. If the letters are as colorful as you say, they were probably cut out of magazines. If I can take a look, I might be able to figure out which magazines."
"And that will prove what?"
"I won't know until I see it." He sighed again.
"Manuel," she said, glancing back at her customer. "I have clients in the shop. Can we discuss this later?" She had a lengthy break before her next customer once the Gagnes were groomed.
"I have to work later."
"And I'm working now." Mrs. Gagne had made herself at home on the leather spa chair. She'd slid off her sandals and placed her feet in the whirlpool as if Yolanda had already turned on the sudsy warm water, which she had not. Lady was perched on Mrs. Gagne's lap, probably aware that after her mistress's pedicure, Yolanda would give her one, too. Sometimes, Yolanda thought, she should have stayed in the Bronx.
"If you can get it today, I'll make sure Junior takes you to dinner."
Junior again. Manny was trying to be funny, but Yolanda didn't laugh. She'd heard her brother's plea since before Vincent had come and gone: Junior Diaz had served with Manny in the army and now taught high school history. But Yolanda did not want a Spanish man. She'd come too far from the neighborhood for that.
She leveled her voice. "Manuel, I am going to hang up now." And so she did.
"Yolanda, dear," Mrs. Gagne cooed from the spa chair. "Is there a new man in your life?"
Wouldn't Rhonda love to be the first to spread the news that Vincent DeLano's widow had found a new man-this time, one of her own kind.
Yolanda quickly reminded herself that Rhonda Gagne-and her friends, and their friends-paid big New York dollars for their nails and their hair, dollars that went directly into Belita's education fund and Yolanda's 401(k).
She smiled. "Oh, no, Mrs. Gagne, that man on the phone is my brother. I don't bother with the rest of them."
The woman nodded and fluffed Lady's tufts. "A wise decision, my dear. It's amazing the world has lasted this long with men still walking around."
Yolanda turned on the warm water and poured in the suds. She didn't say that what was truly amazing was that Mrs. Gagne's CEO husband headed an insurance firm on the Fortune 100, and she seemed to enjoy that side of him.
She snapped on the water jets and handed the woman the latest Town & Country. Glancing down at the elegant cover that pictured a home of museum proportions covered by teasers for articles within, she wondered if Manny could really learn something from the cut-out letters on the note and if Elinor would still be home after the woman and Lady were groomed.
Twenty-five.
Alice made it to the fourth floor of the Lord Winslow without being detected. She stopped by a mirror on the wall near the elevator, primped her hair, checked her lipstick, straightened the tan polyester. Aside from the delayed sex with Leonard, in her younger years Alice never would have dreamed of doing anything sneaky, immoral, or certainly illegal.
Good Lord, she thought with a grim little smile, I'm glad those days are over.
She pranced down the hall in search of room 402 and the housekeeping cart. In addition to tracking Elinor's belongings, she'd already decided to do a bit more investigating. How she'd love to learn the name of Elinor's lover!
She'd start with the woman who'd cleaned the room after Elinor's tryst. Housekeepers noticed things, didn't they? The way the cleaning ladies in Mount Kasteel knew the families they worked for, the way the Yolandas of the world knew intimacies reserved for the moments when their clientele bared their souls along with their roots.
If Yolanda's brother was right-and Alice feared he might be-Alice, Poppy, CJ, and even Yolanda might be in danger simply for butting in. But weren't they entitled to know the whole story if their very lives were at risk?
Elinor must have dumped her lover.
Why else wasn't he involved with the search?
Was he married?
Maybe he was the one doing the blackmailing, a gigolo only after her money.
Had she met him on the Internet?
Was it someone the rest of them knew, not counting Duane?
"Hey, you!"
Uh-oh.
Alice made an attempt at a game face. She turned. "Me?" She faced a young Asian woman who wore a dress that matched the one she had on.
"You late."
Again, Alice tapped her watch. She hoped the woman didn't notice it was a Chopard with seven floating diamonds and a white diamond face. It had been a gift from Neal on their twenty-fifth anniversary before Kiley Kate had started singing and Alice had started doing the rest. "I am not late. You early."
The young woman crinkled her forehead. "You start?"
"No! Where is cart? Where are sheets? Where are towels?" It was all Alice could think of to say.
"Towels," the woman said. "Yes. I have key."
Alice had no idea what she'd do if another housekeeper showed up and staked a claim. "We start in room four-o-two," Alice said as she followed the woman to a closet marked Housekeeping.
"Four-o-six."
"Four-o-two."
The woman shook her head rapidly as she unlocked the door and pulled out a cart heaped with linens and buckets of tiny soaps and shampoos. "Four-o-two occupied. Do not disturb."
"But it's almost noon. Who doesn't 'disturb' by noon?"
The small shoulders shrugged. She pointed to the doorway across the hall. A red and white Do Not Disturb sign dangled from the handle on the door marked 402. The room where Elinor had done what she'd done with whomever she'd done it with.
The woman wheeled the cart from the closet with a swift, practiced move, then started quickly down the hall.
"Wait!" Alice called after her. "I must ask you something."
"You late," the woman muttered again. "We start in four-o-six."
Alice caught up to her fashion companion. "Please. Tell me one thing. Do you always clean room four-o-two? Did you clean it last Friday?"
The cart came to a stop. "What?"
"Last Friday. Did you clean room four-o-two?"
"I no work Friday. I work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. No Friday."
"Who worked this floor Friday?"
The scowl returned. "Old lady like you. She here Thurs day, Friday, Saturday, when big people come. Not me. I work Sunday, Monday..."
Alice grunted at the "old lady" comment. "Big people? What big people?" Did she mean big in size?
"Important people. Movie stars."
Movie stars? Alice doubted that Elinor would appeal to Clooney or Pitt.
"Like who?"
"I don't know names. I work. You work now. You late."
"Right," Alice said. She sensed this was hopeless. The conversation, the dress, the espionage. Maybe the real reason Elinor wouldn't reveal the name of her lover was that he was someone she was ashamed of. A Donald in Dallas. A Parker in San Jose. Someone not worth Alice's time or attention. She retreated down the hall toward the staircase.
"Hey, you! Where you go?"
"Home," Alice said, without looking back. "Have a nice day."
Finally the damn plane was off the ground. Elinor pulled in her arms, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on other tedious events that had lasted four hours and she'd managed to survive.
The implants she'd had done on her molars.
The colonoscopy her doctor had insisted on because she'd had one of those issues.
Father's funeral, of course. They'd lumped the calling hours and the funeral into one painful morning in order to be done with the ritual once and for all.
There had been so many people. Faculty, administrators, students who'd been helped by his public grandiosity over so many years. There had been parents, mostly mothers, as the fathers were either working or off playing golf. There were mountains of flowers, many fresh-cut from the cottage gardens around Lake Kasteel. There were tedious speeches. There was crying. There was the announcement of the Franklin Harding Memorial Library on the grounds of the school he'd lorded over.
Four hours at least. Then it had been done.
With Remy, she never had enough time. An hour and a half was the longest "date" she'd been allowed. She knew, because she'd kept track. She'd kept track of everything: dates, times, locations. She'd even taken a few souvenirs: a fork from the vice president's residence that she might give Poppy one day; a monogrammed hand towel from his private bath; a Cuban cigar from the humidor in his office.
Even at the Lord Winslow she'd only been given an hour of his time in room 402, always 402.
She'd never been trashy enough to keep his DNA in any La Perlas. She wondered if that made her a fool.
The large man beside her slouched toward her now. She angled her spine toward the child and checked her watch. Twelve minutes had passed. Three hours and forty-eight until they would land.
Poppy sat with the four-way flashers flashing. She'd moved to the driver's side, bound her fingers around the steering wheel until her knuckles had paled, and stared into the rearview mirror until she saw little flecks of light. Both the engine and the air-conditioning were running in preparation for the getaway if it needed to be quick.
Ha! As if she could step on it if the situation arose. As if she could maneuver this big boat through Manhattan traffic.
Sheesh.
"Come on, Alice," she whimpered to the rearview. "Make it snappy."
She would have thought Alice might have known she was frightened of the police. It was, after all, part of why she'd continued with this charade. Elinor had sounded believable enough about barely knowing Duane, but, still, he could be behind the blackmail, he was so good at conniving. And if he was, Poppy wanted to know before the police were involved. She wanted to confront him, throw him out, something! before the police knocked on their door.
With questions.
And scrutiny.
And reading all those rights.
Yolanda's brother was a police officer, but somehow, he was different. For one thing, he didn't wear a uniform. For another, he really was cute.
Poppy smiled.
Then she blinked. She reminded herself that every time she'd thought a man was kind of cute she'd wound up marrying the louse.
Rap, rap, rap.
She nearly jumped out of her freckles. Without turning her head, she rolled her eyes to the window. Naturally, it was a police officer. He wore a uniform and was not cute like Manny. Her heart started racing.
His knuckles rap, rapped again.
She sucked in her breath, said a small, "Oh, Momma, help me, please," and located the button that put the window down.
"Is everything all right, ma'am?"
He had funny-looking teeth, and she couldn't see his eyes through his dark sunglasses.
"Yes," she answered. "I'm just waiting for the tow truck."
"You need a tow?"
She nodded. "Yes, the battery went dead." As soon as she said it, she knew she was in trouble.
He leaned closer to the window. "Sounds fine to me. Looks like you're up and running, air conditioner, included."
"I am?" she asked. "Oh! So I am! Well, thank you, Officer."