GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (22 page)

“
Beecher
will know where we are.
As far as I’m concerned, this is
police business.”

“You don’t think he’d try anything, do you?”

“
H
onest
ly
? I have no idea, but I don’t trust the man, with good reason
.”

She took an
extra long
time to get ready
to show
Compton
that whatever he gave her hadn’t put her under.
“How do I look?”

Lucier nuzzled his face into her neck. “Good enough to forget about dinner at the
Comptons
. Sure you want to go?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

In order to conform to
Diana
’s well-known
costume color code―
black, white, with an occasional touch of red
―
she wore a black above-the-knee skirt with high-heel
slingbacks
, white silk blouse, and a red pashmina shawl embroidered in black over her shoulders. Around her neck hung a mother of pearl quarter moo
n pendant on a black silk cord.

He fingered the pendant.
“Tempting the gods, are you?”

“I don’t want to disappoint. Besides, it’s much more apropos than pearls.”

“Well, at least you’re not wearing a satanic symbol around your neck.”

“Now would I do that?”

He smiled. “You know damn well you would if you owned one.”

She sighed but didn’t answer, because he was right.

When they arrived at Compton’s residence, the guards waved them through the gate without stopping them for identification.

“
Guess
we
’re on
the A-list
now
,” Diana said.

The burly weigh
t
lifter greeted them at the door, offering to take Diana’s shawl. She opted to keep it
to
provide a dramatic flourish
,
and the red added color to her more
-
than
-
usual paleness.

She
’d
noticed the magnificent
Lalique
cactus table in the foyer on her first visit. The one she’d seen in Paris some years before cost close to $100,000. Fitting
it should grace the home of one of the world’s richest men. This time she stopped to admire its graceful lines.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Diana was
stunned
by the
speaker’s
staggering beauty―smooth, translucent skin, clear blue eyes, ebony hair pulled straight back off a face that could have been painted by da Vinci, and the body of a porn star.

“Yes, I saw
a
Lalique
at an exposition in Paris a few years
ago
.”

“So good to see you again, Diana.”
The woman
turned to Lucier and offered her hand. “I’m Selene
Crane
Compton, and you must be Lieutenant Lucier.”

Diana barely heard their
exchange
―Lucier saying to call him Ernie, Selene Compton extending the same permission―so
bewildered
by the comment that she and Silas Compton’s wife had already met. To her recollection, she’d neve
r before set eyes on the woman.

Never.

A Game of One-
U
pmanship

“C
ome, our guests are anxious to meet you.”

Selene wore a low-cut black knit dress that accentuated her reed-slim but curvaceous figure.
W
orking Vegas, Diana had seen enough silicone to know Selene Compton’s assets were
the
real
thing
. They bounced, and she bounced them.
Tiered
strands of jade encircled her neck, cascading down the front of her dress
, highlighting here exceptional cleavage
. Diana assumed Compton kept the women in his life on
the same
tight leash
he implied Lucier kept her
. Selene Crane Compton was not a woman restrained.

She and Lucier followed her down a different hallway from
the one that led to
Compton’s home office
. This one opened
into a massive living room, tastefully furnished in shades of moss green and buttery gold. A hand woven silk Oriental rug covered the center of the dark wood floor, and a grand piano dominated the far right corner.
E
clectic and expensive
-looking
accessories
decorated tables and bookshelves
.
P
eople Diana
had never seen before
occupied t
hree large sofas
that
didn’t make a de
nt in the vastness of the room.

Silas Compton rose
from one of them
to greet the new arrivals
.
“How good of you both to come.”

A
ll eyes
centered
on
Diana
.
This is no different than standing in front of a sold-out crowd, Diana.
She consciously made an effort to relax.

Selene began the introductions.
“
Y
ou all know
the famous
Diana Racine, and this is her friend, Lieutenant Ernie Lucier of New Orleans
’
finest.” She turned to them. “Thank you both for coming on such short notice. May I introduce our other guests: Sophia and Fernando Reyes,
Rhea
and Jeremy Haynesworth, Anastasia and Martin Easley, my mother and father, Cybele and Phillip Crane, and my stepdaughters, Maia and Dione Compton.”

Even though his daughters were from his first marriage, they were every bit as beautiful as Selene. Diana felt almost boyish in the midst of a roomful of women who all looked like they descended from Aphrodite.

The obligatory
h
andshakes generated the same queasiness
she
experienced earlier in the day, though it passed quickly
.
She received a particularly eerie feeling from Martin Easley, but s
omething was
off with the whole group, though
she
couldn’t figure out
what.

“
Y
ou’ve met
Edward Slater,” Selene said.

Slater entered from a hallway and
nodded his greetings but didn’t offer his hand to either one of them. He sat in a
chair he
had
apparently occupied before leaving the room
, because he picked up a
drink off the table
.

“I feel like a fifteenth wheel,” he said, “but I couldn’t resist the invitation. At least I’m not unlucky thirteen.”

“Nonsense,” Selene said. “Your perspectives always add to the conversation, and who says thirteen is unlucky
?
It’s my lucky number. Besides, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have the pleasure of our two guests. Silas is grateful.” She addressed Diana. “He’s an unabashed admirer ever since he saw you during one of your
standing-room-only
performances.”

“I’m flattered,” Diana said. “Nice to see you again, Edward.”

“Same here,” Lucier
said.
Slater smiled
but
kept his seat.

Two people shifted into chairs to open up a space for them to sit down and join
the group clustered
around
a large coffee table. All had drinks
―
some wine, others
with
tumblers or highball glasses.

“What can Juan get for you to drink?” Selene asked, as the butler waited.

“Bourbon and water for me, please,” Lucier said, “and a Coke for Diana.”

“No,” she said. “Tonight is special. I’ll have a Scotch
, o
n the rocks.”
She detected
Lucier
’s frown
but
refused
to
acknowledge
him. This
was
a special night, she thought, and she didn’t want her mind diluted by Coke, especially since the last one she drank
had such a devastating effect.

The memory of yesterday
surfaced
.
Surely
she and Lucier
were safe drinking in front of all these people
. Not even Silas Compton would risk doing something so foolish.

She laughed inwardly at her rationalization. When
Lucier
finally caught her eye, she whispered, “Just tonight.” She turned back to the group and noticed Slater’s sly smile. She assumed he resisted the lure of spirits, given his history.

“You must still be recovering from your ordeal with that psychopath,” Sophia Reyes said. “I followed the whole thing. I
can’t imagine going through something like that and keep my
sanity
.
”

“I’m not sure I have,” Diana said. The room grew quiet
,
then
they all chuckled
,
figuring
in unison
she
was
joking
.

Fernando Reyes sat forward.
“And Lieutenant
―
”

“Call me Ernie.”

“Okay, Ernie, how did you ever track that man down?”

“Good teamwork.”

As Lucier fielded questions about the capture of
the man who wanted Diana dead
,
she
studied the people in the room. All the women were extraordinarily beautiful and at least twenty years younger than their husbands, except for Cybele Crane, who had to be sixty but looked a couple of decades younger. She was an older version of her daughter but no less beautiful, with fine features the very rich seemed to inherit with their money. If she
’d undergone
cosmetic surgery, it was
deftly
done. Even the delicately etched lines on her face enhanced her beauty. Diana assumed the May/December couples were second m
arriages, as was the
Comptons
’
.

Maia Compton
appeared
to be
in her late-twenties or early thirties and seemed reserved, as
opposed to her younger
,
more-outgoing sister,
Dione. They complimented Diana’s act, which they saw opening night during her last engagement.
Interacting politely
,
if unenthusiastically,
with the rest of the guests, Maia and Dione
eventually settled into conversation with each other.

“
…
and Silas
reported
your reading was quite on ta
rget,” Jeremy Haynesworth said.

Diana, caught in her observances, barely heard the address. “I’m
sorry,
I guess my mind was somewhere else.”

“I was just mentioning Silas’s evaluation of his reading.”

“
W
hat did he say about it?”

“
That y
ou told him things no one could possibly know.”

Diana turned to Compton. “Did I? I don’t recall. In fact, much of the afternoon is a blur. I intended to ask you about it.”

“That’s odd,” Compton said. “You
acted
fine when you were here.”

“Yes, I thought so, too,” Selene said.

“I have little recollection after getting into the limo until I woke up th
is
morning.”
A
quick visual exchange among the couples
added
a moment of tenseness.

Selene glanced at her husband. “I hate to bring this up as a possible reason, but you had a few drinks before and after the reading. Scotch, wasn’t it, Silas?”

“Yes, scotch,” Compton said. “I fixed them myself.
Quite a few, in fact.”

“Three or four, and you downed them as if you the world was end
ing
, and this would be your last chance
for
a drink. I remarked to Silas after you left that you possessed an amazing tolerance for such a tiny person.”