The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (21 page)

“
Voila,
” he said, flipping a switch.

Dozens of tiny illuminated globes made the alcove glow. Sky stood before a full length tri-paneled mirror.

“
Mon petit!”
Francois gasped.

Sky looked at her reflection.

It was Sky and it wasn’t Sky.

The figure in the mirror dazzled, a creature come to life from some mythic tale. The gown seemed to vibrate with movement, as though she were perpetually stepping from darkness into light. Immaculate white satin sheathed her body with perfect hourglass precision, her arms, shoulders, and breasts took on a porcelain blush.

Sky turned to the right. Along her back, extravagant scallops of snowy satin reached bare shoulder to bare shoulder, dipping just so, like a stole of ermine might. Down the gown’s back, at the line of her lower thigh, an elaborate looped knot drew the dress snug, the ends falling to the floor in a small train.

And her face, framed by hair that looked so natural, so effortless, Sky herself might have pulled it back and up. The diamond earrings were liquid light.

Sky stepped closer to the mirror.

Full round eyes blinked back at her in wide-eyed astonishment. Sapphire irises intensified by the blue of the jewels against a complexion as flawless and fair as white marble. Dark lashes and a pale halo of bronze along her outer eyelids conveyed a certain enigmatic moodiness.

And the mouth, pink, a cupid’s bow, the bottom lip slightly overdrawn at the sides, pouty and pursed. As though her sole purpose in life were to be kissed.

“
Monsieur
," she said, "you are an artist.”

Francois seemed unable to take his eyes off Sky’s reflection. “Never have I seen an angel fly so low.”

“Yes.” Sky had to agree. “A well baited hook.”

“
Pardon
?”

Sky blinked at Francois with her coquette’s eyes and thought about the knife in Porter Manville’s clenched fist. “Someone I’m hoping to meet at the ball,” she explained, “catch him off guard, before he discovers that I work for homicide.”

“Such beauty.” Francois shook his head at Sky’s reflection. “All in the line of duty? No romantic assignation? No lover?”

Lover. The word jarred her. For a split second she felt the pressure of Jake’s mouth on her skin, felt his body wrapped around hers. Sky watched the ethereal stranger in the mirror shake the memory away. That was over. Work was the important thing. Babies died. Lovers were untrue.

“Don’t look so sad, Francois.” Sky stood on tip toe and kissed the old hairdresser’s cheek. “Or you’ll make me cry.”

CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR

It was snowing – a rarity in Boston so late in April. Across the street, pedestrians scurried along the wrought iron fence of Boston Public Garden, heads down and shoulders hunched against the swirling white.

“What the fuck is that?” Kyle sat in the driver’s seat of the Crown Vic and peered at the car ahead of them in the Four Seasons valet line.

“A pink Bentley.” Sky swiveled the rearview mirror and checked her make-up. “It belongs to the hotel heiress. The one with the porn video.”

A leggy blonde stepped out of the pink coupé clasping a tiny flat-faced dog to her chest. She wore an aqua-blue gown composed of little more than a bikini bra and sarong slit up to her crotch.

“The Diamond Ball organizers are paying her to attend.” Sky watched the heiress strike a few quick professional poses for the gaggle of paparazzi clustered on the sidewalk. Two black suits in dark glasses appeared from nowhere and escorted her through the door of the Four Seasons amid cries of recognition by surprised onlookers.

“Bit of a slut, eh?” Kyle watched the entourage disappear into the hotel lobby and turned to Sky. “You look more the heiress than she does, darling.” He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his tux jacket. “Oh, that’s right. You
are
an heiress. That coat is spectacular, by the way. Goes on forever.”

“A nine foot sweep of Balenciaga Barguzin.” Sky parroted Francois’s description. “Russian sable. Pure, unadulterated luxury.” She flipped the coat collar up and fastened the locking clip at her neck. “Imperial. The fur of czars. Is there a heating vent in this car? My toes are freezing.”

“Poor trust fund baby.” Kyle jiggled a black knob on the dashboard. “Funny how I always seem to forget that fact.”

He reached over and stroked the silvery guard hairs on the arm of the sable with the lightest of touches. “You just don’t fit the profile, darling. What with your teaching, your homicide work. Your rats.” He lit a Marlboro. “Where are all the fabulous parties? The jet-setting? The vacation home in St. Moritz?” He gestured toward the pink Bentley. “You’re sleeping on your office sofa when you could be living the lush life of Barbie?”

“I don’t care about all that.”

“I know you don’t, darling.” Kyle flashed his gap-toothed grin. “It may be the sexiest thing about you.” He stared at Sky over his wire-rims. “Nice do on the hair, incidentally. Your neck is delicious.”

An unusual pitch in the detective’s voice made Sky wary. “Are you flirting with me?”

“Who? Me? I’m a married man.” Kyle cleared his throat. “But you can’t blame me for looking, love. Frankly, you’ve made it impossible not to look. Isn’t that the point?”

“Granted. But remember. You are a prop. Disappear into the crowd when I give you the signal.”

She unzipped a pocket in the fur’s satin lining and pulled out Izzy’s windflower-shaped evening bag. The tiny purse carried some heft because it was beaded with pink Austrian crystals and crammed full of the evening’s necessities: charity invitation, Izzy’s check, cash, cell phone, compact of Dior pressed powder, gold tube of Yves Saint Laurent
Fetish Pink
lipstick, a copy of Nicolette’s tattoo, a picture of Porter Manville, and the wad of tainted rat data.

Sky added a fresh glaze of pink to her lips and fought a gnawing uneasiness. Could she pull this off? Be charming and flirtatious? It had seemed a reasonable enough approach while she was sitting in Francois’s salon chair with the rat data. Here, in the police car with Kyle, she felt anxious. Afraid.

She reached into the back seat and pulled the prescription bottle of beta blockers from her yellow gym bag.

“What are those?” Kyle said.

“For my nerves.” Sky twisted the lid open but the bottle was empty. “What if I can’t get this guy’s attention?” She offered the detective a weak smile. She was embarrassed.

“Since when do you have nerves? You’re the girl who nailed Benny Gentile. Remember? Single-handedly. In a room full of cops.”

“That was different. Benny went for Moody’s gun. I reacted, that’s all.” Benny’s ghost sometimes haunted Sky’s dreams. Benny never spoke, he just looked at her with sad, brown eyes. “You know I don’t like to talk about Benny.”

Kyle frowned. “Darling, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied.

In her head she was struggling to keep the fear at bay. Maybe she wasn’t Manville’s type. What if the CEO wasn’t at the Diamond Ball at all? The whole day would be a waste of time. There were so many things she needed to do.

Sky blotted her lips on a tissue and tried to keep her hands from shaking. “Kyle, remember those graphs I took from the professor’s lab wall?”

The detective nodded. “A tale of two rat groups. How could I forget?"

"Do you remember the experiment?"

"Floetazine worked for the nervous rats, but it made the teddy-bears even more depressed.”

“Exactly,” Sky said. She told him about the phony data in the lab book. “Nicolette added twenty seconds to each Sprague-Dawley’s swim time.”

“So what?”

“She changed the
data
, Kyle.”

The detective took a thoughtful hit from his Marlboro. “Does the professor know about this?

“You’re the only person I’ve told. I didn’t get a chance to look at the numbers until I got to Francois’s.”

Kyle blew three fat smoke rings at the windshield. “Maybe the professor orchestrated it.”

Sky shook her head. “Doubtful. Professor Fisk said his raw data was sacred.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Kyle rolled his eyes. “Mr. Sexual Harassment put his hand on that lab book like it was the goddamned bible. What’s with you rat people, anyway?”

“Nicolette hid the real data in her apartment,” Sky said. “Why would she do that?”

“Who knows?” Kyle shrugged. “Who cares? To be honest, darling, I’m more interested in your old boyfriend. I’m thinking court order. Go through Templeton’s Charlestown condo with a fine-toothed comb. See what shakes out. Jake likes the idea.”

Sky recalled the shock in Ellery’s blue eyes at the news of Nicolette’s death. Jake and Kyle seemed so hungry to hang the murder on him, and why not? Ellery Templeton, recently jilted boyfriend, no alibi. Motive and opportunity. A sudden, urgent need to find Manville gripped her.

“Please, Kyle, one favor?” She leaned over and pulled a bit of tissue from the detective’s chin where he must have cut himself shaving. “Do not spook my CEO with your law enforcement vibe.”

“And if the subject of my employment should arise?” Kyle patted his tux jacket over the holstered and hidden baby Glock.

“No need to lie,” Sky reasoned. “Say something vague about working in the public sector.”

“Ah. Here’s the valet, love. And just in time.”

Kyle stepped out of the Crown Vic and circled to Sky’s side of the car while a man in a full-length great coat and chauffer’s cap opened her door. Kyle handed the valet a fifty dollar bill.

“Doctor,” he offered Sky his arm. “This public sector prop hears a very dry martini calling his name. And I hope to God it’s shaken, not stirred.”

Sky stepped out of the Crown Vic, hooked her arm through Kyle’s, and together they walked into the Four Seasons amid an explosion of paparazzi camera lights.

“Skylar! You are here for the Diamond Ball, of course.” An elegant older man with silver hair and a heavy German accent appeared at Sky’s elbow the instant she and Kyle stepped into the hotel. He gestured toward the east end of the lobby. “The grand ballroom, my dear. Second floor, you remember the way.” He winked at Sky and slipped a card into her hand. “My private line,” he said in a quiet voice. “Anything you need. Anything at all.”

“A dry martini for my escort?” she said. “Shaken, not stirred?”

A discreet nod of the silver head and he was gone.

Kyle gave Sky a look.

“It’s exactly five minutes from the front steps of my grandmother’s house to this hotel lobby. If you run through Boston Garden.” Sky pointed in the direction of Izzy’s mansion. “I’ve timed it. She sent me here whenever she was having one of her sick headaches. I’d make a game out of trying to outrun the help.”

“The help?”

“Izzy never let me come alone. Always insisted on sending one of the servants. As a teenager, it was a real pain in the ass.” Sky looked around the bustling reception area. A chic Latina in patent leather boots stood next to the lobby’s massive display of lavender orchids and fussed with a mountain of Louis Vuitton luggage while her tanned companion argued at full volume with a polite desk clerk, something about a mix-up in reservations.

Sky unhooked the collar of the Barguzun. “I have to admit, it still feels a little like home.”

“Who’s the German dude?”

“Klaus, the hotel manager. He’s from Munich.” Sky pointed to a door located behind the front desk. “He let me watch TV in his office when I was a kid. I think he felt sorry for me.”

A waiter appeared with a silver tray bearing a single martini.

“Fortification!” Kyle snatched the drink. “I could grow to love this lifestyle.” He fished the olive out with thumb and forefinger and drained his glass in a single gulp. “I’ll divorce my wife. You and I shall marry.” He popped the olive in his mouth and chewed vigorously. “She’s not my type, anyway.”

“Your wife is a needy, neurotic shrew.”

“You’re right.” Kyle sighed. “She’s exactly my type.”

Sky checked the lobby clock. “According to the charity invitation, the reception is already over. Let’s find Manville.”

“First things first, love. Climb out of that coat.” Kyle tossed the empty martini glass to a surprised waiter and helped Sky off with the sable. “Present the goods, so to speak.”

Sky watched the detective’s reaction as she slipped her bare arms out of the fur. He hadn’t seen her in the dress, until now.

“Wow.” Kyle’s eyes took in the sapphire and diamond necklace, the décolletage, the couturier’s white gown. “That, darling, is a rather astounding ensemble. I didn’t realize such a skinny thing could have so many … curves.” His gaze lingered on her breasts.

“It’s the eighteen-bone corsetry system,” Sky pointed to her ribs. “It pushes everything up. Like a miracle bra.”

Other heads turned her way and stared.

“You can thank Cristóbal Balenciaga.” Sky gave credit where credit was due.

Kyle, noting the attention Sky was attracting from strangers, said, “Balenciaga had nothing to do with that face.
Or
that body.” He jutted his jaw and scowled.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re hot, darling. Too hot.” He heaved the Barguzin over his left shoulder and steered Sky across the black marble floor. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Two tuxedoed figures in tusked boar’s head masks passed them carrying a suckling pig on a stretcher with long poles on either side. A third tuxedo in a harlequin mask followed, lugging a large pie with gaping fish heads poking up through the crusted perimeter.

“Darling?”

Sky’s eyes followed the stretcher. Skinned, roasted, and wearing a garland of borage and fennel, the pig rested on a bed of evergreen boughs with a ruby apple shoved in it’s maw.

“The invitation says Carnivale,” Sky said.

CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE

The Four Seasons was a lovely place to be when it was snowing in Boston.

“Wait.” Sky stopped Kyle on their climb up the grand staircase and pulled him over to the landing’s massive window. Side by side they stood, looking toward the Public Garden at the blowing, falling, swirling snow.

“The rich really do get the best views, don’t they, darling?”