The Secret Heiress (41 page)

Then she noticed that Ariadne was wearing the identical snakeskin Cavalli dress that she had planned to wear. “What the—?”

“I think it’s time we explained,” Adrian said coolly. “This is Ariadne Papadaki, Niki. Your twin sister.”

“What?” she exclaimed. She looked at Adrian with disbelief before shifting her gaze back to Ariadne. “You’re out of your mind,” she snapped. “I don’t have a twin sister.”

“It’s true,” Adrian said. “I was there when she was taken away after your birth, so I know it’s true.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Nikoletta screeched, quivering with rage. “I’m the only Papadaki heiress. The only one there is and the only one there’ll ever be.” Despite her words, she was completely flummoxed. She felt as if she were staring into a mirror.

Ariadne stared back at her speechless. She wished Nikoletta would come to her and embrace her as a sister. But she knew that would not happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

“I assure you that you’re wrong,” Adrian said. “She is your twin sister, and as such has a right to her share of the Papadaki empire.”

“Get her out of here!” Nikoletta screamed. “Get her out of my sight!”

“I don’t think so,” Adrian said calmly. “We have other plans.” He looked over at Matt and nodded.

Matt crossed the room to Nikoletta. Grabbing both of her arms and pulling them behind her, he quickly slipped handcuffs on her.

“You son of a bitch!” Nikoletta cried, struggling against the restraints. “I know what you’re doing! I know! You’re trying to replace me, aren’t you? With her!” She spit the word as if it were poisonous. “Well, it won’t work!”

“If you say another word, I’ll gag you,” Matt said firmly.

“Who the—”

Matt clamped a hand across her mouth tightly. “If gagging you doesn’t work, then I’ll use chloroform. Understand?”

Nikoletta’s eyes had grown wide with alarm, but she nodded.

Matt slowly removed his hand, and she remained silent. The expression on her face, though, was one of utter hatred.

Sugar calmly took a cream-saturated cloth from a plastic bag in her evening purse. In brisk, broad strokes she began wiping away the thick makeup she had applied to Ariadne’s face a few hours earlier. As heavy eyebrow pencil, rouge, eye shadow, lipstick, powder, and base makeup began to disappear, Nikoletta’s twin began to emerge from beneath her mask.

Nikoletta couldn’t help but stare at the woman. The awe that she had felt initially overcame her again. For a moment it was as if time had stopped. Nikoletta and the twin sister she had never known stared at each other. Then Nikoletta’s expression contorted once again into an ugly rictus.

“You’ll never get away with this,” she snarled.
“Never!”

She focused her attention on Adrian, her eyes burning with intensity. “You traitor!” she cried. “You’re responsible for this. I’ll kill you for this!”

She began shouting obscenities again, but Matt clamped his hand across her mouth again and held her all but immobile against him.

Ariadne watched the scene in horror. She had felt the same awe Nikoletta had experienced, but Ariadne had also felt a terrible shame wash over her. The reality of what they were about to do to her sister, evil though she was, almost overcame her. Yet when Nikoletta spewed a stream of obscenities, displaying all of the nastiness that she was known for, Ariadne was shocked. She regarded her with a mixture of disgust and sympathy. Her twin was everything they had described and more.

“We’d better get her undressed,” Sugar said matter-of-factly. “It’s time she put in a final appearance at the party.”

Nikoletta made muffled noises against Matt’s hand and began to struggle again, her eyes filled with rage. Matt let go of her with one hand and took a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket. Sugar opened it for him, and he pulled out a chloroform-saturated cloth. Releasing the pressure of his hand against her mouth momentarily, he shoved the cloth under Nikoletta’s nose, pushing it into her nostrils. She struggled violently for an instant; then her head slumped forward.

Matt released her and gently placed her on the couch. From his jacket pocket he extracted another plastic bag, from which he removed a small plastic case. He held a hypodermic needle and a small alcohol-saturated cotton ball. He took them out of the case, pressed the plunger once to get any air out of the solution, and wiped a place on Nikoletta’s arm with the cotton ball. Then he plunged the needle in, pressing all of the fluid into her. When he was finished, he said, “She’s going to be out for hours.”

“How long, do you think?” Angelo asked.

“Oh, around twelve hours, give or take.”

“Will she have any ill effects?” Ariadne asked.

“No, she shouldn’t,” Matt responded. “It would be very rare if she did, and if so, just a sort of hangover.” He retrieved his keys and removed the handcuffs from Nikoletta’s wrists.

“Okay, gents,” Sugar said. “Make yourselves scarce for a few minutes. Just don’t go upstairs where Frans is sleeping.”

“I think we ought to wait in the entrance hall,” Matt said, “just in case anybody comes up. Just let me get ready.” With Adrian’s help, he quickly removed the military and other decorations that were pinned to his tuxedo and the two that hung around his neck on large ribbons. Then he slipped off the curly wig on his head and pulled off the mustache glued above his lip. “Ouch. That glue’s really strong.” He took off the large-framed glasses with clear lenses that he’d worn. “How do I look?”

“Comb your hair,” Angelo said.

“And there’s some glue from the mustache,” Yves said. “You’ll have to wash that off.”

“Be right back,” Matt said. “I’ll meet you in the entrance hall.”

Sugar and Ariadne began undressing Nikoletta, taking care with the delicate skirt and top. Ariadne felt very strange sensations—indescribable sensations—that threatened to overwhelm her as she helped strip the clothing off her mirror image.
This is someone with whom I was supposed to share my life.
She had to remember that her sister was an evil person, and that she had to right the wrongs that her twin had perpetrated.

When Nikoletta was naked, Ariadne threw her red satin cape over her, carefully tucking her in. Then she began dressing in her sister’s clothes, fighting off the creepy feeling that donning each piece gave her.

When she was finished, she turned to Sugar. “What about shoes?” she asked.

“Leave yours on,” Sugar replied. “No one will notice because of the floor-length skirt, and even if they do, they’ll think that Niki changed shoes for some reason. Now, stand there and let me have a look at you.”

Sugar stepped back a few paces and studied Ariadne. She clapped her hands together at last. “You look beautiful, sweetheart,” she exclaimed. “If anything, more beautiful than Niki. You have an inner glow that Niki doesn’t have, and it shows.”

“I . . . I feel so . . .”

Sugar grasped both of Ariadne’s hands in her own. “You are doing the right thing. You’re doing a noble thing, as unpleasant as it may seem to you now.”

Ariadne gave a wobbly smile. “I hope so.”

Sugar let go of her hands, then fiddled with a few strands of Ariadne’s hair. “Wait just a second,” she said. “One more thing.”

Sugar took a small silk makeup case out of her evening purse and opened it. She applied a little fresh lipstick to Ariadne’s lips, a little blusher to her cheekbones, and, with delicate fingers, a small amount of eye shadow to her lids. She stood back and studied Ariadne’s face again. “Perfect,” she pronounced. “Wait here while I get the men.” Sugar went off toward the entrance hall.

Gazing down at the sleeping body of her twin, Ariadne felt a knot clench in her stomach. The guilt Sugar had mentioned was part of it, but there was so much more twisted up into that knot. The overwhelming sense of loss she felt, knowing that she would never be friends with her twin and that they would probably never even get to know each other was the saddest part, she thought. There would never be anything other than a genetic bond between them.

Sugar hurried back into the living room, the men trailing behind her. “What do you think?” she asked them.

“Perfect,” Adrian said. “I could never tell the difference.”

“Bellissima,”
declared Angelo. He approached Ariadne, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Grazie,”
Ariadne said. “You’ve been so wonderful to me.”

Tears came into the old man’s eyes. “My Bianca is in heaven, and she is smiling because of you coming into my life,
cara
.”

“I can hardly believe it,” Yves said with a shake of his head.

Sugar looked at Matt. “Matt? What do you think?”

Matt’s eyes traveled up and down Ariadne’s elegantly clothed body. “I’ll take her,” he said.

Everyone laughed.

“That isn’t what I meant,” Sugar said amiably.

“She’ll certainly pass for Nikoletta,” he said.

“What do we do about Nikoletta?” Ariadne asked.

“I’m going to take her upstairs to a bedroom,” Matt said. He lifted Nikoletta from the couch and carried her upstairs. When he came back down, he joined Ariadne. “We’re all set,” he said. “Ready?”

“I think so,” she said.

“You’ll be fine,” he told her. In his eyes she saw the confidence that he had in her.

Ariadne turned to address the others. In a loud voice she declared, “It’s time to party.”

The group got on the elevator, Ariadne leading the way.

When the car reached the lobby, everyone started piling off. Sugar, Adrian, Angelo, and Yves led the way out. As Ariadne and Matt followed, he spotted a security guard stepping directly into their path at the end of the corridor, a hand slipping inside his suit jacket.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Matt gave Ariadne a hard shove back toward the elevator, knocking her down. She let out a cry of alarm as she hit the marble floor. Simultaneously, Matt hunkered down to shield Ariadne and whipped out the pistol in his shoulder holster. He took aim at the security guard, who fired off a wild shot before flinging his revolver to the floor and fleeing down the corridor. With all the people, Matt dared not shoot.

He yanked about. “Did you get hit?” he asked frantically, his eyes scanning her body for any indication that she had been.

Ariadne shook her head. “N-no,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“Take her back upstairs, Angelo,” Matt ordered. Then he leaped to his feet and took off in the direction that the security guard had gone. Almost instantly, he saw that it was useless to attempt to find the man in the crowd. Hundreds of people were circulating in the lobby, including dozens of security guards in suits almost identical to the one the shooter had worn. The revolver had been silenced, so the crowd was unaware that anything had even happened. No one was pointing at a man running toward an exit. No one acted as if anything was out of the ordinary.

Retracing his steps, Matt went back to the corridor leading to the elevators. Ariadne, Angelo, and Sugar were in front of the elevator, and Adrian had joined them. One of Sugar’s arms was around Ariadne’s shoulders.

“I told you to take her back upstairs,” Matt said to Angelo.

“She refuses to go,” he replied, “and I can’t make her.”

“Ariadne—” Matt began.

“Nikoletta,” she interjected. “And don’t forget it.”

For a moment he was nonplussed. Then he shook his head, a rueful smile on his lips. “Okay,” he said, “but it might not be safe for you to stay down here. That guy may not have been acting alone.”

“He’s always been alone before,” Ariadne replied. “You told me so yourself.”

“Tonight might be an exception,” Matt said.

“If so, then they are going to have a hard time picking me off once we’re in the middle of the crowd,” Ariadne said. “So let’s make a quick appearance at least, then get out.”

“I don’t know,” Sugar said nervously. “That was a very close call.” She pointed to a spot on the wall, at about waist height near the elevator. “Look, Matt. He couldn’t have been more than a foot off his mark.”

With a grimace Matt inspected the hole Sugar had pointed out. “She’s right,” he said. “If you hadn’t been on the floor, you’d probably be dead.”

“But I
was
on the floor,” Ariadne said. She smiled. “Thanks to you.”

Matt realized that he couldn’t argue with her about joining the party. She’d made up her mind, and that was that.

“Okay,” he said, shrugging. “Let’s go, but let’s keep it short.”

Ariadne took his arm, and the others followed.

“Did you get a good look at him?” Ariadne asked Matt as they headed down the corridor.

He shook his head. “Not really,” he replied. “That’s the problem with uniforms. They make everybody look more or less alike.” He shook his head in worry. “This is a deadly masquerade, Ariadne.”

“I know,” she said, “but I feel confident with you.”

He squeezed her hand. “Are you ready to go in?”

“Yes.” She fixed a smile on her lips. “My first big party. Ever.”

“Let’s hope it’s not the last.”