Deeper Than the Grave (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

The next morning started with me flat on my back, and not in a good way. I planted my feet and shoved myself backward another inch under the counter, struggling to keep the cell phone against my ear. “Tell me the wire I'm looking for again.”

“The input line.”

I poked the flashlight into the dark space. “What does it look like?”

“It's black, thinner than the coaxial.”

“Damn it, Trey, there's a billion black wires up here!”

“No, there's not. Stop exaggerating.”

I closed my eyes and sneezed. The dead space under the counter was good for only one thing—hiding the multitude of wires from Trey's various security devices. The latest trend was totally wireless systems, but Trey was nothing if not redundant, so he'd purchased a hybrid for the shop, a system with landline, wireless and cell phone signal transmitters, all of it with a battery backup. Of course that meant three times as much to go wrong.

“Did you tell Detective Perez about your interview last night?” he said.

“I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She thanked me for the leads.”

“That's all?”

“Yes.”

I wiped my face with the clean part of my sleeve. I didn't tell him that I'd glossed over Cat's involvement in the whole mess, focusing instead on the mysterious Fishbone. I'd looked up the Concrete Kings over breakfast. They seemed harmless enough, a bunch of white kids who posted goofy videos of themselves attempting skateboard tricks with names like Ollie 180 and Noseslide. Fishbone was a top contributor—in his clips, he flipped and looped and gyrated, his dark hair flying behind him, occasionally flashing the skeletonized tattoo that gave him his nickname, the great dome of Stone Mountain rising behind him like a lunar landscape. The park around the mountain provided the backdrop for most of his videos, and I remembered Cat mentioning something about a brother living in the town there.…

At Trey's end of the line, I heard a no-nonsense female voice in the background. Marisa.

“I have to go,” Trey said. “I'll finish the installation at lunch.”

“I can manage, I—” I sneezed again and the flashlight beam waggled.

“I'll see you at one.”

I rolled to my stomach. Dust and cobwebs clotted my hair, and when I blinked, pieces of grit fell in my eyes. I gave up and climbed out from under the counter. The main room was cleaner, but still chaotic, with display cases waiting to be refilled, photographs waiting to be rehung. And—I couldn't avoid it—the box of still-unorganized A&D materials next to an unopened package of color-coded labels Trey had brought me. I shook the dirt from my hair, Dexter's voice echoing in my head.
Time to get to work, girl.

The voice was right. Trey was right. But I couldn't get my conversation with Cat out of my mind. Young, defiant, with lousy taste in men, finally getting it together only to have some jerk from her past come back from the dead to trouble the waters. She'd no doubt seen the morning's newspaper. Lucius was right there on the front page, along with absorbing speculations about the nature of his death.

He hadn't been alone in the
AJC
, however. The paper's society section featured the Amberdecker-Pratchett bridal luncheon, an event happening at the High Museum in—I checked the clock on the wall—three hours. Chelsea's engagement photo showcased her hothouse beauty—lush, full-lipped, peach-skinned. Only the assertive Amberdecker jawline revealed her DNA. She and Mr. Intercontinental Exchange made an elegant power couple, and considering the state of the Amberdecker family coffers, I couldn't see either Rose or Evie complaining too hard.

I remembered Cat's accusation of the night before, about Lucius and Chelsea. Had she been telling the truth? Lying out of spite? Plain wrong? I found it hard to imagine Chelsea with a shady dropout like Lucius. But then, society women sometimes had lowbrow tastes in the bedroom.

I tapped my foot. The High Museum was a public building. How hard would it be to slip inside, pull the bride-to-be into a discreet corner, and ask one simple question—were you having an affair with Lucius Dufrene?

I looked down at my clothes. There was a smudge of doughnut glaze on my jeans, and the two pistols on the tee-shirt looked like the crossed arms of the Battle Flag. My closet consisted of jeans and tees at one end, red haute couture cocktail dresses at the other. Not a single appropriate thing for subtle surveillance at a society luncheon.

I ran my hand through my hair. If I wanted to talk to Chelsea, I had less than three hours to transform into someone I wasn't. Which meant there was only one person in the greater metro area who could help me.

Chapter Twenty-four

Gabriella ran a French-manicured finger through a sherbet selection of afternoon dresses and frowned prettily. Her boutique offerings tended toward the shabby chic, but in deference to the early Easter, she'd ordered some Sunday outfits for the well-heeled infrequent churchgoer. I'd caught her between spa appointments, so she was wearing the white pants and baby tee she always wore at the massage table. Barefoot and tiny, with green cat eyes and red ringlets piled on top of her head, she had the porcelain skin of a woman much younger than her thirty-plus years, like a fresh-faced teen ripened on Provence wine and Gallic air.

“Thank you for helping me on such short notice,” I said.

She waved a slender white hand at me. “
De rien
. It is what I do, yes? Now tell me again what you are needing.”

“Something fancy that one might wear to a garden party luncheon at the High.”

She pulled a different dress from the rack and examined it. It was the purple of hyacinths, a blushing whisper of a dress. She held it in front of me, then put it right back on the rack, shaking her head.

“What was wrong with that one?”

“Non. Not for you.”

I folded my arms, tried to make myself more compact. Being around Gabriella made me feel like a particularly uncouth bull in a particularly delicate china shop. She was a former ballerina and still moved with a dancer's precise, easy grace. Trey refused to describe her as an ex-girlfriend; the details of their coming together and breaking apart were beyond his vocabulary. He was clear about one thing, however—after the accident, she and Garrity together had saved his life.

And now she was…I had no words either. But she was the engineer of Trey's wardrobe, the entire Italian couture section anyway, and my only hope for finding a high-society outfit on short notice.

She turned a practiced eye on me again. “This is the Amberdecker-Pratchett affair you are attending, yes?”

“It is. Do you know them?”

“Not personally, no. I heard about it from Jean Luc—he is the contemporary curator at the High—and it has of course been all the talk. Chelsea is…what is the phrase? A dark horse, yes?”

I perched myself on the edge of a white and gold divan. “Do tell.”

Gabriella lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Several of my clients had hopes in the direction of Jeremy Pratchett. But the young man chose Chelsea. She worked there, you know, in the Intercontinental Exchange PR department.” Gabriella waved her hand around like a soft tiny tornado. “Whirlwind courtship. Very fast, very disappointing to some.”

“But not for Rose Amberdecker and company?”

“Oh no, the Amberdeckers are very happy
, bien sûr
, especially considering their lack of…” She rubbed the tips of her fingers together. “How did you come to know them? Through Trey?”

“Umm…no.”

So I told her. As I described the previous three days—the storm, the skull, the adventure at Hog Wild—she stopped paging through dresses and turned to face me, hands on hips.

“This is one of your investigations?”

She said the word the way that Trey and Garrity and Eric and Rico did, with pronounced suspicion. I tried to look innocent.

“I want to ask Chelsea some questions, that's all.”

“About what?”

So I told her. I emphasized the part where Detective Perez asked me to share what I found out with her, downplayed the whole “crashing the party” thing.

Gabriella arched an elegant eyebrow at me. “That is no good.”

“It's not like I'm trying to break up the happy couple or anything, I only—”

“That is not what I mean. I mean you are not an invited guest.”

“So? It's being held in a tent on the piazza, practically in the front yard for all of Midtown to see. Lots of people coming and going, very easy to slip past the ropes.”

“No, you don't understand. This party is as much a display as the Picasso or the Monet, and it will be equally as well protected. Discreetly, yes. They know everyone who will be there, you see…” She shook her head. “But they do not know you.”

She had a point. “So what am I supposed to do? All I have is a rumor. I don't want to sic the police on Chelsea, or Cat, or anybody, not unless I have something concrete.”

“Yes, I see. It is delicate. You do not want to ruin someone's life on a rumor.” She tapped her lips with her index finger, her cat eyes flashing. “Wait here. I have an idea.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, I wore the exact outfit she did, only in black. I recognized the uniform as the one worn by the women in her nail salon. When I put it on it, I become one of the barely perceived bodies present at every society event—the wait staff, the cleaning crew, the delivery people. I became—for all intents and purposes—invisible.

Gabriella looked me over. “You need shoes, sensible ones.”

“What about my sneakers?”

She shook her head. “I will find you some Dansko. That will work. Now sit.”

She moved behind me and ran her fingers in my hair, across my scalp, gathering the tangled mess into a knot. She was a woman of many skills, Gabriella, both everyday and arcane—hairdressing and massage, tarot and herbs and astrology. And as Trey's ex, she knew more about my boyfriend than any other woman walking the planet. I couldn't look at her without imagining…

“So how is he?” she said, as if she'd been reading my mind.

“Trey? He's good.”

“And yet you are worried,
ma chère amie
. Why is that? Is it because the ninth approaches?”

“That. Lots of stuff, actually.”

“Ah.”

She pinned my hair on top of my head, securing it with tiny French hairpins. She could work magic with her hands, I knew, taming both knotted muscles and snarly bedhead with her sure touch. She was sizing me up now in the mirror, her analysis as keen as Trey's.

“Are you certain all is well?”

“I'm certain.”

She curled some tendrils around my ears, met my eyes in the mirror. “We will share stories one day, you and I, over Champagne. We will talk of the mystery that is Trey Seaver, and other things. But let me tell you this much. I have never wanted to be anyone's
seul véritable amour
. And Trey never wanted me to be anything I did not want to be. That is not his nature.”

I froze, suddenly confused. “I don't know what you're—”

“You have been very good for him. The rest of us worry and fuss. You let him be himself, though, and that makes him happy, and that makes me happy. But listen to me…you really must tell him.”

I blew out a breath. So that was the crux of her little speech. “I will. This isn't a sneak-behind-his-back kind of mission. It's just that—”

“No, not this. This, yes, of course, but I was speaking of the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

She put her hands on my shoulders and regarded me in the mirror. “You and Trey, your outsides are so very different. He is Virgo, and you are Aries. But I have drawn your birth charts. His Venus is in Leo, as is yours. He has a fire heart, as do you, and fire calls to fire.”

I shook my head warily. “I'm not sure—”

“Hush hush.” She smiled and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “He already knows, of course, but it's the telling that's important. Now stand up. I want to see the final effect.”

I stood. In the mirror, an efficient professional person looked back. A person who could blend. Gabriella went to her desk, a white baroque number like Marie Antoinette might have possessed, and fetched some ivory stationery from the top drawer along with a silver-lettered black card.
Director's Circle
, it read.

She tucked the card into my shirt pocket. “Go into the main entrance, the one next to the Rodin. You will pass the event on your right, in the piazza. Do not attempt to enter. Go into the lobby, show them this card, then take the skyway to the Stent Wing. Follow the staircase to the fourth floor. Face the Anish Kapoor—”

“The what?”

“An enormous stainless steel dish in the Contemporary collection, you cannot miss it. The service elevator is down the hall to your right. Take it to the private parking lot. A quick left and you will be in the piazza.”

She opened one of the note cards and pressed her lips to the paper, leaving a crimson kiss. She tucked the sweet nothing into a matching envelope, then picked up a fountain pen and wrote Jean Luc on the outside. She licked the seal, closed it, and handed it to me.

“Take this. If anyone stops you, tell them you are making a delivery to Jean Luc Dubois. Tell them you are required to make this delivery personally, that it is from Gabriella. Tell them to call Jean Luc if they are suspicious. He will vouch for you.”

I took the card. “What exactly am I delivering?”

She handed me a vase of flowers from her desk, two dozen white roses in an etched crystal decanter. I took the bouquet and held it as she assessed me with a critical eye. I could hide almost my entire upper body behind the voluptuous snow-white explosion.

“There. Very professional.” She took me by the shoulders and squeezed. “Remember, head up, stomach in, feet pointed straight ahead.”

I did as she said. She smiled brightly.

“There. That will do very nicely.”