Nightingale (37 page)

Makeup? What could a gangster like Tycoon possibly have to do with makeup? He was into drugs and gambling, not lip liners and bronzers.

Bandit’s eyes never left my face. “You know, it’s a shame you’re so smart, Abby. It’s going to get you killed.”

The ubervillain turned toward the door. “You might as well come in.”
 

The door creaked open. Shadows filled the hallway outside, but I could just see the outline of a dark figure.

“She’s figured it out,” Bandit said. “Most of it, anyway.”

“Well, that’s a pity, isn’t it?” A soft feminine voice floated into the room.

Octavia O’Hara stepped into the light.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Octavia walked over to stand beside Bandit. The contrast between the two was striking. Octavia wore a fitted red jacket, a short skirt, and stilettos. Her black hair was up in a tight bun, and her makeup was flawless. Bandit was in black, from the bottoms of his boots to the paisley bandanna tied around his neck.
 

“Hey, baby,” Bandit murmured, putting his arm around Octavia.

She leaned in and gave the ubervillain a slow kiss, raking her teeth across his bottom lip. His hand cupped her breast, and she growled. I cringed and dropped my gaze. I felt like I’d been sucked into some cheesy porn movie, where the rugged cowboy does the uptight businesswoman in the conference room. Or, in Bigtime’s case, the ubervillain and the high-society debutante.

They broke apart, each one practically salivating over the other.
 

Confused, I looked up at Octavia. “What are you doing here?”
 

Octavia gave me a cool look. “I’m here to make sure this unpleasantness is taken care of once and for all.”

It dawned on me why she was here—and who she really was. “You’re Tycoon, the gangster?”

Her dark eyes flicked to Bandit. The ubervillain smiled.
 

“I told you she’d figured it out,” he said.

Octavia shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that she has, does it?”

Bandit smiled and shook his head. More fear piled onto the hard, cold knot in my stomach.

“But I thought Tycoon was a man,” I said. “You’re … not.”

“My father, Otto, was the original Tycoon,” Octavia said. “I took his place last year.”

Last year? That was when I planned his funeral. “Your father didn’t drown in a boating accident, did he?”

Octavia’s smile was all the answer I needed. The cruel curve of her crimson lips frightened me more than Bandit’s guns. “I presented my father with a plan that would have made us billions, far more than his penny ante drug and gambling rings, but he didn’t want to act on it. So I decided it was time for a management change.”

“What plan?” I asked.

“Sunrise, of course,” Octavia snapped. “You have the flash drive, don’t pretend like you don’t know what’s on it.”

“But I don’t know,” I said, trying to draw things out so I could keep breathing. “I couldn’t open the files.”

“But you recognized the names,” Octavia said.

“They’re just names for different colors of makeup. Who cares about makeup?”

Octavia’s eyes darkened, and I realized my mistake. She cared about makeup. A whole hell of a lot—enough to kill me for insulting her.

“You know what, baby?” Octavia turned to Bandit. “Instead of standing here talking in circles, let’s show Abby exactly what she’s going to die for.”
 

Bandit smiled again.

#

The two of them exchanged another kiss, then Bandit hauled me to my feet. He let go of me, and I crumpled back to the floor. Bandit dug his boot into my ribs. I gasped and jerked away.

“If you fall again, I’ll put a bullet in your spine.” His voice was cool and casual.

“Not up here,” Octavia admonished. “I just had the carpets cleaned.”
 

Octavia strolled out of the conference room, and Bandit pushed me along behind her. I recognized the hallway. Even if I hadn’t, the red lips hanging on the wall would have clued me in—I was in Oomph’s corporate headquarters. I’d come up to this floor several times to speak to Octavia while planning the engagement party and dinner for Olivia and Paul Potter.

“What about Olivia?” I asked. “Does she know about you?”

“Olivia does what she’s told,” Octavia scoffed. “If I hadn’t needed her to marry Paul to add the appearance of legitimacy to my takeover of Polish, I would have dumped her overboard with my father.”

“What do you mean?”
 

As we walked, I peered into the offices that branched off the hallway, hoping someone was working late. But the offices were all as dark and empty as Octavia’s soul.
 

She pushed the button to summon the elevator. “Peter Potter likes to drink, and when he’s drunk, he likes to gamble. He was into my father for millions.”

“And Polish was the payoff?”

Octavia nodded. “We were going to handle the merger quietly, but then Wesley Weston made a play for Polish.”

Wesley. My heart twisted. I could still smell him on me, still feel his lips on mine. I should have told him how I felt about him, even if he’d rejected me, because now, I’d never get the chance.

I realized Octavia was staring at me, waiting for a response. “So you forced Olivia and Paul to get engaged so no one would question the merger too much.”

She nodded. The elevator
pinged!
its arrival, hurting my ears, and Bandit crowded me inside. Octavia stepped in after him and hit another button, followed by a code on a keypad to one side of the door.

We went down. When the doors opened again, we stepped out into a lab. Everything was white plastic, from the walls and floors to the counters running down either side of the room. Trays sat on the counters, every single one full of eye shadows, lipsticks, blushes, and more. Every inch of space shimmered with color, from soft pinks to aqua blues to plumy purples. There was enough makeup to cover every woman’s face in Bigtime.
 

Bandit shoved me forward. Octavia strolled in front of us and threw her arms out wide.
   

“This is where the magic happens,” she said in a proud voice.

Magic. Right.

We walked about halfway down one of the counters, before Octavia stopped and swept her hand out again.
 

“And this,” she said, “is Sunrise.”
 

A black-and-white cardboard display embossed with Oomph’s red lips perched on the counter. The display framed several makeup products, all encased in black plastic—a lipstick, a bottle of liquid foundation, pressed powder compact, eye shadow, eye- and lip-liner pencils, blush, mascara. My eyes caught on the names. Brown Betty foundation. Raven eye shadow. Quicksilver eyeliner.

I looked at Octavia, who watched me, waiting for a reaction. “But it’s just makeup.”
 

What was so sinister about that? The worst thing you could do was poke your eye out with a mascara wand. What about it was worth killing me for?

“It’s not just
any
makeup,” Octavia said. “It’s a very special blend. New versions of old, beloved products. I called the collection
Sunrise
because that’s our signature red lipstick.”

She uncapped the lipstick and twisted it up. The Sunrise red shade was pretty enough with a soft, shimmer finish, but it smelled—bad. Like rotten eggs mixed with sweaty gym socks. I realized it was the same lipstick, with the same putrid odor, that had made my nose burn at Oodles o’ Stuff when Piper had showed it to me.

“Go ahead, Abby,” Octavia said, holding the tube out to me.

I shook my head and backed away as far as I could. I wasn’t touching that stuff.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to freshen up?”

“She can smell it,” Bandit said. “Just like I can.”

“Oh. I forgot she has supersenses.”

I stared at the tube. “What’s in that?”
 

“Oh, the usual ingredients. Beeswax, various dyes and pigments, and just a hint of euphoridon.”

I blinked. “Euphoridon. But that’s—”

“A radioactive drug,” Octavia finished. “A very addictive one. Euphoridon is what most of the junkies down on Good Intentions Lane get strung out on.”

“And you put it in makeup? Why?”

“To get women hooked on it, of course,” she replied, capping the lipstick. “So they crave it. So they buy Oomph makeup and nothing else without even realizing what they’re doing or what’s happening to them.”

“That’s why you gave away all those free samples at the engagement party,” I accused. “You were trying to get people hooked on it then.”

Octavia stared at me. “You really are too smart for your own good, Abby. Actually, those were just trial samples. Primers, if you will, of some of our best-selling products with just a hint of euphoridon in them to whet people’s appetites for more. Subconsciously, of course. My market share will double in the first week alone when the Sunrise makeup hits the market. Within a month, I’ll have a stranglehold on the industry and be ready to launch a new lip-care line, with the help of Polish.”
 

The way Octavia talked you would have thought she was discussing the weather, not the massive addiction of every makeup-using woman in Bigtime. There wasn’t much I could say. Still, I tried to think of something because the longer I kept talking, the greater the chances were of me coming up with a brilliant plan to escape. I opened my mouth to respond, when a faint
yip
caught my ear.

My heart froze. Rascal? What would he be doing here? I cocked my head and listened—
really
listened. The yip came again, followed by another, and another, until a whole chorus of dogs yapped together.

“The dogs are howling again,” Bandit said.

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Well, we won’t need them much longer. One more test, and the lab coats tell me we can start mass producing the Sunrise makeup. Then, we can sit back and wait for the money to roll in.”

“Hopefully I’ll have a little more time to deal with the animals,” Bandit said. “Instead of dumping them in an alley for the police to find.”

“That was your fault,” she hissed. “If Talon hadn’t slipped past your so-called security team—”
 

“Wait a minute. You tested your radioactive makeup on animals?” I asked, remembering what Wesley, what Talon had told me, and his suspicions about Rascal. “Those puppies and kittens they showed on SNN? You killed them?”

“I had to test it on something,” Octavia said. “The police tend to notice when people go missing.”

“And my dog? Rascal, was he one of yours?”

“Unfortunately,” Octavia glared at Bandit. “Letting him get away was another one of your slipups.”

“What was I supposed to do?” he growled back. “The little bastard bit me, and I dropped him. I took a couple of shots at him, but he was quicker than I thought he’d be, thanks to all that euphoridon your lab coats shot him up with.”

The two of them started arguing, but I tuned them out. Red rage colored my vision like the gloss on Octavia’s perfect lips. Little bastard? Little
bastard
? Rascal was the best dog in the world. Oh sure, he barked and begged for food and generally thought he was the king of Bigtime and should be treated as such. But Rascal had more humanity in his tail than the two of them did in their entire bodies. Bandit was the bastard, and Octavia was an ice-cold bitch. They had to be stopped. Both of them.
 

But how? And with what? If I’d had my vest, I at least would have had my stun gun. I might have taken Octavia out with that before Bandit shot me. But I’d left the vest back at the party with Piper. Without my vest, without my supplies, I felt naked, exposed, helpless.
 

And it wasn’t like there were any weapons just lying around in the lab. Just lipsticks, powders, and mascara wands as far as the eye could see. Just makeup. My gaze flicked to the Sunrise display.
 

Radioactive makeup.
 

While Octavia and Bandit argued, I palmed a lip pencil with one hand. With the other, I swiped the pot of loose face powder.

“Enough!” Octavia snapped. “None of this is getting us what we really want—the flash drive.”

They both turned their attention to me.

“Now you have a choice to make, Abby,” Octavia said. “You can tell me where the drive is and who you’ve told about it, and Bandit can kill you quickly.”

The ubervillain pulled out one of his pistols and twirled it in his hand. Light danced off the silver weapon. “Three in the back of the head. You won’t feel a thing.”

Yeah. Right.

“Or?” I asked, pretty sure I wasn’t going to like Option Two any better than Option One.

“Or,” Octavia continued, “you can refuse to talk, and Bandit can draw out the process.
 

He kept spinning his gun. “I’ll start with your ankles. Then, your knees. Your hips. Shoulders. You can put quite a few bullets in the human body before irreparable damage is done. Although, you’ll wish you were dead after the first shot.”