Death By Diamonds Part 11

Then the room tilted in jerky, uncoordinated movements, and the vision changed again.

I found myself in Dom's bed with a man. A great kisser. A wide-shouldered armful with an enviable amount of pa.s.sion, hands everywhere, big hands, knowledgeable hungry lips, and an uber-talented tongue.

I wasn't sure if I was kissing one of Dom's lovers, or Ian, her ex-husband-ugh. Please don't let it be Ian.

I wanted to open my eyes, but they felt glued shut, as could only happen in dreams. No matter, I felt it best not to know the name of my dream-state lover.

Unfortunately turned on, I found it impossible not to return his enthusiasm, all our body parts meeting, dangerously well, ebbing and flowing, a coming together filled with depth and sizzle.

The phantom in my bed cupped my cheeks, held my face in place, made a meal of me, and whispered my name.

My name. Madeira. Not Dom or Dominique.

I woke, pulling from the kiss expecting to look straight into Nick's eyes.

Instead, I was looking into . . . Werner's?

I jumped from the bed as the door opened.

Eve stood for a minute like a doe in headlights, then she barked a laugh and added insult to injury by applauding. "Sinsational!" she snapped, her grin wide. "Can I tell Nick? Please, can I tell him? Can I, huh?"

"Has the world gone mad?" I asked, finding my bruise the hard way, by smacking it with the palm of my hand. "Ouch!"

"Madeira Cutler, you wicked girl." My erstwhile friend chuckled. "I've never been prouder."

Werner had never actually awakened. And I didn't know which made me wince more, the demented porker noises he was making or Eve's satisfaction in them.

"Do you mind?" I asked her as I sat on my side of the bed to clear my head.

"Not at all," Eve said, closing the door and coming closer to me, her grin making me want to erase it in a satisfying way.

Hands on her hips as she took in the sight of us, Eve shook her head. "Did you guys smoke a joint or something?"

"No, but I did have crazy dreams, that I'm now afraid might have been real, about zapping Tasers and a man shot down in his prime."

"Why do you have dry blood on your head? And Werner, too?" she asked. "You into something kinky? I was gonna ask if you were decent when I came in, but now I know the answer. You're engagingly and interestingly indecent, given that honeymoon-type negligee you're wearing."

"Stuff it Meyers."

"Too bad Sir Galahad is boringly, respectably dressed beneath that blanket. Sheesh, what a downer. Way to burst a girl's bubble. There go all my fiendish hopes and dreams."

Eve rescued my cell phone from the floor. "What's Nick's speed-dial number?"

Twenty-three.

Fas.h.i.+on is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as s.e.x, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.

-RENe KoNIG Werner looked stoned as he woke with a snort and sat up like his hair was on fire. He also looked like he'd been beaten and left for dead.

Then there was his reaction to finding me in his bed. It was a mix of gladness, shock, and embarra.s.sment.

Wooly k.n.o.bby knits, were that man's pupils dilated or what? I might as well be a two-headed sasquatch the way he was looking at me.

His suit of gray pinstripes, now a wrinkled shambles, gave him the look of a homeless off-duty detective. Given the confusion written on his b.l.o.o.d.y brow, his brain appeared to be working in the way his suit fit, both him and it, off the rack, barely on a hanger, aka hanging by a thread.

The way he regarded Eve and I, he didn't know his own name, never mind ours.

"What I wouldn't give to have planted a camera in this room last night," Eve said, laughing like she'd been chasing a rainbow and caught it. "Seriously, where's the fed? Did you trade him in, finally? Thank G.o.d."

"Can it," Werner and I said, both with a wince because of our bruises.

He scrubbed his face with both hands, sighed, and looked at me. "Please tell me that we did not sleep together."

"We did not sleep together," I said, trying to convince myself while examining the robe of the peignoir set. Two diaphanous layers did not a covering make. Afraid to grab a wrap or coat from Dom's closet, lest I be given an unwanted vision, I chose a crocheted throw, made of roses in pinks and greens, from the foot of the bed and used it as a shawl. There, now I felt more in charge.

Werner gazed up and down my body, looking rather affronted.

"Well," I said, "your pupils may be dilated, but your eyes can still twinkle."

"You're sure we didn't sleep together?" he asked.

"You so did." Eve, the Ches.h.i.+re Cat, sat at the foot of the bed, her back against the footboard, ankles crossed, as if she were settling in for a juicy chat.

"We apparently slept in the same bed," I said, mostly to myself, "but I have no memory of how we got there. Werner? Do you?"

He opened his hands, regarded his palms, and his eye twinkle returned. "I have tactile memories."

I resented the traitorous thrill that skittered up my spine. Oh goodie. Not.

"Give that man a lottery ticket," Eve said. "It's his lucky day."

I closed the crocheted throw tighter over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s as I paced, until I saw the crack in my cell phone, which bothered me, a lot.

Werner raised himself on an elbow. "Mad, Madeira, did I, I mean, did we . . . ?"

"He means," Eve said, tongue in cheek. "Was it as good for you as it was for him?"

"Eve, you're not helping at all," I said, taking pity on Werner. "I wish I could remember." Broken cell phone case-stepped on, thrown, dropped?

"Let's just forget whatever it was that happened," Werner said, as if that could be the end of it.

Eve rose to the occasion. "Unless Mad got pregnant."

Werner and I whipped our gazes her way like we were fine bra.s.s gears moving as one, hungry attack gears, and Eve was dinner.

"Not funny, Meyers," I said, but that didn't mean my heart wasn't playing jump rope. Hippity hickety hop; How many months before I pop? Cinderella slept with a fella, made a mistake and kissed a snake; How many doctors did it take?

Ack, even an old jump- rope rhyme was working against me. "I just wish I could remember what happened," I muttered.

Eve raised a brow. "Whose nightgown are you wearing?"

"I don't even care," Werner said. "I'm just so glad she's wearing it."

"Because it's see-through?" Eve asked.

"Because she's not naked," Werner snapped.

I sighed. "It's Dom's peignoir set," I said, giving Eve a wide-eyed stare so she'd "get a clue" that I zoned. "It had my name on it, like the seafoam gown." Hint, hint.

"Ohhhh," Eve said, getting it, then grinning like a loon. "The plot thickens. You really don't know what happened here last night. Intrigue can be so much fun."

I sat on the edge of the bed to face the man who'd slept beside me, the thought making me think of Nick, which raised guilt like bile inside me. Mind games powered by panic, I thought.

"Lytton, tell us why you're here in New York, then we'll talk about why you're in my bed."

He rubbed his face, a nervous habit, with another wince and another ouch for his b.l.o.o.d.y bruised brow, and he sighed in resignation. "Nick's house alarm went off right after dark, yesterday, and again at seven twenty, so I had a chance to talk to him on the phone a couple of times. He thinks somebody's after that dress you designed, and they could just as easily be after you."

"Sc.r.a.p, I hope Dom's gown is safe at his place."

"I've got a detail watching the house," Werner said, "but after Nick expressed his regret that he wasn't here to keep an eye on you, I got to thinking that by coming here, I could maybe solve the attempted break- ins. If they are related to that dress, there is a good chance the intruder knew Dominique and will be at the funeral. And I can watch your back."

My spine stiffened without conscious thought on my part. "Did Nick ask you to keep an eye on me?"

Eve snorted. "If he did, can I call him and tell him what a knock-up job, er, I mean a bang- up job, Werner's doing? Pretty please?"

Twenty-four.

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes . . . change our view of the world, and the world's view of us.

-VIRGINIA WOOLF "The dry blood on both your foreheads might be a clue as to why you can't remember much," Eve pointed out. "And why was your cell phone on the floor? It's cracked, you know."

"It was on the floor?" I asked, a niggling memory trying to resurface.

"Yes, did something besides Werner frighten you last night?"

The phone call came to me in a rush. "Someone called and told me in an altered voice to go back to Connecticut or end up like my friend."

Werner frowned. "Then what?"

"I dropped the phone, and turned so fast, I walked into the open closet door." I touched my poor bruised forehead.

Eve's eyes narrowed. "Were you wearing the peignoir set at the time?"

I nodded, aware that I hadn't been quite myself.

Werner looked at Eve like she was nuts. "I know clothes are important to you two, but I'm guessing there's no proper attire for when your life is threatened."

Eve giggled while Werner came around the bed and touched my temple, so gently, I saw my pain reflected in his gaze, and I found it necessary to pull away so as not to be pulled toward . . . something.

The gash across his brow looked deeper than mine, as if he'd been hit at close range. I stroked it as gently as he'd touched mine.

He jumped like I burned him.

"Did someone conk us both on the head?" I wondered aloud. "I suppose an intruder could have tried to climb up to the window. The vines are thick enough to hold a man. Nick said they were sc.r.a.ped like they'd been climbed. He had the police check them out."

"Why would anybody want to hurt you?" Werner asked.

I gave a half shrug because a whole shrug would have hurt my head. "Beats the spinning slubs out of me."

Someone knocked on the hall door, and Werner scooted into the bathroom.

I closed the door behind him.

Eve let in Kerri, Dom's maid, bearing a pushcart topped with a silver coffee service, two cups, linen napkins, and a plate of croissants.

"Thank you, Kerri," I said. "You're a G.o.dsend."

Kerri bobbed, an interrupted curtsey, since I'd asked her not to. "Did your man find your room all right?"

"My man?" I asked.

"I let him in late last night and when he mentioned working with you, I directed him to this room."

"Yes, yes, he found me."

Eve poured a cup of coffee and handed it to me. "All clear, Werner," I called through the door, though I needn't have bothered.

"I know," he said coming out. "I heard."

I gave him my cup of coffee.

His look of grat.i.tude overshadowed the deed.

I swiped Eve's coffee from her hand, took a sip, and handed it back.

"Hey," she snapped, but something caught her eye and dissipated her affront. "Is that a Taser on the floor?"