TWENTY-SEVEN

MY arms flailed, clawing at Apollo’s eyes, but he bent backward, just out of reach, lifting short little me in the process.

Great! Now my feet are off the floor!

Trying to break free, I banged my elbows into my captor’s guts, bruising little more than myself (the Sun God really did have incredibly hard abs). When the pressure eased a bit, I realized my backup had backtracked and finally spotted us. I sucked in air when my toes touched the floor. As my vision cleared, I recognized the expression on Detective Franco’s face—pure rage. But the detective quickly masked his anger, approaching us with a calming voice.

“Hey, dude. Stay cool now. The lady and I just want to ask you a few questions...”

Apollo reared backward, lifting me again. “Don’t come any closer!”

Franco stopped midstride. “Easy. Take it easy, okay?” He raised one peaceable hand, spread his fingers wide, showing it was empty while slowly moving the other into his jacket. He was going for the handgun in his shoulder holster!

No! I thought. I don’t want anyone shot!

Desperate times, desperate measures! I bent one knee back, bringing the heel of my shoe up as hard as I could. I was aiming to kick Apollo’s shin but missed, connecting instead to a place where the Sun God never shines.

The strongman howled and released me. I dropped to the ground limp as a melted Milk Dud. Maneuvering into a sitting position, I rubbed my bruised nose. My hand came away red.

That bastard gave me a bloody nose! Okay, now I’m pissed!

While Apollo danced away, clutching his groin, Franco jumped over me, body-slamming the bodybuilder.

Thank you, Detective!

Both men stumbled backward and crashed into a huge plastic bin of yogurt-covered pita chips, which scattered like ice-covered leaves. Apollo got back to his feet and threw the first punch. Big mistake. Franco easily dodged the telegraphed blow, grabbed Apollo’s wrist, and used the man’s momentum to slam him down into the carpet of white pita chips. The bodybuilder hit the floor with a deliciously satisfying crunch.

Still gripping Apollo’s fingers, Franco straddled the big man and twisted his arm behind his back, punishing the fingers until Apollo howled again.

“Leave me alone!” the Sun God bellowed. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You ran from an officer of the law,” Franco calmly replied, “and then you put your big yellow hands on this nice Coffee Lady, which hasn’t exactly put the officer in a sunny frame of mind.”

Franco ground the bodybuilder’s nose into the crunchy white chip carpet. The smell of sugary yogurt rising from the floor became cloying. Apollo seemed to go limp in surrender, but when Franco reached for his handcuffs, the Sun God started struggling again. In response, the detective bent Apollo’s fingers until the man with perfect abs screamed like a little girl.

“Don’t hurt him!” yelled an actual girl.

I recognized the voice. It belonged to my long-lost Blond in Black—and her familiar deer-in-the-headlights expression was back on full display.

Apollo spit pita. “Get—PHAAACK—out of here, Vanessa!”

But the woman did not budge, even when I got to my feet and stepped up to her. Despite my bloody nose, she recognized me instantly.

“I know you!” she cried, pointing.

“Right back at ya,” I said, ignoring the throbbing bruise that was my face. Pulling up the bottom of my henley, I tried to staunch the bleeding.

Apollo lifted his head, his face half coated with the clownish white of crushed yogurt.

“Don’t talk to them,” he warned the blonde.

“That wouldn’t be polite,” Franco said, pulling the man to his knees. “Not after all the trouble we went through to meet you.”

Several members of the Javits Convention Center’s security team moved in, Taser guns at the ready. When Franco flashed his shield, I could see the relief on their faces. One guard informed Franco that an NYPD sector car was on the way. Then they retreated a respectable distance to execute “crowd control.”

“We can share here or at the precinct,” Franco told the bodybuilder. “Let’s start with your name, Dennis—”

“Who’s Dennis? I don’t know who you’re talking about—”

Franco interrupted with a loud, theatrical sigh, eyes directed at the heavens. “No cooperation. What’s a Boy Scout to do?” With his free hand, Franco patted Apollo down and found a wallet tucked into his velvet bodysuit.

“Hey!” Apollo protested.

“Oops, looks like your wallet fell during our scuffle, Mr. St. Julian,” Franco said innocently. “Let me retrieve it for you.”

“My name is Talos, Troy Talos. I don’t know anyone named Dennis!”

“Well Mr. Talos, Troy Talos, you’ve got a whole lot of business cards with the name ‘Dennis St. Julian’ printed on them.” Franco continued rifling the wallet. “Ho, ho! And what’s this? A parole card from the state of California. Wonder if the board knows you’ve traveled out of state? And did you stop by the NYPD and declare your status as a parolee?”

Troy cursed.

Franco shook his head. “Nah, I didn’t think so.” He glanced at Vanessa. “Are you a parolee, too?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just Troy’s girlfriend.”

“Okay, now, Troy...” Franco noticed me trying to staunch my bleeding nose. He handed me a folded handkerchief. “Why don’t you get whatever’s bothering you and the lady off that overdeveloped chest of yours?”

But Troy clammed up.

I touched Franco’s arm. Lifting his handkerchief to my bloody nose, I made sure to shield my lips. Let me, I silently mouthed.

Franco nodded. He understood my strategy and seemed happy to play along. Even though these two weren’t yet arrested and Mirandized, Franco was still a cop. If he asked questions, there were legal implications. But if I asked questions, well, I was simply a witness having a conversation that he happened to overhear. . .

“We know you tried to drug Alicia Bower in her hotel room the other night,” I charged, voice muffled by the hanky. “What drug did you give her? She’s an older woman in frail health. You could have killed her!”

Troy paled. “She was never in any danger. You can’t prove it—”

“Oh, yes we can! Alicia dumped half of your cocktail into her hotel room’s vase, and that sample is being tested by an NYPD crime lab. We’ll have proof against you soon enough, with or without your cooperation.”

“I’m telling you, Alicia was never in any danger! I knew her weight, her age, and I mixed the cocktail up especially for—”

“A roofie’s a roofie,” I said, “and administering one is a crime.”

“I just wanted to scare her,” Troy insisted. “Make sure she didn’t attend that product launch party. I tried to get her to come away with me, go on a last-minute romantic getaway to the Hamptons—but she was so obsessed with that stupid party she couldn’t think of anything else!”

“So you drugged her?”

“It was harmless, just part of an act, a stage show. I wasn’t going to take advantage of her. I was just trying to scare her.”

“With drugs?”

“Look, lady, I was desperate, so I went with a con I’d pulled a few years ago on the wife of some CEO in Palm Springs.”

“Is that what earned you the parole card?”

“No. I had a pharmacist’s degree, till I got busted for distributing steroids.”

Franco glanced at me with a half smile. “A muscle-head using steroids? I’m shocked... shocked!”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Troy said. “I had a license. I’ve got the knowledge. I didn’t mean Alicia any harm. I mixed up a cocktail with enough juice for her to sleep the full eight and wake up fuzzy enough to buy my butchered boyfriend act—”

“And believe she might have done the butchering,” I said.

“That’s right,” Troy replied. “I even gave myself a zombie cocktail.”

“A what?”

“Something I created. It’s a mix of drugs that slows the pulse, makes the skin cold to the touch, plus a sedative and muscle relaxant to help me play dead.”

“There’s really a mix of drugs that can do all that?”

“What? You never heard of Romeo and Juliet?” He smirked. “I woke up right on time, too. When I heard you in the hotel room, talking on the phone, I knew the whole thing was blown. I took off right after you left.”

I faced Vanessa. “And you were supposed to pretend to be his girlfriend? His wife? Someone to convince Alicia she’d better get out of town before the police arrived—and leave you some money for a lawyer before she left?”

“Yes, that’s all there was to it,” Vanessa said.

“So what’s your position at Aphrodite’s Village Online?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m and actress/model. I don’t work for that company.”

Boy, I liked that answer. “So...” I glanced at Franco, feeling pretty proud of myself. “Someone hired you to do this. What was the payoff?”

“Nothing,” Vanessa replied. “Just promises, that’s all. Only she can’t deliver on those promises. Not now.”

I blinked behind the hanky. “Why can’t she deliver?”

Vanessa stared at me with dead eyes. “She promised us big parts in her new Web series. Troy. Me. We were going to be rich Internet stars—and most likely cable television, too. All we had to do was make that stupid witch miss her launch party.”

“Maya promised you all this?” I asked.

“Maya?” Vanessa said. “Who the hell is Maya?”

Oh God, I thought as the truth dawned. All the dots were there to connect. The California link. The lead role in a Web series. None of that pointed to the fitness queen, Maya Lansing.

“It was Patrice Stone who hired you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “We met her at an audition about a month ago. Patrice said she knew our work and would find something for us.” A shadow crossed her face. “What Patrice really knew about was Troy’s criminal record.”

“And Patrice made you an offer.” I coughed into the hanky. “Why? Patrice was a golden girl. The sky was the limit for her.”

“Not according to what Patrice told me. She said Aphrodite was real tight with Alicia Bower and that radio doctor, Sherri Sellars. Back in college, Aphrodite and Sherri were in the same sorority or clique or something, and Alicia was their professor. Anyway, Aphrodite is planning an exit strategy. In another five years, she’s going to promote a replacement to head her company. Patrice wanted that spot. Her only other real competition was Sherri and Alicia—and Alicia was the one who’d come up with a really lucrative product, so she’s the one who needed to be taken down a peg.”

“So Patrice knew about your crazy plan?”

“No. She didn’t care about the details. She just wanted Alicia kept away from the launch party.”

“Only something went wrong.”

“Yes, Troy screwed up, and Alicia made the party,” Vanessa said. “I went to Patrice’s hotel room this morning, to beg for another shot. That’s when I found out...”

“Patrice Stone was murdered last night.”

“What?” Troy cried.

Vanessa turned to him. “I was just coming to tell you. Patrice is dead.”

Four uniformed NYPD officers arrived in time to hear Troy curse a blue streak. Franco pulled him to his feet, greeted two of the cops by name.

“Take this pair into custody and Mirandize both of them.” He leaned close to my ear. “Not that they have much more to tell us, thanks to your curious mommy act. I can see why Big Mike is sweet on you.”

“You want them at the Sixth, right, Detective?” one of the uniforms asked.

Franco shook his head. “The One Seven. The Fish Squad is going to want a nice, long sit-down with Vanessa and the Sun God.”

OUTSIDE the convention center, the sky was clear, the weather balmy. The sun was shining so brightly, it made my nose sting even more.

“Who knew Candy Land could be so much fun?” Franco said, still shaking pita crumbs and yogurt bits out of his jacket.

I continued to dab my bloodied nose with his hanky as I watched a handcuffed Troy Talos being placed into a sector car. Another NYPD vehicle idled at the curb with Vanessa already in the backseat. Franco noticed my nonresponse and gave me a strange look.

“Are you feeling okay, Coffee Lady?”

My ponytail was undone, my nose felt raw and swollen, and the front of my henley was splashed with my own blood. I shook my head.

“I think I’m in shock.”

“Then let’s get you to an ER.”

He took my elbow, but I shook my head.

“It’s mental. I’m still trying to process what Vanessa told us.”

“What part?”

“That Patrice Stone, my innocent victim, wasn’t so innocent after all.”

“Oh, that...” Franco squinted at the cloudless sky. “Do this job long enough, and you’ll find out there’s no such thing as an innocent victim.”

“Not true,” I said. “And that’s an awfully cynical way to look at the world.”

Franco smiled. “She’s baa-aack! Now that’s the Clare Cosi I know.”

“Yeah, well... what I know isn’t cheering me. I’m almost certain my former mother-in-law is in business with a murderer.”

“Alicia Bower?”

“I’m betting Alicia discovered that Patrice Stone was really behind that fake-corpse setup at the Topaz Hotel—and that’s why she killed her.”

Franco nodded. “That’s a motive, all right.”

“And on the night of the murder, I saw Alicia returning from the rain-soaked Garden alone. What was she doing out there?”

“You tell me.”

“She was looking for the security cameras! Alicia wanted to check the location of each lens so she could use an open umbrella to hide her identity.”

“Yeah, this is starting to sound premeditated,” Franco said, his tone encouraging.

“Alicia’s planning didn’t end there. Killing Patrice wasn’t enough. She tried to frame Maya Lansing, too, by using the fitness queen’s umbrella—a neat trick to dispose of two rivals in one night.”

“That’s one tough old dame, but it sounds like you figured it all out.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Sure, it makes perfect sense,” Franco replied. “But where’s your proof?”

My shoulders sagged. The answer to Franco’s question was simple. I didn’t have proof. Not yet. But now that I was sure of Alicia Bower’s guilt, I was certain I could find some kind of evidence to hand Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass.

Fortunately, a germ of a plan was forming in my head. All I needed was the proper tool, and I knew exactly where to find it—with the rest of Joy’s childhood things in the closet of my duplex.