Nevada Barr - Naked Came The Phoenix

"Fine. Neither do I!"

"Don't get in my way. Don't say anything, especially about what we were discussing!"

"I understand." Caroline let go with a genuine smile. "You actually trust me, don't you?"

"Yeah," Toscana sneered. "I trust you. I also trusted my brother when he gave me that stock tip-"

"Your brother almost lost you your entire IRA?"

"Ain't that always the case?" Toscana said, putting on his coat. "Family. You can't live without 'em, but you sure can dream."

LAUREN DIDN'T KNOW IF IT WAS good for her face or not. She didn't care. She was chilled to the bone and she just wanted to be warm again.

Lauren Sullivan untied the sash of her pale green terry cloth Phoenix Spa robe and let the covering fall from her smooth, milky-white shoulders. Her carefully pedicured toes wriggled with appreciation as they padded across the almost hot cedar planks that covered the sauna floor. Nimbly, she climbed up to the top tier of the benches that lined the walls, spread out a towel, and lay down, stretching out her nude, lean body gratefully as the warmth of the toasted cedar began to seep through her back. She luxuriated in the hot, dry air that enveloped her exposed skin.

She was relieved to have the sauna to herself. Today she wasn't in the mood to take the normal scrutiny she went through as part of her daily life as a celebrity. The last thing Lauren wanted was some strange woman assessing her. Lauren knew full well that, later, the voyeur would brag to a friend that she had seen the famous Lauren Sullivan in the sauna and the movie star was thinner, fatter, shorter, taller, prettier, homelier, more relaxed, more haggard, younger looking, or older than she appeared on the movie screen.

She ran her tapering fingers through her tousled red hair and fanned it out across the warm cedar. She played with it lovingly, knowing that when she went back to Hollywood it was all coming off. Her next film role demanded a short, boyish haircut. It didn't really matter, Lauren reflected. It would all grow back. Or perhaps she would just keep it short. They said really long hair didn't become an "older woman."

Older woman ! At thirty-seven, she wasn't really old by most people's standards. But by the Tinsel Town yardstick, it had been time to get some face work done, before everyone started saying she needed it.

The thin fingers patted ever so gently beneath her eyes, barely pressing on the recovering skin there. The dark circles under her eyes could be covered by a makeup artist's expertise. But during the filming of her last movie, it had reached the point where no amount of ice packing had succeeded in alleviating the puffy bags that developed under her expressive eyes.

Lauren continued pressing gingerly. The swelling had gone down now, and the last of the blue and greenish-yellow bruising was disappearing. The plastic surgeon, one of Hollywood's best, had known what he was doing. He had said the bags were hereditary and asked if her mother or father had them as well.

Good question.

It was one of the many questions that Lauren had been afraid to ask for most of her life. Who were her parents? What did they look like? Why had they given her up? Did she have any siblings?

Questions she hadn't dared ask the succession of foster parents over the years. She didn't want them to know and be angry that she often fantasized about her "real" parents and secretly wished that they would come and claim her and take her with them.

Some of her caretakers had been better than others. But none of them had been like her, either physically or temperamentally. Lauren couldn't help speculating about her gene pool.

Most of her life she had held back from pursuing the answers to her questions. Finally, an emotional wreck, Lauren had gone into therapy. But therapy didn't work unless the truth was spoken. A year after she sat in the psychiatrist's office and tearfully described the tragic automobile accident that killed the most loving foster parents, Lauren knew she had to summon up the courage to come to Claudia. Claudia de Vries had the answers to her questions. Lauren was sure of it. If only Lauren had been able to get the information out of Claudia before she was killed.

Lauren cringed internally but kept the expression on her face calm as she heard the sauna door open. Footsteps caused the floorboards to groan. Lauren wanted to keep her eyes shut and not acknowledge the visitor or feel obligated to talk. But with Claudia's death, Lauren's radar was in a state of high alert. Anyone could be a danger. It was necessary to be on guard.

She turned her head and her gaze fell upon the towel-wrapped head of Caroline Blessing. Caroline climbed onto another sauna bench.

Lauren hated being stared at, and yet here she was staring herself. She turned her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The sauna was quiet save for the occasional creaking of wood expanding from the heat. It was Caroline who broke the silence.

"What do you think happened to Claudia?" Caroline asked.

"I really have no idea," answered Lauren in her famous throaty voice. "But I suppose the police will figure it out eventually." She hoped that her terse response would signal that she wanted to cut off the conversation.

But Caroline pressed on. "Did you hear that the psychic was just pulled from the lake? It looks like someone tried to kill her too."

Lauren shook her head back and forth against the cedar platform but did not answer.

Caroline ignored the snub. "I just came back from the infirmary. Looks like she's going to be all right, but I didn't stick around to hear all the gory details. The infirmary smelled like a hospital. It reminded me… well, I had to get out of there and clear my head." Caroline rolled over on her stomach and rested her chin in her hands. "This place is a nightmare. What about that Ondine? How could someone be that thin and live?" Caroline wondered out loud. "She looks like she could snap in two. Her breasts are almost nonexistent and her legs are knobby poles. If you ask me, Ondine looks more like a young boy than a woman. Can you believe that she is held up as an icon to millions of American females?"

Without responding, Lauren pulled herself up to a sitting position and climbed down to the sauna floor. Taking her robe from a peg on the wall, she wrapped it around her. As she pulled open the sauna door, she called over her shoulder, "If anyone wants rest, this is sure not the place to come. We should all demand our money back."

In the infirmary, Toscana sat next to Phyllis Talmadge's cot. "You're sure you didn't see anything?" he asked insistently. Phyllis shook her head weakly against the white pillow.

"As I said, Detective, I felt a sharp pain, and then everything went black. I don't remember falling in the water or being pulled out."

Toscana was not about to give up. "Go over it for me again, will you please, Ms. Talmadge? Tell me again what happened. I'm not sure I got it right the first time."

Phyllis looked at him skeptically. Toscana didn't miss a thing and they both knew it. Over the course of her psychic career, Phyllis had been called on to work with the police on some pretty tough cases. She knew the way the cops operated, asking a witness or victim to go over their accounts of what he or she recalled again and again until, sometimes, a new detail emerged.

"All right," she sighed resignedly. She closed her heavy eyelids as she tried to envision what she had been doing just before she was struck. "I was standing at the edge of the lake, trying to clear my mind of everything that was cluttering it. I wanted to get rid of all the negative energy and try to focus on Claudia and what had happened to her. I was hoping that something would come to me that would help in the investigation."