Nevada Barr - Naked Came The Phoenix

She was amazed how intensely it mattered to her. She never even considered not trying to save her mother. The pain that had existed between them was irrelevant. All she could think of was the cello, as if that one act of kindness had obliterated all the quarrels, the criticisms, and the loneliness. She must find the photographs and give them to Douglas-whatever it cost. She'd deal with leaving him afterward, after Detective Toscana had found out who had killed Claudia and Howard Fondulac. Or if Toscana didn't, then she would find out herself… and prove it. Damn Douglas. Damn him, damn him, damn him!

CAROLINE'S EARS WERE RED WITH anger, and the blood pulsed through her temples with such force that she thought her brain might explode, shooting shrapnel out through her eyes. As long as some of it went through Douglas's heart, she didn't much care.

Detective Toscana was standing on the patio by the swimming pool, a glass of something brown in his hand. He waved through the pool fence at her, but she ignored him, stalking past with her head down, eyes firmly on the ground. The image of him, peering through the bars of the fence like a big brown bear in the zoo, stuck in her mind. That's how he'd like to see her mother, no doubt-behind bars, waiting for her daily mammal biscuit!

Out of sight of the detective, she hesitated. Her mother would be in their cabin, and she wasn't in any mood for company, no matter how sympathetic. She didn't think she could stand even the soothingly professional attentions of the spa staff.

What she did want was her cello-a stormy workout with Zeller to exorcise the worst of her fury, then half an hour of Bach. JSB could calm the most aggravated spirit with the beauty of his singing logic.

The fingers of her left hand twitched, aching for the throb of the metal strings, the solid mellow wood of the cello's neck. But the cello was in the cabin with her mother, and she wasn't fit to be near another human being right now. She glanced around, desperate for a refuge, someplace out of sight of everyone.

Wind stirred in the branches of the trees behind the main building, bringing her the sharp, clean scent of pine resin, a faint olfactory echo of her cello. Mind made up, she turned toward one of the paths that led beyond the compound and marched off, into the beckoning green depths of the wood.

"I'd say that lady isn't very happy with her husband, eh, Detective?" Emilio Constanza rocked back and forth on the soles of his spotless white sneakers, tray balanced negligently on one hand. "What do you figure all that was about?" He nodded toward the scene of the recent argument, to which he and the detective-to say nothing of the maintenance man cleaning the pool filter-had been unwitting-but certainly not uninterested-observers.

"You got me." The sun was hot, and the metal bars of the pool fence were warm on Toscana's face; he pulled back and took a deep, meditative sip of the iced tea Emilio had brought him. "Ooh, that's good."

The waiter smiled. "Special recipe. Phoenix sun tea, brewed with orange pekoe, green tea, ginseng, and ginkgo. A dash of papaya enzyme, a drop of kiwi nectar, and Bob's your uncle!"

"You don't say?" Toscana squinted into the depths of his glass, sniffed suspiciously, then shook his head. He nodded toward the lawn where Douglas Blessing still stood, spine stiff with anger. His aide had popped up out of nowhere-that lady reminded him of some kind of mosquito, the way she was always appearing out of nowhere, whining in somebody's ear-but Blessing was ignoring her, fists clenched by his sides as she murmured urgently to him, one hand on his rigid arm. Toscana drained his glass and set it back on Emilio's tray.

"Tell you what, pal. Why don't you go tell the congressman I'd like to see him for a minute? Bring some more a that up to the office, huh, maybe bring the pitcher and two clean glasses?"

" Clean glasses," Constanza said gravely, inclining his dark shock of hair. "I'll make a special note of that, sir."

Karen McElroy was searching through the leaves of the planter full of English ivy that lined the wall of her tiny manicurist's studio, when she saw a pale face rise up behind the glass-brick wall above the ivy. Big eyes bulged in a ghostly face surrounded by something that looked like water weed, and the mouth opened in a soundless fishy gape.

"Ahh!" She jumped back, sending the trolley with the hot-wax burner rocketing across the room, spraying a metallic rain of cuticle nippers, sanding blocks, and callus graters in its wake. The door opened.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod." Karen pressed a hand to her ample bosom, as though to keep her heart from leaping out of her chest and going splat in the aloe-citrus lotion bath. "I thought you were a ghost!"

"I'm sorry." Ondine hesitated in the doorway, looking almost as scared as Karen. "I didn't mean to startle you. Are you… could you… well, never mind, I mean, it's not important…"

"No, no! Come in, come in!" Karen clasped Ondine by the wrist, relieved to find her warm. The poor thing looked just like a living skeleton, but the important word was "living," after all. "I was just lookin' for my gargoyle, when I come to catch sight of you through that glass. I just come from the lounge, where they was talkin' 'bout that lady what fell in the lake. I was thinkin' of that, and then I saw you right there, all white-faced and your hair all-" Karen made a vague gesture at her own neat blonde pony-tail, indicating Ondine's floating cloud of hair. "Thought you was drowned, I surely did."

Ondine's look of alarm hadn't noticeably faded as a result of this explanation. "Gargoyle?" she asked.

"Yeah, you know, one a them little stone guys? Sits on top of churches?" She waved upward, indicating some imaginary Gothic edifice, ringed with stone guardians. "One of my clients brought him to me from France. He's from Notre-Dame, like in that hunchback movie," she said proudly. "I keep him up there"-she waved at the edge of the planter-"cuz he looks so cute, hidin' in the leaves. He keeps fallin' in, though. The guy who does the plants don't see him and knocks him off when he does the watering. But that don't matter none, I'll find him later. Can I do somethin' for you?" She smiled, dying to be helpful.

Ondine smiled back, charmed, as guests always were, by Karen's eager kindness and West Virginia drawl. "Well, I don't want to bother you, it's just…" She extended one long, pale hand, showing one of the rosy nails snapped off short. "Do you think you could fix that for me?"

"Bother me? Lawdy, what you think they pay me to do 'round here?" Karen laughed heartily and waved Ondine toward the padded cream-leather chair behind her mirror-topped worktable. "Sit down, honey. I'll take care of that in no time."

She set to work at once, removing the rose-colored polish with businesslike dispatch. Besides the broken nail, two more were split; one of those had a chunk taken out of the side. Karen clicked her tongue over the damage as she took out the brushes, powder, and acrylic liquid.

"Mercy, girl, what you been doing there?"

A faint pink rose under Ondine's skin. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, Karen thought, but she sure Lord did have fine skin. Except for that little bit of discoloration near her eye, not a freckle, not a mole, not a single pore in sight. The blush-if you could call it that-looked just like a white rose blooming, thought Karen, pleased at the poetic thought.

"I caught my hand on a piece of gym equipment," Ondine said. "It got away from me and snapped that nail right off." She waggled the injured finger in illustration.

"Oh, yeah, I see that kinda thing all the time." A quick dip into the liquid, a tiny ball of powder, and a beautiful smooth surface spread over the split nail, sealing the tear and hiding it immediately. " 'Specially on the Pilates thing, but… oh! But you wouldn't have been usin' that ."