Nevada Barr - Naked Came The Phoenix

The steam cabinet would help, Dante had assured him. It would sweat away impurities, leaving him cleansed and languid, ready for the gentle aromatherapy massage that would follow.

It was just as well he wasn't claustrophobic, Christopher thought. For someone who didn't like confined spaces, the steam cabinet would be a decent facsimile of hell. Only his head was in the open air. The rest of his body was enclosed in the cabinet, sealed with a padded collar. The temperature was thermostatically controlled by a feedback system that reacted to the sensors Dante had carefully placed in a dozen locations around his body. And as a fail-safe there was a reassuring call button in the armrest of the cabinet, which could be used to summon help if he felt he was overheating.

He closed his eyes and felt the sweat trickling down his face as he let the saxophone of Kenny G wash over him. He was glad he'd brought his own CDs along to the spa. Five minutes in the place, and he knew all they ever played here was the whale music and Peruvian rain forest sounds that he despised. New Age garbage, all of it. This was more like it. Cool music, hot steam, and the prospect of a couple of lines of coke waiting in his cottage when the treatment was over.

His blissed-out state was abruptly halted by the clatter of something falling to the floor. Suddenly alert, Christopher looked around him in confusion. The person standing in front of the control panel obviously wasn't a member of staff. And the screwdriver that was still rolling toward him wasn't part of any health regimen that Christopher had ever heard of. The person turned to face him, eyebrows drawn down in a ferocious glare. With a surge of fear that turned his insides liquid, Christopher realized he was looking into the eyes of a killer. A killer who had just removed the cover of the panel containing the thermostatic controls for the steam cabinet.

His first thought was the panic button. He fumbled for it, his fingers slick with sweat and steam. He pressed as hard as he could, feeling relief creep through him.

As if possessed of X-ray vision, the killer produced a predator's smile. "No point in hitting the panic button, Chris. I already fused the controls. It'll look just like a short circuit. It's just you and me now. You and me and the big heat."

"What's going on?" the agent stammered. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"It's called vengeance. You killed Ondine, now I'm going to kill you."

"What? Are you crazy? Ondine's not dead!"

The killer crossed the room in a few short strides and slapped Christopher's face. "You bastard. There's no point in pretending. I know what you did."

"Okay, okay. You say she's dead. But why would I kill Ondine? She's my meal ticket." Christopher's voice was a squeal of anguish.

"I don't know why you killed her. Maybe she finally got wise to your chiseling little schemes. All I know is that I saw you leave the building. You were running, like you were running away from something. And by the time I got inside the manicure studio, she was dead. You killed her." The low voice was hoarse with passionate anger. "And now you're going to pay with your pathetic little life." The killer stepped back and picked up the screwdriver, then returned to the control panel and began to tinker with it again.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Christopher could feel the temperature rising now. His fingers were starting to swell, his throat to dry up. "I swear," he said desperately. "I didn't even know Ondine was in the manicure studio. Let me out of here. You're making a big mistake. Kill me, and Ondine's killer walks free."

The killer ignored the desperate pleas and replaced the cover on the control panel, screwing it firmly down.

"You've got it all wrong," Christopher sobbed. "Let me out of here, I promise I won't tell a soul. We'll track down the real killer together."

The killer glared at him. "You expect me to believe you? I don't think so."

Terror gripped Christopher. He opened his mouth to scream, but it was already too late. As his jaws widened, the killer moved fast, a hand snaking out to grab one of the small towels on a nearby table. Powerful fingers stuffed it into Christopher's mouth, making anything more than a muffled mumble impossible, then pinched his nostrils tight between thumb and forefinger.

Watching Christopher's face turn from scarlet to purple, the killer didn't flinch. There was a cold relish in the eyes that stared down into Christopher's panicked gaze. At last, Christopher broke their locked stare, his eyes rolling back in their sockets and suddenly dulling. The killer waited a few moments to make sure that the cheating murderer in the steam cabinet would never breathe again, then pulled the towel out of his mouth and carefully wiped both sides of Christopher's nose. There was no point in risking the possibility that the police would be able to lift fingerprints from the skin. As promised, the death would look like nothing more sinister than an unlucky accident. Nothing could bring the beautiful, fragile Ondine back. But at least she had been avenged.

VINCE TOSCANA CAME OUT Of THE steam house for a breath of air that didn't taste of parboiled human being and saw in an instant that if he didn't move right now, his rapidly decreasing pool of suspects was going to scatter to the four winds before sunset. And considering the financial resources of even the poorest among them, those winds might well carry the guilty ones beyond his reach.

Vince raised his voice to bellow, "Hey, Mikey!" The young cop was standing barely ten feet away, but it wasn't for his benefit that Vince had shouted. Every tense face, guest and spa employee alike, was now turned in his direction. Vince could feel the taut vibrations humming off them from twenty yards away. If you touched any of 'em, they'd twang.

"Right here, Vince."

Vince lowered his voice to a more normal level but kept his eyes on the skittish individuals on the other side of yet another line of yellow police tape.

"Mikey, we gotta get some calories into these people. Let's get a dinner together that's got some substance to it. You take charge of that. Talk to the cook-he'll call himself a chef, so mind your manners-and see if he's capable of cooking real food. If he is, have him put together an order and get your brother's market to deliver it. If not, put in a call to your cousin with the Italian restaurant and get him to send over anything on the menu that's got cheese or olive oil. Preferably both."

A wayward draft from the room in back of them prompted both men to take a step farther into the air, and caused Vince to add, "Maybe nothing too meaty. And ask your ma's bakery to bring us half a dozen cakes for dessert. Tall, gooey cakes." The kind Vince's wife would let him eat only about once a year.

"Tea and biscuits," said Mike unexpectedly.

"Biscuits?" Jeez, Vince thought: Southern cooking. "Nah, that chocolate cake with the icing that's six inches tall, or a coupla key lime pies, that kinda thing."

"No, no, I mean like in Agatha Christie, they're always giving people what my sister calls comfort food. Empty calories, you know? Sweet tea and cookies, they make people feel better. 'Biscuits' is British for 'cookies,' " he added helpfully.

"Whatever you say, Mikey. I dunno about comfort; I just don't want them keeling over on me. Get on it, would you? Have 'em bill the department."

As the young man trotted off, filled with the righteous anticipation of shoving a lot of unhealthful food down people who'd paid a small fortune for gussied-up celery sticks, Vince found himself wondering if the kid's police training consisted of anything but murder mysteries.

Agatha Christie. Bah.

Caroline stood alone in the crowd of people watching the young policeman jog away in the direction of the dining room and wondered mildly who would be the first to break. She herself felt like a cello string wound beyond tight: Would a slight weakness in the string be where it snapped, or would the bridge itself give way?