Unknown - 22_Cat_In_An_Ultramarine_Scheme

“No time to psychoanalyze me at the office, Revienne,” Van said, donning her impassive executive mask for a moment, in fun. “We’ll dine after you’ve rested. What brought you to Las Vegas so suddenly?”

“I’d been promising to do some lectures for a friend from Lyon. He’s had a visiting professorship at your branch of the University of Nevada here. Hugo Gruetzmeyer. He thought a local case might intrigue me. But, Van, I caught some disturbing buzz on the Internet after the flight.”

“You’re talking about the Crystal Phoenix,” Van said, her blue eyes sharpening. “So, this is a business, not a pleasure trip. What is your business then?”

Temple would not have wanted to be under Van’s suddenly suspicious gaze. Her hotel and her husband’s family were the center of a sensational murder case. Even old school friends needed to prove themselves for suddenly showing up.

Revienne shrugged her wide, expensively clad shoulders. Her quick gray-eyed glance summed up Temple’s position and temperament as if taking a psychic temperature.

Temple felt as cautious as Van did. This woman was as quick and subtle as she was smart, in both meanings of the word.

Revienne spread her long, graceful fingers palms up, in a gesture of charming surrender. Temple noticed she wore no rings, not from a man and not from Revienne to Revienne. Temple instantly remembered Matt’s glamorous engagement ring on her third finger. She’d certainly come to take it for granted and sometimes wondered if it was too much bling for a petite woman. Now it felt like a glitzy weapon blinking out a Morse-code message: Don’t tread on me. I have backup, lady.

It was weird this woman got her and Van’s hackles up so fast. They were equally protective of the Crystal Phoenix, perhaps, and even more protective of the Fontana family males, as well. Temple did have some best pals in Vegas, she realized. They just weren’t girls, but an updated rat pack of cool guys and one big beautiful black cat named Midnight Louie.

Revienne gave a single breathy laugh, part apology, part peace gesture. “I realize, Van, and Miss Barr, you need to be sensitive about negative publicity right now. That’s why I’m here. To help. Professor Gruetzmeyer called on me because certain aspects of the tunnel vault death might relate to my experience. I know you have the legendary CSI filmed here in Las Vegas, but that is television-show razzle-dazzle, as you say in this country. I am a respected psychologist on the Continent, and beyond—England, the Mideast …”

“Not in the U.S.?” Temple asked.

“Not … yet. Though I very recently worked with a most challenging and unforthcoming American. You are a wary people, I must say.”

“These are wary times,” Van said.

“Exactly. I do have experience in cases involving terrorism.”

“Perpetrators or victims?” Temple asked.

“Both,” Revienne said.

“This has nothing to do with terrorism,” Van said. “We have one unidentified man, in formal costume yet, dead and likely murdered in an abandoned part of the hotel property. If we hadn’t been, er, excavating for a new attraction, no one would have known.”

Revienne gave Temple an amused (possibly condescending) glance. “I take it your publicity efforts devised the live taping of the old vault being opened. I never heard on any news source that anything besides the dead man was found inside.”

Temple tapped the sole of her high-heeled Nina sandal on Van’s cushy carpeting. “No news is bad news when it comes to publicity. The Crystal Phoenix is getting as much buzz as the Wynn or the Venetian now. If you manage to solve the death, it’ll make a super exhibit in the new Mob Museum at our affiliated facility, Gangsters.”

“Spin,” Revienne mocked. “You Americans are experts at it until you become entangled in unexpected outcomes.”

“You French, on the other hand, are experts at food, wine, and tomfoolery.”

“Tom whom?”

Van laughed. “L’amour, illicit love affairs, Temple means.”

“Ah,” Revienne said, nodding her perfectly windblown, shoulder-length Bed Head. “Is love ever truly illicit?” She nodded at Temple’s ring finger. “You are tying yourself to one man—always risky. An impossible dream, perhaps?”

“Not really,” Van said briskly. “You’ll meet my husband at dinner, if you can rest sufficiently to be up and about then.”

“Oh, I slept on the plane. Like a baby.” She stood, all five-nine of her on four inches of Christian Louboutin spike-heeled leather.

“Barbie goes supermodel,” Temple muttered under her breath, as Van ushered her friend to the office door.

“What was that, Temple?” Van asked, coming back.

“Your friend could be a supermodel.”

“Not really. They’re even taller and thinner.” She sat in her chair and swayed it from side to side. “I suppose we could use the help of an internationally known psychologist, but Revienne has become rather tiresomely perfect.”

“She wasn’t always like this?”

Van shook her head in its polished blonde-satin helmet of elegant hairdo.

“Those exclusive girls schools in Switzerland? We were all offspring in the way of our wealthy parents, parked there to learn how to look and act healthy, wealthy, and wise. We were mental messes, Temple, and Revi—Revienne—was just as fragile and confused as the worst-off of us. My father was a widowed hotel executive who changed temporary residences and lovers almost as frequently as the maids changed sheets. He had a semilegitimate reason for dumping me. Revi’s parents had a stable luxury flat in Paris. They dumped her because she witnessed her younger sister’s suicide.”

“Oh, my gosh. That slick woman?”

“That woman.” Van nodded grimly. “We were all isolated, ignored, and mad as hell. Revienne may look smooth and successful, but that’s what we were trained to do. A renowned psychologist? Yes. But we all learned to put on a good front at school, and unless something dramatic happened to shatter that psychological shellac, which we all hid behind, she’s not the paragon she seems.”

“What ‘shattered’ your ‘shellac’?”

Van looked startled. “You think mine did?”

Temple nodded. “You kept the hairdo and the manner, but you snagged the first Fontana brother to break the family front and marry. I’m happy to say my aunt was the second. How’d that happen?”

Van smiled and spun her fancy executive chair all the way around, like a kid on a ride. “Nicky. He broke through. Never underestimate the persuasive power of a Fontana.”

“I wouldn’t,” Temple swore, standing. “If your old school friend and her professor friend want to investigate the death, we can’t stop them. I have some suspicions of my own and will follow them, solo, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

Temple opened the door to leave.

“But,” said Van, “don’t hesitate to call on all the resources of the Crystal Phoenix, which are mostly Fontana brothers.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.” Temple grinned as she shut the door on Van.

She’d like to see Revienne up against a Fontana brother.

Not literally, however.

Bahr Bones

Temple wasn’t a habitué of the local morgue, but her size-fives had visited the low-profile building a time or two.

“Dr. Bahr is expecting you, Miss Barr,” the receptionist reported in a happy chirp.

Temple knew she was a nice break in routine, being alive and not being a grieving relative or in a helping profession.

“Thank you, Yolanda,” she said. A savvy PR person always reads name tags and uses first names to establish rapport.

The door to the morgue’s inner sanctum—and here that cliché phrase really resonated—opened, crammed full with burly Dr. Bahr in his white lab coat.