Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

Another opened ring box caught his eye from across the room, this one plainer. He got up, put his hand out, then pulled it back as if contemplating touching white-hot metal. What the holy hell was this doing here? Gold metal. Real gold. A size big enough for a man’s hand.

The ring was shaped like a huge snake coiled into a circle, its jaws closing on its own tail. The Worm Ouroboros. An ancient symbol of eternity. Given to Matt Devine by Max’s own personal demon, Kathleen O’Connor, as a symbol of her undying hatred of them both.

Kathleen was gone. The ring had disappeared even before she had, to hear Devine tell it.

How the devil had it ended up here, in Temple’s scarf drawer? Had Devine given it to her? Why? And when? And how could Max ask Temple without revealing that he’d come slinking around while she was gone, worried about her but even more worried about them, suspecting she’d lied to him? Now he was certain she had. About this trip, and about how much else?

How much had she had to comfort herself with a sub-

Chapter 55

Shoe Biz

To avoid an overstaged look, the madeover ‘Tween and Teen Queen candidates would strut their stuff on a small stage near the pool at twilight time in Las Vegas.

Temple had thought the arrangement rather tacky until she saw the area that afternoon. Fresh lavender and yellow lotuses and lit candles floated in the pool. A semicircular array of clear Plexiglas folding chairs filled the large concrete expanse between pool and house. Banks of flowers turned the planting areas into mini gardens of Eden, with more candles burning on tall lily-shaped holders staked into the ground.

The raised stage was draped with pastel organza and seemed like a huge orchid cloud when viewed from the house.

Temple stared at the area’s transformation into a kinder, gentler place, realizing that what would happen here tonight meant a lot to girls like Mariah. This was akind of coming-out party, with the addition of killer media pressure.

“She may have seemed flakey,” a voice behind her said, “but this event was really important to Beth Marble.”

Temple turned to her Aunt Kit, who knew nothing of the woman’s real identity, or her very dark history and issues.

“It reminds me of a garden wedding scene,” Temple said. “I wonder—?”

“What?”

Temple only shook her head. She had wondered whether Crystal Cummings had married Arthur Dickson in this very spot. She’d have to look it up when this was over. If it ever would be over.

“Beth planned every detail of this setting,” Kit went on. “It seemed to mean something special to her.”

Temple nodded, glad that the police hadn’t made the connection that the dead girl in the parking lot was Beth’s granddaughter until after Beth herself was dead. Glad that she herself hadn’t made that connection any sooner than now.

Even if Beth’s hyper-happy exterior hid a vengeful heart, there must have been some healing energy there somewhere. The bald head under the wig screamed “cancer.” Knowing you were likely to die might make the most stable person a bit crazy, maybe even for, or especially for, a long-delayed vengeance.

“You ready to wow them?”

Temple grinned at her aunt. “I’m ready to do the most unwinning act you ever saw. Get out your pencil and prepare to draw goose eggs.”

“You should give it a real shot. I think Xoe Chloe could hit as one of those alter-ego personalities. Like Martin Short in the fat suit as Jimmy Glick on TV.”

“Oh, Lord, no! There are enough closet performers in my circle.”

“You mean Max?”

“Ah . yeah.” She’d meant Carmen Molina but why confuse her aunt.

“Anyway,” Kit said, squeezing her arm. “I think you underestimate Xoe’s Midas touch. Break a leg.”

On that contrary show biz good wish, Kit disappeared back inside like a fairy godmother off to minister to other Cinderellas.

Temple regarded the beautiful scene, not fussing about her little upcoming roller-rap routine, but about how to trick a killer into the open.

Beth Marble had dreamed up this entire event just to lure and kill a woman who had failed her daughter.

Who had penetrated Beth’s carefully applied fake identity and used the hunter’s trap to kill the hunter?

“Is she there?” Mariah tugged on Temple’s ostrich-feather fringed sleeves, long enough for a medieval minstrel.

Temple pulled back from the crack in the side curtains. “Yes. Your mother is about two-thirds of the way back, wearing ‘our’ outfit, with some guy.”

“She’s with some guy? That must just be Detective Alch.”

“Alch is sitting elsewhere in the audience.”

“Then it’s some other girl’s father or something.”

“They were whispering with their heads together.”

“Must be a cop.” Mariah stuck her head through the curtain. “Must be … oh, gross. They’re, like, laughing.”

“Mariah. Audiences have a lot of time to kill. They do things like that.”

“Where’s Matt?”

“Out of town, I think. The guy does look like a cop, though. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

“That’s not Xoe Chloe speak.”

Temple pulled Mariah back to check out the open bar and the three bartenders. One of them was Su.

The videographers prowled the perimeter like hungry wolves, filming the audience, the scene, even the cat who dogged their footsteps, Midnight Louie.

In fact, he was doing more than dogging their footsteps, he was sniffing them, like a dog.

She spied Crawford Buchanan on the sidelines interviewing a Teen Queen candidate so tall he could look up her skirt by pretending to drop his notebook, which he was bending to pick up at the moment.

Creep.

Louie, perhaps drawn by the rolling pencil, had rushed over and was now sniffing his shoes.

Must be the muck that stuck.

“What’s my mother doing now?” Mariah asked. “She’s, ah … pulling out one of those little mirrored lipstick holders and putting on lipstick.”

“What? She never wears lipstick. It must be a secret signal.” Mariah pushed past Temple to peek again.

“She is! And that guy is watching her. Ick! That is way too … too.”

“I’m sure it’s a signal,” Temple said confidently. That was the truth. Public lipstick applying could be. But she looked again. Yup. The guy was watching Molina’s every move. That kind of signal didn’t usually bring on the tactical squad.

“Listen,” she told Mariah, feathering her fingers through the new haircut for maximum “perk.”

“Just think about getting up on that stage without tripping and doing your talent routine. That’s our job tonight. Let the police and your mom do their jobs.”

“I wish Matt was here.”

“I don’t.” Temple put a hand to her straight blonde hair, the lime green ostrich feathers on her long sleeves fluttering like wings in the corner of her eye. He’d have a bird!

“You look really … different.”

“Higher praise I could not get. Now we better get into our lines and get ready to suffer through twenty-eight three-minute presentations. You know how long that is, counting applause, if we get any?”

That forced Mariah to think and get her mind off her mother’s performance in the audience.

That’s what it had to be, Temple decided. No way Molina was flirting. No way.

“Sixty,” Mariah was saying, “an hour. And … twenty-four minutes.”

“Add another forty minutes for the judges to score each act and for people to waste time getting on-and offstage.”

“We’ll be here forever!”

“Certainly will feel like it.” Temple pinched the curtain shut and prepared to be trapped backstage while all the action was going on out front.