High-heeled Wonder (A Killer Style Novel) (Entangled Ignite) (13 page)

Damn it to hell!

Tony had suspected her from the beginning, but hadn’t taken his own advice to always follow his gut. And now Sylvie was in danger.

“No one took Ivy,” Tony told Cam. “
She’s
the damn stalker.” He slid his hands free of the wraps and sprinted to the locker room, phone still glued to his ear. “Please, Cam. Tell me you’re with Sylvie now.”

“No one’s been able to get ahold of her. I’m on my way to her apartment.”

“Get her dads on the phone. They’ll know where she is.” His sweaty gym clothes were off as soon as he hit the locker room. He kicked them aside and flung open his locker.

“Already did that. They’re at some fancy shindig that she’s supposed to be at, too, but she’s not there. They can’t get ahold of her, either.”

“Hang on,” he said. He jumped into the shower and blasted off the sweat for ten seconds and then picked up the phone again, shaking off the water. “Where’s she supposed to be?”

Without taking the time to dry off, he tugged up his boxers and cargo pants, shoved his feet in his tennis shoes, and grabbed a clean T-shirt.

“Harbor City Museum of Modern Art.”

He ran out of the locker room. “I’ll take the museum. You take the apartment. I need everyone in on this.”

“Already done. Figured you’d want the big guns.” Cam paused. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

“Damn straight.” If they didn’t, a day’s punishment at the gym wouldn’t even put a dent in Tony’s guilt-induced misery. He ended the call, tugged on his T-shirt at warp speed, and tossed the phone to Paulie on his way out the door. “Thanks, man.”

The setting sun nearly blinded him as he hustled down the rickety outside steps from the second-floor gym to the parking lot. He gritted his teeth and hobbled to his car like an old man, battling to ignore his fatigued, aching muscles and the wrenching pain in his knee. He’d hurt like a sonofabitch tomorrow, but if he didn’t get to Sylvie now, she wouldn’t have a tomorrow—and he wouldn’t give a fuck about his.

He’d deluded himself long enough. Sylvie wasn’t just another client. She was the dangerous woman who made him want to be more than just the sum of his mistakes. The woman he loved.

She’d believed in him. Believed he could keep her safe. And, damn it, he would.

Tonight and forever.

Or he’d die trying.

Tony swerved around a Lincoln Town Car and slid into a parking spot reserved for the museum’s employee of the month. Thank God for ’Los’s hacking skills. It had taken him about five seconds to get into Sylvie’s condo’s security system. The surveillance footage from the condo lobby had shown her getting into a limo with Anya and another woman half an hour ago. A call into the limo company revealed she had, indeed, gone to the museum. A few calls later, he’d confirmed that Ivy had hired a car to drive her to the same fund-raiser.

The bitch’s shitty poetry said she wanted to expose Sylvie’s secrets to everyone. Well, she’d done that. Which only left leaving Sylvie bloody.

That would not happen.

Tony barely made it out of the car before a valet in a white jacket trotted over.

“Sir, you can’t park there.” The twenty-something model type gave Tony’s damp outfit of khaki cargo pants and black T-shirt the once-over. “This is a private event.”

Off in the distance a police cruiser wailed. His family had called in every favor anyone on the force owed them—and then some, judging by the conga line of cherry tops heading his way.

But he wasn’t waiting for them to arrive. “There’s my invitation.”

He pushed past the valet, popped open the car’s trunk, and yanked up the false bottom to reveal his weapons go-bag. The Kel-Tec P-32 went in his ankle holster and got strapped on. A semiautomatic with a seven-round magazine, it was the perfect backup. He buckled on a shoulder holster and tucked his Beretta 9 millimeter into it, then pulled on a Kevlar vest and finally a Windbreaker ready-packed with a lock pick and extra rounds. He tossed the bag back into the trunk and slammed it shut.

The valet stared at him with round eyes.

Tony flipped him the car keys and rushed to a wide staircase leading up to the museum doors. Breaks squealed behind him, followed by slamming doors. He whirled, his fingers curled around his still-holstered gun.

Carlos and Ryder sprinted to his side. Both were outfitted in Maltese Security’s tactical uniforms, also with Kevlar. Dark shadows circled the tech guy’s eyes, but judging by his straight, aggressive stance, he wouldn’t have gone home even if Tony ordered it.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” Carlos asked, tossing him a com device.

“Beyond saving Sylvie?” Tony stuck the com in his ear, turned, and rushed up the steps two at a time, ignoring the sledgehammer pounding his knee into pulp. “Not a damn thing.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Just around the corner in every woman’s mind is a lovely dress, a wonderful suit, or entire costume which will make an enchanting new creature of her.”

—Wilhela Cushman

Low-level strip lights along the baseboards provided a shadowy illumination to the museum’s architecture and design displays, much like a flashlight held under someone’s face as they told a camp-side ghost story. A shiver snaked its way up Sylvie’s spine.

“Why don’t we talk here?” Her taffeta skirt rustled as she sat down on the bench near a collection of handblown glass.

Ivy remained standing. Something in the tilt of her head and tension in her jaw made Sylvie’s unease bloom into anxiety. She glanced back at the foyer packed with elegantly dressed guests, and the urge to return to the safety of the crowd turned her palms clammy.

“Say, how about we go grab a drink first?” She stood and took a few steps back.

Ivy shook her head. “There’s a new installation I really want to show you. It’s pretty amazing and just a little bit farther in.” She laced her fingers together and brought her joined hands to her lips as if in prayer, gripping them so tightly her pale knuckles turned white. Crisscrossing red marks covered her hands. “Please.”

Something predatory glimmered in Ivy’s eyes. Sylvie’s anxiety grew as she realized the marks were nearly healed scratches, the kind of damage a cat might have inflicted. But Ivy was allergic to cats. She’d always said if she was going to get a pet it would be a rat.
Oh, God
. Sylvie’s heart skipped a beat as the image of the dead rat the troll had sent her flashed in her mind. What if Tony had been right about Ivy? Anders had never confessed to being the stalker, but he
had
admitted to everything else. Why leave out something as trivial as hacking a Web site?

He wouldn’t.

And Tony had said he sent only a few emails, early on, before the threats got serious.

Which left…

Ivy?

But before Sylvie could take her suspicions to the cops, she had to get the other woman to talk. “Okay. Lead on, Macduff.”

As they walked farther down the hall, Sylvie made sure to stay out of arm’s reach.

“You know the quote is actually ‘Lay on, Macduff’? It’s been misquoted for nearly a hundred fifty years. Crazy, right? It’s from Macbeth’s speech when he’s ordering Macduff to launch a vigorous attack.” Ivy chuckled as she turned a corner. “How appropriate.”

The tall redhead stopped suddenly and Sylvie had to pull up short so she wouldn’t ram into her.

“Here we are. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Sylvie stepped around Ivy and her breath caught, the stunning display momentarily outshining her suspicions. It was a throne. Unlike the half-shadowed lighting of the rest of the displays, it sat bathed in a soft glow. Designed to look like a medieval throne, its back soared twenty-feet high. However, instead of being carved from oak or another hardwood, it had been fashioned of gleaming gold, copper, and silver coins stacked one upon the other.

“It’s called the Throne of Hope.” Ivy’s voice echoed in the quiet room. “The artist is Trace Wilkes. He inherited a huge tract of land, and when he was clearing it to build a stand-alone studio, the workers found a small, long-abandoned wishing well. Some of the coins in it date back from the 1700s, but the most recent coin found was dated 1910.”

Ivy reached over the red velvet rope surrounding the display and glided her long fingers over the coins before stepping back. “Instead of leaving the well as it was, Wilkes drained it and—once his new studio was built over the wishing well’s grave—he used the coins to make this throne.”

Hoping to lull Ivy into her comfort zone and keep her talking, Sylvie kept her own mouth shut and leaned closer, pretending to inspect the chair. She watched Ivy out of the corner of her eye as the other woman fiddled with her beaded evening clutch.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous to behold,” Ivy continued, taking a step closer, “but it’s made from something worse than blood money. He stole their wishes, their hopes.”

Something in her voice made Sylvie turn. But too late. Something sharp jabbed into her neck and fire shot through her jugular.

“He stole their dreams, all for his own glory.” Ivy’s voice turned hard. “Sound familiar?”

Panic roared through Sylvie’s body and she stumbled. “It
was
you.”

Ivy arched an eyebrow and shrugged her shoulders. “What do you think?” She tipped her head and regarded Sylvie. “I considered using a gun, but this way I get to watch you squirm when you finally realize it was me tormenting you…and that now you’re going to die.”

Sylvie’s survival instinct spurred her into attack mode, and she lunged forward. But the world wavered and she fell to the floor, her legs tangling in her voluminous tulle underskirt. She pushed up against the hard marble with trembling arms that didn’t seem to be a part of her own body. Icy fear strangled her lungs. Instinctively, she sought out her clutch with her asthma medicine, but her limbs failed to respond to her mind’s commands.

An all-encompassing euphoria overpowered her. Warmth soaked deep into her bones. It was as though she’d dashed across a snow-covered deck and then sank up to her chin into a steaming hot tub. All of her muscles melted into warm goo. Way back in the furthest corner of her mind a voice screamed for help, but by the time it reached her, it was only a faint echo.
God she felt so amazing
.

“W-what…” Even that one word had taken supreme effort to utter.

“Heroine. And you should thank me. They say it’s a lovely way to go. But don’t you die on me yet, I’m not done with you. Come on now, let’s get you up on this throne. I think it’s the perfect spot for your final farewell. Don’t you?”

Ivy hauled her up and wrapped an arm around her waist. Though Sylvie knew she desperately needed to get as far away from the homicidal psycho as she could, making any move without her tormentor’s aid was beyond the realm of possibility.

Every shuffle forward took all the energy she could muster, but Ivy pushed and half-dragged her, and at last Sylvie sank onto the throne. Her head lolled back against the metal and her eyelids fluttered downward. She smacked her lips together in slow motion, but the move did little to alleviate the desert in her mouth.

“Damn, I’m sorry as hell I’m going to miss seeing them find you like this when they unveil the Throne of Hope to all the fund-raiser attendees in an hour. But I’ll be off discovering the new me, the person I can finally become with you dead and gone.”

Sylvie rolled her neck so she faced her would-be killer and fought to keep her eyes open. She had to keep fighting or she’d die. Even in her drugged state, the dire state of things reverberated through the foggy high. “Don’t underst—” Her tongue thickened and she couldn’t finish the thought out loud.

“Of course you don’t understand, you stupid bitch.” Ivy cracked her palm across Sylvie’s cheek. “Did you know that rehab is a lot like prison? They tell you what to wear, where to go, what to eat, and how to live, every fucking second of every fucking day. I was ready to snap into a million little jagged pieces. I’d survived it once, but you, you greedy bitch, forced me back a second time.”

She scraped a long fingernail down Sylvie’s cheekbone and across her bottom lip. The force pushed her head backward against the unyielding coins of the throne’s high back.

Ivy leaned in, her mouth so close to Sylvie’s ear that the humidity of her hot breath tickled her sensitive skin, even through the growing numbness. “Have you figured it out yet, what got me through those days when the withdrawal was sawing my body in half and I could see the devil waiting for me in every corner?” Ivy wove her fingers through Sylvie’s hair and yanked her head to the side, exposing the lethargic pulse in her throat. “Planning to kill you, the bitch who stole it all from me. That’s what.”

Adrenaline and pain should have spurred Sylvie into action. Instead, everything in her body lay mired in cold molasses. She couldn’t raise her head. Drool pooled at the corner of her mouth. Her breathing slowed and grew shallower. She knew was going to die, but she was too high to be terrified.

A lingering regret threaded its way through the haze as thick as woven fabric.

Tony
.

She’d hoped there’d be time. For more. More what exactly, she didn’t know. But time for more with him. Wasn’t that the ultimate irony? Here she was on the Throne of Hope without any hope left at all.

“I was the one who introduced you to Drea—my best friend,” Ivy snarled, clearly starting to lose it. “I invited you to join our blogging group. I helped you work out the security kinks and set everything up so your real identity was hidden away. And how did you repay me? Not just by stealing the spotlight. You stole my closest friend.” She started to pace. “Catwalk Style was supposed to be my reinvention. I’d failed as a model. I couldn’t afford to fail again. Not if I wanted to regain my rightful place in the industry.” She spun, and her voice rose as she gestured erratically at her. “The blog was going to get me back on top. Instead, you tossed me to the side with your stupid High-Heeled Wonder blog. People stopped feeding me gossip and started sending it your way. Advertisers told me they didn’t have any room in their budgets. Funny, they always found a little extra money to send
your
way. When Pippa Worthington refused my call, it was an insult only cocaine could numb. I didn’t
fall
off the wagon. You
pushed
me with both fucking hands. You!”

Ivy reached into her handbag and pulled out a thin rectangular box, pinched the clasp, and withdrew another hypodermic needle and a blue ribbon. “Oops, looks like you won’t match.” She tied the ribbon around Sylvie’s bicep. “After three months of planning in rehab, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Frighten you. Expose you. Kill you. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. Well, almost. The first hit was enough to get you high. This second dose is what will finish you off.”

She lowered the needle to Sylvie’s arm, centering the point on the engorged vein in the crook of Sylvie’s elbow. “This will only hurt for a minute. Trust me.”

Tony spotted Anya as soon as he sprinted through the museum’s double doors. “Where’s Sylvie?”

“She’s talking to Ivy.”

His heart stopped beating in his chest. “Where?”

Sudden concern darkened Anya’s expression. She pointed toward a hallway off the crowded lobby. “Down there. Why? What’s—”

He took off at a dead run. God help him, he would
not
be too late. He would not fail the woman he loved.

He burst into the room at the end of the hall. Sylvie sat thirty feet away, slumped over in some weird chair, drowning in a sea of stiff red material. Ivy Rhodes was nowhere in sight.

A primal rage curled inside him, squeezing his organs so tightly he felt they could implode from impotent fury.

He sprinted over to Sylvie and waded through the waves of satin and lace. He felt for her pulse at the base of her neck. Slow and unsteady, a barely perceptible rhythm.

He tapped the com device in his ear that connected him to Ryder and Carlos. “She’s still alive! Get an ambulance here pronto.” Knowing they had him covered, he turned back to the woman who’d kicked him out of her life less than twenty-four hours ago. “Stay with me, Sylvie. Help’s on the way, baby. I promise, you’re gonna make it. Just hang in there.”

Her olive skin had a ghostly pallor, and a blue tint colored her lips. Tony’s entire world shrank to the space she occupied. He couldn’t lose her. He had so much to make up for.

She took in a ragged breath and he squeezed her hand. Her breathing returned to a slow but steady in and out.
Thank God
. “That’s it, you’re doing great, honey.”

A soft
click
sounded behind him, just loud enough to punch through the worry fogging his brain. He jerked his head up. The Rhodes woman had her back turned to him as she pushed against a door a few feet away that must lead to a secondary exit. She pushed again. Again the
click
sounded, but the door still didn’t open.

He leaped to his feet. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Rhodes turned. For a millisecond he saw the hate twisting her model-perfect face before it disappeared, replaced by a doe-eyed innocence.

“Thank God you’re here. I just found her like this and was going to get help.” She made a move toward the main exit. “You stay with her. I’ll go find a phone to call an ambulance.”

Everything that had been burning with fury a moment before turned ice cold. He aimed his Beretta at her chest. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She blinked as if confused. “But she needs help. What in the world, Tony?” She took another step backward.

“We know it was you. We found Sylvie’s laptop.”

The bitch clutched her beaded purse close to her chest, her façade slipping a little. “Funny, I heard you found it at Anders’s office. Right before you killed him.”

Refusing to be baited, he checked Sylvie’s pulse while keeping his weapon trained on Rhodes. The somewhat steady pulse under his fingers reassured him. He just had to keep from shooting Ivy until backup arrived. “We found the thumb drive with your sick-ass poetry on it.”

All pretense came crashing down from Rhode’s face. “Damn, I wondered where I lost that. It must have slipped out of my pocket when I dropped off our dear Sylvie’s laptop.” She took two more steps backward. “Oh well, I don’t need the poems any more. I’m reinventing myself.”

“Stay where you are,” he ordered, but a soft cough from Sylvie pulled his attention away for a split second.

Ivy took instant advantage, pulling a gun from her purse and taking aim. At Sylvie.

Tony’s gun hand wavered slightly.

“Looks like we have ourselves a standoff,” she said.

“You’ll be dead before you release the trigger,” he growled.

“Maybe, but she’ll be dead first,” Ivy said calmly. Too calmly. The woman was a psycho.