The Celebutantes (13 page)

The question hung in the air like a pair of used gym socks. Madison crinkled her nose, and the happy expression left her face; it was replaced a moment later by a look of complete confusion. “I…I have no idea,” she finally said. “There are only fifty members in the Royal Crown Society, and I know all their names. He's sure as hell not one of them.”

“Then how did he get this code?”

“I already told you, I don't know.”

They both fell silent as they stared back down at the crinkled piece of paper. The first part of the puzzle—
Dakota, tonight, 6:45
—had been solved. The second part, however, was a much bigger mystery.

Madison had visited the turn-of-the-century brownstone in Gramercy Park that served as the Royal Crown Society of the Americas' international headquarters three times. She had toured the beautiful, expansive rooms, filled as they were with art from every corner of the globe. She knew Tallula Kayson and Elijah Traymore were both regarded as the most talented young artists of the day and that the society respected them tremendously, but neither Tallula nor Elijah was a member. And they
certainly
hadn't been appointed ambassadors. The society operated on a very private, if not completely elitist, level. You couldn't just ring the doorbell and prance into the brownstone. You couldn't ask to be a part of the society either. You had to be invited indoors, even if only to sit for tea in the front parlor.

Madison was certain Elijah hadn't been one of the privileged few. So how had he managed to score one of the society's art label numbers? She pictured a little lightbulb blinking on over her head. Was there something she didn't know about the society? She had never heard of a painting titled
To the Penthouse,
and that only made her want to know more about it.

“You're going to pay the society a little visit,” Park said suddenly. “Now that we're ambassadors, we can't be denied entrance.”

“We can't be denied anything,” Madison replied curtly. “But tomorrow's Thursday. The society is closed. I'll have to pay them a visit on Friday and—”

“And what? You can't just tell them that Elijah was in possession of this code. That'll totally make them scream for the cops. And we can't have that.”

Madison nodded. “You're right. I'll have to come up with something else.”

Footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. They turned and saw Lex walking toward them, dressed in her usual work clothes: jeans, a men's oversized shirt, and her favorite pair of Louboutin flats. Her Dior glasses were perched on top of her head. She came into the living room holding a small stack of papers.

Park immediately told her about the code.

“How's that possible?” Lex asked, her tone edgy. “Who gave Elijah that code?”

“We don't know,” Madison said quietly, worriedly. “But the codes definitely aren't easy to come by.”

“Huh.” Lex shook her head incredulously. “If the code refers to a painting or a work of art, then I guess that means he was trying to track it down for some reason.”

“Yeah, but
why
?” Park threw her hands in the air.

“Maybe…” Lex's voice trailed off as she stared at Madison. Her eyes widened in confusion. “There's cucumber in your hair.”

“Oh, you mean this?” Madison kept her tone nonchalant as she plucked a sticky slice from the top of her head and held it up. “It's…part of my beauty treatment. You should try it sometime.” She rubbed the slice against a tuft of her hair.

“That's totally bizarre,” Lex said. “Throw in a few carrots and some onion and you'd have a nice salad.”

Madison shrugged, feigning absolute confidence.

“Anyway,” Lex said, “I found a bunch of interesting info here.” She waved the sheets of paper in the air. “That Web site address you found in the hotel suite? Weird. It's all about the supernatural and stuff like that. There's a whole message board where people post comments and questions and other links. Elijah Traymore
must
have been heavily involved in the occult scene. I found about thirty postings from him——replies to certain articles or comments about Wicca, ghost hunting, vampirism, and
channeling.
”

“Go figure,” Park said. “I guess Poppy really was telling the truth.”

Madison clucked her tongue. “Oh, please. I don't believe a word she said. It struck me as a little too farfetched.”

“Not really.” Lex flipped to another page. “Elijah was involved in the art scene, yes, but he was totally immersed in the supernatural aspect of it. It says right here that last year he participated in a public séance in Paris, where he and a bunch of other people tried to raise the spirit of Claude Monet. Two weeks later he did the same thing in Rome, only this time his group tried to get da Vinci to hang out with them.”

“So then it's obviously no secret that he was into this stuff,” Park said with certainty. “Poppy was right—Elijah was a Wiccan priest.”

“Yes,” Lex said. “And he wore the pentacle around his neck to prove it.”

“What does
any
of this have to do with what we're investigating?” Madison asked. She stormed across the room and dropped onto the couch. “I mean, it's freaky and all, but why should we care about
that
aspect of Elijah's life?”

“Because it proves that Elijah believed in channeling,” Lex explained. “He obviously believed that spirits can be summoned or called up or whatever. It wasn't a joke to him. It's how he lived his life—spiritually. Which means that Poppy really might have been telling us the truth about why he contacted her.”

“To summon a spirit named
Corky,
” Madison said, laughing. “How silly. I've never heard of a master artist named
Corky
before.”

“Lex is right.” Park started pacing the living room floor. “Someone who believes in the paranormal doesn't have to think twice about whether psychics like Poppy van Lulu can communicate with the dead. People who practice Wicca believe in things like psychic ability and ghosts. It actually makes sense that he contacted Poppy for that reason.”

“But she's the biggest flake on the planet!” Madison screamed. “Everyone knows that!”

“Not really,” Park countered. “Half of Hollywood swears by her.”

“And doesn't that prove my point exactly?” Madison stared at her sisters. “Since when has Hollywood ever been the voice of reason?”

“Okay,” Park said, “I hear you. But whenever Poppy's written up in the tabloids, the stories are favorable. That's all I'm saying. She acts like a nut sometimes, but there
are
people out there who believe in her.”

Lex frowned and shook her head slowly. She waved the pages in the air again. “There are, but only on a superficial level. I spent the last two hours searching for stuff about Poppy online, and when I finally got past the tabloid crap and her predictions about
American Idol,
I found a few interesting things.”

Park sat down. “Like?”

“Like that in 1999, Poppy appeared on a talk show in Australia and totally embarrassed herself. She tried to give a bunch of psychic readings on the air but failed miserably at it. Like, hysterically funny. People down under think she should work for the circus or something. She totally came off as a quack.”

Madison looked at Park. “Ha,” she said, sounding purposefully superior.

“Yeah,” Lex answered. “And Poppy's drawn a lot of criticism from parapsychologists—most of them claim she's nothing but a fraud in nice shoes.”

“Ha-
ha,
” Madison said.

Lex scanned her pages again. “Oh! And wait till you hear this! According to three different newspapers in Kentucky, Poppy van Lulu tried to aid FBI agents in a 2002 missing persons case in Louisville. A man named Joel Denner disappeared on a hunting trip early one Saturday morning. Poppy apparently dreamed something up and called the FBI. She led a bunch of agents to a wooded area over a hundred miles from where the guy had last been seen alive. And guess what?”

“They didn't find a body,” Park said.

Lex giggled. “No such luck. But they
did
find sticks of beef jerky that were apparently ninety years old. The beef is now hanging in some sort of agricultural museum in Kentucky.”

“So much for talking to the dead,” Madison muttered.

Park stood up. “I just don't get it. Poppy told us at the luncheon that something horrible was going to happen, and something horrible happened. I mean, I never believed she was a genuine psychic, but if you found this info about her from a simple online search, couldn't Elijah have also found it?”

“Totally,” Lex said. “Maybe he knew all about Poppy.”

“But then, why would he want to see her and ask her to channel a spirit?” Park scratched her head and started pacing.

“Something about this whole thing smells cheaper than a dinner on Second Avenue,” Madison said. “But what bothers me most is what Poppy told us about her walking home from the Waldorf. I'm not sure I buy it. She's
always
driven to events and then back home. She has a chauffeur at her disposal. What if she never left the hotel at all?”

“You think she could've gone upstairs to the suite and pushed Elijah off the balcony?” Park asked quietly. “What motive would she have?”

Madison stood up. “I'm not sure just yet, but I
am
sure that Poppy has some more explaining to do. Her stories aren't adding up. As far as I'm concerned, she's somehow connected to Elijah's murder.”

“Then we're
totally
going to that séance tomorrow night,” Park said. “And if the dead don't speak,
she
will!”

10

Ghost Ranch

S
hadows danced in the moonlight. Ina watched them from her bedroom window on the second floor of the rambling main house. Situated on ten wooded acres in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Kayson estate was known around town as Ghost Ranch, in honor of the great artist Georgia O'Keeffe. Tallula had christened the grounds with that name the very day she and Elijah had moved in. Or so the story went. Ina had always liked the name, but now it seemed far too ominous. She felt like the namesake ghosts were everywhere.

She turned away from the window and stared at the digital clock on her nightstand: 5:16 a.m. She should have been exhausted. Instead, she was wired and fidgety and trembling. Chills snaked along her spine like tiny pinpricks. She looked around the bedroom and tried to find in the delicate French country furnishings something that would make her feel relieved to be back. At home. In her bedroom. The place she had loved for the past year and a half, with its high ceilings and tall rectangular windows that overlooked—in daylight, at least—a circular patch of land colored intermittently by yellow and red tulips. The high four-poster bed was like something out of a fairy tale. The walls had been painted her favorite shade of red. Framed pictures of her little village in Romania sat on the nightstand. The room even smelled good—of the country, of grass and earth and fresh linen. Clean and crisp. She had no reason not to feel at ease here. Safe and protected. But fear paralyzed her. Adrenaline coursed through her blood in an angry gush.

Elijah,
she thought gravely.
Where are you?

A knock sounded on one of the walls, and Ina jumped. It was something she had heard hundreds of times, the noise of a big house settling, and yet the echo of that single hard rap caused her to jump in fright.

Elijah?

No, no. Of course not. That was a silly thought. There weren't any ghosts here. She couldn't allow herself to believe in the dark tales and superstitions with which she had been raised. She couldn't allow herself to remember all those eerie conversations she and Elijah had lost themselves in, sitting by the fire in the downstairs library, sharing shots of bourbon and smoking cigarettes. If she let herself go down that haunted road, she would never sleep again. The tarot cards and the Ouija boards, the candles and the herbs and the little altar Elijah had set up in the basement—she wished she had never seen any of it.

Her heart thudded as she walked to the bed and sat down. She was clothed in shorts and a flimsy T-shirt. Her hair was swept up in a bun. She had scrubbed the makeup from her face and showered as soon as she and Tallula walked through the front doors just past midnight. Her skin was still raw and dry from the scrubbing, from the force she'd used when dragging the bar of soap across her arms and legs and chest. She had spent nearly an hour under the hot jets. The water had washed away her tears, and for the first time she'd been glad for her handicap—glad that when the hearing aid came off, she heard nothing but blessed silence.

Elijah, you're really gone.

Ina buried her face in her hands. Where had it all gone wrong? How had she allowed her life to crumble so completely? It was so hard to believe that only one year ago she'd been perfectly happy. A new job as Tallula's assistant. A feeling of sisterhood between them despite Tallula's frequent outbursts and artistic temperament. Back when she had made the precarious journey to the United States as a girl of nineteen, she'd envisioned a future filled with the backbreaking work and the poor status that befalls so many immigrants. But a stroke of luck had put her on a path to unbelievable success. Through a series of housekeeping jobs she eventually found her way to Ghost Ranch, to a young couple that treated her—mostly—with respect and kindness.

From the very first, Ina had been paid well. She'd been given a room in a beautiful home and had settled comfortably into her job. She found that she was good at juggling Tallula's hectic schedule and dealing with the media. She enjoyed piecing together the puzzle that was a young artist's life. What was more, Ina found that she loved being immersed in the thick of such beauty—not merely her surroundings here in Greenwich, but the beauty of art, of watching paintings and sculptures come to life so vividly. And then there were the giddy, girlish little shopping sprees that Tallula took her on, trips to Bergdorf's and Saks and Bendel's, where Ina learned to hone her innate fashion sense.

Now she shot a glance at the closed closet door and felt her heart sink. All those stunning clothes. The racks and racks of shoes and handbags and belts. Gifts from Tallula. Gifts from Elijah. Tokens of their appreciation. Signs that she really was a member of their odd and untraditional family.

How could she ever leave it all?

Leaving wasn't something Ina wanted to do. It was something she
had
to do. The same stroke of fate that had delivered her into her own version of the American dream had now spun around and tossed her into a nightmare. She couldn't deal with it. She wasn't prepared to handle the repercussions. After the secrets emerged—and they surely would emerge—Ina knew she'd find herself behind bars.

I can't let that happen,
she thought frantically.
I made it across an ocean all by myself and survived in a new country. Now I'll run away again. I have no choice.

She stood up. She glanced out the window again. A faint line of light was just beginning to rise in the eastern portion of the sky. She had to escape as quickly as possible.

Before the police and the reporters found out. Before Tallula found out.

Swallowing her tears, Ina crossed the room and pulled open the closet door. She reached for the small suitcase on the top shelf. She unzipped it, tossed it onto the bed. Her hands shook as she began collecting the few items she would need to make the journey—where? It didn't matter. Maybe a new state. Maybe back home. She ignored the cheap pants and underwear and packed her pair of Manolos, her Habitual jeans, three TSE cashmere scarves. Only what was necessary. Nothing else. She sobbed quietly as she dropped the suitcase onto the floor and pushed it under the bed.

I'm sorry, Tallula. I'm sorry, Elijah. One day you'll forgive me.

She repeated the words over and over again as she considered her next move. And behind those words was another mantra, the one that would haunt her for the rest of her life:
I didn't mean to do it, I didn't mean to do it, I didn't mean to do it….

The white clapboard guesthouse had been converted into a proverbial artist's studio early last year. Once upon a time, it was composed of two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a circular eating area, and a den. Now it looked like a Chelsea gallery, replete with stark white walls, skylights, and an open floor plan that soaked up the daylight.

Tallula was sitting on her stool before a messy canvas. It was dawn. The sun's rays illuminated the space, casting long yellow lines across the rows of paintings she had carried up from the basement the week before. She was dressed in her work clothes—paint-splattered jeans, sandals, and a blue tank top that hugged her thin frame—but she had no intention of working. After leaving Manhattan late last night, she had come home, showered, and drunk several cups of coffee. Then she had gone roaming about the house like a mad, grief-stricken widow, walking from room to room cradling a box of tissues in the crook of her arm and a small framed picture of Elijah in her right hand.

She still felt as though she were moving through a fog. Her body was sluggish and her mind couldn't absorb what had happened. She was afraid to fall asleep because whenever she shut her eyes, even for a few seconds, a ghastly image appeared on the insides of her eyelids. What she saw was a snapshot of Elijah's long, lean body plunging through the air. It was imagined, of course, but in it, Elijah's arms were outstretched and his lips were frozen in a terrified grimace. She knew she would be haunted by that single image for years to come.

She swiveled around in the chair and reached for the bottle of water on the floor. She uncapped it, took a long sip. She stood up and walked to the window at the very end of the studio, the one that afforded a perfect view of the rambling front lawn and the two tall gates at the very front of the property. She could make out the little crowd waiting behind the wrought-iron bars. Reporters. They had been gathering there all night like ants in a sugar bowl, hoping against hope that she would come outside and give some sort of statement. But Tallula had no intention of speaking to the press right now. She didn't feel like reliving the horror of yesterday, nor did she look particularly attractive. She hadn't bothered with makeup or her hairbrush. If a picture of her ended up in a newspaper now, the public would have a field day pointing out her flawed skin and recent breakout.

She drew back the curtains and stepped away. She scanned the studio for the hundredth time, noting the dozens of paintings set against the walls, ready to be shipped off to the auction house. Her favorite,
Brunch in Paris,
was a small canvas done in oil. It would take a lot to part with it. The blue and pink pastels weren't her usual style, but the painting was magnificent, a hodgepodge of shapes and strokes reminiscent of a perfect sunrise in Paris. It didn't look like brunch or Paris, but that was the beauty of modern art: everything was in the eye of the beholder. Beside it was
The Italian,
a striking painting of a long black line that was meant to represent a human figure; around it were small flecks of purple, and in one corner sat a small gray bird.

Tallula loved all of them. She knew they would sell, and her agent had already left her two messages—one was a condolence, the other was a polite reminder that last night's missed dinner would have to be rescheduled sometime in the near future.

Like maybe in a year or two,
Tallula thought bitterly. The last thing she felt like doing was sitting around a table making small talk. Whenever she unveiled new works to her agent or gallery, she had to go through all the usual explanations, pointing out that the paintings didn't look particularly “new” because she'd completed most of them several years ago when she'd been a teenager. Just talking about that dark period of her life made her weak. She tried to avoid it at all costs, but sometimes it was necessary. A number of the paintings had to be retouched because the small space under the floorboards of the house where she'd been raised had been damp and musty. She'd hated dropping her paintings and sketches into that god-forsaken little hole. Shortly after selling the house, she had cleared everything out and kicked in the floorboards, never wanting to see them again.

Tallula closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. She listened as the birds chirped outside in the oak trees. It was usually such a pleasant sound, but today it grated on her nerves. In fact, being here in her studio was proving less peaceful than she'd thought it would be. The studio had always been her sanctuary, a private realm that no one else dared enter. Ina wasn't allowed in here. And Elijah—when he'd been alive—had known the rule as well.

An artist's studio wasn't merely a place in which to create; it was a place in which creation itself lived.

Through the long hours of painting—of refining the image she wanted to project onto the canvas, of making the measurements and mixing the colors to get the perfect hues—Tallula made the studio her home. The very air in here was different—charged and infused with a wild energy. A personal energy. She felt it whenever she stepped over the threshold and crossed the floor to her workstation. She felt it whenever she lifted a brush and swirled it against the palette. In the throes of the creative process, she let herself go completely—paint under her nails and in her hair, bristles sticking to her shirt, splats of color on her hands and arms and face. But that was totally fine because in her studio,
she
didn't matter. Only the work at hand mattered. She could look like a perfect horror, but no one was going to barge in on her and stare her down and say something like:
Are you okay, honey? You're a mess!
She got in touch with her art by any means possible. If that meant walking through the studio resembling a creature from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, then so be it.

A few hours ago, Tallula had thought that retreating into this space would do the trick. That it would help her forget, at least for a short while, the nightmare raging just outside the doors. But it hadn't happened. Elijah's death was still too new for any kind of escape.

She went back to the stool and sat down. At her feet was a pile of brushes and several clean palettes. A dirty hand rag was bunched in between the bottle of water and the easel's left leg. She stared at the painting in front of her; it was a work in progress titled
Where Lovers Meet.
For the first time in a very long time, she was trying her hand at a realistic painting. She had spent the past three weeks outlining the gentle silhouettes of the young couple: the girl with her long blond hair and delicate fingers, the boy with his dark eyes and brooding stare. They were sitting on a bench in what she hoped would look like a wild garden. Tallula had wanted to inject a lot of realism into the painting. It was, after all, modeled after her and Elijah and their unique romance. Or what she had previously believed to be a unique romance.