Bonefire of the Vanities (26 page)

I controlled the laughter that welled up and wanted to spill out. Of all things. Graf had decided to show me he accepted my detective work by joining me on a case. He was a man who understood the power of action over words. If I could have levitated, I would have flown across the yard and into his arms.

“Get over there right now and at least let him see you! You can’t talk to him, but let him know you want to. What are you waiting for?” Tinkie asked.

“What about Oscar?”

“Deal with Graf. Oscar and I’ll have plenty of time.”

I didn’t wait for her to change her mind. I had to fight the urge to run, but I walked to Graf like a heat-seeking missile. My fiancé had come home to Mississippi to show his love for me. He hadn’t called or written; he’d boarded a jet and flown. And he was at Heart’s Desire. For me. No girl could ask for more support. All the things I wanted to tell him ran through my head as I made sure he saw me before I entered the foyer as if I had business to attend to.

The front door burst open behind me, and Oscar, resplendent in his chauffeur uniform, preceded Graf into the foyer. “Mr. Desmond Graf has arrived,” Oscar announced as he clicked his booted heels together in the best demonstration of obsequiousness I’d ever seen. He bowed so low, I could see that Tinkie had really limbered up his spine in the last few weeks.

When Graf entered, I was smitten anew by his incredible good looks and presence. The bleached-blond hair complemented his California tan. He gave me a quick wink and then let his gaze sweep past me as Palk loomed up beside me.

“Mr. Graf, your room is ready. Have your man put your bags in the Lotus Suite, and then I’ll show him his room in the servants’ quarters.” Palk turned to me. “Miss Booth, what are you doing in the foyer? Your place is with your mistress. Servants are not allowed to wander the house.”

Graf’s fists clenched, and I saw the fire spark in his eyes. Good! Before this adventure was over, Palk would be knocked off his high horse.

“Sorry, Mr. Palk. Mrs. Littlefield sent me to book a spa session.” I desperately wanted to touch Graf, to hug him and kiss him and do the little things he loved. Now was not the time. If I lip-locked a guest, Palk would stroke out. Then again, there was an upside to that scenario. I had to remind myself to hold back. Graf now resided in the Lotus Suite. Tonight, I would join him there, and my single ambition was to set the sheets on fire.

Palk snapped his fingers in my face. “Wake up, Miss Booth. Perhaps you should tend to your duties and quit gawking at our guests. Mr. Graf is not a dessert.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.” My gaze met Graf’s and he winked again. Oscar, who stood at attention, rolled his eyes.

“You are a cheeky thing. I shall report this incident to Mrs. Littlefield.” Palk aimed a finger at Graf’s luggage. “You might help Mr. Graf’s man take the bags up to his suite. I gather Mrs. Littlefield’s employment is rather … sedentary. A little exercise would be good for your waistline.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” I stopped myself from saluting. It was particularly hard to swallow Palk’s domineering attitude in front of the man I loved, but as my aunt Loulane would say, “In for a penny, in for a pound.” My job description read
maid
and I had to fulfill the role. It didn’t escape my notice Oscar was about to bust a gut laughing, either. Oh, he would pay. I bent to pick up a suitcase. A loud, shrill scream echoed down the hall from the spa.

“What on earth!” Palk set out toward the commotion. Someone was in line for a reprimand. He pivoted and spoke to my fiancé. “I assure you, Mr. Graf, Heart’s Desire isn’t normally so filled with bedlam and sassy maids. I’ll handle this and return to be sure you’re settled in your room. Miss Booth, the Lotus Suite. Chop, chop!”

Forgetting my vow to create new curses, I mouthed the F word followed by a big
you,
but I hefted two bags as another brain-jolting scream erupted.

“Heads will roll!” Palk hurried away, and I was left alone in the foyer with my fiancé and Tinkie’s husband.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

Graf took the luggage from my hands and dropped them. “That’s not the greeting I was hoping for.”

“Seriously, how did you get in here?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Oscar and Harold concocted an invitation for me. I’m a gambler and a big investor. Sir Desmond Graf.” His smile was filled with mischief. “They gave me quite a cover.”

“This is crazy.” In a good way. I clutched his hand tightly.

“I was hoping for a little more … enthusiastic greeting,” he said.

I needed no further invitation. I hurled myself at him. My hands moved over his chest and up to his face. “I am so glad to see you.” I closed my eyes and traced the contours.

“I’m not Braille,” he whispered against my ear, sending chills along my spine.

“I’ve missed you.” My kiss told him of my loneliness and fear, and of my desire. I hungered for him. For the past days, I’d held my feelings at bay, afraid the love we shared was over. Now, with my arms circling his neck and his hair twined in my fingers, I allowed myself to feel the full measure of my love for him. The physical need for his touch was crippling, but even stronger was the tide of emotions.

Graf’s lips moved along my cheek and down my throat.

A clearing throat brought me back to the present. “Where’s Tinkie?” Oscar asked softly.

I waved a hand toward the stairs. “Periwinkle Room, second floor, to the left at the landing. Hurry! She saw you arrive.” I was relatively certain she’d used the back servants’ staircase to return to Marjorie’s room.

Oscar needed no second invitation. He sprinted up the stairs.

I pushed against Graf’s chest, putting distance between us. We were completely exposed. Anyone could walk into the foyer and see us. “We can’t do this here,” I said.

“Oh, yes, we can.” He kissed me again, long and demanding.

There were things I had to tell him, to make it right between us, to let him know I never stopped considering his feelings, even when I worked on a case. “Graf, I’m so sorry. I—”

He put a finger on my lips. “No. No apologies. I was wrong.” He swept me into his arms and carried me to a more secluded place beneath the stairs. He pressed me against the wall, where we were hidden by a huge cabinet. “I love you, Sarah Booth. I love you just the way you are. Hardheaded, smart, determined to find the truth, protecting the underdog. I love you.”

“You do?” His words were a heady mixture.

“I owe a lot to a Sunflower County lawman and an old, contrary country doctor.”

“Coleman and Doc.”

“Them’s the varmints. They double-teamed me. Doc warned me you were entrenched in a way of life your parents taught you and that I’d better not try to tamper with it. Coleman made me see I was trying to control you. My actions were wrong, even if my intentions were good.”

“Hush up and kiss me.”

And he did. Long and deep, a kiss that spanned time and place, from our apartment in New York City to the beach of Costa Rica and the bedroom of Dahlia House. Graf, too, was part of my life. We’d grown apart and back together, and beneath the surface of any argument was this tidal pull of passion. I allowed myself a long, blissful moment; then I strong-armed some space between us.

The foyer of Heart’s Desire was not appropriate for our reunion. We deserved privacy and time.

A terrible commotion echoed down the long hallway from the spa. Even with Graf in my arms, wanting me as much as I wanted him, I listened to another shrill scream and the sound of sobbing from the spa.

“Go,” he said. “To quote Coleman, you’re drawn to a dead body like a fly to a turd.”

I kissed him again, joy bubbling inside me. “That sounds a lot like Coleman.”

“He’ll never get over losing you,” Graf said. “He knows that. But he loves you enough to want you to be happy.”

I smiled up at him, but a tiny little piece of my heart broke loose. I loved Graf. No doubt about it. But Coleman owned a portion of my heart as well. My job also claimed a part of me. “I have to—”

“I know.” He stepped away. “I’ll see you later. In the Lotus Suite. I’m going to make you forget everything except my touch.”

I could hardly wait.

*   *   *

I had gone no farther than the foyer when a young woman burst through. Her hands and body were covered in red, and she was screaming like she was dying. Palk was on her heels like a bloodhound.

“Block her!” Palk ordered me. “Misty! Misty!” Palk grabbed her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. He frog-marched her out of the foyer and back toward the spa. “Snap out of it! You have to tell me what happened.”

Chasing after them, I blew Graf a kiss. Before Palk could close and lock the spa doors, I pushed through. Palk was green around the gills, and once I looked past him, I understood why. Amaryllis Dill, yellow turban covering her hair and a yellow facial mask on her face, floated in a bathtub of bloody mud. A red arterial spray covered the wall beside the tub.

“Cromwell on a broomstick,” I said softly. “Her throat’s been cut from ear to ear.” I’d heard the expression all my life but never visualized it. Someone really wanted Amaryllis dead. She’d been right to be worried about her safety.

“Get out of here,” Palk said to me. “Now.” He held Misty in one cruel hand and pointed the other at the door. “Go!”

“We have to call Sheriff Peters.” I had no intention of leaving Palk alone with a crime scene.

“You aren’t calling anyone.” Palk reached for my shoulder but reconsidered, and a good thing. I might be a maid, but nobody manhandled me.

“I quit,” Misty sobbed. She repeated it louder. Then she glared at Palk and screamed it. “I quit! I’m not putting up with your shit another minute. I am out of here!”

“Stop that nonsense.” Palk assisted her, with some force, to a chair, where he planted her. “Calm down and tell me what happened. Stop sniveling and shrieking and speak clearly!”

By sheer force of intimidation, Palk pressured Misty to gather her emotions. She grasped the seat of the chair with both hands. “She came in the spa and wanted the mud bath. I told her she couldn’t use Ms. Dill’s bath items, but she said she wasn’t walking all the way back upstairs. She said Ms. Dill wouldn’t care. She entered the tub, and I went to the supply room to collect the oils for her hands and feet. I was gone five minutes. No more. When I came back, she was … dead.”

Palk looked from Misty to the dead woman in the tub. “That isn’t Amaryllis Dill?”

Misty lowered her head into her hands. “I told her she had to use the bath towels and wraps provided for her, but she told me to leave her alone, that she’d paid to be here and she meant to get every benefit.”

I sidestepped Palk and pushed up the head wrap on the body. Instead of blond, the hair beneath the wrap was brunette. I lifted the eye mask and stared into the wide-open gray eyes of Lola Monee, country music songwriter.

*   *   *

Sitting in a corner of the spa, I waited for Coleman to arrive, an ironic twist since my intention had been to keep the crime scene safe from Palk. Now he refused to let
me
leave. He was a master at embargoing gossip—and keeping me from the delight of
amore
. Graf was upstairs, waiting for me. I would have spent the time with him while I waited for Coleman to arrive, had Palk not decided I might call in the tabloid press.

I wasn’t cold to Lola’s death, far from it, but Coleman wouldn’t appreciate my mucking around in his crime scene. There was absolutely nothing I could do until Coleman and his techs did their jobs.

And I had missed Graf. I’d failed to acknowledge, even to myself, how intensely I’d felt his absence.

A hubbub outside the spa proved to be Gretchen Waller attempting to gain access. Palk fended her off with a mixture of firmness and kindness I’d never seem him display.

“What happened to Lola?” Gretchen demanded. “She should have been out of there twenty minutes ago.”

“Please go back to your room. Please. For your own sake.” Palk refused to let her in, undoubtedly for the best. It was a gruesome murder scene.

Gretchen was scared and angry. “Listen, you pompous ass, I’m going to call in the feds! Our songs are very popular with the director of the FBI. If you don’t open this door, I’ll call him right now. I want to know my partner is okay. Let me talk to her.”

The FBI had no authority here. Gretchen’s threats were toothless. The homicide fell squarely in the jurisdiction of Sunflower County Sheriff Coleman Peters.

I thought his name and he appeared in the doorway with Deputy DeWayne Dattilo at his side. DeWayne had put on about twenty pounds since he’d started eating three squares a day at Millie’s Café, and it dawned on me he was there for more than biscuits and coffee. He was sweet on one of Millie’s waitresses.

Behind DeWayne were two forensic technicians.

“Sarah Booth,” Coleman said, nodding as he surveyed the scene. “Everyone else clear out and let the crime scene technicians do their job.”

“Surely you don’t mean to have that maid in here and everyone else must leave?” Palk looked flummoxed.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Coleman said.

Palk left in a huff, the spa employees in tow. Misty was crying again. Her wild moment of independence was gone. Coleman slowed her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen,” he said kindly. “Wait for me there. I’ll need to ask a few questions.”

“Not the kitchen!” She looked terrified. “Yumi hates it when we hang around the kitchen.”

“Then in your room. I’ll be there shortly.” He closed the door after she was gone and went to examine the body. He didn’t touch anything, just looked for a good three minutes. He sat down on a stool across from the massage table where I perched. “Are you okay?”

“Two deaths in two days. Not the type of statistics I like racking up.”

“Two murders. Amanda’s death wasn’t accidental. Doc Sawyer says she was struck in the head.”

I’d suspected as much, but it was still hard to hear. I told him what I’d learned and handed over Amanda’s cell phone with the strange recording of the chef. “She did have a boyfriend here. Have you talked with Kyle?”