Speaking of Midnight Louie, Max had better be on the lookout for him. He wouldn’t put it past the territorial old boy to trip him in the dark, since they both always wore black and were fairly invisible at night.
The French door lock gave to a few passes of Max’s tiny metal wand. He’d told Temple to secure these doors again and again, but she probably didn’t want to interfere with Louie’s comings and goings.
The main room was unlit. Faint night-light glows came from the office and kitchen, another concession to Louie probably.
He pulled out his slim high-intensity flashlight. The coffee table looked normal, including its clutter of scattered newspaper sections. Temple, an ex-newsie, was lost without newsprint nearby. None of the stories laid face up seemed relevant to anything: long security lines at McCarran Airport; one hotel mega-conglomerate offering billions for another; a reality TV show setting up shop in a deserted Vegas mansion. The usual nonsense that had made Las Vegas famous.
Max ran the light around the floorboards but no Louie lurked. Either crashing on the king-size bed or out to play while his mistress was away.
The bedroom would tell the tale of the trip. Max paused in the doorway, then shut the door and turned on the light.
Temple had definitely left in a hurry. Louie was not lounging on the bedspread because it was carpeted with clutter. Clothes, underclothes, and shoes were scattered everywhere. Everything but pantyhose. Temple hated hot, sticky hose. Never wore them. An admirable habit.
Empty thin plastic shopping bags also dotted the landscape, bearing names Max had never seen here before, like the Icing and Marvella’s Marvelous Wigs.
Temple needed a wig to visit her sick father? Max started a serious search of the closet. Was she on some crazy undercover crusade again? All of her seriously dressy heels were still here. Her summer slides were scattered over the parquet floor, obviously tried on and stepped out of, but never put away.
She’d been in a hurry. She’d put a wardrobe together ina flurry. At the dresser by the wall, a drawer had been plundered and left open, shutting askew and sticking, and then abandoned.
Max smiled to imagine Temple’s hasty explosion of creative swearing. She never cursed with common expressions when a wacky euphemism was at hand.
The offending drawer was Temple’s Sacrosanct Scarf Drawer, holder of every maternal Christmas present that had been found wanting, along with rosy purchases that soon proved completely wrong. All the things she didn’t use but couldn’t bear to throw out for one reason or another.
Max realized he missed the intriguing and amusing clutter of a female housemate. He missed Temple’s clothes and sound and smell. He went over to set the drawer on its proper track, to stuff the colorful, gauzy scarves that refused to knot and tie properly for her back into their place of exile. As a magician, he had a far better way with scarves than she did. Maybe he’d make a bouquet of all her rejects and surprise her with it when she got back. From … wherever.
A tiny round box caught his eye, the cover off and something winking at him from inside it.
What winked was a ring, an inexpensive sterling gilt and cubic zirconia ring. The bottom of the box still had its adhesive price tag, thirty-eight dollars. One step above a Cracker Jack box trinket. Yet uncannily like the Tiffany opal and diamond ring he’d given Temple last Christmas when he’d come out of hiding and entered her life again. The ring that had been taken from her by a renegade magician named Shangri-La and had ended up in an evidence baggie in Lieutenant Molina’s gloating custody.
Temple had spotted this cheap substitute somewhere and had bought it. Not worn it. Bought it. To remind her of the real one, and then tuck it away like something shameful.
Max could have strangled Molina if she’d been there. Could have kicked himself. He’d only learned what had happened to the ring recently. He should have gotten Temple another one ASAP, not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute.
Not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute. The echo of that phrase sounded suddenly sinister.
He sat on the bed and stared at the ring, then glanced at one of the abandoned shoes and picked it up. It lay on his large, strong hand like a curio. A curve of red silk-covered sole, a slender heel, a bejeweled band across the instep. Size five. Cinderella accessory, hands, and shoes, down. Made for a foot fit for a prince. One who actually showed up for balls.
Max put the shoe back down. He put the cover back on the box because he couldn’t bear to look at the ring. Temple didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, or her disappointments on her finger. Obviously, his ring and its loss meant more to her than she’d allow to show. As had the promise he’d given with the ring that someday he’d be free to be a real boy, with a real girl for a wife and a public career again and a house somewhere full of the magic of her laughter, with a dragon of a scarf drawer he could tame into submission with the flick of one finger.
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.