Meg scowled. "It wasn't Verger Taylor. It was one of the other chefs cooking for the banquet Saturday night. Trying to scare me off."
"Don't be silly, Meg. Of course it was Verger Taylor. Who else would know that we'd be staying here at Tiffany's place? She didn't even want the people at the condo to know, since it's illegal to rent or something. Which reminds me. About your singing..."
"Maybe you're right." Meg ran both hands through her short, dark hair. "On the other hand, maybe I'm right. You know how competitive the cooking business is. I know chefs who'd poison their rivals if they thought they could get away with it. Planting that videotape is small potatoes. Cooking is war, Quill." "Then let's go home. Right now. God forbid you should get shot with a turkey baster or clubbed with a rolling pin or..."
"We can't go home! Quill, I've got to get that third star back. And stop that drumming. It's driving me nuts."
Quill placed her hand flat on the marble. It was her left hand. Myles's engagement ring winked at her. For a brief moment, she felt a cowardly desire to give up and go home to Hemlock Falls. "I think that from all accounts, Verger Taylor can be a pretty vindictive guy. He put the tape there to intimidate us. It's not going to work, right?"
"If it's Verger Taylor who did it. I think..."
"I know what you think. That everyone in a toque is out to get you. Nuts. I think we should reserve an opinion until we talk to Tiffany."
Meg grabbed at her hair. "If it is Verger Taylor, that's a different problem to worry about. What if he sabotages the banquet? Or my cooking classes? You know what he's like. The Meanest Man in Chicago. Who wants to get mixed up in that? Maybe we should go home!"
"Meg. Settle down. We can't back out on Tiffany because her ex-husband's vindictive."
"You're right," Meg admitted. "I wished I liked her better, though. I hate to say it, but if my career's going to go down in flames I'd rather it was for a better purpose."
"I didn't like her very much either," said Quill. "But it doesn't matter. Here's what matters. Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Meg sulkily.
"Cooking matters. Let me worry about the Taylors. You worry about the potted rabbit that's going to get you that third star back. Besides, Meg, Tiffany can take care of herself. She started out as a pro golfer. And those women are tough. She isn't going to need us to run interference for her." She pulled the tape out of the machine and read the label again. "On the other hand, Verge the Scourge is one tough cookie, too. I wonder how he got this in here. I thought the condo was part of Tiffany's divorce settlement."
"Quill?"
"Yes, Meg."
"Any way you slice it, this is going to be a horrible week." Meg's expression was woeful.
"The punch was definitely a mistake."
"I don't mean that. I mean, you're right that I made them too strong. I had two, you know. But I'm paying for that." She burped woefully. "I'm suffering."
"Mm," Quill said unsympathetically. "Our mistake was that we didn't ask enough questions about this charity. I don't like Tiffany Taylor. And I sure as heck don't like what we've heard of her ex-husband. We were dopes. Boobs. Greedy-guts. We've let ourselves be talked into disaster. We saw the chance for a nice, warm vacation at the worst time of the year. And we haven't been away from Hemlock Falls since we opened the Inn, so we temporarily lost our minds. It's going to be," she burped again and said hollowly, "a big, horrible mess. And it'll end in disaster. Did you see the article in the newspaper at the airport?"
"Just the headlines. I was hoping you didn't see it."
"I was hoping YOU didn't see it. 'Tiffany's Revenge'? That one? The one that said this charity for phobics was a bunch of hooey?"
"It was a tabloid," Quill said hopefully. "You know what they're like. 'Dwarf Rapes Nun, Escapes in UFO.' They're full of baloney. So this isn't necessarily a bogus charity. I mean this Dr. Bittern. He's supposed to be a real psychiatrist, isn't he?"
"Hah. Where did it say he was a psychiatrist? And if he is a psychiatrist, what if his degree's from the Arkansas School of Psychiatry and Plastics Recycling? Quill, forget the star. I want to go home."
Quill sighed. There had been a tacit understanding between Tiffany and Quill that part of her own responsibilities were to see that her volatile sister survived pre- cooking nerves. "It's going to be fine. We'll ask Tiffany more details when she gets here." She squinted at the kitchen clock. The clock was made of stainless steel, with wrought iron hands that indicated the time of day in a very vague way, since there weren't any numbers. "What time is it, anyway?"
Meg looked at her watch. "It's sometime after eight. And that's when she said she'd show up. Sometime after eight tonight. I hope it's a long sort of sometime; I don't feel all that terrific. I think I'll lie down for a bit. Everything's going sort of swimmy. And I'm hearing weird noises. Why in the heck did you force me to make those drinks?"
"I did not force you to make those drinks. You insisted on making those drinks. Planter's punch, you said. Just the ticket to celebrate our arrival."
"Rum punch."
"Rum punch, then. And you shouldn't have gulped them down."
"I was hot. And thirsty. And giddy. Do you hear bells, Quill? Or am I going clean out of my mind?"
Quill listened. The scented air was filled with a sub- aural chiming that reminded her of expensive department stores. "It's the doorbell. It must be Tiffany. Stay right there."
"They are making me cross. Very, very cross. Bells," Meg said glumly. "The ringing and the singing of the bells, bells, bells..."
Quill left Meg to her Poe and went down the long corridor to the ornately carved front door. The hall was painted a soft, suffused peach. The recessed lighting in the ceiling made the air around the walls glow. Impressionist paintings from one of the minor schools hung at carefully selected intervals along the walls. Whoever had picked them had a good eye. Her hand on the doorknob, Quill stopped, astonished. The perennial garden at their Inn shone at her from the wall to the right of the front door. It was one of her own acrylics - part of a series she'd produced in a brief burst of activity four years ago. She remembered that particular piece well. Myles had sat with her in the garden. It had been a rare afternoon, peaceful and contented. Her agent in New York had asked for more.
The key scraped in the lock and the door opened. "Darling Quill!" Tiffany cried. "Sorry to barge in. But you didn't answer me! I was beginning to think the plane had crashed! Do let me in, there's a sweetie. It's broiling out here."
In the past three years, Tiffany Taylor's face had made the cover of major women's magazines in the United States and Europe. First because of her marriage to Verger Taylor (his third, her second) and then due to the divorce (spectacular and sordid). She was tall - well over five nine - with the Barbie-doll rounded slenderness that belonged to professional athletes with personal trainers - or women who could afford liposuction. She had a straight little nose, high cheekbones, and what the gossip columnists called a "Paris mouth," full-lipped and sullen. Her changing hair color was as notorious as the numbers of her plastic surgeries. Today's was white blonde.
Tiffany was dressed in what Quill - having spent close to an hour waiting for her luggage in the crowded West Palm Beach airport - was already coming to recognize as The Palm Beach Outfit: hand-tailored khaki trousers, blue-striped shirt, navy blazer, and a three-hundred-dollar straw hat with a black grosgrain ribbon around the crown. The hat was hand-tailored, too, from a small shop in one of the arcades off Worth Avenue. Quill knew the price of the hat because Tiffany's secretary had included that information in one of the endless stream of memos.