Finally I touched soft sand. Battling the sucking surf, I climbed out of the white-capped waves in my bare feet, my wet khaki skirt plastered against my naked legs, my Cuppa J Polo clinging to my cold, clammy flesh. A gust off the ocean whipped against my wet back. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered again. My teeth were actually chattering now, and I was certain my lips had turned the color of a Hamptons’ summer sky.
A dozen or so startled partygoers had watched me emerge from the crashing waves like some kind of bedraggled mermaid. I was vaguely aware that these people looked familiar—they wouldn’t know me, but I knew their faces. A few had been at David’s party. There were sports figures, TV stars, a famous model.
As I moved off the sand, and onto the vast green carpet of lawn, I heard snickers from the men, confused laughter from the women. Someone made a loud joke and pointed to a nearby garden table of wrought iron. Raw oysters and sushi surrounded the centerpiece of a life-size representation of Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus—the iconic fifteenth-century painting of a naked woman emerging from an oyster shell on the shores of the Mediterranean. Here the grace and delicacy of that masterpiece of Renaissance style was rendered in ice.
No, I wasn’t as naked as Venus. Or as beautiful. But the carved-in-ice part—yeah, okay, that was me.
I shivered again and smoothed my clothes, trying to regain a shred of dignity by tugging at the clinging canvas skirt, folding my arms over my wet, skintight Polo. As I continued moving through the crowd on the lawn, a woman touched my arm. She was young and very beautiful, eyes wide on a too-perfect face (possibly sculpted like that chilly statue of Venus, but with a surgeon’s instruments instead of an ice pick). Her blond hair was swept back to reveal a pert nose, high cheekbones, bee-stung lips, and a flawless forehead the color of ivory.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Got bored. Went for a midnight swim.”
The woman blinked vacantly.
The young man at her side looked away, offering me his profile—handsome but boyish, with sideburns so long, they nearly went back in time, to early-seventies muttonchops. He appeared to be waiting for me to recognize him, but I actually didn’t have a clue.
“By the way, have you seen David Mintzer?”
The woman’s eyes grew wider. She shook her head. “I don’t know him, but there are lots of people here I don’t know.” Then she blinked as if in surprise when a thought sprang into her pretty, pampered head.
“Wait a minute! Oh, gawd. I’ve seen that Mintzer guy on TV. He works for Oprah, doesn’t he?”
“Ah…That’s okay, I’ll find him on my own.”
Stepping off the lawn and onto the cold stone patio, I continued moving among the surprised partygoers—socialites and show business personalities alike—who parted at my barefoot, sopping wet approach as if I were carrying a tray of bird flu appetizers.
I recognized New York City’s most public real estate tycoon—the one with the reality show and the trademark hair. I spied a popular young singer, a famous movie director who was now doing commercials for a brand of camera film, and that handsome movie actor, Keith Judd, who’d given Joy his cell phone number—the creep.
I even saw David Mintzer’s lawsuit-happy neighbor, Marjorie Bright. The heiress stood chatting with a group of well-dressed men and women. While I watched, she dropped a cigarette butt and crushed it with an elegant sandal, even as she fired up a fresh smoke with a gold filigreed lighter.
In fact, the only people I didn’t recognize were a group of graying, balding, pudgy men gathered around some lounge chairs, drinks and cigars in hand. Their conversation appeared quiet and sober compared to the festive people around them.
Earlier that summer, David mentioned such men to me at a similar gathering Cuppa J had catered. He told me these men only seemed anonymous and interchangeable. In truth they were the real movers and shakers of the business world.
“They don’t appear impressive, but believe me these low-key, unglamorous little men buy and sell the billion-dollar talent around them like any other commodity. Like pork bellies or oil futures. Scary, isn’t it?”
What was scary for me at the moment was that I had risked my life to follow a clue that could lead to David’s mortal enemy, and now I couldn’t even find David to tell him. Even worse, my bedraggled appearance was continuing to garner attention, which I tried to ignore.
I passed a table occupied by a local senator who appeared on the Sunday morning chattering-class news shows like clockwork. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help staring for a few seconds—and this politician noticed me when his eyes met mine. We both froze, and I immediately looked away, but it was too late, the burly man not far away from the senator’s side noticed me staring, as well.
By the time I approached a knot of people gathered around an outdoor bar, to ask again about David, the senator’s bodyguard came up behind me and grabbed my left elbow—and his grip was not gentle.
“Hey!” I cried. “Let me go. I’m a neighbor. My name is Clare Cosi—”
“Come with me, and don’t make any trouble.”
The bodyguard was a head taller than me and as wide as a Hamptons Hummer. His thick neck was stuffed into a too-tight collar, and I noticed a small radio receiver in one ear. The way the wire coiled out of his bullet-shaped head and down the collar of his finely tailored outfit, I was sure I’d just been accosted by an Armani-clad Frankenstein monster.
I tried to yank my arm free, only to have my other arm grabbed by a second man, another bulked-up guard in a dark suit, this one a redhead with a crewcut.
“You are not on the guest list,” said Crewcut. “That means you’re trespassing. Don’t make a scene. You can explain it all to the police.”
Frankie and Crewcut began to drag me away. Heads turned, conversations ceased as I resisted.
“Wait! Listen,” I pleaded. “I want you to call the police. I saw a real trespasser. And I’m worried about the safety of someone who was invited to this party. David Mintzer. He’s here somewhere. I’m a guest at his house, just ask him.”
“Mr. Mintzer has left the party,” Crewcut replied. “His manager, Mr. Papas, drove him home fifteen minutes ago.”
“He’s okay then?” I pressed. “David’s all right?”
Crewcut responded in a monotone. “Mr. Mintzer was just fine when he left the premises.”
“Good,” I said, extremely relieved. “That’s all I wanted to know. You can let me go and I’ll be on my way.”
Naively, I thought the crisis was over. In my mind it was…for David anyway. For me it was just getting started. When I yanked my arms to break free, Frankie refused to release my left one, and Crewcut actually tightened his hold on my right.
“Ow! You’re bruising me!”
Crewcut’s response was to tighten his grip even more. With his free hand, he flipped open a cell to call the police. He was about to bring the phone to his ear when another hand, a strong one, belonging to someone else, reached out and closed on his wrist.
“Let her go,” said the man attached to the hand. “She’s telling the truth. She is a guest of David’s.”
Crewcut looked down his nose at the interloper, a tall, handsome, well-built man in a gorgeous summer-weight Helmut Lang suit. The man I’d seen before—the suit I hadn’t.
Crewcut angrily shook his wrist free of the interloper’s grip. “And are you on the guest list?” he demanded.
With a smug grin, my defender nodded. “I’m on the list, along with Breanne Summour. You know who she is, certainly.”
“Yes, of course,” sputtered Crewcut, releasing my arm. “And you are?”
I faced my impeccably dressed defender with the chiseled features and Caesar haircut, saw the amusement in his dark brown eyes.
“I’m Matteo Allegro,” he said flatly, “this woman’s ex-husband.”