He escorted her through the grand foyer with its dancing waterfall and exotic bird aviary, across the sitting room housing Billy Joel’s grand piano and a Chihuly chandelier, then down a wide hallway lined with autographed celebrity photographs. The informal tour ended in a kitchen with an eighteen-foot ceiling and a chef who’d have looked equally at home on the covers of Maxim Magazine and Master Chef. “Holly, this is Amber. She’ll take it from here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gentry. I mean Felix.”
He headed upstairs to his bedroom and then out onto the deck. He’d furnished it with an intimate mosaic dining table and a marble sculpture of an angel and nymph about to kiss.
This was the opening sequence of his latest game, his favorite new gig. When he spotted a hostess he wanted—which was most of them, given the profile for that demographic in the ZIP codes he frequented—Felix would hire her for a four-hour private event. A luncheon at his beachfront estate. Shocked but intrigued, they’d inevitably ask what it paid. His reply was always the same. “Name your price.”
Holly’s first surprise would come when the chef handed her just two plates. The second would come when she learned that one of them was for her.
Felix’s phone rang as he sat down to wait with The Wall Street Journal. Perfunctorily checking the display before hitting DECLINE, he saw that the call was forwarded from his Immortals burner phone. What could Pierce DuBois want?
Felix, the CFO, and Pierce, the investor, were cut from similar cloth but dyed in different colors. Both were alpha males adept at numbers and politically savvy. But whereas Felix preferred Florida’s Gold Coast with its Michelin-starred restaurants and friendly hostesses, Pierce opted for the solitude of Montana’s mountains and big sky. This made them both friends and rivals. More rivals than friends now, Felix feared, with Pierce running for Senate and thereby putting all the Immortals in danger.
He brought the phone to his ear. “Hello.”
“It’s Pierce. Did you hear the news?”
Felix hadn’t heard any news, but then he didn’t watch much TV any more. He read The Wall Street Journal most days and usually leafed through Forbes and The Economist once or twice a month, but he tried to ignore the talking heads of network news. “Did you get the RNC’s endorsement?”
“Ries is dead.”
“What! How?”
“A climbing fall, but no accident. His rope was cut.”
Felix felt his throat turn dry.
Just then Holly appeared pushing a cart with two lobster salads and an iced bucket of Champagne. He pointed to the phone then held up the palm of his hand. The universal stop sign.
Felix coughed while responding. “That’s three in a row.”
“I agree. In this light it’s clear that Eric’s parachute didn’t fail by accident.”
Holly handed him a glass of water, then backed away. He gave her an appreciative nod and took a sip. “We have to assume the pattern will continue.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Someone was executing Immortals. But who? Why? If an outsider had somehow uncovered their special status, why not use that information to join them, rather than beat them? Murder made no sense. But then the alternative was even less likely. Why would one Immortal want to kill the others? There had been no serious conflicts. At least none that he had knowledge of, or had sensed. The disagreement over the Senate runs was their first split vote and only their second controversial one, after the decision to go with replacements.
With murder in mind, Felix ran through a quick mental evaluation of his five surviving peers. Which of them had it in him? Pierce would be his first guess, simply because he was an ambitious alpha male who’d been known to shoot dogs for barking too loud. David was the only other guy, and Felix didn’t see that at all. The good doctor was a tree-hugging philosophical vegetarian. Plus Eric and Ries had been his two best friends. Allison was equally absurd. She was ambitious, no doubt, but an artsy scientist much more likely to give a kidney to a homeless woman than pull a homicidal trigger. Among the women, Aria and Lisa were much closer to the murderous type. Both were ruthless and ambitious, but extremely practical. In his opinion, neither would act excessively without a solid logical reason. “I can’t think of a motive, can you?”
Pierce didn’t ask for clarification. “No. But clearly we have to try. I want to call an emergency meeting.”
“In Montana?”
“Sure. We won’t be disturbed.”
Felix had no intention of visiting a remote ranch anytime soon. Too many horror movies began with that setup.
“How about Seven Star Island instead? Aria has excellent security.”
“Fine with me. Anywhere but California. That appears to be the deathbed.”
Good point. That common element hadn’t occurred to Felix yet. “When?”
“Tomorrow, I hope. Shall we conference Aria into this call?”
Felix looked over at Holly. She looked the part of a professional hostess. Relaxed, discreet, sexy as hell. Let the games begin. “I’m sure you can handle it. Text me when you know, I’m about to be stuck in the middle of something.”
33
Lost Opportunity
AS TOM LEFT THE ROOM, I lunged for the Emergency Stop button, the big red bullseye that might, just might, save Skylar’s life.
The gas jets extinguished the instant I slapped the plastic, but the ventilator continued whirring away. As the door at the end slid open with a squeak, smoke struck my olfactory. Thick smoke. Black smoke. But exclusively of the cardboard kind.
Still struggling to regain an upright stance as my solar plexus recovered from Tom’s crippling blow, I lumbered toward the smoking hole and looked inside. I saw a long large cardboard box—on fire. It wasn’t blazing like a log in full flame. More like it was ringed with birthday cake candles, the pattern corresponding with the placement of the silenced gas jets.
I didn’t have time to look for tools or improvise gloves. I just reached in, grabbed the box by the hand-hole in the end, and tugged. Propelled by the momentum I put into it, the cardboard coffin slid out onto the casket bearer in a single swift motion. I used one hand to roll it away from the oven and the other to flip off the flaming lid.
Knowing that every second Skylar stayed inside would do damage, I then grabbed the casket by two fire-free edges and dumped it onto the floor. Her body fell with the limp thud of a fresh corpse.
Not a good sign.
Ignoring my growing sense of dread, I tossed the empty box over the casket bearer to get it out of the way. It landed atop the lid, inadvertently adding fresh fuel to that fire. I scanned the room for an extinguisher. How could there not be one? Surely there was a regulation?
Fearing a fire alarm, I abandoned Skylar long enough to toss the flaming box back into the oven. Fortunately, the incinerator’s exhaust fan was still spinning at full force, sucking smoke from the room.
With that emergency averted, I returned to Skylar’s side. I rolled her over with a silent prayer.
Her nose was bleeding.
It hadn’t been when I lifted the lid.
She must have smacked it when she fell.
I smiled. Not at my accidental handiwork—but because corpses don’t bleed. If there was no active pump, the most a body could do was ooze.
Bracing for the moment of truth, I pushed my fingers into the place where her jaw met her windpipe—and felt a pulse. A strong pulse.
She wasn’t dead.