Review to a Kill Read online

  Kate must have read my mind because she gave a slight shake of her head. “That’s right,” she said in a voice loud enough to carry. “I heard that Wedding Belles just signed a celebrity from the West Coast.”

  I tried not to spit out my Champagne.

  Kate raised her voice. “From what I hear it’s a very well-known actress.”

  The women behind her paused their conversation. Kate nudged me to say something.

  My mind drew a blank. “Really?”

  Kate nodded as if I’d just said the most fascinating thing she’d ever heard. “And they say the groom is from Europe. Twelfth in line for the throne.”

  I noticed Kate hadn’t specified which throne but the women behind her didn’t seem to notice or care. From the snatches I could hear of their urgent whispers, they’d taken the bait.

  Kate tugged me by the arm across the room. “A little help would be nice.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I choked.”

  Kate patted my back. “That’s okay. We’ve got a whole room to go.”

  As we approached another group, I whipped a hand around Kate’s waist and spun her around.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  I moved us through the women until we stood in front of the ornately carved white fireplace with an massive mirror hung above it. “Didn’t you see who was in that group?”

  Kate craned her neck to look, and I jerked her back. “Brianna,” I said.

  “What?” Kate raised her voice and a plump brunette glanced at us. Kate smiled sweetly, raising her Champagne flute at her, then leaned in close to me. “What is she doing here? This is a brides-only event.”

  I tilted my head at her. “Well, we’re here.”

  “Yes, but we have a good reason. I’ll bet she’s doing nothing but spreading rumors about us and all her other competition. I’ll bet you she’s the one telling people our clients get knocked off all the time.”

  Knowing what I did of Brianna, Kate was right about her. Dropping little nuggets of negative information about her colleagues was right up her alley. I allowed myself to peek at our willowy blond competitor. Overdressed, as usual, in a black satin skirt that belled to her knees and a tight black-and-white striped top. “What can we do about it?”

  Kate tapped a finger to the arm of her sunglasses. “I’m thinking.” She downed her remaining Champagne in a single gulp. “We’ve got to fight fire with fire.”

  “Meaning?” I asked as Kate positioned us in front of another cluster of brides.

  “That’s what I heard,” Kate began. “Brides by Brianna was shut down by the police.”

  I gaped at her as the conversation around us stopped. “What?”

  Kate put a hand on my arm in a conspiratorial gesture. “That’s right,” she said in a stage whisper. “Brianna was actually running a high-priced call-girl service. The weddings were just a cover.”

  I spluttered at her but didn’t manage to get any words out. If Brianna ever heard that we’d started these rumors she would kill us in our sleep. I noticed the women’s faces behind me. They were as shocked as I was but more delighted.

  One woman actually leaned over to Kate. “So she was a madam?”

  Kate nodded. “They’re calling her the Marrying Madam.”

  I had to give Kate credit. The girl could think on her feet.

  “Remind me never to tick you off,” I said. I surveyed the crowd and could see and hear the ripple of the salacious gossip as it passed through the room. It was only a matter of minutes before it reached Brianna. Not that she could defend herself without revealing that she was a wedding planner crashing a Weddies event. Better to go down as a disgraced madam than have these women tear into you for pretending to be one of them.

  “We should probably leave.” I kept my eyes on the back of Brianna’s head as we maneuvered through the crowd toward the glass doors. “I don’t want to be anywhere near Brianna when she hears that she’s running a network of hookers.”

  “High-priced call girls.” Kate corrected me. “And there’s probably good money in that.”

  I pushed open one of the doors and held it for Kate. “I’m sure there is. But let’s consider that as a last-resort business plan.”

  “You know, you wouldn’t be half bad as a madam.”

  I cast a glance back at her as I led the way through the restaurant. “Thanks, I think.”

  Kate looked me up and down when we reached the stairs leading to the lobby. “No one would ever suspect you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why do I think that’s not the compliment it should be?”

  Kate grinned and held out her hand. “Do you have your valet ticket? I’m going to go charm the guy at the front desk and get them comped.”

  I pulled the ticket from my purse, handed it to her, and watched her make her way to the front desk. If anyone could sweet talk their way into free parking, it was Kate. I didn’t think she’d paid for a drink, meal, or parking since she’d moved to DC.

  The elevator doors opened and a woman exited in a bright green floral-print dress. I felt a jolt as I recognized her silvery-blond hair and backed a few steps into the restaurant so she wouldn’t see me. She glanced around the lobby but didn’t look up toward me before she turned down the short hallway to the side of the elevator bank.

  What was Tricia’s mother doing here?

  Chapter 26

  I walked down the stairs and looked down the short hallway where the bride’s mother had disappeared. Like the lobby, the walls were paneled in a rich brown wood and three doors clustered together at the end: the door to the express elevator to the roof; the door leading downstairs to Off the Record, the hotel’s bar; and the double doors leadings into the small ballroom called the Hay-Adams Room. But no sign of Mrs. Toker.

  What was Tricia’s mother doing here so many days after her daughter’s wedding and death?

  I walked down the hall. I glanced up at the illuminated numbers that indicated the elevator’s movements. It seemed to be waiting at the lobby so I could assume she hadn’t gotten on. So she’d either gone down to the bar at ten thirty in the morning or she was in the hotel’s smaller ballroom. Luckily the ballroom door had been propped open, so I checked that first, peering around the open door.

  While the rooftop ballroom was light and airy, this smaller space felt like an English gentleman’s club. The walls shared the same wood paneling as the hallway and lobby as well as the ornately carved ceiling. Multi-tiered brass chandeliers hung down over the room in several places. A fireplace with a large mahogany mantle dominated the near end of the room with a grouping of masculine wing chairs surrounding it. It looked very different than it had on Saturday when we’d covered up everything so that the ceremony room looked like Paris in the springtime as well as the upstairs reception.

  The ballroom had been set with round tables draped in gold damask cloths, and savory smells drifted from the catering kitchens that led off of the back of the room. I could safely guess they were prepping for an event.

  I spotted the mother of the bride standing next to a bald man considerably taller than her. Aside from the two of them, the room was empty of people. They stood in front of the fireplace, which did not have a fire laid, and she faced away from me. I studied his face for a moment but it wasn’t one I’d seen before. Except for a nose that verged on bulbous, his face was unremarkable. But I knew he hadn’t been a guest at the wedding.

  I pulled my head back and flattened myself against the door so I could listen to their conversation without being seen.

  “We shouldn’t be meeting here,” the man said.

  “Well, I don’t want anyone to see you coming into my hotel room,” Mrs. Toker replied, her voice quavering.

  So she had stayed at the hotel. But why? I felt my heart beat faster, and I tried to slow my breath. I didn’t want them to hear me hyperventilating.

  “Do you have it?” Mrs. Toker asked.

  I heard the sound of fumbling paper. “Right
here.”

  The mother of the bride sighed. “I hope the payoff is worth all this effort.”

  I put a hand over my mouth without thinking. What was going on here? Payoff for what?

  “Are you sure this is the route you want to take?” the man asked.

  “For now.”

  I heard a rustling of paper and then a sharp intake of breath that I assumed to be the mother’s. What had she seen?

  “You know how to find me if you want to take the next steps,” the man said.

  I heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet as he exited the room from the door on the other side. I sidled a few feet so that I could watch him cross the lobby and exit the hotel. A moment later, Mrs. Toker followed him, a manila envelope tucked under one arm. But instead of leaving the hotel, she turned and walked in my direction—either heading for the elevators or for the Lafayette Room. I scurried back toward the Hay-Adams Room in case she was bound for the restaurant. Then I pushed open the door that led to the downstairs bar, slipping into the stairwell.

  My mind raced with conflicting thoughts as I took in deep breaths. What had I just heard? Why would the dead bride’s mother be meeting someone in secret?

  “Think,” I told myself. “There has to be an explanation.”

  The door to the stairwell opened, and I yelped. Kate stood holding the door. “Whoa there, jumpy. It’s only me.”

  I put a hand to my chest. “You scared me to death.”

  I thought you wanted to get out of here.” She held up the valet tickets with validation stamps on them. “Or is this your way of telling me we should go downstairs to the bar and start day drinking?”

  I stepped out into the hall. “I heard something very strange just now.”

  Kate peered into the stairwell. “In here?”

  “No, not in there. Out in the hall.” I jerked a thumb toward the door. “I followed Mrs. Toker and listened in to a conversation she had in the Hay-Adams Room with some man.”

  Kate held up her hands as if to brace herself. “Wait a second. Tricia’s mom is here? Did she never check out after the wedding?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t want to go home after her daughter’s death.”

  “Do you think the hotel is still comping her? You know, because her daughter was killed?”

  I thought about it for a moment. I could easily imagine the luxury hotel wanting to appear sympathetic to a guest but, if they weren’t careful, Mrs. Toker might move in permanently.

  “So what did you hear that made you so nervous?” Kate asked.

  “He gave her something in a manila envelope. Something important. She said she hoped the payoff was worth it.”

  Kate and I both fell silent as a waiter passed between us and went inside the ballroom.

  “That’s so strange,” Kate said once the waiter was far enough away not to hear. “It must be connected to her daughter, don’t you think?”

  “Are you thinking that between this and her car being outside Tricia’s house the morning of the murder, she’s looking pretty suspicious?”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking, but it is now,” Kate said. “Do you think this guy had something to do with Tricia’s murder?”

  “I doubt seriously that a wealthy Georgetown mom hired a back-alley hit man to off her daughter. And why do it after you’ve dropped over a hundred thousand dollars on her wedding?”

  Kate nodded. “I’ve said it before. Any sane parent would knock off their kid before they paid for a wedding.”

  “I don’t know if ‘sane’ would be the right word,” I muttered.

  “So if we’re dismissing the idea of Mrs. Toker hiring an assassin to kill her horrible daughter—which I’m not totally ready to do, by the way—then why was she meeting someone secretly?” Kate stopped her pacing.

  I gnawed at the corner of my lip. “I don’t know. Tricia’s mother must have hired this guy to dig up something for her. He gave her something. The question is what was it and what does it have to do with her daughter’s death?”

  “Well, I know one way we can find out.” Kate paused as she rummaged in her black purse before holding up a Hay-Adams keycard. “I still have a key to the mother’s suite.”

  Chapter 27

  “And why do you still have a key to the mother’s suite?” I asked, staring at the white plastic card emblazoned with the hotel’s insignia.

  “I haven’t cleaned out my bag since the wedding,” she said. “And I had it from delivering the money envelopes to the mom’s room at the end of the night.”

  I couldn’t reprimand her since I was famous for finding old hotel keys in my pockets after weddings. Not to mention hotel pens, notepads, and matchbooks.

  “Do you think it still works?” I asked.

  “If she’s in the same suite it should.” Kate flipped the card around in her hand. “If she moved rooms then we’re out of luck.”

  I eyed the keycard. “Technically, this would be breaking and entering, and I just promised Richard and Reese that I would back off the case.”

  “It’s not breaking and entering if we have the key.” Kate waved the card at me and hiked her purse up on her shoulder. “Come on.”

  I followed Kate down the short hall and around the corner to the lobby elevators then put a hand on her arm to stop her. “What if the mother catches us?”

  “We’ll explain that we were here for Tricia’s tribute. It’s completely legitimate. Admirable even.”

  “That explains why we’re in the hotel,” I said. “Not why we’re in her hotel room.”

  “We’re delivering . . .” Kate ran her eyes over the lobby then picked up a small vase of yellow roses from a nearby side table. “Condolence flowers.”

  I looked down at the vase of four roses and then looked up at Kate. “We’re big spenders, aren’t we?”

  Kate pressed the elevator call button. “It’s just a gesture. But we’re not going to need it.”

  “Because we’re going to waltz right into her hotel room without her noticing?” I asked after we stepped into the dark wood-and-brass interior of the elevator car.

  “You forget that I’m the queen of distractions,” Kate said as the elevator doors closed and we surged upward. We stepped out onto the seventh floor and she picked up the black house phone resting on a polished wooden credenza across from the elevators. “Yes, the room for Toker, please.” She held her hand over the receiver. “Watch and learn.”

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “Yes, Mrs. Toker?” Kate said into the phone in a clipped, British accent. “We have a delivery for you at the front desk. No, I’m afraid you need to sign for it.” She replaced the receiver. “Voilà. Empty room.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “Your Russian accent is better, but I like the British.”

  “Thanks, I’ve been working on it. People take you more seriously with a British accent. Now let’s hide.”

  We ducked around the corner and listened for Mrs. Toker to leave her room and get in the elevator. Once the elevator doors had closed, we dashed down the hall. Kate put the vase of roses in one hand while she swiped the card key. The green light on the door blinked, allowing Kate to push the door handle down and enter the room.

  I glanced around the suite after I’d closed the door behind us. The room looked eerily similar to how it had on the wedding day. The his-and- hers Champagne glasses that I’d rinsed and dried after the toasting sat on the same mahogany foyer table where I’d left them Saturday night, along with the long Waterford box that held the cake knife. The collection of white and ivory envelopes that held cash or checks—not that this couple needed the money—fanned out across the living room coffee table next to the large envelope that contained their signed marriage license.

  “She hasn’t touched a thing,” Kate said, her voice low even though we knew we were alone in the suite.

  I took a few steps into the room, passing the grouping of cream sofas topped with oversized fringe pillows. A co
py of the Washington Post from the wedding day was still folded neatly on one of the couch cushions. “It’s creepy. I don’t think we should be here.”

  “Let’s look for whatever it was that the man gave her and get out,” Kate said, still holding the yellow flowers out in front of her. “We won’t have long before the front desk figures out there isn’t a delivery for her.”

  I pawed through some papers on the oval dining room table but found them to be proposals and contracts from the wedding. Kate took the bedroom, and I could hear her opening drawers.

  “I may have found something,” she called to me.

  I hurried into the adjoining bedroom to where she stood at the dark wood desk. She held up a large manila envelope and had placed the yellow roses on the desk.

  Kate pulled open the metal butterfly clasp and started to wiggle the stack of papers out of the envelope when we heard a beep at the door and a click of the handle being pressed down.

  Despite my desire to see what was inside, I motioned to Kate to put the papers back in the envelope. “Leave it,” I whispered. “We need to hide.”

  Her hands shaking, she shoved the contents back inside, fastened the metal clasp, and set the manila envelope on the desk. She snatched up the vase of yellow roses and darted her eyes around.

  I pointed to the closet across the room, and we both rushed over to it as Mrs. Toker came into the suite, grumbling about incompetent hotel staff. I opened the closet door and slipped inside with Kate right behind me, pulling the door shut behind her. I crouched low and tried to bury myself behind a pair of terry-cloth hotel robes as I heard the mother of the bride enter the bedroom. Kate clutched my hand. Mrs. Toker was right in front of the closet doors when her cell phone rang. I could feel Kate jump next to me but the ring of the phone drowned out any sound.

  “I’m glad you called me back,” Mrs. Toker said when she answered. “I assume you got my message about meeting?”

  There was a pause as the person on the other end spoke.

  “I thought you might. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.” Mrs. Toker hung up and walked out of the room, the front door slamming shut as she left.