I have had the misfortune in my life to be knocked over the head, shot, whacked unconscious, and, last but not least, nearly strangled. (What can I say? Mrs. Rosenblatt is right. My karma really sucks.) But drugged was a new one even for me.
And as I slowly blinked my eyes open, one painful movement at a time, not an experience, I decided, that I ever wanted to repeat. My mouth felt like I'd been eating cotton balls, my eyelids almost too heavy to lift. And my head pounded louder than a heavy metal drummer. I groaned. Bad idea. The sound vibrated through my skull, causing stabs of pain to slice through my brain.
"Maddie?"
I froze at the sound of the familiar voice calling my name. I took a breath and forced my eyes open. They moved as if under water, slowly, blinking a few times before the person who'd spoke came into focus.
"Mom?" I croaked out.
"Oh, thank God, Maddie, you're alive."
I did some more blinking, trying to get my bearings as the drummer quickened his pace. I was in a hotel room, which looked a lot like mine except for the fact that the color scheme was a dusty rose instead of my sunshine yellow. A pair of matching Vuitton suitcases were lined up by the door, the closets conspicuously empty.
I looked down and saw I was propped up in a bed, my back to a bedpost. Tied to the opposite post, amidst a sea of tiny pillows, sat Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt, back to back, their limbs taped down with a length of gray duct tape, a bed post between them. Mrs. Rosenblatt had a piece of tape firmly covering her mouth. Mom's was hanging down on one side, exposing a pair of raw looking lips. That I realized were still moving.
"…and then she just dumped you there and I had no idea if you were dead or alive or breathing. I swear, I thought she'd killed you Maddie. Oh, honey, I'm so glad you're okay!"
I wasn't sure that "okay" accurately described my current condition, but, as I wiggled my fingers and toes, I realized I was alive. Though, as I moved on to moving arms and legs, I realized I also had been given the duct tape treatment. A thick band of it cut through my middle, inhibiting much more movement than a slight wiggle. Someone had also wrapped duct tape around my ankles, securing my one good leg to Wonder Boot.
"I'm okay, Mom," I said. Only it came out more like. "Mumph, mum, mmmmm," considering my lips were taped shut, too.
"Mmmm, mmmm," Mrs. Rosenblatt replied, shrugging her shoulders.
"Here, Mads, see if you can inch over here, maybe I can get the tape loose."
I did, wiggling as far as I could, to no avail. I felt pain starting to work its way up my spine as tears clouded behind my eyes.
"Okay, okay, don't panic," Mom said. Though her freaked expression completely matched mine. "Look, maybe I can get it loose with my toe."
My first thought as I looked down at Mom's bright red pedicure was "Eww!" But the second was that it actually might work. And a little toe in the face was a lot better than whatever Charlene had planned for us when she got back.
I leaned my head forward, jutting my chin out as far as I could. Mom scooched her butt forward, doing a yoga worthy stretch in my direction. Still a good six inches away.
Mrs. Rosenblatt moved closer, giving Mom a little more leeway, and she tried again. This time her toe touched my cheek. A couple more rounds of this and she finally had a corner loose. I moved my mouth across my shoulder, catching the tape in my tank top and rubbing back and forth until it finally came loose enough to speak.
"Oh, Mom, you're a genius. God bless Faux Dad's pedicures."
"Mmmm, mmm," Mrs. R said, jutting her chin toward me.
She and Mom rotated places, and I did a repeat performance of Mom's acrobatics, slipping off my red heel and running my toe along the side of Mrs. R's cheek until a tiny corner of tape came loose.
"My God, I think that's the longest time I've ever gone without speaking," she said, finally wiggling it off on the strap of her muumuu.
I was almost sure of it.
"Mom, what happened? How did you two get in here?"
"It was Charlene," Mom said, even though I'd suspected as much. "Maddie, she was the one working with Gisella. And I think she killed her."
At the moment, I had to agree.
"How did you get here?" I asked. "How long have you been here?"
"Well, after we saw the printouts you left us on that Corbett Winston theft, we thought we'd go check it out. At first no one there wanted to talk to us," Mom said.
"And then your mother got this brilliant idea that we'd pretend we was with the FBI. We told 'em that we was looking into a ring of international jewel thieves."
I rolled my eyes. "And they bought that?"
Mrs. R shrugged.
"Anyway," Mom continued, "finally the manager of Corbett Winston spoke with us and when we asked about Gisella, he said that she'd come in with a companion. A woman Gisella had introduced as her manager."
"Only we hadn't heard of Gisella having any manager," Mrs. R said.
"So, we asked the guy to describe the woman and he told us about this blonde British woman."
"So, we figured that Felix guy was British, maybe he'd have some idea who she was. We came back to the hotel to talk to him."
"Only Pierre rang his room and he wasn't in," Mom said.
"But his Auntie was."
"So we came up to her room and told her what we'd found and that we were hoping Felix could help us figure out who this lady was."
"She ordered tea from room service and we all sat down to wait it out for Felix," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.
"Only she must have slipped something into it when we weren't looking because the next thing I knew the room was doing a shimmy in front of me and we woke up like this."
"When was this?" I asked.
Mom shook her head. "Yesterday, the day before. It's all a little fuzzy. She keeps giving us tea."
"I've decided I hate tea," Mrs. R said.
I didn't blame her.
"We tried to call you a couple of times, Maddie."
"But that was before your mom got her tape off."
"You just kept saying, 'hello?'"
Mental forehead smack. Well, I guess that tells you not to call me in a crisis.
"How long has she been gone?" I asked, staring at the closed door. The matching luggage next to it made me nervous. Charlene had had two middle aged women hostage for over 48 hours. She wasn't likely to just let them go home to identify her to the police. Charlene had already killed two women. What were a few more?
"I don't know," Mom said. "Maybe half an hour."
I bit my lip. Then, remembering how Angelica had said the walls of the hotel were thin, cried out, "Help!" as loudly as the metal drummer in my head would allow me.
Mom and Mrs. R followed suit, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Fifteen minutes later we were still alone and our voices were hoarse. It was no use. Everyone was either at the shows or had taken our cries for a bad police drama on the television.
I tried a different tactic, leaning down and biting at the length of tape around my arms. Which didn't do much. It was amazingly strong. There was a reason that lazy dads the world over used this stuff to fix anything and everything. It held. I continued gnawing at it as Mom and Mrs. R did the same.
Apparently Mrs. R's teeth were pointier than mine as I finally heard a rip from her direction and her arms flapped free. She didn't waste any time, quickly ripping at first Mom's bonds, then mine. A few seconds later we were all jumping off the bed, lengths of duct tape stuck to us at comical angles, making for the door.
But of course, nothing is ever that easy.
Just as we reached it, it swung open.
The three of us froze, our eyes ping-ponging between the figure in the doorway and the three of us. On any other day, we might have charged her and probably made it. Unfortunately on this particular day she held a shiny silver gun in her hand.
"Where do you think you're going?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but she shoved the gun in my direction. "Shut up."
Apparently it was a rhetorical question.
Charlene edged into the room, letting the door fall shut behind her. "The maid said she heard the television on in my room. Couldn't have been you loudmouths, could it?" she asked.
This time I kept my mouth shut. Definitely rhetorical.
As she moved into the room, her cool blue silk pantsuit perfectly matched her pale blue eyes, giving her an icy edge. Granted, the fact that she'd drugged me then tied me up might have colored that assessment just a little.
"You two," she said, waving the gun at Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt. "Into the bathroom."
Mom looked at me. I did a slight shrug. Since she had the gun and we didn't, I didn't think we were really in a place to argue.
Mom slowly moved to the right, inching into the bathroom, her hands up in a surrender motion. Mrs. R followed, waddling awkwardly through the tiny doorway.
"Maddie?" Mom said tentatively.
"I'll be okay," I said with a false assurance I certainly didn't feel. Especially when Charlene shut the door behind them, barricading it with a chair underneath.
"I guess it's just you and me now," she said, a slow smile spreading across her features.
Oh boy.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me," she said advancing on me.
"I do?" Instinctively, I took a step back.
"The camera. Hand it over."
"You know, technically, it doesn't actually belong to you, it belongs to Gisella. Who is dead, but I guess you'd know that because you killed her. But really, I think the camera is the rightful property of her heirs. So, unless you're in her will-"
"Shut up!" She pointed the gun at my nose.
I shut up.
"Felix was right. You do have a big mouth."
Hey! "Felix said that about me?"
She barked out a short laugh. "Of course not. The man worships the ground you walk on."
"He does not," I protested.
"Oh, yes he does. Maddie this, Maddie that, you're all he talks about. It's disgusting."
I paused. "So… he's not working with you?"
He scoffed. "Felix? Please. You think he'd be man enough to follow through with something like this?"
Hey! Felix may be many things, but he wasn't a chicken. But, instead I said, "But the water. He handed it to me."
She grinned. "I asked him to. Said you looked a little flushed. Heaven forbid his Maddie should be dehydrated."
"His Maddie?" My cheeks flooded with heat.
"Oh, don't be flattered. Felix has the brain of a fruit fly."
"Hey!"
She scowled at me.
Oops, I'd said that one out loud.
She narrowed her pale eyes at me. "I have had to deal with that man's bullshit my whole life. I've sat by as he was handed everything that I had to struggle for. Do you know what it's like being the adopted child of the trophy wife? After dear old Dad died, Felix got everything, the title, the land, the money. And what did I get? Nothing. He never had to work a day in his life. All the while I had to grow up dirt poor going to visit my titled relations in the castle that should have been mine. Felix doesn't even like England! Running off to L.A. to live in the land of bimbos and write for that silly paper."
She was getting so worked up an unattractive glob of spittle was forming at the corners of her mouth, reminding me of a rabid dog. I cringed, involuntarily ducking to avoiding being the victim of an over annunciated "P".
"But all that was going to change," she said, her eyes gleaming. "Once I got him to marry me."
"But he's your nephew," I said getting just a little squicked out.
"Adopted. We're not blood relations, remember. As my dear old dad delighted in pointing out at every turn."
"You really think he'll marry a killer?"
"You really think he'll find out?" she asked.
"All the signs that pointed to Felix being the killer… they easily pointed to you as well," I reasoned, stalling for time. I heard Mom and Mrs. R shuffling in the bathroom, a thud falling against the closed door. "It was you that found out about Donatello, wasn't it?"
"You mean Donata?" She smirked. "Yes. The moment I met her I knew there was something familiar about her. Then Angelica told me she'd been a model in the past. Of course, I looked through my old magazines and what do you know, she had. As a he. Fashion may be an open minded sort of business, but there are limits. And Donata and I both knew that a transsexual agent was pushing them a little too far."
"So you and Gisella hatched a plan."
"I hatched a plan," she corrected me. "Gisella had the brains of a canary. Gisella was all about Gisella. Which worked out fine. She did the strutting and while all eyes were on her, I orchestrated the rest."
"You blackmailed Donata."
She nodded. "That part was easy. Donata was happy to comply with our requests. Especially once Gisella started booking things on her own. Donata made plenty of money off Gisella. She he had no reason to complain."
"And Gisella?"
She shrugged. "Gisella was happy as long as she was kept in furs and heels."
I heard Mom and Mrs. R make another run at the door. The chair beneath the knob wiggled a little. If I could just keep Charlene talking…
"And you two were lovers?" I asked, trying not to glance at the bathroom door.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "What makes you say that?'
"I saw the camera. The videos she took."
For a moment Charlene faltered. "She took video of us?"
I nodded. "You didn't know?"
She shook her head. "So that's your evidence, huh? A torrid lesbian affair?" She snorted. "Hardly as conclusive as the television said."
"But…" I said, watching her reactions. "Enough to make Felix wonder."
She clenched her jaw, the truth of my words sinking it. "Well, you can't very well hand it over to the press now, can you?"
"Uh, it's in my room. Come with me, we'll go get it," I said stalling for time.
"Right. And let the cameras in the hallway catch me with a gun on you? I don't think so, Maddie. No, I'll just wait until we're through here and retrieve it myself, thank you very much."
Crap.
"Speaking of which," she said, pointing the gun at me and taking a step forward.
"Okay, I bluffed," I blurted out.
Charlene stopped advancing. "What?"
"I bluffed. I don't have any video footage."
"Bullshit! The television said you were turning it over after the show."
"Because that's what I told them. It was all a bluff to smoke Charlie out of hiding."
She looked at me. Her face going white. Finally she spit out a word. "Shit."
Very unladylike. Dear old Dad wouldn't approve.
She straight-armed the gun at me. "You mean you don't even have it?! You mean you were lying this whole time?"
"No, there was video footage. I just… erased it. On accident."
Suddenly the rage drained from her face and she threw her head back and laughed.
"You erased it?"
I nodded. "Um, yeah."
"You and Felix really are made for each other. A couple of nitwits."
Mom thudded against the door again, inching the chair forward.
"So, um, what now?" I asked. Not that I really wanted to know. But the longer I kept her talking the less she was shooting.
Charlene took a step forward, going nose to nose with me. I could smell Listerine on her breath.
"Now, I hop a flight back to England, I live like a queen on my proceeds until I can convince my dear nephew to marry me, and live happily ever after. The end," she said.
I took a shallow breath. "And what happens to me?"
She narrowed her eyes. "The end."
I gulped. "And Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt?"
That wicked grin spread across her features again. "Oh, I'm not going to do anything to them. You're going to do it all. You are, after all, the Couture Killer."
I felt a knot form in my stomach. "What do you mean?'
Charlene took a step back and unzipped one of the suitcases. She pulled out a pair of black stiletto heels. "One for each of them," she said, gesturing toward the bathroom door.
"There's no way anyone would believe that," I said. Even as I doubted the truth of the words. People already believed me to be a killer, this would just be confirmation.
"Oh yes, they will. Especially when they read your suicide note."
"Suicide note?" I asked, my voice going small.
She nodded. "You couldn't handle the guilt. The pressure of Fashion Week was too much for you. You snapped. You killed Gisella, Donata, and then the people closest to you. Then took your own life."
I felt all the color draining from my cheeks. This chick was seriously whacked.
She took two quick steps forward, grabbing a handful of my hair and hopped me over to the little writing desk, shoving me into the seat, banging Wonder Boot against the side in the process.
I winced, a sharp pain shooting up my leg, but she didn't notice, instead shoving a pad of paper and pen at me. The cool metal barrel of the gun came up against my temple.
"Write," she instructed.
I gulped, grabbing the pen in my shaky hand.
"I, Maddie Springer," she dictated.
I stared down at the pages. Okay, fine. I would write. At least it would buy me a little time. I vaguely heard the sounds of Mom and Mrs. R still trying to break down the bathroom door behind me.
In a shaky hand I wrote: I Maddie Springer.
"Leave this note as my last confession."
I looked up at her.
She shoved the gun at me hard, twisting my head to the side. I felt tears well up behind my eyes.
I wrote what she said, deliberately making slow loops with my letters.
"I killed Gisella," she said, still dictating. "I also killed Donata Girardi. It was too much for me, the pressure of Fashion Week. I'm sorry."
I continued writing, willing someone, anyone to hear us. Where was housekeeping when you needed them?"
"Sign it," Charlene demanded.
I did. My signature trailing off at the end as I realized this was it. I was officially out of time.
I took a deep breath as I felt Charlene stiffen behind me. She knew it too.
"Now," she said, her voice oddly flat. "Stand up."
I did, on one shaky leg. I could hear Mom and Mrs. R thumping against the bathroom door, but the chair was firmly still in place. I was on my own.
It was now or never.
"Ow, my leg," I moaned, shifting my weight to Wonder Boot.
Obviously Charlene didn't care if I was in pain. Obviously, Charlene wanted to shoot me. But it distracted her long enough that she glanced down at my foam-clad foot.
That was all I needed. In one swift movement, I kicked my good foot up, my red three inch slingback flying up toward her face. Instinctively, she staggered back to avoid a heel to the head and I lunged forward, head down, arms out, doing the best imitation of a linebacker a girl who only watches football for the tight pants can.
Charlene did an unladylike "oof," as I connected with her midsection and went tumbling backwards, the gun in her hand going off and taking out a chunk of the ceiling.
"What's going on out there?" Mrs. Rosenblatt yelled from the bathroom.
"Maddie! Are you okay?" I heard Mom screech.
But I was a little too preoccupied to answer at the moment. I had one hand on Charlene's wrist trying to point the barrel of the gun somewhere other than at my person, balancing on one foot. Charlene grabbed a handful of my hair, ripping backwards.
My head went with it, my eyes rolling back in their sockets.
"I think they're fighting," I heard Mrs. Rosenblatt yell.
"Maddie, are you winning, honey?" Mom called.
It was hard to say.
I may have had the element of surprise, but Charlene had about five inches on me and liked the gym way better than I did. She twisted her wrist, pointing the gun at my ribs. I moved at the last minute and it went off, shattering a lamp by the bedside.
I leaned my head down (no small task with her hands firmly grabbing by hair) and bit her on the wrist.
"Sonofabitch!" she screamed. I guess being in a fight to the death excused one from good manners.
She dropped the gun, which thankfully fell to the floor, sliding under the bed.
"You bitch!" she cried, diving for the gun.
My turn to grab a handful of hair. I yanked on her blonde roots for all I was worth, and was rewarded with a high pitched screech as she twisted on the floor, her longs legs sweeping my one good one and taking me down with her.
She sat up, then did a WWF wrestler full body slam.
I felt the air rush out of my lungs in one big whoosh.
"Maddie? Baby, are you okay?"
"Claw her eyes out, bubbe!" I heard Mrs. R yell.
Hey, not a bad idea.
I reached up, my manicured fingers digging for her eyes. Only I missed, drawing a long red scratch down her cheeks instead. But it didn't even phase her. She'd tipped over that edge of crazy where she only had one objective. Her lips curled back from her teeth, her pupils wild and dilated, her gaze locked on mine. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around my throat, squeezing with all her might.
I made a strangled sound in the back of my throat, my hands instantly going to my neck, trying to pry her manicured claws from me.
"You are so going to pay," she said. "Felix's girly little whore."
"Hey, he kissed me," I breathed out. Then kneed her in the pelvis.
She grunted, rolling over and loosening her grip on my throat.
"Right. The second time."
"The first one was an accident."
"Accident my arse. He told me you spent the night." She elbowed me in the face, and I swear I actually saw stars. Huh, who knew that wasn't just an expression?
"In the guest room. I spent the night in the guest room."
She snorted. "So you say."
"Look, I am not – N-O-T," I spelled out as I slapped her across the face, "Involved with Felix. He's so not my type."
"Rich," she said, racking her fingernails across my cheek. "Titled." She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled. "Tight ass. Not your type?"
I tried to shake my head, but her grip on my hair was too strong. Instead, I wrapped my one good leg around her middle and pinned her to the ground. "No."
"Oh really?" She wiggled, twisting out from under me. "Then what is?"
My mind instantly flashed on a dark stubbled jaw, a sleek panther trailing down one thick bicep, and a pair of dark espresso eyes.
But instead of answering, I rolled to the right, twisting Wonder Boot under me and pinning her beneath its bulk. I grabbed both her hands and sat on her chest.
"Ha! Who's girly now, huh?" I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me. Then looked to her right.
We'd rolled along the floor until we were right next to the bed. And the gun.
Oh shit.
In one swift movement she reached up and had the gun in both hands.
A wicked grin overtook her features. Made all the more creepy looking by the fact that our tussle on the floor had her white blonde hair sticking up like an Edgar Winter Mohawk.
"Get off me," she seethed between clenched teeth.
I put my hands up in a surrender motion and slowly stood up.
"What's going on out there. Who won?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked from the bathroom.
"Shut up!" Charlene yelled. Punctuating this by shooting at the bathroom door.
I thought I heard Mom's voice shout a "Holy shit," but my mother never swore.
"You," Charlene said, straight-arming the gun at me. "You have been more trouble than you're worth. Up against the wall."
I complied, my hands still up, backing up until I felt my back hit the wallpaper.
"Just tell me one thing," I said, doing a silent prayer that someone – anyone – had heard the gunshots.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "A dying request?"
"Why kill Gisella? Was it because she was getting sloppy?"
She shook her head. "Gisella was always sloppy. She was so obvious no one would have ever suspected her."
"So then why kill her?"
Her eyes went cold. "Because of Felix. I killed her because she was dating Felix. Felix was mine! He wasn't supposed to marry her. There was no way I could let that greedy little stick figure ruin everything. Felix belongs to me. That castle belongs to me!" She paused, reigning in her volume. "And, so, I had to put an end to our business arrangement."
She took a step forward, the gun pointed at my chest. "Just like I'm putting an end to this farce. Goodbye – Maddie," she said, her voice low, her eyes flat.
Chicken that I am, I closed my eyes. I know. Silly. But if my brains were going to be splattered all over this lovely Parisian hotel room, that wasn't the last thing I wanted to see.
I held my breath and felt tears well up.
And my last irrational thought as I stood there was that I was sorry. So amazingly sorry for dragging Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt into this. Sorry that I'd ever thought the killer could be Felix. And most of all, sorry that I'd hurt Ramirez. A picture of his face as he'd stared at me through the doorway of Felix's room haunted me as the tears fell down my cheeks in wet, hot streams. I would never, ever be able to forgive myself for hurting him. I hoped though that maybe, some day, he might forgive me.
I did a little hiccup sob as I heard the chamber of Charlene's gun cock, time seeming to stand still.
I held my breath, turned my head in anticipation.
But the next sound I heard was not the report of gunfire ripping into me, but the sound of a door bursting open.
I peeked one eye open.
"Freeze!" a voice yelled.
I froze. Willing myself not to pee my pants.
Until I realize the command was not directed at me – but at Charlene.
Only she wasn't quite as compliant as I was. She turned her gun on the voice, shooting off two rounds.
"What's going on out there!" Mrs. R cried from the bathroom.
"Duck, Betty," she told my mom.
The voice returned fire, hitting Charlene once in the shoulder and again in the kneecap. She screamed, dropping her gun and falling to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Then three armed officers wearing bullet proof vests ran into the room, converging on Charlene. One applied pressure to her gunshot wounds while another stuck handcuffs at her back and yet a third kept a gun trained on her.
I blinked, the air rushing out of me, the tears flowing freely again, but for a whole different reason as I looked up and saw the fourth guy walk into the room.
Moreau.
I shook my head, my mouth moving but no words coming out. Finally I managed one. "How…?"
Moreau smiled. "You didn't really think I suspected you, did you?"
My shoulders sagged and I crumpled to the ground.
Among cries from the bathroom of, "What the hell is going on out there?!"