Page 13

CHAPTER 13

As Dante walked out from behind the desk and away from the bright windows, he came into focus, a handsome man who smiled as if he knew exactly what was in her mind. Uncomfortable concept, especially when her mind had become a flaming dumpster of suspicion, grief, wariness, and the consuming need to hightail it out of here.

He stopped two feet short of her and looked her over as if she were an art object of which he’d recently taken possession. “As I hoped, the gown looks lovely on you.” Stretching out his hand, he touched her cheek and winced. “But your face bears testimony to yesterday’s act of bravery. I hope you’ll let my facial-ists care for your skin.”

Facialists? Was that some kind of cult?

He didn’t wait for her consent, but turned her, and with a hand on her spine, propelled her toward the fireplace. The odd furniture arrangement turned out to be a portable massage table. The two white-coat-wearing men fixed their gazes on her face without actually seeing her; they saw nothing but her skin. Both made shocked clucking noises. The taller one took her hand and started to pat it, then brought it close to the lamp and shook his head at his partner. In absolute silence they wrapped a plastic cape loosely around her neck, gently adjusted a plastic cap around her flame-receded hairline, switched on some gentle flute music, and with a gesture invited her to lie down on the table.

She glanced toward Dante, but he’d already returned to his desk and frowned at a paper in his hand.

She glanced at Fedelma, who smiled encouragingly at her, seated herself on a rocking chair, and pulled yarn and a crochet needle out of the bag beside it.

The short facialist moved a screen between her and the rest of the office.

Maarja had fallen down the rabbit hole into some place that was definitely not Wonderland, more like a Grimms’ fairy tale. She slid onto the table and reclined with a grimace while Shorty slipped a pillow under her head and one under her knees, then patted her arm. “Don’t fret. I’m Vincent, Frederick’s assistant, and he is a genius. Your skin will thank you.”

These guys could not be for real.

Vincent placed a weighted bag over her eyes, the scent of lavender wafted over her, the heated table warmed her back, and while Frederick delicately applied cool lotions to her face and hands, Vincent explained about the organic ingredients and the purity and the…

Maarja woke with a start. She opened her eyes and looked around without turning her head. The weighted eye bag was gone. She was still on the massage table in Dante’s office. The facialists and their capes and caps had vanished, her face and hands felt refreshed—and she felt stupid, lolling around behind a screen in broad daylight in a working environment, probably snoring, certainly drooling.

She could hear the murmur of male voices, then Fedelma’s soft voice, then Dante saying, “Excuse me.”

Maarja turned her head and watched as he moved the screen aside. Leaning over her, he smiled as if she were a pet that amused him. “You fell asleep before Frederick and Vincent were halfway through the skin treatment. They were so flattered, I didn’t tell them the pain reliever had probably kicked in. Do you feel better?”

She rolled to one side and he helped her sit up. “Yes. Thank you. I do.” She wanted to tell him she didn’t need his assistance, and to stop smirking at her, but her real goal was to get out of here without causing a fuss, so she stood and said, “My skin feels much better. Please thank Frederick and Vincent for me.”

“They have been thanked.”

“If you’ll let me borrow a phone, I’ll call Saint Rees and he’ll send someone to pick me up—”

“Kristoff has been waiting for you to wake so he can cut your hair. Right now I’m afraid you look spooky.”

“And not in a good way?”

Dante laughed and indicated the beautician’s chair that had been set up nearby. By…someone? While she’d been snoring and drooling, had everyone in the building come in to view her?

She glanced at the man who stood beside Dante’s desk. He wore a dark suit, crisp white shirt, a loosened red tie, and scuffed shoes with thick soles. In San Francisco, it was a given he walked a lot, because the traffic constantly sucked. He didn’t merely watch her; he examined her, and his gaze was not friendly.

“After your haircut,” Dante said, “Jack wants to ask some questions about what happened yesterday.”

Jack. The cousin/police detective. “How many cousins do you have?”

“The Arundels breed successfully.” He paused to let her take that in; it seemed that everything he said had a subtext. “Can you talk to Jack without undue distress?”

Do I have a choice? “Yes, of course.”

“I’ll get him some lunch while he waits. Cops can always eat.” Dante glanced at Jack. “Food will soften his mood. He’s very fond of my mother, and not at all happy about the explosion.”

“Who is?” she asked softly.

“Someone.” Jack sounded like a dog at the end of his chain, growling and unfriendly.

“Right.” She gave a quick sigh. “Right.”

“Here’s Kristoff. He’s a genius with a razor.”

Maarja watched a white-coated female appear, pushing a wheeled stainless steel tray loaded with a stylist’s tools, and another thin tall man dressed all in black walking behind her. “Another cousin?”

“Snippy,” Dante observed. “And no, no relation.”

The assistant pushed the tray to the side of the chair.

Kristoff waved as if to bless the whole proceeding, then his vision fixed on Maarja and he froze in horrified disbelief. To Dante, he said, “This? You want me to fix this? I’m a hairdresser, not a miracle worker! It cannot be done. No stylist could work with this, this, this, inglorious cruelty that was delivered upon this head.”

“In all of San Francisco,” Dante said, “only one man can liberate my darling Maarja from the pitiable outcome of her headlong rush to rescue my mother.”

Kristoff patted Dante’s hand. “Dear Mrs. Arundel. Dear, dear Mrs. Arundel. In her memory, I will make a transformation…” His eyes narrowed and he paced toward Maarja. “A new look. Yes! A whole new fashion. A high forehead Renaissance look. What do you think?”

“I guess. Anything you can do…” Maarja trailed off when she realized he wasn’t speaking to her, or even looking at her. Not really. She was more of an object he would deify with his talent.

The white-coated assistant clasped her hands. “Yes! The young Queen Elizabeth the First. This one is blessed with that dark, dark red.”

This one?

“Perhaps, dare I say it, a tint on the ends?” the assistant suggested.

Kristoff gasped in horror. “Ingaborg, how dare you suggest such a thing? Look at the texture on this growth. Prepare the Kristoff masque and—” he plucked at the ends of Maarja’s hair “—add my secret ingredient. One tablespoon only! The line between hair health and hair death is a fine one.”

His assistant leaped into action, mixed and applied, set the timer, and in less than a minute the entire room filled with a stench that reminded Maarja of an angry skunk.

While Jack staggered out the door and Fedelma pressed a throw pillow to her face, Dante cackled. “The expression on your face, Maarja!”

“It hurts to be beautiful,” Kristoff said crisply.

“My mother says that.” Dante paused, then corrected himself. “ Said that.”

For the first time, as Dante turned toward the window, Maarja saw a crack in his mask of detachment. Grief? Fury? She didn’t know, but she wanted to go to him and hug him, tell him the sorrow would never go away, but it would fade… And he would tell her it would fade only when he won bloody justice for his mother.

At least hugging him would distract him, because her own eyes were watering, and not from sorrow. The stench was growing.

The timer dinged, and Kristoff and the assistant took Maarja under her arms, pulled her to her feet, and rushed her to the bar sink. They rinsed, shampooed, rinsed, shampooed with an urgency that made her hope she had hair left for them to style. They blotted her head, pulled her up, marched her back to the chair, and Kristoff went to work with scissors and razor.

She didn’t understand how it could take so long to trim as little hair as she had left, but forty-five long minutes later, Kristoff stepped back, his assistant blotted his forehead, and he swiveled the chair around to face Dante. “Well?”

Dante strolled over. He circled her, nodding slowly. “Maestro, you’re a genius.”

Fedelma and the assistant oohed and applauded.

This whole being-an-object thing irritated the hell out of Maarja. “Can I see?”

The assistant actually had to search to find a handheld mirror, and while she held it for Maarja, Kristoff launched into a two-minute demonstration of what product to use, how she could change the style, what to do as the area around her face grew out, and told her when her next hair appointment would be.

Then Maarja was out of the chair, Kristoff and Ingaborg whisked themselves out of the room, and Fedelma took a cordless vacuum out of the closet, cleaned up the clipped hair, and left Maarja alone with Dante.