Cardiac Arrest, page 16
“It’s Summer Sloan, from Aspen. How could you forget?” She flashed her biggest, perfect smile. With luck, her champagne-spotted black and white outfit wouldn’t give her away as catering staff. At least the blouse and skirt were silk.
Mia hiccupped again. “I don’t do Aspen.”
Oops. Tahoe? Vegas? Or maybe this woman and her friends stuck to the East Coast, Western Europe, and assorted private islands. “Oh, sorry, it must have been South Beach.” Summer knocked herself lightly on the side of the head. “Too much champagne, I guess.”
Mia still looked blank. “Whatever,” she said, shrugging. “Sorry about the hissy fit. I never liked that vase anyway,” she added, nodding toward the floor.
“Guys aren’t worth it, you know,” Summer said. “They never are. You’re so much better off without him.”
“Tell me about it.” Mia grabbed a tissue from the marble counter and violently blew her nose. “Tony was totally selfish and blew tons of money—his and mine. I swear, half the time he barely even knew I was around. Plus, I know for sure that he was cheating on me.”
Summer nodded sympathetically. She was a pro at calming down hysterical girls in bathrooms. She’d been dealing with them in clubs, bars and restaurants since she was fourteen. “That’s terrible. He didn’t deserve you.”
“I know.” Mia sighed. “Tony was a loser. My dad was right about him.”
Summer had a feeling Mia’s dad might be a lot like her own. Overly rich, overly protective and overly opinionated.
“So who are you here with?” Mia sniffled.
Uh-oh. “My grand-mama,” Summer said. “She was a patient of your, uh—”
“Ex-fiancé,” Mia finished darkly. “I’d already told Tony that morning I was calling off the wedding. But after he ended up dead I decided not to cancel a great party.”
Ouch. This girl was Cold City, even by society page standards. But wait, had she heard Mia wrong? “You told him you were breaking things off just before...?”
“You got it,” Mia said. “We had a major blowout the last time I saw him. That’s exactly when I informed him we were done. And I’m even more ticked off now, because he’s dead and I can’t tell him all the other stuff I found out about him.”
“Like what?” Summer hoped she wasn’t pushing it. She went over to the sink and wet a white fingertip towel under the custom faucet. “Here, let’s clean up that mascara and liner a little.”
“Thanks.” Mia took the towel and dabbed it under her eyes. “I haven’t even told my girlfriends about this, it’s so humiliating,” she said. “But Tony and some buddy of his were planning to bilk me and my dad out of a ton of money.”
Her face was still a mess. Summer reached for another towel. “How would they do that?”
Mia threw up her hands, in a blinding flash of gold, diamonds and Candy Apple Red. Summer couldn’t blame her for keeping that amazing engagement ring. “He was going to divorce me, can you believe it? After he and his friend got me and my dad to invest in some harebrained scheme of theirs.”
“No pre-nup, huh?” Summer found that hard to believe.
“I didn’t want to ask him to sign one,” Mia said. “At first, anyway. It seemed so unromantic, you know? And I totally trusted him.” She blew her nose again, with an unattractive snort. “But then my dad had his people do some digging, and they came up with all kinds of stuff on Tony.”
“What about his friend?” Summer asked.
“That’s the weird thing,” Mia said. “They found nada on the guy. His name was Edward or something. I’d never even heard of him.”
Yikes. How could Mia have missed that poser? Even the receptionist at Maurice Georges had noticed Eduardo with Tony. And hadn’t Tony and Mia held their engagement party at Chameleon?
Plus, the guy was actually here tonight, in her own mansion. Mia Rivera-Jones was even more oblivious than she’d thought. On the other hand, she probably didn’t notice the help.
Luckily.
The heiress dropped down on a swirly-gold ottoman. “But that wasn’t the worst of it.”
It wasn’t? When it came to sleaze, Dr. A really took the cake. The death cake.
“Why are you smiling?” Mia demanded. “It’s not funny.”
“Oh, no,” Summer said, quickly. “I was just trying to be supportive. You know, to cheer you up.”
Mia tossed the damp, black-smeared towels behind her to the floor. “Look—Summer, right? I hardly know you. Actually, I don’t remember knowing you at all. But what I’m going to tell you stays between us, okay? I guess I need to dump stuff on someone.”
Gee, thanks, Summer thought. But hey, she was used to people dumping on her. And maybe whatever Mia was about to reveal would help her and Dorothy solve Dr. A’s murder—and she’d be off the hook for sure.
“So I told you I thought Tony was cheating on me, right?”
Summer nodded.
“Well, he always spent a lot of nights on his boat. He loved that thing, probably more than me or anyone else. Anyway, I got this feeling that he wasn’t by himself all the time, like he said. So about a week ago I went down to the Milano Yacht Club, around nine o’clock. I thought I’d have a drink or two out on the deck and see who showed up at the docks.”
“Good plan.” Summer would probably have done the same thing, if she had a fiancé who’d cheated on her. Admittedly, any fiancé at all was a very dim possibility for the near future.
The thing was, if some guy tried to marry her for money—as if she ever had any—he’d be out of luck. Her dad was plenty rich, but he could also be supercheap. Everything had conditions. And with all Syd’s ticked off ex-wives, who knew if she’d ever come into bucks, anyway?
“After Tony got there, I asked Pete, the guy who takes members out to their boats, to drop me off. I’ve known him since I was a kid. Then I kind of snuck around the yacht and looked in the windows.”
“Weren’t you worried Tony would see you?” Summer asked. Oblivious as she was, Mia apparently had guts.
“I was going to tell him I’d wanted to surprise him. That’s the story I gave Pete.”
“So did you see anything interesting?”
“Oh, yeah.” Mia shuddered. “If you want to describe it that way. I saw him with this really old lady, can you believe it?”
“Um, no,” Summer said, honestly. But if Dr. A was into bilking women out of their money, he probably didn’t care how old they were. Older was probably better, in fact.
“I didn’t get a good look at her,” Mia went on. “It was dark by then, and her back was to me. I think there were a bunch of candles burning.”
“Did you see Tony?” Summer asked, completely mesmerized.
“No,” Mia said. “Luckily. And I only saw part of the old bag, because a lampshade was blocking her head, but she was wearing some kind of negligee and those furry pom-pom kitten heels. And oh, yeah, there was a trench coat on the floor and a bottle of champagne in a bucket next to the bed, with two glasses.”
“Whoa.” Summer took the other ottoman, across from Mia. She had to sit down for the rest of this. “What did you do?”
“I’ll tell you what I did.” Mia scowled. “I puked over the side of the boat about three times and flashed the light for Pete to come pick me up.”
Summer wondered why Mia hadn’t barged right in and confronted Dr. A and the mystery woman. Maybe she wasn’t so tough, after all.
“That’s when I decided to call off our engagement, of course,” Mia said. “But I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. I mean, it was so embarrassing, with Tony sneaking around on me with someone in, like, her eighties.”
Not much older than Dorothy, Summer thought. It was hard to imagine her friend being interested in a guy half her age. Dorothy would never be desperate like that. But everyone got lonely, she figured, no matter how old they were.
So far Mia hadn’t even mentioned Marilyn. Maybe it would be better not to bring her up right now, though.
“You never found out who that woman on the boat was?” Summer asked.
“No,” Mia said. “Pete swore he didn’t take anyone else over to Tony’s yacht that night, and I believed him. But I didn’t care, anyway. I was done with that snake.”
“At least you didn’t find out the truth too late,” Summer said. “Did you tell the cops any of this stuff?”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Then they would have asked a whole bunch of embarrassing questions. I’d never be able to hold my head up in this town again. I didn’t tell Daddy, either. He would have killed Tony.”
But someone beat him to it, Summer thought.
“Daddy’s lawyers advised us to say as little as possible,” Mia continued. “The police were already grilling me, and if they knew Tony and I had a big fight, just before he dropped dead, well...”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.” It was easy to end up a suspect, even if you were totally innocent. “But what if the information might help solve your fiancé’s murder? Former fiancé, I mean.”
Mia considered her pointy toe pumps. “I know it sounds cold, but like I said, I really don’t care. Tony’s gone and I’m moving on.”
“What will you do?”
The heiress sighed. “Oh, the usual, probably. Travel. Shop. Go to five-star restaurants. Date a bunch of guys who want my money.” Mia stood up and smoothed her dress. “Hey, thanks for listening. It really helped, I think. Please don’t tell anyone all this stuff. It’s water over the dam, you know?”
“I guess,” Summer said, doubtfully.
“I didn’t kill him, in case you were wondering.” Mia selected a tube of fresh lipstick from the hutch and turned toward the mirror. “I had a ten o’clock lipo session at the Cosmetic Associates Pavilion—you know the place, right? I told Hot-Detective-What’s-His-Name he could check with them.”
“Oh, sure, I go there all the time,” Summer lied. “It’s Detective Donovan, by the way.”
Mia shrugged. “Whatever. I almost missed my appointment because Tony and I had that big fight, so I had to blow out of his office that morning.”
And crash into me, Summer thought.
“So maybe we’ll see each other again somewhere.” Mia smiled. “Aspen, even.”
“It’s not a bad place,” Summer told her, smiling back. “Trust me.”
“Well, I’d better get back to the party, I guess.” Mia headed toward the powder room door. “It’s time for the champagne toast, so they’re probably waiting on me.”
And maybe a few more Waterford glasses.
“Summer?”
Mia sidestepped, just in time, as Dorothy pushed through the door. “Are you in here, dear? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Grand-mama!” Summer jumped up from the ottoman. Dorothy’s whole face was red and puffy, and her voice sounded croaky.
What had happened to her friend?
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Dorothy, are you all right?” Summer asked, as she and Mia helped her to the chaise lounge.
“I’m fine, dear,” Dorothy said, with a slight cough. “Really. Just a touch of an allergy, I think.”
Summer turned to Mia, who was kneeling beside her, looking genuinely worried. “We need a doctor.”
“There are tons of them here at the party,” Mia answered. “I’ll be right back.” She stuck her head back through the powder room door. “This is your grandma, right?”
“Yes,” Summer said. “Sort of. I call her Dorothy sometimes.”
Dorothy looked up at her with red-rimmed, half-shut eyes. “It must have been the citrus tarts,” she said. “Did they have mango in them?”
Summer tried to remember all the different foods and drinks she’d served earlier. Eduardo had drilled them all on the ingredients beforehand, of course, but it was kind of hopeless. The salsa had mango, but the other stuff? She had no idea. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay.”
Mia returned with an older man who introduced himself as Dr. Anderson. “My dad’s internist,” she whispered to Summer, as he examined Dorothy and asked her questions. “Best in Milano.”
After a few minutes, Dr. Anderson came back over to Summer and Mia. “Your grandmother will be just fine.” He handed Summer his card. “But a trip to the ER would be a good idea, as a precaution. Mango allergies can be quite serious sometimes. We want to be on the safe side, considering her cardiac history.”
“Tony was allergic to mango,” Mia said. “One time a patient made him cookies or something with it and he wouldn’t even touch them. I don’t know if he ever got all red and puffy like that, though. He had one of those EpiPens.”
“You mean, like for people who are allergic to bees?” Summer asked. Joy carried an EpiPen in her purse 24/7. “You get a worse reaction every time you get stung, right?”
Dr. Anderson nodded. “There are two general types of reactions when a person has an allergy to certain kinds of fruit, ladies,” he explained. “Mango can be particularly dangerous. Some patients experience symptoms that are more topical in nature, like Mrs. Westin’s—inflammation of the skin, swelling of eyes and lips, wheezing and so forth. Sometimes the person only has to touch the allergen source—even the peel of the fruit—and symptoms develop.”
“What’s the other kind of reaction?” Summer asked.
“It’s called immediate mango hypersensitivity,” Dr. Anderson said, “and it is much more serious. Severe swelling, coughing, shortness of breath, that type of thing. It can even be fatal if the patient goes into anaphylactic shock.”
“Fatal?” Summer’s eyes shot toward Dorothy, who was leaning back against the wall in her chair, her eyes closed. If anything happened to her friend, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“No, no,” Mia assured her. “He said your grandmother had the first kind of reaction, remember?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Anderson replied. “Mia, do you have any antihistamines in the house? They should help to bring down the swelling.”
“I have Benadryl.” Mia went over to the French hutch where Summer had gotten the Chanel No. 5 and took out a small first-aid kit from the cupboard underneath. “My houseguests are always allergic to either my flowers or my cats, so I’m always prepared.”
Summer thought of Mr. Bitey. There might be a solution to their little relationship problem. The allergy part, anyway.
She gave Dorothy the pills with some water from the lounge’s lemon-slice-filled drink dispenser.
“Much better,” Dorothy said, after what seemed like ages. Summer didn’t see how she could feel any worse, actually. It had been hard for her to get the pills down because her lips and throat were so swollen. “Please don’t stay on my account, anyone,” Dorothy added, with a wave. “I look worse than I feel. Thank you all for your help.”
“Well, okay, if you’re sure,” Mia said. “I probably should get back to the party, before things get any crazier.” She took an engraved card from her Givenchy clutch. “Call and let me know how things go, okay?” she told Summer. “You’re really lucky to have such a nice grandma. Mine’s a witch.”
Too bad I don’t actually have any real grandmas, Summer thought. Just ex-stepmothers, and they were witches, too.
“Feel free to use my name at the hospital,” Dr. Anderson added, as he and Mia headed toward the door.
“Thanks, you guys!” Summer called after them. “You were lifesavers.”
Mia threw her another actual smile, a bigger one this time. It was nice to be needed, Summer thought. In a way, she could relate to Mia’s tough exterior. Not to sound totally vain or anything, but sometimes if you were halfway good looking and all the way rich, people didn’t give you much credit. In fact, they hated you.
That could get to anyone after a while.
So had Mia Rivera-Jones poisoned her jerk fiancé as revenge for cheating on her and plotting to take her money? Summer didn’t think so. Underneath the hard-nosed, spoiled brat, she had a feeling there was a pretty decent person.
It wasn’t Mia’s fault she was rolling in bucks.
* * *
Summer helped Dorothy exit through one of the mansion’s many side doors—luckily without setting off any alarms—so no one noticed them leaving. The last thing either of them wanted was to run into Gladys Rumway.
“My, that was an interesting party, wasn’t it?” Dorothy eased herself gingerly into the Mini’s passenger seat. “I’m sorry I ruined the evening for you, dear. I’ll reimburse you for any earnings you’ve lost by taking me home.”
“Thanks, but I was pretty much done already,” Summer said. “Eduardo fired me over a bunch of broken glasses. I didn’t exactly get a chance to ask him about anything for the case.”
“Well, that man doesn’t seem very approachable, anyway,” Dorothy said. “He might even be dangerous. Hopefully Detective Donovan will have better luck dealing with him.”
Dorothy didn’t want to go to the emergency room at Milano Community Hospital, claiming that the antihistamines had already brought down the swelling, but Summer insisted. It was several hours before she received an all clear and they were safely back at Hibiscus Pointe.
“You look soooo much better,” Summer said, after she’d finished making up one of the twin beds in Dorothy’s guest room. She was going to stay at the condo overnight, in case her friend’s symptoms got worse.
“I feel better, too.” Dorothy leaned tiredly against the doorjamb.
“You don’t think Dr. A could have eaten any mango somehow that morning, do you?” Summer said, slowly. “You know, by mistake? Mia said he was really allergic to it.” She fell back onto the bed, making jumping jack movements with her arms and legs to create a comforter angel. “There could have been some mango in that weird paste stuff Marilyn told me to put in the stupid shake, right?”
