Security(12)

Justin laughs, because Brian is laughing.

“Face--first into a snowbank. Breaks his nose. Except Tess isn’t done. Tess runs down to him, starts stuffing snow in his mouth, down his coat. I’m sure as hell out of my seat now, got Mitch right behind me, and we pull her off him. It’s like pulling a pit bull off a ham bone. Tape. Lance tried to tell on her, but me and Mitch both said he tripped. The bus driver was this deadhead who didn’t care one way or the other, so Tess never got so much as a hard look about it.”

Brian scoots out from under the dishwasher. Justin gives him a hand up.

“There a load in here?” Brian says, knocking on the dishwasher’s shut door.

“Yeah.”

Brian presses the power switch. Sound of spraying water. He peels the remaining strips of tape off the sink and makes a silver ball. “After that, if you messed with one of us, you messed with all three of us.”

“And that’s when Tessa started talking?”

“Call a repairman anyway. This’ll hold three days, absolute maximum.” Brian starts scrubbing his hands in the sink.

Justin realizes that’s his answer. “I’ll go get Henri so he can kiss your feet.”

“It’s no big deal, honestly,” says Brian. “Some tape in the right places.”

Justin leaves the kitchen and crosses the ballroom, widthwise, to where Henri is still berating his sous--chefs, who have banded their playing cards so as not to incense their boss further. Justin winks across the ballroom, lengthwise, to where Jules is cleaning Tessa’s hand with hydrogen peroxide. Tessa must have insisted they sit as far from the dining tables as possible, so as to avoid getting blood on the linens. She must have insisted they not use the kitchen sink, so as to comply with OSHA protocol. She didn’t want to get on the elevator again and use the break room or housekeeping storage area, in case she bled on more marble, which Delores would then have to clean.

Delores is cleaning Tessa’s blood off the foyer floor. She wrapped Henri’s knife in a hand towel from her apron pocket. Delores has everything imaginable in her apron pocket, now including the knife. She turns on the chandelier, because the lobby, facing east, is now dark.

Franklin, at his desk, is drinking more scotch. When the chandelier brightens his dark office, he squints, annoyed.

The Killer finally delivers a fatal wound to Vivica’s heaving chest. Blood spurts outward in a foul, black splash. It would create a horrible red stain, but the entirety of the secret elevator is horribly stained already. It looks like a slaughtering pen.

“So,” Jules says, “that’s him.”

A pile of cheap paper napkins, as opposed to expensive cloth napkins, catches the blood from Tessa’s hand. She and Jules are sitting on cheap folding chairs equidistant between the dining tables and a long table against the east wall. The long table is there to hold upscale items for a silent auction, proceeds of which are earmarked to benefit foster children in the state of California. Destin does not know or care where the proceeds of the silent auction go. It’s likely that Tessa’s insistence on cheap napkins and cheap folding chairs meant more time required to set up this makeshift triage station, and that Tessa’s insistence on cheapness vis--à--vis treating her injury made Jules impatient, which—even though Tessa hasn’t answered right away whether that’s “him”—is why Jules’s voice has an uncharacteristic edge when she says, “The foster brother? Brian?”

“You’re a sleuth, Jules.” Tessa hears Henri’s overjoyed “Grace à Dieu!” and tries, again, not to smile. “He fixed it.”

Jules exchanges a cotton pad for a cotton swab. She’s exacting. This is probably why she cooks with foam. “You didn’t mention he was hot.”

“It’s the motorcycle jacket.”

“That helps. He looks about twenty years old. He’s our age?”

“Older. Thirty--two. Ow, Jules—okay. Okay, it’s clean.”

“It’s clean when I say it’s clean, kid.” But Jules changes back to the cotton pad. “And there were two of that hotness? Mmm, double trouble. You were a lucky little girl.”

Henri doesn’t kiss Brian’s feet, but he does kiss each of Brian’s cheeks, twice, though Brian still has his hands under the kitchen tap, trying and failing to get the grease out of his knuckles and nails. Water from Brian’s hands splashes his motorcycle jacket as he tries and fails —also—to angle his face so that Henri’s kisses land far away from his mouth. Justin and the sous--chefs watch all this with extreme amusement, because Henri hates everyone, except Tessa.

Tessa says, “One of that hotness is dead.” Now her voice has an edge. “Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. That’s all you’d tell me, though.”

Tessa is a wretched storyteller—unless the story is about lost shoes and music fests and Walgreens. If it’s Jules asking, Tessa usually tells, but obfuscation is such a habit with her that she leaves things out and doesn’t know she’s doing it. “Troy was a—”

“Troy? Was that the other twin?”

“No, the other twin was Mitch.” Tessa doesn’t mind Jules interrupting; she finds the interruptions a welcome relief. “Troy was our foster father. Lorraine was his wife. Troy was a professional motocross racer.”