A Clean Kill

Thirteen

It took Alison Perkins forty-five minutes to pull herself together. After nearly choking on the table, then vomiting her entire lunch in the grungy toilet, she washed up as well as she could in Workout's horrible shower. This was the first time she'd ever gone into the moldy old cubicle. Having to get naked and go into that disgusting place almost made her sick again, so she took a tiny bump for the courage to do it.

After she got out, she was so excited and eager for more cocaine that she had to counsel herself to slow down and check herself because she was in the spotlight now. Like a girl already planning her wedding after a first date, she couldn't stop her thoughts from racing ahead to her celebrity. She was thinking a full hour on Larry King Live. She was thinking Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters—all the media shows that would ask her to share with the world her extensive knowledge of Maddy and Wayne Wilson. She and Maddy were best friends. Their husbands were close. The children were close; the nannies were close. She had visions of the instant fame that came to the best friends of murdered people. Maddy and Wayne were top-of-society people.

La creme de la creme. She knew it was going to be big, and she'd finally get some of Andrew's attention. She had no sense of time passing as she dressed by rote, hardly aware of pulling on her tights and wiggling into her leather pants. She didn't remember zipping them up, or grabbing the pink cashmere sweater set, putting it on, and adjusting the plackets of the cardigan just so. She took another bump, just a teeny one, and didn't examine herself in the mirror too closely. It upset her when the capillaries around her eyes burst in fireworks of tiny red spots as happened so many times in the old days when she was bulimic.

She kept telling herself she was cured of all that. She couldn't stand to vomit or hurt herself in any way. She'd had self-esteem coaching and knew she was a stunning woman, small but perfectly formed. She'd gotten over the fact that pretty much everybody preferred blondes. She'd learned that people were stupid, and she could deal with that now. Public opinion held that blondes were more beautiful than dark-haired girls. It didn't matter whether or not they were true blondes or really pretty. It was just a miserable fact, like cancer or war. There wasn't a thing Alison could do about it. Hair as dark as hers couldn't be lightened enough to make her blond. It was just lucky for her some men weren't attracted to the chilly Nordic types like Maddy Wilson. Lucky for her Andrew was one of those. She had big boobs, nice legs. She was cured.

When she was all dressed, however; she felt sick again. She chided herself for throwing up and taking cocaine with a cop in the other room. What was she thinking? Her stomach still heaved and her head hurt like hell. It felt as if pieces of her skull were about to crack off like the iceberg they'd seen breaking up on that cruise they'd taken to Alaska three summers ago. She hadn't enjoyed the trip very much, but she remembered that ice floe. Maddy was dead, and she couldn't come down just yet; it hurt too much. She took another bump. Just a teeny-tiny nothing of a bump, almost nothing at all, and she felt a little better again. She knew she had to be careful. She didn't want to freak out and trigger old behaviors—too much vomiting, too much coke—just because she was upset.

As she walked back into the gym, the first thing she saw was Derek sitting in one of the hammock chairs by the Fifty-sixth Street window. His habitual jauntiness was gone. She was shocked by his posture of complete dejection. The wide shoulders she'd always so admired were slumping forward, and his big handsome face' was cradled in those gifted hands. As she headed for the elevator to escape, she actually caught the gleam of tears on his fingers and was horrified. The thirty-four-year-old looked crushed, absolutely devastated. His expression of what appeared to be very real grief set off a searing flash of jealous rage in Alison.

Maddy was the chilly blonde, the one who always seemed in control of her emotions. Alison was known as the hot-blooded one. Sometimes she flew off. Right then she was in danger of completely losing it. Maddy was dead, and Derek cared more about himself (and Maddy) than he did about her.

This total selfishness of his tore her apart because she, not Maddy, had bought his equipment, had cosigned his lease, and taken the time to listen to his woes. She was the one who comforted him when things got bad. She could go on and on, but she needed to run. Even though it was June, definitely in the summer zone, she hadn't given up her snakeskin boots with the three-inch heels. She always dressed for attention, and she got it as she dashed to the elevator. The detectives who'd been listening to Derek so attentively suddenly turned to her. Don't say a word, she told herself as the female detective got to her before the elevator left the first floor.

"Feel better?" she asked.

"I'm all right. I just swallowed wrong. I have a strong gag reflex," Alison said.

"That's too bad. How about a cup of coffee?"

"No, thanks. Look, I can't talk about Maddy right now." Alison reminded herself that she'd made a vow of silence.

"Don't worry, it won't take long."

Alison felt the acid rise again in her throat. What should she do? She started calculating. If she talked to the cop, could she still be on Larry King Live? She had no idea about these things. Did CNN pay? CBS? NBC certainly did. Her mind raced. She could be on The View. How much could she get for her story? She could donate it to charity; that would enhance her image. She liked to think she was smart.

"We could go to the station, if you prefer."

"Oh, gee." Alison forgot about the little bag of powder,in her gym bag. She also forgot how much worse she was going to feel in a little while if she didn't get more. She was thinking that she'd never been in a police station, that for once she had the power to help her friends. She had no idea who murdered Maddy, but she was certain that if she put the right spin on their story, Andrew would respect her. Wayne would respect her. Derek would thank her. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

"Okay," she said calmly.