Naked Came The Phoenix

Chapter Eight

LAUREN DIDN'T KNOW IF IT WAS good for her face or not. She didn't care. She was chilled to the bone and she just wanted to be warm again.

Lauren Sullivan untied the sash of her pale green terry cloth Phoenix Spa robe and let the covering fall from her smooth, milky-white shoulders. Her carefully pedicured toes wriggled with appreciation as they padded across the almost hot cedar planks that covered the sauna floor. Nimbly, she climbed up to the top tier of the benches that lined the walls, spread out a towel, and lay down, stretching out her nude, lean body gratefully as the warmth of the toasted cedar began to seep through her back. She luxuriated in the hot, dry air that enveloped her exposed skin.

She was relieved to have the sauna to herself. Today she wasn't in the mood to take the normal scrutiny she went through as part of her daily life as a celebrity. The last thing Lauren wanted was some strange woman assessing her. Lauren knew full well that, later, the voyeur would brag to a friend that she had seen the famous Lauren Sullivan in the sauna and the movie star was thinner, fatter, shorter, taller, prettier, homelier, more relaxed, more haggard, younger looking, or older than she appeared on the movie screen.

She ran her tapering fingers through her tousled red hair and fanned it out across the warm cedar. She played with it lovingly, knowing that when she went back to Hollywood it was all coming off. Her next film role demanded a short, boyish haircut. It didn't really matter, Lauren reflected. It would all grow back. Or perhaps she would just keep it short. They said really long hair didn't become an "older woman."

Older woman! At thirty-seven, she wasn't really old by most people's standards. But by the Tinsel Town yardstick, it had been time to get some face work done, before everyone started saying she needed it.

The thin fingers patted ever so gently beneath her eyes, barely pressing on the recovering skin there. The dark circles under her eyes could be covered by a makeup artist's expertise. But during the filming of her last movie, it had reached the point where no amount of ice packing had succeeded in alleviating the puffy bags that developed under her expressive eyes.

Lauren continued pressing gingerly. The swelling had gone down now, and the last of the blue and greenish-yellow bruising was disappearing. The plastic surgeon, one of Hollywood's best, had known what he was doing. He had said the bags were hereditary and asked if her mother or father had them as well.

Good question.

It was one of the many questions that Lauren had been afraid to ask for most of her life. Who were her parents? What did they look like? Why had they given her up? Did she have any siblings?

Questions she hadn't dared ask the succession of foster parents over the years. She didn't want them to know and be angry that she often fantasized about her "real" parents and secretly wished that they would come and claim her and take her with them.

Some of her caretakers had been better than others. But none of them had been like her, either physically or temperamentally. Lauren couldn't help speculating about her gene pool.

Most of her life she had held back from pursuing the answers to her questions. Finally, an emotional wreck, Lauren had gone into therapy. But therapy didn't work unless the truth was spoken. A year after she sat in the psychiatrist's office and tearfully described the tragic automobile accident that killed the most loving foster parents, Lauren knew she had to summon up the courage to come to Claudia. Claudia de Vries had the answers to her questions. Lauren was sure of it. If only Lauren had been able to get the information out of Claudia before she was killed.

Lauren cringed internally but kept the expression on her face calm as she heard the sauna door open. Footsteps caused the floorboards to groan. Lauren wanted to keep her eyes shut and not acknowledge the visitor or feel obligated to talk. But with Claudia's death, Lauren's radar was in a state of high alert. Anyone could be a danger. It was necessary to be on guard.

She turned her head and her gaze fell upon the towel-wrapped head of Caroline Blessing. Caroline climbed onto another sauna bench.

Lauren hated being stared at, and yet here she was staring herself. She turned her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The sauna was quiet save for the occasional creaking of wood expanding from the heat. It was Caroline who broke the silence.

"What do you think happened to Claudia?" Caroline asked.

"I really have no idea," answered Lauren in her famous throaty voice. "But I suppose the police will figure it out eventually." She hoped that her terse response would signal that she wanted to cut off the conversation.

But Caroline pressed on. "Did you hear that the psychic was just pulled from the lake? It looks like someone tried to kill her too."

Lauren shook her head back and forth against the cedar platform but did not answer.

Caroline ignored the snub. "I just came back from the infirmary. Looks like she's going to be all right, but I didn't stick around to hear all the gory details. The infirmary smelled like a hospital. It reminded me… well, I had to get out of there and clear my head." Caroline rolled over on her stomach and rested her chin in her hands. "This place is a nightmare. What about that Ondine? How could someone be that thin and live?" Caroline wondered out loud. "She looks like she could snap in two. Her breasts are almost nonexistent and her legs are knobby poles. If you ask me, Ondine looks more like a young boy than a woman. Can you believe that she is held up as an icon to millions of American females?"

Without responding, Lauren pulled herself up to a sitting position and climbed down to the sauna floor. Taking her robe from a peg on the wall, she wrapped it around her. As she pulled open the sauna door, she called over her shoulder, "If anyone wants rest, this is sure not the place to come. We should all demand our money back."

In the infirmary, Toscana sat next to Phyllis Talmadge's cot. "You're sure you didn't see anything?" he asked insistently. Phyllis shook her head weakly against the white pillow.

"As I said, Detective, I felt a sharp pain, and then everything went black. I don't remember falling in the water or being pulled out."

Toscana was not about to give up. "Go over it for me again, will you please, Ms. Talmadge? Tell me again what happened. I'm not sure I got it right the first time."

Phyllis looked at him skeptically. Toscana didn't miss a thing and they both knew it. Over the course of her psychic career, Phyllis had been called on to work with the police on some pretty tough cases. She knew the way the cops operated, asking a witness or victim to go over their accounts of what he or she recalled again and again until, sometimes, a new detail emerged.

"All right," she sighed resignedly. She closed her heavy eyelids as she tried to envision what she had been doing just before she was struck. "I was standing at the edge of the lake, trying to clear my mind of everything that was cluttering it. I wanted to get rid of all the negative energy and try to focus on Claudia and what had happened to her. I was hoping that something would come to me that would help in the investigation."

"And?" Toscana led.

"Nothing." Phyllis opened her eyes and stared defiantly at the detective. "I told you. I felt a blow and then blackness." The psychic's blue-veined hand raised around to the back of her head as she felt for the egg-shaped bump that throbbed there. Toscana almost felt sorry for her as he saw her wince. But his sympathy was replaced by contempt as he watched her turn toward Raoul de Vries, her voice dripping with sweetness.

"The first thing I remembered afterward was the concerned face of Dr. de Vries here." She smiled in a pathetic attempt at flirtation with the man who stood beside her bed. "What a dear man, taking such good care of me when he's just suffered his own deep and devastating loss!"

Toscana felt his gag reflex rising. Thank God, Phyllis Talmadge didn't remember being pulled from the lake. If she did, he, not de Vries, might be the uncomfortable recipient of the aging psychic's affections. Toscana glanced over at the gallant Raoul de Vries. The good doctor didn't look any too grief stricken to him. He noticed that Caroline Blessing, who had been standing just behind de Vries during the earlier questioning, had already slipped away-an important engagement, she had said. In the sauna. It was a tough life. Though he would be all too happy to leave Phyllis alone with her Sir Galahad, Toscana decided to give it one last try.

"Think, Ms. Talmadge. Think, please. Is there anything at all you can remember that could help us find the person who attacked you? Is there anything that you heard before you were hit? Anything you felt or sensed?"

Phyllis closed her eyes again, pausing dramatically before she spoke again.

"Actually something is coming back to me now. I do remember something," she answered with surprise in her voice. She opened her bloodshot eyes and stared up at Detective Toscana. "Cigarettes!" she declared triumphantly. "I smelled cigarette smoke just before I got clobbered!"

In a private treatment room, safely away from Caroline Blessing, Lauren handed her robe carelessly to the attendant and climbed onto the sheet-draped massage table. As she lay prone on the padded slab, her mind was not on the mineral salt scrub she was about to receive at the strong hands of the hefty Marguerite. Instead she wondered how she was going to get away from Phoenix Spa.

If she had thought she would get rest, relaxation, and privacy here, she had been sadly mistaken. The atmosphere at Phoenix was not what the glossy brochures promised. Phoenix was far from serene, what with the police patrolling around the grounds and the media trawling outside the gates.

Lauren closed her eyes and sighed deeply as Marguerite's muscled hands swirled the warm lavender oil laced with coarse salt across her back. She tried to relax, but the abrasive rubbing felt like sandpaper being pulled across her skin. Lauren had to concentrate on keeping still.

Her mind raced. If she tried to leave now, the press would swarm down on her. Vultures. They would salivate to have a new angle for their "death at the spa" stories. She could see and hear the headlines now: Lauren Sullivan, Top Box-Office Draw, Involved in Real-Life Murder Mystery!

Just what she needed. More publicity.

Of course her agent and publicist would not be unhappy. As far as they were concerned, any mention of Lauren in the media was a plus, as long as they spelled her name right. They said so frequently and worked hard to ensure that Lauren's lovely face often stared hauntingly from the pages of People or smiled for the Entertainment Tonight cameras, dazzling the viewing audience. With yet another new Lauren Sullivan film set to be released next month, they and the movie studio would relish all the publicity she could draw.

Marguerite's sturdy fingers were kneading the backs of Lauren's slim calves when the door to the treatment room opened quietly. Lauren heard the soft squish of rubber-soled shoes as they crossed the terra-cotta floor. She opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Miss Sullivan," apologized the young woman Lauren recognized as the keeper of the appointment book at the reception area.

"What is it?" Lauren tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. Naked and covered with the gooey salt mixture, she was annoyed at having her precious privacy interrupted. Not to mention the constant awareness that how she looked would be reported to God knew how many other people by the person who saw her in her messy, vulnerable condition. That was just the way it was. People were fascinated with her, but Lauren never really got used to it. It left her feeling very exposed.

"Excuse me, Miss Sullivan," the receptionist said softly. "But Detective Toscana is on the phone. He's ready to speak with you now."

"Oh he is, is he? That's great." Lauren sighed deeply. "Well, all right. I've had enough here. Tell him I'll be ready to talk to him in fifteen minutes."

Moments later, she stood in the Swiss shower and felt her body cleansed by the warm water that sprayed from a dozen jet needle valves. As the oil and mineral salt slid from her exfoliated skin, Lauren planned what she would tell the detective.

Those Chinese healers had it right when they came up with this, thought Howard Fondulac as he lay on his back in the darkened room and enjoyed his reflexology treatment. The Chinese thought all the energy paths that ran throughout the body converged in the feet. That each organ of the body was represented by a corresponding reflex point in the foot.

The fifty-five-year-old movie producer lay on the table while the tiny blonde reflexologist slowly worked over muscles that he didn't even know were there. Howard liked the feeling of the young woman rubbing and kneading his feet. There was something decadent about it. He felt like a king being pampered by a maiden slave. It had been a long time since he'd felt like royalty.

Now the golden-haired servant was rubbing each toe.

"What part of the body does the toe correspond to?" he asked.

"The sinus. I push here to release blockages and help reestablish energy flow." The woman continued her gentle pressure on the pad of his middle toe.

"Ahhhh." Howard sighed deeply and tried to envision his sinuses clearing. This was just what he needed. He was always getting sinus headaches. His doctor said he should cut out the liquor and quit the cigarettes. But maybe if he had this reflexology bit done on a regular basis when he got back to LA, it would take care of the headaches. He didn't want to give up the booze and the butts, his two favorite vices. There was little enough he enjoyed these days, and a man was entitled to some fun.

He lay in the darkened room and listened to the taped sounds of flute music and ocean waves crashing on the seashore. He tried to relax and clear his mind. That was what he had come for. Partially.

He'd also come to Phoenix Spa because Claudia had told him that Lauren Sullivan would be here.

He needed something, and he prayed that Lauren Sullivan would be it. His career was on the skids. He had been unable to raise the money to produce a film in years and, though he hated to admit it even to himself, the Hollywood powers that be thought Howard Fondulac was a has-been. He couldn't get anyone to take his telephone calls, much less set up a face-to-face meeting with him. But if he could get Lauren Sullivan interested in his project, those studio snobs would take his calls, all right. They'd be falling all over themselves as they lined up to kiss his massaged feet.

The blonde was firmly pushing her thumb up and down Howard's arch, and he smiled in pleasure as he imagined producing a Lauren Sullivan film. That would make him a player again. He had to get Lauren alone somehow. If he could just talk to her, he knew he'd be able to sell her on his project.

Even the jaded Detective Toscana was mesmerized as he watched Lauren Sullivan sweep into the room in her flowing purple robe. She was astonishingly beautiful. Toscana was careful to pay attention to the details of the movie star's appearance. He knew that when he got home Mary Elizabeth would be pumping him for information on her favorite screen star.

"Yeah, babe. She was gorgeous."

"No, honey. She didn't have any makeup on, but she still looked great."

"I couldn't be sure, sweetie, but I think that hair color is her own."

Mary Elizabeth never missed a Lauren Sullivan film. As often as she could, his wife dragged him with her to the movies. Toscana would sigh and groan as if he was going along only to please his wife, but the truth of the matter was that he found Lauren Sullivan easy on the eye and enjoyed her acting. He and most of the men in America, he'd wager.

Now, in his makeshift squad room, the object of so many fantasies sat across the table from him. He watched Lauren as she glanced at the postmortem pictures of Claudia de Vries that were tacked onto the wall. She quickly averted her gaze, but not before Toscana saw her wince in repulsion.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" asked the detective routinely. Not waiting for her answer, he lit up.

Lauren sat quietly, waiting for the questioning to begin. Her graceful fingers played absentmindedly with a strand of hair that had fallen from the loose bun she had pinned to the top of her exquisite head.

"How is it that you came all the way to Virginia to Phoenix Spa, Miss Sullivan? I would think there are plenty of other spas you could have chosen that would have been more convenient for you."

Lauren shrugged. "I guess I could have gone to Canyon Ranch or Palm Springs. They are certainly closer to LA. But as you may have observed, Detective Toscana, I've just had some plastic surgery done, and I wanted to go someplace where I wouldn't be tripping over people I know from Hollywood. I wanted privacy and peace."

"Well, you certainly haven't gotten the latter here, have you?"

"No. Unfortunately, I haven't. And with those reporters prowling around outside, I'm afraid I might not get the former either."

Briefly, Toscana wondered what it must be like always to have people watching you. Not being able to take a walk in the park or run into the drugstore without someone gawking at you and telling friends that you bought a laxative. There was a price to fame. Suddenly, he was very grateful for his relative anonymity.

"Have you been to this spa before, Miss Sullivan?"

"Yes, sir. Several times."

"So you knew Mrs. de Vries?"

"Yes. I knew Claudia quite well." She had already decided that she might as well tell him. He would find out anyway. "Claudia is, ah, was, my aunt. She was my mother's sister."

The detective swiveled around to look at the pictures of the dead woman. In the lifeless face it was hard to see any resemblance at all to the beauty who sat before him.

"If you are looking for a family likeness, Detective, I'm afraid you won't find it. You see, my birth parents gave me up."

"Well, I'm sorry for your loss," said Toscana solicitously. "Have you told your mother about her sister's death?"

"No. That isn't necessary. My mother and father were killed in an automobile accident last year."

Toscana was a bit flustered and struck by sympathy for her.

"Would you like a cigarette, Miss Sullivan?" he offered clumsily.

Lauren smiled weakly. "As a matter of fact, I would. I try not to smoke. It ages the skin, you know. But I think a cigarette would be nice right now."

Toscana pulled a cigarette halfway out, held the pack across the table toward the actress, and flicked his lighter for her.

She held the cigarette between her beautiful, tapering fingers and inhaled.

The fingers. Toscana stared at her fingers. They were long and delicate and somehow expressive. And familiar.

He had seen other hands that looked like Lauren Sullivan's. He just couldn't quite remember whose.

But it would come to him.

Just feet from where Claudia de Vries's body had been found, Christopher Lund lay beside the crystal clear water in the pool house. He prayed that Claudia's death would be the end to his financial problems.

Christopher took his job as Ondine's manager very seriously. Ondine's income dictated his income. Booking the lucrative modeling assignments was only part of it. Christopher had to make sure Ondine was well rested, showed up on time, looked her best, and had the energy necessary to project whatever the client wanted her to project.

The magazine spreads and runway work at the fashion shows of the top designers paid very well indeed. So well that Christopher's fee, fifteen percent of Ondine's gross earnings, paid for his spacious loft in SoHo, a beach place in Amagansett, a trip or three to St. Maarten each winter to get away from the gray coldness of Manhattan, and a Range Rover and the four hundred dollars a month it cost to garage it in New York City. His recreational cocaine use had grown to an everyday thing, and that ate up his money as well.

He thoroughly enjoyed his lifestyle and all the trappings of success. He was young and ambitious. He wasn't about to be giving up a thing-in fact, he wanted more. He wasn't getting any younger, and it was time to be thinking about acquiring wealth, like some well-chosen art and stocks, not just spending conspicuously.

All of this took money. And Ondine was his cash cow.

He didn't fear her overexposure. The more magazine covers Ondine appeared on, the more billboards she smiled from, the more restaurant openings, movie premieres, or parties she attended with the paparazzi snapping blindingly, the better he liked it. She was a star, and the more the public was aware of her the more powerful she became. Christopher drove her relentlessly.

At twenty-two, Ondine was still young, but the window of opportunity for the big bucks was relatively short. She was at the top of the profession now, but that could change anytime. There were always new, younger women coming along, eager to join the ranks of the supermodel. The public was fickle and, Christopher believed, had a short attention span. The new sensation was always just around the corner. There was no telling how long Ondine's time would last.

As Ondine's business manager, all the money flowed through Christopher. The companies that hired Ondine to tout their products made the checks out to The Lund Agency. Christopher, after taking out his fifteen percent, cut the checks to Ondine.

But Ondine paid little attention to bookkeeping. She trusted her business manager and was not inclined to concern herself with the mundane details of banking. When Ondine had started making real money, Christopher had suggested that he make the deposits into her back account and keep track of her funds, neglecting to mention that he would have the power to withdraw money as well. He suggested that he take over having her tax returns prepared as well. Ondine had been only too happy to agree. Accounting bored her.

Almost imperceptibly, Christopher had increased his take on each modeling assignment. There were all sorts of ways to defraud her, and he rationalized his actions to himself with the knowledge that Ondine was still making an obscene amount of money for merely standing in front of a camera while he was busting his hump managing every aspect of her career.

The deal he had made with Claudia de Vries was especially lucrative. At least it had started out that way. Claudia had wanted to bring Phoenix Spa to another level. Not content with the spa's solid reputation, she wanted it to join the list of America's most exclusive spas. She thought Ondine could help her reach her goal, and Claudia had been willing to pay handsomely to realize her dream.

When she had first contacted Christopher about Ondine doing a spread for a glossy Phoenix Spa brochure, Christopher had convinced Claudia that her plan was too limited. Ondine was too huge a star to lend her famous name, face, and body to a mere brochure for a small spa in the Virginia hills. If Claudia wanted Ondine, she was going to have to think big and pay big.

The Lund Agency drew up a sophisticated advertising campaign and Christopher presented it to Claudia. She loved the ideas but not the price tag. So they scaled back the plan, finally agreeing that Ondine would come to Phoenix and be photographed amid the natural and man-made beauty. The photographs would be used exclusively in advertisements running in the fashion magazine that reached more readers around the world than any other and whose subscription base was the sophisticated, discerning readers Claudia wanted to attract.

Christopher would be able to take care of it all, he promised Claudia. He would choose Ondine's wardrobe, book the best photographer, and deal with the businesspeople at Elle, making sure that the artistic ads were well placed. Elle's base rate for a single full-page in black and white was sixty-five thousand dollars. Color cost seventy-five thousand. But Christopher impressed Claudia, saying he knew that if Phoenix Spa committed to running an ad in every issue for a year, Elle would negotiate a better price. Christopher tried to get Claudia to spring for the prized "second cover," which actually consisted of the back of the front cover and spread over to the next page. But at over eighty thousand dollars a pop, Claudia wouldn't swallow the idea. She said she had to draw the line somewhere, and budgeting almost a million dollars for the Elle ad placements was already keeping her up at night.

Christopher made two big demands. Ondine's modeling fee had to be paid up front and in cash if Claudia wanted to cut Ondine's two-million-dollar price almost in half. And Claudia was not allowed to discuss anything with Ondine. Christopher claimed he didn't want his prize model to be bothered with any of the details of their business plan. He protected Ondine from the business aspects of her career, he explained.

Claudia, eager to get on with her journey to international success and save a million dollars, agreed. The spa owner invited Ondine and her manager down for a complimentary visit and, starting on Halloween Day of last year, began paying Ondine a total of $1,025,000. She paid the money directly to Christopher Lund and then marked the amount carefully beside Ondine's name in her spa records.

It had all been working well until Claudia had demanded to see some results. Christopher had been able to stall since last fall with a series of excuses. Ondine's schedule was packed. Ondine had some sort of flu, the result of a bug she had picked up during a photo shoot in Peru. Ondine needed to rest.

Christopher absentmindedly swept his fingers through the pool water as he anxiously remembered Claudia's anger at all the delays.

"Well, bring her down here to rest, for God's sake!" Claudia had finally cried in exasperation.

"I will, I will, Claudia. I'll get her down there as soon as her schedule permits," Christopher tried to assure the spa owner.

"Well, her damned schedule had better permit it soon, or I'm going to hire myself the best lawyer money can buy and sue your ass off, Christopher! Sue your ass off and make sure that everyone knows what a swindler you are!"

He had tried not to panic. With Ondine none the wiser that her earnings had gone in Christopher's bank account, he had already spent most of the money Claudia had paid. Now it was time to pay the piper.

He laid the groundwork, suggesting to the already painfully thin Ondine that it looked like she was putting on some weight. As Ondine cried and fretted, Christopher came to her rescue, soothing her and telling her that he would take her away to Phoenix Spa. There she could work on losing a few pounds without the eyes of the unforgiving New York fashion world watching. So they had come here, ostensibly to get the fat off Ondine, but, in reality, to buy some time with Claudia.

Claudia wasn't going to be bothering him anymore.

After breakfast the next morning, Caroline took her beloved cello from its case and seated herself in the straight-backed chair that stood in the corner of her bedroom. She listened to the tones as she tuned the instrument. Caroline positioned herself carefully, as she had so many times before, and slowly pulled the bow across the cello's strings.

The two began to make their mournful music together. Caroline's long, thin fingers held the bow gracefully and moved it expertly back and forth across the strings. The prized cello faithfully emitted the haunting sounds the musician requested of it.

Caroline tasted salty tears as they slid down her cheeks and reached her lips. It was a relief to cry again. It was comforting to have the sad music as her companion.

This was not what she had planned. She had so wanted things to be different. Caroline had gone into the marriage with such high hopes and such wonderful dreams. But if Douglas had betrayed her with another woman, those dreams were shattered. How could she share her life with a man she didn't trust?

Caroline dried her eyes with the back of her hand. Why should she worry about protecting Douglas anymore? Douglas Blessing, the freshman congressman from Tennessee, the handsome young man with the high political aspirations, was no longer her husband in the finest sense of the word. He hadn't cared about her feelings or about his sacred vows to her. Why should she fight to guard him now?

Caroline had a good mind to march down to the gates right now and tell the media camped outside all that was going on inside Phoenix Spa. In fact, the more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed.

Let the chips fall where they may.