So Pretty It Hurts

Chapter 22

Terrified, I yanked my left arm to my body, pointed the elbow toward Whitney, and with all my strength, drove the elbow into her face. She reeled back and doubled over. I braced myself for another charge, but when Whitney looked up, I saw that she was starting to wheeze. A second later she collapsed into a sitting position on the floor of the terrace

“Help me,” she muttered. It didn’t seem like she was faking it. “Please. My inhaler.”

“Where is it?” I yelled.

“In my purse.”

I charged back into the apartment, raced the length of the living room, and grabbed the brown hobo bag off the hall table. It would take extra seconds, but I needed to alert the women in the kitchen to call 911. I propelled myself down a hallway toward the still-constant sound of chatter until I found a huge, sprawling kitchen. But there was no one there. My eyes followed the sounds to a TV on the wall—it was playing a tape of some kind of cooking class. There had never been anyone in the kitchen at all.

I tore back out to the terrace. Whitney was wheezing heavily, searching desperately for air. I upended her purse, letting the contents splatter at my feet—keys, pens, a makeup bag, wallet. In the middle of the mess I spotted the inhaler. I snatched it and handed it to Whitney. Like a robot, she flipped off the top with her thumb. She pulled it to her mouth and pumped. Then pumped again. She continued to wheeze, harder, and her eyes grew wide with fright.

“It’s empty,” she said hoarsely. “Help me.”

“Have you got another?” I yelled above the wind.

She flopped her head every which way, and it was impossible to tell if she meant yes or no, but then she flung her right arm toward the door.

“Where?” I was screaming now. “In the bathroom?”

No answer. Just desperate wheezing, her hands clutching her throat. I raced back into the apartment, toward where I assumed the master bedroom was. En route, I grabbed a phone and hit 911.

“There’s a woman here having a bad asthma attack,” I said. “You must send an ambulance right now.” I rattled off the address.

“Does she have an inhaler?” the operator asked after I’d given the key information.

“Yes, but it’s no good. I’m trying to find another.”

“Try to keep the person calm. Tell her to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth.”

The idea of me calming Whitney down seemed preposterous. I’d located the bathroom by now, and I pawed through the medicine cabinet, spilling cosmetics and prescription drugs onto the counter. No inhaler. I tried the bedside tables next, with no success. After that, with adrenaline coursing through me, I made a desperate stab at the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cupboards. Still no luck. Trying to calm Whitney seemed the only course of action.

I’d left the terrace door open, and the living room was now frigid, with wind whipping through it. When I stepped outside, I saw that Whitney was lying sprawled out on the cement floor, totally still. Bending down, I realized that she didn’t seem to be breathing. I tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her bluish lips, but there was no response. In desperation I picked up the inhaler. Was it really empty or just stuck? I turned it over. On the flat end was a small puncture hole, as if it had been stabbed with a sharp object.

I glanced back at Whitney, tears of anxiety welling in my eyes. It was pretty clear she was dead.

Five hours later, I was sitting in one of Landon’s armchairs, bundled up in a thick sweater and sniffling and dabbing at my nose with a tissue. An hour earlier, a Godzilla-sized cold had suddenly invaded my system, in about the time it takes to say, “Please no, I so don’t need this right now.” My throat throbbed and my head ached. Landon had just served me a bowl of homemade lentil soup, but I was having a hard time even tasting it.

“I feel so guilty,” Landon said. “I’m sure I’m the one who gave you this dreadful cold.”

“Stop,” I said. “I’ve been freezing my ass off in barns and on balconies for the last few days, and I probably have no one to blame but myself.”

“And Whitney, of course.”

“Yes,” I murmured. “And Whitney.”

The EMS team had arrived less than ten minutes after my futile attempts at mouth-to-mouth. Two patrol cops had followed practically on their heels. And not, it turned out, because of my 911 call. Someone from a nearby high-rise had seen the struggle on the terrace and alerted the police to it. Thankfully they had included the fact that a woman in a light-colored blouse was trying to give a woman in black the heave-ho over the edge. This provided me with a certain amount of credibility as I tried to explain my role in such a fucked-up mess to first the patrol cops, and then second, at greater length, to the two detectives who arrived at the scene about fifteen minutes later.

I was asked to accompany one of the detectives to the precinct, which was good because it spared me coming face-to-face with Cap—though I managed to catch a glimpse of him charging into the building just as I was being driven away in an unmarked police car. His face was drained of blood.

At the precinct I gave my statement in as much detail as possible, and when I was done, urged the detective to call Officer Collinson. They talked for at least fifteen minutes, with the detective standing far enough away from me that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He eyed me, though, through the entire conversation. I had a feeling Collinson was giving him an earful about what a bad girl I’d been. I knew I would have to call Collinson later and try to make peace with him.

“You can go now,” the detective said, after snapping his phone shut. “But please be available tomorrow. We’ll need to talk to you further as we pursue this matter.”

On the cab ride home, I tried Beau but reached only his voice mail. As I disconnected I saw that I had a message. And lo and behold it turned out that my old friend at Buzz, Nash Nolan, had phoned. Automatically I started to dial in his number and then stopped. I didn’t have an ounce of desire to talk to the dude at the moment.

As soon as I reached my apartment, I did a quick search about asthma on the Internet and then staggered into a hot shower. It was while I was toweling off that the cold virus staged a sneak attack on my system, which sent me to Landon’s for over-the-counter cold remedies and sustenance. He always seemed to have both.

“Does it bother you?’ Landon asked me quietly. “That you couldn’t save her?”

“Yes,” I said, sniffling. “Though I probably shouldn’t care—she thought nothing of turning me into a big, ugly splat on Amsterdam Avenue. You know, I just read on the Internet that cold air can trigger asthma. Whitney had obviously started to have an attack when we were in the apartment, but she was in such a rage about me threatening to tell Cap that she clearly wasn’t thinking straight. She made her situation worse by luring me outside.”

“Did her inhaler just malfunction?”

“The bottom was punctured, which must have caused all the medication inside to seep out. But I’m not sure how that could have happened. Some sharp object in her purse maybe—like a pen?”

“You don’t think Cap did it, do you? That he got wind of what she was up to and decided to secretly off her?”

“No, that’s not Cap’s style. If he knew that Whitney had killed his star client, he would have just throttled her.”

A few minutes later I nearly crawled back to my apartment. I threw myself onto the couch and pulled an old throw blanket up to my chin. As I was dozing off, Jessie called. I suspected by the silence behind her that she was probably safely sequestered in a conference room at Buzz.

“I can’t believe you didn’t call me,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me everything.”

“Oh God, sorry—I planned to call you. I’ve just got a bitch of a cold right now.” I took her quickly through an abbreviated version of what had happened.

“Gosh, how weird and sad and everything else. I feel sorry for Cap, actually. He seemed like an okay guy.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he had any idea how unbalanced Whitney really was. She clearly loved the life she had with Cap. She’d said that they’d had a whirlwind courtship, and my guess is that she saw right away what the possibilities could be—a big fancy apartment, furs and jewelry, a ranch in Texas someday. And as long as everything was on an even keel, she probably seemed fairly normal. But then, to help preserve that lifestyle, she ended up giving Devon her eggs. And when she learned what Devon had done, she just snapped.”

“If she hadn’t gone off the deep end today, do you think she would have been arrested?”

“I honestly don’t know. The fertility doctor Devon used might have confirmed that Whitney was the donor, and there would also be the confirmation of Whitney’s call to the gyno. But unless they could have traced the Lasix to her, it would have been hard to prove she doctored the water.”

I told her then that Nash had left me a few messages.

“I assume he’s calling about Whitney’s death,” I said. “I’m sure it’s eating him alive that I’m at the center of this whole thing but no longer on his payroll.”

“You better believe it. Plus, one of the lawyers was down in his office earlier. I have a feeling they now realize that Whitney must have put Sherrie up to this.”

“Whitney never came right out and said it, but it’s clearly the case.”

“So you’re going to call Nash, right?”

“Sure. I want my name cleared.”

“But what about the magazine? Are you going to write the story for Buzz?”

I hesitated. The answer was forming in my mind right then and there, and it caught me a little by surprise. I should have seen it coming, but I’d been so preoccupied, I hadn’t.

“You know, I don’t think so,” I said. “I can’t ever go back there after what Nash did to me.”

“Oh, wow,” Jessie said. “Though I can’t blame you. Just promise me you won’t make any rash decisions. Talk to Nash, see what he has to say. I don’t think I can face this place every day without you.”

“Thanks, Jess. Lets talk more tomorrow.”

I had just laid my head back down on the pillow when Beau called. It felt so good to hear his voice. I gave him the same short version I’d offered Jessie because now my throat hurt so much I could barely talk. He said he wanted to come by, but I explained I was conked out, almost in a coma.

“I don’t care, I want to see you,” Beau said. “You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. Why don’t I come over and let myself in, so that way I won’t wake you. Later I can fix you something to eat.”

It was a tough offer to refuse. After I hung up, I forced myself off the couch. Better to be in bed, I thought. As I staggered to my bedroom, I kept thinking about how much Beau had been there for me over the past few days. Not so elusive after all.

I fell into a deep sleep, waking only briefly when I thought I heard Beau come in the front door of the apartment. What seemed like hours later, I stirred again to find Beau sitting on the edge of my bed, dressed in jeans and a black pullover sweater.

“Don’t get too close,” I muttered. “This is brutal.”

“How about something to eat? I could make you an omelet.”

“Yeah, I am kind of hungry.”

He returned a few minutes later with tea, toast, and a cheese omelet. I couldn’t eat much of the omelet in the end, but the toast and tea definitely helped me to rally. I scooted up even higher in bed and mustered a smile at Beau. He was now sitting in the armchair at the foot of my bed.

“Thanks for the food,” I told him. “I feel vaguely human now.”

“The sleep probably helped, too. I checked a few online sites for you. This story has exploded. Lots and lots of speculation, of course, because most people don’t have any clue what really happened. I bet a ton of outlets are trying to reach you to interview you.”

“I should probably deal with that in a minute. There’s just so much to think about right now.”

“Do you still have unanswered questions about the case?” he asked.

“A few. I don’t know who the guy in the gypsy cab was or how Whitney put him up to the job. But maybe the police can figure that out by going through her phone logs. One thing that does keep bugging me is the hole in the inhaler. Landon asked if Cap could have done it.”

“Do you think so?”

“No, but it seems unlikely it could have happened accidentally. You would think those things were almost fail proof. If it wasn’t an accident, then someone put the hole there.”

“I think I’ll hang around for a while, just to keep an eye on my patient. Do you need anything else right now?”

“Um, just my phone. It’s in my bag, out in the living room.”

“Sure,” Beau said and started to rise from the chair.

“Wait, one second, though, would you?” I said. “There’s something I want to say off the topic of murder and mayhem.”

Beau came from around the bottom of the bed and sidled up next to me.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I know it seems crazy, but in the midst of all this nightmare stuff, I’ve had a chance to do some thinking. Remember what you said to me the other day about me being the one with the commitment issues? Well, you’re not the first person to say that to me. You’re not even the second. I’d like to have another chance with you. And now that I’m aware of what’s going on with me, I think I can handle things differently.”

“Great, Bailey. I’m happy to hear that.” He laughed. “Besides, a friend of mine just invited us to his amazing ski house over Christmas, and I need to give him an answer by tonight.”

God, this was getting better by the minute.

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” I said.

Beau took three steps toward me and leaned down to kiss me.

“No,” I said, throwing up my hand. “You’ll catch this thing. It’s mean as a pit bull.”

“I’m sure I’m probably already infected,” he said, laughing. “We did a lot of spit swapping this weekend.”

He returned a few minutes later with my purse and set it down on the bed next to me. I reached toward it to retrieve my phone. I was anxious to see who might have called me for interviews. Maybe even a news outlet that I could form a partnership with, since I wouldn’t be going back to Buzz. Gosh, I’d almost said it out loud: I wasn’t going back. I’d never again have a first look at Suri’s latest pair of kitten heels.

And then, just as I touched my purse, a thought jarred me, like a fellow subway passenger falling into me as the train rounded a curve. Whitney’s handbag. The brown suede hobo bag. I’d seen it before. On Saturday afternoon I had followed Devon down the stairs at Scott’s to talk to her, and I’d caught her putting something into her handbag. A brown suede hobo bag. But it hadn’t been her bag, after all. It had been Whitney’s. It had happened, too, only a short time after Devon’s discussion with Cap in the woods and her confession to me that she wasn’t safe.

And at that moment, as the wind howled outside, I realized the final twist of the story: Devon had punctured the inhaler after she realized, from her conversation with Cap, that Whitney had probably learned about the abortion. She’d been terrified of Whitney’s wrath and what she might do.

Whitney had killed Devon. But in the end, Devon had killed her back.