“Pepper… that’s your sister’s child? What is she, eleven?” He gives me a wink and taps the side of his nose. “She’ll be fine, just let her be a kid.”
Nodding, I can’t argue. Judy’s daughter is a lot like her, although it doesn’t give me much comfort. My sister always had a reckless streak. She was an adrenaline junkie, and I don’t know if Pepper’s going to turn out like her or like me. I’m not afraid of anything, but I know my limits.
The old man seems to read my mind. “What happened to your sister was a tragedy. Sometimes the best of us are lost through no fault of our own.”
“Maybe.” I’ll never believe Judy deserved what happened to her, and losing my sister hurt like hell.
“Will you help me, Hutch?” Pleading gray eyes meet mine. “Protect my nieces. They’re all I have left in this world.”
I swallow the growl in my throat, and with a heavy exhale, I nod. “I’ll be sure they get here, and I’ll keep them safe while they are here. That’s as much as I can do.”
He reaches out and braces my shoulder. “Thank you. I’ll never forget what you did for me.”
My lips tighten. “One of these days, we’re going to sit down and hash out what happened.”
“One day.” He nods, thin lips tightening grimly. “Now you’d better get going. I sent Blake that letter a few days ago. Hopefully it will be enough.”
“She loves you. If you asked her to come here, I’m sure she will.” God, I hope I’m right. If I have to go to New York and try to bring her here, it will not go well.
“Just promise me you’ll be sure she does.”
The urgency in his tone puzzles me. He’s hiding something again, and I don’t like it. “You let me know if you need my help. With anything.”
“Don’t I always?”
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
2
Blake
“What the hell?” I freeze in place outside the small black limo dropping my sister Hana and me at our Manhattan apartment building.
It’s not yet two a.m., but I wasn’t having fun tonight. The anonymous note about Hana being in some porno left on my table at the Vogue soured my stomach, and after that, all I wanted was to track her down and go home.
Done.
Secondary objective is to get her inside and lock up the doors until she sobers up, and we can sort out what the hell she’s done now and how to fix it. Only the scene unfolding on our front steps changes everything.
Dark rain mists over my arms and hair, making the rainbow strobe of police lights and emergency vehicles more vivid. It’s like we’re still at the club.
Hana bumps into me from behind as she exits the vehicle and snorts a giggle. “Whoops! Sorry, Blake.”
She hasn’t even noticed the garish display right in front of us. A small crowd is starting to form, which means whatever it is just happened.
Two police officers hold up their hands as the media appear quickly, jumping out of vans or racing up on foot to take pictures or whip out cameras. Another officer is stretching yellow tape to block everyone out.
That’s when my eyes land on three large cops dressed in all-black uniforms surrounding a dark lump on the wet concrete. A thick strawberry-blonde braid catches the light, and my chest collapses. It’s a young woman, arms and legs spread and bent in odd angles, but the thing I see, that I don’t want to recognize, is the thing making it difficult for me to breathe.
Emergency workers are doing their best to cover everything, but I recognize the brightly patterned, gold and black Versace robe. I’d know it anywhere, because she bought it last summer when we were together in Miami. She said it was in memory of a great designer gunned down before his time on the steps of his beautiful mansion.
“Debbie?” My voice cracks as I recognize my friend.
Her body is broken. She’s lying on the cold, wet ground, face down in the gutter, on the steps of our beautiful building.
“What the fuck?” Trip is out of the car, and he pushes past me, skidding to a stop at the police line, where an officer stops him and pushes him back.
Cold seeps into my bones as I watch a uniformed woman continue to spread a tarp over my friend’s body.
I think I might faint.
“I don’t understand… What’s happening?” Hana’s voice pulls me back, and I spin around to get her away from the grizzly scene in front of us.
She doesn’t need to see this. Hell, I don’t need to see it. I don’t want to remember Debbie this way, dead on the cold concrete in her gold satin robe, dark red liquid seeping from her mouth and nose.
“Oh!” My ankle almost turns in my stilettos, but I grab my sister’s arms tighter to stay upright. “What was that?”
Looking back, I recognize the fluffy white Louboutin slipper with her initials stitched in black cursive across the band. Bile rises in my throat, and I leave it there. I don’t look back. I don’t imagine how it flew off her foot as she fell to her death.
What happened? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.
“What is that?” My younger sister’s voice is loose, and she grips my arms as I lead her around the scene to the front door, trying to divert her attention. “Is that Debbie’s slipper?”
The side is marred with dirty water. “Just leave it. It’s part of the crime scene now.”
“What do you mean?” Hana looks from me to the growing mob of spectators.
More police cars arrive and an ambulance, although I can tell from the slump of Trip’s shoulders they only need the coroner.
Flashes strobe in the night–the paparazzi are here, or what’s left of them these days. Even a news van is pulling up on the scene. I guess some people still watch television. The old people who live in our building, the same ones who’ll lose their shit over a spoiled debutant attracting so much attention by dying.
“I don’t understand. Why is it a crime scene?” My sister looks from me to Trip as he slowly approaches, following us into the building.
“It’s illegal to kill yourself in Manhattan.” Trip’s voice is mirthless, almost sarcastic, and I decide I need to be upstairs, in our apartment, drink in hand. Stat.
You don’t sleep when someone you love dies.
I’m going on twenty-four hours, eyes wide open.
Hana is on the couch with gold facial strips under her red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t believe it. It had to be an accident. She just bought a closet full of designer dresses during fashion week. We were talking about all the parties we would attend at Cannes.”
“Debbie Does Death?” Trip lifts the newspaper from our breakfast cart. “Seriously?”
He unfolds the black and white print and turns it so I can read the headline plastered above three columns and an unflattering photo of our dead friend at a bar looking very rough.
Assholes. It’s so fucking unfair.
“I guess that passes for clever these days.” We’re not allowed to complain about how we’re treated in the media, right?
Our life of privilege is blanket permission to judge whatever goes on behind closed doors, especially to us girls. We’re always labeled as out of control or crazy or hysterical.