Chapter Ninety-Six Holly
Chapter Ninety-six
HOLLY
The realtor is handing me the keys to my new downtown office. There’s a freshly carpeted floor, box-fresh desk, newly painted walls, and a great view of Central Park.
‘Thanks,’ I say, smiling as I take the keys. ‘This looks perfect.’
I notice she’s looking me up and down a little too quickly, in that way people have taken to doing of late.
‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ she says, shifting to adjust the weight on her high heels. ‘You were one of Adrianna Kensington’s bridesmaids.’
She’s taking in my pastel blue hair, and toned-down eye make-up with renewed interest now. Like she can’t quite marry my appearance with Adrianna’s photoshoot perfection.
After the wedding was called off, Adrianna’s sponsor pulled out, but she and Georgia worked around the clock on an alternative PR campaign for the aborted wedding.
They left enough gaps to let the press fill in the blanks.
The speculation stories ran, that Silky Eversfield died on the island, and Leopold shot his mistress, before vanishing.
The day it went to press, the Kensington nightclubs all over the world sold a year’s advance tickets overnight.
‘What did I tell you, Holly?’ smiled Adrianna, in response to my open disbelief.
‘Silky had four million followers. Her death got so many clicks it almost broke the internet. And she was exactly on brand. Glamorous, sexy, and drug-fuelled. The perfect snapshot of what people can expect when they visit a Kensington Club.’
The joke was on me, since I’d agreed to pose for bridesmaid pictures, thinking no one would want to run them. But I guess I didn’t mind so much. And it benefitted me in the end.
‘I saw you in the National Enquirer,’ adds the realtor, referencing the picture that became the most famous. Georgia’s unerring intuition for publicity meant she released just the right images to grab worldwide attention.
Adrianna in the tatters of her gown, make-up running down her face, Petra with a bloom of blood on the chest of her magenta bridesmaid dress. Georgia and I helping them both back to Fortune House.
Ophelia is out of shot, since she took the picture. Since the wedding, she has decided to cut back her involvement with Adrianna’s life. I wonder if the spell was finally broken when she processed the depths the Kensingtons would go to for publicity.
‘I was also in New York Magazine for my forensic work,’ I tell the realtor, smiling, ‘but no one seems to remember me for that anymore.’
She smiles. ‘I thought you’d be like the rest of the uptight Kensington entourage,’ she confesses. ‘It’s like they speak another language.’
I nod. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Took me a while to get my head around that too. I guess you could say I’m a little more bilingual, nowadays.’
I look around my new office. The pay-checks I collected from post-Elysium cases paid the rental on this office for two whole years in advance, with enough left over to put down the security on my very own apartment.
Nothing fancy, but it’s good to have a place to store all my dungeon gaming cards and arrange my candles.
The realtor is leaving as the door opens, and Fitzwilliam puffs in, looking out of breath and flustered. He has my computer screen tucked under his arm.
‘Oh, hey!’ he smiles in relief. ‘Thought I’d got the wrong office.’ He looks around, taking in the view. ‘Nice.’
He crosses the room, and kisses me on the cheek, before depositing my screen on the desk.
‘Not bad, huh?’ I say. ‘For someone who was raised in a walk-up on the Lower East.’
‘Just be careful you don’t turn into Leopold Kensington,’ says Fitzwilliam. He sounds like he is only half joking.
‘On the subject of Leopold Kensington,’ I say. ‘Adrianna wants to hire me to look into his disappearance. The forensic part, at least.’
Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows rise at comical speed. ‘His disappearance? The guy took a bullet right through his abdomen.’
‘True. His body was never found,’ I point out. ‘And he was a tricksy guy. Possible he set the whole location up so he could disappear if he needed to. It’s not impossible.’
‘Does this mean you’ll be looking into the Kensington family?’ Fitzwilliam looks unhappy at the thought. He reluctantly dropped the case of attempted murder against Adrianna and Ophelia when Petra refused to press charges.
‘Lot of skeletons in the closet, right?’ I nod. ‘I’ll need an assistant,’ I add.
He sighs. ‘I guess I have some vacation coming up. You sure you want to take this assignment?’
I nod. ‘Absolutely,’ I tell him. ‘Like Adrianna says, I’m part of the family now.’