A Blush With Death Read online

  Red in the face

  Nancy Louis was outraged. “You torture innocent animals in your research labs, and all in the name of vanity. And look at you—you’re wearing dead minks on your back—in August! That’s sheer human ego! Do you know how many animals died just to feed your vanity—”

  “Enough!” Bebe leaned down until her face was inches from Nancy’s. Her voice echoed through the room. “I guarantee you, I’ll be filing for a restraining order this afternoon, and if you break that order, I’ll haul your ass into court so fast you won’t be able to spit, little girl.”

  As security made their way into the room, Nancy yelled out what sounded like a war cry. In unison, she and her friends reached into their pockets and came out with what I thought were guns. Oh my God, were they going to massacre Bebe’s Belles?

  Security moved in, but they weren’t fast enough. Within seconds, I heard a loud noise, and the Belles at the table screamed as a spray of red hit the air…

  A BLUSH

  with

  DEATH

  A BATH AND BODY MYSTERY

  India Ink

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  A BLUSH WITH DEATH

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / May 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Yasmine Galenorn.

  Cover art by Griesbach & Martucci.

  Cover design by Annette Fiore.

  Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-64508-6

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  To Tiffany, my dear friend and shoe maven,

  who understands my obsession with all things girly.

  Acknowledgments

  Forever and always, my eternal thanks and love to Samwise, loving and faithful friend and husband, and the best cheerleader I could have. And a fuzzy thank-you to my four riot gurlz, who purr me to sleep, meow me awake, and generally make life livable.

  Thank-yous go out to: my agent, Meredith Bernstein; my editor, Christine Zika; and so many of my dear friends. And for this series, a nod and a thank-you to Aphrodite and Venus, goddesses of both inner and outer beauty. As always, to Mielikki, Tapio, Rauni, and Ukko.

  To my readers: As always, thank you for buying my books, and I hope you enjoy this one. Even though I write this series under a nom de plume, India Ink is just another mask of mine. You can reach me via my Web site: www.galenorn.com.

  If you write to me via snail mail, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope for reply. Thank you.

  The Painted Panther

  Yasmine Galenorn aka India Ink

  Foreword

  The recipes in this book are my own concoctions. I’ve spent many years blending magical oils, and here I give you—perhaps not magical recipes—but ones to heighten your senses, to bring new experiences into your lives.

  Essential oils can be expensive, so yes, you may use synthetics if you can’t afford the pure ones, but bear in mind that the fragrance may end up differing slightly. However, this should not be a significant problem. Also, some oils may irritate the skin, so if I make a note to the effect of Do not get on your skin, I mean it. Cinnamon can irritate the skin. Black pepper and other oils can burn delicate tissue.

  The oil and other bath recipes are obviously not for consumption, but I am stating it here to clear up any potential miscommunications: Don’t eat them or drink them. They’re meant to be used as fragrances, for dreaming pillows, sachets, potpourris, and the like.

  “Opportunity makes a thief.”

  —Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Prologue

  M y name is Persia Vanderbilt, and I bill myself as a sensory specialist. I blend custom fragrances at Venus Envy and generally help my aunt Florence run the shop.

  Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve understood the subtle language of flowers and their scents. I can feel them talking, whispering, growing, can sense which essence might help lift depression or heighten self-esteem, and I use my talents to blend oils that bring these qualities to the surface. With my heightened sense of smell, I fine-tune each fragrance until it’s just right. It’s a far cry from professional perfumery, but I consider it an art in its own right.

  In addition to working for Venus Envy, I oversee our gardens at Moss Rose Cottage, the thirty-acre estate and three-story, hundred-year-old Victorian mansion my aunt bought when I turned ten. With hydrangea gardens and lilac groves and bluebell thickets, with rose gardens and wildflower glades, Moss Rose Cottage is a veritable faerieland of flowers and paths.

  A few months after I turned sixteen and graduated from high school, I left the thriving little community of Gull Harbor on Port Samanish Island for the big-city lights of Seattle. I gave the cit
y fifteen years of my life and loved most of it until late last year when I went through a bad breakup with my long-term boyfriend Elliot, who turned out to be an embezzler, and after my job at the Alternative Life Center went belly-up. Discouraged and afraid Elliot’s thug friends might come after me to pay him back for turning state’s evidence, I called Auntie, who opened her arms and her home to me. And so I returned to island life. Now, both adults, Auntie and I’ve become friends as well as family.

  Along with my custom blends, Venus Envy sells several lines of lotions, bath salts, oils, bulk herbs, crystals, scarves, and handmade jewelry from local artists. Aunt Florence offers facials, pedicures, manicures, and skin consultations by appointment.

  The shop is thriving—a real success. Or rather, it was until Bebe’s Boutique moved in a couple months ago. Bebe Wilcox is out to become the number-one beauty maven in town, and her concerted effort to force us out of business is having an effect on the books. A bad effect. And neither Auntie nor I are sure just what we’re going to do.

  Chapter One

  T he BookWich was hopping, every table jammed with summer tourists looking for a little local flavor. I spied Barbara in a back booth and maneuvered my way through the crowded café, skirting the waitresses as they scurried back and forth from the kitchen carrying platters of fish and chips, sandwiches, burgers, and a plethora of other goodies whose smells made my stomach rumble.

  Barbara had sounded frantic on the phone when she called, begging me to meet her for lunch. The hint of panic in her voice had spurred me to cancel one of my appointments. If Barb was in trouble, I wanted to be there. As I slid into the booth, I immediately saw what her problem was. Barb had been the victim of a cut-and-run, and the results weren’t pretty.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I blurted out. “Nightmare on Scissors Street?”

  Barbara Konstantinos, my best friend, was exceptionally pretty and petite. Standing next to her, I felt like the Jolly Green Giant because Barb barely topped five feet and wouldn’t rock the scales at one hundred pounds unless she had just finished a seven course meal. I, on the other hand, stood five ten and weighed one fifty. Granted, I was lean and muscled, but still, I towered over her. Whether in her baker’s uniform or a slip dress, Barb was one of those women who always looked pulled together and ready to go. Her copper-colored bob exquisitely grazed her chin, with not a hair out of place. Or it had, until today.

  Her sassy European cut had been butchered into short, jagged spikes, the color transformed into a brash calico of brassy reds and tarnished blondes. To make matters worse, the hairdresser hadn’t even bothered to try to create an interesting pattern—say, tiger stripes, for example. No, instead, blotchy patches dappled her hair, making her look like she had a bizarre case of ringworm.

  My face must have belied my feelings, because she moaned and rubbed her temples. “Oh, God, Persia. It’s bad, isn’t it? I knew it! When they told me it was hip and cutting-edge, I knew they were bullshitting me.” She grimaced, and I could tell a migraine was incoming. Barb’s brow was pinched in that particular way that she had a few hours before the blinding headaches struck. I winced, wishing there was something she could do about them.

  “Who did this to you?” I asked, unable to tear my gaze away from the train wreck that passed for her hair.

  She fidgeted with her napkin. “I tried a new stylist,” she mumbled. Then, tears springing to her eyes, she said, “Please don’t yell at me for going there! Venus Envy doesn’t cut hair, and I wanted to try something new, so I dropped in there on an impulse, but I didn’t buy anything except the haircut. I really thought everything would be okay.”

  My aunt’s shop, Venus Envy, catered to Gull Harbor’s yuppie set with herbal facials and soothing pedicures and manicures, as well as being one of the best-stocked bath and beauty shops in the county, but we didn’t offer haircuts, massages, or steam baths.

  “Why on earth do you think I’m going to yell at you?” But even as I spoke, I flashed on why she thought I might be mad at her. There was only one place in town she could have gone that would piss me off. “Okay, spill it. You went to Bebe’s, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, shamefaced. “Yes, I went to Bebe’s Boutique,” she whispered.

  Nailed, right on the head. I sighed. “Barb, you do know they’re trying to run us out of business, don’t you? I can’t believe you still went there. What kind of friend are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize things were that bad with Venus Envy.”

  She looked so contrite that I relented. She’d paid dearly for her indiscretion with that hideous haircut. I picked up one of the breadsticks and bit off the end. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. Don’t worry. Your hair will grow fast, and you can have it dyed back to normal. Until then, maybe Auntie will let your borrow her hat.” That cajoled a smile from her. She knew what Auntie’s hat looked like. Everybody in town knew the fuchsia wonder my aunt wore, with the stuffed bird perched on the side—a real stuffed bird.

  Though I managed to remain calm on the outside, inside I was fuming. When Bebe’s Boutique had opened up on the other side of town a few months ago, it was soon apparent that they were hell-bent on putting us out of business. But their products were inferior, their sales techniques annoying, and their ethics nonexistent. They were aiming at regional domination, and we were their first target.

  I’d heard through the grapevine that they were trying some pretty underhanded tactics to steal our business, such as telling people we used synthetic ingredients when we actually used as many natural products as possible, and a particularly onerous accusation—that my aunt didn’t keep Venus Envy’s day spa up to Gull Harbor’s health code regulations. We could prove that one wrong, but who was going to bother to go down to City Hall to find out?

  “What did they say when you complained?”

  Barb squirmed a little, looking miserable. “The girl told me it was edgy…hip…. I wanted to believe her because I couldn’t believe she’d butcher my hair on purpose. So I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t say anything. Good God, they really tried to convince you that style is the hottest trend? Have they seen a copy of Vogue lately?”

  She blushed. “I feel so stupid. I’m ashamed to say that I actually paid them. I should have argued, but the stylist was so young…I didn’t…”

  Barb’s self-esteem had been on the chopping block the past few months. She was forty-one and convinced she was losing her edge, which she wasn’t. But I could easily see her paying without complaint in a desperate attempt to keep some snot-nosed young punk from thinking she was old-fashioned and stodgy.

  I held up my hand. “We all make mistakes. You were probably in so much shock from what they did to you that you weren’t thinking straight.” I had a nasty feeling that Barb had paid through the nose for that cut. The words “edgy” and “hip” guaranteed a high price tag in the worlds of fashion and cosmetics. But I wasn’t about to put her on the spot by asking. “So, make an appointment with your regular stylist and get it dyed back to your normal color.”

  “I can’t.” Barb bit her lip and stared at the table. “Not for a week or so. I already consulted her and, fashion emergency or not, she’s booked solid. I know she’s pissed that I went somewhere else. I don’t blame her.”

  Oops. Never good to make your hair stylist angry. “What did she say? Did she yell at you?”

  “Not really, but she read me the riot act about going someplace else without finding out about their reputation first. I feel like a world-class heel. Anyway, after she was done lecturing me about fly-by-night operations, as she called them, she took a look at my hair and said that it’s going to be awhile before it’s back to normal. That little tart fried it, and the damage is pretty bad.”

  “So you’re stuck?” I cringed, hoping she wouldn’t have to live with the cut and color for much longer. Barb was meticulous about her appearance, and there’s no way she could turn that mess into “classy.”r />
  “Not only do we have to re-dye it, but Theresa wants to cut it super short in order to allow the new growth to come in without frizzled ends. I can’t believe I have to go out in public looking like this for over a week and then spend several months sporting a buzz cut!” She let out what was either a sob or a laugh, or possibly both.

  “That must have been some powerful bleach.” I shuddered, fingering my own waist-length braid. Thick and jet black, my hair was naturally wavy. I’d been blessed with good genes. Not a gray hair yet, and I was thirty-one. “Well, hell. I guess we’ll have to keep you stocked with turbans for a few months.”

  “That about sums it up.” She shrugged. “I deserve it, though, for sneaking around behind your back. And Theresa’s. Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never darken their door again, and I’m going to tell everybody just what they did to me.”

  Tilda dropped off our menus. “Sorry we’re slow on the uptake today, girls,” she said. “The place is so packed that we can’t keep up with the rush.” She did a double take when she saw Barb’s hair but wisely kept silent.

  I picked up my menu. Aunt Florence was supposed to meet us with some sort of news, but I was hungry and ready to order.

  As if reading my mind, Barb said, “Let’s talk about something else. You said your aunt is joining us?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, she’s got something up her sleeve. I can always tell. So, how’s Dorian?” It seemed like ages since we’d gotten a chance to sit down and dish. Barb and I worked in adjoining shops, but the summer tourist rush had left us both scrambling for a moment to breathe, and we hadn’t had time to duck out for a quick lunch in days.