Kitty Kitty

  “Does that mean you have a plan?” Roxy asked.

  “Not exactly, but—”

  Embracing her role as president of the Up-with-Jas booster club, Alyson said, “I bet it’s something stupid-slash-boring that is going to get us shot at.”

  “These pep talks of yours are really uplifting,” I said. “Look, why don’t you all traipse back to the Grissini Palace and I’ll meet you there in a little while.”

  “Of course. We will definitely be leaving you to make your own way in the world. You’ve only been hit over the head once today,” Polly said.

  “Is this your sweet way of saying you can’t get enough of my company?”

  “Yes, and that we want you to stay alive longer, precious, so we can enjoy it. Where are we going?”

  I suddenly saw the fly in my brilliant ointment. “Oh, just this place,” I said in a casual tone.

  Polly stopped. “Tell me,” she said in a not-at-all-casual tone.

  I coughed. “Prada,” cough.

  Polly looked like I’d hit her. “Why do you want to go there? Don’t tell me they have a secret new line of push-up bras.”

  “They do?” Veronique said. “I haven’t even heard of them!”

  “It’s the last place Arabella mentioned going. I want to know who she talked to. No shopping, just asking questions.”

  Polly snorted.24 “Ha. You’ll have to buy some hideous logo-encrusted thing if you want them to tell you anything.”

  “Your positive attitude is like a rainbow in my humdrum day,” I told her. “Come on.”

  When we got to Prada, Polly did her best imitation of a Balkanese puppy, putting its foot down and saying it will Go No Further25 but I pacified her by promising to be out in three minutes. “You’ll see,” I said. “No mayhem or anything. You can wait here and observeo through the window.”

  Polly looked at her watch, crossed her arms, and said, “Go.”

  The Evil Henches accompanied me inside, if you can accompany someone at whom you hiss, “Stay away from us, Jas. You are totally tainting our Tabasco.” Nice nice nice. La la la. But even their charms did not harm my sunshiny demeanor. I beamed on everyone.

  Apparently beaming doesn’t make you look like a worthwhile customer, though. Either that, or I’d recently acquired a new superpower in being invisible to high-end salespeople. Each person I approached would say “I will be right back, madam” and flit off to help another customer. This gave me time to study the street life outside which consisted of:

  Polly tapping her foot

  A nun with a camera

  A mime

  Polly looking around in horror as a group of French schoolchildren swarmed around her

  Tom doing some kind of Swedish exercise to contort himself so Polly wouldn’t see him laughing

  Roxy staring at the mime

  An old man with a guidebook

  Polly glaring at Tom

  Roxy poking the mime

  A—

  “Yes, madam?” a saleswoman finally said. “How can I help you?”

  I pulled out the photo I’d taken from Arabella’s apartment. “This friend of mine was in here the other day. I’d like to know who she spoke to and what she asked about.”

  The saleswoman looked at me like I’d just fed her lemon slices pretending they were delicious gummi bears.

  “I’m afraid we cannot help, madam,” she said.

  “It’s really important,” I told her. “I only want to know what she was talking about.”

  “It is not our process to give out information about clients.”

  This was not going well. I decided to pull out the big guns. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Still, I cannot—”

  “There you are, Princess,” Polly’s voice said behind me.

  “Yes, we’ve been looking all over for you, Your Highness,” Tom said.

  I turned to stare at them, which wasn’t hard since they were both wearing BluBlocker glasses.

  Roxy, who’d been pretending not to be with them, came over and said, “Ohmygod, Princess! Ohmygod, I loved your last music video! Can I have a picture with you too?” She crowded next to me and took out her phone. “Smile,” she said as the flash went off. “Ohmygod, my friends at home in Utah are never going to believe this!”

  Suddenly it was like global warming inside Prada, and all the cold shoulders I’d been getting thawed like polar ice caps. One of the saleswomen pulled Polly aside, and I just heard the words “superfamous,” “disco queen,” and “father’s a total despot.”

  Well, at least one of those was true.

  The saleswoman I’d been talking to tapped me on the shoulder. “I beg Your Highness’s pardon. What did you wish to learn?”

  I showed her the picture again. “Who my friend talked to and what about.”

  She put on a pair of reading glasses to study the picture, then said, “May I?” and walked off with it.

  “Utah?” I asked Roxy.

  “They are crazy about royalty there.”

  Even if that made no sense, I had to admit that my friends were le superfantastic with the superfantastico icing. Because the saleswoman came back a minute later overflowing with information. “Your friend is inquiring about a former employee here, a girl called Maria Longhi. She was wishing to ask her some questions about her mother. But Maria has not worked with us for more than a year and no one knew her well. We told your friend to come back yesterday because one of our more experienced salesgirls, who did know Maria, is working that day, but your friend, she never returns.”

  Unless she spelled it some faerie way, Maria began with an M. As in Arabella’s note: FIND M. I tried not to let my excitement show. “Is the other salesgirl here now? Could I talk to her?”

  “I’m afraid she has left for vacation, Your Highness. How much longer will you be here? If you come back tomorrow, I might be able to know more. And perhaps we could arrange a private showing of our collection?”

  “Why don’t we just give you our number?” Polly said, pulling out a notebook and writing down her digits. “The Princess is horrified by the idea of visiting the same store twice.”

  “Of course,” the saleswoman said, like that made sense. “Then please accept this gift bag in thanks for your having visited our store. And my apologies for the wait. You know, we get all kinds in here.” She nodded toward Alyson and Veronique, who were fighting over a pair of shoes. “And one never knows who is a serious person.”

  I was liking Prada more and more. “I understand,” I told her regally, taking the gift bag. “Thank you for your help.”

  When we were on the street and had walked a little way from the store, Polly grabbed the gift bag from me. “Well, at least that’s over,” she said as though we’d just been saving orphans from a burning carny ride. She was holding the gift bag in front of her like closer contact might give her mites. “Let’s get out of here before—”

  That’s when three things struck my brain at once:

  1) Arabella had been trying to find Maria’s mother.

  2) Maria’s last name was Longhi, the same as the woman who had written the old articles about The House that Kills.

  3) The Prada gift bag.

  But only the last one knocked me to my knees when Polly hit me over the head with it.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Little Life Lesson 36: If you are thinking to yourself, “What can I do to spice up my day?” do not choose the Get Whacked Over the Head Twice option.

  For one thing, it hurts a lot. For another, it makes you kind of goofy. So that when the mists of pain clear and you hear your best friend saying, “Tom, did you see which way the shot came from?” you will say, “What shot?”

  And everyone will look at you with pity and concern.

  Except Polly, who will say in a voice that was a combination of terror and fury, “The one that went right by there,” while pointing to a place dangerously near your scalp.

  Hypothetically, I mean
.

  When I reached up to touch the place she’d pointed to, I could feel it was warm. “What happened?”

  “I saw something whizzing toward you so I knocked you out of the way,” Polly said. She turned to speak to someone behind her. “Tom and I are going after the shooter. You get her to cover,” and suddenly there were hands hauling me up and carrying me to an archway.

  Being hit over the head twice apparently also makes you delusional because when I looked up I could have sworn that Bobby Neal was carrying me on one side, and Max on the other. I smiled at them and the Delusions smiled back. On second thought, maybe being knocked out wasn’t so bad at all.

  As they set me down in a sheltered archway, DelusionMax bent down and said with a smile, “Really, Jasmine, you do not need to take such dramatic measures to get my attention.”

  Which, for some reason, caused me to start laughing uncontrollably. Everything that happened next just made me laugh harder. First, the warring looks of confusion-slash-concern for my well-being on Bobby’s face. Then him trying to shoot a ferocious glare at Max while demanding to know who the hell he was. Max smiling at him blandly and asking if he wished him to start with a list of his ancestors who had fought in the Crusades or no, perhaps it would be better to jump forward to the eighteenth century when—

  Bobby interrupted him. “That’s not what I meant.” Squinting, he added, “Do I know you?”

  “I have no way to say what is the width of your knowledge, Mr. Neal. But can any of us know anyone? Truthfully?”

  “You think you’re funny,” Bobby said.

  “Miss Callihan does,” Max pointed out.

  I’d moved from laughing to hiccupping, but I managed to pull myself together enough to realize that something else suspect had just occurred. “How did you know his name?” I hiccupped at Max.

  “Mr. Neal is very famous in the gossip magazines, no?” he answered.

  Not to be left out, Bobby pointed at Max and demanded, “How do you know this guy? Do you want me to tell him to get lost?”

  “It pains me but I must deny you this pleasure,” Max told Bobby. Then said to me, “I return to work. My gondola stand is right there if you need me.” He pointed to a bunch of gondolas kitty-corner from the arch I’d been planted in. “I am there always, and always at your disposal. You are certain that there is no dangerous injury?”

  “Thanks,” I said, “I’m certain.”

  “Very good. And while you are still deciding about whether you will allow me to take you out, please consider that in addition to juggling, I can also tie balloon animals. Ciao.”

  I was N.O.T. tempted to watch him go until I could no longer see his broad-shouldered back and perfectly sculpted arms. Instead I said to Bobby, “What are you doing here?”

  “I was looking for you. You said you were going to Prada. I called the hotel and they told me you were out, so…” His voice trailed off. “I wanted to apologize for what happened before. At Arabella’s. You’re right, I’m—not handling this well. I just have a lot on my plate.”

  “I understand.”

  “Thanks. Also, I talked to Beatrice. She was really upset, but when I told her you didn’t think Arabella killed herself, it kind of perked her up. She asked if you would come to the house tonight. After what just happened, though, I’m guessing the answer is no.”

  “Come to the house? You mean your father’s house? The House that Kills?”

  Bobby winced. “Nice. Thank you for that. But, yeah, that’s what I meant. There was supposed to be a big reception for this foundation my father funded but we canceled it. So it would just be us. And Lucien. Lucien Wilder.” He did that thing again where he paused like I was supposed to know who he was talking about.

  It sounded like something I might have once known before getting hit over the head twice, INCLUDING ONE TIME BY MY BEST FRIEND THANK YOU POLLY.

  I must have looked perplexed because he added, “Lucien Wilder, the designer. He was my father’s oldest friend. They used to chase girls together or something. He’s the one executing the will.”

  But what I was really hearing was: blah blah Arabella thought there was something about the history of the house or how it was constructed that explained how her father was killed, YES OF COURSE I WANT TO GO THERE.

  There was one tiny blot on the horizon of my excitement and it wasn’t having just been shot at. Mr. T scoffs at shooting. “I’d love to come,” I told Bobby, “but I have some friends visiting from California. There are six of us,” I said, realizing it would be futile not to include the Evil Henches since they seemed intent on forever polluting my immediate environment with themselves. “I don’t really want to leave them alone.”

  “No problem.” He pulled out his phone. “Let me call Beatrice and tell her.” He dialed, waited, then spoke into the phone. “Hi, Bea. Listen, Jasmine can make it tonight but—what?…No, I said she can make it. But she’s got a few friends with her…Five.” Not that I was listening. I just happened to be standing there.

  At that point, my pals rallied around me to show their Concern and Consideration, which interrupted my not-eavesdropping.26

  Bobby hung up and turned back to me. “All set. Bea will send the launch to pick you up at seven o’clock. Does that work?”

  “Totally.”

  “Great. Beatrice is really looking forward to meeting you. Well, see you later.”

  He’d only taken two steps when light was blotted out of the sky, the air was rent by a sound like the screaming of the souls of the damned, and the Evil Henches appeared from nowhere to throw themselves on him while screeching, “Reggie!”

  Well, okay, maybe only the last part really happened.

  “Reggie, you’re so naughty!” Alyson said, tapping him on the nose. “We’ve been waiting for you to text all day!”

  “You’re Reggie?” I said.

  “They started calling me that,” he told me through a cloud of Evil Hench hair. Then he said, “If it isn’t Gorgeous One and Gorgeous Two. What are you doing here?”

  “Hi, cuz,” I said.

  “You two know each other?” Bobby-slash-Reggie asked.

  Alyson said: “Barely.”

  I said, “She’s my cousin.”

  He said, “Outstanding. Then you’ll be at dinner tonight, too.”

  I was pretty sure the “too” in that sentence was Alyson, but she said, “Why does Jas have to come? Don’t you want us all to yourself?”

  I was totally interested in his reply but I didn’t get to find out. His phone rang and after the Hench Genies helped him get it out of his pocket (E to the WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW), he answered it. “Hi, Bea. What? No, I’m still…Okay, I get it, I have to go now. Bye.”

  “Do you have to Gulf Stream?” Alyson asked with a pout.

  “Fraid so,” he told the Evil Ones. “See you tonight at seven.” Then he said to me, “Bye, Jas.”

  “Bye, Bobby.”

  Veronique turned to ask me, “Why did you call him Bobby?”

  “Because that’s his name. Don’t you know who he is?”

  “Reggie,” Alyson said. “The guy we met at the airport.”

  “No, that’s Bobby Neal, Arabella’s brother.”

  “He told us his name was Reggie,” Veronique said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Alyson pretended to find something interesting in her cuticles. “Why would we forget?”

  “We sort of forgot,” Veronique reminded her. “You’re the one who said the Ouija board spelled out ‘Reggie.’”

  “Ouija board?” I asked, but of course was ignored.

  Alyson pointed a nail tip at Veronique. “You agreed.”

  “Not at first. I said, ‘Are you sure? It looks like “Ralph” and you said, “Yes, I’m positive.”

  “If you weren’t sure, you didn’t have to go along with it.”

  “But you—”

  Veronique had been nice to me recently, and it looked like she was in danger of losing an eye so I too
k Evasive Action. “If you didn’t know who he was, how did you know he was rich?” I asked.

  “We can just tell,” Alyson said.

  “And he had first-class tags on his luggage,” Veronique added.

  Alyson got a meditative expression on her face. “But you know, we were wrong. He’s not two commas, he’s three.”

  “You’re right! Everyone at school is going to go R-I-P when we tell them. And you-know-who is going to be so jeal—” Veronique stopped because Alyson had apparently discovered the patented Strangle with a Look technique so popular with the Evil Genius set and was using it on her.

  Then she turned Look-O-Death™ on me and said, “That was low-slash-lame even for you, Calamity.”

  “What? What did I do?”

  “We saw Bobby Neal first. I wish you’d get a life and stop trying to lead mine.”

  I gaped at her. Maybe not literally, but I was totally brain-gaping. Which is probably why I could not think of any of the 999,000 superdeluxe responses to what she said that I should have.

  Not that it would have mattered, because Polly appeared at my side then and said, “We have to get back to the hotel. We only have five hours until dinner and I have to do wardrobe.”

  As we marched back to the hotel, I couldn’t shake the idea that something about the way the Evil Henches had met Bobby didn’t add up, but I had no idea what it was.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Camilla the concierge stopped us as we were going through the lobby to tell me that Dadzilla and Sherri! and my aunt and uncle had gone to Padua, a town on the mainland, for dinner with a world-famous soapologist, and wouldn’t be back until late, leaving specific instructions I was to stay with my friends and cousin at all times, and did we need dinner reservations because she could recommend—