“Angelo? He was the fiancé?”
“Uh-huh. He swore Rayna got him drunk and he barely even remembered screwing her. What a mess, right?”
“You think that’s true? That he was drunk?”
“For sure, for sure. Rayna manipulated everyone in the office, so why not at home too?”
“When you say ‘everyone,’ are you including Marielle?”
“She had that poor girl wrapped around her little finger. Pretending to be her friend, taking advantage of her grief.”
One of the few posts on Marielle’s BuzzHub account showed a single candle flickering against a black background, but there had been no accompanying explanation, not even a hint. Her parents had died in an automobile wreck when she was thirteen, and an aunt raised her before she popped her clogs too, but the candle post was more recent—a year and a half before she disappeared.
“Her grief?” Ari asked.
“Daphne died. Her best friend. Marielle lost her parents when she was young, and when I first met her, she was close to two people—Daphne and Angelo. Daphne got into trouble swimming off the beach, and when they found the body, Mari fell apart. Rayna had just started working at Ivory and Ink, and she seemed nice. Understanding, you know? But it’s all an act. The first thing she did was sleep with a senior partner so he couldn’t fire her—because then she’d tell his wife—and that really set the tone for her whole employment.”
“She sounds like a real piece of work.”
“Oh yeah. After the Marielle thing, they fired her anyway, and now Paul’s getting a divorce. Give your client a piece of advice, okay? Tell her to fire Rayna’s ass and then take cover.”
“I would, but she left town.”
“Your client left town?”
“No, Rayna did. The client’s boyfriend already terminated their contract after she kicked his dog, and we’re pretty sure she set fire to the cottage she was renovating because it burned halfway to the ground the day after. The cops are looking for her. But here’s the thing—while she was here, she was calling herself Marielle Marten.”
“That low-down dirty liar. Mari’s worth ten of her.”
“I’m beginning to get that impression. Anyhow, we got to wondering, where’s the real Marielle?”
“South America.”
“South America? You know that for sure?”
“That’s where she said she was going. She had some money from her parents—what Rayna didn’t manage to con out of her, at any rate—and she said she needed to get away from New York. She signed up with one of those volunteer programs to work in a school.”
My first reaction? Relief. My second? Suspicion, because her bank account hadn’t been touched, and if a girl took off on the trip of a lifetime, wouldn’t she document at least the highlights online? If for no other reason than to stick it to the people she’d left behind?
Ari was in tune with my thought process. Another thing I liked about her. “Did you hear from Mari since she set off?”
“No, I never did.”
“How about anyone else in the office?”
“Not that they mentioned. You want me to ask around?” A pause. “You think something happened to Marielle?”
“Rayna sounds like an opportunist, but we want to track down Marielle, just to check she’s okay.”
“You should call Angelo. It’s true they split up, but I always thought that once Mari had time to mull things over, she might realise that Rayna was the problem there. She probably drugged him.”
“Do you think Rayna would go that far?”
“If it got her what she wanted.”
“And what does she want?”
Ooh, ooh, I could answer that one. Attention. A narcissist craved attention, and faced with Rayna, a fragile soul like Marielle Marten stood no chance. Rayna would have befriended Marielle so her imaginary audience would see her as the hero, the caring individual who so selflessly tried to help out. But what she’d actually created was a power imbalance, with Marielle expected to provide a constant supply of gratitude and appreciation.
