“Make me!” Carlotta replies with the maturity of a toddler having a sugar rush.
“Oh my goodness,” Gina breathes, staring upward in fascination. “Is she really going to?—”
Carlotta grabs the chain of the nearest chandelier and swings across the ballroom with a war cry that would make Tarzan proud. Crystals rain down on the crowd like expensive confetti, security guards scramble to get out of her path, and the crowd below erupts in a mixture of screams and applause.
“Carlotta certainly knows how to make an entrance,” Lenny grouses dryly. “And an exit.”
Unfortunately for me, Carlotta’s trajectory is aimed directly at where Gina and I are standing. Of course, I realize this approximately two seconds before impact, which gives me just enough time to gasp before her foot connects squarely with my left eye.
The world explodes in stars and pain, and I find myself flat on my back staring up at the chandelier Carlotta just flew from.
My eye feels like it just got acquainted with a freight train. We’re not friends.
“Lottie,” Gina shouts, dropping to her knees beside me. “Are you all right?”
“Define all right,” I mumble, trying to focus my vision while my eye throbs with the intensity of a disco beat.
I look up in time to see Carlotta land in the chocolate fountain with a splash that coats half the remaining guests in premium Belgian cocoa.
“And there she goes,” I mutter. Honestly, I had no doubt it wouldn’t end this way.
She emerges from the fountain looking like she’s been dipped in chocolate and rolled in chaos, grinning from ear to ear.
“I’ve just had the time of my life,” she bellows to the room while shaking the chocolate off of her as if she were a wet dog.
Security converges on the chocolate fountain while Naomi demands lifetime bans and threatens to call the police. Gina helps me sit up, offering me a napkin filled with ice from someone’s abandoned cocktail.
“I’m so sorry about this,” I tell her, pressing the makeshift ice pack to my rapidly swelling eye. “She doesn’t usually swing from chandeliers at formal events.”
“Usually?” Gina laughs despite the chaos. “Lottie, this is the most entertaining chocolate symposium we’ve ever hosted. Though I do think we should get you to a doctor about that eye.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assure her, though my eyelid is already swelling shut. “But I should probably extract that chocolate-covered nuisance before she causes an international incident.” She helps me up, and I stagger my way over to the candy-coated menace. “Come on,” I say, trying my best to get ahold of Carlotta’s arm and slathering myself in chocolate in the process. “Let’s head to the B&B and get the kids.” And maybe a raw steak to slap on my face.
No sooner do Carlotta and I get tossed out of the Evergreen Manor on our chocolate-covered ears than I get a text from Meg.
Just a heads-up. Your two husbands just walked into Red Satin together. Looks like they’re about to do some male bonding the old-fashioned way. With strippers.
I look at Carlotta and growl. “There’s been a change of plans.”
Because nothing derails a peaceful afternoon like husbands behaving badly.
LOTTIE
As soon as we left Evergreen Manor, we hightailed it to Red Satin Gentlemen’s Club.
Red Satin is located in Leeds, the seedy town just below Honey Hollow, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m more than familiar with just about every dirty nook and cranny.
The gentlemen’s club is pumping tonight. The music is loud enough to bust every eardrum from here to Maine, it’s dimly lit inside, holds the scent of cheap cologne, stale beer, and the lingering aroma of whatever passes for gourmet food in establishments where clothing is considered optional. The air is thick with cigarette smoke that clings to everything despite Vermont’s smoking laws, and the sound of pulsing music mixed with male laughter creates an atmosphere that screamsregrets in the making.
The entire place is decorated in varying shades of red—red carpet, red velvet walls, red leather chairs, and enough red lighting to make everyone look like they’ve either been hitting the bottle hard or have developed some kind of exotic rash. Flashing spotlights sweep across the room in patterns that are threatening to give me a migraine, and prancing about on that extended runway of a stage are about a dozen half-dressed beauties. Those girls really do work hard for the money.
I scan the dimly lit room, our chocolate-covered appearance garnering stares from patrons who probably thought they’d seen everything. And then I spot them—Noah and Everett sitting at a corner table, both looking far too bored and just a touch angry to be sitting in the middle of all these wiggling jiggling body parts. That alone lets me know they’re here on business.
And just as I suspected, they’ve got company.
Luke Lazzari sits across from them, and next to him is Jimmy Canelli—two men I know well from previous murder investigations that somehow always seem to involve Vermont’s surprisingly active organized crime scene. Luke and Jimmy are supposedly warring crime bosses, but they’re sharing nachos and yucking it up together, which suggests their rivalry might be more of a professional courtesy than an actual blood feud.
“Oh my word,” I mutter. “This night just keeps getting more and more ridiculous.”
