he were innocent, she would have complicated matters for him, but he should have enough evidence to defend himself with.
Later, over coffee in the kitchen, she filled Baby in on the meeting with Naylor. She seemed even more relieved than Kit.
“I got a peek at him, by the way. Now that’s what I call a Nordic god.”
Kit snorted. “Are you thinking that should be more my type than lying, scheming, redheaded men?”
“Just planting the seed.”
“Enough about me. How was your day?”
“Overall, things seem to be holding steady on the business front. Though I got a weird vibe from the Beekman Place woman I was shopping with this morning. She had a sourpuss look on her face all morning”
“You think she heard the news?”
“Possibly, though she could just have been having a bad hair day, knowing her. As for our hotel man, still not a peep from him. Who knows? He may be trapped in a tanning bed and unable to lift the lid off. Maybe it’s our duty to contact every Sun Tan City boutique and ask them to check.”
Kit tried to smile. She then took the moment to relate the contents of the email from Barry.
“Ouch,” Baby said. “Can you use all day tomorrow to just knock out a step-by-step plan for him?”
“Yes, but I’m stuck. I still don’t have a concept yet.”
“Maybe you’re overthinking it, trying to shoot for something totally original or cutting edge when it’s not really necessary. Go back to who he is and what he’s looking for. From what you said, he sounds like a man of fairly simple needs.”
“Right, good point. He’s a tax lawyer, and one of his buzz words for his fantasy place is masculine. Quote: ‘No teensy towels in the bathroom or candles in a bed of rocks on the coffee table.’ He wants it to be sophisticated enough to impress these new women he’s dating, but he also wants to feel relaxed there.”
She thought suddenly of Nat Naylor’s suit. “Maybe I should just go with a kind of lawyerlike vibe. Give his place a menswear feeling. I could do the sofa in a soft flannel pinstripe. Of course, it might be hard to tell where Barry ends and the sofa begins.”
Baby chuckled. “But I bet he’d love it. And the flannel keeps it easy and relaxed. Ralph Lauren makes a nice fabric for that, by the way. Navy Walker Pinstripe.”
“Or I could put plain gray flannel on the sofa and do the pillows in tie fabrics—like houndstooth or herringbone. That kind of thing has been done before, but as you say, he doesn’t need me to reinvent the wheel.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” Kit said grinning, “tell me if this is too over the top, but Farrow and Ball has a red paint they call Blazer, based on a Cambridge University jacket. I could do the entranceway in that color.”
“Love it!”
Kit started to rise, anxious to start fleshing out the concept, but Baby reached out and touched her arm, indicating she should stay.
“There’s one other thing I need to mention. While your lawyer was here, I heard from Bianca, our PR guru, and she had some disconcerting news to share.”
“Is somebody doing a big story?”
“Possibly. Interest has spiked since the police announced that they’re considering Avery’s death a homicide, and Bianca thinks reporters will start digging. It could end up being covered in a place like New York magazine, and then we’ll be front and center.”
Kit shook her head in dismay.
“But the really troubling news is a tidbit she learned from the police. Bianca managed to cozy up to one of them—trust me, the woman’s got major-league tits and she knows how to use them—and the guy dropped hints that Avery wasn’t just pushed. The person who shoved her down the stairs finished the job, as they say.”
“How?” Kit asked.
“He implied that her neck had been snapped.”
Kit fought the sickening image, but it took hold in her mind anyway, two hands twisting hard around Avery’s neck. Her client had died because of her, and the person who’d done it was still out there. Please, she thought, desperately, let Monday make a difference.
She went to bed early that night and woke just before six. It was pouring out, the rain thrashing against the windows from the wind. Despite how inclement the weather was, she hated the idea of being cooped up inside all weekend.
Midday Saturday Naylor called.
“I talked to a couple of colleagues and everyone agrees that the best course is to go straight