dream of Tucker drowning. And I realized with a sickening stab of guilt that while I was enjoying amazing coffee in the luxury of an elegant bedroom, my good friend was alone and afraid in a Riker’s Island jail cell.
I threw off the covers and got out of bed. I was totally naked, and I felt Matt’s eyes on me as I darted around the room, dressing for the day. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have time to.
“Listen to me, Matt,” I said as I pulled on a pair of panties and hooked on a bra. I told him all about Lottie Harmon’s business arrangement with Tad Benedict and Rena Garcia, and about the intimate moment they’d shared together on the dark deck—a moment I had secretly witnessed from the shadows.
“Sounds like they’re desperate to sell,” said Matt, scratching his chin as he leaned back against the four-poster’s headboard and continued to sip his coffee. “And I doubt Lottie is in a position to buy them out.”
“Yes, but she obviously has no idea they’re selling.”
“It doesn’t matter. Together, Tad and Rena control exactly half the business and they can sell fifty percent of the stock if they want to. It’s their right, Clare.”
“Yes, but I’m sure they were trying to sell even more. Tad didn’t even blink when Madame said she wanted thirty percent. Instead, he pressed me to buy some, too.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Matt. “Why sell more stock than you own? You’re bound to get caught.”
I thought it over as I zipped up my jeans. “Selling more stock than you own was a great scam in The Producers. Do you remember that Mel Brooks movie?”
“I thought it was a play.”
“Only lately. It was a movie first—”
“A movie first?” said Matt. “I thought they made movies out of plays and not the other way around.”
I waved my hand as I jerked open one of the deep drawers of the mahogany dresser and rifled through my sweaters. “You’ve been out of the country too often. With the exception of Chicago and Phantom, it’s often the other way around now, which is why Tucker is always bemoaning the state of the American musical.”
“Anyway—”
“Sorry. Anyway, in The Producers the two crooks sell shares in a Broadway musical to dozens of investors, figuring on a flop, so they can secretly keep the extra capital. It would have worked, too, except the show was a hit and they get stuck owing lots of people lots of money.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“No. That’s it!” I cried. “And Tad’s plan can only work if Lottie’s line is a flop. With Lottie dead, it’s game over—no wonder he tried to kill her.”
“Clare, you are really getting carried away here,” said Matt, watching me button on a pale yellow sweater, a suggestive little smile on his lips. “You would have to be pretty desperate to do something like that.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said, striding back to the closet. “They both sounded desperate. Tad and Rena talked like they were in some kind of trouble and needed a lot of money fast.”
“What kind of trouble?”
I shook my head. “No clue.”
“Well, I have a different theory about Ricky Flatt’s poisoned latte—”
I gritted my teeth. “Not that stuff about Tucker being guilty again—”
“It’s Lebreaux.”
“Oh, Matt, come on. You’re just royally pissed at the guy.”
“No, listen. Lebreaux’s idea would be even more lucrative if he served both tea and coffee. And he has a vendetta against us, don’t forget. What if he hired someone to sabotage the Blend’s reputation by making it look as though our coffee was killing people?”
“I suppose you could be on to something,” I conceded. “But who did he hire—” I stopped dead in the middle of pulling on a low-heeled half-boot. “Violet Eyes,” I murmured.
“Who?” asked Matt.
“Violet Eyes,” I repeated. “There was an Asian girl with Lebreaux,” I explained. “She was tall and—”
“Had violet eyes. Long, straight, black hair, down to her hips. Legs that went on forever.”
I raised an eyebrow. Put a gorgeous girl in a room and Matteo Allegro would have her measurements calculated faster than an M.I.T. mathematics professor.
“She was at Lottie’s party,” I informed him as I finished pulling on my boots. “I greeted her at the door myself. And Esther and Moira said they saw her come up to the coffee bar in that critical window of time when Lottie’s latte must have been poisoned.”
“I’d call that pretty incriminating, Clare.”
“Unless it was just a coincidence. I mean…she