Free The Proof is in the Pudding by Melinda Wells Page B

circle of blood.

10

    Roland Gray was first to recover from the shock that had momentarily frozen the rest of us. He bounded forward, grabbed Ingram’s shoulder to turn him over onto his back—and was hit in the chest by spurting blood.
    The stench hit my nostrils and I nearly gagged. I hadn’t known that fresh blood had such a sickeningly sweet, metallic smell.
    Then I realized that blood pumping meant a heart still beating. I grabbed a roll of paper towels from the counter beside Roland Gray’s stove and dropped to my knees, hoping to stem the bleeding, but rough hands wrenched me away. I dropped the roll as two of the safety officers took over, trying to save Ingram.
    It was a hopeless task. I’d known it was, even as I’d tried to stop his bleeding. Keith Ingram had been stabbed in the throat, and the wound was a gaping well of flesh and muscle.
    Ingram wasn’t going to be able to blackmail Eileen, but I couldn’t forget that the video he’d made was an unexploded bomb that would go off if the wrong person found it.
    Roland Gray interrupted my thoughts. He had been trying to dry his shirt and jacket with another roll of paper towels, and offered a fat wad of the sheets to me.
    I looked at him, puzzled.
    “Your dress,” he said.
    Dress? I looked down and gasped. “Oh, Lord!” The front of my peach chiffon gown—my borrowed designer creation—was soaked with Ingram’s blood.
    Did I have enough money to pay for destroying an original Jorge Allesandro? If Phil Logan didn’t kill me, that designer might.
    Eugene Long claimed my attention by appearing with a portable microphone in his hand and taking control of the room.
    “All right, everyone. Please, stay calm.” The babble of whispering voices quieted as everyone focused on Long.
    “Mike, call the police,” Long said to the nearest security officer, who obeyed his boss. At Long’s raised hand signal, the security man at the entrance to the ballroom moved swiftly to close the doors and stand in front of them.
    Long said to his captive audience, “I’m afraid that we’ll all have to remain here until the police arrive, but please move back toward the walls to keep this area around the . . . around this tragic situation clear. For those of you who are uncomfortable standing for some length of time, I’ll have the waitstaff bring in chairs.”
    Before I could move away, Tina Long pushed her way through the crowd with such force that she almost fell over Ingram’s body. Looking down at him, she started to shriek.
    Shoving his microphone under one arm, Long embraced his daughter. With her face pressed against his chest, she stopped screaming, but I could see her shoulders shaking.
    “Baby doll, calm down,” Long said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
    How is everything going to be all right? I wondered where Long kept his crystal ball.
    Tina babbled something unintelligible and started sobbing and gulping for air.
    Yvette Dupree stepped forward, stretched her arms out, and said to the girl. “ Ma cherie , come.”
    With a nod of assent, Eugene Long guided his hysterical daughter into Yvette’s arms.
    “Go through the kitchen and take her to my suite,” he said. “Give her some brandy and make her lie down.”
    When Long had introduced Yvette, he’d referred to her as his “dear friend.” Apparently, that wasn’t just show business- speak. It was clear to me from the scene I was witnessing that Eugene Long and Yvette Dupree were, at the least, close friends. Tina must know her, too, because she allowed herself to be transferred from her father to the French woman without complaint. And I noticed Yvette didn’t ask the location of Long’s suite as she hurried Tina toward the kitchen doors.
    Someone in the crowd yelled, “Hey! How come they can leave and we’re stuck in here?” The voice came from a portly man whose red-veined face suggested that he drank too much port.
    Long glared at him. “My daughter is ill.” His tone,