I was finding it easy to concentrate on what the celebrity cooks were doing, because the mobile audience was behaving respectfully. Even though they were drinking as they wandered through the room, they were as polite as spectators at a golf match. Their whispered comments to each other made a soft background rustle, like the sound of a breeze ruffling leaves.

High-pitched laughter from across the rows of kitchens startled me. I looked up to see a woman emitting “Oh! Oh! Ohhhh!” noises of excitement as she and others stared in awe at new antics of Wolf Wheeler. Other voices called out, “Higher. Higher!” and “That’s impossible!” as Wheeler juggled wine glasses-tossing them high in the air, catching them in front of him and behind his back and then tossing them again.

All over the ballroom, people were turning to focus on Wolf Wheeler’s amazing juggling act. The clamor level rose with shouted comments of encouragement, interspersed with sharp intakes of breath.

I was watching, too, when a drop of something very hot struck the back of my hand. I yelped in pain, but before I could find out what it was, suddenly my side of the room was enveloped in thick, acrid smoke.

A man’s voice yelled, “Fire!” In that instant, the scene in the ballroom changed from convivial to chaos. People screamed and coughed, and shouted.

Someone’s elbow struck a sharp blow to my diaphragm. It sent me reeling backward and against a stove. Suddenly feeling heat, the self-preservation instinct kicked in. I wrenched myself away from a stovetop flame just in time to avoid being burned. Turned around, disoriented, I had no idea which way to go toward safety.

Ceiling smoke detectors began to shriek.

Blinded by the smoke, I collided with a man. He grunted, then grabbed my arm and pulled us both down to our knees. I was too surprised to struggle as he pushed me under a preparation counter.

With my face forced close to the floor, I could breathe a little better because the smoke began to rise. The shelter of the counter kept us from being hit or trampled by the terrified crowd.

Heavy footsteps pounded into the ballroom. I recognized shouted orders from firemen, and heard the sound of powerful blowers being activated.

It didn’t take more than two or three minutes for the smoke to dissipate. The smarting in my eyes eased. With a few blinks, my vision began to clear and I looked up. One mystery-how firemen had arrived on the scene so quickly-was solved when I saw that the men who’d come to our rescue weren’t regular city firemen. Yellow patches on their green jackets identified them as the hotel’s private fire safety officers.

I heard one of the officers swear. “Jesus H. P. Christ-it was just a smoke bomb!”

The man who had been sheltering me helped me to stand. It was Roland Gray.

“Thank you,” I said.

“As I rule, I don’t pounce on a woman until a month of dinners have been shared,” he said in his charming British accent. “Ah, well. Ms. Carmichael, when you’re calculating your decision about tonight’s prize, I do hope you will take into consideration the fact that I thought I was trying to save your life.”

Smiling, I indicated my clipboard. “Sorry, but saving my life isn’t one of the judging criteria.”

Suddenly, his nose wrinkled with distaste. “Oh, no!” He hurried toward his stove. I followed, and saw immediately what had happened. During the excitement the burner under his lemon pudding had been left on. The pudding had boiled over, sending a thick, yellow river erupting over the pot and flowing down the side of the stove.

Gray shook his head. “My delectable dessert is DOA.”

Behind us, a woman screamed.

I whirled to see Yvette Dupree, eyes bulging, her arms crossed against the clipboard she pressed tight against her chest.

She was staring at the crumpled body of Keith Ingram, who lay facedown in a widening 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.