by Tessa Vidal
One day, I was going to get busted. But today was not that day. The clock was ticking, but time hadn't run out yet.
With any luck, I'd be able to arrange my publicity so I came out as Malory Maine on my own terms.
Not on theirs.
I touched my collarbone. The agate felt cool against my fingers.
If I played my cards right, if I went through Special Agent Rales, I could learn everything the FBI knew about the case. My celebrity status had already dazzled her SAC. This was a risk, a big one, but Patsee's case had given me an opening that wouldn't come again. Veronica didn't know it yet, but we were about to be spending a lot more quality time together.
Young girls had been taking the fall for somebody else's crimes for years. The person who set up Patsee was probably the same person who set up Malory Maine. And I was going to prove it.
The driver had a light hand on the wheel, and he took care to signal his intentions even if it was only to change a lane. I glanced out the window. We still had our little string of followers. Everything was still going according to plan.
“Veronica, you've been in federal court for pretty much three days' straight, so I'm not surprised you're unaware of the FBI's biggest problem with this case.”
“It's Ronnie.” She too spared a glance out the window, although she seemed less pleased with her driver's skills. “But you can keep calling me Special Agent Rales.”
Controlling the blush response when you're a natural redhead is one of the most difficult things an actor can do. Right now, I didn't bother. Anger was a natural response. “Are you for real right now?”
“I am most definitely for real. I am not an actor, Ms. Stanton. I have a real job.”
“You have a real publicity shit storm. You can't take five minutes out of your busy day to look at Instagram?”
That surprised a laugh out of her. “Instagram? What's next, Twitter?”
Time to whip out my phone. “This has been a trending hashtag for the last three days, peaking yesterday afternoon and again this morning.” When I thrust the screen at her face, she had to lean back to focus. “I do hope a big important FBI special agent such as yourself knows what a trending hashtag is. Look. Hashtag WhereIsYukonDog. Hashtag YukonDogMissing. Hashtag CrueltyToAnimals.”
She took the phone out of my hand to frown at the screen. “The hell is this? The FBI does not lose evidence. The FBI sure the hell doesn't lose entire fucking dogs. Do you know the amount of money the federal government spent arranging for rehab in that football player's dogfighting case?”
I had no idea, and twenty-six-year-old Clarissa Stanton probably wouldn't even know what football player Veronica― Ronnie― was talking about. “All I know is that Instagram is going crazy. The biggest theory holds you already sold the dog off at some cheesy government auction. Tibetan Mastiffs can be trained as fighters. People are saying a drug cartel has him now. Some people are saying there's a YouTube showing him mauling a guy during a big coke sale.”
“The FBI has no obligation to respond to conspiracy theory crap. Much less faked YouTube bullshit.”
Our driver signaled and began to slow dance toward the far right lane.
“Woody?” she asked. “What the hell? This isn't our exit.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am. Orders.”
Chapter Three
Ronnie
I'd been sandbagged. And everybody involved had a metric fuck-ton of explaining to do. “Somebody needs to tell me what the hell is going on.” My face felt hot, and I wouldn't have been surprised to find steam coming out of my ears.
On top of everything else, my phone took that moment to sing out a familiar ringtone. Bailey.
I should block her number, but in honor of our fourteen years of on-again, off-again shared history, I sent her to voicemail.
“Yukon is going to need a new home.” Clarissa picked up the thread like we'd never been interrupted. “The poor dog didn't do anything wrong.”
“The FBI is working with an excellent rescue.” I glanced around at streets that were becoming more and more familiar. “As you clearly already know. Come clean. What did you and your new best friend Matt Dauphin cook up without consulting me?”
“My people and your people have had a meeting of minds.”
“Well, wasn't that special of my people to keep me informed?”
“You needed to focus on giving evidence.” She smiled like butter wouldn't melt. “That isn't my decision. That's coming from your side.”
A third news van had joined the two already trailing after us. This van hadn't been following us all along. Somebody had tipped them off.
Marvelous.
“Under the law, dogs are property, and this dog is evidence,” I said. “We can't release him for auction until after the trial.”
“After all the negative optics, the deputy director of the FBI believes you will never be free to release Yukon for auction. He needs to be placed directly in a suitable home as soon as possible.”
So. She hadn't been content to go over my head to my supervisor. She'd gone to fucking Washington.
“I'm not hearing this,” I said. “I am not involving myself or the FBI in a celebrity dog adoption.”
“Why not?” She flicked open her designer bag and checked her lipstick in a fourteen-karat gold compact. Of course. She needed to be ready for her close-up. “It's perfect. We can turn all that negative publicity on its head.”
Yukon was a ball of fluff, but he was a very large ball of fluff. “Be reasonable, Ms. Stanton. You can't adopt a dog bigger than you are as a publicity stunt.”
She dropped the compact in her bag. The large green eyes finally turned serious. “The good publicity is just a bonus. I've been volunteering at Happy for over a year. I've spent more time working with primitive breeds than you've spent training with that Glock on your hip.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
“I'm going to be adopting some dog. Why shouldn't it be him?”
The gall of this woman. She seemed to think she was being perfectly reasonable.
“Look.” She put a hand on my arm. “I've spent a year going through the Happy Heaven Dog Rescue training to qualify to adopt a large breed. He's too much dog for a lot of people in Los Angeles. But he's exactly what I've been looking for.”
I looked down at her beautiful hand on my arm. She flushed and pulled it back. My gaze returned to her even more beautiful face. She looked familiar. Not that I ever have time to sit down to watch an entire movie, but some people are so omnipresent in the culture you glimpse their faces everywhere. Maybe I'd first seen her in a movie trailer or a television news clip.
Or maybe, just maybe, I'd seen her in person. “Wait a minute. Hold on. I saw you there at the shelter the other day, didn't I? Bathing dogs. That was you, don't deny it.”
“I was supposed to be in disguise.”
“Why do celebrities think a ball cap and wraparound sunglasses is a disguise? You might as well wear a flashing neon sign over your head that says, ‘famous person here.’”
“It worked, didn't it? You might've suspected I was somebody, but you didn't know which somebody I was.”
Georgia Summers, the owner of the rescue, had been walking me down the short path to the air-conditioned kennels designed for heat-sensitive Arctic and mountain breeds. Summers was one of those ageless women who wear a low, gray ponytail pulled back from a smooth face, a look that costs far more in skin care products than it saves on hair color. This was Los Angeles, after all.
On the sunny side of the yard, a slender woman in her late twenties or early thirties was splash-bathing a large white-and-black Landseer Newfoundland. The dog cheerfully shook water all over the shapely curves exposed by her vestigial black bikini. The good body made me curious to see the face, but the black ball cap and mirrorshades were as good as a ski mask at this distance.
“One of our volunteers,” is all Georgia said. She wasn't impressed by celebrities. Not everyone who wanted one of he
r dogs would get one. You had to prove yourself. Somebody was being tested. A model or an actor.
And then Georgia and I were around the corner, where another volunteer was already bringing Yukon forward on his harness.
No disguises today. I looked back at the string of news vans in our wake. Today, a lot of people were going to get a clear shot of Stanton's face. She'd held back, she'd teased, and now she was paying off.
We were playing out a Hollywood script. And the green-eyed scriptwriter was sitting right beside me.
Good publicity for the rescue, good publicity for the actor who saved a difficult-to-place large dog, and good publicity for the FBI. It was a win all-around for everybody. So why did I feel so damn grumpy about it?
“I wonder how long you've been planning this,” I said. “For all I know, you're the one who started the hashtags and the conspiracies.”
“I'm honestly not that devious. Please. Use your FBI resources to check the timeline. I was already planning to adopt a guardian dog when the FBI asked the shelter to take care of Yukon. He isn't all that old, you know, less than two years. She didn't have him when I knew her.”
That much was true. Yukon was another expensive gift from the Russian.
She was doing a good thing here. I shouldn't let it rankle me so much.
“Your team already has the press release written,” I said. “Let me guess. ‘Clarissa Stanton confronted an FBI agent today about the whereabouts of a dog seized in a federal insurance fraud investigation. The Oscar-nominated star is a well-known supporter of animal rights and has committed to providing the thirteen-month-old pale gold Tibetan Mastiff with a forever home.’”
“Is that bad? I don't see how that's bad.” She was smiling again.
“You don't have to sell me when you've already sold the deputy director of the FBI.” I blew out a puff of air. “I guess it isn't bad. Yukon does need a home.” It just pissed me off that I wasn't consulted first. Why hadn't Matt given me a heads-up? I could have had a nice speech all ready for the stupid-ass reporters. “But I also have a right to feel sandbagged. Your people went to the top of the food chain at the FBI. Nobody thought to ask the people down here on the ground who actually know the dog.”
“That isn't true. I asked Georgia.” She touched my knee, an actor's unthinking ease at touching another person. “Oh. Wait. Were you hoping to adopt him yourself?”
“I knew it wasn't practical. I might be moving soon, and trying to rent an apartment when you own a large dog...” I took hold of her hand and carefully removed it to her own knee. I was a federal agent. I couldn't let random people pat my knee. Although, after her hand was gone, my knee felt awfully lonely.
And there was no “might be” moving. This time, I was out the door. Bailey's beautiful house was spacious, but even Hearst Castle was no longer big enough for both of us.
I'M NOT REAL FOND OF doing off-the-cuff press conferences, but it started out well enough. Yukon's training was impeccable. The scrum of reporters and flashing cameras didn't disturb him in the slightest. He posed between me and Clarissa like a wanna-be actor in love with the spotlight, while I rolled out some bullshit about the prevalence of deep fakes on YouTube.
“Video can and is routinely faked,” I said. “As you can see for yourself, Yukon is happy, healthy, and headed to a wonderful new home.”
Clarissa pointed to an entertainment reporter, probably one of her fangirls who could be trusted to throw a softball. “Question?”
“Aren't you a little intimidated to be taking on this responsibility?” The woman shivered melodramatically. “Can't a dog that size be dangerous?”
The dangerous dog seemed to smile, although he was probably just drooling. Clarissa looked serious. “Can be, but it all goes back to training. Yukon got lots of love and socialization from an early age, first from his owner and now from the highly trained staff of Happy Heaven Dog Rescue. As you can see, he's a real city boy who loves plenty of noise, crowds, and attention. This dog isn't the least bit dangerous.”
Yukon was a happy dog. And Clarissa would be a good owner. Before I signed the transfer paperwork in Georgia's office, she verified that Clarissa had been training for over a year with dogs his size.
Still, the scriptedness of the situation bothered me. Maybe it shouldn't, but it did.
“This is life for you,” I'd said before we headed out to meet the press. “You just decide how it's going to go, and that's how it goes.”
Clarissa laughed. “I wish.”
Yet here we sat, the script unrolling. Some of the news vehicles were already leaving, their fluffy feel-good stories in the can.
A cheap Honda with a dent in the back passenger door pulled into a space vacated by one of the vans. What now? I knew that Honda even before I saw the man who came barreling out of it. Jerry Lane was a crime reporter and not for a tabloid.
“My question is for Special Agent Rales.”
“Go ahead, Jerry.” I had a real bad feeling about this.
“The defense has alleged the discovery of new exculpatory evidence in the Easton case― evidence they allege the FBI has tried to conceal. Judge Bustamante has delayed the trial for three weeks to give all parties a chance to evaluate that evidence. Do you have a comment about what this means for the FBI's case against Patsee Easton?”
What fucking exculpatory evidence?
There was no fucking exculpatory evidence to hide. And I was real fucking tired of getting sandbagged.
“The FBI has a rock-solid case against Easton, and I stand by my testimony. No further comment.”
Chapter Four
Clary
It was my perfect opportunity. I was the knight in shining armor whisking my lady away from the marauding herd of screaming reporters. At a signal, Yukon was on his feet and at my side, a formidable escort for the two of us.
“We can escape out the back.” I knew exactly how to whisper in her ear to tickle all the way down. “Georgia has already told the driver to pull around.”
Her face was a granite mask. “I need to get back to the Los Angeles field office ASAP.”
“Of course. I understand perfectly.”
Dogs pick up on human tension, and Yukon was aware of Ronnie's upset. He nosed at my hand, and I stroked him on the head as we walked down the curving paths beyond the kennels to the back garden. There was a small patch of faux forest created ten years ago by landscapers who were experts at transporting adult trees. Of course, Clarissa Stanton hadn't been around then, but Georgia Summers had told me all about it during my long hours of volunteer work. The fence line itself was planted with hedges to screen the busy road from sight, although even the thickest vegetation couldn't completely muffle the sound.
After the quiet of the pocket park, the street seemed loud and bright. The sun danced silver off the gleaming surfaces of my baby blue 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood. It appeared to be a perfect restoration, but she was a twenty-first-century girl under the hood.
Ronnie stopped dead in her tracks. “What the actual fuck? Is this some kind of sick joke? Where's my car?”
“They'll be watching your car.”
“So you thought this, this...” Speechless spluttering was a good look on her. You felt proud to be a witness, because you knew it wasn't every day a big, bad FBI agent stumbled over her words. “This atrocity would be just the thing for a nice, inconspicuous getaway?”
“Atrocity” couldn't be the word she really wanted. I made the executive decision to overlook her faux pas. Especially since her flushed cheeks looked so cute.
“Isn't she gorgeous?” I patted the baby blue bumper.
My driver, who was wearing a matching baby blue tuxedo, held the door open for us.
“Does he always dress like that?” she asked.
“It's a special occasion,” I said. “Isn't it, Barney? Yukon coming home deserves a party.”
“Yes, ma'am.” He shot us a distinctly unmilitary salute and closed the door behind us.
“I can
't believe this.” Ronnie looked around the pale blue leather seats like they were a hallucination. Perfectly trained Yukon was already scrambling into his super-sized dog crate, but Ronnie seemed dazed, so I leaned over and helped strap her in.
“There's an authenticity issue,” she said. “You do know they didn't have seatbelts and shoulder restraints in the sixties.”
Aha. The genius gemstone expert didn't know everything.
“The fifties,” I said helpfully. “Nineteen fifty-nine.”
“The fifties,” she repeated.
“The engine is modern too. A fuel-efficient hybrid. The original could get up to one hundred thirty miles an hour, but now we can top one-eighty.”
“If you want your driver to go to jail, you can top one-eighty.”
Barney was already moving easily in the direction of my home in Hollywood Hills. Yukon settled in for a snooze.
I looked behind us. “Well, it looks like we've made a clean getaway. Thank you, Clary. You're brilliant, Clary. I never would have thought of it myself, Clary.”
She snorted and pulled out her phone. Instead of texting like a normal person, she began to yell. “What the hell is going on with my fucking case, Matt? We need to talk.”
He said something back I heard only as a mumble.
“Tell me now. What fresh hell is this delay?”
More mumble.
“Shit. No.” She looked around. “Probably not.”
What were they talking about? What had happened to Patsee's case after we left that courtroom? Sims could work miracles, but Patsee hadn't left him much to work with.
I would die to hear both sides of this conversation.
“We'll be there in ten.” She tucked away the phone.
“We'll be where in ten?” I asked.