by Tessa Vidal
“Instagram?” I asked. What the hell was he talking about? The police had to be only seconds away, and something told me I needed to figure things out real fast. “What kind of shock? Talk to me.”
He jerked his chin at the shed's open door. “She's dead. She's fucking dead.”
My heart stopped. “Who's dead? In there?” Even without a functional pumping heart, I was somehow already on my feet. Silly question. Of course, in there. I lurched forward, and two security men grabbed me from either side. They looked apologetic, which I already knew was more than I'd get from the real police.
“Miss Clary. You don't want to see that.”
“I think I have to.”
“She's dead,” Taylor said from behind me.
She isn't. She can't be.
The smell of copper and cordite wafted out of that open door. Whatever happened had happened recently.
Not copper.
Blood.
Taylor pushed himself shakily to his feet and lit another cigarette.
“Sir, you can't smoke here. This is a crime scene,” said one of the security guys.
“It's good for my nerves.” Taylor let the guy walk him away, and the smell of smoke and vomit went with them.
The men holding me weren't gripping real hard, partly out of respect for my role as a movie star and partly out of respect for Yukon's wide jaws. He carefully but emphatically nudged one of them in the side. Not exactly full-on attack mode, but people who didn't know how well-trained he was would read it as a threat.
“You boys need to let go of me,” I said. “Yukon won't ask that nicely the second time.”
“You really don't want to see...”
“Don't tell me what I do and do not want to see.” Shaking them off, knowing I had only seconds, maybe only fractions of a second, I stepped close enough to the open door to peek inside. My own shadow blocked the sunlight, but I could see well enough.
A body on a dirty floor, a pool of blood beneath her. Her hand out, palm up, the leather envelope that held her badge positioned where the cops would find it first.
She'd been shot, searched, and posed.
And she wasn't Ronnie.
She was Bailey Fucking Flowers.
How did she get on the property? Who shot her? And where was Ronnie?
Relief jabbed through me. But only for a moment.
This wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.
Had Ronnie shot her ex? If she had, surely it was in self-defense, but it still looked bad. An ex dead, the girlfriend missing.
And Ronnie's phone, not to mention the fucking alexandrite or its replica, had been stashed in my handbag. Anyone using the phone to track Ronnie's movements would come back to me.
Who did that? How? When?
This was a fucking set-up, and I fucking knew it, except I never got a moment to think. Why hadn't I taken five seconds to dispose of that crap somewhere along the way?
If I was searched, if I was arrested...
Would Ronnie have stashed that stuff in my bag? Would she really? Had she had the fake alexandrite all along, and she was always just waiting for the right moment to let it drop?
Nah. It didn't make sense. The stone maybe, but not the phone. Stashing the phone would help a prosecutor make a case against Ronnie, not against me. It was evidence of premeditation.
Evidence she'd thought ahead to making her escape. So much for claiming self-defense.
Had someone taken her?
Or was she on the run?
I thought about climbing over that wrought-iron fence. An idle thought. Yukon couldn't get over that fence.
And anyway the cops were already there shouting. A whirlwind of voices seemed to surround me on all sides at once.
“We had a report...”
“A deceased female...”
“Single gunshot...”
A tall NOPD officer grabbed my arm and pointed me toward a concrete garden bench. “Wait there until we give you permission to leave. We'll need you to answer some questions.”
The decision was made for me. It was too late to run, and anyway where could I go? I was too famous. Clarissa Stanton couldn't reinvent herself the way relative unknown Malory Maine once had.
Besides, my life was here. Yukon was here. Ronnie was here. Somewhere.
Unless she'd left me. Unless she was the one who set me up.
Unless she was the one who'd been playing me all along.
I sat. It was cool in the shadows. Yukon felt good fluffed against my feet― the only good thing about this moment. Taylor, banished to a different patch of shade beneath a different tree, chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette. As the official discoverer of the body, he was soon surrounded by police, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.
Even so, at some point, I knew he was sharing gossip about me and Ronnie Rales. He telegraphed it in the way he stopped looking in my direction.
For a guy who pulled down fifteen million dollars a film, Taylor could be a pretty piss-poor actor.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ronnie
Someone was coming. The birds weren't singing, and the insects weren't chirping.
“Bailey?”
Whoever troubled the birds wasn't coming from any shed, and yet that open door called to me. Moving quickly, I risked a peek. And then the world ended.
No. It couldn't be. No.
To see somebody you once loved sprawled like that, her hand stretched out to show off the badge...
Whatever Bailey had done, and she'd done a lot, she didn't deserve death in a dirty shed. Nobody did.
Keep your head. You don't have time to be anything but clear right now.
I struggled to center myself. To see the death scene the way the investigating detectives would see it.
Officer down. That's all they'd see at first.
But soon enough the story would change.
Dirty officer down.
I must have touched the door, thrown it wide open, because I was inside the shed, where I found myself squatted close and low for a better look. “Bailey, no, no, no, no,” I heard myself say. “It didn't have to end like this.”
My rational mind told me to get back and stand down. This was a murder scene, which meant it was under the jurisdiction of New Orleans PD. I shouldn't be here so close to that spreading pool of blood.
Fuck the rational mind. I couldn't walk away if there was any chance she was still alive.
The size and location of the chest wound left me in no doubt.
“No,” I whispered. “It can't be true.” Although I could see for myself that it was.
Bailey Flowers was gone.
My rational mind pointed out she was still warm. Whoever did this could be close. I leaped backward out of my squat and spun around. Were they still here?
My phone. I needed to call it in. I grabbed for it, but somehow it wasn't there. I patted myself down again, harder, more impatiently, but there was no mistake.
My phone wasn't in my jacket. It wasn't anywhere.
I'd just had the fucking phone. I was here because Bailey had just fucking texted me.
Not Bailey. Somebody else. The person who'd staged the scene.
This was a set-up, and I'd helpfully spread my own DNA all over the fucking crime scene.
A partial footprint― my partial footprint― had appeared on the floor. I'd stepped in the blood despite all my best efforts. My fingerprints would be on the door to this death house.
No phone. No Glock. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
It's fine. You're FBI. They'll believe you.
It isn't fine. You're the ex-girlfriend.
It's anything but fine.
“It's over, Ronnie.” A long shadow blocked the light from the open door, but I had no trouble seeing the barrel of the silenced Sig Sauer aimed at my center of mass. “You need to come with me now. I'll get you out of this. But we have to move fast.”
Somebody had to move fast. Had to think fast too.
; “You killed her,” I said.
“Don't be ridiculous. You killed her. But we can still fix this if we get you out of here before the cops show up.” Matt's face was bland, his gun steady.
Think. He wants to move you off the scene without firing a shot. Why?
Because he couldn't pin Bailey's murder on me if I was also killed at the scene. The cops would know a third party had to be involved. And that third party couldn't be Clary. Not this time. Too many eyes were on her right this very minute― including the four ex-Secret Service there to watch the Ademar. She had a rock-solid alibi for this crime.
“Why would you want to fix this if you think I killed Bailey?” My question was a delaying tactic. I already knew what he wanted. To move me to a place where he could arrange to kill me and dump my body where it would never be found.
That was how he'd sell the story I killed Bailey and went on the run.
“We have a lot to talk about, but this isn't the place...” He gestured with the gun, and it was all the opening I'd ever get.
Either I ran for it now, or I went like a sheep to slaughter.
Fuck that.
He didn't necessarily care if I got hurt. My blood and DNA on the scene wasn't bad for him. Hell, it might even read as evidence of a struggle between me and my alleged victim.
Fine. Shooting to injure, rather than kill, is the trickiest kind of shooting. If he needed to handicap himself that way, I had a tiny advantage.
Maybe my only advantage.
How I ran was something of a blur. I had to dive right for him, knock him flat, trust in my read that he wasn't eager to shoot me dead right here and now. A kick to the groin, high and hard, and he stumbled.
It was enough to let me push past and out the door.
Not enough to put him down.
Not enough to grab for the gun.
I couldn't stay to play. Couldn't debate the merits of returning to the house. Of calling for help. Of getting involved in a lot of he-said-she-said with my boss.
I was Bailey's ex. He was senior FBI. And I had no idea of how far he'd gone to arrange the scene. What other evidence he'd left to point to me.
So I went over the fence.
Into that service alley.
He already had the gun up, but he was afraid to fire. He couldn't risk a kill.
I zigged and I zagged.
I moved in ways damn few gem experts were ever trained to move.
“You don't have to do this, Ronnie. There's been a misunderstanding. I don't want to hurt you.”
I didn't want to waste the breath to tell him to go fuck himself. I was pulling away. A muscle tugged in my right calf, but I ignored the jolt of pain.
Faster.
At last, he fired the first silenced shots. Gravel spanked up against my legs.
Fuck the muscle in my right calf. I was moving like an Olympian.
Clary. You're leaving her behind.
She was all right, for now. The whole movie crew was around her. I had to trust she'd be all right.
Would she believe I killed Bailey Flowers?
Like everybody else would believe?
Matt was falling behind. The twenty years difference in our ages mattered. So did the fact that I was a well-rounded field agent, while he spent much of his time in offices and meetings. Scrambling over a wrought-iron fence and then pounding down an alley were skills he hadn't practiced in a few years.
Reaching deep for a final burst of speed, I exploded from the other end of the service alley and into a street all pretty with genteel Greek Revival houses. I thought all that stuff came down in the storm but apparently they'd built it all back again. The big oak trees must have been survivors too. One of the trees was festooned with shiny Mardi Gras beads in shades of gold, green, and purple. Funny the things you focus on when you're running for your life.
Mardi Gras wasn't that long ago. People laughing and partying and having a good time.
Were the good times all over for me and Clary?
Over when they'd only just begun?
I'd shaken Matt, but he couldn't be far behind. I needed to disappear before he got his second wind. An old-school black-and-white cab was moving slowly down the street, and I waved with both arms high over my head. He kept going. Well, hell, what did I expect? Then he turned around and leaned out the window, a cigar clamped in his teeth. “You the lady who needs a ride to the airport?”
“That's me.” Poor lady was going to miss her flight.
“Why weren't you outside the address? And what happened to your bags?”
“I got mugged.” I was already in the back seat snapping the shoulder harness into place. This felt all very unreal. As if I'd stepped into the movie Clary was making.
He stomped on the brakes. “Hey, no free rides, I ain't running no charity here.”
“I still have cash.” I flashed my wallet to keep him happy, and he hit the gas again. After a minute, he turned on a talk radio show featuring the loud voices of belligerent men. Not a pleasant ride.
More pleasant than the alternative, though.
The picture inside the frame was becoming very clear. The staged story was simple, direct, and utterly believable.
Two dirty cops zip along for years running a high-dollar gemstone theft operation. It was all smooth sailing until the relationship does a big old crash and burn. A bad break-up, hard feelings, a lot of she-said-she-said, some escalating threats, and somebody gets dead and the other one's on the run.
Oh, I could see the whole story. Now, when it was all too late, I could see it.
All very clever. All very neat and nifty and tied up in a bow.
One dirty LAPD to go in and out of the evidence locker. One dirty FBI to supply the money-laundering and gem certification paperwork. One beautiful movie star for them to fight over.
Matt could sell that story. Hell, a rookie cop on his first day could sell that story.
Clary will deny it, Clary will tell her side of it, but no one will believe her. Not once they run the fingerprints and find out she was once Malory Maine.
It's the perfect fucking frame.
And the fucking Ademar? That's the best part. The fucking emerald was the ninety-carat fifty-million-dollar distraction. Nobody was ever planning to steal the fucking Ademar.
The Amazing Darrell himself couldn't have set it up more beautifully.
Everybody's watching the magician's hands to make sure he doesn't steal the fucking emerald. Meanwhile, he's going straight for something far more precious.
Freedom.
And he was perfectly happy to trade away my life and Clary's freedom to guarantee he got it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Clary
I sat within the dour green walls of the interview room stubbornly exercising my right to remain silent. When my stomach rumbled, I regretted passing on the craft service shrimp salad. The only source of energy here was a stale paper cup of dishwater-colored powdered coffee.
The deputy rapped on the door, then opened up. The man who walked in was not Whittaker Sims, criminal defense attorney, although he looked credible enough in his Brioni suit and cognac-colored Frye Logan messenger bag.
“Thank you, deputy,” he said.
“One hour.” The deputy slammed the door behind him, and we were alone.
“I'm afraid Mr. Sims's flight from Los Angeles was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Denver.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. Although my heart skipped a beat in relief. If he was in here, Ronnie was out there. And if Ronnie was out there, she was still alive.
There was a pause. “We're both on the same side, Clarissa. We're both out to catch a killer.”
“You honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Whoever tells their story first, whoever cuts their deal first, that's the only winner in this game. There's no second place.”
I wondered what cold powdered coffee would do to those crisp trousers. But I didn't need to be charged with assault on
a federal officer to make my day complete. “Something tells me you never wear that twenty-thousand-dollar suit to the FBI Field Office in Los Angeles.”
“I'm signed in as your high-priced scum-sucking criminal attorney, so I've got to dress the part.” Matt Dauphin smiled the world's phoniest smile. “Which means there are no listeners and no listening devices. It's you and me, Clarissa. We're the only people here. Talk to me. Tell me where she is. I'll bring her in, and you'll go free.”
“It doesn't work like that. I might not be a lawyer, but I've played one in the movies.”
“The clock is ticking.”
“For you.” I studied his bland face, amazed at the evil concealed behind the gray skin and grayer eyes. “Ronnie's out there in the wild, and you can't do fuck-all to stop her. She won't leave me here. The truth will come out, and then you're going down.”
“Veronica Rales went from the murder of Bailey Flowers directly to the New Orleans International Airport, where she caught the first flight to Miami. From there, who knows.” A dramatic pause. The messenger bag was already coming open. He slapped a photo on the table in front of me. Ronnie stepping out of a black-and-white cab in the airport departures lane.
It was a pretty good job, considering it had to be done fast and on the fly. The girl in the image was actually wearing the clothes Ronnie had on the last time I saw her. And Matt Dauphin was a very silly man indeed if he expected any actor to be shaken by a photograph.
“I'm from Los Angeles. You think I never heard of Photoshop?”
He sighed. “I didn't want to play rough.”
“I'm not playing with you at all.”
“Your original plan was to seek revenge against the women who set up Malory Maine. Understandable. Completely understandable. The trouble is, you were playing a dangerous game against a highly trained manipulator. Veronica Rales knew exactly who you were. She always knew.”
“I wasn't seeking revenge. I was seeking justice.”
“If you want justice, we have a legal system for that.”
I flicked my eyes around the ugly box of a room. “And we all know how well that works.”
“Cut the crap, Clarissa. You have stolen property in your possession that belongs to a suspected killer. You cooperate, or your life gets a whole lot more miserable. Tell me where she is. Because I know you know. That's the one important piece of data I managed to get out of Lieutenant Flowers before her untimely departure. You and Ronnie, you're way more than actor and consultant. You're together.”