The Big Bad Wolf Tells All

by Donna Kauffman

  A split screen popped up on the laptop monitor, showing views from all the security cameras and dragging his attention back to the matter at hand. Millicent had been nothing if not prompt in making the slight adjustments he’d recommended, things she should have done anyway, regardless of her grandniece being in residence. Actually, he’d been pleasantly surprised at how cutting edge her existing system had been.

  He smiled, shaking his head once again at his luck. Who knew tailing Old Man Waterston’s wife would lead to a recommendation for this job. Waterston was a frequent skybox guest of Pioneer owner Monk Williams and considered himself something of a football aficionado despite never having played the game himself. Riley had always thought him something of a blowhard, but hadn’t exactly walked away when Waterston had called him up on business. A job was a job, after all.

  He’d gotten some nice shots of Mitzi Waterston and her tennis instructor doing more than improving her topspin lob. It wasn’t his fault that Mitzi had hired her own investigator and nailed her husband in a similar “educational” situation. Riley wasn’t judge or jury, just the hired help. Thankfully, Howard agreed. Riley’s work had kept Mitzi from taking the randy old coot for everything he had. They’d settled out of court, if not out of the papers. The media had had a field day with it.

  But Riley had gotten paid. And a job rec. All in all, not a bad day’s work.

  In fact, he could get used to working for the monde riche. Sure they could be eccentric, self-important, demanding pains in the asses, but then he worked with his father, who was all of that and more. Besides, the rich not only paid well, even more important, they paid on time. Although, to be honest, he’d taken this job as much because he liked the grande dame as he had to keep Parrish Securities’ income incoming.

  He pictured Tanzy’s amused expression when she’d discovered the snowflake chandelier. Apparently the grandniece thought Millicent was something else, too. A point in her favor, he thought as he scanned the monitor, seeing nothing out of order, indoors or out.

  Comfortably naked, he sat at the desk, rubbing his knee as he flipped up another, smaller laptop. This was his own, personal unit. He typed in the code to unlock it, then logged on to his ISP. “Come on, Ernie, have something for me here, pal.” A couple of clicks later, he was whistling appreciatively beneath his breath. “I owe you, man.” But then, that wasn’t surprising. Ernie always came through, and Riley didn’t mind paying the going rate.

  He was one of many connections Riley had made during his years with the Sacramento Pioneers. It was amazing what people did for a living, postfootball. In this case, Ernie was actually the father of the Pioneers’ star place kicker, a retired agent who’d specialized in computer fraud, now in private consulting. Riley privately consulted him all the time.

  “So,” he said, highlighting the latest email, “let’s see what SoulM8 is whining about tonight.” He read the note, then added it to the file he’d already created. They’d started two weeks before Thanksgiving and had kept up a fairly regular pace of one after every column. Until today, when SoulM8 sent two. Still, despite the change-up, which was a flag of sorts, nothing he’d said was anything new. And not particularly threatening despite the somewhat obsessive tone.

  Most celebrities got hit on by their fair share of whack-jobs. Millicent had only zoned in on this bozo because of an offhand comment by Tanzy, who apparently didn’t normally share this part of her celebrity with her great-aunt. Wonder what Millicent would think about Baaaahed Boy’s rather sexually explicit note, he thought with a grin.

  But he’d explained all that, too. Ms. Harrington said she had “a feeling” about this one. Riley couldn’t really fault the old dame. Tanzy was the only family she was close to, and, at her age, she was allowed to be overprotective. Though God strike him dead if his own father ever caught wind of that particular sentiment.

  And if the time came when there was a distinct shift in more than just the email pattern, he’d zip the emails into a file and shoot them to another associate for analysis. Ernie was working on tracing the accounts of the sender, as he changed them often and always with bogus information, but they both agreed it was likely he worked for the service provider, which gave him greater access for spamming. Sort of like a sparky working for the fire department.

  Yawning deeply, Riley decided against getting geared up over his old team and their current standings and signed off. He checked down the hall to the double-door entrance to Tanzy’s rooms. No light beneath the door. All appeared quiet. Good. Time for one last round of the lower floors, then it was lights out for him. In a bed designed by angels, he thought with an appreciative sigh. He definitely had to consider taking on more work of this nature.

  No more two A.M. surveillance crap in the dead of winter, waiting for some dumb bastard to leave his mistress’s company-owned-and-paid-for shack-up because he thought his country club wife was too stupid to notice the smell of White Orchid on his dry-cleaned shirts. No baby-sitting bratty local talent, sitting outside their thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suites, sucking down cold room-service coffee, while the spoiled inhabitants of said room were having wild, orgiastic groupie sex. Nope, he’d kiss that all good-bye in a heartbeat. Of course, working for high society wasn’t always going to be like working for the Harringtons, or Howie Waterston, for that matter. But hell, just how bad could it be?

  Of course, if his dad had his way, they’d be sitting in Scottsdale, Arizona, right now, preferably on the edge of some golf course. Yeah, Riley thought, pulling on a pair of sweats, where I could be doing all the work and Dad could be perfecting his five iron. He pushed away the edges of guilt that always threatened when he thought about what should have been his dad’s golden retirement years . . . all financed by his only son’s long and celebrated pro football career.

  Finn shouldn’t have banked on him, he told himself for the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time, it didn’t make him feel any better.

  Riley shoved the fake glasses on and pulled on the flannel robe he’d bought as part of his “sheep” look as well. He should have gone for the slippers, too, he thought, as his toes grew colder by the second on the marble flooring of the foyer.

  He checked the lower rooms, still amazed, even though he’d been through them all already, at the very rich flights of fancy that filled them all. He even had a fully decorated tree in his bathroom, for Christ’s sake.

  He’d just pressed the lights off when he heard the scuff of slippers on the stairs. He could have stepped through the arched doorway and announced his presence, probably should have. It would have startled her, but there was no reason to remain hidden. And yet he did anyway. After all, he’d been tailing her all day, that’s what he was paid to do. Just following orders.

  He moved silently around the landing in time to see her duck down the hallway to the kitchens, in the rear of the house. However, when he didn’t use this latest opportunity to step into the room on the pretext of getting a glass of warm milk—that’s what sheep drank, right?—he supposed it might not entirely be Millicent’s keep-your-distance instructions that held him back in the hallway shadows.

  Tanzy stood in front of the massive WWE-size fridge he’d lusted after from the moment he saw it. The interior light silhouetted her jersey-clad frame. Niners, he noted, with a silent snort. Ever since Montana left, they’d been nothing but a bunch of benchwarming wannabes.

  Oblivious to his mental trash talk, she studied the deep shelves, the contents of which probably rivaled Wolfgang Puck’s personal fridge. Riley thought of his fridge and wondered, if he had a unit like this one, which did everything but deliver cold beer on tap from the door handle—and he wasn’t too sure it didn’t—would he still only have one half-empty box of Chinese carryout and two bottles of Miller inside it? Of course, if it did have the beer tap, who cared?

  But right at the moment, his attention was more on what stood in front of it. Between his research and surveillance, he’d seen her dressed in everything from
her fashionably hip daytime talk-show wardrobe to her young-heiress-social-set slinky stuff. So why in the hell the ratty old football jersey—team alliance notwithstanding—was the thing that got his attention, he had no idea. Probably because it was the only label he could identify on sight. Haute NFL.

  She closed the door, empty-handed, and scuffed back out to the hallway. He sank farther into the shadows and slowed his breath as she passed within a foot of him. So, his covert mission had gained him a couple of new insights after all, he thought, letting his breath out in a quiet whoosh when she reached the staircase.

  One: She was pretty damn picky about midnight snacks.

  Two: She smelled pretty damn good.

  And three: He bet she tasted better than anything inside that monster refrigerator.

  He was still trying to erase that last one as he paused outside her door. One quick turn of the handle and he could talk her out of that jersey and show her all about his inner wolf.

  “Be the sheep,” he muttered as he slipped into his room and crawled into bed. He groaned as he sank deeply into the cloud masquerading as a mattress and reconsidered the value of gaining impossible wealth. Eighteenth-hole housing and golden retirement years aside, he’d be a happy man if he could only have this bed and the fridge downstairs.

  Yet it wasn’t feather down or the joys of beer on tap that chased after him into dreamland. “Baaahh. Humbug.”

  Why do married friends, who never meddled before saying their vows, have this genetic compulsion to fix up their perfectly happy single friends? Is it some sort of plot? There should be a law. No Special Dinners. Ever.

  Chapter 4

  Honestly, Rina, I can’t.” Tanzy pushed her sunglasses up and squinted through the blinding glare of the winter sun on her windshield. It had been a long morning already, beginning with this week’s Barbara Bradley Show taping at the crack of dawn and ending with a screaming cell phone call from “Santa,” whose girlfriend apparently hadn’t been too happy when Tanzy had outed their little tryst in her column. Another downside of being the brains behind “Tanzy Tells All.”

  Men were afraid. Very afraid.

  She smiled. Considering Santa hadn’t exactly filled her stocking, his girlfriend was probably better off looking for her presents under another tree anyway. Still, she made a silent pact with herself. No more nooners. She wasn’t really the nooner type anyway. That had been an aberration, the act of a lost lamb suddenly abandoned by her herd. Though she had to admit it had been amusing, checking into the Four Seasons with Santa for the afternoon.

  “Come on,” Rina wheedled. “It’ll be fun.”

  Tanzy adjusted the headset of her cell phone, just before swerving around yet another car trying to squeeze in between the throngs already tucked bumper to bumper along Stockton. She liked shopping as much as the next guy, but not when every man, woman, and foreign national with diplomat tags was shopping with her. Shopping was something a person did on impulse. Preferably when handbags were on sale. Enforced holiday shopping, on the other hand, should be outlawed.

  Taking a deep breath, she returned to the conversation. “Ri, you of all people know better.”

  “But, sweetheart, it’s precisely because it is me of all people that you should say yes. You know I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  “You’ve barely been married a month. What happened to my best friend? What, do you get some kind of special decoder ring when you get married? One that says ‘Have Special Dinners. Make your last remaining single friend insane.’ “

  Rina laughed. “No, we get one that says ‘So what if he never picks up his socks, he’s rich, you can now afford a maaaaid.’ “

  Tanzy laughed. “Just don’t do this to me, okay? And I’ll pretend you never called.”

  “You haven’t even heard who I lined up for you. I know all about your alpha needs. And, by the way, I’m loving the whole bridesmaid thing in your column, despite my terrible guilt at being the one to put you in that category.”

  “Yes, I can hear the pain in your voice. So leave me alone already. I’m perfectly happy. Haven’t you read the whole column?”

  She ignored that, as Tanzy knew she would. Rina was a woman on a mission. “So,” she said, “is Marty loving this?”

  “He’s very much loving this. When he’s not out in his new hot rod.”

  “And what is up with that anyway? Since when is he a sports car guy?”

  Tanzy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s having a midlife crisis and is trying to connect with his inner wolf.”

  “Do you think he actually has one?” They both laughed, then Rina said, “So I guess the reaction to your little wolf/sheep thing is still going strong?”

  “The mail has been overwhelming.” Tanzy thought of one particular email she’d inadvertently clicked on last night while eating the cold pizza she’d ordered the night before after once again bypassing dinner with Riley. She’d been a week at Big Harry, and so far she’d managed to avoid having even a single meal with him. Not that he seemed overly concerned.

  Last night she’d skimmed Millicent’s note informing her of a change in her suite number at the Belleview, smirking as she read the part about “hoping Riley isn’t intrusive to your busy schedule.” Was she kidding? The guy had the unobtrusive market cornered. The only one being intrusive was Aunt Millicent with her house-sitting detail. Then she’d heard the shower running and wasted a minute trying to picture Riley naked. But the only thing she could visualize was him standing there in suit and business frames, calmly sudsing his hair.

  And she’d clicked past Millicent’s note without paying attention . . . and up popped SoulM8 again. She’d found herself reading it without meaning to.

  I am the one you seek. Your words about desiring the wolves that prowl amongst the sheep will not divert me, my one and only. I will be the one that teaches you that you don’t have to settle. What we will have together will be beyond all glory. Wolf . . . sheep. Those are merely labels. Look beyond the surface and you will know I am the one who will claim you as my own.

  She’d shuddered then and, she couldn’t help it, she shuddered now. Not that she took it any more seriously. Probably it had been the added effect of sitting in Big Harry, all alone, late at night. Well, save for Riley. But knowing he was sleeping somewhere nearby, likely in perma-press jammies, did little to reduce her spook-factor.

  “So,” Rina went on, “tomorrow night, eightish. I can count on you. You won’t regret it, Tanz.”

  “But what about Riley?” So he wasn’t a reassuring watchdog—she didn’t want one of those anyway, right?—but he might as well come in handy for something.

  “What about him? I thought you said he was the insular type. He probably won’t even notice you’re not there.”

  “I know, but I haven’t been the most attentive cohabitant.” It was a lame excuse and Rina surely knew it. But Tanzy was desperate. “I should probably have at least one dinner with him. For Millicent’s sake.”

  “He can wait. I’ve got Prime A meat on the hoof, baby.”

  Tanzy snickered. “And you a married woman. Have you no shame?”

  “Which is why I’m generously giving the hunky Brock Marshall to you. I’ll live vicariously through your single-girl thrills and you’ll get to listen to my lady-of-the-manor stories about trying to hire good help.”

  “And that’s supposed to convince me? And Brock Marshall, why does that sound familiar? Wait a minute! Isn’t that the guy from that television dating show? I thought he found his dream girl.”

  “Turns out she’d been having a secret fling with one of the camera guys. The wedding’s off.”

  “Great, just what I need, a guy who was jilted on national television.”

  “Hey, it beats trolling the malls for hot Santa sex.”

  “That’s so not funny. Remind me not to tell you anything.”

  “Me and your million readers.”

  Tanzy sighed. “I should have been an heiress and run respecta
ble charitable foundations. What was I thinking, being a journalist?”

  “You are an heiress. And Millicent already runs all the foundations, there’s none left. And you’re not a journalist, you’re a columnist.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And I’m not coming for dinner.” She stuck her tongue out at the phone.

  “I heard that.”

  “I’ve been tortured enough. I’m calling a moratorium on Special Dinners as of right now. Pass the word.” Rina tried to break in, but Tanzy talked over her. “It was bad enough when Sue fixed me up with Tennis Instructor Guy.”

  “I thought Viktor was cute.”

  “How do you know Viktor?”

  “From when Sue forced me to play doubles with her a few months ago. What was wrong with him? Didn’t he want to play doubles off the court?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know.” Viktor was a towering, six-foot-five testament to why some men were destined to be alone despite being showered with all the genetic gifts. “Rina, honey, he’s thirty-three and wore matching tennis gear with Mommy.”

  “Ew.”

  “Exactly. Sue thought he was precious. Sure, if you don’t mind Mommy picking out your clothes, too.”

  “Well, I doubt Brock’s mother had anything to do with his wardrobe.”

  “Thank God. Don’t you remember her from episode six?” She and Rina shared a silent shudder.

  “Okay, okay,” Rina relented, “but you’re not dating his mother. And didn’t you tell me his animal magnetism is what made you watch the show? So, maybe you can be the one to tame him.”