Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer

by Suzie Quint

  “Any more?” he asked.

  “That’s all I know about for sure.”

  Because he was listening carefully, he zeroed in on her choice of words: it was all she knew about for sure. “Are there any others you think are likely?”

  She paused before answering, then said, “Just one. Willa James. She works the costumes for the showgirl revue at the casino.”

  All those years of practice came in handy once again, allowing him to act as though the name meant nothing. “Do any of these women know each other? Or about each other?”

  “Sebastian was good at keeping his women in the dark about each other―”

  Was that another bitter note?

  “—but Willa used to be friends with Annaliese, ‘used to be’ being the key phrase. I always thought she was jealous of Annaliese’s way with men.” She rolled her eyes as though that kind of jealousy was stupid and not pervasive as hell in the female of the species.

  Time to get off the subject of Sebastian’s women. “How was Sebastian’s health?”

  She made the adjustment smoothly. “He was in excellent health. He’d just had his annual physical which, I assure you, was quite thorough.”

  “No concerns about his heart?”

  “No, none.”

  “Did he have any ongoing conditions? Anything like diabetes or epilepsy?”

  “No.”

  “Did he drink a lot or do drugs?”

  “He’d had issues with alcohol, but he was never out of control. That would have offended him. As for drugs? No. He thought recreational drugs were for weak people. He never saw himself as weak.”

  “Was he despondent about his impending divorce?”

  “Sebastian?” She smiled sardonically. “No, not hardly.”

  “Hm. Would it surprise you to know it’s actually rare for a healthy adult to accidentally drown in a bathtub?”

  “Actually, I suppose it would be.”

  “So if it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t suicide―”

  “Of course, it wasn’t suicide.” Her lips compressed as though offended by the mere suggestion.

  He already knew that—suicide attempts invariably got in their tubs clothed—but he was glad to see Bales’ strong response to the idea. “Well then, what do you suppose happened?”

  She shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with the only remaining alternative.

  “If someone were responsible,” Alec asked gently, “who do you think it would be?”

  “Isn’t it usually the spouse?”

  “Quite often, it is. Was there anything that might have triggered Mrs. Koblect to act rashly?”

  “Well, there was the divorce.”

  “They’ve been getting a divorce for months.”

  “Well . . .”

  She knew something. He could practically see it on the tip of her tongue.

  It took several more seconds for her to decide to tell him. “They had a fight last Friday afternoon in his office.”

  He’d done a better job getting her trust than he’d thought if she was telling him this.

  “They got loud,” Bales said. “Only for a few minutes, you understand.” She sighed, as if she already regretted her decision to discuss this. “But after she left, he had me get his lawyer on the phone.”

  “What kind of lawyer?”

  “Not one of the in-house lawyers. His personal lawyer. He made an appointment for Monday.”

  “Any idea why?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then sighed again. “After Sebastian was found, I cancelled all his appointments. When I called the attorney, I got the impression he’d drawn up a new will.”

  “One that Sebastian never got to sign,” Alec said, jumping ahead.

  What a lovely motive for murder.

  Chapter 15

  Cleo waited in front of the casino until Alec pulled up. “I can hardly believe you got Bales to talk to you,” she said as she fastened her seatbelt. “How did you manage that?”

  “I beguiled her with my charm, of course,” Alec said.

  She didn’t want him to think she’d noticed how enticing he could be when he tried, so she asked, “Did you supplement that charm with a dose of truth serum?”

  He shot her a nasty look. “What did you find out from Liz?”

  “Besides that she hates Annaliese? Not much. I caught her as she was finishing up practice, but she wouldn’t sit down with me. She was too ‘busy.’” She put the word in air quotes. “She’s pretending she and Sebastian were talking reconciliation. You should have seen the eye rolling over that. It looked like a chorus line of slot machines with all the dials spinning.”

  He laughed then sobered. “Why would she feel the need to pretend? It’s not like the divorce was a big secret.” He was silent for a minute. “Who do you think was going to be the flavor of the month after her?”

  “I have no idea. What did you get from Bales?”

  “I got some good background. We can go over it tonight and see what looks promising. Wives number two and three are still in Vegas. We should interview them if we can. She also gave me names of other women Sebastian was seeing.”

  He swerved the car unexpectedly toward the curb. They were still in the business district, and they came to a stop in front of a florist shop.

  “What kind of flowers does Annaliese like?” Alec asked as he popped his seatbelt.

  “What?”

  “What’s Annaliese’s favorite flower?”

  “Uh, sunflowers.”

  “Be right back.” And he was out of the car.

  She waited impatiently until her returned with a long white florist’s box that he tossed in the back.

  “You bought flowers for Annaliese?”

  “My mother raised me to be a good guest. Besides, Annaliese is saving the paper the price of two hotel rooms. The least they can do is spring for flowers.”

  So he was setting out to charm Annaliese.

  “Don’t worry, sunshine. I’ll get you flowers too one of these days.” He pulled the car back into traffic.

  “I don’t like flowers,” she said.

  “All women like flowers.”

  “Not all women. Some of us think they’re a frivolous waste.”

  “Sure you do,” he said in a tone thick with disbelief.

  What galled her the most was he was right. She loved getting flowers, but compared to all her other lies this one was miniscule. Not even visible with a high-powered microscope.

  “There’s something else Bales told me,” Alec said.

  “What’s that?”

  “She says Willa is one of the women who was having an affair with Sebastian.”

  That distracted her from the flowers. “Willa? That can’t be right. She’d have said something.”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot her a glance. “I got the impression Sebastian was seeing her on the down low.”

  Cleo opened her mouth to object further then shut it again. Willa wasn’t a dancer any longer, but she did have to work with Liz. Keeping an extracurricular relationship with Sebastian quiet was the prudent thing to do if she didn’t want to suffer Liz’s wrath. And with Sebastian dead, the drama would increase exponentially.

  “I think Bales is lying.” Said the pot about the kettle.

  “Why would she?” Alec asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s got a grudge against Willa and is trying to stir up trouble for her.”

  “Or maybe it’s true.”

  “Or maybe I’m taking sides because I like Willa and I don’t like Bales. I warned you I was too close to this to be objective.” She still thought Bales was a liar. Willa simply wasn’t a good enough actress to hide the emotions Cleo would expect if she’d been involved with Sebastian.

  “It’s a good thing I’m here then, isn’t it?”

  Did he really expect her to agree with that? “So you can keep me honest?”

  He shrugged. “Or maybe so you can blame
me for being an ass when I ask questions you’d rather not. That way you get to keep your friendships intact.”

  “Don’t you dare ask Willa about her and Sebastian.”

  Alec shot her another look she interpreted as someone has to.

  “I’ll ask her.” She didn’t want to, but she didn’t trust him not to be a jerk about it. “But let me pick the time, okay?”

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  What would make her happy was getting on a plane and heading back to Denver, but she’d blown her chance at that in a big way, so she didn’t bother mentioning it.

  ~***~

  Jada was working again that evening, so they had the condo to themselves. Cleo ordered a pizza from her favorite pizza parlor.

  She set the pizza box on the breakfast bar, moving the crystal vase with the sunflowers to the side. As she had expected, Annaliese was charmed by the gesture. “He’s a keeper,” she’d told Cleo with a wink. Cleo had rolled her eyes.

  Alec reached into the fridge and brought out a beer to go with the pizza.

  “How much water did you drink today?” Cleo asked.

  He looked blankly at her from behind the open fridge door. “Water?”

  “Yes, water.”

  “Why would I drink water? Fish fuck in it.”

  Her lips tightened. “What color is your urine?”

  He made a few indignant noises before saying, “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”

  “Humor me.”

  “It’s yellow like everyone else’s.”

  She took the beer from his hand and put it back in the fridge. “If you’re urine is yellow, you’re not fully hydrated. Beer will make it worse. This is the desert. You have to be aware.” Sheesh. She sounded like her mother. “You need to drink water until your urine is clear.”

  To torment him further, she retrieved two half-liter mugs from the top cupboard and handed them to him, followed by the pitcher of filtered water from the fridge. “Fill these please.”

  “With water?” Alec asked suspiciously as though he thought this was some kind of joke.

  “Yes.”

  “Just plain water.”

  “You can add ice if you want.”

  Grumbling under his breath, he filled the mugs.

  His lack of enthusiasm amused her, and throughout their meal, she kept urging him to drink more. He did as he was told, complying, she was sorry to say, with more grace than she had as a teenager when Annaliese had first gotten on the hydration bandwagon.

  After they ate, they sat at the kitchen bar and went through their notes, discussing the information he’d gotten from Ms. Bales and what kind of story they wanted to write.

  Having accepted that a story would be written, Cleo wanted to make sure Sebastian wasn’t painted as some sensationalized caricature. Alec held the position that Sebastian didn’t need enhancing; his life was colorful enough. Cleo suspected he really meant lurid, but that he refrained from saying so to keep her from flipping out.

  “Before we get too deep in this, I want to clarify something,” he said.

  She glanced up from her notes to find him more somber than she’d ever seen him. It was an unusual look for him and a little disconcerting.

  “We need to play this close to the vest. Even though we haven’t run into them yet, there’s other press around. I don’t want them getting wind of how hard we’re pursuing these interviews.”

  She fought the urge to roll her eyes. If the reputable media knew what lengths they were going to, they’d laugh themselves silly. “They won’t care.”

  “They should. They get scooped all the time on big stories.”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Really? Who broke the Lewinski story?”

  She winced. “That wasn’t a tabloid.”

  “No, it was the Drudge Report, and that story forced everyone to take Matt Drudge seriously. And before you say it, yes, Newsweek had been sitting on it. The question is why.”

  She tried not to squirm. A story that eventually led to a presidential impeachment hearing should have come from legitimate press. “So Drudge embarrassed us. He’s still not a tabloid.”

  Alec’s eyebrow rose, and she realized she’d referred to the legitimate press as “us.” Why didn’t she just take out a full-page ad proclaiming she was too good for tabloid journalism? That’s how he had to see it. She couldn’t even claim he was wrong because she desperately wanted to be too good for the job she now held.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t pound her about her Freudian slip.

  “I won’t argue with you about where Drudge fits in,” he said. “I could, but I won’t. What about John Edwards’ infidelity, Jesse Jackson’s love child, Limbaugh’s addiction to pain killers, Clinton’s affair with Gennifer Flowers? Those were all tabloid scoops.”

  He wagged his pen at her. “And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that, in 2010, the Pulitzer committee decided the National Enquirer should be eligible for consideration. Wouldn’t that just chap their cheeks if a tabloid won a Pulitzer?”

  That was the understatement of the century.

  “So you can believe they don’t care what we’re doing,” he said, “but we’re still not going to let them know what we’re doing, right?”

  “If that makes you happy.”

  “It does. Just remember when you see them, loose lips sink ships.”

  She decided to humor him. “Yes, boss.”

  They worked surprisingly well together. At times, she almost forgot they weren’t working on a real news story for a real newspaper. As she focused on the information they needed, she even forgot how attractive he was. And then he’d pass her something, their hands would brush, and she could almost hear the sizzle of electricity. The first time it happened, her eyes jumped to his face to find a startled look in his eyes.

  Soon, she was sliding things across the counter to avoid touching him. Every time she did, his lips quirked into a hint of a smile, as if he knew exactly what she was doing and it amused him.

  At ten o’clock, when they’d been at it for six hours, he stood up and stretched. “That’s enough for tonight. I’m going to catch the news and decompress.”

  “Great.” She shut down her laptop. Normally, the evening news was a mainstay for her, but her emotions about Sebastian were too raw to listen to strangers talk dispassionately about his death. Besides, Alec would make note of anything they needed to know.

  After a quick shower, she brushed her teeth, put on her borrowed nightgown, made a cup of tea, and stared at the bed.

  The television newscaster’s solemn tones drifted in, but she couldn’t make out the words. Would Alec come to bed when the news ended? She glanced at his side of the bed and wondered if she could talk him out of sleeping there.

  Yeah. Fat chance.

  He was a guy. He’d be hoping not just for a repeat performance but, undoubtedly, an expansion of that morning’s adventure. Her face grew hot as the memory made her girl parts go all tingly.

  Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. As fun as it was, and oh God, it had been gloriously fun, Alec was a coworker. There would be no more hanky-panky in this bed.

  If Annaliese and Jada found her on the living room couch when they got home, Annaliese would give her a boatload of grief, and Cleo would feel like an immature child. She didn’t relish that thought, but she’d sleep there anyway. As soon as Alec vacated it. In the meantime, she slid between the sheets, propped her pillow against the headboard, then opened the book she’d tried to read on the plane.

  Before she’d even read a full page, she set down her tea, got out of bed, and picked up the furry white throw pillows that decorated the bed in the daytime. With the covers thrown back, she aligned the pillows down the middle of the bed.

  There.

  If she fell asleep before Alec came to bed, that would stop her from infringing on his side. Sighing as she settled in, she found her place and started to read. The hero had just learned
the heroine’s big secret and was he ever pissed. Then their passionate fight turned to straight passion. Cleo fanned her face.

  As a child, she’d been susceptible to dramatic suggestion. Movies, books, video games, it didn’t matter. She’d internalize the drama. Annie Oakley, Wonder Woman, Nellie Bly—even Ellen Ripley when she’d gotten old enough for scary movies—were a few personas she’d taken on. Within a week or two, she’d have it sorted through and try to hang onto the traits she liked and flush the ones that didn’t suit her. She’d driven even normally tolerant Annaliese crazy with her donned personalities, so reading about hot, crazed sex probably wasn’t the smartest choice, but Annaliese wasn’t a big reader, so if Cleo wanted an escape from reality, this was it.

  She was thoroughly engrossed when Alec walked in. The sound of the television had disappeared sometime in the past few minutes, she realized.

  Clearly unaware that she was vibrating like a violin’s plucked E string, he pulled off his shirt without glancing her way and threw it over the arm of the loveseat before going into the bathroom.

  She stared at the closed door and swallowed hard. He was probably doing something mundane like brushing his teeth, but even that seemed hot to her. She imagined the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexing and rolling as he changed angles. He would look so . . . male.

  The tingle in her girl parts intensified. She clamped her legs together, but that only made it worse.

  The bathroom door opened. Her eyes tracked him across the room. He emptied his pockets, setting his wallet and loose change on his nightstand. Any second now, he would unzip, drop trou, and slide into bed. The memory of the lovely erection she’d glimpsed that morning filled her mind. She clapped her hand over her mouth to ensure she didn’t make some noise that would give away how much she’d like to see it again. Suddenly, her pillow barricade didn’t seem like nearly enough of a barrier.

  When he unbuttoned his jeans, she dropped her book, threw the covers back, and raced to the bathroom.

  Leaning against the door, she pressed her hands over her eyes. She’d just fled the room as if it were on fire. What must he think?

  “Cleo?” He tapped on the door. “Are you all right?”

  Oh, lord.