by Beth Ciotta
DEPUTY LEECH WAS bored out of his skull, I decided. Disturbing the peace? He had to be kidding. I’m pretty sure the birds and the bees weren’t disturbed by three boneheaded humans wrestling for possession of a camera.
The photographer, Joe Kitt, worsened matters by accusing us of assault.
Arch countered with invasion of privacy, only we were in public, Deputy Leech said. He even tossed indecent exposure into the brewing pot after Kitt treated him to digital images of Arch and me stargazing.
At this point I was seriously considering posing for Playboy. It seemed the entire world was destined to see my perky 32Bs. Might as well cash in on my fate. And, of course, when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Deputy Leech hauled us down to the station. Arch had to call Beckett to intervene, and I had to call my Mom to explain why we’d be late for the barbecue.
My life was fast becoming a screwball comedy. Had I landed a part on a reality show and forgotten? I glanced around my surroundings, equating the police headquarters to the jailhouse featured on The Andy Griffith Show. Comparing Deputy Leech to Barney Fife and the silver-haired receptionist—the only other employee in the room—to Aunt Bea. I fidgeted under her grandmotherly appraisal.
“Just sit tight and behave yourselves,” Leech said, “while I take Mr. Kitt’s statement.”
He settled behind a dinged metal desk across the room and motioned the bloody-nosed reporter into an adjacent seat.
Frowning, I scooted my chair closer to Arch. “What’s he think, we’re going to go at it in front of an audience?” I asked in a low voice. “It’s not like we’re exhibitionists.” Although I couldn’t deny the naughty thrill of going at it with Arch in the middle of the day in the backseat of a car. Especially after he’d bared his heart—sort of.
“Tell me Leech is going to come up with credible data if he runs Archibald Robert Duvall, Baron of Broxley, in the computer. I’m not sure a Web site and Wikipedia would do it for the law.”
“Relax, Sunshine.” He smiled and squeezed my hand. “If he researches, he’ll find proper documentation supporting my claim.”
Oh, right. The land title was registered somewhere. Being a pro, he’d probably covered his cute butt in several ways. Some legal, some…creative. Again I reflected on the phony passports and bogus credit cards he’d created for the cruise sting. No doubt he had several extensive methods for creating and substantiating aliases. Which ignited a scary thought. What if Arch Duvall was an alias? What if everything he’d told me about this past—not that he’d revealed much—was a lie?
Cripes.
Don’t go there, Parish. Not now. You’ve got enough to worry about. Like Joe Kitt. “If that rat-bastard photographer insists on pressing charges—”
“He won’t. Beckett will see to it, yeah?”
On cue, the government agent strode in. He didn’t look angry exactly, but he didn’t look pleased. Wearing my own shirt now, I glanced down to make sure I’d buttoned up, then tucked my hair behind my ears in an attempt to look prim and proper.
Unfortunately, sans jacket and tie, cuffs rolled to mid-forearm, Arch looked as rumpled as me. Plus, since I’d worn his shirt during the tussle, it was smudged with dirt and grass stains.
Beckett looked our way and I read his thoughts.
Busted.
I clenched my teeth and felt a twinge of pain. Chill, Evie, Chill. The last thing I needed was for my TMJ to flare. So Beckett knows you and Arch were screwing around. Not in town, not for show, but for your own personal pleasure. At least it’s out in the open. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe he’ll take this in stride.
He braced his hands on the desk, exchanged hushed words with Aunt Bea, then glanced over and caught my gaze.
Or not. The man was ticked. But I sensed something else. Disappointment? Jealousy?
What if you have to choose? Arch’s question echoed in my ears, taking on broader meaning, exacerbating my jaw clenching. Between what? Arch and Chameleon? Arch and Beckett? Happily ever after or happy for now?
“Deputy Leech,” Aunt Bea called across the room. “Someone to see you.”
The cop glanced over his shoulder. “Take a seat, mister. I’ll be with you when—”
“This is a matter of international diplomacy,” Beckett said, forgoing a chair and approaching Leech and Kitt.
“Who are you? Part of the baron’s entourage?” The deputy stood. “We don’t give special treatment to royalty in this town. Law’s the law, and I’ve got a complaint to sort out, Mr….”
“Northbrook.” He gripped the officer’s hand in greeting, eyed the smirking photographer, who’d stuffed tissues up his nostrils to stem the bleeding. “The Baron of Broxley is a title of nobility, not royalty,” he said. “Nevertheless, Duvall is a foreign dignitary who works closely with specific nonprofit charities. You can see why he’d want to protect his and his lady’s reputations.”
Kitt rubbed his hands together like the maniacal Snidely Whiplash. I half expected him to twist the tissues he had stuffed up his nose into a handlebar moustache. “I’m thinking the National Enquirer.”
My stomach turned. I’d always wanted to be famous. But not like this. “Tie me to the railroad tracks, why don’t you?” I mumbled. Talk about a train wreck.
“Don’t you work for the Greenville Tribune?” Leech asked the guy.
Kitt patted the camera sitting on the desk. “Tribune can’t pay me enough for these babies.”
Arch, who’d been listening quietly until now, leaned forward in his seat. “How much?”
“Forget it, Baron.”
“I’m sure we can come to an understanding,” said Beckett.
Just then, my mom burst in. “I want to see my daughter this instant. I—Evelyn!”
I stood and braced myself for a lecture. Good girls don’t go parking. Nice girls don’t strip in public. You’re over forty. What were you thinking? I was prepared for anything.
Except the hug.
She rushed forward and grabbed me up in a rib-crushing embrace.
Arms locked at my sides, I stood stiff, shocked.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
At a loss for words, I nodded.
She stepped back, scrunched her brow. “What were you thinking?”
That was more like it, only the question had lacked bite. Who are you and what have you done with my mother?
She turned on Arch. “What were you thinking? A gentleman of good breeding, for goodness’ sake. The least you could do is put a ring on her finger first.”
My skin heated—a full-body blush.
“I admit to poor judgment,” Arch said, looking suitably contrite. “I tend to lose my head when I’m around your daughter, yeah?”
“Of course, no one would have been the wiser if not for the paparazzi,” she said reasonably, then narrowed her steely blue eyes. “Where is he?”
Arch and I pointed to Joe Kitt.
Red-faced, Mom steamrolled across the room.
Deputy Leech staved her off with a halting hand. “Listen here, Mrs. Parish.”
“Don’t you speak to me in that tone, Ronnie Leech.”
I knew that voice. Her teacher voice. Ronnie had to be one of her former Math students. She’d only been retired a few years, and he looked to be in his late twenties. It added up.
While I calculated and they faced off, the door slammed open and Dad strode in with Sheriff Jaffe. I didn’t know Deputy Ronnie Leech. But I knew Ben Jaffe. He’d been policing Greenville for thirty years. He and Dad were tight.
“What in the blue blazes is going on, Deputy?” Jaffe bellowed. “I take a day off and you spark an international incident.”
Leech sputtered and Jaffe extended a hand to Arch. “Sheriff Ben Jaffe. Welcome to Greenville, sir. I’m sure we can work this out.”
Before Arch could say boo, Jaffe spun off and stalked toward Leech. Mom stood next to the pinch-faced deputy, giving Joe Kitt hell.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You okay, l
ittle one?”
The entertainment industry might consider me over the hill, but I was still Daddy’s little girl. Call me touched. Call me two seconds from a good cry. “I’m sorry for the scene. Sorry I embarrassed you.”
He waved off the apology. “Bah.”
“How did you know we were here?” Arch asked.
“Marilyn called me, up in arms about our daughter being arrested for indecent exposure.”
I groaned.
“Not arrested,” Arch said. “And your daughter’s the most decent person I know.”
“You’re a good man, Archibald. Need to control your urges, but a good man.” He rapped Arch on the shoulder, then focused on me. “Thought your mother would be here by now.”
“She’s over there, Dad.”
“Where?”
“Lecturing that reporter. You’re looking right at her.” I realized he didn’t recognize her right off because he had a rear view and her hair was short and blond and she was wearing jeans and pink running shoes. Not her typical style. Also she was yelling. Mom rarely expressed her anger in words; mostly she gave you the silent treatment. But when she did speak up, she never yelled. Amazing how hurtful a person could be with calm, well-chosen words. This moment, there was nothing calm about Marilyn Parish. She wanted Joe Kitt to give up those pictures, now!
Kitt yelled back and Dad marched toward the action. “That’s my wife you’re bellowing at and that’s my daughter you violated, you weasel!”
“Slander!” Kitt yelled. Then he rattled off something about freedom of the press.
Mom countered with freedom of speech, in Dad’s defense, and Dad cited freedom to protect one’s kin.
I stared because, hey, this was just too weird. What happened to all the squashing down your feelings and not airing dirty laundry? Not that I cared. Air away!
Jaffe and Leech got in on the argument, as did Beckett, although Beckett didn’t raise his voice. Once or twice he glanced our way and I felt the intensity of his displeasure. Yikes.
Arch stood beside me as cool as Danny Ocean or any one of his fictional grifting cohorts. Only Arch was the real deal. His ability to stay as loose as a goose in abnormally tense situations was astonishing. It made the moments he did lose control—like when he’d admitted he was jealous of Beckett—all the more powerful. My heart fluttered when I thought about his unspoken confession. He loves me. A smart woman would run for the hills. I reached out and clasped his hand.
He gave it a squeeze and smiled down at me. “We could slip out just now and no one would notice, yeah?”
“I’m not leaving without those pictures.”
“’Course not, Sunshine. Just pointing oot that though we are the topic of discussion we are not the center of attention.”
I, too, saw the absurdity of the situation and smiled. Six people stood across the room engaged in a shouting match. Aunt Bea watched from her reception desk as she gabbed into the phone—no doubt igniting a firestorm of gossip. Meanwhile my heart swelled and thumped. Though the room surged with frustration, I was feelin’ the love. From Arch. And most surprisingly from my parents. They’d not only rushed to my rescue, they were also fighting for my honor. Me, Evie Parish, the black sheep of the family.
I choked back tears. This was a first. This whole day was a first, stocked with surprises. I barely flinched when Smith, the reporter who’d interviewed Arch at the dance studio, and another man—rotund and chomping on a cigar—charged through the front door.
“Those pictures are the property of the Tribune!” Cigar Man shouted as he jumped into the angry swarm.
“Our chief editor,” Smith explained as he approached, pad and pen in hand. He zeroed in on me. “This seems to be a running theme with you, Ms. Parish.”
I blinked.
“I understand you’ve been banned from performing on the casino stages because you flashed your, uh, bosoms during an audition. Care to elaborate?”
“She does not.” Arch grasped the man by the elbow and steered him away from me, and suddenly there were two heated discussions in progress.
I stood away from the action, dazed. One episode of righteous insanity almost a month ago had turned my world inside out and led me to this bizarre moment. Though I really didn’t want to see seminude photos of me on the cover of a tabloid, I couldn’t dredge up an iota of regret.
“Guess a nudie shot is big news in Greenville.”
I jumped at the sound of Nic’s voice. “Where’d you come from?”
“Milo told me to stay in the car, but then half the town rushed in here, and I thought, Screw you, Slick, I’m going in.” She eyed the chaotic sideshow. “Looks like Arch gave the shutterbug a bloody nose. Is that it? I expected worse, given the charge of assault.”
“Actually, I’m the one who socked Kitt. Didn’t mean to. Clipped him with my elbow when we tussled.”
Nic snorted. “Priceless.” She pushed her big black sunglasses on top of her head and eyed me with concern. “You okay?”
“I’m mortified. We have to get that camera, Nic.”
“Or the compact flash card. I dated a photographer with a camera like that. The pics you’re worried about are stored on a digital memory card. If I could get close without drawing attention, I could pop and pocket that disc. If the camera goes missing, they’ll notice right away. The card…” She shrugged.
I flashed on the change-raising scam I’d pulled in that London pub and recalled the key to escaping with something that didn’t belong to me. “I have an idea.”
She knotted her long hair into a low bun. “I’m all ears.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EVEN THOUGH HE WAS in the midst of an infuriating argument, Milo sensed the moment Nicole walked into the jailhouse. He should’ve known she’d ignore his request. Frankly he was surprised she’d remained in the car as long as she had. Then he saw Twinkie and her friend eyeing the reporter, the camera, and whispering.
Don’t do it, he mentally ordered. A wasted effort. Even if they had telepathic abilities, they’d ignore him because they were both obstinate.
They launched into action before he could extricate himself from the verbal free-for-all. When he saw Twinkie drifting toward the media circus and Nicole fading into the fringes, he had no choice but to be sensitive to whatever they were about to pull. He just happened to catch Arch’s eye and directed his attention toward the potential disaster.
The Scot ratcheted up the level of hostility geared toward the reporter and his boss. “If you print those pictures, I will bloody well sue!”
Milo lost his temper on purpose with the by-the-books, I-despise-foreigners deputy. “Was that a slur against the Scottish people, son? I know people in Washington and I will have your ass!”
“Simmer down, everyone!” the sheriff bellowed.
“I’m sure she didn’t hit you on purpose,” Mrs. Parish told the photographer. “Don’t be such a baby! It’s just a nosebleed.”
“Give me those pictures,” Mr. Parish said, shaking his fist, “or, by God, I’ll do worse.”
“Take your best shot, old geezer.”
Evie got in the photographer’s face. “Stop harassing my parents, you rat-bastard rat!”
She shoved and—Sweet Jesus—the idiot shoved back.
Milo and Arch spun to her aid, but Mrs. Parish beat them to the punch. She swung her pocketbook and connected with his nose.
The rat-bastard rat shrieked. Blood spurted and Evie swooned. Toppling forward into the scumbag photographer, they both crashed to the floor, and everyone flocked to them like magnets to steel.
“Millie!” the sheriff shouted to his receptionist. “Get the first-aid kit.”
The photographer wiggled out from under Evie, shouting his pain to the world. “Crazy bitch broke my nose!”
Evie lay on the floor, seemingly unconscious.
“Cannae stand the sight of blood,” Arch explained as he and Milo dropped their faces close to hers.
Milo assessed her limp
body with dread. “You okay?” he whispered over the ruckus.
“My boobs are in safe hands,” she whispered.
Arch grinned. “Brilliant.”
Milo looked up, looked around. The camera was there, but Nicole was gone. He assessed and bit back a grin. Fucking brilliant.
I’VE ALWAYS CONSIDERED myself pretty decent at improvisational theater. There’s a certain thrill that comes with not knowing what’s going to happen next. Relying on one’s wit and imagination instead of scripted lines. Reacting to another actor’s words or actions off the cuff. If there’s chemistry, there’s energy, and let me tell you, the jailhouse rocked.
Nic exited off stage unnoticed, returning a scant minute later with a bottle of water from the car and the excuse that she was worried I was dehydrated. Arch, Beckett and I cued off her ad-libs and played the room beautifully. Fifteen minutes later—thanks to some diplomatic double-talking on Beckett’s part and the sheriff who just wanted this to go away—everyone left the jailhouse grudgingly satisfied. The Tribune had tomorrow’s front-page story, plus Beckett had promised the baron’s publicist would e-mail them candid photos to accompany the piece. Joe Kitt had been overcompensated for medical bills and the memory card that had mysteriously vanished.
Refraining from performing my victory dance after we exited onto Main Street took enormous energy. My body vibrated like a wound-up toy. The air crackled with excitement and tension. I sensed everyone had something to say to someone, just not in front of the entire group.
A few feet away from the jailhouse Dad broke the ice. “I hope one of you pocketed that disc. I’d hate to think it was Millie or even Deputy Leech.”
“You don’t think they’d sell those pictures, do you?” Mom asked, aghast.
“You never know,” Dad said. “Could wind up on the Internet.”
“They won’t,” Nic said with a knowing smile.
Dad scratched his beard, then grinned full out. “Enough said.”
Mom nodded in agreement, and I thanked my lucky stars they were willing to drop the discussion on the pitfalls of stargazing. I had a feeling it wasn’t a dead topic with Beckett, but I’d cross that bridge later. In private.