“Can ye no’ just get a proper cuppa tea now?” the woman in the line beside her wonders aloud. Hands on her hips, she frowns at the array of fancy herbal teas on display.
“I think you have to ask special,” Susan says, laughing.
“Course you do.” The woman rolls her eyes. “Edinburgh,” she grumbles good-naturedly.
“Not from the city, then?”
“Oh no, I’m Leith, born and bred. Put it behind me, though. I live near Aberfeldy now. I’m only here because my brother’s got some event and, ya know”—she shrugs—“Family.”
“I do know,” Susan agrees. “It’s nice of you to come. Who’s your brother?”
“Chris Baker.”
Susan starts. “Chris Baker! Why, then, you’re Beth!”
Beth eyes her beadily. “And who’re you?” she demands.
“Oh, sorry, yes, that was silly of me.” Susan smiles and offers a hand to shake. “I’m Susan Napier.”
Beth’s eyes narrow, and she moves her hands from her hips to a tight cross over her chest. She looks Susan up and down very slowly. “So,” she says at last, “you’re the bitch.”
Susan lets her hand drop. A few people crushed in around them overhear Beth and stare at Susan, as if to say, “Oh, so that’s what a bitch looks like.”
“Yeah,” Susan agrees. “I guess so.”
“Ya did a real number on my brother, ye ken?”
“I do. And I very much regret it, believe me. I was in a really bad place then.”
“And what about the place he was in? All he was dealing with at your family’s bleedin’ restaurant, with that arsehole chef out to get him, and then you abandonin’ him and your aunt firin’ him and his best friend gettin’ killed—”
“Sorry, what?” Susan cries, trying desperately to catch up. “My aunt fired him? Why? And his friend was killed? Is that … was that Mollie’s son?”
Beth blinks at her, and her face changes. The rage leaves it, and now she just looks puzzled. “You didnae know,” she murmurs.
“No! They told me he quit and left London. But that was after I completely screwed everything up and treated him like …” Susan closes her eyes, trying to collect herself. They seem to be drawing something of an audience now. People probably think this is an improv Fringe Festival thing. She drops her voice and leans toward Beth. “You’re right: I was a bitch and I ruined everything, and I kick myself for it every single day, believe me. But what’s this about my aunt firing him? She had nothing to do with the restaurant!”
“Best ask her that,” Beth responds.
“I will!” Susan yanks her phone out of her pocket and dials her aunt’s number as she and Beth step out of the line, all refreshment forgotten.
“Hello, darling!” Kay trills. “How’s the Book Festival?”
“I need to talk to you,” Susan replies. “Are you around?”
“I’m having lunch with some people on George Street. Could probably tie it all up in about half an hour?”
“Fine. Can you meet me here, by the café?”
“Is everything all right, Susan? You sound tense.”
“There’s something I need you to—”
“Susan!”
Susan jumps and Beth breathes, “Jaysus!” at the sound of Lauren’s shriek.
“Susan!” In order to get a better view of the room, Lauren has climbed up onto the low dais where authors sit for book signings. She leaps off and races in Susan’s direction. Her face is pale, eyes red and wide with fear. She grabs the hand Susan isn’t using to hold the phone. “Susan, I need you!” she wails. “Something awful has happened!”
“We’ll talk later,” Susan tells her aunt, ending the call. Beth is watching this with some interest. Susan wraps an arm around Lauren’s shoulder, draws her a little apart from the crush of people, and speaks in a soothing tone. “Hey, hey, it’s all right. Whatever it is, we’ll get it worked out. What’s happened?”
“I can’t, I can’t,” Lauren gulps. “Not here.”
“Okay, okay.” Susan glances around for a quiet spot.
Beth raises her eyebrows and says, “Think I’ll be off now. Nice meetin’ ya, Susan.”
* * *
As Beth wanders outside, Chris is still there waiting.
“Thought you went to get tea,” he says, noting she’s without.
“Och, too much fuss.” Beth shrugs. “Ye’ll no’ believe who I met.”
“Oh?”
“Susan.”
Chris’s chest seizes. “Susan Napier?”
His sister nods. “In the flesh.”
“Oh, Christ, what did you say to her?”
“I didnae say anythin’! What’d you think I’d do?” Beth scrunches up her face in annoyance. “As if I can’t hold my own tongue! She’s no’ as bad as I thought she’d be.”
“No,” Chris agrees. “I may have given you a … poor impression of her.”
“For sure you did! Gave her a fright, I did. And let slip about that harridan of an aunt of hers tossin’ ya out. She didnae ken a thing about anythin’. I think her aunt’s in for quite a hidin’ later on.”
“She didn’t know they fired me? Because of my … problem?”
“Because of the drugs, Chris, let’s no’ mince words, eh?”
Several people passing or sitting at tables turn to stare, and Chris smiles nervously in a “Sisters, yeah?” kind of way. “What did she say?” he hisses, drawing Beth aside.
“No’ much. Some girl with purple hair came runnin’ over with a drama and dragged ’er off.”
Chris frowns. “Purple hair? Was she about this tall? Young? Thin?”
“Sounds right.”
“That’s Lauren. What happened?”
“Oh, so that’s Lauren, is it?” Beth shrugs. “Dunno what happened. Ask ’er yersel’.”
“Where are they?”
“Went to find a more private place to talk. You know, I always thought these rich folk festivals were a bit borin’ an’ all, but this is better ’n the films, it is.”
“Glad you’re entertained,” Chris grunts, rushing into the tent.
“Oy! Get me a tea while you’re in there, will ya?” Beth shouts after him.
* * *
“Right.” Susan steers Lauren through one of the side doors of the café tent. It opens onto a small alleyway near a general storage area filled with rubbish bins and huge jugs of water. Ignoring a “No Public Access” sign, they duck behind the café, taking refuge between two large stacks of boxes covered in blue tarpaulin. “Right, what’s going on?”
“It’s Liam,” Lauren hiccups, somehow managing to fill that one name with an impressive amount of venom. “He and I—well, you know, we had a thing.”
“So you’ve said. And you ended it. Right?”
“Well, sort of. I just hate breakups, you know? But I made it really clear it was over.”
Susan nods, pursing her lips. “Okay. And how did you do that?”
“By making it kind of obvious that Chris and I were having a thing. The night the play opened, Chris and I went to a club where I knew Liam would be, because there were a bunch of my friends there. And I just sort of, uh, put on a show, you know? Like you and Philip were? Dancing?”
Susan closes her eyes for a few moments, grimacing internally. Is that really what she did? Put on a show?
“So what’d Liam do?” she asks, steeling herself.
“He—he had some photos I’d sent him a while ago, when we were still together. And he sent them to Rufus Arion! Private photos,” she hisses.
Susan had already guessed as much. “Did he publish them?” she asks, horrified.
“No! Not yet, at least. But I’m sure he will, and when he does, it’ll be the end for Dad’s campaign, won’t it? Upright family man Tory whose daughter’s sending around nude selfies? Dad’ll kill me! And Mum! I can’t—how will they even be able to look at me? God, how could I have been so stupid?” She bursts into tears and drops her face into her hand
s. “And I’ll b-b-be humiliated!” she adds. “Everyone I know reads that blog! They’ll all see! It was just a bit of fun between him and me, back when things were good between us. I never—never—never thought he’d …”
Susan pulls her in for a hug, praying for patience, trying to figure out what to do here.
“Okay, it’s okay,” she soothes. “We’ll find Rufus and work something out. You’re sure he hasn’t published them yet?”
Lauren shakes her head and holds up her phone. The screen shows Rufus’s blog. “I’ve been refreshing almost every minute,” she answers. “It’s not up. I came here to see if I could find him—he’s been posting selfies with authors on Instagram all day.”
“Good. Let’s go find him and get this sorted.”
Lauren turns bright red and steps back, flattening herself against the railings, shaking her head. “Oh, I can’t face him, Susan! Not after what he’s seen!”
“This is your mess, Lauren!”
“I know! I know!” Lauren gulps. Great, fat teardrops start pouring down her cheeks, and she’s breathing in that hitching, shuddering way that small children do when they’re completely undone by their own emotions. It suddenly strikes Susan just how young Lauren is, and how Susan did pretty stupid things at this age too.
“It’s all right,” Susan reassures her, rubbing her back. “Just try to calm down, okay? And I’ll see if I can find Rufus and get this sorted.” Lauren didn’t seem to be in any shape to face Rufus Arion.
“Thank you, thank you!” Lauren launches herself at Susan, wrapping her arms around her neck. “Susan, thank you so much! I knew you’d manage it!”
“It’s all right,” Susan repeats. “Just … mind what you send people from now on, okay?”
Lauren nods, then escapes around the backs of the tents while Susan ducks back inside. Her eyes rake the crowd, looking for Rufus, but the first familiar face she finds is Chris’s.
He looks relieved when he sees her, and comes over.
“Is everything all right?” he asks in a low voice as soon as he reaches her. “Look, I’m sorry about Beth—”
“No, it’s fine—your sister’s great,” Susan reassures him. “I’m sorry—I have to find Rufus.” She tries to duck past, but a crowd waiting to have books signed blocks the way.
“Is this about Lauren? What happened?” Chris asks.
“It’s fine, it’s just … something I need to fix for her.” She knows she looks frantic. Her heart is beating hard; her eyes still dart, searching the room.
Chris frowns in concern, puts his hands on both her shoulders, and looks her in the face. “Susan, please, let me help. You don’t have to do everything on your own.”
She looks up at him, and it feels like some hard nugget of resistance in her dissolves. “Okay. Help me find Rufus. Lauren says he’s here somewhere. He’s been posting pictures of himself with some of the authors.”
He nods. “All right. Authors’ Yurt, maybe? I’ll get you in.”
They set off, side by side, threading through the knots of people to a somewhat dark, oval tent set back from the square’s main thoroughfare. Chris flashes a pass at someone at the entrance, and the two of them are ushered inside. Susan blinks for a moment, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and spots Rufus sitting at a table with a trio of crime writers.
“Well hel-lo,” he says as Chris and Susan approach. “I’m guessing you two aren’t here to talk about cookbooks.”
“No, we’re not,” Susan says in a clipped voice.
“Didn’t think so.” Rufus excuses himself from the table and leads Chris and Susan outside and around the back of the tent. “I take it you’ve had a chat with Lauren,” he continues, tutting and shaking his head. “Naughty girl!” he singsongs.
Susan doesn’t even need to look at Chris to know he’s clenching his fists. “You’ve been sent some private photos, and we want them deleted,” she says, in a firm, even voice.
“They are naughty,” Rufus agrees, slowly pulling a phone out of his pocket and scrolling through something on the screen. “I mean, I’m no saint, but … oh my!” He glances up at Chris and smirks. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Baker.”
Chris makes a disgusted noise and growls, “Delete them now.”
“Or what?” Rufus asks, looking bored. “You’ll beat me up?” He tucks the phone away and turns to Susan. “You want me to bury this story? Then give me a better one.”
Taken aback, Susan stutters, “But I don’t—I don’t have anything. What do you want? A story about the restaurant?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, woman, of course I don’t! Didn’t you just date and dump Philip Simms? I’m sure you can give me a little something.”
She’s so repulsed she actually steps away from him, as if he might infect her. She’s aware of Chris watching, waiting to see what she’ll do. “You want a kiss and tell?”
“Of course I do, my dear. It’s my stock in trade.”
Save Lauren’s reputation, or throw Philip under the bus. Susan knows that family should come first—that this should be an easy choice. Philip’s famous; he’ll probably come through this all right. He has paid professionals whose job it is to help people like him ride out scandals. And how big a wave could a story on a blog like Rufus’s create anyway? But the whole idea is so ugly and sordid.
“No,” she says. “Ask for something else. You can have anything you want on me, but not him. He’s a decent guy. He doesn’t deserve it.”
Rufus’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure about that?” he asks, slowly keying in his phone’s password.
But then Chris steps forward and says, “I’ve got a story for you.”
With identical looks of surprise, Susan and Rufus turn to him.
“Do you?” Rufus asks. “Is it a good one?”
“Very good,” Chris answers, swallowing hard. “You could probably ruin me with it.”
“Ooh, intriguing!” Rufus’s eyes gleam.
Susan grabs Chris’s arm and looks up at him, hoping her face says, “No! Don’t play his game. Everything you’ve done! All the people who rely on you! Your whole future! Think about it!”
Chris looks back at her, and she recognizes the look from their London days. She used to see it when he’d had enough of the other young chefs’ bullying and was preparing to take them on, however ugly it got.
“Can we go somewhere quieter?” he asks. “More private?”
“I live just around the corner,” Susan suggests. “Moray Place.”
“Very well, then,” says Rufus. He bows low and gestures to her. “Lead the way, milady.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Time Will Explain
Moray Place is empty, but as a precaution, Susan leads the others to the kitchen, so they won’t be overheard if someone unexpectedly comes home.
“Oh, very nice, very nice,” Rufus comments, looking around the gleaming room. “Your sister’s work? I love the slate floor.”
Chris catches Susan’s eye and cringes.
“Should we get this over with?” he suggests, taking a seat at the table.
“Certainly.” Rufus takes a seat across from Chris, sets his phone on the table, and prepares to press a button to begin recording.
Susan joins them, taking the chair at the head of the table.
Chris inhales deeply and places his hands, folded together, on top of the table. Rufus presses the large red button pulsating in the center of his phone’s screen.
“I killed my best friend,” Chris announces abruptly.
Rufus’s eyes practically pop out of his head. “Did you indeed?” He leans forward. “Please, do tell me more!”
Susan wants nothing more than to smash his greedy face into the table.
Chris closes his eyes for a long moment, rhythmically clenching and unclenching his hands. “When I was working at Elliot’s in London, I started taking cocaine,” he says, looking toward Susan. There’s something in his eyes that seems to be pleading with her. “A lot of us too
k it—it’s not uncommon among restaurant employees. The long hours, the high pressure—it can be hard to keep up. But you know how these things go: the more you take, the more you start to feel you need.”
Suddenly, Chris’s behavior during the latter part of their relationship makes more sense. The lack of sleep, the manic talking. And she didn’t think it was just the job that he needed to keep up with. He needed to keep going at full speed to help deal with her too.
“It was … not a good time,” Chris continues. “I was half out of my mind. I wasn’t the person I needed to be for other people.” He looks at Susan again, and she shakes her head just a little, wishing she could hug him and tell him that that wasn’t his fault. That he’d done what he could, and she knew that, but she’d expected him to take on too much. “I realized I needed to stop,” he says. “I got rid of what I had, but during a random search at work, something was found in my locker.” He shakes his head, and his lips and hands tighten.
Something was found. Or planted, Susan thinks, remembering the jealousy of the other chefs at Elliot’s.
“I was fired immediately and told that the whole thing would be kept quiet if I agreed never to see … someone again. I told them they could take their threats and shove ’em.”
Susan feels sick. Her aunt did this? Threatened Chris, to keep him away from her, even as she was gently persuading Susan to just give the relationship a little break for the good of them both? And yet, he’d still risked it. He’d risked the career that meant so much to him by trying to reach out to her. And she’d ignored him!
“And for the record, who was that someone?” Rufus asks, with a glance toward Susan, who blushed.
“I’m not going to say, on or off the record,” Chris answers. “It’s not relevant. She ended things with me the night I was fired and so had no bearing on what came after.”
Susan nearly groans aloud. She couldn’t have possibly known how bad her timing was, but … Jesus.
Rufus shakes his head. “Bitch,” he hisses.
“I said leave her out of this,” Chris nearly shouts.
All Stirred Up Page 29