A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (41 page)

About three hours later, the doorman calls, addressing me by name, and I'm pleased to see that Cain has already informed security that I live here now.  I authorize him to send Nicole up, and when she arrives, she tells me why it took so long for her to get here. We now have home security in our little house because Mr. Michaelsen sent a team to install it before bringing her here.  It's amazing how quickly people with money are able to get things done.

They got the reporters off the lawn fast, too, but before they started leaving, Nicole made sure to get not only the news agency names but the reporters' names as well, finally finding a use for all of those extra lemons I bought when Cain cooked for me. September days in La Mesa are warmer than the coast, so Nicole came out of our front door with a stack of disposable cups, a pitcher of lemonade, and a cell phone in her breast pocket recording every reporter's name as she introduced herself to them.

"I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this," I tell her.

"Well, you know what they say.  When life give you lemons..."

"How long have you been waiting to pull that gem out?"  I laugh.

"About three hours.  If someone hadn't been murdered, that would have been my sound bite for the press." 

"I can't believe the press is trying to drag us into this.  His mother is really going to hate me now if his name gets in the paper."

"Don't worry.  The people Michaelsen sent to our house said if any of the reporters there actually printed our names, they'd find themselves blacklisted all over the west coast."

"How can an attorney do that?"

"Trent Michaelsen is a powerful man.  I can't believe you've never heard of him."

"Really, Nicole?  I never even knew society pages actually existed until you told me.  This is your department."  She laughs.

"Trent Michaelsen is super rich and super connected.  When I gave his people the reporters' names, they just started disappearing."

"I hope whatever they are doing works.  Our alibi is the stuff tabloids drool over."

"What were you doing?" she asks.

"Um...
having sex in his car
," I admit, embarrassed.  Nicole giggles.

"So what was it like last night?" she asks.

"Oh, God, it's was incredible!  The things he can do with his..." 

"I meant the party at the country club." 

"Oh," I say with a laugh, and though I would rather just prattle on about my awesome sex life, I guess I do owe her the whole story about last night.  But not before a nice, distracting tour.

"Let me show you around first," I say, picking up her bag and leading her to the guest room.  Decorated in light blue and brown, it looks like a high-end, boutique hotel room, which is right up her alley, but since being nosy is also up her alley, I make it clear to stay out of the Cain's closet.  Then I end the tour in my closet, and Nicole is positively green with envy.

"Where did he take you shopping this time?" she asks, excitedly looking through the designer dresses.

"He took me to a place called Entrance to get a dress for the thing last night, but he picked out all of the rest of this for me."

"Entrance?  Damn, Ev!  You're so lucky!"

"You've heard of it?"

"Of course."

Of course!

"Anyway," I say, "Cain's really pissed off at them because my dress wasn't one-of-a-kind, and the sales lady promised to hold the others, then someone showed up wearing one of them."

"Oh, Ev, I'm sorry."  I roll my eyes at her.  That would probably be a humiliating experience for Nicole, but it just isn't the kind of thing I care about.  The damn thing still cost $5,000.

"It wouldn't have been a big deal, but the person who wore the other dress was Elizabeth."

"That's really weird."  Nicole says.  "Is that the dress?"  It's still draped across the fainting couch.  I hold it up for her.

"I wore it with sapphires and those shoes," I say, indicating the pumps still on the floor.

"It's gorgeous.  Can I see the sapphires?"  I open the velvet lined jewelry drawer, and she picks up the bracelet, salivating.  "These are incredible!  Did Cain buy these, or are they on loan?" 

How does she know about these things?
 

"He bought them, but I don't think sapphires are that expensive."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," she laughs at me.  "This bracelet alone is worth more than $20,000.  How many carats is it?"

"I don't know.  It's not like it matters.  If Cain and I break up, I'm not keeping them."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Ev."

When Nicole is finished devouring my closet, I've run out of avoidance tactics and have to finally tell her about last night, omitting any information about Caleb or the harpy altogether.  I end my story with Rain getting into her grandfather's car, and now that she's on my mind, I grab my phone to try her again.  Still no answer.

"How are you so comfortable with a woman who used to sleep with Cain?" Nicole asks, surprised.

"It was high school."

"But you really handled Elizabeth well this time, too."

"That's probably why the cops came here and questioned us at 7:00 am."

"The cops came here?  I hope you and Cain aren't suspects.  Your alibi is really weak."

"That doesn't matter if we didn't do it."  But even as I say it, it sounds ridiculous.  Of course it matters.  Innocent men with weak alibis go to prison all the time, and Detective Vega seems like the sort who would revel in bringing down the arrogant, rich asshole she thinks my Cain is.  "I have to have faith that they'll find the right person."

"Well, at least he has Trent Michaelsen in his corner.  I don't think he's ever lost a case."

"Why do you know that?" I ask, exasperated.  If she would just channel half the brain capacity she uses for tucking away useless facts about fashion designers, the local elite, and jewelry appraisal toward an education, she could do really well for herself, but she would rather find a man who could give her practical use for all of her trivial knowledge.

Hmmm...wonder if Trent Michaelsen is single
...

I'll bet Nicole knows.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a light come on down the hall.  Cain is up, and I excuse myself to make sure he's okay with Nicole staying here before he comes out to find her.  Having also called Trent, I can't help but feel that I have overstepped my bounds today, but when I tell Cain, he's actually pleased.

"If you hadn't called Trent, it sounds like your name and mine could have ended up in the evening edition.  Evan, I don't want you to feel like you have to ask permission here.  I want you to make this your home."  He kisses me, my hands in his, and though it seems like the perfect moment to say the L word, neither of us does.

Later in the evening, Cain sends out for dinner, and as he watches the news, I check the internet to see if more details about Elizabeth's murder have been released.  Already knowing how she was killed, it's still a shock to hear a reporter say that she was stabbed twenty-eight times in the face, chest, and genitals and was found with her back across the center console of her Fiat Abarth with her legs stuffed in so the door could be closed, and it gets worse when I click on a link to find that a blogger has somehow obtained a crime scene photograph.  It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen, her face beyond recognition and her dress so saturated with blood that only the length from her knees down remained its original color.

"Jesus!" Cain cries out, covering his mouth.

"I'm sorry!  I didn't know there would be a picture," I say, quickly turning the tablet off.

"It's the dress," he says, shaking his head.  "I didn't see Liz at all last night.  When I see that dress, I see you." 

"Cain, it's okay to mourn her," I urge him.

"I just can't shake the feeling that it could have been meant for you," he says, pulling me close on the couch, his grip tight around my shoulder.  "A hired killer could make a mistake like that." 

"Maybe if he was a crack head," I argue, trying to ease his mind.  "It would have taken a serious level of incompetence to confuse a blonde in a red Fiat with a brunette in a black Maybach."

"You may be right," he relents, but thinking about the parallels - same dress, parked in cars not far from the country club, my mind is set upon a dark path.  At the same time my dress lay on the seat of Cain's car while he fucked me, just a few miles away, someone raped and killed Elizabeth in her dress.  I could have been screaming in ecstasy while she screamed in pain and terror.

Could we have heard her if I weren't so loud?  Worse, could she have heard me?
  Suddenly I regret what I said to her last night.  She has been awful to me, but now one of the last memories she ever had was the new girlfriend of the man she thought she was going to marry telling her about having sex with him and getting his come on the dress she was wearing.

Fuck!
  Cain's DNA is on the hem of that dress!  Probably mine, too!  Now we have to tell the detectives that we also had sex in the dressing room, and as I struggle to decide whether or not I should mention it to Cain yet, we have our second unheralded knock today.

"What the fuck now?" Cain hisses.  No one should be on this floor without a call from the doorman other than the police, but it isn't the police.  It's worse.

"What the hell is going on?" Catherine Ballantyne demands, barging in like she owns the place.  "Would you like to explain why two detectives came to my house regarding Liz Chadwick's murder?  Did your little coonass have something to do with it?" 

"You will not be disrespectful to Evan in my house!" Cain snaps, and she stops dead in her tracks, seeing me sitting in the living room with Nicole.  Cain lowers his voice.  "You can apologize or you can leave."

"Well, of course, I'm sorry.  I didn't know she'd be here.  I thought she worked nights."  That's not exactly what Cain meant, but I give him a signal to just let it be.

"Catherine," I greet her sarcastically. 
So lovely to see you again, and no, I did not have anything to do with Elizabeth's murder, thank you very much.  If I had, since I would already be on the path to prison, I would probably just go ahead and knock you off while I was at it.

Walking straight past Cain into the living room, Catherine plops herself down in a chair as Jack, Cary, and Caleb gather around the breakfast bar.  I see Nicole's eyes flash when she sees Caleb, but they both play it cool.

"The police at my house, Cain.  Explain it," Catherine demands.

"I would love to, Mother.  I'll just reach out to the detectives with my fucking telepathy." 

Ah, his scathing sarcasm.

"According to Sunny Meriwether..."  As Catherine says the name, Nicole stifles a laugh, and after a dirty look from Catherine, she sneaks away.  It would be best to limit her exposure to Caleb's mother anyway.  Catherine may be a lot of things, but I don't think she's stupid.

"According to Sunny Meriwether," she repeats, louder.  "Your Miss Lucien was the last person to talk to Liz last night..."

"Sunny Meriwether is self-serving cunt, and if that is what she told you, she's a liar, too.  We both know she's the one who put Liz up to cornering Evan in the ladies' room last night, but you'll be pleased to hear that Evan handled herself beautifully."

"Yes, Sunny told me what she said about her sister."

"And what was that?" Cain asks.

"Maybe it would be better if Miss Lucien told you herself.  I don't use that sort of language." 

"Are you talking about me fucking Lorraine the whole time I dated Sunny?"  Cain is smiling, but I can almost feel his blood boiling inside.  "Evan didn't say that.  I did."

"Well, it was cruel, and I expect you to call and apologize.  Let her know that you just said it to upset her."

"I did say it to upset her, Mother, because she deserved it, but that doesn't change the fact that I was fucking Lorraine the entire time I was keeping up the farce of dating her plastic, bitch sister," Cain says it so cavalierly that it's all I can do to suppress my urge to laugh, especially when Cary bursts out.  He comes into the living room and sits down beside me.

"He never pissed her off this bad before you came along," Cary whispers in my ear.

"Really?"  I'm surprised.  I had imagined that Cain tormented her from the time he hit puberty if not sooner.

"He's always been the one to make her crazy, but putting her in her place like he does for you?  I hope he marries you."  I smile politely, not knowing what to say.  If the Cain Ballantyne I know at this moment is the man he truly is and always will be, I hope he marries me, too.  It's a happy thought, driven away too soon as I realize that Caleb has disappeared. 
Shit!
  I quietly slip away and find him with Nicole on the balcony in the master bedroom.

"We were just..." Caleb starts.

"He was just showing me the view," Nicole says.  "Cain was asleep in here when you gave me the tour." 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" I ask, and in a sweet, cliché, and inappropriate moment, Caleb answers my question with a yes while looking only at Nicole, who giggles like a doe-eyed, Disney heroine.  I roll my eyes.  That bit is only cute when Cain uses it.

"Caleb, I was hoping you might come back in and be a buffer between your mother and Cain."

"Sure thing, Evan," he says.  "By the way, last night when he was called onstage, I saw you under the spotlight and headed straight for you, but when I got there, you were already gone.  I'm really sorry.  I didn't know anything about the award.  None of us did." 

Caleb walks down the hall, Nicole goes to the guest room, and I linger for a long time in the shadows in the hallway, not wanting to face Catherine.  With all of her sons now her captive audience, as she continues to bitch about the fact that the Ballantynes have become a blip on the detectives' radar, Jack approaches me in the hall.

"So what do you make of all this?" he asks.

"I think it's just procedure.  I did speak to Elizabeth, but I wasn't the last person to see her.  I doubt it's anything more than hoping we picked up on a clue."

"I wish it were that simple, dear," Jack says.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know what you said to Elizabeth, but Sunny Meriwether and two other women stated that she overheard you threatening her."

"Threatening her?  How?" I ask, and Jack sighs.

"The detectives didn't give us a direct quote, but the story is that you said something to Liz about staying away from your man or else," he says apologetically, and I wince.  I would never use the term "my man."  It sounds like a bad country song, not to mention that I would never have claimed Cain like that in front of those women lest one day I find myself embarrassed to have said it even if no one but me remembers or cares.

"If you knew me better, Jack, you'd know just how out of character that would be for me.  What I said may have been hurtful, but it wasn't a threat at all." 

"Perhaps if you told me," Jack suggests.

"It's too embarrassing."

"Better to be embarrassed than the center of the investigation of a murder you didn't commit."

"The center?" 

"I think they are taking a pretty serious look at Cain on this. Detective Calderón called his alibi weak."

"I should never have said anything to Elizabeth, but when all of the exes corned me, I just..."

"What do you mean the exes cornered you?" Jack asks, and as I tell him about what the X-bitches did last night, he becomes very interested.  Like Caleb, he had started to walk toward me when Cain was called to the stage, but Catherine had protested, urging him to watch his son's speech.  Although I could dismiss her behavior on the same grounds, when Jack tells me that she received a text just before the spotlight hit Cain, it feels like a slap in the face.

"When Cain took the stage, how long before the girls approached you?" he asks, his voice stern.

"Almost immediately," I say.

"Then it was planned," he says, exasperated.  He pauses for a second and puts a hand on my shoulder.  "Evan, I am very sorry you are being subjected to this.  I've enabled my wife for too long."

"Catherine!" Jack shouts, striding into the great room as I watch from the hall.  "Give me your cell phone!"

"You have your own," she mutters dismissively.

"I need yours." 

"Use Cain's.  I left mine in the car."

"I know you have it on you, Catherine.  Give me your goddamned phone!  Now!"

"What's the problem, Mother?" Cain asks suspiciously.  "Give him the phone."

"I don't know what you are all getting so excited about," Catherine says as she takes her phone out and begins pressing the touch screen before handing it over.  Cain snatches it from her and gives it to his dad.

"Why were you one touch away from deleting a message from Sunny Meriwether, Catherine?" Jack demands.

"I must have pressed it by accident," she insists.

"What does it say?" Cain asks, his lips in a thin line.

"10:11 pm, 'Show time,'" Jack reads.

"What does that mean, Mother?" Cain growls.

"It was supposed to be a surprise, but Sunny told me about the award so I didn't miss seeing my son on stage."

"Bullshit, Catherine!" Jack snaps.  He's pissed.  "Why would Sunny have copied Elizabeth Chadwick and Victoria Trappano on the message If that were the case?"

"How did Sunny know Evan would be there?"  Cain asks, his eyes furiously set on his mother.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she scoffs indignantly, but all four men now see through her.

"Did you have something to do with those plastic whores coming after Evan?"  Cain demands, but he doesn't wait for her to admit it because her true answer is written on her face.

"Out!" he rages, pointing toward the door.  "Leave your key on the counter, and get the fuck out of my house."  He hisses as I duck out of sight, hoping Catherine won't notice me as she struts toward the door in a huff, slamming her keycard down on the breakfast bar as she goes.  Jack follows, shaking his head.

"I'll let you know what she has to say for herself on the ride home," I hear Cary whisper to Cain, and when the door closes behind them, Cain turns to look for me.

"There you are," he says, his arms open as he hurries toward me where I stand in the dark hallway.  "Evan, I am..."

"Don't."

"But..."

"You don't have to keep apologizing for her.  We both know she's never going to accept me, but I can deal with it," I say, "as long as you defend me."

"I will always defend you...and protect you...and take care of you..." Cain says, looking into my eyes.  He kisses me and folds his arms around me.  It's been a very trying day and I'm looking forward to falling asleep in these arms, but the peace is interrupted once more.

Caleb is at the door, claiming to have left his cell phone in the bedroom.  While he looks for it, Cain and I sit down in the living room, and I tell him that three of the six living witnesses in that ladies' room last night have already lied to the police.  One is dead, one is missing, and the other will probably follow her leader.  It will be my word against theirs, but Cain isn't worried.  He has full faith that Trent will be able to
persuade
the X-bitches to tell the truth.

Fortunately, we are soon distracted as we realize that Caleb has been looking for his phone for over ten minutes.  Cain and I go looking for him, and stealthily opening the guest room door, we catch him kissing Nicole.  They both jump.

"Aren't they waiting for you downstairs?" Cain asks, amused.

"I told them you'd take me home later or loan me a car. I'd prefer the loaner because I'd like to take Nicole out." 

"Well, I'm sure as hell not driving you to La Jolla tonight," Cain says.  He gives Nicole his mother's passkey so she can get back in the building and into the lockbox with the car keys.  I suggest that they take the Bugatti Veyron, and as usual, Nicole knows exactly what that is.

"Oh my God, Evan!" she says, then she whispers loudly.  "That's like a million dollar car!"

"It's about a million-five," Caleb says, also whispering loudly to show Nicole that she did a terrible job keeping her comments for my ears only.  She always does.

"Cain?" I ask, shocked.

"It may have been something like that," he says, which tells me it's worth at least that much.  I roll my eyes on principle.

"Take whichever car you want," he offers.  "I've already added drivers under twenty-five to the insurance policy if you want to drive, Nicole." 

"I'd be afraid I'd wreck it," Nicole says.  "But I'd love to ride in it."

"You got it," Caleb says as he leads her out the door.  "Thanks, bra." It's almost comical to see this side of Caleb after watching him last night with his wife.  His wife. 
Why did I think of his wife?

"Don't worry," Cain whispers as he puts his arms around me from behind.  "Nicole's a big girl, and Caleb's a good guy."  I tilt my head back and look up at him with a raised eyebrow.  "Okay, he's married, but that's not what I meant.  I meant that he isn't the family playboy.  That's Cary."

"If Cary is the family playboy, that must make you the family whore.'"