Betrayal (7 page)

Other than that, it sounded like everything was fine and her accounts were in good order.

Hunt got home from his tennis game five minutes after she walked in. He was hot and sweaty, and she was making a big salad for lunch. Despite her lack of skills in the kitchen, even she could do that. He was in good spirits, he had won. He was very
competitive
on the tennis court, and at most games. He played hard, and usually took it badly when he lost. From the grin on his face, it looked like it had been a good day.

“How was Victor?” he asked, helping himself to some Gatorade in the fridge.

“Fine. The poor thing asks a million questions and worries about everything. And he’s a little confused about some of it. He says I’m spending too much cash, and I don’t spend any. I always use my credit card. I have to make sure Brig isn’t using cash to pay for things or for bills, because that way we lose deductions. That’s what he was upset about. I’m sure Brig has the explanation. I don’t.” And then she wanted to mention the hotel bills to him, but she didn’t know how to do it without sounding accusing. She thought that maybe she should ask Brigitte first, in case she had been charging hotel bills to her when she stayed there with her boyfriends. If so, Tallie was certain that she had reimbursed her, probably by depositing a check or cash to one of Tallie’s accounts. And Victor wouldn’t have known what it was for. And there again, there was surely an explanation. So she didn’t say anything to Hunt. She was sure that the confusion was at her end. What she needed to do was check it all with Brigitte and get back to Victor with the simple explanation.

They spent a cozy, relaxed afternoon together and sat chatting in the garden after lunch. Tallie was loving being home. She was getting tired of being on location, but she reminded herself that it was a lot less arduous and unpleasant than some of the locations she’d been to in the past, like India during a monsoon, or Africa
during
a civil war. Palm Springs certainly couldn’t be considered a hardship and at least it was close to home.

And as Tallie and Hunt were relaxing in her garden, Victor was having lunch with Brianna at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She had been annoyed when he kept her waiting for half an hour, but he explained that he had had to finish his meeting with Tallie. And Brianna was irritated that he had to work on a Sunday. She thought he looked like an undertaker in the suit and tie. She had suggested he wear jeans and a button-down shirt, but Victor wouldn’t do that, out of respect for his clients, whether it was Sunday or not.

Victor and Brianna had been passing like ships in the night for several days. She seemed to be out a lot these days, and he had been tied up with the audit.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately. It should calm down now,” he said apologetically. She looked beautiful in a tight white dress with a low neckline she had bought that week at Roberto Cavalli. Her cleavage looked remarkable in it.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. She waited until they were having coffee to drop the bomb. She took a breath and leaped in. “I want five million dollars,” she said bluntly.

“What for? So do I,” he said with a smile.

“To stay married to you,” she said coldly. She was suddenly all business, and not nearly as inviting as she looked. “And an amount every year that we can negotiate. But I want the five million up front.”

“What is this? A business deal or a marriage?” he asked, looking
upset.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” he said, looking her in the eye.

“You used to.”

“I don’t anymore.” And if he did, he still wouldn’t have paid her to stay married to him. That was pure blackmail. “Pay, or I’ll leave” was the message to him loud and clear.

“What about three million?” she asked. She was willing to negotiate with him. “But if you don’t pay it, I’m leaving. I can’t sit there penniless all the time. I need to know that there’s some money in the bank, just for me. It will make me feel secure.” Her secure, and him broke, Victor thought to himself.

“Brianna, I just don’t have it.” He didn’t know why her lawyer had put the idea of a postnup into her head, but it was destroying their marriage overnight.

“If you don’t give it to me,” she said coolly while he paid the check, “I’m going to leave you. I can’t be married to a man who doesn’t want me to be happy.” Her happiness came at a high price. She had made herself clear. Victor looked pale as they waited for their car outside the hotel, and they drove home in silence. He could see where this was headed. Either he paid the postnup, or he paid alimony and a settlement. He was so upset that he ran a red light and they nearly had an accident. He had never felt so panicked in his life.

Chapter 5

ON THE WAY
to Palm Springs with Brigitte the next morning, Tallie mentioned her conversation with Victor about the cash.

“Are you paying some of the bills in cash?” Tallie asked her as she sipped a light vanilla latte from Starbucks on the way. They had stopped for it as they left town.

“Of course not. What’s he talking about?” Brigitte looked annoyed. “I pay all the bills by check, or credit card. He knows that.”

“That’s what I thought. I don’t see how he can think we’re spending that much in cash. I knew we weren’t. Maybe he screwed up the accounts.” Anything was possible. Maybe it was a bookkeeping mistake at his end. Tallie thought that was more likely than she or Brigitte spending twenty-five thousand a month in cash, which would have been astounding and sounded utterly impossible to her.

“He seems so distracted to me lately,” Brigitte commented. “Maybe he’s sick. Or too old to do his work and keep the numbers straight.” She sounded annoyed.

“Yeah. I don’t know. It sounded crazy to me too. I’ll tell him it’s a mistake of some kind.” And then she thought about the hotels. Maybe that was a mistake too. But she had to ask her anyway, just to be sure. “He showed me a list of hotel bills too, for the Chateau Marmont and the Sunset Marquis.” There was a momentary silence, and feeling slightly embarrassed, Tallie went on. “I hate to ask you this,” she said apologetically, “but did you happen to stay there and accidentally charge it to the joint card?”

“No.” Brigitte looked puzzled. “I’ve never stayed at either hotel. Why would I? If I were going to sleep with someone, I’d go to my own house, not a hotel right here in L.A. That sounds crazy to me too. Maybe it’s identity theft again.”

Tallie had thought of that too.

“That’s what I thought, or I figured you stayed there, charged it to our joint card, and reimbursed me later.”

“I’m not that sloppy,” Brigitte said with a broad smile.

“I know you’re not.” Tallie smiled back at her apologetically. “Especially if you’ve never stayed at those hotels. It must be a mistake then.” Tallie knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for it, whatever it was. And without thinking about it further, she pulled out the script and read the new changes on the way to Palm Springs. The incorrect hotel charges were the furthest thing from her mind.

She called Victor from her cell phone that morning from her trailer on the set, while Brigitte went to get her coffee. They had an espresso/cappuccino stand set up by catering that was as good as
Starbucks.
Tallie told Victor on the phone that she had no explanation for the cash or the hotel bills. She sounded unconcerned about it, and he sounded surprised.

“Hunt said he goes to those hotels with you,” Victor said clearly, and Tallie suddenly felt her stomach curl itself slowly into a knot like a boa constrictor in her belly. Had Victor misunderstood? Was he senile?

“I think you misunderstood him, Victor,” she said firmly. If Hunt had said it to him it simply wasn’t true, and Brigitte had denied that the charges were hers. So who had been charging hotel bills to her?

“It must be identity theft again,” Tallie said simply, as the boa constrictor in her belly relaxed.

“I’ll check it out,” Victor said cautiously, “and I’ll call you back. The credit card company should have a record of who signed at the hotel.”

“Probably no one we know,” Tallie said quietly. Victor said nothing and hung up a moment later, as Brigitte came back to the trailer with Tallie’s coffee. It smelled delicious.

“Everything okay? You look pissed,” Brigitte commented as she handed Tallie the cup of steaming latte. Tallie laughed when she said it, and felt instantly better.

“Not pissed. Just annoyed at Victor. He’s so ridiculously stubborn sometimes. He’s like a dog with a bone when he gets something in his teeth. He’s all worked up about the cash he says we’re spending, and I’ll bet you anything, it’s some kind of clerical error on his end when his assistants put our entries into the general ledger.”

“I’m pretty precise about them,” Brigitte said calmly.

“I know you are. I’m not worried about it. He’s being a pest, although I know he means well. But they probably screwed up and we didn’t. I don’t want to get upset about it. And he keeps harping on the hotel bills he claims I charged, and I agree with you on that too. I’m sure it’s identity theft again. The last time someone stole my credit card number, they went to a sex shop in Detroit, and about thirty bars. I’m sure the hotel charges are the same thing. He claimed that Hunt said he stayed at those hotels with me, and I’m sure he didn’t say that. Victor gets so nervous, he gets it wrong sometimes. For about an eighth of a second I got nervous about Hunt when Victor said that. And then I realized that’s just me being crazy. Victor will get it straightened out, tell me it was a mistake, and I’m not going to accuse Hunt of staying in hotels because Victor got a bee in his bonnet. Shit, I hate accounting. Thank God, you do it for me. He makes me crazy.” Brigitte laughed as she said it, and Tallie grabbed the script and stood up.

“I don’t love the accounting either. He’s such a nervous Nellie,” Brigitte said as she handed Tallie her BlackBerry.

“I know. Well, I’ve got to get to work.” Tallie finished her coffee, put the script under her arm, and slipped her BlackBerry into a pocket of her shorts after putting it on vibrate, and a moment later she was riding a cherry picker with the cameraman, setting up the shots with him for that morning, and her irritation with Victor was already forgotten.

It was another long shooting day to make up for lost time. Tallie worked straight through lunch, and it was midafternoon before she took her BlackBerry out of her pocket and checked it for
messages.
She had felt it vibrate several times. She had four messages from Victor and rolled her eyes as she sat down in a chair on the set and cracked open a bottle of water. As she called Victor back, Tallie noticed Brigitte talking and laughing with one of the actors, and she wondered if he was the man of the moment. While Tallie was watching them, Victor answered.

“I wanted to get back to you about the Sunset Marquis and the Chateau Marmont,” her accountant said without preamble, and Tallie was reminded of the image of a dog with a bone again.

“It’s probably identity theft, Victor, just like all the other times we couldn’t explain charges on the cards. And you said there have been no charges for those hotels on my card for the last year anyway. What’s the problem?”

“I don’t like unsolved mysteries,” Victor said sternly, “not when it’s about your money.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s not recent anyway, and it can’t be a very large amount.” Tallie was trying to be casual instead of worried.

“I still have an obligation to explain it. I called the credit card company this morning. They keep the signed charge slips on microfiche, and I had them fax them to me to see whose signature was on them.”

“Don’t tell me I signed them,” Tallie said, almost laughing at the absurdity of it.

“No. Brigitte did. Her signature is clearly on all the hotel charges, at both hotels. Yours is on one from the Bel-Air, but you already explained that. The ones I mentioned to you are all signed by Brigitte Parker.”

“She said she’s never stayed at either hotel,” Tallie said firmly, far more willing to believe her assistant than her accountant. She still believed that the mistake here was his, not Brigitte’s, or any improper use of the credit card on her part.

“Maybe she’s forgotten. It’s been a while,” Victor said calmly.

“I don’t think so, Victor.”

“Maybe she’s embarrassed to tell you that she used the card for personal reasons, and she reimbursed you without our knowledge.” He was willing to believe that she had made it up to Tallie, although he couldn’t prove it, but he was entirely unwilling to believe that she’d never been there and checked into the hotels. Her name on the charge slips said otherwise. “It’s clearly her signature on the charge slips.”

“Maybe someone forged it,” Tallie suggested coolly.

“I doubt that.”

“I never look at things like that, Victor. Brigitte handles all the statements when they come in. I don’t have time. That’s why I have her. And you check the accounts and the general ledger.”

“Yes, I do. This only came up because of the recent audit. And we still have no explanation for the twenty-five thousand in cash you’re spending every month and can’t account for. I’m much more concerned about that than the hotel bills we can’t explain.”

“So am I. If you don’t mind, I’d like to show the accounts and the spreadsheets to my father. He’s a lot better at this kind of thing than I am.” She always relied on her father’s advice and wise counsel.