Pretty Sly (12 page)

“What should we do now? I’m too pumped to sleep.”

“Shower,” I announced. Argh. I was inadvertently macking on him now. At least if I was going to make a move I should do it purposefully. “I mean, I need one. And I need to change.” With my bag gone I had nothing to wear but my dirty old clothes.

“I have some stuff in my bag, but I guess that doesn’t help you, huh?”

“No,” I said. “But maybe they have something.”

Upstairs, I found some shampoo and soap in the master bathroom—spa-quality, of course, with all-natural ingredients. I helped myself to a towel and stepped into the giant glass-walled stall. Like everything else here, it had a view. I could see the pool below, glittering under the lights.

When I’d toweled off, I found a robe that was thick as a rug and soft as down, wrapped it around me, and stepped out into the bedroom. Along the wall opposite the bed there was a large dresser. Surely there would be something in there I could borrow. I rummaged around in the drawers and I pulled out some men’s pajamas and a pair of woolen socks.

“Hey, Willa, I’ve found the mother lode,” Aidan called, his voice echoing from behind a nearby door.

I followed the sound into an enormous walk-in closet. There were racks upon racks of clothes for both men and women, built-in shelves of all shapes from floor to ceiling. The shoes alone took up a six-foot wall,
coordinated by color in neat pairs.

It was so big that I couldn’t see Aidan—I could only hear his disembodied voice muffled behind the shirts and pants and suits.

“I’ve been working on our disguises,” he said. He emerged from behind the racks wearing a fedora and a three-piece suit. “What do you think?”

He looked good. Seriously good. Like red-carpet good. “Wow. I’ve never seen you this . . . spiffy.”

“I’m thinking if you’re trying to hide you should just go over the top with it. Maybe I can shave my head. Ooh, or grow a mustache. How long do you think it will take?”

He was smiling, clearly enjoying the process of dress-up. Now that he’d come closer to me, I was distinctly aware of the fact that the fabric of my robe, thick though it was, was all that was shielding me from him. He must have noticed it, too, because he briefly met my eyes and we paused there, looking at each other in awkward silence. Then he turned away and busied himself with the tie rack.

“These are all Gucci. I guess I should have been paying attention when my dad was explaining the Windsor knot.”

I looked on the lady side. There were fur coats and handbags, evening gowns with sequins. I found a pair of jeans and a red bateau-neck tee that was a little basic for my tastes, but comfortable. Even better, it looked like
the things were close to my size. From the shelf, I pulled out a fuzzy gray cardigan to wear on top, and I piled the clothes over my arm.

Aidan picked up the sweater. “That’s it? That’s your disguise?”

“Well, I can’t go wearing one of these fancy dresses.”

“You should do something about your hair. Maybe we can cut it.”

“No cutting!” I said, grabbing it defensively in a side ponytail.

Back in the bathroom, I swiped at the mirror, which was still fogged up from my shower. My face was pink— whether from the heat or the proximity to Aidan in my near-nakedness, I didn’t know. I rummaged around in the drawers of the vanity. Lo and behold, there was a bottle of women’s hair dye. Mink brown.

“I’ve got a disguise. I’m going brunette,” I called out to Aidan.

“Sweet,” he said from the other side of the door. “Who do you think lives here, anyway?”

“I was wondering the same thing.”

“I know one way to find out,” he said. “Can I come in?”

I let him in. He opened up the medicine cabinet and handed me a pill bottle.

I took one look at the label and blinked to make sure I was seeing it correctly. “Aidan, you’re not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“It’s Sam Beasley.”

“As in, the Academy Award–winning actor and director Sam Beasley?”

“Yes.”

“Give me that.” He grabbed the bottle out of my hand. “Holy crap. You’re right. And he takes statins for high cholesterol. I totally would’ve thought he’d have some more interesting drugs here. Some painkillers, at least.”

I looked through the rest of the medicine-cabinet shelf. “Nothing much besides Band-Aids and mouth-wash.” I looked down at the robe. “Oh my God. I’m wearing Sam Beasley’s robe.”

Aidan grabbed me by my waist. “And it looks good on you.”

“You think so?” I choked out the question, feeling his nearness.

He ran his finger along the bow I’d tied, tracing its infinity-sign shape. “I mean, you’d probably look better in my robe.”

“You don’t have it here, do you?”

“No. That bastard beat me to it.”

His eyes. I was transfixed. I drew in a breath. “Thank you for today.”

“We make a good team, you and me.”

Now his face was close and there was no denying it. We kissed, his mouth pressing hard against mine. His lips
parted and I got lost there, spinning, spinning, spinning.

He lifted me up so that I was sitting on Sam Beasley’s bathroom counter, his hands planted on my hips. The steam in the bathroom swirled around us as I wrapped my arms around Aidan’s neck, my legs around the backs of his knees, locking him closer. His hands drifted up my rib cage. Aidan dressed in Sam Beasley’s suit. This was crazy. This was not my life.

My life was . . .

My mom.
As we kissed, a pain stabbed me in the chest. I’d almost forgotten the reason we were here.

I pulled away. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t just fool around with Aidan, no matter how tempting it was— not when my mom’s life was at stake.

Aidan’s eyes widened with surprise. “What?”

“Just. I don’t know. I think . . .” I tried to summon my voice but it was hoarse, like it had been kissed into oblivion.

This was the problem with luxury, wasn’t it? You could just wrap yourself up in cashmere and delicious-smelling lotions and shut out all your real-world problems.

“. . . I should put this stuff in my hair. And then I think we should try to get back to work. On finding my mom. Do they have a computer in here?”

“Yeah, okay.” He stepped back, nodding. But he was looking at the floor, so I couldn’t really read his face. “There’s an office-type room downstairs. I guess I should change, too.”

When he was gone, I used a comb I found to work the dye in, remembering how my mom sometimes did her hair at home. It didn’t smell that great. In fact, it was kind of eye-wateringly skunkish.

Then I showered again and dried my hair. It looked pretty awful—only one notch above a wig. You were given a natural hair color for a reason, and my reason was that I looked like the undead with anything darker than yellow. I imagined what Cherise might say if she saw this pathetic dye job. Oh well.

I changed into a pair of Beasley’s pajamas, which looked a lot more comfy than the skimpy women’s nightgowns in the drawers. I went downstairs, finding Aidan in a room off the kitchen. It had the same beautiful exposed-beam ceiling, yet another fireplace, and a bay window overlooking the mountain side of the property. My mom would love that, too, I thought.

Aidan was sitting down at the desk in front of the latest-edition Mac. The place was tricked out—if this was Beasley’s beach house, I couldn’t imagine what his regular everyday house looked like.

He turned around when I came in. “Your hair looks . . . different.”

“Is it okay?” I said, touching the ends selfconsciously and wishing I didn’t care quite so much what he thought.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a good disguise.”

Not the reaction I was hoping for, but then again, I
had just pushed him away. Maybe he had feelings about that. What kind of feelings? I wondered. Our timing was all wrong. But if we could both just wait until all this stuff with my mom was cleared up, maybe we could really be together.

I paced around the room, thinking. “The valet said he saw her there. He definitely saw her car. Can we look it up somehow? I don’t know the license plate number.”

“I might be able to figure it out. Where was her driver’s license from? Arizona?”

“No. We just moved there.” I tried to picture it. I couldn’t remember ever having seen it. We’d lived in so many different places. “It could be Washington, Oregon, or Nevada. Maybe California.”

Aidan shook his head. “You can’t make it easy for me, can you, Colorado?”

That was the nickname he’d given me when we first met. It had been a little while since I’d heard him use it.

“Which reminds me . . . It could also be Colorado.”

While he worked, I went into the kitchen to look for some food. The refrigerator was mostly empty, except for some diet soda and expensive-looking champagne. In the pantry cabinets there was canned tuna, ten thousand bottles of oils and vinegars, and a block of baking chocolate. I could get into the whole rich thing—I loved their toiletries and their fine fabrics—but would it kill
these people to keep a little Kraft mac-and-cheese in the cabinet? I guess Sam Beasley had a boyish figure to watch.

I was definitely going to write him a thank-you note in the morning, I decided. An IOU of sorts. Because while I had willingly stolen lots of stuff from people I disliked in the past, this was something we were doing for survival, and I didn’t want to take advantage.

Starved anyway, I cracked open a soda and a can of tuna. I offered some to Aidan, but he made a face.

“No, thanks. I’ve still got some jerky left.”

I was way too hungry to feel self-conscious about repulsing him with my makeshift dinner. I sat down and looked over his shoulder as he typed in numbers and clicked on the mouse.

Then it occurred to me that someone like Beasley was as high profile as they came. There was no way that a break-in to his house would go under the radar.

“Do you think we should be worried?” I scraped up the last bit of my meal.

“About what?”

“About breaking into a Hollywood star’s house. About
Extra
or
TMZ
getting the story.”

“There’s no extra penalty for crimes against celebrities.”

“I just mean, will they be able to find us?”

“We’ll cover our tracks. And we’re going to have to keep moving, anyway. Like, first thing in the morning.”

That worried me. What if she was still here and we had to leave town?

He rolled his chair away from the desk. “I’ve gotten through Nevada and Oregon. There’s no sign of her.”

“That was fast,” I said. I wrung my hands, disappointed. “But there’s still Colorado and California, right?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got skills with a
z.
You’ve got the break-ins and I’m good for computers and getaways. Give me a sip of that,” Aidan said. I handed him my soda and he gulped it down, handing it back to me with just a tiny bit left.

“No fair,” I said.

“I’m sure there’s more in there. Besides, I need a little boost. This could take a while. California is a tough one to break into.”

I settled in on the couch, watching Aidan work.

“You can sleep if you want,” he said.

“No way,” I said. “I’m staying up with you.”

Fair was fair. We were in this together now. Besides, how could I sleep with Aidan so close to me? When we’d just made out . . .

Oh God. We’d just made out again, hadn’t we? My stomach did a loop-de-loop.

“You’ll never make it,” he said, laughing at me.

“I will, too.”

I watched his back, thinking how strange everything had become. How far away Paradise Valley seemed now.
Aidan was the only thing that was keeping me tethered to home, to who I was.

Within a few minutes, my eyes grew heavy. I fought as long as I could, but the rhythmic clacking of his typing and the firm couch overpowered the effort. Like a storybook girl—Sleeping Beauty? Gretel? Goldilocks was probably more like it—I was lulled into the quiet darkness of nothing.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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TEN

AT SOME POINT
I felt a hand on my shoulder—it was so soft it could have been my imagination—and what was that? Lips on my forehead?

“willa.”

A voice close to my ear called my name as my brain swam up to the surface of consciousness.

“Willa, are you awake?”

I’d been dreaming of Aidan and me on a canoe in the middle of a lake, which was weird because I’d never been on a canoe before. But the dream had a sweet, romantic sheen to it and I wanted to linger there. We were boyfriend and girlfriend and the rest of the world was far away. Like we had no problems, no worries, except paddling on to wherever it was we were going.

Now I opened an eye to see him leaning over me.
Aidan.
I smiled. We were still together. That part wasn’t a dream.

He wasn’t smiling at me, though. He was holding his cell phone, his face contorted in worry. Reality came pouring back in, clean and piercing as the sunlight through the giant bay windows.

“What’s up,” I mumbled, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyeballs to help them adjust to daytime vision.

“I turned on my phone. I thought I should at least check to see if anyone called us. We have a message. Should we listen to it?”

Up until now, we’d kept the phone off, not wanting to be tracked by the roaming signal.

“Do you recognize the number?” I rolled onto my side. I was still in Sam Beasley’s pajamas and the buttons had been pressing into my cheek, leaving what was sure to be one of those embarrassing sleep wrinkles.

“It’s a California number.”

My nerves twanged like guitar strings and I sat up, knowing exactly who it was.
Corbin.

“We have to listen to it,” I said. “Can you put it on speaker?”

Aidan sat down on the couch next to me and set the phone between us, then pressed play. The voice that streamed out was low and gruff.

“This is a message for Willa Fox. Detective Corbin here, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m fairly certain you know who I am—I left a card at your house several days ago. Anyway, I’ve been following your case
and I’ve found this number through police channels. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are people looking for Mr. Murphy and they know you’re involved now, too. A hotel clerk at the Hadley identified you both. My message to you: Come back and turn yourselves in before you get hurt. Don’t screw around. It’ll just make you look stupid. And I know you’re not stupid.”