Put a Ring On It (19 page)

“Sure.” Brighton started sketching. “I could do a little Labrador
silhouette in onyx against yellow or white gold. The black dog is kind of a big deal around here. It's magic.”

Clea leaned in, intrigued. “Magic?”

“Yes.” Brighton tried to recount the snippets she'd heard from the locals. “Supposedly, there's a phantom dog that appears to you when you're starting to heal from heartbreak.” She turned to Lila for clarification. “Right?”

“Right. The black dog symbolizes hope and new beginnings. It's good luck.” Lila glanced down, smiling to herself. “Not really appropriate for a poison ring.”

“That black dog will still mean good luck,” Clea promised. “Good luck for my ex that his lying, cheating ass is still alive.”

Brighton blinked. “What happened to ‘A Perfectly Pleasant Parting'? I thought you and your husband were having some sort of Zen divorce?”

Clea snorted. “I hate that narcissist with undying passion. Everyone warned me about on-set romances, but would I listen? No. I was convinced he was
different
. I fell in love with the role he was playing, and by the time the mask came off, it was too late—our wedding pictures were on the cover of
People
.”

“I know just how you feel,” Brighton murmured. “Minus the
People
cover.”

“And riddle me this: If he's so damn Zen, why is he fighting me for the Malibu beach house?”

This is how it ends,
Brighton realized.
This is what happens when you don't really know the person you marry.

Clea shook her fist. “I need that engraved poison ring and I need it now. And you can do the two for my friends in onyx, but I want my dog made out of black diamonds. With a little green collar made of emeralds.”

“But . . .”

“Shut your mouth and sketch,” Lila hissed.

“We can do pavé with black diamonds,” Brighton muttered as she put pen to paper. A few minutes later, she tore off the sketch and showed it to her audience.

“Exquisite,” Clea declared.

“Masterful,” Lila pronounced.

“Fuckin' fabulous,” Amber exclaimed. “Cute and cuddly on the outside, lethal on the inside. Just like Clea.”

“I'll call my bench jeweler and see how soon he can get started once we source materials,” Lila said.

“You do that,” Brighton told Lila. “Meanwhile, I have to track down some intel.”

Lila lowered her voice. “What kind of intel?”

“Intel about the man I married.”

Lila hesitated for a second, then scribbled a name and number on the back of a business card. “Here. You're helping me; I'll help you. But use this wisely—remember, you can never unhear what this woman is going to tell you.”

“Y
ou want intel on Jake Sorensen?” Summer Benson leaned over the bar and poured herself a glass of pinot grigio. With her windblown platinum pixie cut, cat-eye sunglasses, and devil-may-care attitude, Summer didn't exactly fit the stereotype of a mayor's wife, but Brighton was instantly drawn to her. “I'll tell you what I know, but it's really not much. Congratulations, by the way.” Her glance lingered on Brighton's ringless left hand, but she didn't comment.

“Excuse me,” Jenna huffed. “
I'm
the bartender.
I
pour the drinks.”

“I'll try to remember that next time.” Summer added a few ice cubes to the white wine, eliciting a horrified gasp from Jenna. Then she winked at Brighton. “Never gets old.”

Brighton took a sip of Jenna's special-edition, limited-time-only sun tea. “Lila told me you were his best—and only—female friend.”

“I guess that depends on how you define ‘friends.' We hang out
every now and then, but we don't have some deep emotional bond.” Summer sipped her wine. “Mmmm. The ice makes it extra good.”

Jenna let out a strangled growl.

“So you two don't talk about anything of substance?” Brighton asked.

At this, Summer laughed. “Look at me. Look at Jake. Do we strike you as people of substance?”

“Well, what
do
you talk about?” Brighton pressed.

Summer shrugged. “I don't know. Nothing.”

“You talk about
something
,” Jenna insisted. “I see your mouths moving.”

Time for some leading questions. “Do you talk about his business deals?” Brighton asked.

Summer made a face. “No.”

“What about his childhood?” Brighton continued. “Have you met his brothers?”

Summer seemed genuinely surprised. “Jake has brothers?”

“Hold the phone.” Jenna twisted her pink dish towel into a cloth pretzel. “He has
brothers
? Where are they? Do they all look like him?”

Brighton settled back against the wrought iron seat, simmering with frustration. “Why is it so hard to get any kind of straight answer when it comes to Jake?”

“Because he's emotionally crippled.” Summer put down her wineglass. “And he's managed to work it to his advantage.”

“It's part of the Jake Sorensen mystique,” Jenna agreed.

“Let's think about this. What do you do with your friends? You have fun, you laugh, you go out on the town now and then.” Summer ticked these off on her fingers. “Jake and I do all that stuff. But real friends talk to each other about, you know, life. Real things like work and family and relationships. We don't get into all that.” She
tapped her lower lip, considering. “Actually, now that I think about it, I tell him stuff about my life and he's a good listener. He gives good advice. But he doesn't reciprocate at all.”

Brighton waited until Jenna bustled into the back room, then confided, “As I said on the phone, his first wife showed up out of the blue yesterday. I was really hoping for answers. You don't have any insights at all?”

“Insights, no. Answers, yes.” Summer placed a manila folder on the bar top with the air of a seasoned PI who'd struck pay dirt. “Genevieve Van Petten. Married Jake fourteen years ago in Dewey Beach. Marriage was annulled, reason cited as ‘fraud.' Records are sealed.”

Brighton glanced through the paperwork with astonishment. “How did you get this?”

Summer adjusted her sunglasses and smiled enigmatically. “I have my ways.”

“Fraud?” Brighton frowned down at the grainy photocopied sheets of paper. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” Summer said. “But I know who might. We're going to have to hit up Black Dog Bay's most reliable source for old-money, high-society scandal.” With a grim expression on her face, she yelled to Jenna, “We're taking two shots of vodka! Each!”

Brighton blinked. “Isn't it a little early to be hitting the hard stuff?”

“Normally, yes. But these are special circumstances.” Summer downed her shot and pointed to the sprawling purple mansion barely visible around the curving shoreline of the bay. “We're going to the Purple Palace.”

•   •   •

“Why is this house painted purple?” Brighton asked Summer as they walked down the cobblestone driveway toward the massive marble steps.

“Because the owner is petty, spiteful, and can hold a grudge for all eternity.” Summer unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. “Oh, and she also happens to be my employer.”

Brighton stopped in her tracks. “You talk about your employer that way?”

“She likes it.” Summer snapped her gum. “She's the original gangster around here, and she's proud of her reputation.”

“But if you work for her, she must have a soft side, right?”

“Not really.” Summer rang the doorbell.

“Then why do you look so happy to be here?”

“Because hard-to-handle harpies like to hang out together?” She blew a huge pink bubble while the chimes resounded inside the house. When the bubble popped, she grinned at Brighton. “Introducing Miss Hattie Huntington, harpy at large.”

The door swung inward. Before Brighton could even glimpse the face on the other side of the threshold, she heard a cold, commanding voice. “How many times do I have to tell you that chewing gum is vulgar? Vulgar beyond the telling.”

Summer obligingly leaned down toward the planted shrub next to the door.

“If you spit that chewing gum onto my myrtle, you will wish you had never been born.” The voice was so chilling, Brighton physically shuddered.

“Hey, girl. I missed you, too.” Summer bounded into the foyer and threw her arms around a woman Brighton still couldn't see.

Brighton stayed right where she was on the steps until Summer waved one arm to beckon her in. “Don't be scared. Come on in and meet Hattie.”

“For the last time, you will address me as Miss Huntington.” A
tiny, white-haired old woman with piercing blue eyes and a huge emerald cocktail ring spared Brighton a dismissive glance. “How many times must I tell you, it's unspeakably rude to show up on my doorstep with no warning.”

“One woman's unspeakably rude is another woman's way to show how much she cares.” Summer wandered around the entry hall, stopping to sniff a floral arrangement and snag a truffle from a beribboned white box. “Ooh, these are delicious.”

Miss Huntington balled up her bony fists. “Don't talk with your mouth full.”

Summer returned to the doorway, yanked Brighton over the threshold, and shoved a truffle in her face. “You have to try this.”

Miss Huntington snatched the box away from Summer. Brighton cringed.

“Stop showing fear,” Summer advised. “You're just making things worse.”

“Don't you dare speak about me like that, Ms. Benson,” Miss Huntington said. “I am an impeccable hostess. You are just so . . . so . . .”

“So!” Summer helped herself to another truffle. “Have you given any more thought to that online dating profile?”

“No. Why are you here, Ms. Benson?”

Brighton, gaze cast downward, edged back toward the door.

Summer gave up tormenting the old woman and got down to business. “We need some insider info on a bunch of snobs, and I figured we'd go straight to the source.”

“Well, I never.” Hattie sniffed. “The nerve! The very implication that I would engage in such talk.”

Summer leaned against a marble column and waited.

After five seconds of silence, Hattie cracked. “Who is it?”

“What do you know about the Van Petten family?” Summer asked. “Genevieve Van Petten, in particular.”

Hattie opened her mouth to reply, then turned to Brighton with dark suspicion. “I don't believe we've been properly introduced.”

“Oh, this is Brighton Smith,” Summer said. “She's cool.”

“Are you a tourist?” Hattie demanded.

Before Brighton could reply, Summer forged ahead: “She tried to be, but you know how things go around here. She just married Jake Sorensen, so she'll be in town for a bit.”

Hattie's pinched expression finally relaxed as shock set in. “Jake Sorensen got married? Surely not!”

Brighton nodded. “That seems to be the universal reaction.”

“Hattie, come on,” Summer chided. “You hadn't heard about that? Get with the program.”

Hattie took a moment to digest the news, then narrowed her eyes and took a step toward Brighton. “Why on earth would a man like Jake Sorensen marry a woman like you?”

Brighton backed away until she banged her hip on a decorative table, almost upending a porcelain vase. While she tried to steady the wobbling vase, Summer rounded on Hattie: “Dude. That is so uncouth.”

“We've been over this, Ms. Benson. I do not respond to ‘dude.' Not in this lifetime nor the next.”

“Brighton's very accomplished.” Summer threw an arm around Brighton's shoulders. “She's working with Lila Alders at the
jewelry store, and she's also an insurance . . . Uh, she does something with numbers.”

“I'm an actuary,” Brighton informed the ceiling.

“Right.” Summer nodded. “She's not just some pretty face.”

“My point exactly,” Hattie said. “Jake Sorensen doesn't dally with smart, capable women. And while I suppose she might be considered passably pretty—”

“Ouch,” Brighton whispered to Summer.

“—don't his predilections run more toward the peroxide blond pinup type?”

“Hey,” Summer said, fluffing her platinum hair. “You say that like it's a bad thing.”

Miss Huntington turned on her polished pump heel and led the way to a sumptuously appointed sitting room overlooking the ocean. “
You're
much more his type than Miss Smith is.”

“Yeah, and look who I ended up with,” Summer argued. “Dutch isn't my usual type, but he's perfect for me.”

“What's your usual type?” Brighton asked as they trailed after Hattie.

“Narcissists with cool cars and no conscience,” Summer replied. “And, Hattie, how do you know all this about Jake? I didn't realize you took such an interest in him.”

Hattie quickened her pace. “I've been to the Whinery a time or two. I make it a point to keep abreast of the goings-on in my town.”

“Your town.” Summer rolled her eyes. “Like you own the place. Which . . . I guess you kind of do.”

“Yes.” Hattie's smile was sinister. “You'd both do well to remember that.”

“Don't mind her,” Summer told Brighton. “She's just trying to distract us from the fact that she's got a schoolgirl crush on your husband.”

Hattie whipped around again, and Brighton threw up her
hands in a reflex of self-defense. The heated pink hue spreading through Hattie's cheeks was faint but unmistakable.

“Oh my God.” Summer burst out laughing. “You totally do. You cougar, you!”

“Silence.” Hattie settled into a pink and green striped settee and crossed her dainty ankles. “I do not fancy Jake Sorensen in the way you're implying.”

Brighton perched on the tufted pink chair next to Hattie.

“I have to ask.” Summer sprawled out next to Hattie and gave the old lady a little nudge with her elbow. “Did you guys ever hook up? Maybe you had one too many glasses of cabernet at the Whinery? It's okay—you can tell us.”

Hattie stood up and moved to a chair across the room. “How dare you even imply such a thing!”

“Anyway.”
Brighton scrambled to redirect the conversation. “We have reason to believe he was once married to a woman named Genevieve Van Petten. Do you know anything about her?”

“Married?” Hattie sat perfectly still for a moment. “Astonishing. That little tidbit explains quite a lot, actually.”

Summer and Brighton exchanged glances. “It does? Like what?”

Hattie waved one hand, dismissing them. “If you'll excuse me, I have to make a phone call.”

“To whom?” Summer asked.

“If you want me to find out more about Jake Sorensen and Genevieve Van Petten, you're going to have to stop asking questions and be patient.”

“Can we at least wait in the kitchen?” Summer asked. To Brighton, she said, “Her chef makes the most delicious lemon frosted cookies.” She led the way through the dining room to a cavernous kitchen so white and gleaming with stainless steel accessories that it could double as an operating room.

While Summer rummaged through the pantry in search of cookies, her cell phone rang.

“Well, well, well. Speak of the devil.” Summer held up her phone so Brighton could read the name on the screen:
SORENSEN
. “Why's he calling me and not you?”

“Oh, I turned my phone off.” Brighton's stomach felt fluttery. “I don't want to talk to him right now.”