Selling Scarlett (5 page)

"I'm fine,” I say, and his mouth twists. He tugs me down the hall, back toward the green bedroom, where I hear slapping again and Hunter's moan. My stomach lurches.

"Don't think that you're the only one," Cross says. His eyes bore into mine, looking for something I can't name. "Did he force you, Liz?"

"No way! Of course he didn't." I grab Cross's hand and drag him back the other way, toward the empty foyer. "Call off the state of emergency. I’ve still got my V-card.
Unstamped
."

“For how long?” he asks darkly, and I’ve had enough.

“I don’t care how much you’ve been drinking—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“Do you really want to be just another fuck?”

I recoil, feeling like I've just been slapped. It takes me a full half-second to gather my thoughts, and when I do, I'm seething. "I could never be 'just another fuck', so don't you say that shit to me. I'll make my own choices and I don't do a bad job, unlike some people who drink themselves stupid and sleep with any warm body that will have them."

He works his jaw, and I know it was a low blow. He’s told me practically all his secrets since we were kids, and I know he uses sex to get affection.

"I'm just trying to be your friend, Lizzy.” But his voice is hard.

I feel steam coming out my ears. I'm judged enough based on my mom, and I don't need Cross adding to it. "Why were
you
back here?"

The look on his face tells me exactly what I had suspected: he was looking for space for his two redheads.

"I'm not like him," he starts.

"Right," I snap.

I can see the hurt in his eyes. Instantly, I'm gutted.

"Cross, I'm sorry—"

But he's out the front doors in a gust of frigid air, and I can't take back what I've said. I stand there, trembling harder than I was before, feeling angry at him
and
like a shitty friend.

For a few long seconds, my stomach clenches as I ask myself
why Hunter?
I know that he's a man ho. I know he doesn't 'like' me. He doesn't even know me. And yet...I've never even had a crush on anyone but him. In one long second, I realize how messed up I must really be, and it makes me want to cry.

I kill the urge quickly, my shoulders heaving as I stare through the wavy glass panes on the ornate doors. I can hear Cross's bike crank from somewhere in the direction of the front of the house, and despite how terrible I feel, I don't want to leave without talking to the one close friend I have left.

I press my back against the wall, taking big, deep breaths and blotting the stinging wetness from my eyes when tears try to come. I stand there probably fifteen minutes before I make my way back around to the great room, and the first thing I do when I step into the room is scan for Hunter. I spot him surrounded by a flock of women, missing his jacket and his tie—or rather, cravat—sporting just his vest and shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

My body throbs, and Hunter's gaze flickers over mine—there, then gone without conveying anything.

Then Suri is in front of me, cheeks flushed, eyes bright from wine. "Woman, where were you? Cross almost ruined his cover!"

Cross lives at my mom's house, in my old room. It's a secret. His family disowned him, and Cross doesn't want them to know where he is. His father, Drake Carlson, the governor of California, actually said he didn't care if Cross turned up dead. I wouldn't have believed it, but Cross let me hear the voice mail.

My family has fallen off the social grid, and Mom's in rehab and I live with Suri, so we think he's well hidden. Just in case, Cross and I try to stay away from each other publicly.

“Yeah, I just ran into him.” My eyes widen warily.

"What happened?" she asks.

"Cross freaked out," I say. It's the only thing I can manage. "I guess I should go find him." He'll be at Mom's, alone. At least I think he will be. Cross isn't the type to hit the bars when he's upset, much as he'd like everyone to think the opposite.

Suri agrees to ride home with Adam and loans me Arnold for the night. A butler fetches Mom's worn, white mink and escorts me down the wide, brick walk, to the line of limousines where, years ago, our own driver, Wilson, would have been waiting. The door is opened, and I climb in, feeling weighted.

I lean forward and give Arnold instructions he doesn't really need.

"We’ll be there in forty minutes or less, ma’am," he says.

"Thank you, Arnold."

The divider wall locks into place, and I'm alone under the starry sky, staring out the sunroof, looking for constellations I can't find because we're moving too quickly down the little vineyard road.

A computerized refrigerator offers me a bottle of water and I take it, smirking at the green and blue label: DeVille. This is how my great-grandfather made his fortune. It's good water. Almost as good as West Bourbon, which I find in the liquor console. I take a deep swing, remembering the taste of Hunter West's mouth. I wrap the cravat around my wrist. Wrong or right, I'm keeping it.

I'm ashamed to say my mind is still on Hunter when the limousine slows. Arnold lowers the shield, his face taut as he says, "Miss DeVille, please remain inside the vehicle." The wall goes up, and I feel a weird energy. A kind of darkness.

I'm not sure what compels me to open my door, but as I step into the road, I think some part of me already knows, because my arms and legs weigh two tons each.

My good eye blinks and there is Cross, lying on his side in the damp grass just beside the road. At first glance, it looks like he is simply lying down. His arms are raised over his head in the position he adopts sometimes while sleeping. His legs are scissored, his pretty mouth parted just a little.

I see blood oozing from his lips. The dark spot on the road—that's Cross's blood. His bike, a renovated '73 Norton Commando Mark III Roadster he loves like a person, is smoking in the road beside him.

Chapter Three
~HUNTER~

I can't go back to Love Incorporated. I know I should, to try to jar my memory, but I can't. So we're at Batshit Ranch, a twenty-thousand-square-foot California red roof on my little patch of sand, just outside the Summerlin community. I own ten-thousand acres out here, and besides grazing some cattle, I don't do much with them. Not that I care. Some things should be for enjoyment only, and I enjoy staying at my country place. It's my Vegas home when I need to get away from the bustle of the Wynn.

March and I are in my study, and I'm behind my desk, cradling March's iPad as I scrutinize the chart that my friend and his private eye, Dave, put together. I turn the tablet sideways, frowning.

'To Catch a Criminal'. I flick a withering glance his way. “Enjoying the drama, Radcliffe?”

“Not enjoying,” he says, his voice faintly defensive as he kicks his feet out and crosses his long legs at the ankles. “Just making do. I figured we should have a project name.”

“Right.” I look it over, curious to see the revised list of suspects. I note the absence of two names I'd hoped to see: Bill Percy and James Meyers, both deviant little fucks who've bruised some of the girls before.

“Percy wasn't there,” Marchant says, reading my mind—or more likely, my face. Bill Percy was a prick from college turned prick lobbyist for the gaming industry. He left bruises on Juniper once; he claimed he was drunk, and Juniper decided not to press charges. “His wife caught him boinking the housekeeper that night,” March tells me. “He checked into Bellagio around three. Meyers was at an electronic cigarette convention in Virginia.”

Marchant takes a swig of his whiskey, then rolls up the sleeves of his button-up, looking serious for once. “All in all there are twenty-six suspects, including you and I. Eleven of the other fucks stand out.”

I scan the eleven bolded names. “My guy's been on Rutherford and Kriss for going on sixteen days. He says they're both clean as a whistle.”

Marchant passes his almost-empty glass from one hand to the other, looking moody and restless. “I say we drop Rutherford. He likes it weird, but I think that’s only when he fucks Brad. Everyone seems to like it weird with him. Devotion to the pacifier does not a kidnapper make,” Marchant mutters.

I lift my head, brows arched. “A
pacifier
?”

March shrugs. “That's what Brad says.”

“That goes on the list of kinks I’ll never understand.”

“So now it’s a list of one?”

“Funny. And we’ve got a more important list to worry about.” I bring each name up as a slide, and flip through one at a time. Name. Picture. Possible motive. “Let's keep the tail on Kriss. There’s just something about him.”

Marchant nods, punching something into his iPhone.

I flip through a few more slides. “Are we still on the ex-boyfriend and the stepbrother?”

We've spent almost two months now paying a couple of Vegas PIs to track people of interest. So far all we've found is Vegas has a total of three decent PIs—and there's no limit to the number of affairs a determined man of means can have. That, and one of Priscilla Heat's screenwriters looks at kiddie porn. We're hoping Dave, a Vegas local and ex-FBI dude, can help us cover some new ground. Hence this revised list.

“Ex-boyfriend doesn't do anything but a waitress,” Marchant says blandly. “Sarabelle's stepbrother doesn't do anything but Oxy.”

“Tell Dave to keep tracking them. I'll add Michael Lockwood to my list, you add Caleb Zeuss to yours.” Michael Lockwood was one of Priscilla's film crew; he quit his job just a few days after that night; he's come up clean so far, but something about him smells off. Caleb Zeuss is one of the cooks Marchant employs. He was on the clock that night, but no one seems to have seen him. The cameras are useless, because while March was fucking Priscilla for
Pimps and Princesses
, someone turned them off. The woman working the cameras just assumed the system was down. Naturally, when she tried to convey this to Marchant, he did not want to be interrupted.

I hand Marchant his iPad and pull out my smart phone, blinking at a new text.

“
Cumming to your place tonight. Bringing a surprise. ~P”

I squeeze my eyes shut, opening them some seconds later to find Marchant out of his leather chair and standing in front of my desk. He leans over, pressing his palm against the sleek oak. "You doing alright? You look amped.”

I glower. “Thanks.” I'm not doing coke, which March should know, but I'm sure as shit not justifying anything to him.

“You sleeping okay?”

I snicker. Marchant drains his glass and rolls his brown eyes. He slinks back to his arm chair, reminding me momentarily of the Pink Panther. “You gotten any more calls from Smith?” he asks me. Josh Smith is the LVPD's lead detective on this case
,
and he's been on me like white on rice since the morning we called to report Sarabelle's disappearance.

I toss back the remainder of liquor in my glass and stand, stretching my sore legs. “I think he's finally gotten the hang of calling Lehland," my attorney.

“What about your old man?” Marchant asks.

“His people have stopped calling, too. I guess they've got all their fires put out.” No one but Josh Smith and a few others from Love Inc. and Heat Enterprises know Sarabelle disappeared from my room in particular. Given the political sensitivities, it needs to stay that way.

Marchant, on the other hand, has been all over the news. His business hasn't suffered at all. In fact, he says it's picked up. Bunch of sick fucks out there.

His phone buzzes, and I feel a jab of guilt. He should be at work. He's busy, week night or not. I should have met him there.

Now I have to get him out of here before Priscilla shows up. He has no idea what's going on between the two of us, and I'd like to keep it that way for a while longer.