So Pretty It Hurts (13 page)

“No, Sherrie. Devon’s mother.”

“But I’ve never spoken to Devon’s mother.”

“She says differently,” he snapped.

“What?” I said. “Like I just said, I’ve had no contact at all with her mother—I was told that the reporter doing the sidebar on Devon had tried to reach her but hadn’t had any luck. And even if I
had
talked to her, what’s the big deal?”

Nash massaged his right hand hard with the other, as if there was a kink in it, and stared questioningly at me.

“Here’s the deal,” he said bluntly. “Her mother called my office, saying you got in touch with her right after Devon’s death and claimed that you had embarrassing information about Devon—but that you’d be willing to keep it under wraps if she paid you ten thousand dollars.”

I snorted, a weird honking sound that reflected not only my assessment of his revelation but also how freaking awkward I was feeling. What Nash was saying was absurd, but the tight, white look of his lips suggested he
believed
it. I was aware suddenly that people outside his glass-walled office all seemed to be staring at us, as if we’d both stripped down to our undies.

“I have no idea why she would tell anyone that,” I said, trying not to let my voice catch. “From what I hear, she’s an alcoholic. Maybe she’s also a total whack job. Or maybe she’s just trying to get back at me for filing the reports about Devon’s death. She may even have me confused with someone else. Some other reporter might have actually tried to shake her down for money, but in her drunken stupor she couldn’t recall the name so she finds my story online and decides it must have been me.”

“If you’ve never called her, how is it that she has your cell phone number? That’s certainly not listed on the
Buzz
Web site.”

“I—are you sure it was even Sherrie Barr that called? What if it was simply someone posing as her?”

“We’ve checked that all out, of course. It’s definitely her.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, then.” My mind was racing, but not getting anywhere. “It sounds like someone with access to my number gave it to her. Maybe
that
person wanted to make trouble for me.”

“But why would Sherrie Barr choose to cooperate?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head. I desperately wished I could come up with something—
anything
—because being without a theory seemed to suggest I was guilty. But I honestly didn’t have a clue why someone would be pulling a stunt like this. “I—I have to think about it. The bottom line, though, is that I didn’t do it. Nash, we haven’t worked together all that long, but I hope it’s been long enough for you to have a sense of who I am. I would never try to extort money from someone. I honestly can’t believe that you’d think that of me.”

His face softened, and he leaned back on his desk, scootching his butt up onto the surface.

“Look, Bailey, to be perfectly honest, I
don’t
believe it. You know how I feel about you. But the woman called me up with this story—and she called our legal department too—and it’s hard to figure out why she’d just make it up. What’s in it for
her
? I had no choice but to put it to you this way. I needed to see how you’d respond.”

“And so you believe me now?” I said. From the first time since he’d begun talking, I relaxed just a little. It no longer felt as if someone was running over my stomach with a power lawn mower.

“Yes. But it’s not just me who’s in the mix. The lawyers are involved now, of course—and so is Tom Dicker.” He was referring to that nasty little man who ran the company.

“You’ll vouch for me, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not going to be enough. They’re going to have to investigate.”

“What does that mean?” The brief relief I’d felt with Nash’s words of support had shriveled, and my heart was beating like the wings of a bird trapped in my chest.

“They’ll look into it. Check this woman out. Probably check your phone logs. Unfortunately, until they finish, you’re off the story.”

“
What
? I’m right in the middle of the story,” I exclaimed. “And I’m supposed to do all this press tomorrow.”

“Someone else is going to have to take care of that. And we’ll keep other reporters on the story.”

“You can’t be serious. Nash, I’ve done nothing wrong. You can’t punish me this way.”

“It’s not up to me, Bailey. The company could end up in real trouble if it turns out you’re guilty of extortion.”

“But you said you believed me.”

“I do—but the company has to check it all out. I’m sure it won’t take more than a day or two.”

I’ve never come close to crying at work, but at that very moment I felt a prick of tears in each eye, and I did everything in my power to fight it off. Not only was my gig at
Buzz
on the line, but also my reputation as a reporter. The situation couldn’t be worse. Wrong. One second later I learned that it could be.

“I think it’s best if you keep a low profile too,” Nash said. “You need to steer clear of this place until everything’s resolved.”

“Am I being paid during this time?”

“I need to check with the lawyer.”

“I—” I started to take one more stab at defending myself but it seemed utterly pointless. Even if Nash believed me—and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he did—it was clearly beyond his control. I muttered a good-bye and slunk out of the office. Almost everyone in the bullpen was checking me out as I walked back to my cubby. They’d seen the tension between Nash and me through the glass.

“What the hell is going on?” Jessie whispered as soon as I returned to my desk.

“It’s bad,” I said. “But I’ll have to call you. I’m supposed to clear out of here.”

“Omigod.”

“Say something funny to me, will you? So people will think everything’s normal.”

She scrunched up her mouth as she thought.

“You know that girl in production with the Rapunzel hair?” she said. “She told someone she’s dating a guy who can only get off if he pinches her butt so hard she screams.”

I forced out a “Ha-ha,” but my heart was sinking rapidly. Though I was anxious now to leave, I didn’t rush. If I refused to flee as if the place was in flames, maybe people would assume I’d simply been given a tongue-lashing for being scooped by TMZ. I downloaded something from my computer, left a quiet message for Beau saying I desperately needed to talk to him, and discreetly stuffed my most important files into my tote bag.

But as I finally made it through the bullpen toward reception, I realized how pointless my little exercise had been. Surrounding me were dozens of reporters who were onto every boob job and blow job performed in L.A. If they didn’t know the details of my situation already, they would know soon enough. Plus my cheeks were a dead giveaway. I could tell they were flaming red, as if they’d been scorched from standing too close to a rocket launch.

As I stepped into the elevator, a terrible thought flashed through my brain. What if today had been my very last day ever as a reporter for
Buzz
?

Chapter 13

I
t actually felt good to be outside because the cold air was like a compress against my red-hot cheeks. As I hurried toward the subway, Beau returned my call. I blurted out the story to him.

“Bailey, this is all going to work out,” he said reassuringly. “They can’t possibly end up buying this story.”

“But right now it’s my word against Devon’s mother’s, and they seem to have no confidence in
my
word.”

“Can you think of anything you said to this woman that she might have misconstrued?”

“But that’s the point, I never
spoke
to her. She’s making the whole thing up.”

“Look, I want to see you as soon as possible, but I’ve got six people showing up at my studio any minute. What if we meet at my place at about ten?”

“That would be great. I guess I’ll just go home first and try not to throw myself off my terrace.”

“I’ve got an idea,” he said after a pause. “Do you have my key with you? You can go straight to my place. There’s food in the fridge, and you can make yourself dinner.”

“Uhh, sure. I’d love that. Thanks.”

“You know where the wine is. Just open a bottle. I’ll call you right before I leave.”

For some reason just talking to Beau had eased my misery a little. Plus, I felt a quick giddy rush from his suggestion that I let myself into his place. A few weeks ago we had agreed to exchange keys to each other’s apartments just in case one of us arrived before the other, but as of yet there had never been a time when it was necessary. Encouraging me to go to his pad alone tonight seemed to nudge our relationship forward a little.

As I hurried to the subway, I called Jessie and filled her in on what I hadn’t been able to share in the office.

“I can’t effing believe this,” she whispered. “What are you gonna do?”

“Try to get to the bottom of it. I don’t want to put you in the middle or jeopardize your situation, but will you keep me posted if you hear anything?”

“Of course.”

“And use your cell to call me, not your office line. You don’t want them to know you’ve been talking to me.”

Twenty-five minutes later, I was turning the key in the lock on Beau’s front door. It felt positively weird to be entering his place by myself. As I opened the door, I caught traces of the exotic, musky fragrance Beau wore and the lingering scent of wood smoke from the fire the night before. I flipped on a light, pulled off my coat and boots, and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to chase away the feeling of doom.

In the kitchen I rummaged through the fridge and turned up a few ingredients for a salad. I threw them into a bowl, made a vinaigrette dressing, and then opened a bottle of wine. It was simple fare, but I didn’t need to think too hard. I brought my plate and wineglass into the living room, set them on the coffee table, and after grabbing my composition notebook and a pencil, plopped onto the floor with my legs spread along the length of the table.

My mind had been racing since I left Nash’s office, trying to grasp what was going on, but my thoughts had all been a terrible jumble. Now, in the warm solitude of Beau’s tenth-floor apartment, with the city sounds so muffled I could hardly hear them, I finally had the chance to try to sort out the mess.

From my vantage point, there were a couple of reasons that Sherrie Barr might tell people I’d been trying to extort money from her. One, she was hoping
she’d
pocket some dough from it. Perhaps in a drunken stupor she’d convinced herself that if she claimed someone on the
Buzz
staff was harassing her, management would turn over cash to shut her up. But that didn’t explain how she had my phone number.

I decided the more likely scenario was that someone had convinced Sherrie to do it in order to create trouble for me. It would have to be someone who had sway over Sherrie and/or was offering her big bucks to do it.

If so,
why
? Because I was digging deeper into Devon’s death and looking aggressively for answers?

I set down my fork and reached for my pencil to make a few notes. Just then Beau’s landline rang from his office, making me jump. I wondered if I ought to pick up in case it was Beau, but I realized that he would have called my cell phone. After four rings the machine picked up, and seconds later, I heard a deep, slightly imperious-sounding voice that I recognized instantly as Beau’s mother. I’d met her only once, at lunch, but it was a voice you couldn’t forget.

“Sweetheart, give me a call later, will you? I’m trying to nail down our Christmas plans. I told your brother and sister we’d discussed the Caribbean, and they’re both game. Your father doesn’t care where we go, as long as it’s warm. But do let me know for sure. It’s going to be hard to find a flight as it is.”

Funny,
my
name hadn’t been raised at all. If Beau’s family hightailed it to some posh Caribbean resort for the holidays, would I be asked to join them? Highly doubtful, it seemed. I should have known. Beau’s mother had been perfectly pleasant to me over lunch, but hardly embracing. I had the feeling she didn’t like the idea of Beau with
any
girl, but something about me particularly set her off. I figured she considered that my job reporting celebrity crime was just a few notches above doing lap dances at Scores.

What would
I
do for the holidays if Beau took off for a hot spot like St. Kitts or Jamaica? My mother had called two weeks ago and announced that she’d been invited to spend Christmas week in Mexico—in San Miguel de Allende—with a retired professor she’d once taught with. Figuring I might want to be with Beau, she’d asked if I’d mind. I’d given her my blessing, assuming I
would
be hanging with my new boyfriend.

I took a swig of wine and returned my gaze to my notebook, trying to concentrate on Sherrie Barr. Damn, I thought. Why did I have to overhear that call?

Two minutes later the phone rang again. Great, I thought. Maybe it was his mother again, calling back to remind him to take his Flintstone vitamins or floss his teeth. But it was a different female voice: flirty and fun—and with a British accent.

“Hello, Beau, it’s Abigail,” she said. “I’ve been back from Turkey for about a month, and it’s taken me this long to clean the grime from under my nails. My thesis is done, and I’m coming to New York for some holiday shopping. I’d love to see you. Can you give me a call?”

My heart was in my throat as she rattled off a UK number.

“Oh, André sends his best, by the way,” she added. “I bumped into him in London recently. You remember him, right? He was the German student who stayed in the room next to ours.”

Room next to
ours
? If my legs had felt liquidy during my phone call from Nash, my entire
body
now seemed like a big floppy cloth doll. I flung my head back onto the rug and just lay there, unable to even move. In fact, I was barely able to breathe.

I could not freakin’ believe it. When Beau had headed for Turkey, I’d imagined the worse—namely a gorgeous archaeology student, brown as a nut from the sun, totally falling for him. But later, after we reconnected, he shared stories about Aphrodisius, and it had seemed as if the experience there had been almost monastic. Far more dust than lust—and all supervised by an elderly German. He’d even talked about lying in bed a few nights wondering what in hell he was going to do about us. I guess he’d forgotten to point out that while his brain tossed around thoughts of me, there was a chick named Abigail lying butt naked in the crook of his arm.

Summoning every ounce of energy I could find, I propelled myself onto my feet. I carried the dishes into the kitchen, resisting the urge to hurl them at the wall. After pulling on my coat and boots, I departed, slamming the door so hard that one of the pictures hanging in the corridor bounced a couple of times.

As I hunted down a cab, I called my next-door neighbor Landon, and to my relief he was home.

“I’m in one of the worst jams of my life,” I said. “Please tell me you don’t have an apartment full of dinner guests.”

“I have a miserable cold, but I’d love to be of assistance. Come now. Just wear a mask.”

I stopped at my apartment first, dropped off my stuff, and grabbed a bottle of brandy from the cabinet where I kept my paltry liquor supply.

“Don’t hug me, don’t even come close,” Landon croaked after he’d opened the door. He was wearing the kind of comfort clothes people fall back on when they’re sick—saggy-bottomed jeans, an old cream-colored zip-up cardigan. “This thing is nasty.”

“Are you sure you’re up for a visit? You sound awful.”

“Yes, the distraction will do me good. Plus, you sounded horrible yourself. What’s going on?”

He ushered me into his lovely living room and took a seat across from me. Even under the weather, Landon, at nearly seventy, looked great, with his short-cropped silver hair and small trim body. He dabbed a crisp white handkerchief to his nose and then urged me to tell him everything.

I described the weekend at Scott’s, giving him the major highlights, then relayed the troubles with Nash, and ended with the nightmare at Beau’s tonight. Landon dabbed at his nose a few times and cleared his throat.

“Bailey, I think you need an attorney,” he announced.

“An attorney?” I exclaimed. “What am I supposed to do? Sue Beau for alienation of affection?”

“No—an attorney to deal with the situation at
Buzz
.”

“I don’t have the money to pay some high-priced Manhattan lawyer—they’re like seven hundred dollars an hour. Plus, I might make things worse if I bring in legal counsel at this point. The main thing I need to do is find out why this woman is saying this shit. I think someone put her up to it.”

“Any ideas who?”

“It’s got to be one of the people who was at Scott’s last weekend. The person knows I’m digging around about Devon’s death, and they want me to stop. And they must want to stifle me because there’s something to find, something they want kept under wraps. I’m not certain what that is, but I suspect it’s the fact that this person wanted Devon dead and put the diuretic in her water bottles.”

“But that means this person is dangerous. You’ve got to be careful.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

Landon let out a little moan. “But you’ve said before that you were going to be careful, and then the next thing I know you’ve got some wild Russian chasing you through a basement with a knife.”

I managed a smile. “In this instance I have no choice but to proceed on my tippy toes. That’s the only way to smoke out the killer, and besides, I can’t let Nash find out I’m poking around after he told me not to.”

I untucked my legs from under me and strolled over to the antique cabinet where I’d set the brandy bottle.

“I’m having another splash—are you sure you don’t want one?” I asked. “Or should I make you a hot toddy?”

“Maybe just a thumb full, thanks,” he said. “Tell me more about Beau? Where do you go from here?”

“Where do we
go
? I don’t know. Maybe nowhere.”

“But let me play devil’s advocate for a second,” he said. “When Beau left for Turkey, didn’t he tell you that he wasn’t sure if he could make a commitment? It wasn’t till he returned that he said he was ready.”

“That’s right.”

“So technically he did nothing wrong. It’s not like he was cheating on you. And at the time
you
were involved with that strapping actor, Chris whatever-his-name was. Going to bed with a guy as good-looking as Chris wouldn’t be considered mere infidelity by most people. It’s more along the lines of
treason
.”

“But I’d been dumped.”

“Like I said—you and Beau were both free agents really.”

“Agreed—technically Beau did nothing wrong. But the whole thing just doesn’t
feel
right to me. He goes to Turkey and he’s conflicted about what he wants in regards to me, so the way he deals with it is to shag the dig-site slut? It just comes down to the fact that I don’t feel I really
know
Beau. He’s Beau Regan, International Man of Mystery.”

“Bailey, dear, I wish I could help, but I think you’re just going to have to figure this one out for yourself,” Landon said. “Personally I’d kill for a man of mystery right now. I’d even take a man of
misery
. We all have to figure out what we can and cannot tolerate.”

I couldn’t blame Landon for not having all the answers, but somehow I’d hoped he would. I slunk back to my apartment feeling absolutely morose. There was a concerned message from Beau on my cell wondering where in the world I was, since he’d found traces of me in the apartment but no explanation as to where I’d disappeared to. Then there was another message, clearly after he’d played his answering machine and realized what I’d heard, saying we needed to talk as soon as possible. I felt no urge to talk it out at the moment, mainly because I didn’t know where I stood in my own mind. Instead I pulled out the desk chair in my tiny home office and began to make a game plan about how I was going to save my ass at work.

One possibility would be to confront Sherrie Barr directly. A search of the white pages online turned up no phone number, but property records indicated she owned a home on Brackton Street in Pine Grove. And yet it was hard to imagine that if I confronted her, she’d spit out the truth. Better to keep focusing on the houseguests; obviously one of them was involved.

I picked up my cell phone and tried Jane again. This time she answered.

“I was hoping we could meet first thing tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve stumbled across some important information that I thought would interest you.”

I figured that bait would entice her regardless of whether she was the killer because she was anxious for dish she could load her book with.

“Can you give me a hint at least?” she said in her typical crabby tone. “You make it sound so clandestine.”

“I think it’s best to do it in person.”

“I have to be at Devon’s apartment all morning tomorrow—I guess you could come by there.”

“What’s going on there?”