The Dead and the Beautiful (21 page)

She stopped at the market on the way home and arrived at her Craftsman bungalow to find Jocelyn at the dining room table doing her homework.

“Hey, Aunt Nikki.” Jocelyn pulled ear buds out of her ears and Nikki heard the faint pound of music from the ear buds. “Need help?”

“Nah, I just have these two bags.” Nikki heard Alison talking to someone on the phone in the kitchen. She could see her through the doorway, standing with her back to them. “Geometry?” she asked Jocelyn.

“Yeah.”

Both dogs began to bark and run around the dining table as if it were a dog track.

“I hated geometry when I was in school,” Nikki told Jocelyn.

“Of course I haven't!” Alison said from the kitchen.

Nikki tried to pretend not to be listening to Alison as she continued to talk to Jocelyn. “That was the closest I think I ever came to failing a class.”

“I would never say anything,” Alison insisted.

Nikki glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “Who's your mom talking to?”

Jocelyn shrugged. “I don't know.” She reached for her ear buds.

“You get back to work. I better put these groceries away.” Nikki walked through the dining room and into the kitchen.

“Because it could hurt me, too,” Alison said into her cell. She spun around as Nikki entered the kitchen. “So you're cancelling for tomorrow. Got it. No problem. I'll talk to you later.”

Nikki dropped the bags on the counter. “Who was that?”

“Just a client.” Alison set her phone on the counter next to the stove and grabbed a pair of tongs. Chicken breasts sizzled in a pan.

Didn't sound like
just a client.

“You're making dinner? Great.” Stan and Ollie flew into the kitchen, around the two women and back out to the dining room. “Enough, you two!” she called after them. She eyed Alison's cell phone. Obviously Jeremy's sister had tried to hide the true nature of that phone call.

“You're letting us stay here.” Alison flipped the chicken breasts in the pan. “It's the least I can do.”

Nikki began putting the groceries away. “I had lunch with Marshall today.”

“Did you?” Alison blushed. “He's so good-looking.”

“He is that,” she agreed, putting half-and-half in the refrigerator. She glanced at Jocelyn, who sat at the dining table with her back to them. Ear bud wires hung from her ears. She was listening to her iPod again. “He told me something interesting about Diara.”

Alison looked nervous at once. “Did he?” She dumped baby spinach from a bag into a wooden salad bowl.

Nikki put a box of crackers in a cabinet. “He and his agent had dinner with Diara and her agent last night. They were talking with a director.” She hesitated. “Alison . . . do you think it's possible that Diara might be having an affair with her agent?”

“An affair? I don't know. How would I know that?”

“Because you said that Ryan said something to you suggesting his wife might be cheating on him. I didn't know if maybe he said who—”

She shook her head and turned away. “He never said.”

Nikki dug into her grocery bag. “Okay. Do you know who had access to Ryan and Diara's house? Other than the people you already told me about?”

She thought for a minute. “Like . . . who?”

“I don't know. That's what I'm asking you. Family. Friends. Who could have walked into Ryan's house, killed him, and walked out again without causing any concern in that neighborhood?”

“I never heard about any family. I don't think either of them had family nearby.” Alison dumped the chopped carrots into the salad bowl. She reached for a cucumber. “Julian and Hazel live down the street. They came over sometimes. Angel and Betsy live only a few houses down from Diara and Ryan.”

“Where do Kameryn and Gil live?”

“Coldwater Canyon.”

“Do they all come and go in Ryan and Diara's house?”

“I guess. Yeah, I think so. But Angel and Betsy and Julian and Hazel more often. You know, because they live nearby. Angel stops by when he runs in the neighborhood.”

Nikki leaned against the counter, two avocados in her hand. There was something about Alison's tone of voice that . . . bothered her. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Alison, what are you not telling me?” She glanced at Alison's cell phone on the counter. Had she been talking to Diara? She turned around and sniffed the air. “You smell something?”

Alison began to chop up some dried tomatoes. She inhaled. “No.”

“Aha.” Nikki opened the cupboard beneath the sink. “Yuck.” She pulled out the garbage can and removed the bag, spinning it before tying it up. “You mind taking this out?”

“Sure.” Alison grabbed the trash bag.

The minute Alison went out the back door, Nikki glanced in Jocelyn's direction and picked up Alison's cell phone. It took her a second to find the recent calls screen. She only prayed the caller had called Alison and not the other way around, because she had no idea how to find a list of outgoing calls on an iPhone.

There had been an incoming call seven minutes ago.

Nikki heard Alison turn the doorknob, on her way back in. The trashcan was only a few feet from the back door. Nikki rolled it out front on Fridays.

Nikki stared at Alison's phone. The call had come from
BG.

Who the heck was
BG
?

By the time Alison stepped into the kitchen, her phone was on the counter and Nikki was on her way upstairs.
BG
. . .

Chapter 21

B
G was
Betsy Gomez,
Angel's wife
.
It took Nikki only twenty minutes to figure it out. What she still didn't know was why Alison was talking to Betsy. What was Alison talking about when she told Betsy she hadn't said anything? And why had Alison mentioned that Angel sometimes stopped at Ryan's house when he was out for a run? Was it just an off-hand comment, or was Alison trying to tell Nikki something?

The following day, Nikki was still mulling it over. The elevator beeped as it moved from floor to floor. The law offices of Lambert, Poore, and Johansson were conveniently located on Wilshire Boulevard, only a few blocks from Windsor Real Estate. Nikki ate a granola bar for lunch as she walked over.

When the elevator doors opened into the lobby of the attorneys' offices, Nikki stepped off. She didn't have much of a plan . . . but it was better than no plan.

Instead of going to the reception desk, which was a huge, curved slab of teak, with the name of the firm on the wall behind it, she took a seat in a leather chair in the waiting area.

The receptionist looked up. Nikki smiled at him and pulled her iPhone from her bag. She was going with the
act as if you belong there
and people will assume you do. She listened as the receptionist answered the phone. He was the same young man she'd spoken to two weeks ago when she tried to get an appointment with Lillie Lambert; she recognized his voice.

Nikki checked her e-mails. Responded to several. All the while, she kept an eye on what was going on around her. Several clients came and went. Two male attorneys, talking over a case, returned from lunch. But there was no sign of Lillie. Half an hour passed before the young man behind the front desk stood, cleared his throat, and spoke to Nikki. “Can I help you?”

Nikki looked up. Smiled
the smile.
“I'm waiting for someone. Thank you.”

He smiled back and answered the chirping phone again. She held her phone in her hand and continued to glance in the direction of the glass wall, behind which she could see a hall and doors, some open, some closed.

Only fifteen minutes passed before the receptionist spoke again. Apparently, she was beginning to make him nervous. “May I ask whom you're waiting for?”

She crossed her legs, taking her time in responding. She was wearing black and white Armani pants and a cool knit jacket. And black boots, of course. She preferred boots to high-heeled shoes for work. “I'd rather not say,” she told him.

“Client or attorney?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you waiting for a client or an attorney, ma'am?”

Again,
the smile.
“A client.” She stood. “Could I use your restroom?”

He hesitated.

“Down the hall, isn't it?” she guessed.

He pointed to the hall behind the glass wall that she'd been watching.

Nikki took her time walking down the hall. She had no idea what she was doing here, or what she hoped to accomplish. She was just . . . checking out the place. A middle-aged guy with graying hair nodded and smiled as he walked past her, going in the opposite direction. An attorney, she was sure.

A man in his early twenties trotted past her, his arms weighed down with a pile of briefs. Law clerk?

At the end of the hall, just before the restroom, Nikki spotted Lillie Lambert's name on a closed door. The wall between the hallway and her office was all glass and she could see into the dark room. Lillie was out. On impulse, Nikki rested her hand on the doorknob. Locked. Which was probably good because she might have gone in if it hadn't been.

She went into the restroom, which was designated for both males and females. Very progressive of Lambert, Poore, and Johansson. She washed her hands and walked back to the waiting room. The receptionist caught her eye. Was he on to her?

He was accepting a manila envelope from a courier wearing a bike helmet—something you didn't see often in Beverly Hills. A bike messenger. Then he gave the messenger an identical envelope. It was one of those with the round tab and string, the kind you could reuse.

“Thanks. Have a good day,” the messenger said, giving the counter a pat. He was early twenties with a shock of orange hair. He was probably only five-two or five-three, but very muscular in his tight bike shorts and yellow T-shirt that advertised
Diamond Courier Service
and a phone number.

“Thanks, Rash,” the receptionist called after him as he walked away.

Nikki glided past the reception desk, sighing. “She's not coming. My girlfriend. Apparently she's not going through with it.”

The receptionist stared at her, obviously not sure what to do. “Is . . . there an appointment I can cancel for you?”

“Nope, her problem.” A stiff smile this time. “Thank you. Have a good day.”

The messenger boy held the elevator door for her as he stuck the envelope into his backpack and swung it onto his back.

“Thanks,” she said as she stepped in.

“No problem. Lobby?”

“Yes, thanks.”

As he reached for the button, he did a double take. “Hey,” he said. “Aren't you Nikki Harper?”

The doors closed.

“Guilty.”

“I swear! I meet
everyone
in this elevator.” He stamped his foot excitedly. “Victoria Bordeaux's daughter, right? Man, she was hot in her day.”

Nikki chuckled. She heard plenty of people remark on Victoria's beauty, but they were rarely the kind of people who used the term
hot.
“I guess she was, wasn't she?”

The elevator stopped on the next floor.

“Would you mind . . . signing my autograph book?” He reached over his head and pulled, from his backpack, what looked like a bound journal. “I've got a pen.”

Nikki had given up years ago arguing with fans that she wasn't a celebrity and that her autograph wasn't worth the ink it was written in. “Sure.” She accepted the book and pen.

“You can just sign it. I'll add the date.” He leaned toward her to watch. “I like to keep the dates.”

Two women in business suits stepped onto the elevator, both engrossed in their smartphones.

“There's a paperclip marking where you can sign. I keep them in chronological order.” The messenger slipped his finger between the pages for Nikki and opened it up. “I'm Rash. Well, that's what everyone calls me. I fell off my bike the first day I worked for the Kincaids—they're my bosses. Husband and wife. Super-nice people.” He was blushing now, which was actually kind of sweet. “Anyway, I got a road rash and everyone started calling me—”

“Rash. Right.” Nikki chuckled. The elevator door closed. “Got it.” She clicked the gel pen and scribbled her name at the bottom of the right-hand page. As she was closing the book, her gaze wandered farther up the page. She recognized some signatures, but her gaze locked on one in particular.

Rash reached for the autograph book, but Nikki held on to it. “You always date these?”

“Yeah, I don't know why.” He shrugged. “Just started doing it when I took this job nine months ago. Been doing it ever since. I'm not going to sell the signatures or anything. But I've got some good ones. See”—he pointed to the page opposite to the one Nikki had just signed—“Cameron Diaz. She was super nice. I ran into her at the coffee shop.”

Nikki nodded, but she wasn't interested in Cameron Diaz's signature. “Is that Julian Munro's signature?”

He leaned over to look as the elevator arrived on the ground floor. “Sure is.”

The doors opened.

“And he signed it on September nineteenth?”

The two women stepped off the elevator. Nikki followed, with Rash taking up the rear. Nikki walked away from the elevator bank, stopping beside a huge potted palm, and handed him back his autograph book and pen. “You're sure it was Friday, September nineteenth?”
The day Alison was arrested. The day Lillie Lambert was hired to defend her.

“Yep, says so right there.”

She got a tingly feeling. This might be the break she was looking for. “Do you remember where you ran into him?”

He hesitated.

“You like fish, Rash? Fish in tanks? Like a big tank?”

Now he was looking at her with more than a little suspicion.

“Someone gave me a fish tank, setup, fish, everything.” She wondered if her nose was growing. “You can have it if you want. I really don't have room for it at my place.”

He frowned. “I live with my girlfriend. I don't know how she'd feel about a fish tank.”

Nikki tried to think fast. What did she have in her bag? Why hadn't she thought to grab something from her mother's stash of swag bag goodies? In the past, she'd been successful gaining information with a little . . .
bribery
was too harsh a word.

Then she remembered the tickets. The baseball game tickets Mr. Belka had given her. “How about tickets to see the Dodgers Saturday night?” She rifled through her Prada. “Box seats.”

“Box seats? Jeez!”

Her fingers closed around the envelope and she pulled it from her bag. “Six tickets. I just need to know where you were when Julian Munro signed your autograph book.”

“And you'll give me the tickets?”

“Yup. Here, take them.” She handed him the envelope. “I can't go anyway.”

He looked in the envelope. “Oh gosh, Ms. Harper. These really are box seats to see the Dodgers!” He looked up at her. “He signed it in an elevator, that can't be a breach of confidentiality, right? Because it wasn't in someone's office or anything.”

She waited.

“Right here.”

“You're kidding?” Nikki stared at him. So her hunch had been right. “Here.” She pointed at the tile floor. “In this building?”

Rash nodded. “He was with Angel Gomez. They're like best friends, I guess. Have been ever since they were on
School Dayz
together.”

“And where did you get on the elevator?” Nikki held her breath.

“Upstairs. At Lambert, Poore, and what's his name's.”

“Johansson's.”

“Yep,” Rash agreed. “Like I said. I meet all kinds of people here. Of course, there's a talent agency on the fourth floor, so . . . you run into people. If you're here once or twice a day, like me.”

Was he telling the truth? Why wouldn't he be? “Wait, you said that Angel Gomez was with him?”

“Yep, they got on the elevator together right after me on the lawyers' floor.”

“But only Julian signed your book?”

Rash scowled. “Yeah, Julian was nice. He didn't act like I was bugging him or anything. He even asked me what kind of bike I rode, but Angel Gomez? He was totally pissy. Famous people are like that sometimes. But I think he was already pissed when he got into the elevator.”

Nikki glanced away, thinking for a second. So had Julian and Angel hired Lillie Lambert to defend Alison? If so, why? Who were they protecting? Diara? Themselves? And why was Angel angry?

“Thank you so much, Rash.”

“No, thank you.” He had pulled his backpack off his back and was sliding the tickets and the autograph book into it. “Have a good day.” He waved.

 

After an appointment Friday morning at eleven at a house in the Bird Streets, Nikki headed for Mulholland for a
drive-by
of Julian and Hazel Munro's and Angel and Betsy Gomez's houses. She found the addresses through sales records on the Internet. The Munros lived on Mulholland, three quarters of a mile from Ryan and Diara, but Betsy and Angel lived on Sumatra Drive. An easy walk . . . or jog from where Ryan Melton was killed. Nikki got lucky on her second pass when she spotted a familiar lawn-care truck next door to the Gomez home.

Nikki parked on the street and walked past the
Jorge & Son
truck, toward the sound of a hedge trimmer. It wasn't her childhood friend, Jorge, but she recognized his employee, Harley. He often did yard work at Victoria's house.

He smiled when he spotted her and cut the engine on the trimmer in his gloved hands. He had misaligned teeth that could have used some serious orthodontia when he was a kid. “Missth Nikki.” He slid his safety goggles onto his forehead and set the trimmer on the ground.

She'd told him several times to call her Nikki, but old habits died hard. Harley was from South Carolina and had been raised by his grandmother. To quote Harley, if he didn't show proper respect to a woman, his grandmother would “whip histh heinie with a sthwitch.”

“How are you, Harley?”

He adjusted his
Jorge & Son
ball cap and nodded. “I'm good. What bringsth you to thisth neck of the woodsth?”

“Just checking on a house down the street.” She shifted her bag on her shoulder. “And . . . I saw you and I . . . I remembered I had these coupons for some free fries at Carney's.” Harley loved fast food. “And I thought maybe you'd want them.” She dug in her bag, remembering that she'd just seen them this morning when she was looking for a pen.

“That'sth really nice of you. You're always so niceth, Missth Nikki.”

She produced the coupons Jessica had given to her, glad she had thought of them. “You do this house regularly?” she asked, glancing at the home. She recognized the modern lines; it had to have been designed by architect Jeff Allsbrook.

“Sure do.”

“Always on Fridays?”

He blushed. Grinned sheepishly. “You caught me there, Missth Nikki. I shthould have been here Tuesthday. I took a few daysth off. Went fishin'. Little Rock Reservoir.”