The Private Concierge

That made her the monster, of course. She’d been advised by her publicity people to call an attorney, avoid the press and say nothing, but that wasn’t her style. And she’d had to talk to the police. They’d shown up on her doorstep, ready to cart her down to the station to question her. It was only because she’d hyperventilated and had to breathe into a bag that they’d agreed to talk to her in her home.

There was no one she could call. Her parents would have added to the embarrassment. They were free spirits who lived in a ramshackle double-wide on a scrubby patch near the California-Oregon border that technically put them in Oregon and saved them a buttload in state taxes. They didn’t wear shoes and were the impetus for most of the Do Nots in her book. She’d had no time to make friends since she got to L.A., or do anything but focus on her career. Her road to success was the express lane, total and all-consuming.

So, she’d brazened it out alone, telling the police it was self-defense and the man had been harassing her for days, part of which was true. He had been harassing her, and she was defending her dream, damn it, even if this was a different guy. She’d even admitted to giving him money, explaining that she lived alone and was terrified of him.

Thank God, he’d gone away this morning. He’d regained consciousness well before the police arrived, hustled off her property and disappeared. Despite a thorough search of the neighborhood, they hadn’t been able to find him, and no charges had been pressed against her. That was the only bit of luck she’d had.

Priscilla continued yanking curtains, and when she had them all opened, the living room resembled an amphitheater with the audience hidden in the darkness beyond the windows. She poured herself a glass of an excellent French cab, swirled it and held it to her nose, taking in the hints of cherry and licorice. She advised people on how to choose wines. Mostly she was faking it, and any wine expert would have known, but the public didn’t. She’d been elevated to the level of expert on many things, which could be the problem.

She coughed as the wine went down wrong. Maybe it was too much pressure for a pimply-faced kid who’d grown up in a border town and ate fast food with plastic forks. Maybe that’s why she was cracking up, insulting people—and now, assaulting them.

Her Darwin phone rang, and she could tell by the ring tone that it was Lane Chandler, but she’d been fielding calls and advice all day, including from Lane, who’d joined the chorus in advising her to speak with an attorney. Apparently TPC even provided legal consults for its top-tier clients. But Priscilla didn’t trust attorneys. She didn’t even have an assistant, which made life hellishly busy, but she harbored deep fears of being exposed as a fraud and a hick.

Besides, Priscilla Brandt had done just fine on her own.

She left the wineglass on the bar and walked to the window, defiant, hands on her hips. Indignant tears welled. Let them look at her, the assholes. They were lucky she wasn’t naked, wielding a bullhorn and staging a protest for privacy rights. They could try to destroy her, but she would never let it happen. She would even find some way to turn this debacle around and exploit it for the good of her career. But she wasn’t about to do anything as ridiculous as going to rehab or donating time to a homeless shelter. Let the retarded, boozed-up movie starlets do rehab. She was an author.

Possibly she would turn this into a chapter of her next book. Not a catastrophe after all, but a life lesson. Don’t let the turkeys get you down. Shoot them and eat them with prune stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner.

Her phone rang again, startling her. She’d left it on the bar, but she wasn’t taking one more call tonight unless it was from Skip McGinnis, the kid who would be executive producing her talk show, provided he ever got his head out of his ass. If he was looking for excuses to drop the ball, he certainly had one after today’s hot mess. She’d been calling him all afternoon, but kept getting his voice mail with that lying message about how important her call was to him. All she wanted was a chance to explain in her own words.

She rushed to the bar, but the phone’s display said the call was from an unknown caller, probably the press. Damn McGinnis. This was humiliating. Every call that wasn’t him felt like another rejection, and they were piling up. She should have let her manager call him. Let her collect the rejections.

She toyed with the phone, wondering what to do. The last couple of messages she’d left him might have been a bit snappish. She probably shouldn’t have threatened to go over his head and have him fired if he didn’t call back, but he couldn’t have taken that seriously. Surely. Maybe she would try again, something humorous. To make up for the surliness.

She got his voice mail on the first ring, but the message had been changed. His voice was tight and furious. “If this is Priscilla Brandt, your show is as good as dead. And if I had my way your career would be dead, too. Don’t. Call. Back.”

Pris gasped and dropped the phone. How could he do that? Everyone who called him was going to hear that message. She felt her knees buckling and was afraid she would end up on the floor. It was all over. Tomorrow’s papers would have the shots of her collapsing after Skip McGinnis rejected her via voice mail.

She pressed her palms to the counter and hung on. No, she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. No way! In an act of symbolic defiance, she upended her wineglass and drained the entire thing. When the wine was gone, she banged the glass on the bar, shaking, but grateful that her nerve was coming back. No one was going to talk to her like that. There was only going to be one career in need of life support when this was over and that was his. Skip McGinnis, that pipsqueak excuse for a talk-show producer, was finished.

Rick Bayless was struck by two things as he listened to the woman who called herself Lane Chandler dictate information about her clients—the moody rhythm-and-blues track playing in the background and the tension crackling in the air. From his vantage point at the door of her office, he had a three-quarter view of her stretched out in the chaise. She was facing away from him, holding what looked like a high-tech cell phone, and he’d made a mental note of the names she mentioned, some of whom he recognized as VIPs of one stripe or another. Her comments were candid, as was her obvious annoyance with certain clients. But it was difficult to concentrate on what she said when his mind kept screening the image of a frighteningly seductive fifteen-year-old, who turned out to be as challenging as any street criminal he’d ever dealt with.

He’d taken her for older, eighteen at least. She’d stared right through him with her chilly azure eyes. They were as blue as jewels, and she was as bold and wary as any professional streetwalker he’d ever come across. She’d promised him his money’s worth, anything he wanted, things he’d never dreamed of, whatever that meant. As he’d moved closer, he’d spotted her lean, wiry frame and gamine features—and realized he was dealing with a kid.

A kid? It had hit him like a bucket of cold water. He’d thought she was legal. And worse, maybe he’d wanted her to be legal because if he was being honest, he’d felt a flash of desire that was almost painful. Jesus, no kid should be out on the street having that effect on grown men. That could be why he’d been a little rough on her when he put her in the cuffs.

When she’d realized she was going to jail, the color had drained from her face. She’d begged him not to take her. She’d even tried to make him believe her sad story about a sick friend. Sad because they all had a sick friend. When she realized she couldn’t talk her way out of it, she’d put up one hell of a fight. Ferocious didn’t cover it, all the time shrieking that her friend was going to die. He used Tasers only to disarm kids with weapons, but he wasn’t sure a Taser would have contained her.

Lane Chandler had grown up, but Rick’s brain had no trouble making that transition. She’d been thirty-five at fifteen. The changes he saw now were all physical. He remembered a lean, starved, ready-to-spring body and a thick mop of dark brown hair that completely covered her face when she looked down. She could have set up housekeeping under that curtain of hair. But when her head came back up and the curtain opened, her gaze had scorched him.

Now, the mop had been brought under control. Sleek and glossy with mahogany hues, it curved toward her face like a whip, but it was still abundant enough that she had to comb it off her face with her fingers.

He wondered what she looked like these days. Still as cold and forbidding as a mountain fjord? Swim at your own risk? Or had the icicles been reserved for him, her persecutor? And what was that music about? “Unchained Melody,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Everybody Hurts” by REM? She didn’t strike him as the type that would be heavily into heartbreak music, but those were the songs playing softly in the background. Did some guy just dump her?

He closed the door on the personal questions, concerned where they were taking him. The only one that mattered was whether or not she could have pulled off the gruesome alleged murder-suicide at Ned’s place and escaped with the package. Rick had been working on a theory of his own about how Ned and Holly had actually died, and he couldn’t imagine a woman like Lane Chandler accomplishing what he had in mind. Too much physical force required, especially in dealing with a man as big as Ned…unless she had an accomplice.

Lane’s chin came up, and she scanned the office windows the way an animal sniffs the air, sensing another presence. He could see her profile, and the beauty that had been nascent then was evident now. The contours of her face had filled out, softening the angles and hiding the raw bones, the desperation. Her lips were parted, glistening. He wanted to think he’d done her a favor by getting her off the streets. That had been part of his goal. But now it forced him to consider another question. What a grim twist of fate it would be if by saving her, he’d somehow allowed her to cross Ned’s path and be the instrument of his destruction. The thought made him ill.

He must have moved because she sprang up from the chaise.

“Who’s there?” She spotted him in the doorway and began stabbing at the buttons on her cell. One of them lit up, flashing.

A panic button, Rick realized. She’d alerted security. The male voice coming from the phone’s mouthpiece confirmed his suspicion.

“Ms. Chandler? Are you all right?”

Rick was on top of her before she could respond. He grabbed the phone out of her hand and fired instructions at her. “Tell the security guard you hit the panic button by mistake. Tell him everything is fine.”

“Fuck off,” she snarled under her breath. “Give me that phone.”

He caught her as she lunged at him, spun her around and put her in an armlock. “Do it,” he warned, applying just enough pressure to make sure she cooperated. “Or I’ll tell him who you really are. I’ll tell everyone, Lucia.”

“What?” She craned around, as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. Apparently, she didn’t recognize him, either. But when he released her, she didn’t hesitate. She took the phone from him and pressed the panic button.

“Sorry,” she told the security guard. “I hit the button by mistake. Everything’s fine.”

“You sure, Ms. Chandler?” the guard said. “We found an exit door ajar down here on the first floor. The alarm didn’t go off, which means there could be a problem with the system. Should I run up there, take a look around?”

She assured him that wasn’t necessary, turned off the phone and tried to slip it into her jacket pocket. Rick took it away from her again, aware of the treasures it must contain.

“Who are you? And why did you call me Lucia?” Haughty and unflinching, she seemed determined to brazen it out. The years had softened her facial features, but little else. Inside, she was probably still as tough as a wire cutter, but that had to be mostly facade. A woman who’d built a successful concierge service from the ground up knew what people needed, inside and out. She played on those needs, had to. She personified the private concierge. Lane’s early clients gushed her praises on the Web site, giving testimonials with the passion of religious converts. Apparently she’d saved them all in one way or another. Rick wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d delivered some babies.

Her eye color seemed different than he remembered. It was still blue, but closer to royal than azure, and not nearly as sharp or crystalline. He wondered if this was part of her identity change, maybe contact lenses. But that could wait. Mimi hadn’t gotten back to him with the Nexus-Lexus results, so Rick had no proof of any adult priors. And this wasn’t the time to confront Lane about the murder-suicide or the package. But she was a woman under a lot of pressure—and he could apply more. Maybe she’d pop.

“Because that’s your name, Lucia—Lucy—Cox. Is your mind racing yet? Just wait. If you’re telling yourself that your juvenile records were sealed and no one could possibly prove what you did back then, don’t be so sure. And in your case, it’s not going to matter, anyway. The rumors will be enough to muddy up your professional reputation.”

She stiffened, caught somewhere between outrage and disbelief. He wondered how long it would take her to figure out that he wasn’t a robber, a rapist or a blackmailer. He was the cop who’d put her in juvie—and made sure she didn’t get out for a very long time.

Lane touched the tattered rubber band on her wrist, knowing that nothing could jump-start her frozen heart. The intruder had her cell phone and it might as well have been a weapon. At first she’d detected something familiar about his brush cut and aviator sunglasses, but it could have been the military thing, which was burned into the American psyche and a staple in plenty of action movies. All the bad guys wore metal-framed glasses, rode motorcycles and looked like RoboCop.

“Who are you?” she asked. “And what do you want?”

He studied the cell’s display. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“I prefer walking.”

“I’m sure the security people know what you drive. Shall I ask them?” He held up the phone.

“It’s a Lexus hybrid.”

“Nice, a social conscience.” He nodded. “Where were you this afternoon at 4:00 p.m.?”

She hesitated, wondering if had something to do with her visit from the police about Simon Shan, but no, that had been earlier, when she got back from lunch. “I was right here, working. Do I need an alibi for something?”

“You might. Tell me about your clients—and start with Ned Talbert.”

Lane had told no one but Darwin about Ned Talbert joining the service. Talbert may have told someone, but she thought it more likely that this man was trying to bluff information out of her. Still, that wasn’t her greatest concern right now. She’d already begun to ask herself if he could be the person behind the assault on her company. There was no way to know what his motive might be, but clearly, he was after her, too.

There was a metal letter opener lying on her desk, but he would probably get there first. “I don’t discuss my clients with anyone,” she informed him. “And if I did, I’d have to have that person killed.”

He tilted his head at her, as if she was a kid he’d caught in a lie. “Good thing your cell can’t talk. You’d have to have it killed. Priscilla Brandt needs a straitjacket and the police are asking questions about Simon Shan. And oh, yes, Jerry Blair of TopCo has a very spoiled daughter about to turn sixteen.”

He stopped, as if to say, “Do you get it, Lane? I heard everything, and I can use it against you. It would be like swatting a fly.”

Heat crept up Lane’s neck. Threats had the unfortunate effect of bringing out the street fighter in her. At the same time, she was aware that she’d put one of her favorite moody CDs in the music system. The Doobie Brothers soared into the chorus of “What a Fool Believes,” and she let the music work on her, soothe her. She’d given up any hope that this man could be easily dealt with. He seemed determined to be her worst nightmare, another action-movie cliché, except that they weren’t in a theater.

“What do you want?” she asked him. “Is it money?”

“I think that’s my line, isn’t it?”

By the disdain in his tone, he must have been talking about sex, but she had no idea why. “Listen, I have a business to run, people to take care of. Just tell me what you want.”

“People, right—all your hotshot clients?”

“No, my staff. I employ hundreds, and they depend on me.”

“Did Ned depend on you?”

Lane flinched as the intruder reached inside his leather jacket. He came straight for her, and she ducked down, ready to fight if she had to. He’d pulled out a wallet-size card, she realized.

“Maybe I’m looking for a private concierge,” he said. He handed her the card, and then returned her cell with a mock-courteous nod. “I’ll be in touch.”

Lane glanced down at what appeared to be his business card. It had a company name and a phone number. She read the name Bayless Extreme Solutions with a slow-dawning sense of recognition, but she wasn’t ready to let herself believe it. This wasn’t possible. He was the part of her past she wanted to expunge, topping the list of people she never wanted to see again. How had he turned up in her life after all these years?

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when she looked up, he was gone. She was wet everywhere, filmed in perspiration. His card was twisted in her fingers, and the dampness at the back of her neck was icy cold.

Never, she thought. Never assume a bad day can’t get worse.

12

Darwin didn’t fear death, dismemberment or even a mild case of herpes. He did fear spitting on Janet Bonofiglio when he kissed her. He tended to do that when he got excited, but only if he was talking, and he and Janet weren’t doing all that much talking right now. She was toying with the hair that had tumbled onto his forehead like a dark dust mop, pulling on the rubber-band curls and murmuring about how smart he was. He was trying not to suffocate from lack of oxygen.

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