Choices

by Tessa Vidal

“Then I lose everything. They don't put you in any kind of job that's any kind of money. It's a small job, a quiet life in some backwater. I can't go back to that, Shell, any more than you or Caro could go back to that.”

  What could I say?

  “If I'm a producer, if I'm somebody important, I can leave without betraying anybody.” He was looking at the view again, although I doubt he saw it. “I can explain my money and pay all the taxes and be a civilian. Nobody has to worry about me being arrested. Nobody has to worry that I'll be forced to cut a deal with some prosecutor.”

  Oh. My. God. “You want to produce a movie.” I gaped at him. “You do understand it costs millions of dollars to make a movie.”

  “Of course.” He didn't blink, he didn't bat an eye. “That's why it's perfect.”

  My brother had millions in dirty money. And he wanted to launder it by making a movie. He started to say more, and I held up my hand in a stop sign. “Don't spell it out. Don't tell me. If somebody official comes around asking questions, I'd have to tell them. And I don't want to be thrust into that position.”

  “Some people want to know anyway.” When he looked at me, I again saw my own reflection in each of the silvery twin lenses. Even that close to my own twin brother, I still couldn't see his eyes.

  “Well, I'm not some people. And neither is Caro. Don't you dare tell Caro anything that could put her in the middle of something with the FBI. I'm being real with you now, Ryder. Don't you dare.”

  “I won't. I wouldn't. I didn't mean Caro. You two are smart. You already have enough sense not to ask questions.” The sadness in his voice held a familiar loneliness, eleven years of it. We were still twins after all.

  “You had someone, but they wanted to know too much.” A guess, but a good one.

  “He said he was sick of living with secrets.” Ryder twiddled with one arm of the mirrorshades, adjusting them to be sure his eyes stayed hidden. “That was my one chance at something real, at somebody decent. The thing he never knew was I'm sick of the fucking secrets too. I want to live in the light again.”

  He wanted it badly enough to clutch at straws. What could I say?

  “You can make that happen, Rayna. You and Caroline, the two of you can make that happen. All you have to do is point me to a big movie that needs an angel producer to swoop in and save the day. Then I'm legit, then I'm real. Then I can live in the light.”

  I loved my twin, but I wasn't laundering money for him or any man, and I sure the fuck wasn't letting Caro launder money for him. “You know better than that, Ryder.”

  “Shit.” There was no force behind the word. “I guess I do.” He opened the door but sat behind the wheel a minute or two longer. “You think you've grown into somebody I can be proud of, but that isn't true, Rayna. You've always been somebody I could be proud of. You're the best of us Taylors.”

  I blinked something out of my eyes. “Be careful out there, brother.”

  “You too.”

  “I can drive you somewhere...”

  He was already out of the car, a man too well-dressed for a hike, his shoes too glossy where they caught the sun, his feet moving faster and faster down a path I couldn't follow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Caro

  My publicist studied acting herself back in the day, and she still had a taste for drama. After the housekeeper cleared away the nicoise salad, Heather pulled a leather folder out of her computer bag. With a flourish, she fanned several glossy photos on the table― phone candids from Instagram and Twitter never intended to be printed out on Heather's color printer.

  Cloudless blue days photographed ugly when you weren't a professional photographer. The shadows were too dark, the highlights too bright. And yet I felt a sudden impulse to ask Heather if I could keep one of those photos. It had been a good day, Shell, Dickens, and me walking along the boardwalk.

  “How long do you think that headscarf is fooling anybody?” she asked.

  “I wasn't really trying to fool anybody. It's going to be talked about that Caro Ballad has a fancy new dog and Shell Tate is the behaviorist. It was important to see how Dickens does in public. Not all chows do well in a more chaotic, busy atmosphere...” I was quoting something Shell said.

  Chows were an ancient breed. They could test you, or they could be timid. But Dickens had the alert curiosity of the well-trained animal. He'd been socialized to be around busy crowds. Maybe he'd walked in this area many times before.

  “I'm not saying it's bad,” Heather said. “It's good. I might have suggested the same thing if you guys had stuck around. And the way his tail curls like that... it adds some real pizzazz to the images.” She'd forgotten about Dickens looking snobby. My pet aristocrat was growing on her. “About the restaurant... I've been checking into it, and we can pay a service to have Dickens registered as an emotional support animal. Then he can go anywhere.”

  “Shell says some people need emotional support animals. I'm not doing anything to undermine the legitimacy of those programs.”

  Heather shrugged. “I thought it was something you'd want, so you wouldn't have to spend so much time standing around outside like a cigarette smoker. Outside, with a dog, you're more approachable.”

  Which is what she'd been angling for in the first place. Two points for Heather Heath.

  “Well, we wanted to soften my brand a little. Anyway, you can't have a dog and never go outdoors. It isn't fair to hand him off to the walkers all the time.” Although a lot of celebrities did that. But I wanted a real relationship with Dickens.

  Knowing he was the subject under discussion, he padded over to sit by my chair. His fluffy head invited my hand, and I caressed him. Shell was right. Somebody had trained him well. When Heather cautiously scratched behind his ear, he projected the poise of a king humoring a peasant.

  “You might want to think about bringing back the bodyguard service. The more I see of him, the less I believe he's worth much for protection.” She scratched him harder. “You're just a big old ball of fluff, aren't you, boy?”

  “Shell says this is an ancient breed with a guardian instinct.” Had I said, “Shell says,” too many times? I told myself to ignore Heather's knowing smile.

  I hated the bodyguards forever hovering. How could you be real, how could you ever find a genuine relationship, if an army of paid goons was always breathing down your neck? In the early days when I was building my career, I was happy to hook up with the models Heather paired me with for publicity. But it wasn't the early days anymore.

  I wanted something real. My own home. My own dog. And maybe, eventually, my own girl.

  My thoughts turned to last night with Shell. She'd scheduled several sessions to teach me signals I could use to tell Dickens when I was in real danger. Despite Heather's skepticism, chows could be dangerous if not properly trained. They weren't a popular breed with lawyers and insurers, but hiring Shell Tate as the trainer went a long way toward getting them to yes. The training sessions would be hard work, but maybe after the work was done...

  As Heather breezed out the front door, my top-secret, super-duper, most private personal phone began to sing. It was rare for me to get an unexpected call and even more rare for an image of the caller not to pop up on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “It's Devos Grimes.” The private investigator I hired to find Ryder. He should have phoned my office if we had anything else to discuss. I'd called this guy off days ago, within minutes of my first conversation with Shell's brother.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I guess I'm a better investigator than you thought.”

  “How may I help you, Mr. Grimes? I was under the impression my office already issued your final payment.”

  “I've turned up some additional information I believe you'll be interested in seeing.”

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Grimes, but our business is concluded.”

  “This information has some certain value. If you don't want to purchase this report, o
thers will. The rags-to-riches Cinderella story of a barefoot girl in a trailer park who grows up to be a movie star... a lot of people will want to read about that.”

  Wonderful. And it didn't make me feel any better that I'd brought down this blackmail attempt on my own head. If I'd never hired him to look for Ryder, he never would have started poking around in my past in the first place.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “TMZ would pay a hundred thousand.”

  “This barefoot girl from the trailer park is calling bullshit. Five thousand.” If I paid him anything, he'd come back around again for more, but I was buying time more than I was buying silence.

  “We're too far apart. This is not a negotiation. I'll give you a couple of days to think about the value of your brand and how much it will cost you to rebuild your image from the ground up. Talk it over with your publicist. And your lawyer. And I don't have to tell you that you don't need to go running to the police unless you want certain videotape records popping up on the internet.”

  There wasn't any videotape. Grimes was bluffing. “I'll get back to you with a decision in ten days.” Although I'd already made my decision. Creep wasn't getting a penny.

  He was still talking, but I didn't hear what he said because I swiped right to end the call.

  Fuck. Would he really take my story to TMZ? Was it even that much of a story? Many actors lied about where they came from. It was all part of crafting the image. The trouble was, Caro Ballad didn't feel like an image. She felt like me, the real me. And my life story should be mine to tell.

  It's a bluff. Has to be. Everybody thinks blondes are pushovers.

  There was no story. If TMZ or anybody else approached us for a comment, the lawyers could threaten to sue everybody involved for invasion of privacy. That wouldn't hold forever, but it would work for a short while. Or so I told myself.

  WHEN I BOUGHT THE PLACE, there was a tennis court beyond the pool area. I'd had it dug up and replaced with a dog park. Shell approved the playground the night before, although she reminded me about the risks of exercising Dickens too hard on hot days. Toward the back of the property was a large flowering tree with a bench beneath it. After our training session, we walked back to sit there with Dickens curled happily at our feet.

  “It amazes me how fast he picks up on what we're trying to do.” I could now send a tiny signal with my hand while saying something else with my voice. A bad guy wouldn't know I'd given the attack command until Dickens was at his throat.

  “Ancient breeds are highly attuned to human body language. That's what they consider first when reading a human being or any animal. Listening to our words comes second. We're working with his natural instincts, instead of fighting them.”

  So far, we'd talked about nothing except Dickens, dogs, animal training. Nothing about last night. Nothing about what feelings might or might not exist between the two of us.

  There was a small silence.

  “Ryder's still in LA,” she suddenly said.

  “I kinda figured.”

  “I have the idea somebody's after him.”

  “I figured on that too.”

  The next silence didn't feel so small. She was working up to something.

  “Look,” I said. “Ryder doesn't want to hurt us. And he can't hurt us. We don't know anything about his business. The FBI can ask all the questions they want. We don't have any answers.”

  “What if the FBI isn't the only one asking questions?”

  “We still don't have any answers.” Dickens lifted his head, then snuggled around my feet again. “And if somebody tries to get salty, my loyal guard dog will have a word. I'm told he's a very well trained attack animal.”

  Shell forced a tense smile. “Ryder's organization isn't as sloppy as that casino robbery made them look. They had a way of testing small-town boys, but they're relentlessly professional.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you think they're better than they are because they got away with it.”

  She scrubbed a hand over her face, a gesture which made her look years younger.

  “Whatever you're afraid to tell me, you can tell me,” I said.

  “I'm not afraid, exactly, but I need to be careful about what I tell you. Ryder tried to be careful, but I think he already shared a little too much.”

  A part of me, the part of me that let my mother and my aunt hide me away in Los Angeles, didn't want to hear another word. It was safer if the Taylor twins left me out of the loop. But I couldn't be that scared little girl who ran away anymore. “You have to tell me now. All of it.”

  “I don't want to tell you something that could only get you in trouble.”

  “I might get in more trouble if I didn't know what was going on.” Every time I scooted closer to her on the bench, she scooted the other way. The distance between us was a matter of inches, but it was starting to feel like miles.

  “Ryder made a lot of money with his... organization.” Judging from the way she hesitated, she probably wanted to say gang. “As in, movie-deal money. Millions.”

  “And he wants me to point him at a deal.” Which made him exactly no different from any other adult human being in greater Los Angeles.

  “You can't be involved in this, Caro. You can't.” At last, she let our knees touch. “He probably thinks it's pretty safe, just asking around for an introduction to somebody who can hook him up with somebody else.”

  “Actually, if I'm honest, it seems pretty safe to me.” I wasn't sure I understood her caution. “I do go to parties. I do introduce people. I don't ask them where their money comes from. That's the lawyer's job. You're my dog guru, and he's my dog guru's twin, and I might be putting in a good word for him as a favor to you. That doesn't seem like such a high crime.”

  “You didn't have a front row seat to the FBI digging into the secrets of everybody's entire life. Even if you're not doing anything wrong, if they come after Ryder, they're going to dive deep into the background of everybody who helps him out. Including you.”

  It was bad enough that a fucking freelancer was already digging around. Now I was the one who sighed. Dickens snuggled closer to my legs, a gesture meant to reassure. As Shell says, dogs are intuitive. Like everybody else, he thought I needed special handling.

  “You never quite told me your backstory, but like everybody else in America, I read it on TMZ and Wonderwall. You're a mysterious Southern princess from Natchez raised in one of those white-columned plantation houses on the Mississippi River. Old money.” Shell's knee was warmer, firmer against my knee. Dickens's fluff was fluffier around my ankles. “You've built up quite the mystique, and I wouldn't want to drag you down.”

  Shell wasn't dragging anybody down. I was the one to blame. I hired the investigator, I stirred up whatever mess I'd stirred up. Now Ryder was in trouble, and he expected me to fix it.

  I broke it. I could fix it.

  Well, Ryder had his share in breaking things too.

  But none of it was Shell's fault.

  “So.” She got up from the bench. “I'll be back at the same time tomorrow for our next lesson.”

  Dickens and I stood up too. It seemed too fast. Wait. Was she actually shaking my hand? Was I actually letting her do it?

  “I'll let myself out,” she said.

  “Wait, wait, wait. This is too much. You don't have to go.”

  “I'm sorry, Caro. We both know we need to keep this relationship strictly professional from now on. No special favors for me or my brother. It wouldn't even make any sense, a southern American princess from Natchez doing favors for a dog behaviorist from Tunica County.”

  “But I'm not a fucking southern American princess.” I was a girl playing the part of a princess. Who knew that better than Rayna Taylor? “When I was first getting into the business, shit, sure, I started some rumors. Now I don't comment on my background at all. If people want to believe I'm a princess, I'm not going to contradict them but...”

  “I wouldn't ask you to contradict them.”
She leaned forward as if to kiss me goodbye, but instead she merely touched the pad of her thumb to the corner of my mouth. “This is a dog owner/dog behaviorist relationship from now on. You deserve better than the Taylor family shit show. From now on, it's hands off. Strictly professional.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shell

  Ryder was wrong. I wasn't the smart one. Or, at least, I wasn't the only smart one.

  Caro, that beautiful chameleon, and Dickens, that equally beautiful fluffball, had somehow surrounded me even though there were only two of them. She thought I didn't see the tiny flicker of a finger. As if we hadn't spent the last hour rehearsing all those tiny flickers of a finger. They weren't all attack signals. There were gestures that said it was safe to eat, safe to nap. Safe to allow a caress, safe to ask for a caress. Gestures to say walk, run, sit, heel. Gestures to say attack, gestures to say delay.

  This gesture was for the soft delay. A ball of fluff twining around your ankle to trip you up. Dickens, of course, wouldn't twine around anybody's ankle without permission, but most people wouldn't know that. It was an intentional delaying tactic that looked accidental. Even sweet. The target would squeal with pleasure.

  Ooh, look how cute. He doesn't want me to go!

  “Oh, look how cute,” I said in a dry voice.

  “He doesn't want you to go.” Caro batted her long eyelashes.

  “You know I have to, Caro. We have to be more hands off. We have to be. If anybody close to Ryder senses that we're something more to each other...”

  Dickens sat on my feet. Caro squeezed my arm. Hands off wasn't happening. “We just found each other again. I'm tired of everybody protecting me from myself, Shell. I'm not really such a princess.”

  Her arms came around me, and her velvet mouth pressed itself to mine. How could I resist? Without quite meaning to, I parted my lips, and we engaged in the classic fencing of tongues. Her kiss was passionate, even aggressive. When the ice princess melted, she could burn blazing hot.

  Dickens wriggled, and Caro and I both laughed.