by Elise Noble
Travis’s nails dug into my palm so hard I feared they’d draw blood, and I used my other hand to loosen his grip.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s okay.”
“How…” His voice came out as a croak, and he tried again. “How do you know all that?”
“She attempted to kill me today, but I stopped her from doing so and put her in a position where she felt she had no choice other than to confess.” Emmy told us a crazy story of Pepsi and poison that left me vowing never to touch another soft drink. Apparently, ethylene glycol tasted sweet and you’d never even notice it until you got sick. “And when I said I’d be going to the police with the evidence, she decided to kill herself rather than risk a prison sentence.”
“Couldn’t you have tried to stop her?” Travis asked.
“Everyone has choices, and Meredith made some spectacularly bad ones. I know it’s difficult to lose somebody you considered a friend. A woman who betrayed me died two years ago, and I still look back and wonder why I didn’t see the problem earlier. Why I didn’t realise how unhappy she was.”
“How did you get past it?”
“I focused on the future. And some good came out of that tragedy. A friend of mine met the love of his life, just like you met Alana. You’ve both got your whole future ahead of you, so don’t waste it by dwelling on things you can’t change.”
A long moment passed, then Travis let go of my hand and wrapped an arm around me instead. We’d be okay. Not today, not tomorrow, but we’d be okay.
“My future starts in two years. Did Alana tell you about the band’s record contract?”
“It’s been mentioned, yes.”
I looked at Zander, Zander looked at Emmy, and Emmy looked at me. Which of us should tell Travis? Me. It had to be me, didn’t it?
“Uh, we did some research on your contract. I didn’t want to say anything until after we sorted out the other thing.”
“How bad is it?”
Zander took over. “I’ll be honest—it’s not great news. Red Cat’s hidden several punitive clauses in the small print. It seems your manager and lawyer didn’t spot them.”
“Or they took kickbacks to keep their mouths shut,” Emmy said. Zander glared at her for the interruption. “Just saying.”
“What kind of punitive clauses?”
My brother gave a brief outline—the expenses clawback and the non-compete clause—and Travis turned deathly pale. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes as I struggled to stop myself from crying on his behalf.
“You mean we’ve all gotta work for two more years, and at the end of it, we’ll get basically nothing?”
“I’ll kick Gary in the bloody balls,” I muttered.
Emmy snorted. “Already did that. Well, it was my knee, but it had the same effect.”
Travis stared at her. “You did what? When?”
“First day in the recording studio. The little worm propositioned me, but don’t worry; he won’t make the same mistake again.”
I couldn’t help it—I wriggled out of Travis’s embrace, hurried over to Emmy, and threw my arms around her. “Thank you. Thank you for everything, but especially for that.”
“It was a pleasure, honey. Really it was. And don’t worry about the contract. We’ll deal with it, and I’ll enjoy that too.”
“But how? How will you do that?”
She put a finger to her lips. “Go to work, enjoy each other’s company, and forget about it. Black and I will be leaving tomorrow, but if you want to stay in the house for a few weeks, that’s fine. Just don’t chuck the couch in the swimming pool or any other rock-star shit.”
“But—”
“I’m going to bed.” The chair scraped across the floor as she pushed it back. “Chuck, are you coming?”
“Not yet, but I am breathing hard.”
It took me a second to get the joke, but then I giggled. Oh my gosh. Black had a secret sense of humour as well as an ass you could bounce quarters off. Not that I’d been looking or anything. No, definitely not.
They disappeared upstairs, followed by Zander and Dove. Alone with Travis at last, I stood at his side, unsure what to do until he pulled me onto his lap.
“I’m not sure whether this has been one of the best days of my life or one of the worst, blue.”
“If it’s the worst, then things can only get better from here on out.”
“I still have to tell the other guys about the contract.”
“How about not telling them? Emmy said not to worry.”
“How the hell can I not worry? She isn’t even a lawyer.”
“Hey, it’ll be okay.”
“I need to get my own lawyer.” Now he closed his eyes and laid his forehead against mine. “I can’t even afford a lawyer.”
“If it comes to that, I’ll pay for your lawyer. But please, just give Emmy a chance first.”
“Do you trust her?”
Good question. Did I? She had solved the Meredith problem, albeit in a dramatic fashion. If she could annihilate Red Cat Records too, I’d buy her a bottle of champagne. No, I’d buy her a methuselah of champagne. If anybody could wipe the smug smile off Leonard Martineau’s face, it was Emmy.
“Yes, I trust her.”
“Then I’ll hold off on the lawyer, but I still need to tell Rush, Dex, and JD. They deserve to know. But tonight, I don’t want to think about work or Meredith or solving impossible problems—I just want to lose myself in you.”
“Then let’s forget all that and go upstairs.”
Originally, Indigo Rain had planned to stay in Vegas until Wednesday morning, but since they’d fled the city the previous day and returned to LA, there was nothing on the schedule and everyone got a much-needed lie-in. Bradley organised a breakfast buffet, although it was closer to lunchtime by the time we got downstairs.
“Sleep okay?” Emmy asked from her seat at the table. She was reading through her emails while eating a bowl of rabbit food. Sorry, muesli.
“Better than I thought.”
“Bradley’s in the kitchen making waffles. Actually, he’s making a mess, but he assured me there’ll be waffles at some point.”
I’d taken two steps towards the kitchen when Emmy started choking. Properly choking like she couldn’t breathe. I was about to attempt the Heimlich manoeuvre when Travis thumped her on the back and a lump of muesli splatted onto the floor.
Holy shiznitz. “Are you all right?”
“Yu—” She started coughing again, then her gaze strayed to her computer screen, and before I could help myself, I’d accidentally read the email on it. It was only one short paragraph, okay?
From: Mack Cain
Subject: The tangled web
Courtney Timmons was born Courtney Dorabelle Thorne. Adopted at eighteen months old. Sibling, eleven months younger, listed as Travis Daley Thorne. Coincidence?????
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in, by which point Travis had read them too and was undergoing the same horrified-slash-incredulous-slash-will-this-ever-end reaction as me. Emmy sagged back against the table.
“Ah, shit.”
“Am I reading this right?” he asked. “Courtney’s my sister?”
Zander chose that moment to walk in.
“Courtney’s your sister? What the hell did I miss?”
“Mack emailed,” Emmy said. “My cereal went down the wrong way, much choking, etc. Yeah, looks like I wasn’t the only one undercover in that studio.”
Travis slumped onto a chair. “I can’t get my head around this. How can Courtney be my sister? She’s never even hinted at anything like that.”
“Maybe she didn’t know how to tell you?”
“Or maybe it’s not true?”
“How much do you know about your early years?” I asked gently. “Your parents?”
“I landed up in foster care at four months old. I don’t remember them at all. But I always figured they were assholes because they never took care of me. Or m
y… Fuck. Do you really think she’s my sister?”
“So far, all we’ve got is a name,” Emmy said. “But it is a pretty big coincidence.”
“So how do we find out for sure?”
“Simple.” Emmy tossed him the phone he’d left on the table. “Give her a call and ask her to come over.”
CHAPTER 41 - ALANA
TRAVIS CAUGHT THE mobile Emmy had thrown, then stared blankly at it. “Phone her?”
“She works for you, yes? It’s the fastest way to clear this up.”
“What if she lies?” I asked.
Emmy shrugged as if to say, No problem. “Then I’ll call her out on it.”
Well, at least one of us was confident. I took the phone from Travis because he didn’t seem up to any difficult conversations right now. “I’ll speak to her.”
One ring, two, and Courtney answered.
“Travis?”
“It’s Alana.”
“Alana? But this is Travis’s phone. Aren’t you in England?”
“It’s a long story, but I’m in LA. Travis isn’t feeling so good, and he’s asked if you can run a few errands for him this afternoon.”
“Oh, sure, sure. What errands?”
“We’re both staying with a mutual friend. Could you meet us here and he’ll go over the list?”
“Of course. What’s the address? Hold on, I need to find a pen…”
The intercom buzzed half an hour later, and Travis had spent the whole time pacing, freaking out, and muttering that this couldn’t be happening. But it was. The hits just kept on coming, although granted, the news about Courtney wasn’t quite as bad as Meredith doing a Tom Daley off the top floor of Emmy’s hotel.
Bradley showed Courtney into the lounge, offering tea, coffee, organic juice, filtered water, or a wheatgrass-and-goji-berry smoothie.
“Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be here for long.”
“No, you will be.”
“Really? Uh, okay, I guess I’ll have a coffee.”
“Americano, cappuccino, latte, espresso, or macchiato?”
“A cappuccino?”
“Which beans? Typica, bourbon, blue mountain, or caturra?”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “Just bring any kind of coffee, Bradley. Courtney, why don’t you take a seat?”
“Do I know you?”
“Emmy. Also known as Penny.”
Courtney looked Emmy up and down, and her eyes widened as she realised they were one and the same person.
“You dyed your hair?”
“No, I took my wig off, but that’s irrelevant at the moment.”
Emmy took the seat opposite Courtney, and I was kind of grateful she was doing the talking because I had no idea what to say and Travis was tongue-tied too. Now I studied him and Courtney side by side, I saw the similarities. She wore glasses, but they had the same colour eyes. Their jaws were the same shape, although Travis’s had been obscured by a bushier beard until recently. And they both had the same athletic build.
“Courtney Timmons. Courtney Dorabelle Timmons. Courtney Dorabelle Thorne.” Emmy raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
All the colour drained out of Courtney’s face in much the same way as Travis had paled yesterday at news of the contract. At least she was sitting down.
“I… I…” She glanced sideways at Travis. “I… Yes.” All her perkiness evaporated, and she slumped like a leaky balloon. “He… You were never meant to find out like this. I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Finally, Travis spoke. “You are my sister?”
“I wasn’t certain at first, but everything fit—our names, our ages, your history, our biological parents’ names. I hired a private investigator, and he thought so too. And then…” Courtney buried her face in her hands. “Then I might have borrowed one of your old beer bottles and done a DNA test on your saliva.”
“And it matched?”
She peeped between her fingers. “Yes.”
“But… I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell me in the first place?”
“How? I couldn’t get anywhere near you, and you never replied to any of the messages I sent you on Instagram. In the end, I went to your record label to drop off a letter, but the receptionist thought I was there for a job instead and gave me an application form. And after I got the job, I figured if I opened up, you’d think I was a psycho for basically stalking you.”
“So you’re not really a PA? I guess that figures.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry.”
She sighed. “It’s okay. I’m actually a scientist. The interview with Gary was the most degrading experience of my life, and that’s all I’ll say about it.”
Travis’s voice dropped to a growl. “What did he do to you?”
But Emmy interrupted. “Let’s move on, shall we? Courtney doesn’t want to talk about it. But I’m curious as to why now? You’re what—twenty-five?”
“I didn’t find out I was adopted until I was twenty-three. If I had, believe me, I’d have done this sooner.”
“How did you find out?” Travis asked, curious now.
“I research genetics, and I was looking at hereditary traits for a project. I needed a pair of guinea pigs to test one of my theories, so I used me and my mother. I had a few strands of her hair in a locket, you see. Only it turned out she wasn’t my mother. Even now, my parents refuse to discuss the details, but my grandma told me what she knew, and I got curious about my birth family.”
Wow. What a way to find out. And Courtney sounded so calm speaking about it, but then again, she’d had time to come to terms with everything. Travis was still processing the revelations. Quiet. I reached over to squeeze his hand, and he pulled me closer.
“You’re together?” Courtney asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought you hooked up in England, and I was so happy for Travis, but then you didn’t come with us to America and I got worried I was wrong, that he’d end up with another Reagan.”
“I was never with Reagan.”
“She said you were.”
“Then she lied. The bitch sold pictures of me naked, for fuck’s sake.”
“She told me you agreed to it. That it was a publicity stunt.”
“You spoke to her about it?”
“I… Uh…”
“When did you speak to her about it?” Emmy asked.
A long, painful silence descended, and I began to get a really bad feeling. The last two days had been a roller coaster of emotions, and now I wanted to puke. Finally, Courtney spoke in a whisper.
“The night she died.”
“Tell us what happened, Courtney. Was it an accident, or did you do it on purpose?”
Oh, hell. Emmy thought Courtney killed Reagan? No way. This couldn’t be happening.
But it was.
“An accident. A total accident, I swear.” A tear rolled down Courtney’s cheek. “I was standing in front of the door, and she pushed me, and I pushed her back, and she just kept going until she tripped over her feet and fell down the stairs.” Now the tears came thick and fast. “Travis, I’m so sorry. I only wanted to get to know you, and everything went so badly wrong.”
Emmy just chuckled. “Wrong? Nah. Reagan merely got a healthy dose of karma. Forget it ever happened.”
“You’re not gonna call the police?”
“Of course not. Nobody here is, are you?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“There we go. Sorted. At least we know who and why now, and we don’t need to worry that there’s a second lunatic still on the loose.”
“A second lunatic?”
“Meredith was the first.” Emmy ticked off on her fingers. “She did Jae-Lin, Vina, and Caitlin. But she’s dead too, so we’re all good.”
Bradley picked that moment to bustle in with a tray of cups and a carafe of coffee. And biscuits. At least six different kinds of biscuits. Or maybe I should have called them cookies si
nce we were in California and American biscuits were a whole different and very strange concept. Biscuits and gravy? Yeuch.
Courtney barely glanced at the coffee. She stared at Emmy instead.
“Meredith?”
“Turned out she was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Look, forget all that shit. It’s done. Over. The truth’s out now, so why don’t you and Travis just relax and get to know each other?”
What did Travis think of that plan? He’d been quiet so far, no doubt in shock. In a strange way, this mirrored my own story with Zander. We hadn’t met until we were in our teens, although obviously Travis and Courtney’s story didn’t have the same element of paedophilia involved. Did he want to get to know her?
Yes, it seemed, because he nodded in agreement. “Emmy’s right. We should forget the past and move on. Will you stick around for the rest of the day?”
Courtney nodded. “I’d like that.”
“Where should we start?” Courtney asked.
Emmy, Black, and Bradley had left for Virginia, and Zander announced he was taking Dove out for dinner. Gary had tried to force Travis into the studio earlier, but Emmy adopted her Penny persona one last time and told Gary that Travis was grieving and he could go fuck himself. Yes, those exact words.
I offered to give the two new-found siblings some space as well, but Travis wanted me to stay and Courtney didn’t seem bothered. The local Chinese place delivered, so we sat down to talk over boxes of egg fried rice and kung pao chicken and crispy shredded beef.
“How about we start at the beginning?” Travis asked. “My childhood’s public record, but what happened to you?”
“It’s simple. You didn’t get enough love, and I got too much of it. My first eight years were okay. Really good, actually. I was spoiled, probably a bit of a brat if I’m honest, and I had the life most kids dream of. Vacations to Disney World, every toy I wanted, and I loved school. But when I was eight, Mom caught Dad in bed with his secretary and then the battle started. Hell hath no fury like two parents who both want full custody.”
“Who won?”
“Nobody. We all lost. The good days were uncomfortable, and on the bad days, I wanted to throw myself under a truck. They spent thousands on lawyers. Played dirty tricks. Hired private investigators to follow each other. Had screaming matches in the school parking lot, then went to ridiculous lengths to apologise to me. On my tenth birthday, my dad bought me a pony, so Mom bought me a zebra. A freaking zebra! It scared the crap out of me, and all I ever asked for was a junior chemistry set.”
