by Lisa Childs
She was. She had her compact camera and lipstick recorder. The lipstick was on, and she’d snuck a few pictures of the red haired woman. “I should have,” she said. “I’m just kind of shook up over what happened last night.”
The woman leaned across the bar and pointed a shaking finger at Taylor. “That’s got nothing to do with you.”
“I was there,” Taylor said.
“You were working the wedding?”
Taylor nodded.
The woman’s eyes narrowed and she cursed. “I thought you looked familiar. I thought Valerie was my only competition...”
“Competition?”
The woman poured herself a drink – one much bigger than the one she’d given Taylor. It was obviously not her first. “For the movie star. Weren’t you working for him?”
Taylor shook her head. “Another guest...”
“That’s why I don’t remember seeing you at the party. Only afterwards...” The woman’s face contorted with a grimace. “Was your client an old guy? Old guys probably prefer escorts while young guys prefer strippers.”
Taylor had no idea and didn’t care to do the research to find out. She just nodded non-commitally. She didn’t care what the woman thought. She just wanted to find out what she knew – if anything...
“That was freaky what happened,” Taylor continued. “The hotel is crawling with reporters and cops now. I had to leave.”
“Oh...” The woman poured herself another drink.
“Did you see anything?” Taylor asked. “Have any idea what happened to your friend?”
“Valerie was no friend of mine,” the woman said after she gulped her drink. “She was a back-stabbing bitch.” Her mouth curved into a satisfied smile. “She got what was coming to...” The smile slid away. “But the movie star...”
“He’s going to be okay,” Taylor said.
The woman expelled a ragged sigh. “Good, he wasn’t supposed to get that sick...”
“What?”
“Valerie’s a pig for expensive champagne. I figured she’d drink that whole damn bottle herself...”
Taylor’s pulse quickened. She had been right to be nervous about entering the club with this woman. She was the killer. Had Taylor gotten enough on tape to prove it, though?
“So you just wanted to make her sick?” she asked.
The woman uttered a bitter laugh. “Hell, no. I wanted to kill her.”
And now she had it. Dominic had said he was no Hardy Boy. While he wasn’t, Taylor was Nancy Drew. Hell, she was better than she was. Nancy had never gotten a confession as easily as Taylor just had. But now she had to get out of the club with it – which might not be that easy. The woman was staring at her now, her glassy eyes narrowed. “You sure you’re not a reporter?”
Taylor shook her head.
“Because you’re sure as hell no dancer.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“You a cop?”
Taylor laughed now. “I told you I’m an escort.”
“So you’re not going to go to the cops?”
Taylor shook her head. “No...” And she hoped like hell the woman believed her – or she wasn’t getting out of the club alive.
“Good,” the woman said. She poured herself another glass and lifted it. “Let’s toast to that...”
Taylor glanced down at the drink the woman had poured for her. Had she poisoned it – just like she had Valerie’s champagne? Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted it. “What are we toasting?”
“To new friends and dead enemies...”
As Taylor brought the glass to her lips, she wondered which one the woman considered her.
***
Dominic should not have called Michelle. But he’d had no one else to call. He didn’t even know Taylor’s number. And Roderick was at the hospital yet.
And Courtney had been booked along with him – for disturbing the peace. Hotel security had called the police when Courtney, enraged, had begun tearing up Room #812.
He wasn’t certain if she was angry that he’d asked her if she was a killer or that he was in a serious relationship with Taylor.
Taylor...
At least she hadn’t been arrested last night. Nobody had reported her fight with Courtney. The last place his escort needed to be was a police station.
“I need to speak with Detective Butler...”
He heard the voice before he saw her. It came through the open door of the detective’s office where Dominic sat. It wasn’t Michelle, whom he’d called to bail him out. It was Taylor.
“Your girlfriend’s here,” Butler told him. “I thought you called your sister.”
“Step sister.”
“She’s your step sister?” he asked with disgust.
“No, no,” Dominic assured him. Even if it wasn’t legally incest, it would have felt like it to him to get involved with Michelle. It was bad enough that Taylor was her friend. Worse that she worked for her. “My step sister must have called her.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked. “Didn’t want her to know you got in a fight with your ex?”
He couldn’t admit that he didn’t have her number, so he just shook his head.
“You’re a strange guy, Rowe,” the detective said. “I can’t figure out what you are -”
“He’s not a killer!” Taylor said as she barged into the office.
“I tried to stop her,” a young officer, in uniform, told the detective.
Butler waved him off and turned toward her. “He’s not?”
“No,” Taylor said. “And I have proof.” She slapped a lipstick onto his desk.
He picked it up and examined it. “It’s not my shade...”
Seeing the hint of a sense of humor in the detective, Dominic could understand why Michelle might have the crush on him that Taylor suspected his sister had. So why hadn’t she showed up? Why had she sent Taylor instead?
“It’s a recorder,” Taylor said. She slapped her compact down next to it. “And this is a camera...”
“And what the hell are you, Ms. Hallowell?” Butler asked, his dark eyes narrowed as he stared up at her.
Dominic was asking himself the same question. Why would an escort carry a compact that was a camera and lipstick that was a recorder? Was she really an escort or a spy?
Taylor had not looked at him since she’d barged into the office. And she didn’t look at him. Her back was to him as she faced the detective. She couldn’t face Dominic. She couldn’t face the resentment and betrayal she knew she would see on his face. But she heard it in the gasp he uttered when she confessed, “I’m a reporter.”
“A reporter?” the detective repeated. “For what outlet?”
“Any of them that will buy my stories,” Taylor replied. “I freelance.” And as of yet, she hadn’t had that big break – that big story – until now.
Butler fumbled with the lipstick until it began to play the confession. “Champagne...” he murmured. “That’s where the poison was. CSIs found a needle mark in the cork; she’d injected it.”
“Nobody was trying to kill Roderick.” Although she couldn’t blame anyone if they had tried. “The stripper was the intended victim. And her co-worker is your killer. You can let Dominic go.”
She knew she would have to let him go, too – because he would want nothing to do with her now.
“I didn’t arrest him for murder,” the detective said. “I arrested him for disturbing the peace.”
“Disturbing the peace?” Taylor turned toward him now – in shock. And she regretted facing him. He looked so shocked. The color had drained from his face, leaving him looking like he’d been carved from ice. And as he met her gaze, she shivered at the coldness in his green eyes.
“There she is!” a female voice wailed. “There’s the person you should be arresting – she’s a prostitute.”
Courtney broke away from the officer holding her and rushed into the room. She pointed her finger at the detective and ordered him,
“Arrest her.”
Sam Butler looked from one woman to the other. They could not be more different. Taylor Hallowell was strong and composed. And Courtney whatever her last name was a hot mess. “On what charges?” he asked.
“Solicitation! She’s an escort.”
His every muscle tensed. He’d suspected FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT was involved somehow. But had an escort actually solved his case?
Before he could ask Ms. Hallowell anything, Dominic Rowe came to her defense. “She’s a reporter, Courtney.”
But the way he said it made reporter sound far worse than escort. Sam kind of felt the same way – although reporters didn’t break the law the way escorts did. Usually.
The blonde shivered at the coldness of her boyfriend’s tone. Was he her boyfriend? Or had she only been using him as a way into the wedding? He felt for the guy.
The bride? Not so much.
“And you should thank her,” Sam told Courtney. “She just found out who poisoned your fiancé.”
“Why should I thank her for that?” the bitchy woman sputtered.
“Because I thought you did it,” he replied. She had been his prime suspect.
The woman’s pale face flushed. “Why – why would you think that?”
“You’re obviously not in love with him,” he said. “But maybe that’s why you didn’t do it. In order for there to be a crime of passion, there would actually have to be passion.”
And for some reason, at the thought of passion, he thought of her – his mystery madam. He felt passionate about her – about catching her. That was all. Feeling someone watching him, he glanced toward the door of his office. But just as he looked up, the woman turned away and moved through the police department. She was petite with silky black hair spilling down her back. He’d seen her before...
Where? Who was she?
He stood up to chase after her. But then he remembered the people in his office. “You’re all free to go,” he told them. “The hotel will dismiss the charges if you pay for damages.”
And he knew they would pay. Rich people always took care of their problems by throwing money at them.
The reporter reached for her recorder and compact. But Sam caught her wrist. “That’s evidence,” he told her.
“But – but...”
“You’re really going to do the story?” Rowe asked her, and there was no mistaking the pain in his voice and on his face.
He hadn’t known she was a reporter.
What had he thought she was? An escort? His ex-girlfriend certainly believed she was.
“It’s the story of the century,” the bride said. “That’s all she wanted – to make money off us. She never cared about you at all!”
But Sam didn’t believe that. He saw the pain on the blonde’s face as well. She was hurting just as much as Rowe was.
To give them some privacy, Sam took bridezilla by the arm and led her from his office. Then he pulled the door closed for them. “You need to sign for your stuff,” he told Courtney. And the couple needed some time to talk.
Dominic waited for Taylor to say something – to tell him that she was lying, that she’d just made up the reporter thing to cover for the fact that she was an escort. But she was staring down at the detective’s desk. The lipstick and compact weren’t just evidence for the murder investigation; they were evidence that she had lied to him. She wasn’t an escort at all.
He pressed his hand to his chest and was surprised to find there was no hole. How had she ripped his heart out without leaving a physical mark? Because it was gone. His chest felt empty inside. He felt empty inside.
How had it happened so quickly? How had he fallen for her? It couldn’t have been real. He hadn’t even known who she was.
“I hope it was worth it,” he said.
She turned toward him, and her beautiful blue eyes glistened with a sheen of tears. “What?”
“However much you make off this story,” he said. “I hope it was worth lying to me and sleeping with me...” He shook his head and anger surged through him now. He’d never gotten angry at Courtney and Roderick for betraying him. He hadn’t cared about that – about what they’d done. He’d cared about her. “You may not be a real escort, but you sure prostituted yourself for this stor -”
She slapped him, and his head really snapped around. He knew why and how she’d won the fight with Courtney. She was strong. She was also proud. She lifted her chin with it and stared him in the eyes. “I didn’t prostitute myself,” she said. “I didn’t sleep with you for the story.”
“Then why did you?” he asked.
“I slept with you because you’re handsome and sexy...”
“If that was the case, you could have slept with Roderick and saved us both some grief,” he said.
“And sweet,” she finished despite his interruption. “But I see that I was wrong about you, too.” With that, she opened the office door and stepped out. Her head high, she walked out of the police department and out of his life.
Dominic should have been relieved. But he felt instead like he might have made a horrible mistake – especially when Courtney rushed up to him.
“I’m glad you got rid of her!” she said. “Now we can be together – like we were supposed to be. The detective is right. I never had that passion with Roderick – not like I have with you.”
He’d never had passion with Courtney. He’d never known what passion really was until he’d met Taylor and fallen for her. But he hadn’t really known who she was because he hadn’t known what she was.
If he’d known, he never would have fallen for her. He couldn’t love a reporter. It would have been easier for him to love an escort.
Chapter Twelve
May 20
Morning
I am really worried about Taylor. I’ve never seen her like this – not even when her aunt brought her to our boarding school after her parents’ deaths. She was sad then, but she’s devastated now. I really believed nobody would get hurt if I resurrected FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT. While that stripper hadn’t been killed because of my fake escort service, my friend and my brother have been hurt. I feel horribly about that.
I also feel all tingly. Detective Butler was just here, dropping off the evidence he’d taken from Taylor. The killer confessed, so he didn’t need the recorder or the camera. Instead of finding Taylor in her apartment over the garage, he came to the house. When I took the bag from him, our eyes met and held, and his fingers brushed mine. I felt a jolt, like the one I got when I touched the lamp with the frayed cord. I think he was shocked, too. I also think he suspects...
Michelle shivered as she remembered staring into Sam’s dark eyes. He wasn’t handsome – like so many other men she’d known or to whom she’d once been related. But he was more attractive than any of them – at least to her. And he was sexy as hell with his muscular body.
Shaking off thoughts of the detective, she focused on her friend and on the laptop Taylor had passed to her. “This story is great,” she said after she read the expose Taylor had written:
BACHELOR PARTY NEARLY KILLS ACTOR RODERICK ROWE
Caught in the crossfire between rival strippers, Roderick Rowe got poisoned and probably some STDs on the night before his nuptials. Did the poison make him sick or was it the thought of getting married so soon after his recent divorce? Caught mid-catfight at her bachelorette party, the bride rushed to her groom’s side, but as a suspect in his near demise, she wasn’t allowed to see him. So she tried to console herself with another male from the wedding party. While a stripper’s confession freed the bride of suspicion, it’s hard to say if the wedding will ever take place. Roderick should take his near death experience as an omen that this marriage won’t be any luckier for him than his last. But only time will tell if he will copy his famous father’s propensity for proposing as well as acting.
“And now you have the photos to go along with it.” She pushed the compact across her desk, but she held onto the lipstick recorder. �
�You could get the tabloids into a bidding war for this and make a fortune.”
Taylor shook her head. “I can’t...”
“Of course you can,” Michelle said. “You even have audio recordings for news programs. You’ll make -”
“Myself sick,” Taylor said.
She already looked sick. Her skin was so pale but for the dark circles beneath her eyes.
