by Leonie Gant
Chapter Twelve
The next morning I was woken up by my cell phone. I couldn’t believe it. After bundling Eleanor up and getting her settled into the Happy Valley Relaxation Center, I had been sure that I was about to get my first decent sleep. For a full week Eleanor Channing was no longer my problem. She was the problem of the insanely happy people at the relaxation center. Considering how cheerful those people had been when we rolled up at two in the morning with a decidedly annoyed Eleanor Channing, there was no way there weren’t any happy pills in that place. There was a part of me that really wanted to ignore the phone but it kept on going. Knowing my luck, Eleanor had staged a jail break from the center and I was going to have to hunt her down, fugitive style. I wallowed in that fantasy for a while, but as with all my fantasies at the moment, Jake Griffin turned up and made the whole thing feel way hotter. Grabbing the phone I put it to my ear.
“Hello,” I croaked.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Griffin’s voice came through and every nerve ending in my body went on high alert.
“Why are you torturing me, Griffin?” I groaned. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You gave me a black eye, sweetheart,” he said.
“And I am in hell because of that. Do you really need to add a paper cut with lemon juice to my already over the top punishment?” I asked.
Griffin chuckled. What that deep voice did to me. I didn’t know how I was going to last for three months without jumping on him and wrapping my legs around him and, oh yeah, I already did that. I was in so much trouble.
“Just wondering when we are going to have our next date,” he murmured.
“Not for a week,” I relished telling him.
“Why not?” he asked. “I thought Eleanor Channing was much more social than that.”
“Oh she is,” I assured him. “But as of last night, or rather very early this morning, Eleanor Channing checked herself into a relaxation center, to deal with the trauma of losing the love of her life so tragically.”
“You are kidding me aren’t you?” Griffin said.
“Nope,” I answered. “You’ll be able to read all about it on her website and social media, where she’ll assure her fans that she is strong but just needs some time to heal.”
“Okay,” Griffin said. “You still have access, maybe you can just go yourself.”
“Oh, honey.” See I can do sarcasm as well. “Without Eleanor Channing I am nobody. None of these people are my friends, none of them even know my name. I may be able to get you into a book club but that is the extent of my social life.”
“What about your friend, Crystal? I’m sure she’d be able to help.”
“Crystal doesn’t like you very much,” I said. “I really don’t see her helping you at all. Maybe you should do some actual police work for the next week. Who knows? You may be able to solve this case without me.”
I know, I was being a bitch and normally I try very hard not to be a bitch. I don’t like women who think being a bitch means being strong, but Jake Griffin put me on edge. Last night had made me think about things I hadn’t thought about in a long time. Things which weren’t possible, so if being a bitch made sure they never happened again, then that was what I was going to have to do. There was silence for a second.
“I’ll do that,” he said quietly.
I was about to apologize. I don’t like making people feel bad. It’s really not who I am.
“I don’t think you’re a nobody,” he said and hung up.
Great, now I really felt lousy. The phone rang again.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” I said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I stopped and tried to change gears. “Jennifer, is that you?” I asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she repeated.
“Tell you what?” I asked.
“I just got paperwork from Eleanor Channing’s attorneys about the skin reaction she had. She’s suing me.”
Oh hell. What kind of a boneheaded move was Eleanor making this time?
“Look, Jennifer, I knew nothing about this. I’m really sorry but there is nothing I can do about it.”
“Could you come out and talk to me?” she asked. “I just need to get a bit of an idea about what is going on and why she is doing this.”
“Jennifer, I really don’t think that is appropriate,” I said. “I still work for Eleanor and if she is suing you I can’t talk about it.”
“I just need someone to talk to,” she sniffed.
Oh no, she was crying. I can’t handle people who cry. I have a highly developed empathetic nature. On one hand it means that I am as far away from a psychopath as you can possibly get. On the other it means that when someone is upset I am just as likely to start bawling as they are.
“I’ll come to Bliss as soon as I can,” I said, knowing I was going to regret this.
“I’m not at Bliss today,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I’m at home, can you come out here?”
I agreed and took down the details. Once I was off my phone, I threw off the covers. Getting dressed, I cursed the part of me that wanted to take care of everyone. Monique saw it as a plus. All I saw was the number of times it had got me into trouble. Pulling on my jeans and trainers, I figured I wasn’t needing to impress anyone today.
Driving up to Jennifer’s property, I was taken aback by how beautiful it was. After six months in LA, I was getting used to the crush of people in the city and the unrelenting development, but I had grown up in country Australia. I’d lived in a tiny town where everyone knew everyone else. Most importantly, I was used to heaps of space and bushland. I love the frenetic pace of my life in LA but every now and again I miss the quiet that I had in Australia. This place reminded me of why I missed it. LA surprises you like that sometimes.
After being buzzed through the gate, I didn’t have time to knock on the door before Jennifer Saunders wrenched it open, threw her arms around me and started sobbing. I awkwardly patted her on the back. Seeing her husband nearby, I tried to indicate with my head that he should be here dealing with this. He just seemed to duck his head and scurry away. I groaned inwardly. I know there are some men in touch with their feelings who can deal with female emotion, but why have I never met them?
“Why is she trying to ruin me?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t have an answer.
“Did you want to go for a walk?” I asked.
Truth be told, I badly wanted to have a look at this place. I could not believe there was a block this large so near to the bustle of Hollywood.
Jennifer hooked her arm into mine. I have to say it felt a little too familiar considering we just barely knew each other and she had asked me here because my boss was suing her. I wasn’t sure what had suddenly made us best friends but obviously she needed someone and I was all that was available. That struck me as being really sad. Meanwhile Jennifer had morphed into a tourist guide.
“We grow a lot of our own ingredients for our products at Bliss,” she said as we walked through the grounds.
I was amazed. Most celebrity houses that I had seen in LA had the grounds filled with big houses, pools and entertaining areas. This place had vegetables, fruit and in a back corner I could even see a bee hive nestled against a fence which seemed to back on to a national park.
“You have a bee hive?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes, Josh is so interested in the way the environment works as a whole. He thinks it’s important that we contribute to all aspects of the ecosystem,” Jennifer said. “He is very passionate about it.”
I looked at her sharply. I hadn’t missed the note of sadness in her voice.
“He spends all his time working on our products at Bliss and with the new organic cleansing diet line that we are promoting at the moment, our lives are just so hectic. We live in the same house but we hardly get to see each other.”
I nodded sil
ently. I’ve learned when people are talking and are highly strung emotionally, adding your opinion does not help the situation. The best thing to do is let them talk themselves out. I didn’t know what had brought this on but I could guess that getting the paperwork from Eleanor’s lawyers had pushed this woman to her limit. She was trying to hold her life together as well as support her sister in her time of need, and now she was being sued. A cynical part of me had the feeling that daddy was going to be brought in to deal with this issue, or maybe that was what Eleanor wanted. She had already put herself on the wrong side of Henry Saunders by fooling around with his daughter’s fiancée and then having public fights with his daughter. Usually that would be seen as making a stupid career move. Maybe this was Eleanor’s way of getting a bit of leverage over the studio head. I wouldn’t put it past her. Eleanor could be ruthless when she wanted something. So it looked like because of her power play I now had an emotionally distraught woman to deal with. I led her to a rock wall and sat her down.
“Why did you ask me to come here?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “You were just nice to me. People are sometimes so rude and mean but you were nice. You didn’t expect anything from me, you just talked to me. I get so many people who just want to get to know me because of my father or my sister. I’m not like them. I just want to live my life. I just felt like I could talk to you. I know you can’t do anything about the lawsuit. I just needed to talk to someone.”
“That's okay,” I said soothingly, even though my discomfort level was heading higher. “If you need to talk, just do it. I’ll listen.”
She seemed to gather herself at that point. “No, I’m sorry,” she said, standing up quickly. “I should never have presumed to call you here. It wasn’t fair of me to do that. I was just taken a bit by surprise.” Quietly she turned to me. “She’s doing it because of Emily and Ryan isn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, although that was my theory, and from the look of it she was pretty sure of it too.
Saying my goodbyes to Jennifer I felt like going to the relaxation center and kicking Eleanor Channing. Some people in this world deserve to be kicked and Eleanor was currently at the top of my list.
