The Big Fix

by Linda Grimes

  I plugged the drive into a USB port on my laptop and started clicking. We read rapidly, sitting side-by-side on the bed, stopping a few times to give each other we-did-not-just-see-that looks.

  “Whoa,” I said when we were done. “Jack sure gets around.”

  “That he does,” Billy said. I wasn’t sure I liked how impressed he sounded. When he saw my eyes roll, he added, “What? You have to admire his stamina, if not his dimensions. And Angelica’s foresight. Including those video clips was genius—words might fade in Hollywood, but, oh, how images linger.”

  “No shit,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “If Jack thought Angelica would make these public…”

  Billy nodded. “The trouble is, the same could be said for Lily-Ann. We know for a fact that she knew about this file. And all we have is her word that Jack knew about it. I can’t see where this is going to help her at all, no matter how innocent your gut thinks she is.”

  My cell phone buzzed. “Crap. It’s Nigel. I have to tell him.”

  I explained that our efforts hadn’t been exactly helpful to his client, but told him not to worry, we were hatching another plan. “I can’t get more specific on the phone, but … tell you what, we’re headed back to L.A. We’ll talk then.”

  “I hope your new plan is speedy,” Nigel said, “because someone—maybe Gunn, maybe the Conrads—is putting a lot of pressure on the court to revoke Lily’s bond, claiming she’s unstable and an extreme flight risk.”

  “But why? They know she couldn’t have been the shooter at the funeral—shouldn’t that help her cause?” I said.

  “I’m afraid not. They’re now speculating that she’s working in collusion with someone. The district attorney would like to see her behind bars in order to cut off any unsupervised contact with her supposed confederates.”

  “But you’re supervising her.”

  “For some reason, I get the idea they don’t trust defense lawyers,” he said wryly.

  “Okay, never mind. Don’t worry, I’m sure our new idea will work brilliantly. Tell Lily to hang in there,” I said, my voice only slightly reedy.

  I hung up. “We need a new idea,” I said to Billy. “The faster the better.”

  “I heard. Nigel’s voice carries.”

  I started to pace. My mind works better when I’m moving. “We have to get Jackson out of that house and figure out some way to trip him up, make him admit he’s guilty.”

  “You’re sure he is?”

  I thought back to what I’d seen on the video: Jackson Gunn, in his Fifth Wheel trailer with a much younger, but still recognizable, version of Frannie, who, according to Angelica’s detailed notes, happened to be the daughter of J. J. Brookfield, one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers. She’d been sitting on Jack’s lap, naked and bouncing, oohing and aahing about his “gun.” If Frannie was of age at the time, it wasn’t by much. Maybe not quite the full Polanski, but close enough. And I was pretty sure if her daddy saw the video, Jackson would never work in movies again. Hell, if she had been underage, he might even be thrown in jail.

  I stopped pacing. “You saw the same thing I saw.”

  “You mean the ‘Roman’ hands? True. I also saw our dear Mr. Gunn expressing somewhat more than a filial affection for his mother-in-law. Nicely preserved woman by the way—”

  I cut Billy a dirty look. He laughed and continued speaking. “I’m just pointing out that the file could easily incriminate more than one person. Elizabeth Conrad, if she knows about its existence, might have her own objections to it being made public. And then, of course, there’s Lily-Ann—I know, I know. Your gut. I’m only trying to point out how things would look to a jury.”

  “Gah. Damn it, Billy, I have to find out for sure who did it. I have to. We need to get him out of that house so I can talk to him face-to-face. Did you see any sign of him while you were in there?”

  Billy’s eyes followed me as he lounged on the bed. “He wandered between the kitchen and the bar, both of which seemed to be well stocked. Looks to me like Jack is set to camp out inside until Lily-Ann is safely tried and convicted. Hmm … I suppose we could always set the house on fire.”

  If he hadn’t winked I might have thought he was serious. Heck, even with the wink, I wasn’t sure he didn’t mean it.

  “Think, Billy. You have the most devious mind of anyone I know—”

  He inclined his head in a regal bow. “Thenk yew. I do try,” he said, with a shade of QEII in his delivery.

  Which reminded me—he did have a lot of celebrity auras in his repertoire. Including a bunch of Hollywood types. I knew for a fact he had a perfect Meryl Streep.

  I wonder …

  “Hey, maybe we could…” I proceeded to outline a sketchy plan, throwing out ideas as soon as they popped into my head, ending with, “What do you think?”

  He’d sat up, smile growing, as I spoke. It was an eye-crinkling double-dimpler by the time I finished. “And you say I have a devious mind?”

  I grinned at his obvious approval.

  “You know, cuz, I think we could make it work.”

  “You really think it’s doable?” I asked.

  “It would take some finesse to set up—don’t worry, finesse is a specialty of mine—and we’d have to call in some reinforcements, but yeah. I think we might get him to follow his ego out the door.”

  Chapter 20

  Billy took off to work some of his finessing magic with his Hollywood contacts while I went to fill in the blanks for Nigel and Lily-Ann. I planned to wave the flag a bit, and encourage them to hang in there until we could implement the world’s craziest plan. Not that I’d necessarily pitch it as “world’s craziest.” No point in piling on the worry.

  Nigel met me at the door himself, as dapper as always in his suit and tie. But the look on his handsome face was grim. The first words out of his mouth were, “Lily’s gone.”

  “What? But she can’t be—they’ll revoke her bail for sure if she runs,” I said.

  “I tried to explain to her that I had other avenues to hold the court at bay for at least a little while longer, but she panicked. She cut her anklet half an hour ago, and left without a cell phone. I have no way to contact her.”

  Shit. “How long to we have before somebody comes to check on her?”

  “I’ve already had a call from the monitoring agency, which I let the machine answer. They’ve probably already reported the breach. The police are overworked and understaffed—we might have an hour or two, or they might show up any minute. Tough to say.”

  Damn it. Stupid move, Lily-Ann. “You’re not going to report her yourself?” I knew, as an officer of the court, he could get in serious trouble for not faithfully upholding his duties, possibly even lose his license to practice law.

  “I’ll have to if she’s not back before the police get here,” he said. “I know she’s innocent, but I don’t see a way around it.”

  But he hadn’t done it yet—that meant he was good at heart. I could work with that.

  “Look, we need to buy some time for Lily to come to her senses,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

  * * *

  When the police officer got there, he found me (aka Lily-Ann) stretched out on the sofa with an ice pack on my horribly swollen ankle. Nigel had called to report her unfortunate “accident,” explaining that he’d had to cut the tracking anklet to keep it from cutting off the circulation to her foot.

  I had, naturally, captured some of her energy when I’d met her. I tend to do that automatically when I shake someone’s hand—it’s a reflex.

  “Sorry to be a bother,” I said, faking a wince as the officer lifted the ice bag to examine my ankle.

  Nigel, his wheelchair in its standing position, said, “It was entirely my fault. I’m afraid my cat is fond of getting underfoot. Lily-Ann, I apologize again.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Nigel. At least it’s not broken,” I said.

  “Are you sure about that?” the officer said. �
�It looks pretty bad to me. Maybe I should escort you to the ER.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Nigel said smoothly. “My doctor came at once and examined Miss Conrad’s ankle. That’s why I missed the first call from the monitoring agency.”

  “A doctor who makes house calls?” the officer said.

  “Yes. She left before you arrived. I keep a concierge doctor on retainer. A man in my position”—he didn’t gesture toward his wheelchair, but it was obvious he wasn’t referring to his financial status—“can’t afford to take chances.”

  The officer didn’t question it further, but even if he decided to, it would be okay, because the good doctor had in fact examined me, taking an X-ray with a portable machine before pronouncing my injury not at all serious. I hadn’t puffed the ankle up quite as much for her at I did for the cop, not wanting to risk her suggesting a hospital visit. She’d left me with crutches to use if I felt the need, and orders to keep it elevated as much as possible for the next few days.

  The officer hooked a new monitor to my other ankle, tested it, and was on his way. I’d taken care to project that ankle to be as thick as I could reasonably get away with (with a silent apology to Lily-Ann for giving her cankles), so I had no difficulty slipping the monitor off when I projected the smallest foot in my repertoire.

  “Nigel, do you know the tracking radius on these things?”

  “Not precisely, but it’s fairly small. They have to be able to tell if you leave the house.” His chair was in its sitting position, giving him a lap for his cat, a beautiful applehead Siamese.

  Hmm. “Is that an indoor cat?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. There are coyotes in these hills. Why?”

  I slipped the monitor over the cat’s head. Other than an annoyed flick of its ears, it seemed not to object. “Do you mind?” I asked.

  “I don’t if Isis doesn’t,” he said.

  “Do the police conduct random home visits?”

  “They claim to, but in actuality they’re so short-staffed they rarely come out unless they lose contact, as happened today.”

  “Great. Any idea where a panicked Lily-Ann might run?”

  “I’ve been considering that. The best I can do is give you a list of animal rescue shelters where she volunteers. Those are the only people I know she trusts.”

  * * *

  The list Nigel had given me was lengthy. I’d never be able to hit them all, not even if I enlisted Billy’s help, which I didn’t want to do because he had enough on his plate already handling the logistics for Plan B.

  I narrowed the list by eliminating the larger, municipally operated shelters, figuring Lily would avoid anything too “official.” Then I went online and looked up the location of the closest private shelters. She was on foot, after all. At least, I hoped she was avoiding public transportation, because it sure wouldn’t be good if she were to be recognized out in the community while she was supposedly under house arrest. Practically everyone had a cell phone with a camera, most of which automatically recorded the date, time, and location of a picture.

  There was a small shelter about three miles from Nigel’s house. I found Lily in the back, spraying out cages, her hair tucked under a big knit hat. Her eyes always looked big behind her glasses, but they widened even more when she saw me.

  “I’m not going back,” she said, and pointed the nozzle of her sprayer at me, poised to squirt if I made a false move.

  I raised my hands. “Whoa. Don’t shoot. I’m not here for that.”

  She lowered the hose. “Are the cops looking for me?”

  “Nope. As far as they know, you’re right where they left you. I took the liberty of temping as you when they came to replace the anklet Nigel was forced to cut off you when you tripped over his cat and sprained your ankle.”

  She looked confused. I raised one eyebrow and waited for her to connect the dots.

  “Oh!” she said finally. “Uh … thank you.”

  I lowered my arms, but didn’t step closer. She didn’t look as if she’d appreciate me invading her space.

  “Look, Lily, I know how scary this must be for you, but taking off isn’t going to help your cause in the long run. Billy—the friend I told you was helping me? He’s my boyfriend, another adaptor—anyway, he and I are going to get you out of this mess, I promise. We’re working on a plan to smoke out the real killer, whether it’s Jackson or someone else.”

  She looked skeptical. “What’s the plan?”

  “It’s kind of complicated. I’ll explain it when we get the final details hammered out,” I said.

  “Yeah, and what if it doesn’t work? I have friends who can get me out of the country—they’ll be here in a few hours. This might be my only shot at avoiding prison.”

  “Is that how you want to live? Forever hiding, always looking over your shoulder, while your sister’s killer goes free?”

  “Of course not! But the law listens to money, and my parents and Jackson have that. And I refuse to go to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I can’t go back to Nigel’s and just wait for them to come take me away. I won’t. I’m sorry about the bail your friend posted for me. I didn’t ask for it, but I’ll try to find a way to pay back the money someday.”

  Her eyes were getting wilder, her voice higher pitched. If I didn’t handle this carefully, she’d bolt again.

  I considered my options. “Okay. You don’t have to go back to Nigel’s. Isis is wearing your tracker, so we’re good there for now.”

  “Isis?”

  “Yeah. It was all I could think to do on short notice—I couldn’t keep wearing it myself indefinitely. She’ll move around enough to keep the monitoring agents from getting suspicious.”

  Lily smiled. “She’s a good cat.”

  “But you cannot, under any circumstances, be seen in public, because that would be it for you. Your face is very well known from all the TV coverage, and if a cop sees you, you’ll be hauled in and held until your trial.”

  She nodded. “I’ll find someplace to hide. There’s a storage room here I can use for now. My friends will bring me food. I don’t have to go out at all.”

  Yeah, and what’s the difference between that and jail? I thought. “I have a better idea,” I said.

  * * *

  “Miss Lily-Ann, I sure am happy to make your acquaintance,” Dave said after we got Lily settled. “You’re welcome here at the Circle C. Do you ride? Because we have a few fine mounts who sure could use some exercise.”

  Lily smiled, visibly relaxing. “I do. I’m pretty good with a shovel, too, if you need any help around the barn. I like to earn my keep.”

  “Darlin’, I can already see we’re going to get along.”

  The Circle C was the best place I could think of to stash Lily. Dave and Rosa would be happy to look after her, and Cody—more cautious than ever since the gun-in-the-stall incident—would keep her safe. He’d see to it that she didn’t get away from us again, but without making her feel like a prisoner, I was sure.

  There’d been more than enough room for all three of us in the Mooney, and Billy had been thrilled to have an excuse to fly. (Me, I was just happy when I didn’t barf. The anxiety center of my brain was probably getting numb to altitude.)

  Rosa was more guarded than Dave. She knew who Lily was from all the recent TV coverage. “You’re not one of those vegans, are you? Because I can make you food without meat, but I don’t think I can cook without lard and cheese.”

  Lily smiled. “I eat meat as long as it’s organic and free-range. And I do prefer my dairy products to be hormone-free, but I’m okay with a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in a situation like this.”

  “That’s fine, then. I like free-range, too—happy chickens taste better,” Rosa said, content enough herself now that her cooking routine wouldn’t be disrupted.

  I dug up some of the shirts and nightgowns I kept at the ranch and gave them to Lily to use while she was there. “I think my jeans would be too short, but I
can see if Cody has an extra pair you can borrow—he’s skinny enough, and you can always roll them up. And if you tell Rosa your sizes, she’ll go into town and pick you up some things.”

  She blushed when I mentioned Cody’s jeans. They’d been sneaking peeks at each other ever since we’d landed.

  “Thanks. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” she said.

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “All you have to do is keep a low profile and do what Cody tells you to—he’s here to keep you safe.” And to make sure you don’t take off again. But no need to bog her down with the details. “Billy and I will take care of the rest.”

  Chapter 21

  Billy stayed in L.A. to continue his finessing magic while I headed back east on a recruiting mission. One of us had to be on call to play Lily-Ann at Nigel’s house, should it prove necessary. If the local police paid an unexpected visit, Nigel would say Lily was in the restroom, indisposed with an awful intestinal bug, giving Billy time to hie his ankle over there to fill in for the fugitive.

  My first stop: the parental homestead. I could pay a filial visit and avoid the cost of a hotel at the same time.

  It was the middle of the day, so I didn’t bother to knock. Mom was probably on a job, making up for the time she missed while planning and executing the blitz wedding. If Dad was home, he was bound to be in his basement man-cave. I had a key—Mom mails a new one to me regularly, in case I’m as careless with them as she’s under the impression I am with my cell phones—so I let myself in.

  I left my carry-on in the front hall and made a beeline for the kitchen. With any luck, Dad would have weeded out most of Mom’s more unfortunate culinary creations from the refrigerator, and I’d find one of her masterpieces. (Mom didn’t have any middle ground when it came to cooking.)

  Rounding the bend from the dining room I ran into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Literally.