“Good God! Where did you get that shiner, Fran? Don’t tell me Camilla has been beating up her gentleman callers again?”
How could he mention the scene with Jonathan, when he’d been such a creep himself? She sniffed and tried to put on a calm face.
“Did you see my car out in front? I got my DeLorean back. Jimmy brought it. And he’s been to see Glen.”
“I know,” Plantagenet, said, setting down the pizza and champagne. “And there’s more. So much more, darling!” He rushed to give her a bear hug. “Come have some pizza and champagne! We’re celebrating.” He eyed the bottle of cognac on the coffee table. “But it appears you two have started without me.”
“Yes,” said Franny. “We’re celebrating my return to the world of the single.”
“Did he hit you again?”
Camilla couldn’t stand the suspense. “You said there was more, Plant? More news? About Jimmy?”
“Indirectly, yes. He helped us locate your friend Tooter—a.k.a. Henry J. Teeter, agent of the Federal government.” He popped champagne cork, which landed in the dieffenbachia.
“Jimmy was right? Tooter was an FBI agent? Can we find him?”
“No problem with that. Agent Teeter is a big hero right now. He just made a very big bust. A huge, international drug-smuggling bust.”
Plantagenet filled three glasses with champagne.
“Let’s drink to agent Henry J. Teeter.”
“Why?” Camilla wasn’t in the mood to play games.
“Because among those arrested, my dear, were two of your old friends—a coke freak known as Mike, and a woman, Jenny-Lou Riggles, also known as Jennifer Rhodes.”
“Jennifer! Jennifer is an international drug smuggler?”
“Of a fairly subordinate variety, apparently, but she was working for them.”
“The implants! She wanted money for plastic surgery on her breasts. If she hadn’t kept herself so skinny, she might have had boobs of her own, but—oh, my God, that’s why she borrowed my jacket!”
“You have a jacket with boobs?” Franny looked a little drunk.
“Not exactly, but—it’s this fuchsia-dyed mink bomber jacket. It just comes to the waist, and it’s all fluffy on top. Jennifer loved it. She borrowed it all the time because she said it made her look less flat-chested. It’s the jacket they found at Jon-Don’s house. She must have worn it there! And she is a blonde, sort of. You’ve got to talk to her. She’ll tell you she borrowed that jacket a lot.”
“Glen’s in San Diego talking to her right now, darling.”
“That pizza smells fabulous,” Franny said, between alternate sips of champagne and cognac. “I take it all this jacket business is good news?”
“Fantastic news. We’re about to prove to the whole world what I’ve known all along, that Camilla Randall—my sweet, lovely, Camilla, is innocent!”
Chapter 32—A Free Woman
When she woke up, Camilla was slumped in the polka-dot chair. Rain was making an awful racket on the roof of the little house, and each drop felt as if it was boring a hole into the top of her head. In the gray morning light, she could see Franny sprawled on the floor near the bathroom. An empty frosted-green bottle rested near his head and several pizza crusts were scattered around him. A greasy box and an empty champagne bottle sat on the table. Plantagenet was nowhere in evidence.
She winced as she wobbled on rubbery legs to the kitchen, where she drank two glasses of water before beginning a search for the aspirin bottle she had seen in a cupboard somewhere.
She hoped she hadn’t said anything awful to Plantagenet last night. She remembered trying to bring up the subject of Franny’s “Guppie” accusations at some point late in the evening, but her words kept mushing together.
A note was stuck on the refrigerator door with a red, lip-shaped magnet. She hesitated a moment before trying to focus, afraid it might be an angry response to something stupid she might have said last night concerning his new boyfriend.
But slowly, the words made their way into her brain—
“Camilla darling, Glen has just been here with great news. Hope to have even better news by noon today. Sit tight. I’ll call as soon as I can. Love, Plant. P.S. Aspirin is in the cabinet next to the sink.”
She swallowed two tablets and wondered why the kitchen clock said the time was 11:30. And why her watch agreed with it. She opened the red curtains and peered out—not at dawn—but a dismal, wet day. Hard to believe such gloom would bring good news.
Franny sat cross-legged on the floor examining the empty cognac bottle.
“Looks as if you had quite a party here last night, dear heart. I’m so sorry I was unable to attend. Please accept my apologies for anything someone who looked like me may have said or done.” He rose to stumble toward the kitchen.
The phone rang. As Franny answered it, his eyes got wide. He handed the phone to Camilla.
“Angela Harper, dear heart,” he whispered. “Or so the woman claims.”
Camilla took the phone. “Angela?” she tried to seem pleased.
Angela sounded out of breath.
“I’m so glad I could reach you, Camilla. Listen carefully—we don’t have much time. Plant is besieged by the press at the courthouse and can’t escape, but he thinks you should get away from where you are right away. There’s a media army en route. We think you should come here, so we’ll have time to prepare a formal press conference. I was planning a little political get-together here tonight, so it will fit in perfectly. How well do you know Beverly Hills?”
“Beverly Hills?” Camilla tried to will the pounding in her head to stop. “You want me to go to Beverly Hills. Right now?”
“I think it would be best, don’t you? Do you have that pencil?”
“Pencil?” She rummaged frantically in the kitchen drawers. “I don’t understand. Why a press conference? Plant’s been so careful to keep reporters away—”
“You know the media. This is the sort of event they eat up. The networks are already on it, so of course every local station as well as the print media is frothing at the mouth. But don’t worry. I don’t mind them coming here. It will give Juan Carlos some timely exposure. He’s running for State Senate, you know. I’ll just have to get hold of the caterer, expand the guest list and—Camilla, do you have that pencil?”
“Pencil,” she said again. The hovering Franny handed her one. “But I still don’t understand. What are the media going to eat up?”
“You don’t know? I can’t believe nobody’s told you. All the charges against you have been dropped, Camilla. You’re a free woman.”
“I—I’m free?” Franny’s face swam before Camilla’s eyes. “Just like that? They figured out I didn’t do it? What happened?”
“She confessed. The blonde drug dealer. What’s her name, Jenny-Lou.”
“Jennifer? Jennifer killed Jon-Don? She confessed?” Camilla reached for Franny to steady herself as she felt the phone slip from her fingers and thud to the floor.
After a moment, she could hear Franny’s voice talking from what sounded like very far away.
“Yes, Miss Harper. I’m sure I can find it. I know the neighborhood—intimately. I’ll have her there ASAP.”
She felt his hand on her shoulder.
“Are you with us, dear heart? Put your head between your knees and take a couple of deep breaths. Fainting well is such a lost art. I do wish I could carry it off.”
She pushed her way back to consciousness.
“What am I going to do? I have to give a press conference in Beverly Hills! I look like something the cat dragged in.”
Franny examined her face for a minute.
“No,” he said. “You don’t. Cats tend to drag in live things, you know.” He laughed cheerily. “But have no fear. You are traveling with your personal costumer, Miss Randall. Go collect your make-up. I’ll peruse the closet for something a glamorous, but oh-so-innocent young socialite might wear to a media event.”
She stoo
d up slowly.
“It’s true then—what she said? It’s all over? I’m free? They know I’m innocent?”
“Innocent and free as a bird, according to your friend Angela.”
Camilla threw her arms around him.
“I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“Just get me invited to Angela’s party, dear. She has a chauffeur with the body of a Norse god.”
~
The next few hours were a blur. The press conference was ridiculous. How could a person sound anything but brainless when bombarded with questions like: “Is it true you’ve been living on Tom Selleck’s yacht?” or “How many guest spots have you signed to do on Dallas?” or “Could we get another picture of you kissing Mr. Smith?”
Not that Plantagenet’s kisses weren’t sweet, but she wished she knew how he really felt about her—about everything. She wanted to believe Franny was just being bitchy with his talk about a “Guppie.” But she wouldn’t be sure of anything until she’d had a real talk with Plant. Unfortunately, he disappeared soon after Angela’s regal dismissal of the media.
When the press conference was over, she knew she should have been ecstatically happy, but she wasn’t. Maybe it was the shoes Franny had her wear. They did match the ruffly Oscar de la Renta dress he’d chosen, but it was hard to feel like a free woman while wearing pink pumps with five-inch spike heels and little pointy toes. Her time in captivity had got her used to sneakers and house slippers, and now wearing dress shoes seemed like torture.
Franny had done her hair in a new, curly style that he and Angela keep reassuring her was chic, although it made her feel like Blondie Bumstead. And although Franny had carefully chosen a pearl-beaded evening bag, a simple pearl necklace and earrings, and had taken care of nearly every detail, he had forgotten to bring a strapless bra or slip, which meant, because of the gown’s off-the-shoulder sleeves, that she could wear neither. In spite of Franny’s reassurances that “you’d have to have X-ray vision to see through that fabric, dear heart,” she knew she’d blushed to her hairline when she walked into the room full of cameras and reporters feeling nearly naked.
Angela’s house was a rambling Spanish-style villa with endless rooms full of primitive-looking wall hangings and pre-Columbian artifacts. At the moment, however, it was mostly full of people. Beautiful, noisy people. Camilla didn’t know any of them, although some had famous faces.
As she pushed through the crowd in search of Plant, one famous face stopped to congratulate her. He invited her to join him upstairs for “a couple of lines.” Maybe not everybody thought she was innocent. As she tried to escape, a waiter with a tray pressed a glass of champagne into her hand and whispered, after pointing at the famous face.
“He’s not as sexy in person, is he, dear heart? Not without the rug.”
“Franny! What are you doing in that outfit?”
“I’m not likely to meet a chauffeur if I’m mixing with the celebrity guests, am I? Besides, Angela begged. The caterer couldn’t get enough help on such short notice. I had to recruit Hans, too. He’s the chauffeur. Lovely man.” Franny kissed her cheek. “Magnificent work, dear. I didn’t know you could blush on cue.” He moved on to offer drinks to three skeletal matrons who surrounded Angela’s new love, Juan Carlos.
“Camilla!” a voice called from somewhere. A cowlick of ginger hair appeared.
“Glen! I didn’t know you were here.” She was glad to see his friendly face.
“Frankly, I wish I weren’t. I’m not good at this sort of thing. But from what I heard on my car radio, it sounds as if the press conference went well.”
“I guess. I was kind of in a daze. Mostly I blushed and kissed Plantagenet a lot. They didn’t ask many questions about the legal stuff, which is good, because I still don’t know what actually happened. Like how you found out that Jennifer killed Jon-Don. I haven’t even thanked you. You did a wonderful job.”
“I didn’t do that much.” Glen gave a shrug. “The person who really broke the case was Jonathan Kahn. It was when I finally talked to him about Agent Teeter and Jennifer Rhodes that everything fell into place.”
“Jonathan?” Why hadn’t Plantagenet told her that Jonathan’s investigations helped so much? “Why did Jennifer kill Jon-Don? I don’t understand why she wanted him dead.”
“She didn’t, poor girl. She just shot him up with a mixture of drugs she thought was going to get them both high. She was about to inject herself when she noticed he wasn’t breathing. My suspicion is that her employers slipped her the extra pure stuff because they wanted to get rid of her for being indiscreet. By the way, she admits she left your fur jacket at the house. I guess she’d been secretly seeing Jon-Don for several months while he was trying to break it off with Ms. Goldblatt. Quite a soap opera.”
“Quite,” Camilla sipped champagne. “Do you know what happened to Mike?”
“Who?” Glen grabbed a glass from the tray of a well-muscled blond waiter.
“She had another boyfriend—Mike. I didn’t like him much.”
“Probably one of her employers. She’d been living with one of them since soon after Parker’s death on a boat off Catalina. I think she’d been pretty much a prisoner. She tried to escape to Mexico at first, but they brought her back and kept her under control with threats of turning her in for the murder. She’s had a hard time.”
Camilla tried to look compassionate.
“Have you seen Plant? I’ve lost him.”
“Someone told me he and Angela are out by the pool. Shall we join them?”
But Plantagenet wasn’t out by the pool. The thought of Angela, magnificent tonight in green Chinese silk, alone somewhere with Plantagenet, brought Camilla a familiar feeling of panic. She left Glen with Juan Carlos and the deathly matrons and headed back inside. On throbbing feet, she pushed her way from room to room, a smile fixed on her face, for what seemed like hours, pausing only to shake an outstretched hand or briefly acknowledge a well-wisher. Finally, she caught sight of Franny’s red head and called to him. He was engaged in deep conversation with the muscley blond waiter, who turned out to be Hans, the chauffeur of his dreams, Hans.
Camilla asked them if they’d seen Plant.
“Ask Angela. Do relax.” Franny adjusted the sleeve of her dress before giving her a pat in the direction of the next room, where Angela was speaking to another waiter. She looked tired, and Camilla saw her close her eyes and let out a sigh before turning back to her guests. Now Camilla felt foolish. Angela was a busy hostess, and wouldn’t have had time to indulge in a romantic interlude with Plantagenet even if she’d wanted to.
“There you are!” Angela approached with a smile. “I’m so happy your ordeal is over. It must have been awful. I wish I’d had more time to help.”
Camilla didn’t understand her tone of regret. After all, Angela had supported her from the beginning, and even put up her bail. She looked at Angela’s lovely, worried face and realized how much she owed her.
“But—you helped me tremendously. I owe you so much. Thank you.”
“Honestly, dear, this party was already planned.”
“Not just the party. For being supportive, and of course, putting up my bail.”
“Bail?” Angela’s eyes went dramatically wide. “Dear God. You don’t listen to that media nonsense did you?”
“You didn’t pay my bail?”
“I had nothing to do with it. The funds came from the Gold Foundation. They’re out of New York, so I assume it’s some group Jonathan hooked up with.”
“Jonathan?” This turned everything upside down. “Jonathan got my bail money?”
She wanted to ask for details, but Angela’s attention shifted to Juan Carlos, who had just reappeared in the doorway.
So Jonathan arranged for her bail. And it was Jonathan, according to Glen, who found Jon-Don’s killer. How long had Plantagenet known these things, and why hadn’t he told her? Were there other things he hadn’t said about Jonathan?
With a new sense of urgency, she hurried outside to look for Plant again. But the area by the pool was deserted. The wet, misty air felt good after the stuffiness of the party. She almost relaxed until she realized that Plant might have left without her. The thought made her feel horribly alone. She didn’t want to go back into the party full of strangers. A small redwood gazebo stood at the far end of the pool. She headed toward it. At least she could rest her sore feet and compose herself before deciding what to do—and where to go. Franny needed his home back.
But as she got closer to the gazebo she saw it was occupied. She could see two shadowy figures embracing in the darkness. She started back to the house when she heard two men’s voices and a giggle. Turning around, she saw two heads, one reddish and one blond. At least Franny was having a good time tonight. The two men were locked in a passionate kiss in the shadow of the gazebo. She hesitated a moment, feeling a bit guilty about ruining Franny’s romantic moment, but she did need to find out where she was going to sleep tonight.
“Franny?” she called out toward the gazebo. “Hans?” She stood still a moment longer to let them compose themselves. “It’s just me. Camilla.”
“Camilla?” The voice was muffled.
Two men emerged from the gazebo. But the shorter, red-haired man wasn’t Franny. And the tall, blond man wasn’t Hans.
“Hello, Camilla,” said Glen, slicking down his cowlick.
“Wh—what are you doing out here in the rain, darling?” said a visibly shaken Plantagenet.
All Camilla could do was run to her car before anybody saw her cry.
Chapter 33—Chocolate Pudding Again
So Plantagenet and Glen were lovers. Franny hadn’t just been making bitchy remarks. Glen was the Guppie. How long had it been going on? Why had she been so stupid?
Camilla had no idea where she was driving except away—away from the faces of Plantagenet Smith and D. Glendower Jones—faces that said so much and made her feel so shut out and alone.
The misty rain made the freeway ahead glisten with sparkling lights—beautiful and seductive. Meaningless signs flew by. Finally, one caught her eye. For the San Diego Freeway.
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