“Brogan O’Donnell?”
Wearing a black suit and thin black tie, his pinched, weasel face betraying no emotion, the guy must be either an undertaker or a cop. In either case, Brogan figured, he had the wrong room.
“Last time I checked,” he said drily. “Who are you?”
“I’m Special Agent Brown, and this is my colleague, Agent Da Luca. FBI.”
They flashed their badges so quickly that they could have been from the gas company for all Brogan knew.
“I see,” he said, coughing weakly. “And how can I help you gentlemen?”
“Mr. O’Donnell, I am placing you under arrest,” said the weasel, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of his inside jacket pocket. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do choose—”
“Wait a minute,” said Brogan, interrupting him. “For one thing, you don’t need those,” he looked at the handcuffs. “I couldn’t run, even if I wanted to.”
Agent Brown looked at the various drips and monitors to which Brogan was connected and grudgingly put the handcuffs back in his pocket.
“Am I allowed to know what I’m being arrested for?”
At that moment, Diana walked in. Still looking ashen from the shock of what she’d read this morning, her face had set into a mask of determination.
Brogan noticed the change immediately.
“Hello, darling,” he said, concerned. “Is something wrong?”
Reaching into her purse, Diana pulled out the will documents Aidan had asked her to deliver and pressed them into his hand.
“I’m moving out,” she said.
“Murder,” said Agent Brown. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”
“Why?” Gripping tightly onto Diana’s hand, Brogan ignored the agent. “What’s happened? Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work it out.”
“I saw the pictures,” she said, wrenching her hand free.
“What pictures?”
“The pictures!” she snapped. “Of Cameron Drummond Murray. Or are you and Leach sexually blackmailing some other poor bastard this week?”
“Now listen,” said Brogan, panicked. “I can explain.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can! You always can.” Diana laughed bitterly. “Just like you can explain your plans to close down the Yakutian mine.”
“That was a business decision,” said Brogan. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“No,” said Diana, “but you do expect me to have another child with you. Nice of you to discuss that with Aidan before discussing it with me! And to think I really believed you this time. I truly believed you’d changed.”
“I have changed!” Brogan’s voice was rising. “Please, Di, don’t leave me now. Don’t do this. At least hear my side of the story.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt this touching moment,” said Agent Brown, not looking remotely sorry. “But I’m afraid I really must arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Andrew Gordon. You have the right to an attorney—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, shut the fuck up,” snapped Brogan. “I know my rights. You sound like a bad episode of Law and Order. I had nothing to do with the murder of that journalist, although I will say that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. You can quote me on that, Agent Brown.”
Diana, who had been on the point of leaving, was now rooted to the spot, staring at Brogan wide-eyed.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You didn’t…you wouldn’t?”
“Of course I didn’t!” shouted Brogan, hoarsely. What little energy he had was deserting him. “Diana, I had nothing to do with this! Nothing! Surely you believe me?”
Wrapping both arms protectively over her pregnant belly, she shook her head sadly.
“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is that it’s over between us, Brogan. It is. For good this time.”
Walking down the corridor moments later, blinded by tears, she bumped in to Dr. Cannons. With his thick, reddish-blond hair and bright-blue eyes, he looked like the promise of youth embodied in human form: strong, capable, good. To Diana he might have been a creature from another planet.
“It’s incredible news, isn’t it?” he said, mistaking her tears for tears of joy. “He’s in full remission. You’ll have him home in the morning.”
But Diana merely looked at him sadly and walked away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JULY IN LOS Angeles was even hotter than usual, with temperatures in the valley regularly topping the hundred-degree mark. At the beach, where the Pacific breezes took the edge off the punishing sun, tourists fought for space with the locals, crowding into cafés and restaurants like bees into a too-small hive. Young girls rollerbladed along the boardwalks, flashing their washboard stomachs and bronze limbs in shorts and bikini tops, while the tired fathers pushing their kids on the beachside swings pretended not to be checking them out. Everywhere you looked kids were laughing, couples kissing. Life seemed to blossom here in the summer sunshine.
Danny Meyer missed New York.
“Those diamonds look incredible against your skin.” He was holding one of Scarlett’s most detailed and expensive necklaces against the smooth, café au lait throat of Kiki Gillette, one of Jake’s clients who had recently begun buying from Tyler Brett. For once, he wasn’t bullshitting. Kiki’s skin was flawless, and the necklace lit her up magically.
“I love it,” she said wistfully, admiring herself in the mirror. “I do love it. It’s just the price, you know?”
“You should have it,” said Danny. “We can work something out.”
They were standing in the living room of Kiki’s glass-fronted beach house, one of the largest, grandest properties on Malibu’s exclusive Colony. Over Danny’s right shoulder, an unbroken view of the Pacific, sparkling as if sprinkled with celestial diamond dust, stretched to the horizon beneath a cloudless sky. In front of him was Kiki, a twenty-nine-year-old former aerobics instructor turned producer’s wife, staring at her reflection in an antique Venetian silver mirror. Her perfectly toned behind, giftwrapped in skintight Paige denim, brushed against Danny’s groin as he held the necklace around her throat, so close that he couldn’t help but breathe in her perfume and warmth. But he felt nothing.
Was he crazy to be missing home? It was weird, but not until he’d moved out to LA to help Jake claw back some of their business had he realized that somewhere along the line, New York had become home. He’d always be a North London boy at heart. But it was the noise and dirt of Manhattan, the greasy hot dogs, the insanely aggressive cab drivers that he longed for, standing in this beautiful house with the beautiful woman and the beautiful view.
That and his darling Diana.
“What kind of a deal do you think you could do me?”
Kiki turned around to face him. The naughty twinkle in her eye, combined with her giveaway body language—the subtle forward thrust of the hips and arching of the lower back—left Danny in no doubt that she would happily jump into bed with him if he asked. But his libido seemed to have gone into hibernation.
“I’ll have to talk to Jake, of course,” he said, smiling while taking a step back from her, “but I reckon we could let you have it at cost.”
Jake was going to string him up by the balls. He kept telling him not to cut deals, but Danny knew that they were never going to steal a march on Tyler Brett if they didn’t get creative with their pricing, at least in the beginning.
“You can’t send me out onto the battle field, then tell me I can’t use my gun,” he insisted, the last time Jake had chewed him out for closing a deal at a loss. “Have you seen Brett’s prices lately?”
Jake had seen them. Ever since he’d partnered up with a new supplier in Zaire, Tyler Brett had been flogging diamonds to the likes of Kiki Gillette for about the same amount as Swarovski charged for their fucking crystals. Jake and Danny’s stones were higher quality, and Scarlett’s workmanship was second to none. But
the differential was insanely huge. In the end, unless the Meyer brothers could score a similar deal and pass on economies of scale to their clients, there was no way they’d be able to compete.
In the short term, however, with Scarlett stuck in Scotland and Jake stuck at Flawless, and in the absence of the massive injection of cash they would need to make such a deal, it was Danny’s job to try and turn the tide of defections that had been overwhelming his brother. And that meant cutting prices.
“I’ll tell you what.” Kiki smiled. She was disappointed that Jake’s equally gorgeous brother clearly wasn’t going to sleep with her—Danny was rough, but only Jake, it seemed, was ready—but it had been a long time since she’d coveted something as much as she did this necklace. “If you can let me hold onto it for a few days, so I can try to convince my husband, I think we may end up having a deal.”
Danny hesitated. They weren’t insured to leave valuable pieces like this one with clients. Besides, the necklace was officially the property of Flawless, not Solomon Stones. If this chick damaged it or lost it, he’d be personally liable to the tune of almost a quarter of a million dollars.
“OK,” he said, forcing the fear out of his voice. First rule of salesmanship: never sound like you’re desperate. “That’s not a problem. How about I drop by on Friday and we can talk some more then?”
“Sounds good.” Kiki looked at him mischievously. “Of course, I’m home alone most afternoons. So if you needed to drive out and, you know, check on the merchandise before Friday, you’d be more than welcome.”
I bet I would, thought Danny, baffled yet again by the fact that he didn’t seem to fancy this stunning girl. He wondered if the current, comatose state of his dick was going to become permanent—if this was it for him and sex—and wasn’t sure whether to hope that it was or it wasn’t.
“Thanks,” he smiled sheepishly. “I might do that.”
But Kiki Gillette knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t.
A few minutes later Danny was back behind the wheel of Jake’s car, cruising aimlessly along Pacific Coast Highway. Jake had loaned Danny the girly white Porsche for making house calls, figuring that he could easily walk to and from Flawless and that the business could ill afford a second set of wheels. Danny agreed, although he hated the car even more than Jake did. What kind of a prize idiot must he look, running around town in a Barbie-mobile? If any of his mates from London or New York saw him in it he’d never live it down.
He was due to meet Jake for a late lunch at three in Beverly Hills. But it was still only one o’clock, and he had no more clients to see that day. Turning left on a whim up Topanga Canyon, he followed the winding hairpin road as it climbed the sides of a deep, mud-sided ravine. He was only a few minutes from the highway, yet he felt like he’d stumbled into the Wild West. On either side of him the steep hills were covered with boulders and the occasional hardy fir tree. As he drove farther up the canyon, rustic wooden huts and caravans began appearing in clusters by the roadside, eventually morphing into the “town” of Topanga itself: a tiny commercial square consisting mostly of antique shops and yoga studios, with one raw food café, a tarot reader, and a couple of other similarly hippie-themed stores.
Pulling into the half-empty parking lot, he got out of the car. The sound of wind chimes was almost deafening. Suddenly hungry—he’d been so keyed up about the Kiki Gillette meeting he’d been unable to eat breakfast—he strolled up to the raw food café, but quickly thought better of it. Smoked tofu and mung bean salad? Jesus Christ. He’d rather starve.
With nothing better to do, he wandered into the real estate agency on the far northeast corner of the square.
“Can I help you?”
The woman behind the desk wore a dark suit and trendy black glasses. She was in her midthirties and looked corporate and completely out of place in this hick little backwater.
“Probably not. I was just passing,” said Danny. “I guess I was curious to see what sort of property you had for sale up here.” He picked up a glossy brochure from the desk and began flipping idly through it.
“What’s your price range?”
Zero, thought Danny.
“Up to five hundred thousand,” he heard himself saying.
The woman’s face brightened. “We actually have a lot of one- and two-bedroom places on our books right now in the midfours.” Tapping something into her computer, she smiled at Danny warmly as the color printer behind her began spitting out property details like bullets.
“Here.” Before he could protest, she picked up the sheaf of particulars and thrust them into his hand along with her business card. “Take these with you. They should give you a feel for what’s out there.”
Two minutes later, Danny was sitting on a bench in the sunshine, reading over the advertisements.
Stunning duplex, prime Topanga! 360-degree canyon views! proclaimed one, underneath a picture of a dilapidated, rotting wooden shack that looked like it had been lifted from the set of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre piece by piece. $499,995. Must see.
Must see a fucking psychiatrist at that price, thought Danny.
Rustic charmer, read the next ad. Perfect writer’s retreat! That one was at least pretty, but barely big enough for a typewriter, never mind the human being that went with it. At $385,000 it was about the same price per square foot as East Hampton. Ridiculous.
A couple of minutes later, however, he found himself staring at a picture of a farmhouse and inexplicably grinning from ear to ear. It was whitewashed, wooden, he guessed a relic from the 1920s or perhaps even earlier. Perched on top of a precipitous wooded escarpment, it looked like a cross between Hansel and Gretel’s cottage and the Amityville house of horror.
The copy was short, to the point, and easy on the exclamation marks.
Teardown, upper Topanga. 2-acre lot, partially flat. $465,000.
Scrunching the rest of the advertisements into a ball and dumping them in the nearest bin, Jake carefully folded the picture of the farmhouse and put it in his pocket. He had no idea why. He didn’t have four dollars, never mind four hundred and sixty-five thousand. The place would cost a fortune to renovate—if, by some miracle, he were ever to buy it he wouldn’t dream of tearing it down. And anyway, who lived in Topanga, in a farmhouse, by themselves? Serial killers, that was who. Certainly not a sad, single, homesick New Yorker.
Climbing back into Jake’s ridiculous car, Danny fired up the engine and headed back toward civilization.
At Urth Caffé on Melrose, Jake sipped his iced water anxiously.
It was unlike Danny to be late. He knew he’d been out to Malibu to see Kiki Gillette this morning and prayed fervently that he’d been able to woo her back to the Solomon Stones fold. A few years ago, old man Gillette had been good for a minimum fifty grand’s worth of business. Kiki’s order alone could mean the difference between surviving another year and going under.
He’d put three calls in to Danny’s cell, but it went straight to voice mail, meaning he’d either switched it off or had no reception, a common problem in the Malibu Colony. With any luck he’d been sealing the deal with Kiki in the marital bed, which would explain his unexpected no-show. Jake hoped so, for Danny’s sake as much as his own. His brother could use some cheering up. If memory served, Kiki Gillette had always left Jake with a smile on his face…
“Sorry I’m late.” Danny was all smiles as he weaved his way through the tables of gossiping women toward his brother. “I lost track of time a bit, I’m afraid. Have you ordered?”
“Not yet.” Jake grabbed a passing waiter. “Two Cobb salads and two Cokes please, one diet, one regular. So.” He grinned at Danny. “How was Kiki?”
“She was fine,” said Danny, absently. “Have you ever been up to Topanga?”
Jake frowned. “Not for years. What’s Topanga got to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” said Danny. “I thought it was charming, that’s all. I went up there for a drive this morning and—”
�
��Hold on.” Jake’s frown deepened. “I thought you’d spent the morning in bed with Kiki Gillette?”
“What made you think that?” Danny looked puzzled. Their Cokes arrived and he took a long, cooling sip of his.
“You were late,” said Jake simply. “You’re never late. So you didn’t sleep with Kiki?”
“No!” Danny laughed. “Jesus, don’t look so crestfallen. I’m ninety percent sure I’ve reeled her back in. I had to leave the daisy-chain necklace with her.”
“You what?” Jake spluttered, sending Coca-Cola bubbles up his nose. “For fuck’s sake, Dan. We’re not insured!”
“I know,” said Danny. “It was a calculated risk.”
“Scarlett’ll go ballistic.”
“Only if we tell her,” said Danny reasonably. “Anyway, I think Kiki’s gonna buy it. I offered it to her at cost,” he added, in an almost inaudible mumble.
Jake felt his chest tightening.
“Sorry, bruv, I think I must have misheard you. You didn’t just say ‘cost,’ did you?”
Their Cobb salads arrived.
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,” Danny said cheerfully. “Do you want the Gillettes back on our customer list or don’t you?”
Jake did. Desperately. He just wondered how he was going to explain yet another at-cost sale to Scarlett. She’d been gone for almost three months now, stuck in Scotland at her parents’ castle like Rapunzel. Now that he had Danny here to work on Solomon Stones, he was finally able to focus all his attention on Flawless. The combination of Jake’s sales skills and Perry’s expertise had been enough to keep business strong. But the store desperately needed new designs, not to mention Scarlett’s physical presence, the missing ingredient that gave Flawless its magic and that had made the store’s first year such a runaway success. Jake wasn’t the only one pining for Scarlett. Her customers missed her too.
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