Kill and Tell

by James Patterson

  Thankfully, the judge granted bail, which I put up in cash. When it was all over, Parker turned to me. “Well, that could have been worse. I think—”

  “How could it have been worse?” I asked. “Even if I’m cleared of this, aren’t people always going to wonder if I’m some kind of pervert for the rest of my life?”

  I again looked over at Valentina as she was making her exit. For a moment I didn’t care if I did life or got the chair, I just wanted to shake the hell out of her. But when I started toward her, the kid, Logan, stepped in front of me and put up a hand.

  “Careful, Mr. Tennet,” he said. “There are about a hundred reporters outside.”

  Parker took my arm, and though I was rigid with anger, the two men managed to steer me backward into an adjoining chamber. A lone security guard was waiting inside, and he led us through a back hall to a restricted elevator used by the court staff. I saw Logan pass him a c-note. Though something about this kid bugged me, I had to admit he got things done.

  We hurried across the plaza and got into the Town Car just as the press spotted us. They swarmed the car, but the driver plowed right through them. Despite my pledge of sobriety, I found myself looking around the inside for a mini-bar.

  “So, now what?” I asked with a sigh, not really wanting to know.

  “Now we begin our defense,” Parker said tersely. “But there’s not much point unless you get that temper of yours under control, Wayne. You didn’t sound outraged and innocent in there—you sounded angry and violent.”

  That I already knew. I looked at Logan.

  “Is there any good news? What’s the press like on this?”

  He looked surprised. “You haven’t read anything?”

  “Haven’t so much as clicked on a headline.”

  Logan glanced at Parker, who shrugged helplessly.

  “It’s pretty bad,” Logan said matter-of-factly. “You’ve made some enemies, Mr. Tennet, and more than a few are glad to see you get a kick in the balls. Now, to counteract, we need to find—”

  “Where’s Sydney?” I interrupted. “The amount of money I pay that guy and he’s not even here?”

  “He’s on his way back from Thailand. He’ll be in tonight and will take over.”

  We drove in silence for a moment. I finally had to ask, “And the studio? Have they made any kind of statement on this?”

  Logan again looked at Parker as though waiting for permission to speak. Parker just frowned.

  “They’ve replaced you on the film,” Logan said simply. “Morals clause in your contract.”

  I’m sure they were both surprised that I didn’t explode or start screaming or bash out a car window. I just sat there quietly for a few minutes. The trial hadn’t even started and I’d already received a death sentence.

  “Well,” I said wearily, “I think that calls for a drink.”

  The car came to a stoplight on Pico Boulevard. I opened the door and stepped out. I walked right through the moving traffic as Parker and Logan called after me. We were in Koreatown, where there was a bar on almost every corner. I walked into the nearest one—a dark and dingy place with a television on over the bar.

  “Whiskey, neat.”

  As the bored bartender poured, I glanced up at the television—just in time to see the images of my parking garage fight with Logan splash across the screen.

  “Make it a double,” I said. “Scratch that—a triple.”

  He followed my eyes and looked up at the TV.

  “And pour one for yourself,” I said as I raised my glass. “After today, you’re probably the last person in Hollywood who’ll have a drink with me.”

  Chapter 5

  Wayne Tennet

  There was so much yelling and so many flashbulbs exploding in my face that, through my drunken haze, I almost thought I was at a film premiere. For just a moment, I let myself imagine I was at the most exciting event of my career—the culmination of twenty years of both crazy dreams and dogged hard work. But deep down, I knew that my premiere days were over. From now on, I was an industry scandal. A pariah. A punch line.

  “Wayne! Have you always been into young girls?”

  Logan had warned me that there would be a swarm of reporters outside my house, and he wasn’t kidding. There was even a helicopter hovering.

  “Did you beat your stepdaughter as well as molest her?”

  I lived in Nichols Canyon above Franklin Boulevard, where the streets get narrower, twisty, and more vertical the farther up the canyon you go. Even locals sometimes get lost. But the press clearly had no problem finding my house, an early thirties Spanish style that Valentina had covered in pink and white bougainvillea when we were first married.

  “Is it true that you gave Breelyn crystal meth?”

  They screamed their questions one after another. Even if I wanted to respond to them, they couldn’t have heard me. So I just pushed and shoved my way through the mob to my front door. One squat guy in a suit clutching a microphone got in my face as I fumbled with the electric lock. As I shoved him out of the way, flashbulbs blinded me.

  Then suddenly I was inside my house. It seemed eerily dark and quiet despite the muffled voices outside. It was almost peaceful. It didn’t last.

  As I headed toward my bar, I heard the familiar click of high heels coming down the hall. Valentina was here. She had the nerve to be here, after what she was putting me through. I should call the cops on her!

  She strode into the room wheeling a suitcase behind her, then stopped and stared at the bottle in my hand.

  “Don’t mind me, pour away,” she said contemptuously.

  I did just that.

  “Why are you in here?” I asked. “The cameras are all outside.”

  She pursed her artificially plumped lips and glared at me. “That’s what you have to say to me after what you’ve done to my daughter?”

  It took every ounce of restraint I had not to fly across the room and strangle her.

  “I have never touched Breelyn,” I seethed. “And you know it.”

  “I know what Breelyn told me,” she spat out.

  I could feel my self-control slipping, but I did my best to keep it together. I moved to the other side of the room to maintain distance from her and took another gulp of my drink. My head was spinning.

  “Val, I don’t know why she’s said what she did,” I told her in the calmest manner I could manage, “but I swear I have never, ever done anything inappropriate to our daughter!”

  “She isn’t yours—thank God. At least you haven’t committed incest,” she said. “At least I don’t have the shame of people throwing that at me.”

  “And that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? YOU!” I shouted. “Valentina Doyle gives the performance of her career—outraged mother and wronged wife! The best role she’s had in years. Just think what all this attention could lead to. I’m sure it’s never crossed your mind!”

  She gave me a look I had never seen before, though I had studied her face many times over the years as a lover, a husband, and a director. It was hard and calculating, and incredibly, it was as if some part of her was actually enjoying this scene we were playing. Whatever she was up to, I had to hand it to her—she kept her cool a lot better than I did. But then again, I was the one with everything to lose.

  As she started toward the door, all restraint left me and I flew across the room. I grabbed her arm and spun her around.

  “Val, this isn’t a game!” I pleaded. “My life is being destroyed! Everything is being taken from me—my film, my reputation. After all our time together, can’t you give me the benefit of the doubt? Help me find out why Breelyn would say this. One word from you could make a huge difference!”

  She looked daggers at me. “Don’t you dare put this on me. Everyone who has ever been around you for more than five minutes knows that you’re angry, controlling, violent. It’s not my fault or Breelyn’s that it all finally caught up with you. Whatever you think you’ve lost, Wayn
e, has really just been thrown away—by you.”

  I’m not a stupid man, so I have to assume at some level I knew what I was doing. I knew there was a throng of reporters outside the door. I knew what little support I had was shaky at best. Worst of all, I knew Valentina was right.

  And yet I still did it. I opened the front door and, grabbing my wife by the neck, shoved her forward. I’m ashamed to say I felt the muscles of her neck spasm in my hand. She flew out the door and across our short front porch. But she didn’t land face-first on the elegant imported tiles or among the crowd of reporters. Instead, she fell up against someone who had just been stepping forward.

  Together, they ended up on the front pathway in a tangled heap. There was a gasp throughout the crowd and then silence for a moment. It lasted until the other person got up.

  My stepdaughter. Breelyn. I wasn’t supposed to be within fifty feet of her, per the judge’s instructions, and here we were, a few feet apart, as the paparazzi got it all on film.

  She’d hit a step and had a horrific gash across her forehead that all at once erupted in a flow of blood down her beautiful face. It was, by far, the worst image I’ve ever seen.

  Thank God, the flashbulbs once again blinded me.

  Chapter 6

  Eric Logan

  I was just getting to the office when I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize:

  “Hey, it’s Kayla Ross. Sorry about the pics. Can I make it up to you? Drinks?”

  Kayla. I’d been wondering if I would hear from her. She was a cute kid, obviously new to all of this. She followed up with another:

  “Also, I have Tennet info you need to know.”

  Of course, in her position, I would’ve sold those photos in a heartbeat. I understood. Plus, she wasn’t bad to look at; her jet-black, almond-shaped eyes were sexy as hell.

  “Intrigued. Sky Bar in 30 mins.”

  I stayed away from the office till the end of the day hoping that my boss would have had time to cool down. But from the way the receptionist, Michelle, pointed at Sydney’s office, I figured I’d probably be filing for unemployment before the day was out. I paused at the TV in the lobby, where it took about six seconds for the shots of Breelyn Doyle’s injured face to flash up on the screen—probably for the hundredth time that day.

  Sydney was on the phone trying to muscle someone out of running a story on Tennet. Sydney Paige was a silver-haired, classy guy; before he started the firm, he’d been a model. He gave me a slow-burn glare, pointed at me, then cut his finger across his neck. Yep, I was screwed.

  He finally slammed down the phone, then picked it up again and mock-threw it at me.

  “A brawl in a parking garage?” he yelled. “Really? Goddamnit, Logan! Were you as drunk as he was?”

  “No one is ever as drunk as I am,” someone said behind me.

  I whipped around as Tennet entered the office. He looked like the walking dead. Pasty skin, sunken and red-rimmed eyes—he clearly hadn’t slept in days. He just stood there for a moment, then went over to Sydney’s couch and collapsed on it, facedown. Sydney looked thrown and carefully approached him.

  “Sorry to see you again under these circumstances, Wayne,” Sydney said awkwardly. He may as well have been addressing a corpse on his couch. “I have a press strategy to review with you but…well, the first order of business is, to be absolutely frank, finding a rehab facility for you.”

  Tennet flopped his hands helplessly and talked into the couch pillows. “A funeral parlor would be more to the point.”

  Sydney frowned and paced back and forth. Finally he shot me an irritated glance. “Is there a reason you aren’t clearing out your desk, Logan?”

  “Wait,” Tennet said as he rolled himself over, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. “It’s not the kid’s fault, Sydney. Don’t fire him because of me. Let me have one small thing off my conscience.”

  Sydney scowled at me, then shrugged. “All right. Not even sure I meant it. But we need to get ahead of this—way ahead. Wayne, is there anything else out there that I should know about?”

  I thought about Kayla’s cryptic message. More media fuel was in the pipeline. I glanced at my watch. I was due to meet her in ten minutes.

  “Thanks, Mr. Tennet,” I said, prepping for my departure.

  “You may as well call me Wayne,” he said ruefully. “At this point, you outrank me on the Industry Respect Scale.”

  He hung his head in his hands.

  Sydney came over to me and whispered, “Stay with him while I try to put out a few fires. At the very least, I want to get a doctor in to look him over.”

  I nodded as Sydney went into his side office. As I reached for my phone to text Kayla, Tennet suddenly broke into choking sobs. I didn’t know what to do—ignoring him seemed rude, texting even worse.

  “Sorry, Logan,” he sputtered as he tried to pull it together. “But I guess you’re used to this from me, huh?”

  His body shook. Everything seemed to be pouring out of him. I paused, then took a seat on the couch next to him. What the hell was I supposed to do? Hug him? Give him a pep talk?

  It turned out all I had to do was listen. For the next forty-five minutes Tennet unloaded—everything from his messed-up marriage to a fading actress, to his temper issues, to his fears of failure. I thought it sad that a junior PR rep was the only person Tennet had to talk to, and he was on the clock.

  And the whole time I kept getting text alerts from the cell phone buried inside my blazer. I imagined Kayla sitting alone at the bar as ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty. Finally, my phone went silent.

  Sydney eventually stuck his head in the door and signaled for me, then turned back to his secretary.

  “Michelle, make a reservation for him at the Hotel Palomar in Beverly Hills,” he told her sternly. “It’s the first thing you should have done with him, Logan. From now on, I don’t want Tennet in front of any cameras unless we control them.”

  I sucked it up. It was important for Sydney to know he was The Man and called the shots. I could see that he was starting to get a sense that he had this in hand. Still, I had the feeling that a shit storm was growing out there—one that I wanted to be in front of.

  So I was not encouraged by the last text I got from Kayla:

  “I tried. Think we’re even now.”

  Chapter 7

  Eric Logan

  I dumped Tennet’s lifeless body on the bed and stared at it. I hoped he was dead.

  But it looked like he was only dead drunk.

  “One last round of drinks before I give it up for life.”

  That’s what he’d said when he insisted on taking me out for dinner and drinks as a thank you for listening to his sob story. Which, of course, just meant three more hours of the same, topped off by his demand to sleep not in the hotel room but in his own bed. Not a great night for me, but it was hard to be too pissed at the guy when he beat himself up so brutally.

  I pulled off his shoes and rolled him over onto his back so he wouldn’t suffocate. Tennet’s bedroom was a shambles—his wife had left a mess when she packed up and stormed out in a rush, the cops had trashed the place when they’d searched it, and he’d told me over dinner that this morning he’d fired the housekeeper when he spotted her talking to the press. As if she could avoid it—they were camped out in front 24/7. And they’d gotten some choice photos tonight of me dragging him in from the car. Sydney was going to have a stroke.

  I went to shut off the light but paused for a moment. This seemed a good opportunity to do some snooping. If I was going to stay on top of or, better yet, in front of developments, I needed to get the full picture. I dug around through the piles of clothes, under the bed, and felt around between the mattresses. The rest of the house had clearly been searched, but it wasn’t quite as trashed in the living room, and when I sat down to think, I felt something in my back. I turned and reached behind the pillow, and there was a laptop that the cops had somehow missed? Or Wayne had drunkenly left the
re? No way the cops would have left this behind, I thought, and figured there was no better place to start than there. I went back and checked in on Tennet; he was clearly out for the night, so I went back to the living room with the laptop.

  I tried a few obvious password choices like “valentina,” “wayne,” and “wtennet” but didn’t get anywhere. I thought for a moment, then entered the name of his first film, “conflictofinterest.” Bingo. His computer desktop was a mess—so many photos and documents littered the screen you could barely make out the background image. I started separating the program icons from one another and then saw something buried beneath a jpeg—a folder called “bdoyle_pool.”

  I clicked on the folder and it opened to reveal a list of at least twenty images. I tapped the first one. And couldn’t believe what I was looking at.

  It was an outdoor photograph of his stepdaughter, Breelyn Doyle.

  And she was topless.

  She was getting out of a pool, smiling, but with an uncertain look on her face—as though she wasn’t sure she was doing exactly what the photographer wanted.

  God, she really was stunningly beautiful. Tawny hair, big hazel eyes, slim but not eating-disorder skinny like so many LA chicks.

  I opened another image. More of the same. I opened one after another. They got progressively more explicit.

  I tried to imagine how these had come about. And what they meant. This was literally the A-bomb for Tennet—anyone with even a shred of doubt about his guilt would cave if these ever saw the light of day.

  I thought for a long time about what I should do.

  Finally, I took out the thumb drive I always carry and transferred the folder onto it. As I dragged the folder on Tennet’s desktop to the trash bin and emptied it, I noticed that my hand was shaking.

  So I helped myself to some of Wayne’s top-shelf whiskey. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t make a habit of it. Then I got a rag and wiped my fingerprints off the laptop. Just in case.

  Chapter 8