Billionaire Bash: The Complete Steele Series

by Natalia Banks

  Kerri wasn’t convinced, skepticism wriggling in the back of her brain. “But how could Melody and Sandra manage to hook up with one another?”

  “If Sandra’s been keeping tabs on your career, picking out Melody Madison as a potential conspirator wouldn’t be hard. Between them they’d have enough money and connections to wreak all kinds of havoc.”

  Kerri sat back down on the couch, arms crossed in front of her nervously. Harden sat down next to her and wrapped his loving arm around her. “I’ll hire a private eye, have him run these things down.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure, of course. If you’re in danger, I won’t allow it. And if not, let’s get that established sooner rather than later, so we can go back to living in bliss together.”

  “So…you don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Crazy? Kerri, I’m the crazy one…crazy about you.”

  They kissed, and Kerri said, “But I guess it’s true what they say about redheads.”

  Harden turned. “Great in bed.”

  “Batshit crazy.”

  “Oh, right, right. Maybe a little from column A, little from column B.”

  “Never you mind about column A.”

  Chapter 9

  Carl Harrington’s funeral was attended by some of the most famous and powerful people in Hollywood: Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, Meryl Streep. The funeral was held in a chapel in the center of Forest Lawn Hollywood, and the burial at the top of the hill, overlooking the city which had granted the man his fondest hopes and dreams, if only for a short while.

  As the coffin sank down, Kerri couldn’t help but cry, Harden’s comforting hand on her arm. Next to her sat agent Benjamin Stallmaster, youthful and already wearing a toupee. Britany Stevens and the rest of the cast and crew from the movie were spread around the burial party, and all of them seemed to be shooting angry glares at her, silently snarling and sneering at her. At first Kerri thought it was her imagination, her own sense of guilt lingering in the back of her mind. But soon enough it was obvious—it was no mere trick of the eye.

  Kerri had to simply endure it until the coffin was buried and the party began to disperse to a line of waiting black town cars and limos.

  Kerri glanced around and whispered to Harden, “These people are all giving me the stink-eye. My own community, why should they be mad at me?”

  “I think those murder conspiracy theories are taking hold, Kerri. I’m not saying they’re true, but you know how people love to jump all over this stuff. The idea that your crusade got your lead actor killed is just too juicy to resist. Those stupid online clips aren’t helping either, I shouldn’t think.”

  “I don’t get it. Last week I was the crazy one, this week everybody thinks I’m half a murderer!”

  “Welcome to Tinsel Town.”

  “Kerri, Harden.” Kerri and Harden turned to see Britany Stevens in a slinky black dress and a veil to disguise her tear-streaked makeup. She wrapped her arms around Kerri, sniffling. “How’re you holding up, Ker?”

  “I’m fine, Brit, really. What happened here was tragic. Losing a few bucks and a movie is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.”

  “Yeah, but all those rumors about the billboards? It’s just awful, Kerri. You were obviously only trying to do the right thing. I just hope, y’know, what everybody says isn’t true.”

  Harden asked Britany, “What are they saying, that her campaign got that guy killed?”

  Britany looked around and leaned even closer. “Worse.”

  Once in Harden’s black Mercedes Benz, Kerri pulled up YouTube on her smartphone and searched her name. She avoided the clips she’d already seen, but there were a few new ones, posted only within a few hours.

  One video pictured a young white man sitting in front of a graphic of the American flag billowing in the wind…upside down.

  “The idea that members of the pharmaceutical industries are out hiring assassins and kidnappers is just ridiculous. This is just another case of those Hollywood liberal elite pansies scrambling to lay the blame for their own failure on good, honest, hardworking American patriots!”

  Kerri sat there astonished, mouth agape, unable to look away.

  The young man ranted on, “First of all, there is no so-called Big Pharma—that’s an urban myth and everyone knows it. Who do you think are making the drugs that keep our blood pressure down, the chemicals that beat cancer, that help those with diabetes? The great companies of the American pharmaceutical industry, that’s who! And if this ditzy broad thinks she can go on with this charade, this quixotic attempt to destroy healthcare in our nation, she’s bound to learn the hard way that we Americans treasure our way of life, and we won’t have it robbed from us by some rich floozy. Yeah, I know she won the Oscar, so what? For best supporting actress, big deal!”

  Kerri shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

  The man went on to say, “So if her whole Big Pharma thing is bullshit, and that’s what it is, what’s really going on here? What’s she hiding? I’m hearing a lot of things lately: posts on the internet, articles popping up on the internet which suggest maybe she had something to do, directly, with her ex-husband’s death and perhaps even the death of Carl Harrington.”

  Kerri said, “What?”

  “Now, I’m not saying she killed either man, I don’t know that. But I am saying that people are saying that, wondering about it, speculating, and some of that speculation is very interesting indeed. She had intimate access to both men; she obviously knows enough about pharmaceutical drugs to know which ones are lethal in which combinations.”

  Kerri’s stomach lurched, bile rising up to the back of her throat. “Oh Jesus, Harden!”

  “Take it easy; it’s just some guy prattling online.”

  “Just some—? He’s got thirty-thousand hits in twelve hours.”

  “Flavor of the month; it’ll come and go.”

  Harden’s casual attitude was beginning to annoy Kerri just a little bit. He can’t always be so unflappable, can he? This is life and death here, and he knows it.

  He knows it!

  Unable to hear anymore of the man’s rant, Kerri swiped to the next video and took a deep breath, knowing she wasn’t going to like what she found in the next clip.

  It was a panel show she didn’t recognize, pundits she didn’t know against a Fox-News-like background, red and blue neon shapes drifting behind the guests.

  “I don’t know,” one panelist said, a fat man with thinning hair and a sweaty brow. “Without a doubt, the whole Big Pharma thing is a ruse, fake news.”

  “Right, Albert,” blond Jen said, “but what are the true issues here? Y’know, a lot of people are saying she might have had a hand in her actor’s death, maybe even her husband’s.”

  “I’ve heard that too,” Albert said, nodding his round head. “But it doesn’t mean that’s the whole story.”

  “Thank God,” Kerri muttered, “somebody with a little common sense.”

  “Well, Kerri, you’ve had a pretty long list of suspects yourself, you really can’t be too surprised to see your own name pop up on one.”

  “I think the real question is,” Jen said, “who is this man Miss Abernathy is apparently living with and is soon to marry—Harden Steele?”

  The fat panelist with the thinning hair said, “He’s a pretty private guy, but we do know some things about him: he’s heavy into the stock market, and real estate, owns a few different offshore companies. And a lot of people think of him as having a hand in a lot of businesses he doesn’t own.”

  “You’re right, Stewart, like the way he paid for Kerri Abernathy’s movie, which of course has gone down in flames…no pun intended.”

  “Look,” Jeffery said, “this guy Steele can afford to lose a lot more than that movie cost him. But it does make you wonder what other pies this guy’s got his fingers in.”

  “Exactly,” Albert said with an eager nod. “And apparently he’s associated with organized crime too. He was investigated in t
wo handgun deaths in his own home—”

  “One of those was a suicide—” Jen said, “a man later identified as Chaz the Cheetah la Blanca, if I’m not wrong.”

  “Nothing ever came of that investigation,” Stewart cautioned.

  “Of course not! People like that, they can do what they want, bury the whole thing and life goes on. It makes me sick and it’s got to stop!”

  Jen said, “Now some people are saying, we’re not saying it but some people are saying this, that Kerri Abernathy and Harden Steele conspired to kill Carl Harrington. And after the autopsy, there will be proof that this wasn’t the accidental death or natural causes case that it appears.”

  Kerri looked at Harden, who glanced back at her. They drove the rest of the trip in silence.

  But the melancholy of the funeral followed Kerri home, and clung to her over the next few days. She’d lost her film, agent Benjamin Stallmaster was no longer returning her calls.

  After a brief, spectacular but tragically aborted comeback, Kerri’s career was once again down in flames. Kerri and Harden returned to the authorities, who still didn’t even consider them people of interest in any pending investigation to follow the coroner’s report.

  Harden walked up to her after a third day of moping. “Hey,” he said with a smile, “I know you’ve been through hell this week; why don’t we leave town so we can spend some alone time together? Just you and me and a beautiful romantic city. I want to sweep you off your feet.”

  “Aww. That does sound amazing…but take a trip, now?”

  “Why not? Why stick around here?”

  “But…with all that’s going on?”

  “Exactly,” Harden said, putting his hands on her arms, rubbing them gently. “You need a break; we both do. There’s no reason to sit around here being miserable, and it hurts me to see you this way.”

  “But…Carl might have been murdered, because of me!”

  “Okay, if that’s true then the best thing we can do is lay low, get outta Dodge for a while. We’re not cops or private detectives, Kerri. And really the idea of a complex, far-reaching conspiracy is terribly unlikely, Kerri, really. That’s the kind of nonsense the internet thrives on. And if your Hollywood cronies are buying into it, then, well, fuck ’em.”

  “Harden!”

  “No, I mean it. You’ve been around that carousel twice, and you don’t need them anymore.”

  Kerri sighed, her posture sagging as she leaned against his chest. “I-I guess it’s just kind of hard to walk away from.”

  “Then don’t. Let’s let the dust settle a bit, duck out and be good to ourselves, be good to each other. When we come back, we’ll make our decision then. Maybe we’ll get married too.”

  “Harden, what?”

  “I don’t have to propose again, do I?”

  Kerri couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, of course not—”

  “You haven’t changed your mind?”

  “No, Harden, no! But, there’s Yvonne, and I’ve got family—”

  “Then we’ll wait ’til we get back, whatever you think is best.”

  The idea didn’t sound unpleasant at all, and Kerri found herself more and more willing to let him sweep her away to some exotic foreign city, maybe an island somewhere.

  “Where should we go?”

  Harden gave her a kiss, lips meeting in a tender union. “Anywhere you want.”

  Chapter 10

  Kerri had never been to Zurich, Switzerland, and she felt like she’d stepped back into the past without ever leaving the present behind. Shops were filled with the latest fashions; dance clubs offered the most vibrant and modern atmosphere, even while they were all ensconced in Medieval buildings, ancient town squares, and winding streets crowded with shiny, tiny European cars.

  The weather was summer warm but mountain crisp—an ideal seventy-five degrees.

  But as much as the atmosphere attracted Kerri’s fascinated attention, she felt like she was drawing the stares of the other visitors and tourists and Swiss citizens. They looked at her as they walked past down the crowded street, some raising their phones to take pictures.

  Finally Kerri had to say to Harden, “Did I suddenly grow a second head or something? What’s with these people?”

  Harden shrugged with a little smile. “Kerri, you just won an Oscar, you’re world famous. I guess it’s easy to forget back in Los Angeles, but being a movie actor really is a much bigger deal than you all seem to think.”

  “I guess,” Kerri said, catching more stares and glares as they strolled past an outdoor cafe, patrons murmuring and muttering as they passed. “They don’t seem very impressed; nobody seems to want an autograph. You don’t suppose all those rumors traveled this far?”

  “Sorry, Kerri, but…of course they have.”

  “But aren’t Europeans supposed to be a lot more, um, progressive?”

  “Maybe… But that’s not the same as having your lover murder a man, or even doing it yourself.” Kerri couldn’t argue with that. She couldn’t even believe she was in a position where it was up for discussion. Harden went on, “But really, it’ll pass, Kerri.”

  “Will it? What if they try to put us on trial for that?”

  “Impossible,” Harden said. “We’re innocent, and that’s all there is to it. Believe me, I won’t let that happen. But it’s not the authorities we’re talking about; it’s not about the law. This is about the court of public opinion.”

  “And that’s a lot less forgiving.”

  “So, what do you care? We have each other—that’s all that matters.”

  She looked into his eyes and then cuddled, while they strolled on together, ignoring the nasty glances from the others. But Kerri had a creepy feeling that, instead of merely waiting it out, things were about to get a whole lot worse. And she could have no way of knowing how right she was, or just how bad they were going to get, but it wouldn’t be long before they’d both find out.

  And by then there’d be no going back.

  Lake Zurich spread out as it funneled north to the Limmatt River with a canal cutting right through the city toward the Sihl River to the east. The stately Fraumünster Church’s steeple stood tall, lime-green gorgeous against the tan stone of the clocktower beneath it.

  Kerri and Harden leaned back in the little fishing boat he rented, the captain pushing them lazily down the canal. Kerri cuddled up in Harden’s embrace, his arm behind her head, hers resting on his expansive chest. The brine filled her nostrils and lungs, a deep breath soothing and refreshing.

  Kerri wanted to relax, to savor the moment, but she was still a little jumpy from events in Los Angeles, not to mention the ugly reception she felt she got from the Swiss. Just calm down, Kerri told herself. Maybe Europeans have different customs; they don’t just walk up to a stranger the way Americans do.

  Unless they really do believe the rumors, but I guess Harden’s right about that too; there’s nothing I can do about it, and if they’re going to believe such a far-out story, then Harden’s right again.

  Fuck ’em.

  But flashes of doubt had become too common for Kerri, until she almost couldn’t keep a straight train of thought without it being sidetracked or even derailed. And that little fishing boat was drifting slowly down the canal, the two of them completely exposed. It only then occurred to Kerri just how vulnerable they were. They could be shot at from any direction, any window or bridge or even another boat. Kerri could imagine the two of them screaming and flailing and throwing themselves off the little boat to swim to safety, bullets plunging into them. Kerri could almost feel the water filling her lungs, heart beating to its last while her dying weight pulled her under.

  “Ker? Something wrong?”

  “What? Um, no, I’m…I’m just a little distracted, I guess.”

  “Well, just relax,” Harden said, pulling her even closer and giving her a loving kiss on the top of her head. “We’re okay, I promise.”

  She wanted to believe him, but she also kne
w this was something he couldn’t possibly promise. How can he be so secure and so certain?

  Kerri sighed and put it out of her mind, glancing up and around at the gorgeous city drifting by on either side. She noticed some pedestrians catching sight of her, men in leather coats even in the summer, some in T-shirts and others plain streetwear.

  One man raised a camera and started taking pictures of them in the boat, but these were no mere phone shots to post online. This man was using a professional camera with a long lens and was taking several shots, holding the camera to his face for extended periods before lowering the camera again, his eyes still fixed on their little fishing boat.

  Kerri glanced at him and Harden followed her line of sight. “Look at Ansel Adams over there.”

  “Local paparazzo, probably. Like I said, a celebrity hanging around is bigger news out here, especially one so…controversial.”

  “Thanks for putting it so…mildly.” Kerri looked across the canal to see another man, also in a dark duster, taking pictures of them in the boat. “Guess we have to make that paparazzi.”

  Harden nodded, glancing in that direction. Kerri went on, “I tell ya, when all this is said and done, that’s something I’m not gonna miss.”

  “Said and done? You don’t mean…us?”

  “No, Harden, of course not. But you know I’m toast in Hollywood. I guess I should start thinking about doing something else with my life.”

  “Why?”

  After a confused silence, Kerri asked him, “Pardon?”

  “Why do you have to do anything? Kerri, you’ve been working so hard for so long, I think you’ve forgotten that there’s another way…my way. I’ve already earned as much as we’d ever need, and my holdings increase every day. So why not just sit back and enjoy, take up painting or write a novel or something?”

  “Just putter around the mansion? I dunno, that doesn’t feel like me.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it does. Well, again, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’ll all fall into place.”