Poison and Prejudice

by Field, Chelsea

  “Hey, my good man. I won’t keep you long, but I wanted to catch you before you head off to find out what’s happening with that matter Alyssa was organizing for us.” He had a pleasant, boyish face and was oozing charm. I suspected he was the kind of person who was prone to effusive displays of backslapping at happy occasions.

  Zac frowned at him, appearing more sober than he could possibly be. “Excuse me?”

  “You know, we have that unfinished business we need to wrap up?” The man was still smiling but looked less sure of himself now.

  “Unfinished business?” Zac repeated, sounding unaccountably angry. “Were you sleeping with her? With my wife?”

  Ah, that’s why he sounded mad.

  “No, no,” Boy Charming protested, taking a step backward. “Not that kind of business.”

  Zac wasn’t listening. Rage danced in his eyes, and he grabbed the guy by the shirtfront.

  Boy Charming pulled out of Zac’s grasp, several buttons popping and rolling over the alcohol-sodden carpet. “No, honest.” He was backing away with his hands raised. “I have my own wife. See that pregnant woman over there in the yellow dress? She’d kill me.”

  I looked over to where he pointed, and there was indeed a pregnant woman watching the whole thing with a worried look on her face. A different pregnant woman than the one we’d encountered earlier.

  Zac had worked himself up into an alcoholic fury and wasn’t so easily appeased. “Who else?” he shouted. “Who else has been sleeping with my wife?”

  Several heads turned instinctively to Torres. Zac followed the gazes even in his drunken state and stalked toward the director.

  Oh boy. While Torres deserved to be slugged, my conscience prodded me to break it up before it could begin.

  I ran after Zac and grabbed the arm he was preparing to swing. “Stop.”

  He jerked his elbow back in reflex, smacking me right in the eye.

  I stumbled away, pain radiating from my eye socket into my skull, and Zac launched himself at Torres.

  Under normal circumstances, the fight would’ve been a short one, but while Zac was larger and infinitely better toned, Torres was quick and a whole lot less drunk. They both got in a few good punches and a lot more flailing before security arrived to break them up.

  I sat on the sticky carpet with an unidentifiable blend of alcohol seeping into my skirt and watched the clash with the cool detachment only an accidental head injury could bring.

  So much for my new self-defense skills.

  17

  I couldn’t tell whether Zac or I woke up with a sorer head, because the very next morning, he confessed.

  Maybe he was too embarrassed to face me after clocking me in the eye. But the official story was he couldn’t live with the guilt over his dearly departed wife.

  Agent Joe filled me in.

  “He drove himself down to the police station and told Commander Hunt he’d accidentally killed Alyssa in self-defense. Said she came over in the middle of the night and went crazy. She attacked, he pushed her, and she fell backward and hit her head on the kitchen counter. The corner of the kitchen counter.”

  Wow.

  I was disturbed by the news on multiple levels. Had I put any food directly on the countertop?

  Jeff had been glowering at me while Joe was talking. “We’re not releasing these details to the public. All they’ll know is Mr. Hill was taken in for questioning in relation to Alyssa’s murder, so you better keep your mouth shut, or we’ll know you’re the leak.”

  I thought Jeff and Hunt would get along just fine.

  Joe ignored his partner. “Zachariah claims he freaked out when he realized she was dead, thinking no one would believe it was an accident. So he put her body in the trunk of his car, intending to hide it somewhere, but came down with a stress migraine and had to crawl into bed. You know what happened next. But ever since, the guilt has been eating away at him. This is all coming through his hotshot attorney, but his attorney would’ve advised him against confessing that much, so it’s probably genuine. Most of it at least.”

  It was a story that felt more feasible to me than cold-blooded murder, but I’d been wrong before.

  “He did seem to be spiraling out of control,” I offered. “But I’ve learned to respect his ability to act.” My mind flashed back to his helping me lose the handcuffs and the hours he’d spent entertaining Sara. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Well, if he can convince the judge or jury it was self-defense, then he’ll be cleared of any wrongdoing. He’ll still be charged for tampering with evidence, but if the self-defense plea is accepted, they’ll go easy on him now he’s turned himself in.”

  “Hard to prove she attacked him though,” Jeff chimed in. “Especially with no proof of it on his or Alyssa’s body.”

  Doubt prickled again. It was true. I hadn’t noticed any bruising. Despite seeing all of him a few days after. But he was bigger and stronger with better reach. Look how easily he’d overcome me, even drunk and without trying. It didn’t prove things either way.

  “Regardless”—the rare cheerfulness in Jeff’s voice yanked my attention back to him—“your assistance is no longer needed.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll take the bug and the burner phone off you.” He held out a hand.

  With a heavy heart, I passed them over. Although I was glad I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone listening to me use the toilet anymore.

  Joe jumped in, attempting to make me feel better. “You can still reach us if you need, just call headquarters. And we appreciate your help. I’d say our country thanks you, but I don’t know how much that means to an Australian. So I guess I’ll thank you. You’ve been very brave.”

  He made it sound like the case was wrapped up. Yet while Alyssa’s death had been disturbing, it was the girls I’d been working to save. This breakthrough didn’t help them.

  “But what about the girls? Did you run background reports on those people at the party I told you about?” I hadn’t known their names, but it was a simple matter for Homeland to sort through images of the event and find the pregnant women that had attended. That done, it hadn’t taken long for me to point out the right ones.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find the girls.” Joe’s words did not achieve their desired effect. “And yes, we looked into the couples—actually one of them is single with only a sperm donor as a father—but the reports came up clean.”

  Damn.

  There was nothing I could do to convince them I should stay on the case, and I didn’t have any more leads to offer, so I slid toward the door. But I hesitated before opening it. It was possible I’d never see them again.

  “One last thing. I don’t know what it is between you two, a case, a promotion, a woman”—Jeff and Joe blinked—“seriously? A woman?” Nice to know some things transcended age, profession, and walks of life. Heck, even Superman had relationship problems. “Well, let me give you some advice. Do what you can to get this sorted; see a counselor if you need to.” Never mind I was terrified of shrinks. “Because you spend way too much time together to ignore it, and there’s no advantage in making each other miserable.”

  Jeff smiled at me for the first time since his partner had turned him into an errand boy on my behalf. “Actually, I get a lot of pleasure out of making Joe miserable.”

  * * *

  Without a client to care for, there was nothing for it but organizing a meeting of the troops. Neither of them knew about my black eye yet. But at least Zac would be safe from Connor since he was in jail and all.

  I entered Connor’s Tudor home expecting a fight. Now that Homeland had kicked me off the case, he would undoubtedly think this was the time to bow out of our own investigation.

  Except he didn’t even bring it up.

  “Nice shiner,” Harper crowed when she saw me.

  I’d tried to conceal it with makeup, but I didn’t have the talent of the film industry makeup artists, and unless I slather
ed on the foundation like frosting on a cake, it was going to stay visible.

  Connor was a whole lot less impressed by my shiner but, after hearing my explanation, merely suggested I keep up with those self-defense lessons.

  I finished recounting the events of the past sixteen hours and waited.

  Harper jumped in first. “So if Zac’s in jail and Alyssa’s dead, where are the girls?”

  Connor looked grim. “Good question.”

  It had been playing on my mind as well. If the girls were locked up somewhere, did they have food? Water?

  Connor was thinking along the same lines. “The average person can survive three weeks without food but only three to four days without water. We had better hope there’s another party in this trafficking ring or that we find them fast.”

  Reality hit me hard, and I might’ve gotten stuck there for a while, but Harper moved us forward.

  “Let’s go over what we’ve learned. If Homeland is right, Alyssa and or Zac have been gradually siphoning teenage girls from their orphanages in Africa to the United States. Money doesn’t fit as the motive because the charity donations amount to more than they could’ve earned from fifteen girls, regardless of what they did with them.”

  I thought of Sara and the dialysis machine. “After watching Zac with Paul’s daughter, I find it hard to believe he could be okay with exploiting other vulnerable kids.”

  Harper waved a hand in dismissal. “He’s an actor. Hell, maybe he works with Sara out of guilt, like his penance for what he does behind closed doors. But now he’s confessed to killing his ex-wife, I do agree it’s unlikely he’s involved. He doesn’t have the balls for human trafficking.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Connor said. A crime of passion is different from a premeditated one on strangers. If it was Alyssa’s idea, he might have gone along with it because he was infatuated with her. But statistics say it’s highly improbable that she’d want the girls for sexual purposes. We need to look for new motives.”

  “Right.” Harper rubbed her hands together, glad to have something to do, however weak it was. “What do we know about Alyssa and Zac. What do they care about? What drives them?”

  I noticed we were talking about Alyssa in the present tense like she hadn’t been killed. Then I noticed both Connor and Harper were looking at me, waiting for answers.

  “Okay. Until Alyssa’s death, Zac seemed remarkably well adjusted. He worked hard. He was friendly and generous with everyone he came across, regardless of their status. And he was equally comfortable with being charismatic at a party or home by himself working out and reading the newspaper. Plus he appeared to do it all out of a place of contentment rather than a desperate need to be liked or successful or anything like that. The one sore spot was Alyssa, and his falling apart after her death supports that.”

  Connor was looking grim again. “So he’s either genuinely healthy or a brilliant psychopath.”

  “What about Alyssa?” Harper prompted when my mind snagged on the psychopath possibility.

  “Well, I only saw her on the film set or at celebrity events, but she seemed less… content than Zac. She loved being the center of attention and was beautiful and intelligent and gracious when she was in it, but she was a lot less nice to people otherwise. I could tell by how the film crew went out of their way to avoid her. She thought she was better than everyone else. And if what Zac said about their marriage and her cheating on him was true, it points to an almost pathological need to be in the spotlight. For power maybe.” I wiped a hand over my face, trying to be objective rather than letting my tendency to trust get in the way. “We know she was sleeping with the director at the very least, but it’s possible Zac’s perspective on their relationship was completely off base, their marriage was terrible, and she’s just confident in her sexuality.”

  Harper tapped what little fingernails she had on the table. “If Alyssa wanted power, could she have used the girls as, I dunno, bribes or something? To get what she wanted from others in power?”

  “How many powerful creeps with a desire for teenage girls can there be?” I pointed out.

  Connor and Harper shared a glance, then gave me matching looks of pity.

  “Okay. Fine. She got a lot of attention for the charity work. Is it possible she could’ve been using them to leverage that somehow? Maybe she was secretly trialing a way of transforming their lives over here so she could do a dramatic reveal to the media and garner huge amounts of press.”

  Connor rubbed my back gently like he knew what he was about to say would hurt. “Not a bad suggestion, except I can’t see her waiting three years for that dramatic reveal.”

  I slumped. “Any better ideas?”

  Connor kept rubbing. “It’s possible they were specifically selecting them as organ donors. Not for money, since we’ve ruled that out, but for gaining power or for people they care about. Maybe Zac loves Sara so much that he’ll do anything to get her the kidney she needs.”

  Wow. Didn’t that put things in a different light? I wished now I’d gotten close enough to eavesdrop on Paul and Zac’s conversations. “I guess it could have been what those two people were asking about last night when they mentioned arrangements or unfinished business with Alyssa. Except Zac didn’t know what they were talking about.”

  “Unless even drunk he was smart enough not to say anything in front of you.”

  There I was being naive again. “Right.”

  Harper offered another theory. “Or Alyssa might have been providing her pregnant friends with disposable playthings for their horny husbands while they were too tired for sex.”

  The list of possibilities didn’t seem to be doing much besides making me more disheartened. “Pretending any of these theories have merit—or even if they don’t—our best lead right now appears to be those mysterious arrangements with Alyssa. So should we pick one of the people involved and do surveillance on them? See what they get up to after learning Zac turned himself in?”

  Connor nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  “I think I can convince my boss to give me the day off,” Harper agreed. “And don’t forget we need to talk to that nutty-as-a-fruitcake stalker too.”

  18

  Somehow I found myself back in the car with Harper in the driver’s seat.

  This was why I’d avoided setting a New Year’s resolution.

  “If you go over the speed limit, I’ll call the cops,” I told her.

  Harper shrugged. “Traffic is too heavy during the day anyway.”

  Once again, she’d chosen a nice “borrowed” car to blend in with the neighborhood instead of a panel van with a camping toilet. I had no desire to get into a panel van again anytime soon, so that was fine by me. Still, I sipped our bottled water sparingly.

  We’d opted to do surveillance on the first pregnant woman rather than Boy Charming and his wife, so that way we only had to keep eyes on a single person.

  My fuzzy memory had been right. Taryn Powers was one of America’s hottest health and fitness celebrities. She was famous for teaching women how to sculpt their bodies at home, in fifteen-minute-bursts of activity so anyone could find time to do them. Her website explained that while she’d achieved great success as a personal trainer to A-list celebrities, she’d wanted to give something back and so had turned her attention to the “everyday woman.”

  Of course, with two million YouTube subscribers and a personal range of products and courses, her “giving something back” netted her millions each year.

  Eight and a half months pregnant, she was promising a new series of videos that would show everyone how to bounce their postnatal bodies back into shape in just four to six weeks. The dastardly woman would probably do it too. She was having the type of pregnancy that made less fortunate women want to punch her—anywhere but the belly of course. All her weight was being carried out front on her enormous stomach and generous breasts. From behind she still had her perfect hourglass figure. Her skin glowed. Her waddle was minimal. No
swollen ankles, no dark circles under her eyes from an inability to sleep, and probably no gas or incontinence either just because life was unfair that way.

  Her huge house in Brentwood had large windows that faced the street, so we had clear views into her living room, private gym, and formal dining area. But as the hours ticked past, her day seemed to include nothing more strenuous than lounging around on her white sectional sofa, ordering her PA to cater to her every whim. Cooking. Cleaning. Fetching meals and beverages. Tidying away the mess. Groceries. Answering the phone or the door. Replying to her YouTube comments and emails. Everything but carry the baby. I was almost disappointed she didn’t have to turn the pages of Taryn’s book as well.

  It was good to have money.

  I wondered whether Taryn would swap it for a doting husband.

  Except no husband would be as doting as her PA. So probably not.

  She did eventually get up and go to her personal gym—a luxury denied to most of her “everyday women” followers—to do a series of floor exercises, squats, a walk on the treadmill, and some gentle weights. Then she returned to her sofa and turned on the TV.

  I’d kind of expected a fitness guru to be one of those high-energy, active types, but maybe that was the secret. If you were waited on hand and foot, it might not be so hard to push yourself to exercise for short periods each day. Having every meal cooked for you would make it easier to eat right too.

  At least it made it a simple matter to keep an eye on her.

  Watching the PA scuttle back and forth made me hope for her sake that her duties wouldn’t extend to looking after the baby when it came. Taryn’s decorating choice of white on white was not child-friendly.

  Overall, it didn’t make for very interesting surveillance. Harper amused herself by reading up about the worst pregnancy side effects. “Varicose veins. Constipation. Ooh, hemorrhoids too. And that’s all before the birth. That’s when things get really gory.”