Mr Kiss and Tell

by Rob Thomas

  The name fell between them with a dull thud.

  Charles Sinclair. Madison Sinclair’s dad—and Mac’s biological father.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mac shoved abruptly back from the desk, running her fingers through her hair. For a moment Veronica thought she was about to cry. Then she realized her friend’s grimace was one of bitter triumph, almost of satisfaction.

  She’s not surprised. The thought hit her with the certainty of an irrefutable fact. Mac may not have expected to see Sinclair’s name on that list—but she wasn’t shocked either.

  Which meant Mac had been keeping tabs on her birth family.

  Veronica didn’t know why she was surprised by that. It was no less than she would have done herself. But they’d never talked about it—not since high school. Not since Veronica discovered that Mac had been switched at birth with their classmate Madison Sinclair, the poster child for spoiled ’09ers. The mistake hadn’t been discovered until both girls were four—at which point both families decided to keep the children they’d raised as their own. A hefty hospital settlement had allowed the Sinclairs to get richer; it gave the Mackenzies seed money to start a Jet Ski business that failed in less than three years.

  “Well, it’s not exactly news that Charles Sinclair is a dog,” Mac said. She stood from her desk and went to the kitchenette. Instead of opening the fridge as Veronica expected, she pulled the bottle of whiskey down from the cabinet overhead. She sloshed some into the bottom of a coffee mug, took a sip, then poured a little more.

  “What are you telling me?” Veronica asked cautiously.

  “Just that I, um, may have looked in on the Sinclairs a few times over the years.” Mac looked studiously through the dark window, avoiding Veronica’s eyes.

  Meaning, Veronica knew, that Mac had hacked into their personal information—their e-mail, their bank accounts, their medical histories.

  “Charles and Ellen were in marriage counseling for a while. I didn’t, like, try to get access to the notes. But, you know, you kind of assume.”

  “Mac…”

  “I know. I’m pathetic.” She ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair again. When they came away, locks of her short hair stood on end, giving her a slightly mad look. “I’ve never…bothered them or anything. I just wanted to know what their lives looked like.” She gave a jagged laugh. “I mean, I only know the big stuff. Like, they went to Argentina last year on vacation. They took Lauren, my…Madison’s sister. She was home on break from Sarah Lawrence. Um, and Ellen, she had a breast cancer scare a few years ago. But it turned out to be benign, so she’s okay.”

  She took another slug from the mug. “As for Charles—I mean, I assumed he was screwing around. Ellen’s away from home a lot. She does this charity thing, working with low-income women who have ideas for small businesses. It’s pretty cool, actually. She’s done a TED Talk and everything.” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Like I said, I assumed he was a cheater. But nothing would have led me to believe he was a…” She trailed off, unable to say the word. When she spoke again, her voice was steady and sober, cracking only near the end.

  “You know, my dad’s been in a dead-end job for twenty-plus years, and he’d wallpaper the house with pictures of Dale Earnhardt if my mom would let him. But he treats my mom like a goddess. He’d never cheat on her. And he’d never, never hurt a woman. I know that. So fuck Charles Sinclair.”

  Veronica stood up and walked over to Mac. She wasn’t sure if she should take the whiskey away from her or pour her another cup. In the end, she just leaned against the counter next to her.

  “Look, we don’t know anything for sure yet,” she said. “Charles might not have anything to do with it. I mean…did he check into the Grand the night of the attack? Does he show up anywhere on camera? Does he have any kind of motive for this? We need to dig a little deeper before we jump to conclusions.”

  Mac tossed back the rest of the whiskey. Then she put the cup in the sink and brought the bottle back to the desk, where she sat it next to her computer and resettled into her chair, her eyes alight with new determination.

  “So let’s dig,” she said.

  —

  Charles Sinclair had stayed at the Neptune Grand seven times in the past six months, each time for a single night. Each time, he racked up quite a room service tab, ordering bottles of Krug, plates of chocolate-covered strawberries, oysters on the half shell, caviar. Mac was able to match each visit with a trip Ellen Sinclair had taken out of town. But he hadn’t stayed at the hotel the night of the attack. His name wasn’t on the guest list, and none of his credit cards had been used. And there was no sign of him on any of the security footage.

  “Maybe he has a secret way in—the same way Grace was taken out.” Veronica leaned back in the office chair she’d pulled up beside Mac’s, staring at the ceiling. “Or maybe Grace wasn’t attacked at the Neptune Grand at all. Maybe she got out of the hotel somehow and met him off-site.”

  Mac rubbed her face, exhausted. “But then, why suddenly attack her after all those months of feeding her caviar? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Veronica hesitated. It was possible Sinclair had been abusing Grace all along, that the attack was the final escalation. Or maybe he’d decided the girl was a liability—if she’d threatened to go public, for instance. Which would also explain her steadfast refusal to name him. If his goal had been to silence her, he’d succeeded.

  Not that she wanted to say any of that out loud. “First things first. We can answer at least some of those questions if we get a DNA sample.”

  “Easy enough,” Mac said quietly. “We just swab me, right? That was enough with Ramirez’s son.”

  Mac’s jaw was tight, her eyes narrow. She’s taking this personally, Veronica thought uneasily.

  “It might come to that,” Veronica said. “But I think I have a better idea.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sinclair & Ives was the premier graphic design firm in Southern California. Their clients included Nike, Calvin Klein, Disney, Pepsi. If a company had a commercial written up in Artforum, a logo recognized worldwide, a font that inspired hosts of knockoffs, chances were good that Sinclair & Ives had a hand in it—and that the original creative spark came from Charles Sinclair, the agency’s superstar art director.

  The firm’s offices occupied a full floor in a chic office building downtown, decorated with color-blocked walls and sleek modern furniture. On Monday morning Veronica sat on a backless red sofa, clutching a portfolio and jiggling one leg up and down in a good imitation of nerves. She wore combat boots and a slouchy boy’s blazer; her hair was looped through a rubber band into a sloppy bun. A pair of nonprescription glasses with heavy black plastic frames finished the look: casual, Bohemian, this side of edgy. A sandwich board over her shoulders, block-lettered ART STUDENT, couldn’t have been more overt. Which was the idea, because Veronica had a job interview with Charles Sinclair. And she needed to pass as a viable candidate for the few short minutes it’d take to accomplish two specific tasks: determine whether he knew Grace, and find an object with his DNA on it.

  Veronica hadn’t wanted to involve Mac further, but a quick background check revealed that Sinclair had graduated from the California College of the Arts. It also provided his private line. Veronica, doing her best college counselor impression, placed a quick call that morning, informing him that she had a talented photography grad student looking for work, and would he mind meeting with her? His voice on the phone had been warm. Sure—he had twenty minutes just before lunch.

  So now Veronica sat in the waiting room, holding a portfolio of her own hastily curated photos. The receptionist—a young man with carrot-red hair gelled in a high arc above his forehead—kept glancing at her with surly amusement over the top of his monitor.

  “Gretchen Spengler?”

  Veronica gave a little start. She’d expected the receptionist to make her wait as long as possible before showing her back to Sinc
lair’s office, but here was the designer himself, watching her from the doorway with an indulgent smile.

  Charles Sinclair was tall and lean, with dark hair receding from a craggily handsome face. He wore a suit jacket and a button-down shirt, no tie, and he leaned against the doorway with confident ease. The very picture of middle-aged richfuck entitlement, Veronica thought. He doesn’t seem like a guy who’d hesitate to take what he wanted. But—rapey or merely insufferable?

  “Mr. Sinclair!” She shot to her feet, walking toward him with her hand outstretched. “Thanks so much for meeting with me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

  “It’s always great to meet a fellow CCA alum.” They shook hands.

  She followed him through a large, open workspace. One full wall was made of blackboard material and covered with doodles. Four people were crouched over drafting tables or computer stations, surrounded by empty coffee cups or soda cans. It looked as if everyone else was gone for lunch.

  Sinclair’s office was large, but cluttered. A corkboard lined three-quarters of the wall, covered with clippings of everything from athletes in motion to woolly-faced sloths clinging to branches in the jungle. Two twenty-seven-inch monitors sat side by side over his computer, and an angled drafting table sat next to the window. A coiled yoga mat was propped against the wall by the door, a grubby-looking hand towel jutting from the center.

  Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the details. If he had as many empty cans at his station as everyone else in the office did, then this would be easy. But there was nothing.

  Okay, so I’ll just have to get creative.

  Charles pulled an Aeron chair out from under his computer desk and motioned for Veronica to take a seat. He settled into a molded, green plastic chair just a few feet away from her. It felt strange, not having a desk between them—a bit more exposed than she’d have liked.

  “Thanks so much for making the time to see me, Mr. Sinclair. I’m such a fan of your work.” Veronica pushed her glasses up her nose. “The spread you did for Rolex a few years ago is, like, half the reason I went to design school.”

  His smile widened a little. “That’s one of my favorite campaigns. And not just because I got to meet Marion Cotillard.” He crossed his legs, resting his fingers on his knee and regarding her with interest. Veronica realized with a shiver that his eyes were the same light blue as Mac’s. “So you’re a photographer?”

  She nodded, then unzipped the portfolio in her lap and started sifting through the pictures. “I interned with TBWA in Los Angeles last summer and did a lot of product test shots for them. But my thesis work was all on portrait.” She handed a book of photos to him and he started to leaf through.

  Veronica had spent hours going through her own prints the day before. She’d been taking pictures since she was a kid, and her best work was pretty good—certainly passable as a talented student’s portfolio. She’d included an array of images—shots of historic buildings and ocean vistas, pictures of birds and flowers, a few photos of cheese platters and cupcakes—but more than anything else, she included portraits. Most were of friends back in New York, from her days at Columbia; she didn’t want to run the risk of showing him anyone he might recognize.

  With one important exception.

  She watched his face closely as he looked through the prints. He lingered on a few—one she’d taken at Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade two years ago, showing three young women in shell bikinis and green wigs; another of a broken window in an abandoned elementary school. Then he turned another page, and froze.

  Grace Manning’s posed portrait didn’t entirely fit in with the rest of the images. Veronica’s pictures were generally more photojournalistic in tone. Grace’s professional headshot was meant to show her at her most generic, a blank slate for directors’ imaginations. Her expression was serious—lips closed, eyes ingénue-wide, hair loose around her face. The picture was from before the attack, and Veronica thought she could detect a subtle difference in the girl’s features. Or maybe it was just her expression that had altered—some lightness in her eyes, some of the casual ease in her muscles, was gone.

  Charles’s eyes locked onto the portrait, his mouth opening and closing a few times in a frantic bid for composure. First he went pale—then he flushed, his cheeks and neck darkening to red. Veronica hid a smile.

  Gotcha.

  Veronica leaned over as if checking to see what he was looking at. “Oh, you like that one? God, I lucked out with her. She’s an actress who hired me to do her headshot. Kind of an innocent, girl-next-door vibe, right? But vulnerable too—kind of breakable.”

  She saw his fingers tremble, then curl around the edge of the book. But before he could say anything, another voice broke in. A petulant, horribly familiar voice. A voice that still affected Veronica like a battery acid IV.

  “Daddy, you’ve got to fire that guy at the front desk. He always acts like I’m some kind of nuisance.”

  Madison Sinclair stood in the doorway, wearing a canary-yellow sheath dress and a pale pink cardigan. Her brows were arched in characteristic disdain. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Veronica.

  Veronica was momentarily flummoxed, unable to think or process. Madison Sinclair had insulted, bullied, and belittled her every day in high school—as well as at their ten-year reunion a few months earlier. The only upside had been that Veronica had gotten to do what she’d dreamed of for years: punch Madison square in the face.

  “What are you doing here?” Madison said, her voice dripping with loathing.

  Charles looked up from the prints spread across his lap. He fumbled the book shut and handed it back to Veronica. “Oh, do you know each other?”

  “Oh my gosh, you’re Charles’s daughter?” Veronica plastered a winning smile onto her lips, standing up from her chair. “I knew your last name was Sinclair but I don’t think I ever put those two things together. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  Madison blinked. This was clearly not what she’d expected.

  Lucky for Veronica, Charles seemed almost as eager to cut the interview short as she now was. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Spengler—I forgot that I had a lunch date with my daughter. We’ll have to cut this short. But your photography is…really interesting, and if you’ll leave me a copy of your CV…”

  “Spengler?” spat Madison. “What the—”

  “Thank you so much for making the time to meet me, Mr. Sinclair.” Veronica stuck out her hand, and after hesitating a moment, he shook it. “It’s been a real honor.” She turned toward the door, beaming at Madison. “Have a great lunch, Madison.”

  In the three seconds it took her to get to the door, Veronica’s eyes flickered frantically back and forth, combing the room. She’d gotten the reaction she’d wanted from the picture—but she hadn’t gotten what she really needed. No soda cans, no half-eaten food, no strands of hair just sitting conveniently out for her to grab. Once she left, there was no way she could come back. Madison would tell him that she was a private eye, and it would be over.

  And then she saw it. The crumpled white hand towel on the yoga mat, propped by the door. She had a sudden image of Charles Sinclair in a humid, sweltering yoga studio, covered with sweat. Coming out of Warrior pose to mop his face. Then rolling it up in the mat, keeping it there for next time.

  As she sailed past Madison, she plucked it lightly from where it stuck out. Veronica hurried through the workroom, Madison’s voice ringing behind her.

  “Why did you call her Spengler? Her name is Veronica Mars, Daddy, and she’s total trash.”

  She didn’t stop to hear his response. Instead, she sped up, breezing past the receptionist and wondering if she had proof of the attacker’s identity clutched in her hand.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Friday morning, Logan was leaning against the kitchen counter watching Veronica stir pancake batter when he said unexpectedly, “Let’s do it.”

  She glanced up at him, amused. “Again? It’s been ten minutes. I n
eed some breakfast if you expect another performance like that.”

  It was just after ten a.m. Veronica had decided to take the day off—there wasn’t anything she could do at work until Sinclair’s labs came back, and she hadn’t picked up a new job in weeks. Keith had seized upon this lull to wheedle Veronica into helping resolve a feud between two rival pawnshop owners, one of whom was seeking proof that the other was hiring gang members to vandalize and pilfer from her store. A quick background check on the client had cast doubt on her story: a total of nine false accusations, nuisance lawsuits, and interactions with the state mental health system. Even so, proof of effort was needed to collect the base fee and send the addlepated old dame on her way.

  Today, though, Veronica was taking a quick break from that mutt of a case to spend a little time with Logan. She was still in her bathrobe, a half-finished cup of coffee next to her on the counter. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, and for the first time since the Manning case had landed on her desk, she felt almost peaceful.

  “Not that. Though now that you mention it, check back in with me on that front in just a moment.” Logan picked up a piece of bacon and crunched down on it. “No, let’s get a puppy.”

  She turned to stare at him, her mouth hanging open in mute disbelief.

  He grinned. “Huh. Veronica Mars, speechless. I’ll have to write this one in my feelings journal.”

  “Are you serious? You’re…I mean, it’s a huge commitment, and…”

  “So what? So’s everything worth doing.” His expression was half playful, half urgent. “Come on. You can keep doodling dog faces on every blank pad in this apartment, or we can just take the leap. Why not?”

  Maybe it was something about the way he looked at her when he said it, but for once, she couldn’t answer that question. At that moment, all she could do was put her arms around him and kiss him, her mind deliciously blank.