by Peggy Jaeger
As soon as Cort was gone, Alyssa slithered into his seat and said, “I’d like to speak with you, Kandy.”
Kandy’s bland smile was in total contrast to the vibrant one she’d had on her face just moments before.
“It’s about you and my husband.” Alyssa’s words were slow and slurred as they stumbled from her fuchsia-colored lips. Reaching across and draping herself over an annoyed Reva, her voice remained loud and piercing. “I know what’s going on.”
Confusion on her face, Kandy asked, “What are you talking about.”
“I know about the two of you. About the late hours together, just you and him. He’s always at the studio with you. Working, he says. You can’t fool me. Everything’s ‘Kandy this’ and ‘Kandy that.’ I know you’re having an affair with my husband.”
The last sentence was shouted. Several inquiring gazes turned toward their table.
“Alyssa,” Kandy said. “Lower your voice.”
“I will not.” She tried to straighten in her seat, her spine falling flat against the chair back. “Everyone should know what a whore you are.”
“Oh, Christ,” Reva exclaimed, rising. “Here comes Baker from the Post, pen flying. You don’t need this. Come on. We’re out of here.”
Kandy rose, as did Gemma and Stacy.
“Wait just a second, you,” Alyssa said, pointing at Kandy. “I’m not finished.”
Gemma sidled up along the drunken model and grabbed one of her emaciated arms, while her sister took the other. “We can talk about this more outside. Ladies’ room. Now,” Gemma ordered.
Kandy nodded, and together, they pulled Alyssa along with them, Stacy following. Josh thought it looked like an easy task, since all three women were roughly the same height, and Kandy and her sister weren’t drunk.
When he rose from his chair to follow them, Kandy caught his gaze and shook her head.
Alyssa continued to sputter and spew as they made their way from the room, all eyes glued to them. Reva strode up to the Post reporter and barred him from following them. Slinking her arm in his, she propelled him to the other side of the room, smiling her killer grin and promising him who knew what, just to divert his attention from the evolving scene.
Josh told Harvey, “I’ll go get Cort.”
He found the director at the cash bar, a half-full glass of beer in front of him.
“They all out of Cosmos?” Josh asked.
Cort jumped. “Sorry.”
When Cort looked up at him, he related the scene at the table, saying, “Alyssa thinks you and Kandy are having an affair.” His eyes gauged the director’s expression.
Cort gaped at him. “Well, it isn’t true. You know that.”
“Yup. I do. Your wife is another matter.”
Cort took a large gulp of his beer. Shaking his head, he said, “She’s been like this for weeks. Crazy. Accusing me of cheating on her, of not loving her anymore.” He clicked his tongue and added, “I love her so much it hurts.”
“Why does she think you’re straying? What have you done to make her think that?”
He got the reaction he wanted. All the color drained from Cort’s face. “N-nothing.”
Josh shook his head. “You can lie to your wife, Mason, but not to me.”
“What are you talking about?” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped at his brow and upper lip.
Josh waited until Cort had returned it to his pocket before replying.
“I’m a private investigator.”
Silence met his declaration. The sweat on Cort’s brow multiplied and the handkerchief was once again pulled free.
Josh regarded the movement. “And I know you’ve been meeting with a lawyer to try and get out of your contract.”
If it were possible, Mason’s color paled more, his skin turning an ashen, waxy hue.
“How—?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Does Kandy know?” he asked, his voice small and scared.
“Not yet. But don’t you think it would be better if you told her, instead of having her find it out from someone else?”
Cort downed the last of his beer and signaled to the bartender for another. “I can’t,” he said, head hanging, eyes closed for a moment. “I just can’t. She’s been so good to me, so unbelievably fair and kind. I know she’d hate me for trying to jump ship when the show is number one.”
“I think you’re being unfair to her,” Josh said, shaking his head when the bartender asked if he wanted anything. “If she’s been so good to you, why have you been sneaking around behind her back? What kind of payback is that?”
Exhaling deeply, Cort dropped his head into his hands. “The worst kind, I realize now. But you don’t know what it’s like at home.”
“Try me.”
Cort’s eyes were beginning to cloud over. He downed more of his drink, then said, “Alyssa wants a film career, and she wants me to help her. She’s a good actress, she really is, but she’s just so demanding and picky. She wants me to direct her because she thinks I’ll give everything to her, do anything for her. She’s right, too. But day after day she harps at me about it. She’s threatened to leave if things don’t change. I can’t let that happen. I love her so much. But she hates Kandy. She thinks she has this huge, impenetrable hold on me.”
“Alyssa doesn’t know you’ve been trying to get out of your contract, does she?” Josh asked.
“No. I wanted to surprise her when it was all done. I knew there would be bad feelings with Kandy and the network. But I love Alyssa. I want to help her. I can’t do that and direct the show.”
Josh nodded and waited for a second, debating with himself. The investigator in him had the final say.
“Did you know Kandy’s been receiving harassing phone calls, in addition to some other incidents, including the dead rat in the herb garden?”
Cort’s head shot up. “What kind of calls?”
Ignoring the question, Josh said instead, “Your wife called her a whore in front of everyone inside.”
Cort’s eyes, just a few seconds ago beginning to look glassy from the alcohol, instantly cleared.
“That’s been the general tone of the phone calls,” Josh said, waiting for his reaction.
The moment Cort’s eyes froze in fear, Josh knew he’d made the connection.
“You don’t think Alyssa…” Shaking his head, he said, “No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Can’t you have the calls traced or something? You said you’re a private investigator. Isn’t that what you do?”
“They’re always from disposable cells. Untraceable.”
“I don’t think Alyssa even knows about those kinds of phones. She’s not the one doing this. I know it.”
At that moment, Josh spotted Gemma making her way toward them.
“Alyssa wants to leave, Cort. She’s over by the ladies’ room.”
“Is she…how is she?”
“Drunk but cooperating. Kandy had a good, long talk with her.”
“What did she say?”
Gemma’s gaze went from the director to Josh and back again. “She’ll tell you on the way home.”
Cort chugged the remainder of his beer and slapped a few bills down on the counter. He fled without another word.
Gemma moved into his vacant spot and sighed. “I don’t want to have to go through a scene like that again in my lifetime.”
“What happened?”
“Kandy will fill you in. She took most of the hit. I just stayed by the door to make sure no reporters snuck in. She wants to leave, too. I told her I’d come get you.”
Josh turned to go.
“One thing I will tell you,” Gemma said, pulling at his sleeve. When he stopped, she said, “I think Alyssa may be the one tormenting Kandy.”
“Because?”
“Alyssa called her some very descriptive names. They sound like the gist of what’s been said in the phone calls, accor
ding to what Kandy told me. What are you going to do?”
“Take Kandy home.”
He could tell his response annoyed her, but he didn’t care. What he did care about was seeing if Kandy was okay.
He spotted her when he came out of the bar. She was talking with the mayor, or rather, the mayor was talking. Kandy had a tight smile plastered on her face as she listened. Anyone else would have thought she was engrossed in what the man was saying, but Josh could see from the flat, distant look in her eyes she wasn’t.
For the first time since he’d known her she looked tired and worn-out. Beautiful as always, but weariness had finally surfaced.
He cut a quick path across the spacious lobby.
When she saw him coming toward her, she visibly relaxed under his gaze.
* * *
“All the recording equipment for the security system’s in here,” Andy said once they’d returned to Kandy’s apartment building. He’d led them to a room the size of a large utility closet down the hall from the visitors’ desk.
“It’s on a continual loop,” he said, taking a seat behind a small desk.
“Can you call up Friday and Saturday night?” Josh asked.
“No problem.” He fiddled with the computer keyboard connected to a series of flat screens in front of them.
“There’s Evan.” Kandy pointed to one of the screens.
“This is Friday,” Andy said. “You can see here is where he started getting nasty.”
Kandy’s gaze flicked over the monitor as Evan became increasingly agitated. He’d balled his hands into fists and they hung, suspended from his sides, as if poised to strike. The hallway camera was situated above and behind him so they were able to see his face only in profile, but Kandy could almost feel the rage flying across it. After a moment he spun around to storm out and they had a full view of his face.
“It looks like you really did break his nose,” Kandy said, slanting a look at Josh.
“And he never came back?” he asked Andy.
“Nope. Not the next night, either. I was here. I’d know.”
“Scan the cameras on Kandy’s floor, anyway, please. Friday and Saturday.”
Andy nodded. “Here’s the one outside the elevator on her floor.”
He sped through the playback and Kandy watched several of her neighbors getting on and off the elevator. Her mind began to drift, exhaustion both physical, and emotional, starting to seep into her bones.
The scene with Alyssa had been unnerving, the venom the young model released at her, vicious and potent. She gave example after example of the times Cort and she were supposedly together while Alyssa waited expectantly at home for her husband. Through the booze-filled torrent, Kandy started to feel sorry for the girl, but knew she wasn’t the one responsible for Cort’s late nights away from home.
Her mother’s words drifted back, and for the first time Kandy considered Cort could be cheating on his wife. How else to explain his absences?
She was pulled out of her musings by Josh’s voice.
“That’s Saturday night. The time stamp reads two a.m.”
A figure stepped from the elevator on her floor.
“Who is that?” she asked. “Is that…Evan?”
It was hard to tell from the clothing. The man—if it was a man—had a black, nondescript hoodie pulled up over his head, the brim jutting out to conceal most of the face.
“The height’s right,” Josh told her. “Stop it there,” he said to Andy. He continued to stare at the screen, his eyes darting back and forth across the silhouette. “Is there any way you can clean this up, get better definition?”
“No. Blowing up the image’ll just distort it more.”
“Okay. Can you follow where he’s going?”
“Yeah. There are cameras at the end of each hallway.”
He typed in a few keystrokes and the images came up on the screen. “I’ll put them in columns so you can see them side by side.”
“That’s my door he’s stopping at,” Kandy said, moving closer to the screen.
The trio watched as the hooded figure removed something from his pocket. In the next second he disappeared into the apartment.
“He’s got a key. I never gave him one,” Kandy said. She whirled around to face the doorman. “How did he get by the security desk?”
Andy’s face reddened and his gaze dropped to the floor. “I honestly don’t know, Miss Laine. I usually make my rounds at about that hour. Maybe he was just waiting until I left the desk.”
“Don’t you lock the front doors when you leave the desk unattended?” Josh asked, cutting Kandy off from asking the same question.
“Yes, and I did. I’m sure of it. I don’t know how he got in.”
“Well, it’s apparent he has a key to my apartment,” Kandy stated, anger pushing through her exhaustion. “He probably has one to the front entrance as well.”
“I wish we had a better view of his face,” Josh said, his eyes on the monitor again, “to prove it really is Chandler.”
“Who else would it be?”
Josh ignored her and told Andy to fast-forward a few minutes.
“Here. He comes out of the apartment at two twenty. Enough time to take the jewelry.”
“He’s not going back to the elevator, though,” Kandy said, pointing. “Looks like he’s heading down by the stairway.”
“That leads down to the parking garage,” Andy said, typing in another series of keystrokes. “Let me line up the time stamps.”
“There.” Josh pointed now. The hooded figure exited through the garage stairway door. “You still can’t see his face. And his hands are shoved in his pockets, so you can’t tell if he’s holding the jewelry.”
“There’s no doubt he’s got it,” Kandy declared. “Everything fits. The time, the fact that I was gone for a few days. If this is Evan, he’s the one who stole it.”
And the fact that he had not only infuriated her, it saddened her as well. Evan Chandler was just one more man who’d been a disappointment to her.
For someone so smart and business shrewd, Kandy recognized how naïve she was when it came to judging men. She’d loved her father unconditionally until he’d destroyed her trust by leaving the family and never looking back. That she’d chosen men throughout her life who were more like her father than not was worrisome.
Josh took a moment to flip through his phone and, while he called the officers who’d been assigned to the case, Kandy crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-One
They rode the elevator in silence, Josh sensing she didn’t want to talk about what had happened, and he allowed her the quiet time, knowing they’d get to it eventually.
“I’m starving.” Kandy tossed her keys on the foyer table and toed off her shoes when they got back to her apartment. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.” He followed her into the kitchen.
“Is an omelet okay?” she asked, reaching into the refrigerator.
“Kandy, I think you could make shoe leather okay.”
Tired amusement flickered in her eyes.
“An omelet is fine,” he told her, taking off his jacket and laying it across the back of a chair. “Can I do anything?”
“No. Just sit.”
Kandy set about making the omelets without a word between them. She chopped scallions and grated cheese as the eggs set in the pan. There was something almost mesmerizing and hypnotic about the way she prepared a simple meal. All her movements were as precise and coordinated as the most arduous and exacting ballet choreography.
When she tossed the ingredients into the pan then swirled them up in the air, flipping and mixing them together, an unconscious sense of accomplishment and pride crossed her face. She poured them each orange juice in cut-crystal glasses, and set the filled plates before them.
Sitting across from each other at the breakfast bar, Josh’s stoma
ch muscles contracted when her eyes rolled and her lips curled in delight at her first taste.
“You know.” He swiped his mouth with the linen napkin she’d given him. “I think I finally get it about cooking. About the way you cook, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, forking in another bite.
“Watching you put together a full meal or just cook something simple like this, you get an incredible rush from it, don’t you? From the prep work to the actual cooking to the eating. It calms you. Consoles you. Makes you feel better no matter what kind of a day you’ve had.”
Kandy lowered her fork to her plate, all the while staring at him.
“It also,” he added, “lets you be in total in control. The way the food comes out is dependent on you, on how you prepare it, cook it, and serve it. You’re in absolute control from beginning to end. Comfort and control.” He took a sip of orange juice and met her gaze. “Two very powerful emotions.”
Kandy’s hand continued to grip the fork. “How do you do that?” she asked. “How do you break something so complex down into something so easy? It’s amazing.”
Josh finished off the omelet. “No, it’s not, not really. I’m a good observer. Most people aren’t.”
“More than good. You pegged my mother from the moment you met her. I’ve never seen another man do that.”
Josh’s grin split across his lips. “Your mother is priceless and harmless. My guess is most people don’t look past her blatant flirtatiousness to see the actual woman beneath.”
“You did. From the second you met her, you knew what she really was.”
“Of course I did, Kandy,” he said, refilling his juice glass. “Don’t forget, I’d already met you and Gemma. I figured the rest of your sisters were pretty much like you two, personality-wise. None of you could be the way you are without a strong female in your lives to have influenced you so positively.”
Kandy frowned. “But what about Grandma? She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever known, and she never flirted with anyone. Grandpa was the big tease there.”
With a nod, Josh said, “And a lot of what you are is based on her influence. Who you are is another story.”
