by Suzie Quint
She took a deep breath before continuing. “And there I was, suddenly in a position to get just about anyone fired. I shouldn’t have been surprised when everyone started tiptoeing around me, thinking twice about telling me things that might upset me, but I was.”
In spite of what a bitch everyone said she could be, Alec felt sorry for her. She’d just lost her husband and, if he believed her, she didn’t have any confidants to talk to. That had to be about as lonely as a person could get.
Unless it was an act.
Which he hadn’t ruled out.
He’d spent four hours with Liz, trying to figure her out. When he left her suite, he felt as though he hadn’t scratched the surface. She had more faces than Eve with her Multiple Personality Disorder. Was she really the grieving widow? Even her not-so-subtle come on wasn’t proof of anything. If she and Sebastian had the open marriage she claimed, she had no reason to see anything she did as being disloyal to his memory.
And different people grieved in different ways. A brave face didn’t necessarily mean the person wasn’t hurting underneath. Or that they were.
Chapter 8
Cleo sat at the breakfast bar, tapping the mouse pad with her fingernail while she stared blindly at the laptop’s screen. At that precise moment, Liz might be telling Alec that Annaliese was her mother.
Would that be so bad? Oh yeah, it would. On so many levels.
The lie that Annaliese was her aunt hadn’t seemed so big when she’d first told it. They’d come to Vegas to cover the story of Sebastian’s death. Even if Annaliese was part of the story, Cleo’s family was none of Alec’s business. She’d thought she could stick him in a hotel room and keep his contact with Annaliese and Jada to a minimum. That hadn’t worked out.
Instead, they’d ended up staying at her mother’s, and she was pretty sure Alec liked Annaliese. Cleo wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
On one hand, she was glad. If he’d bashed Annaliese behind her back, Cleo would have felt an obligation to defend her, which was difficult since her own feelings about Annaliese were so mixed.
On the other hand, he certainly hadn’t missed that Annaliese wasn’t a conventional, cookies-in-the-cookie-jar mom. If he found out Cleo had grown up under Annaliese’s influence, how could it not change the way he saw her? She didn’t want to see speculation in his eyes about how far the apple fell from the tree. Or worse, sympathy.
And she certainly didn’t want to exchange Alec’s respect for either of those options.
But she might not have a choice.
Even though Alec understood it wouldn’t be to his advantage to mention Cleo, Annaliese was bound to come up because of her arrest. One wrong word from Liz, and Alec would know.
She should have told him herself. Then at least she could have salvaged some scrap of dignity.
But she hadn’t. And if he came back none the wiser, she still wouldn’t tell him because, apparently, she was willing to gamble he’d never find out.
She pushed her computer aside to stand up and pace. She wanted to be doing something productive. She needed to be doing something.
Sebastian’s second ex-wife and his secretary before Nancy Bales had an ironclad alibi for his death, having been in the Bahamas with her husband at the time, but she was supposed to be back soon. Maybe she already was. And maybe she had some insights about Sebastian’s enemies.
And maybe Cleo was grasping at straws, but if she wanted her old job back, she needed to develop sources Alec didn’t have.
She picked up her phone and dialed. After three rings, a woman answered, and Cleo almost dropped the phone in surprise.
“Is this Loretta Ellis?” she asked.
“Yes. Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Cleo Morgan. I’m―”
“Annaliese Carson’s daughter?”
“Um . . . Yes, but I’m calling as a reporter.” She felt like a fraud. Alec had called her an investigative journalist but could she really claim that title while she worked for The Inside Word?
“I understand. So you want to interview me.”
This was almost too easy. Unless she was going to say no. “Yes, I really do.”
There was a moment of silence, then, “We just got back from the Bahamas, but we’re leaving tomorrow for a wedding in LA, so today is really the only time I have. If you don’t mind talking while I get ready, you can come over.”
“Whatever is convenient for you.”
“Can you be here in an hour?”
“Absolutely.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.”
Cleo stared at her phone. Had being Annaliese’s daughter worked in her favor for once? If anything, it should have gone the other way since Annaliese was sitting in jail charged with the murder of the man Loretta had once been married to.
It had only been two days since the arrest, and Cleo still didn’t feel comfortable leaving Jada alone, so she called Willa. The woman’s willingness to drop everything to help went above and beyond the call of duty, Cleo thought.
When Willa arrived, Cleo said, “I want you to know I’m really sorry for giving what Bales said any credence. I shouldn’t have asked if you were involved with Sebastian. You have better sense than that. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d told me to take a long walk off a short pier when I called today.”
“Oh honey.” Willa set her purse on the breakfast bar and flipped her purple skunk strip out of her eyes. “There are so many things wrong with everything you just said. First, it’s your job to follow up on what people say. Even when it’s Bales. Even if you weren’t a reporter, Annaliese is your mother. How could I hold that against you? And besides, the heart and the brain don’t always agree on what a person should want, you know? So don’t ever assume someone has more sense than to get involved with someone they shouldn’t.”
How well Cleo understood that. She should want someone like Martin, someone ambitious and successful, but he faded into the woodwork when Alec was around.
“Besides,” Willa said, “if I’ve let you think I’m doing you a big favor sitting with Jada, well, that’s just wrong, you know? I’d do it for Jada no matter who asked. She’s one of those precious people others should look out for.”
“Not everyone thinks so.”
“If you mean Liz, well, you know, people are like that when they’re unhappy.”
“Liz doesn’t seem all that unhappy to me.”
“That’s because you’re looking at it from the outside.”
“Do you think she was happy with Sebastian?”
“Happy? I don’t know. I think she liked her life, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as being happy, you know?”
That was an interesting way to look at it. Cleo had liked being a reporter, but her old boss at The Sun hadn’t tried to talk her out of resigning because he’d thought she wasn’t happy there. He wasn’t that far off. She’d wanted more from them—more responsibility, more trust . . . just more.
“Are you happy, Willa?”
She paused as though she had to think about it. “No, but I’m working on it.”
“Oh?”
Color rose in Willa’s cheeks.
“Is there someone in your life?” Cleo felt incredibly self-centered. She’d never even thought to ask about what was going on with Willa except at the most superficial level.
“Not really in my life. Not yet anyway. But I’m hoping.” The hope was there in Willa’s smile. “If you know what I mean.”
Cleo couldn’t help smiling back. Willa deserved someone special in her life. “It sounds like you’re in that phase where you don’t want to jinx it by talking about it, so I won’t ask. Unless you want me to.”
She had to be satisfied with Willa’s cat-ate-the-canary smile, which was just as well because if she didn’t walk out the door in the next thirty seconds, she was going to be late.
Loretta lived southwest of downtown in an upscale suburban residential area. A pale blue Prius was parked in f
ront of the two-car garage of their two-story mission-style house. Cleo parked on the street.
She was nearly to the door when a pregnant woman opened the door.
The picture from The Word’s bio had been taken shortly before Loretta and Sebastian’s divorce, which made it ten years out of date, but even though Loretta was now in her mid-thirties and had cut her blonde hair into a short wedge, Cleo recognized her instantly. She wasn’t good at guesstimating the stages of pregnancy, but since flying wasn’t recommended in the final trimester, Cleo figured she wasn’t ready to pop any time soon.
“Oh my,” Loretta said, her fingertips pressed against her lips as she took Cleo in. “You look so much like your mother.”
It was clearly meant as a compliment, so Cleo said, “Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”
Loretta led her into the living room. “I wouldn’t normally talk to the press, and I certainly wouldn’t talk to a tabloid, but Candy said she talked to you, and you were nice to her. My experience with the media is that they’re usually not.”
“We can get a little tunnel visioned when we’re on a story,” Cleo said as she took a seat on the couch.
Still standing, Loretta looked down at her. “Is that what you call it when you stick a microphone in someone’s face right after they’ve lost a loved one and ask them how it feels?”
Cleo winced. That was the single worst question a reporter could ask, but she saw it on the nightly news on a regular basis. Every time, she hoped the answer would be, “How do you think it feels, you dumb shit?” And maybe it was some of the time, but they never aired it.
She met Loretta’s gaze. “On behalf of reporters everywhere, you have my heartfelt apologies.”
Loretta’s lips tightened for a moment, but then relaxed. “Thank you.”
“When’s your due date?” Cleo asked as Loretta settled in a chair at the end of the coffee table.
“Three months from today.” She smiled that beatific smile common to pregnant women who were enamored with their condition.
There were framed pictures of two pre-teenage boys on the end table beside Cleo. She picked one up. He was a good looking kid with sandy hair and a mischievous smile. “Not your first, I take it?”
“My first,” Loretta said. “Those are my husband’s boys from his first marriage.”
“You must be very excited then,” Cleo said.
Loretta rubbed her belly, her smile conveying her satisfaction.
“A boy or a girl?” Cleo asked.
“A girl, much to my husband’s delight. I don’t care myself, as long as she’s healthy.” Loretta looked at her for a long moment. “I won’t ask why you’re working for a tabloid, but I read your story about the border. It was insightful and honest, so I’m going to trust your integrity.”
Something in Cleo’s chest warmed. And then wilted. How could she claim integrity when she was looking for any justification to run home to The Sun when Alec and Nigel trusted she was working for them?
“Honey?” a male voice called from another room.
“Excuse me a moment.” Loretta hoisted herself out of the chair and disappeared down a hallway. A minute later, she reappeared with a tall, sandy haired man who looked like a grownup version of the boys in the picture.
He gave Cleo a nod of acknowledgement and said to his wife, “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, then we’ll go to dinner.”
“Fabulous,” Loretta said.
He bent his head to kiss her goodbye then gave her belly a possessive rub, and walked out the front door. Cleo’s heart pinched at the picture of domestic bliss.
Before Loretta could sit down again, a mechanical bleat sounded from another room.
“Hang on a sec,” Loretta said and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later, she was back with a large laundry basket full of clothes fresh from the drier. She set the basket between the chair and the couch and grabbed a fistful of socks, threw them on the coffee table and started sorting pairs.
“Would you like some help?” Cleo asked.
“Knock yourself out.” She shoved the pile at Cleo and started folding T-shirts.
“How do you like the socks folded?” Cleo asked.
Loretta picked out a pair and showed her.
“When did you hear about Sebastian?” Cleo asked as she folded her first pair.
“Candy called us yesterday morning. She didn’t want me getting blindsided when I got home.” Loretta’s lips twitched. “On one level, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
“How so?”
“Not many men can survive five marriages unscathed. Although, a week ago, if you’d told me Sebastian would be murdered, I’d have assumed Liz shot him.”
“I’ve heard their marriage was volatile.” Hearing herself use the same word the prosecutor had used to characterize Annaliese’s relationship to Sebastian, Cleo cringed inwardly.
Loretta smiled as though privately amused. “That’s an apt description.” She grabbed a sock and pawed through the pile, looking for its mate. “His marriage to Liz surprised me. For all it looked like a screaming match at times, she was good for him. She kept him on his toes. He was never complacent about her.”
“She claims they were talking about reconciling,” Cleo said. “She says they had dinner last week to celebrate their anniversary.”
The amused smile appeared again. “He remembered their anniversary? Hm. I wonder if Bales reminded him or if he’s still using the trick I taught him.”
“Trick?” Cleo prompted.
“He forgot our first anniversary. We had a big fight about it, although I don’t know why I was surprised. When he was married to Samantha, he would have forgotten every anniversary, every birthday, every Valentine’s Day, if I hadn’t reminded him. I even bought the gifts he gave her. But somehow it’s different when it’s you. After I calmed down, I made sure the date was in front of him every day. He never forgot again.”
Cleo leaned forward. “How did you do that?”
Loretta discarded the lone sock for a pair of black socks and folded them together with a practiced hand. “Now that would be telling.”
“You’ve known all the wives,” Cleo said. “Including Samantha. They were married a long time. What happened there?”
“Who really knows what happens in someone else’s marriage? On the surface, they looked fine. Not soulmates maybe, but as good as most marriages. Sebastian fooled around, but I don’t think that was news, even to her.” Loretta picked up a T-shirt to fold. “He was in his forties; the kids were raised and in college. Maybe it was a midlife crisis. Maybe she was tired of being married to a workaholic. Or maybe after struggling for years to get where they wanted to be, the brass ring wasn’t as fulfilling as they expected.”
“Five marriages. Why do you think he kept doing it?”
“I think he kept hoping he’d find the right woman, but no woman could live up to what he hoped for. Even though he picked good women, it was never quite what he wanted it to be.” Then she made a face. “And they were all good women. Well, except for Liz.”
“I thought you said she was good for him.”
“She is. She was. That doesn’t mean I like her. I don’t know anyone who does.”
“Nancy Bales seems to get along with her.” Cleo reached for another sock.
“Oh, you should know better.” She laughed. “You can’t trust her. Nancy has delusions about her place in Sebastian’s life. She thinks she’s indispensable, but I had that job before she did. I know better.”
“Do you think she wanted to marry him?”
“I don’t know it for a fact, but I suspect it’s true.” The socks were done. Loretta pulled out a wadded-up sheet. “Want to help with this?”
They stood in front of the coffee table as Loretta found the four corners. She passed two of them to Cleo.
“I know he wanted to replace her.” Loretta snapped her wrists, and the sheet did a rolling billow down its length to Cleo’s hands. The fab
ric settled into straight lines, and they each brought two corners together for a lengthwise fold.
“What?” That was news to Cleo. Not even Willa seemed to think Sebastian was unhappy with Bales.
That amused smile was back on Loretta’s face as they folded the sheet in half lengthwise. “He asked me to come back to work for him.”
“When was this?”
“About a month ago.” They folded again.
“And you turned him down?”
“Christopher’s not a particularly jealous man, but me working for my ex-husband? No. He’d have had a fit.”
“You weren’t tempted?”
They stepped toward each other. Loretta caught the corners Cleo held and finished folding the sheet. “Not even a little. Even if I didn’t love my husband, which I do, I love my job at the Hilton. Too much of working for Sebastian involved coordinating his women.”
“Was Annaliese one of the women back then?”
“Yes, but I never had to juggle her. You know how they were.”
“I know how I saw them, but I’m not sure how others viewed them,” Cleo said as Loretta set the folded sheet on the table.
“If I had to pick a word, I’d say”—one side of Loretta’s mouth tilted while she considered—“casual, I suppose.” She pulled another sheet from the basket and sorted out the corners. “They enjoyed each other, but she never had any delusions about being the woman in his life. I didn’t have to make excuses with her. If he had time for her, great, but she wasn’t waiting by the phone for him to call.”
“So you never thought she wanted to marry him?”
Loretta laughed as she handed Cleo one end of the sheet and they started folding. “Marry him? Oh lord, no. She’s too much of a free spirit. They’d have killed each other the first week.” Her hands paused in mid-motion and her eyes widened. “I don’t mean literally.”
