by Kristi Lea
“Don't worry, Jess. The judge cannot possibly order them handed over, either. Charles left them out of his will on purpose.”
She sank down into a faded mauve chair and focused on breathing. Even that seemed hard right now. The robbery this week. The FBI search. And now this. “They don't believe me, do they? They think I still have that necklace?”
“It would seem so, yes. I suggest you keep those guards of yours close by until they can be convinced otherwise.”
Chapter 3
“Are you ready?”
Jess's hands shook as she smoothed the same lock of hair for the fifth time. “Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. Your cue is coming.” Lindsay pulled a robe off the hook on the back of the door.
Jess took a deep shuddering breath and turned around on the small dressing room stool. She slipped her feet into a pair of purple jeweled high-heeled slippers and gave the matching satin corset top a tug. Her knees felt wobbly and her palms were icy and damp. She still hated going out on stage. “Do I look OK?”
“If you're going for the wild-west-brothel meets the Easter bunny look, yes.”
Jess cracked a half smile. “It’s a lingerie show. I think that is exactly the look they were going for.” She shook her hips, making the fur-trimmed chiffon skirt rustle.
“And don't even think of asking me if your butt looks fat. You don't pay me enough for that.” Lindsay cracked a wry smile. “You sold out the show, you know that?
Jessica had accepted the invitation to walk the runway to raise money for breast cancer research last month. That was before the news about Brandon's lawsuit hit the tabloids. Before the robbery. Before she had scores of paparazzi blocking her sidewalks, cramming microphones in her face and cameras up her skirt every time she left the house. The organizers of the charity fashion show were thrilled with all the free publicity. Jessica's agent was beyond ecstatic.
“I'm happy for them.” The words sounded flat. She was happy that the event would be a success and that the charity would make a lot of money. She just wished that she didn't feel like puking. She tied the sash around her waist and drew the collar in close around her neck.
In the hallway, Tony waited to walk with them the rest of the way. Lindsay had been introduced as Jessica's personal assistant and had grudgingly agreed to fetch a few water bottles and pretend to consult with Jess's agent on potential future appearances. She was the grouchiest assistant that Jess had ever worked with.
Loud music thumped from the stage as they approached the wings. Volunteers in pink t-shirts scurried about with iPads, cans of hairspray, and bits of lace and fabric. Jess caught a few sideways glances, but between Tony's girth and Lindsay's frown, no one approached them.
Her knees nearly buckled as they reached the curtain. You've done this before, she told herself.
Before she could psych herself out any further, she stripped off the robe and tossed it at a waiting attendant. She lifted her chin, sucked in her abs, and set her facial expression.
Time to work.
***
Noah rested with his back against the exit door to the right of the stage, arms crossed over his black t-shirt that read SECURITY in hot pink letters across his chest, and scanned the faces in the crowd. One of his buddies ran the private security firm that was working the fashion show, so it had not taken long to pull a few strings and get himself into a prime location.
Cole had no luck all week finding the jeweler who had crafted the fake Hearst necklace. The shop had been closed for several years and the employees listed in the IRS files had all turned out to be either fictitious or long lost. Not that it proved anything. Buying a piece of jewelry from a scam artist was hardly a crime.
Thompson's last report on the LAPD side of the investigation was looking equally grim. There were dozens of sets of employee fingerprints to sift through, and hundreds of images lifted from walls and doorknobs, windows, and furniture. It would take weeks at best before they might find leads. If the thief was stupid enough to go without gloves.
Noah's boss had been putting the pressure on him to make some progress in the money laundering side. The investigation had started almost four years ago under another agent. At that time, they were looking into allegations of extortion against that Charles Kingsbury. At least two—likely more—prominent businessmen were conducting extramarital affairs with adult film stars. Very young adult film stars. Kingsbury cashed in on the gossip. Allegedly.
It was a ridiculous case of the pot blackmailing the kettle given that Charles Kingsbury was, at the time, newly married to a former Playboy Playmate less than half his age.
By the time the files got dumped on Noah's desk, the case had morphed into an attempt to unravel the complicated money laundering scheme that had purportedly hidden all of the blackmail proceeds. At the same time, Jessica hit the media spotlight for carrying on her own extramarital affair with a Senator. And Kingsbury was diagnosed with colon cancer.
Noah had thought that the case would be round-filed once the old man passed away, but his boss had other ideas. His exact words were, “We have spent over three-thousand man-hours on this case. I want to see someone's ass in jail or your ass will be on the streets.”
Instead, Noah's ass had spent months in an office chair reading financial reports and flipping through newspaper clippings detailing every sordid minute of Jessica Kingsbury's life, down to her bra size (34 D), her preferred coffee drink (a skim decaf caramel macchiato with whip), and the fact that she didn't seem to exist before arriving, penniless and alone, in LA at age 19. Like too many other girls, she landed her back but was good enough—or lucky enough—for her career to lead her to lingerie catalogs, then Playboy, then to Charles Kingsbury, and now to the Kodak Theater to parade around in her underwear for half the world to see.
It was a step up from her previous “modeling” career.
The music changed and the audience seemed to hold its breath as she stepped onto the stage. Beautiful. Confident. Her hair glowed with an ethereal light. Her breasts were bound tightly by her corset, their full rounds thrusting upwards as if attempting to escape. And she was all but naked from the waist down.
He tried to keep his eyes on the crowd. Damnit, he was there to work, not to gawk.
She reached the front of the runway and struck a jaunty pose.
Only a tiny scrap of fabric covered her sex in the front, and when she pivoted, he could see tight ass cheeks unhindered by her thong, and made even more alluring by the little see-through skirt that covered them.
They needed to give this case to someone else. To a woman, or a eunuch with the libido of an avocado. He licked his parched lips. Tried to keep his thoughts from drifting back to shapely thighs. To that dimple that called attention to her lips when she smiled. It was harder than it should have been.
As was he.
It didn't help that the first three quarters of his research material came from her modeling portfolio—if you could call a collection of adult toy catalogs, nudie magazines, and the cover shots for a few porn flicks a portfolio. There were media clippings and an electronic copy of a poor quality sex video taken by some boyfriend from before she got famous. He had declined to watch that.
The last quarter of the file showed a much more subdued version of her. A beautiful young woman, happily on the arm of her much-older husband, looking more like a California socialite than a porn star.
He didn't blame Kingsbury. She made a gorgeous trophy.
Like many of the super-rich, the pair seemed to give a lot of their money away and attended a lot of formal dinner parties for their trouble. For the last couple of months before her husband died, Jessica was photographed beside his motorized wheelchair, holding his hand and leaning down to whisper in his ear. She was the picture of a devoted wife.
Those were the pictures that Noah liked best. She looked so real. The press liked to emphasize the circles under her eyes, or the unflattering sweats she frequently wore accompanying her husb
and to his chemotherapy sessions. Noah couldn’t really explain why those photos spoke to him more than the sexy ones. She looked like hell. She looked sad and weary. In all of the earlier photos, she had kept her emotions under tight control, showing only what she wanted the camera to show. But in the last months before her husband died, she wore her heart on her sleeve for the entire world to see.
He breathed a sigh of relief as her curvy little butt disappeared behind the curtain and the audience stood to cheer. As the house lights went up, his radio squawked an alarm.
“--backstage NOW. Kingsbury Greenroom.”
Jessica.
His heart raced as he pictured some overly excited fan surprising her in her dressing room, or the media bursting through the velvet ropes to run her down.
He wasn't sure whether the call was intended for him or someone else, but he went running anyway.
He found the stairs leading to the dressing rooms with ease. It was cutting through the crowds of people gathered outside that was the problem. Men and women in various stages of dress—from lingerie to business suits—milled about in a dense thicket of half-dressed and sweaty flesh. As he shouldered through them, he caught only snippets of their conversations.
“--poor thing.”
“--ging there. Gross.”
“Don't they check ID's here--”
“--what she deserved. Did you know she--”
Noah finally reached the front and found half a dozen other guards wearing the same black-and-pink t-shirts standing shoulder to shoulder blocking the view down the hall.
The one in front said, “Hey, you’re supposed to stay out front by the stage. The cops will be here soon. We don't need gawkers.”
Noah didn't know the guy talking and had only met a couple of the others today, but he still bristled at the dismissive tone. “What’s going on?”
“Look, man. Don't worry. Go back and watch the doors, OK?”
Noah reached into his back pocket and pulled out his badge. “I am a federal agent.”
The guard stared at it for a moment, and then at Noah. “Whoa. Sorry. You doing some kind of undercover stuff here tonight?”
Noah shook his head. “Just let me by.”
He yanked out his cell and dialed. The phone answered right away. “Cole, this is Noah. Send someone over to the theater, pronto.”
“Uniformed or plainclothes?”
“Either. Both. Don't step on any LAPD toes, though. They should be responding as well.”
“Whatever you say. What happened?”
“I will let you know when I find out.” He clicked off and rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Jessica's goon stood like a wall across the corridor. Bobby? Mario? Something Italian. He looked Noah up and down.
“Pink is your color, Grayson.”
Noah cracked a half smile. “You remember me?”
The guy tapped his temple with a thick finger. “Photographic memory. How was the view from the west side of the stage?”
So much for looking inconspicuous. Noah shrugged. “Not a bad way to see a sold-out show. I bet a big guy like you could pick up all kinds of off-hours work.”
The man did not look amused. “This ain't a federal case, agent. You can go back to your spy games now.”
Noah blew out a breath and motioned toward the dressing room door hidden behind the human meatshield. “Mind if I take a look?”
“She told me to wait for the cops, not the feds. So yeah, I mind.” The man stared him down, which was no mean feat given Noah's five-eleven height. Hell, he'd even played college football, briefly, but this guy was big enough to use Noah as the ball.
He was beginning to hope the cops showed up soon.
“It's all right, Tony. Let him through.”
Jessica.
Her hair was mussed and she was wrapped in an oversized terry cloth robe that presumably covered her runway costume--or lack thereof. She looked like she’d just climbed out of bed. His bed. He could picture it: making her coffee and scrambled eggs while she relaxed in his bathrobe, reading the paper at his breakfast table. Not that a woman like Jessica Kingsbury would ever set foot in his tiny, grungy house. Not that a woman like Jessica Kingsbury would ever go for a normal, non-rich, non-famous guy like him.
Not that he had any business even thinking about Jessica Kingsbury as anything other than the target of his investigation.
She inclined her head. “You might as well come have a look. After all, you've seen the rest of my private life. Why stop there?”
She had honeyed her words, but there was a shaky undertone to it. Her face was pale beneath the exaggerated stage makeup and her pupils dilated despite the harsh fluorescent hallway lighting.
Her eyes raked over him boldly almost hungrily, hesitating briefly on the word on his chest while a smirk played around the corners of her full-lipped mouth. “New uniform?”
He felt his temples grow warm under her scrutiny.
“I hope you aren't a sucker for animal rights.” She opened the dressing room door.
Chapter 4
The stench in the dressing room was like something out of a seedy pet store, minus the pine air freshener.
A rabbit dangled by its twisted neck from the ceiling in the center of the room, its eyes bulging and its tongue swollen and dripping with blood. Blood wasn't the only mammalian bodily fluid staining the waxed concrete floor.
Noah covered his mouth and nose with the neckline of his t-shirt while he scanned the rest of the room, automatically cataloging details for later. There were a few odds and ends of makeup scattered along the vanity top, and a small wheeled suitcase in one corner. Hooks on the wall held articles of clothing and a pair of women's sneakers sat under them. There were no footprints, bloody or otherwise, on the floor.
“Has anyone else been in here?”
“I got a few steps in before I saw it.” Jessica's voice was definitely shaky now, and she looked miserable. She stood back in the hall where she probably couldn't see much of the dead bunny.
He stepped back into the hallway and yanked the door shut. “We don't need to smell that.”
That helped contain it a little, but the hallway still reeked like an open sewer.
She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms around her waist as if she was cold. Or nauseous. She gave him a timid smile that looked incongruous next to the daring lingerie top that peeked around the edges of the oversized robe. “Sorry about any fingerprints. But you already have mine on file from the robbery last week.”
He shrugged. “Forensics always figures that out for us. Has anyone else been in there? Is anything missing?”
“It doesn't look like it, but I didn't exactly go count the pennies in my purse.”
“Right.”
She raised one eyebrow at him. “Shouldn't you be writing all this down?”
“No paper. Besides, the cops are on their way. They will take care of it.”
Her eyes flew wide in confusion for a moment. She glanced down at his chest, and then back up to his face. “You’re not with the cops?”
Noah squared his shoulders, a sick feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. For a moment she had almost seemed relieved to see him. But that moment was now gone.
“Are you even here on FBI business?”
He took a quick breath and exhaled it. Here it comes. “Yes.”
“The business of someone breaking into my dressing room and threatening me?”
He seized on her words to derail this freight-train of a conversation. “Did you receive a threat as well as that prank?”
She seemed to shrink down into herself a little bit at that. “I guess it could just be a prank, but...”
He waited. Something in the tone of her voice told him that she was not just a little bit rattled by the dead animal. She was a lot rattled. He stepped directly in front of her, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. “But what? Did someone threaten you?”
“Didn't you see it?” Her eyes glan
ced nervously over her shoulder back towards the door as if expecting the rabbit to come hopping out.
“It looks like a horrible prank to me.”
She nodded. “That's what I thought too. Until I saw the doll necklace wrapped around the rabbit's neck.”
***
The E! Cameraman walked a slow circle around Jess as she posed, breasts out, hip cocked, and a flirty smile plastered to her face. The huge lobby where the afterparty was being held was freezing despite the crush of bodies, and she could feel her nipples puckered underneath the satiny fabric of her corset top.
“Is tonight a sign of things to come? Will we be seeing more of you around town?” The reporter shoved an overly-large microphone in her face.
Jess took a deceptively long sip of her pink margarita before answering. The flavor reminded her of cough syrup.
“Oh, absolutely. I can't tell you how much I've missed the nightlife. These are delicious. Have you tried one?” She allowed the liquid to slosh a bit over the rim, giggled, and then sucked the drips off her fingers.
The distraction maneuver was totally lost on the female reporter. “What can you tell us about the robbery last week?”
Jess waived her free hand dismissively. “Oh that. Don't worry about me. Those wonderful young men from the police department tell me that they are close to cracking the case.”
“Does that mean they have a suspect?”
Jess raised her eyebrows and made a slight Oh with her lips. “Umm...I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about that.”
Did she sound tipsy? Dear God she hoped so. This was the millionth person to ask her the same set of questions tonight. She would give a thousand bucks for a nice, straightforward come-on, a lewd suggestion, or a hotel key slipped down her top. Those she knew how to deal with.
Those didn't remind her of that dead animal in the dressing room, or the drawing left in her studio. She lifted the glass to her lips again, ignoring the churning of her stomach. At least the reporter took a step back this time.
