“Who wouldn’t love knowing how much booze it takes to get women to give up their dignity and self-respect?” she said. “Do they at least get plastic beads out of the deal?”
“Yeah, right,” Eve said with a laugh, but Brody could see Jillian was disgusted. Had she always been sarcastic or was it worse now?
“Maybe the drink-off is too much with the bikini contest,” he said to Eve. “Maybe save it for another show?”
“What’s wrong with you? You were pissed when I couldn’t get it to happen on the last shoot.”
“We do a lot of T and A. You said yourself we need variety.” He glanced at Jillian, hoping she was pleased by his concession, but she was looking into the distance, not even paying attention. What the hell was wrong with her?
“You’re acting all weird,” Eve said, staring at him as if he might have chicken pox. “Too much alone time,” she declared.
“Don’t worry about me, Eve.” He felt a spike of annoyance—at Eve for watching him like a hawk and Jillian for making him self-conscious about his show.
He loved Doctor Nite, even if he wanted to move on. Boob flashing might be trashy, but it was popular. It was his job to use trends, not judge them.
“Let’s go with both for now,” Eve said. “We can edit it out if we need to. We’ve already got a gap in the schedule. Tomorrow is more or less free. Maybe I’ll bump our flights up a day.”
“Leave it, Eve,” Brody said. “We need a break.”
Some alone time away from the shoot might help him and Jillian. At least he hoped it would. She was acting strange and he had no clue what to do about it.
“You want a break?” Eve demanded.
“JJ, too,” he said. “This is your old stomping ground, right?” She’d mentioned a friend from her old job she wanted to see. “You’d probably like some free time to relax.” With me, he meant and he could see the idea catch and hold in her eyes.
“Some time would be good.” She looked at him with relief, as if she suddenly remembered who he was and what they’d meant to each other in bed.
She looked so good to him. Light made her eyes shine and streaked her hair with gold. She’d worn it down, the way he liked. He wanted to pull her into his arms and reassure them both this would all work out just fine.
“I’ll try to come up with something to do,” Eve said, ignoring them both. “Maybe the male escort segment will lead to a follow-up.”
“So that’s a go?” he asked. That had been one of the problems Eve had to come early to sort out.
“Yep. The top gigolo has agreed to tell you his secrets for pleasing the ladies. Like you need that. You could give him lessons.” She pretended to jab him with her elbow. Come on, Brody, be your old self.
“It’s not sex, though, right? They just talk.” He wanted Jillian to know it wasn’t sleazy. She’d become an uptight voice in his head, ragging at him about stuff he never worried about before.
“Supposedly not,” Eve said. “The clients are women too busy to date. The gigolos cozy up on the couch with champagne and roses and they dish about the boss, the kids, the ex, the latest shoe sale at Nordstrom’s, whatever. These guys have to be gay. What straight man gives a hang about shoes?”
“Not me. I swear.” Brody held up his hands.
“Personally, I don’t get the women,” Eve continued. “If you need to talk, pay a shrink or do two-for-one margs with a girlfriend. Use a man for what he’s good for. Right, JJ?”
“Huh?” Jillian blinked, as if startled by the question.
“We use men just like they use us, right?”
“We do? I mean, I guess.” Jillian swallowed, then shot Brody a quick glance. She looked…guilty. What? She thought she’d used him? That was weird. Nobody had used anybody in that bed last night. It had been totally real, totally personal and completely from the heart. At least for him.
What was going on in her head? He had to know. He needed to get her alone, away from the show, and ask her, tell her what he was feeling, and together they’d figure out what to do about it.
Like a punch in the gut, it hit him that he was about to say the words he taught men to run from: We have to talk.
At this rate, he wouldn’t have to quit—he’d get fired as a traitor to the show, his fans and his entire sex.
12
“WE APPRECIATE your taking the time to meet with us, Mr. Donegan,” Ryan Jeffers said. We and us made it sound as though there was a whole investigative team at work when it was just Jeffers and Brody in a back table at the lobby bar.
“Whatever I can do to help,” Brody said, sipping his beer. Jeffers hadn’t touched a drop of the coffee he’d ordered.
He’d asked for a rundown on the Xanadu incident, then took copious notes on a leather-bound legal pad. “And you say Madden wasn’t registered at the hotel?”
Brody shook his head.
“And he hasn’t contacted you since then?”
“No. Madden hasn’t returned my call. Bascom, either, for that matter. Supposedly, he treats all constituent concerns as valuable, so I have to assume he’s avoiding me.”
“Okay. Thanks. Now we need you to verify the man’s identity.” He took a folded paper from the flap beside his notepad. It was a gray, blurry photocopy of a driver’s license. “Was this the man you gave the DVD to?”
Brody was startled to see that though the name on the license was Lars Madden, the photo was of Meathead. “That’s the guy who stole the briefcase.”
“Really?” Jeffers looked at the picture, as if that would answer his question, then up at Brody. “You’re sure?”
“I’d recognize those beady eyes anywhere,” he said. “So, Meathead is Madden and my guy was pretending to be him?”
“That appears to be the case. This changes things. Describe the gentleman you met again.”
He went through the details: tall, thin, sweaty, rumpled, ill-fitting suit, scribbled name tag. “I thought it was odd his tag was handwritten, since I’d seen preprinted tags on other people at the convention. He rushed me out, too, acting nervous. Maybe he wanted to get out before the real Madden showed up.”
“Interesting…” Jeffers said. Brody could tell his mind was racing and Brody wanted in on his thoughts.
“So, who ordered the DVD from Kirk?” Brody asked. “The real Lars Madden or my imposter? I don’t think Kirk ever saw the guy. They talked over the phone. And who robbed Kirk, by the way? My guy or Madden or Bascom? Or someone else entirely?”
“Hold on,” Jeffers said, lifting his hand in a stop gesture. He gave a tight laugh. “How about you allow us to handle the investigation, Mr. Donegan?”
“I’d like to help if I can,” he said. “I’m already involved, remember? And I’ve got calls out to two of these clowns.”
“We appreciate the information you’ve provided us. Thanks to you, we know that someone besides Mr. Madden is involved.”
“Exactly. And he wanted just a copy, not the original footage. Why? And who is he, anyway?”
“We don’t know. We’ll have to discover that.” He tapped his pen on the pad, his eyes narrowed in thought. He looked upset.
“You know I told Kirk to make another copy. Maybe I should call my guy and offer to sell it to him.”
Jeffers stopped tapping. “Interesting.”
“I’d be happy to do that. It would be easy. I’ve got the number. He knows my voice.”
“We hesitate to involve civilians in our investigations,” Jeffers said, but he was clearly interested. The guy wasn’t a cop. He worked for a state agency.
“So I make a phone call, big deal. Maybe I meet with the guy, sell him the DVD. He knows me, after all.”
“A meeting’s out of the question. You could be in danger.”
“My guy wasn’t armed.”
“The situation may have escalated.”
Brody left that idea alone. “Is Kirk in any danger?”
“We don’t believe so, no. He’s away from his place, staying at a fr
iend’s. As a precaution, there are local police officers at his apartment….” He hesitated. He clearly had more to say. “Let me make a call,” he said, grabbing a cell phone from an inside jacket pocket. “Will you excuse me?”
Brody nodded, then drank his beer, watching Jeffers walk away, talking rapidly on the phone. No way was Brody leaving without knowing exactly what these guys were up to. He had to look out for Kirk’s interests, didn’t he? Besides, his crime writer instincts were fully engaged. He was loving this.
When Jeffers returned to the booth, he looked relieved. “As it turns out, Mr. Donegan, we would like you to call your contact. Flushing out the imposter may aid our investigation.”
“And what exactly are you investigating? Jed Bascom, I assume, but surely a lap dance and a couple lines of coke don’t concern the AG’s office.”
“That’s very astute of you, Mr. Donegan.” He played with his mug, shifting it back and forth on the table with his fingers. Then he lifted his gaze, trying to decide what to tell Brody.
“I’m part of the case, Ryan. I need to know what I’m getting into.”
“This case involves more than one jurisdiction, which makes the chain of command complex, but I don’t imagine there’s any harm in briefing you.”
“Good. Go.” Brody made a rolling gesture with his hands.
Jeffers leaned forward, looking eager to talk, like a guy at a party with a hot stock tip. “We believe that Mr. Bascom has been engaged in bid-rigging with some disreputable construction companies.”
“So he’s getting kickbacks?”
“That’s the least of it. You may recall the fire in a low-cost housing complex last year? Three hundred units burned to the ground. Ten people killed?”
“I remember that.”
“It was poor construction by firms in the back pockets of Bascom and others—legislators, judges and commissioners. We’ve had Mr. Bascom under surveillance for months. In fact, we believe he received a payoff at the party where Mr. Canter filmed him. We tried to witness this exchange, but your producer was quite militant about the guest list.” He spared a smile.
“Eve’s tough, that’s for sure.”
“Yes. So. We’ve been gathering evidence, but slowly. When Mr. Canter called about his burglary and mentioned your encounter with Lars Madden—who works security for Bascom, by the way—we were automatically contacted by the police. Of course we were eager to see the footage of the party.”
“Looking for the bribe handoff, right?”
“Yes, except it wasn’t there. If it took place that night, it happened away from the camera, we were sorry to discover.”
“So you can’t use the clip to prosecute him?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Does Bascom know you’re after him?”
“We don’t believe so, no. We think he wants Mr. Canter’s film because of the perceived damage to his reputation over his illicit activities at the party.”
“The stripper and the coke?”
“Exactly. So, assuming the bungled burglary will be repeated, we have set up a sting at Mr. Canter’s house, using a dummy hard drive, and we’ve gotten word to Bascom’s office through our contact there.”
“Okay, so why did Madden offer to buy a copy of the DVD in the first place?”
“You’re assuming it was Madden and not your imposter who placed that order.”
“True. Madden may have learned of the purchase and wanted to keep my guy from getting it. And why would my guy want a copy?”
“Good question. He could be with a competing candidate wanting to embarrass Bascom.”
“Or it could be blackmail.”
“Always possible.”
“Fake Madden must have been affiliated with the convention somehow, since he had a key to the hospitality suite. He wasn’t registered at the hotel. He had to know someone. Hmm.”
Jeffers cocked his head. “You’re thinking like a detective.”
“That’s the idea, I guess.” Maybe he wasn’t wrong to attempt a crime novel, after all. “Shall I call him now? Fake Madden? I have his number on my cell phone.”
“Yes. If he’s interested, tell him you’ll have the DVD delivered to him in L.A. and we’ll take it from there.”
“I can make the delivery. I’ll be in L.A. tomorrow.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time.”
“If you involve someone else, he’ll get suspicious.”
Jeffers studied him. “Let’s see how the man responds.” They talked over what he would say and Brody called the number—and got voice mail. Damn. He left a message saying he had another copy of the DVD if Madden wanted it and left his cell number.
“Good,” Jeffers said when he hung up. “The minute he calls back, call me. You may have to ad lib, depending on his reaction. Use your judgment. Lead him on, if you can. Meanwhile, we’ll get the word about a second copy to Bascom’s people. Thanks for your help, Mr. Donegan.”
“Call me Brody. We’re working together now. If there’s a handoff, I’ll do it.” He found the idea exhilarating and his writer’s mind was ticking away.
“Hopefully that won’t be necessary, Mr.—okay, Brody.” He shot him a quick grin. “I used to love your show, by the way.” He gulped his now-cold coffee.
“Used to?”
“Until I moved in with my girl. She hates it. She thinks my watching it means I secretly want to break up with her.”
“That’s a shame.” Poor guy. How could he let a woman control his cable habits? Talk about whipped. And the girl’s attitudes…so judgmental.
Kind of like Jillian, now that he thought about it. Hadn’t she more or less called him a sexist ass from the moment they met? But she’d been joking, right?
Still, he felt uneasy. Would he end up like this sad guy, watching every word for fear it might offend her feminine sensibilities? Jillian didn’t strike him as the bitch type, but women changed once they had you in their grip.
He’d ask her about this when they were together for the day.
Oh, and how would that go, Brody?
So, Jillian, you’re not going to turn into a raving bitch once we get together, right? Oh, yeah. That would work just great.
WITH A FEW HOURS of free time before the San Diego shoot was to start, Jillian went straight to her room to work on her rough cut for We Women. Before the flight here, she’d slugged in the women interviews. She still had to slip in the Brody segments. She wasn’t sure it was worth the trouble, but she might as well see what she had.
She stripped out of her clothes, donned her robe and got busy. Opening the clip files, she noticed the secret footage she’d forgotten to delete—their first kiss, the foot massage, the oral lovemaking.
She was glad she still had it. Maybe watching it would help her see more clearly. Her heart jumping in her chest, she cued the footage and began to watch. The light was dim, but she could see their expressions as Brody murmured that she wasn’t really crew and they kissed. She turned out to be the one who’d eaten up the last inch between them and pressed her lips to Brody.
Watching their mouths press together aroused her so much she began to squirm in her chair. She skimmed forward to the beginning of the foot rub, where they’d bantered about marriage and Brody had claimed he would have been all over her in high school. His hands slid up her shins, she pointed out he was no longer rubbing her feet. Do you want me to stop? he asked and she answered him by opening her knees to him.
Wow. She sat there and watched herself climax, stunned and aroused, and so embarrassed her ears burned. Her hands were trembling, her breathing was ragged and she felt woozy.
No way could she watch Brody go down on her, so she stopped the clip and put her head down until she quit feeling faint. Wow. At least it was clear how they’d ended up in bed together.
She moved on to the first official interview with Brody. It was fine, but nothing We Women would squeal over. The most controversial element was the bit about him being a role mod
el for teens, but he’d handled that smoothly.
She clicked onto the dating tips interview. He was completely Doctor Nite, of course, his tone cocky and bold and offhand. Tonight she would shoot him getting women drunk enough to bare their breasts to him, then licking whipped-cream bikinis off their bodies, accompanied by male hoots and wolf calls.
The contrast between the warm, open man who wanted a loving relationship like his parents and the guy who cooked up lascivious stunts to amuse drunken fans troubled her.
Which was the real Brody?
Then she reached the part where Brody gave his number one dating tip, his tone soft, his expression hot with desire for her. He told his fans to turn off Doctor Nite and find a woman who made them laugh and think, who lit them up inside.
Could she be that woman for Brody? He was quitting the show, after all. He wanted to change. He was better than Doctor Nite.
Her heart swelled with hope and emotion. Love? It couldn’t be love. Not in so short a time, no matter how intense.
She had to reassure herself that she hadn’t imagined what was between them, that there was more going on than the head-on collision of her lust and his turning point. She had to see him. Right now. He was surely back from meeting with the investigator.
She tightened the belt on her robe, grabbed her ice bucket as a joking reminder of that first night together, and padded barefoot down the hall, anticipating Brody’s happy surprise when he saw her.
Except when she rounded the corner on his hall, she was startled to see twin blondes in spike heels and minidresses knocking at his door.
Maybe it was a mistake.
Except the door opened, the first girl said something and Brody let them in.
Jillian felt suddenly ill. Were they fans or friends? Distant cousins? College pals? Please. Those women hadn’t trotted over here in spike heels and tiny dresses to chat about old times. She put two and two together and came up with a three-way.
Why not? This was normal behavior for Doctor Nite when he had a free hour on his hands. Brody had warned her he didn’t know what he was doing, that he had no business sleeping with Jillian. Now he was proving it.
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