by Maggie Marr
He pressed his body into hers and kissed her.
Their lips met. Her body melded to his as her hips pressed forward, asking for more of him. Her lips yielded to him and his tongue slipped into her mouth and entwined hers.
Heat rumbled through his body. His muscles twitched with the deep pull of want from her body pressed against his. He wanted to back her into her home, carry her upstairs, and bury his cock deep within her. Instead Rush pulled away from her. He took one step back while his hand remained entangled in her hair.
“I want to see you again,” Rush breathed out.
Her body trembled with the kiss and the words. Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird pinned by a cat.
“That would be nice,” Nikki whispered.
She pushed on her door and backed into the house. Her hand found the light switch to her right. Her gaze was still locked onto Rush when the lights flipped on. While his face didn’t move, she had to see the shock in his eyes. Shock at what lay behind Nikki and inside the front door of her home.
*
Nikki and Christina’s town house was tossed. Rush had seen a place wrecked before—many—but whoever had destroyed this place had intent. Intent in the form of a jagged knife. White fluffs of stuffing from pillow cushions decorated the floor like tumbleweeds. Ragged rips had been cut through the purple suede couch. Books from shelves lay like shot birds, facedown on the floor. There wasn’t a spot in the place that hadn’t been handled. Even the leftover ash from some long-ago February fire in the fireplace had been raked through and left in a giant pile on the hardwood floor.
“Oh my God,” Nikki said. Her eyes widened and her fingertips covered her mouth. Her fear-filled eyes flicked from the ruin of her home to Rush. “Christina? Oh my God, Christina!”
“Stay here,” Rush said, his voice quiet. He picked his way over the shattered glass and scattered books. Past the overturned dining room table to the stairs. He kept his back to the wall and swiftly glided up the steps.
Both bedroom doors were ajar. His fingertips pushed open the door to Christina’s room. The mattress was tilted over on its side. The clothes from her dresser were dumped across the floor. Rush moved toward the walk-in closet. He pushed open the door to find the room empty but for the clothes and hangers scattered across the floor. The bathroom cabinets had been emptied onto the floor, but Christina wasn’t there.
“Rush!” Nikki yelled. He turned and bolted to the stairs.
Nikki stood at the bottom of the steps with her phone pressed to her ear. “Christina’s safe.” Her hand clutched her heart. She turned away from him and spoke into the phone.
Rush descended the stairs as Nikki pressed the Off button on her phone.
Her skin was translucent, the color drained by fear. Her fingertips danced on her bottom lip—she hadn’t bitten her pink nails yet, but nail-biting looked to be a long-ago habit she was considering beginning again tonight. Her eyes bounced up from the broken bits of her life scattered across her living room floor and caught Rush’s.
“We need to call the police,” Rush said. “And your family.” A tightness balled in his back.
Her eyes were still wide with shock and surprise. “We can’t call my aunt.” She shook her head as she picked her way over the remnants of her life. “She’d come here and she doesn’t need this—not again, not now.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand.
Rush had to share this with Ted. Nikki hadn’t connected the dots—not yet. There wasn’t enough fear in her eyes. But when she did… when she sorted out what Rush suspected, that the Schmaltzer homicide and this break-in might be connected, might be the same person… a person with big, jagged knives and guns, and that this bad, well-armed person hadn’t been after Jeb Schmaltzer at all, but had in fact been after her… Then—then there would be a multitude of fear in Nikki Solange’s beautiful blue eyes.
“What if…,” she whispered; she barely had air to speak.
She struggled with the thought. The thought she didn’t want to acknowledge, didn’t want to entertain, the thought that would cause fear to be her constant companion. “What if…” She forced another breath into and then out of her lungs.
Rush stepped forward, aware that the idea was formulating and taking hold within Nikki. An idea wedged beside a hard cold fear.
“What if tonight wasn’t random?” Nikki whispered. Her eyes sought reassurance from him that she was wrong.
Rush looked into her eyes. There was a strength that hovered around the fear. He didn’t need to sugarcoat these events for her.
“Oh my God, Rush.” Nikki looked up from the tattered and torn mess of her living room. “What if the person who did this is the same person who killed Jeb?”
Chapter 27
Pistachios and Back Hair
“Lydia, explain to me why Nikki Solange is meeting JP Anderson without me?” Bikram bellowed into his Bluetooth.
Liam pressed a hot towel onto the angry red welts that appeared each time the tiny Ukrainian woman ripped a piece of cloth from BAM’s wax-covered back. Liam would have gladly traded places with the blond-headed mistress of hair. Oh, to inflict that pain onto BAM would cause euphoria to course through Liam. He loved the ripping sound of the cloth stripping away BAM’s skin and the hair that came up with it. Giddiness tingled through Liam’s limbs with each of BAM’s grunts. The giant, foot-long welts were glorious to behold.
“I don’t give a fuck, Lydia, who owns the script.” BAM gurgled. He tried to press himself up, but the tiny Ukrainian woman smacked BAM on the back of his head.
Liam nearly wet himself with joy. BAM’s tirade over JP Anderson requiring a meeting alone with Nikki Solange, the infliction of pain upon BAM, the nearly massive coronary BAM had when he discovered the meeting he’d not been invited to, plus his continued lust for Liam’s pistachios—all of these events provided Liam with enough pleasure to endure BAM.
“Lydia, if she fucks up this meeting, so help me I will kick some major ass.” A low, bubbly sound of pain exited with BAM’s next breath as he waited for Lydia’s response to his threat. “What?” With the surge of red in BAM’s face, Liam nearly wished he was chained to his desk as he nearly always was so he could hear how Lydia Albright was speaking to BAM. “What did you say to me?”
What could BAM do? His fears were justified—BAM had just barely gotten a foothold back into the world of mainstream entertainment and it would be so simple for Worldwide and Nikki to shove the beast that was BAM off the film.
Poor Nikki. Liam didn’t believe the pretty little girl had the “drill them, then kill them” mentality necessary to outmaneuver BAM. However, she did have Cici Solange for an aunt and Ted Robinoff for an uncle and those two things were more than enough to terrify BAM, especially when JP had mentioned during their phone conversation earlier in the day that he wanted to meet this Nikki Solange. He’d heard good things—no, great things—when it came to Nikki’s development of material.
Oops. A smile crept across Liam’s lips. Perhaps it had been Liam who let JP’s assistant know that it wasn’t BAM who’d sculpted the script to its current state of perfection, but was in fact Nikki who’d guided the rest-in-peace Jeb Schmaltzer to develop the script (and who knew for sure what else) into the piece of beauty that had attracted Cici Solange.
No, BAM was not the guru of this film. While BAM believed that his ship was once again setting sail, if he didn’t realize who had deftly been pulling on the oars while the wind wasn’t blowing, Liam was more than ready to steer this newly christened ocean liner into an iceberg, abandon ship, and let this bulbous captain go down with his craft. And by craft he meant Shasta! Productions. Liam had more than enough dirt on BAM—because once someone was filthy they rarely got clean—to ruin BAM’s second coming to Hollywood.
“Fuck that bitch,” BAM shouted. He threw his earpiece to the floor where it shattered upon impact.
There went another one. Liam dutifully pulled a new Bluetooth from the BAM bag he held at the ready at all
times and handed it to his liege.
“You need to call Josh Dragatsis at DTA,” Liam said.
“What the fuck do you know,” BAM said without even turning his head. “That bitch ruins my film and I will seriously kick some ass.”
Liam wasn’t certain to which “bitch” BAM referred, but he was certain that either bitch might be interested in all that BAM had to say. Liam was thankful for the record app on his iPhone.
“Sir, shall I dial?”
“Fuck yes,” BAM said. “I don’t have time to waste.”
“Bikram Shasta for Josh Dragatsis,” Liam said into the phone. “We’re holding, sir.” He picked up the crystal bowl of pistachios he kept in BAM’s office. The man had a serious addiction.
“Pistachio, sir?” Liam held out the naked nuts, so salty they glittered.
BAM’s meat-sausage hand dug into the bowl, and he shoved the entire fistful into his mouth. “Damn good.”
Liam smiled. That was the first compliment he’d gotten all day.
Chapter 28
The Chateau
A bungalow at the Chateau meant privacy, and room service, and the inevitability that Aunt Cici would discover that Nikki’s house had been ransacked, which would lead to much drama and, Nikki feared, a direct order that she move in with Aunt Cici and Ted. There would be enough together time with Aunt Cici with twelve-hour days on set. Nikki had to maintain some tiny bit of autonomy, some shred of privacy, some particle of independence.
“Relax,” Christina said and stretched her pedicured foot toward the pool. “If someone sees us, tell your aunt you came over to use her hillside cabana.”
Nikki swiveled her head. “My aunt keeps a hillside cabana at the Chateau?”
A sly smile curled over Christina’s lips. “Well, Worldwide keeps a hillside cabana for those last-minute traveling stars or”—Christina sipped her mimosa—“for any needs where discretion is advised.”
“But do my aunt and uncle come here?” Nikki pulled her sunglasses down over her nose and eyed Christina. “I’ve never heard them talk about coming here—”
“I think this spot predates their relationship. Maybe when your aunt was with Damien Bruckner?”
Nikki hadn’t known her aunt when she dated and then married Damien Bruckner. Once a film producer in the leagues of Kathleen Kennedy, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Scott Rudin, Damien had divorced Cici, married a teenager, divorced the teenager, and now lived in near obscurity with his pre-Cici ex-wife in France.
No, when Cici was with Damien, Nikki’s mother, Lacey, was still pretending that she didn’t have a sister while first the drugs and then the disease had slowly chewed away at Lacey’s insides. The tragedy of Calvin Geckler had reunited the sisters. The need to protect Nikki had caused the women to bridge the chasm. Once Aunt Cici was back in Lacey’s life, she stayed. Aunt Cici’s money had saved Nikki from the pedophiliac nightmare, sealed the court records, sent Nikki to college, and then funded great medical care for Nikki’s mother. Nikki slipped her sunglasses back over her eyes. The Chateau Marmont was a long way from a trailer in Tennessee and food stamps.
She rested back into the lounger. She’d escaped her past, but was her past chasing her? Calvin Geckler was MIA from his parole, but there had been no more calls.
“I saw Bradford last night.”
Nikki swiveled her head toward Christina.
“As in Madison?” Nikki asked.
Christina’s eyes were veiled by dark shades and her tone seemed nonchalant, but Nikki knew from Christina that there had been nothing casual about Christina’s feelings for Bradford Madison.
“He just got out of Clarity,” Christina said. “I’ve been…” Christina’s fingertip circled the rim of her champagne glass and her head turned from Nikki and then turned back. “I’ve been going to visit him while he was in rehab.”
“Weren’t you at a party with Striker?” Nikki asked.
Christina nodded. “It would seem that last night Bradford and I saved each other from some very bad behavior.” Christina bit her bottom lip. She took a deep breath. “Adam was there too.”
With Adam’s name, adrenaline whooshed through Nikki. Nikki didn’t want Adam. She was finished with him as a fuck buddy—she’d witnessed firsthand his extracurricular activities—but Nikki wasn’t sure she was ready to hear about any of his other escapades.
“Did you know that Adam provides?”
Nikki squinted. “As in…”
“Great H.”
Nikki tilted her head to the side. “You’re kidding?” She’d never witnessed any behaviors that Adam was strung out or dealing and in Nikki’s childhood, with her mother, she’d been surrounded by addicts and dealers.
Christina shook her head no. “Maybe a side gig while he breaks into music.”
Nikki’s jaw clamped tight. How had she missed this? Had she been so inebriated with great sex that she’d lost her mind?
“I didn’t think you knew,” Christina said.
Nikki’s stomach wobbled. Was her past so foul that the stink would never wipe off? Nikki’s lips thinned with the thought that some horribleness deep within in her made her blind to the badness in others. Or perhaps she was a magnet for liars.
Nikki closed her eyes. The warmth of the sun danced across her skin. She wanted the heat to chase away the fear that oozed through her veins. The fear that she was forever damaged. The fear that her life would be forever filled with wrong choices. No more fuck buddies. No more deadbeats or liars. She would be aware of her decisions. She would pick a good guy. A good guy like Rush.
Rush.
He’d stayed with her the entire time the police combed through the town house for evidence. They hadn’t finished until well past four a.m. He’d taken her to the Chateau, the sun creeping up over the east end of Sunset as they pulled up the driveway. He’d ushered her and Christina to their bungalow and made sure they were safe and secure and all those things really great guys did.
Even with his care and concern, even with the feeling of being safe, Nikki still hadn’t slept. She’d awakened with every whisper of wind, every creak of the old building, every giggle of someone passing along the flower-lined walkway to their own bungalow.
Jeb's death and now her and Christina’s town house? The connection was impossible to ignore. A connection she hadn’t mentioned to Christina. Saying that she, Nikki, was the common denominator to both crimes would give her fears more power.
Christina flipped onto her stomach and took the script she perused with her. She wore a black bikini. Her Greek, olive-colored skin glistened in the California sunshine as though she was meant to lounge about a pool and soak up rays. Christina seemed calm, relaxed, as though the reason for the forced remodel of her town house caused her no worries.
Christina’s phone dinged and she reached into her bag.
“Look,” Christina said and pushed the screen toward Nikki. “They’re already done with the cleanup.”
Nikki examined the texted picture from the cleaning crew Christina had hired that morning. Their place was nearly empty, the plush leather couch gone, the destroyed dining room chairs gone. The once-upturned dining room table remained, as did the tiny cafe table in the kitchen and the highboys that sat beside the breakfast bar. Their mattresses and anything else that was sliced and diced Christina had asked the cleaning crew to toss.
Christina turned her phone back toward her face and lifted her sunglasses. She read the text.
“They think some of the clothes are recoverable.”
Nikki’s eyes flashed from Christina’s face back toward the iPhone. “You seem so calm.”
“Here’s the thing,” Christina said. “My mother had a stalker, my father had a stalker, right before I moved to LA Mary Anne Meyers almost got killed by that crazy Vieve—we can’t let what happened last night control our life.” Christina dropped her phone into her bag. “We clean up. We change the locks.” A smile slipped across Christina’s face. “We have a giant shopping binge. Life
goes on.” Her eyebrows plucked upward and she looked at Nikki. “And we accept that there needs to be security, at least for a while.”
“If I say yes to security, then Aunt Cici will ask why,” Nikki said.
Christina shook her head no. “Already done. I told Lydia I want a security detail on the town house beginning next week. I told her I felt uncomfortable with what happened with Jeb and until the police find whoever shot him, I’d feel safer knowing someone was looking out for us.”
“Do you?” Nikki asked softly. “Do you feel uncomfortable?”
Christina sighed. She tilted her head to the right. “After what happened last night, I feel more uncomfortable than I did before. But I definitely think between Worldwide’s security and the cops they’ll find out who did both and what the connection is.”
Nikki looked toward the bright blue pool. Her upper teeth ground against her lower ones. The sunlight sparkled and shadowed across the triangular bouncing waves. Nikki closed her eyes behind her sunglasses. She was meant to be at Jeb’s when he was shot. She lived at the town house with Christina. Nikki’s teeth plucked at her bottom lip. She was the one with the dusty background. She was the one with former bad-news rock star fuck buddy. She was the one who’d searched even the dregs of LA for a great script. She was the connection.
Nikki’s heart beat faster in her chest and her palms were wet. Fear prickled her arms. This wasn’t about Jeb, this wasn’t about Aunt Cici, this had to be, must be, all of it, about her.
Chapter 29
Escape from LA
Security was a man down and that wasn’t good. Rush stood inside ICU at Cedars-Sinai. Jay’s eyes were swollen closed. The whispered whoosh of the machine that breathed for Jay pulsed through the hospital room. Hours after Nikki’s house was ransacked, Jay had been found unconscious and close to death behind a dumpster near LACMA, not far from where he’d been posted. He still had all ten digits and each of his toes, but his palms and the soles of his feet bore the marks of someone who’d been lucky to pass out.
