Celebrity Spin Doctor

by Celia Mulder

  “Then there was Cooper. No one knew who he was. He just kinda appeared there—rich guy, houses all over the place, gorgeous as sin, and completely untouchable, unless you were one of the select few to be invited to one of his weekend getaways. He was all over me that night, flirting with me, eye fucking me across the bar, you know how it is.”

  This time Lucille could definitely say she didn’t. Not out loud, of course.

  “He said he’d seen some of my early work, this really obscure nude shoot I did for a BDSM magazine when I was younger. I couldn’t believe it. He said that if I was actually into that stuff and wanted to explore more ways to unleash my sexuality, to come to his house party that weekend. Obviously, I went. No one turned down Cooper. It was...erotic, deeply, deeply erotic.” Beverly trailed off, leaning against the wall with a sigh and a shiver. “Mmm. You see, Cooper chose only the best. And I mean the best everything, you know?”

  Again, no idea.

  “This one weekend was different. Someone suggested a change to the...routine. Cooper was angry about the suggestion, but we eventually swayed him to our side. Perhaps it did go a little too far,” she mused. “Cooper was going on and on about overstepping the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, but I was like, what the fuck have we been doing this whole time?

  “Whatever. Things got out of control and someone died. It was one of our group members who was great to look at but kind of a bore to talk to. The whole thing was a total accident, of course. I couldn’t even tell you what happened anymore. One moment he was alive and humping the shit out of a dude chained to the wall, and the next moment he was dead and covered in blood.

  “It was, like, all a blur after that. Cooper flipped out because it was all on camera.”

  Lucille gasped, for real this time. What is wrong with her? Why is she telling me all of this? Because there was something wrong, something very wrong with Beverly. She spoke like she was reciting a monologue, without emotional investment in her words.

  Beverly didn’t even blink. “Oh yes, we recorded all our...experiments. Kept us going until we got together the next time, you know? But this was, like, really on video. Right front and center on video. You could see faces. Fuck, my face all over it. And not just my face; other parts, too.

  “Anyway, Cooper freaked out, kicked us out, and kept the tape for himself. He kept going on and on about murder. But it wasn’t a murder, you know? Because it was a total accident. We all tried to tell Cooper that it was an accident, we could just explain that to the police, and then it’d all be over. But Cooper said they wouldn’t understand, they’d find the tape anyway, so we might as well turn ourselves in now. We tried to get Anton to talk him down, but the fucker said he only dealt with PR issues for his clients, not criminal activity. PR issues, my ass. He was at more than a few of those parties.”

  Lucille did not want to hear that about her uncle. Of course, it did clarify a lot of things about her adolescence, like when Simon had showed her how to tie a bondage rope on her fourteenth birthday. Still, he was her uncle.

  When his name came up, the fucker in question gasped in her ear. She ignored him. “Do you think Anton was trying to get Cooper to go to the police?”

  Beverly nodded. “Uh huh. Even though he joined in, he was always aloof, you know? Like he was too good for us.”

  Lucille could hear Simon itching to protest and begged him to keep silent. This changed things. It made sense her uncle would encourage Cooper to take the video to the police. Cooper would come across as a hero for trying to save his friends from sexual deviancy and, in the process, save himself.

  Beverly brought the attention back to herself with a dramatic wave of her hand. “Whatever. It didn’t matter after a while. I stopped sleeping and eating as a result of the stress. Every moment I expected the police to show up at my door or my agent to call and say the video had leaked. I looked awful. Though you’d think modeling agencies would want someone skinny who worked late hours to avoid going home. They did, but apparently they didn’t want a model who twitched all the time and looked like a startled chipmunk. They dropped me. Everyone dropped me. Not even the fucking plastic surgery helped.”

  For a moment, Lucille felt for the half-naked former model. It was brief, and then she returned to her loathing. Heartwarming anecdote or no, this woman was the key to getting Simon’s name cleared, and Lucille needed her to say the magic words.

  “I blamed Anton, of course. If it had only been Cooper, we could have talked him down, but the little shit was protecting him. So I decided to sneak into his house, get one of his guns, and make it look like a suicide.”

  Lucille started. There was a rustling in her ear and then silence.

  “But Cooper was there too. I couldn’t figure out why, because they were mumbling away in these low voices that I couldn’t understand or whatever. But, I couldn’t have a witness, obviously, so I left. The next day Anton was arrested for Cooper’s murder, and I figured he’d got what was coming to him.”

  “That was the night Cooper was murdered?” Lucille gasped with the appropriate stunned, wide-eyed gaze.

  Beverly smiled. It was scary. “Uh huh. Bullet to the chest, that very night.”

  “Wasn’t Anton arrested for it?”

  Beverly laughed her empty cackle. “Son of a bitch escaped. I don’t know how, but he got out. There was a rumor his little niece helped him, but I think it was some of his other ‘clients.’”

  Lucille swallowed at the mention of herself. She would’ve helped Simon escape if she hadn’t been left in the dark. All she’d done was break up with the boyfriend who’d turned her only stable family member in in the first place.

  “So Anton murdered Cooper, and now we’re going to murder Anton as revenge.”

  Beverly studied Lucille for a long minute, her eyes once again unfocused. “No. The police think Anton murdered Cooper, but I never thought he did.”

  “Because you killed Cooper.”

  “What did you say?” Beverly moved toward Lucille, stumbling.

  Oops. Lucille scrambled. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to assume. You’d never... I mean, you couldn’t...”

  Beverly stopped, her face blank. “No, you’re right, aren’t you? I mean, I did, didn’t I? I killed him.”

  There it was. The confession. A little wishy washy, and probably enough to get her off on an insanity plea, but it would be able to clear Simon. All Lucille had to do was extract herself from the situation and they were home free.

  At that moment, five feet and ten inches of gay man dressed in a false beard and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles appeared in the room beside her. From beneath the folds of his black overcoat peeked the business end of a pistol, pointed directly at Beverly’s fake boobs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Anton!” Beverly screeched in a decibel meant only for dogs.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Lucille hissed. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Sorry, darling, I couldn’t waste the opportunity,” Simon said, not looking away from Beverly. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and the brown fake beard quivered.

  “Darling?” Beverly cursed. She was hyperventilating and getting louder by the second. Simon twitched the gun, and Beverly shut up and backed against the wall, shaking. “You tricked me! You lying, sneaking little bitch,” she whisper-hissed.

  Simon spoke, his voice low and dangerous. “I could do it, you know. I could pull this trigger right here, right now.”

  Beverly folded her arms, her jaw clenched. “Fine. Do it.”

  Simon stared at her and she back at him, a deadly game of chicken.

  Lucille glared at both of them, but they didn’t notice. “What are you doing here?” she asked her uncle again. “We’ve got the confession—just hand it over and be done with it.”

  Beverly growled. “You were recording me?”

  Lucille rolled her eyes at the hot mess in the corner. “Keep up.” She turned back to Simon.


  “Yes, right, confession. Good job, Lucy. You can go now.” His eyes didn’t leave Beverly’s face.

  “You can’t kill her, you know.”

  Simon blinked then and looked at her. “What?”

  “You can’t kill her. First of all, there are too many witnesses. Second of all, there are security guards who will definitely hear the gunshot. I just got you back from being on the run. If you act like a stupid ass and kill her now, I’ll lose you all over again.”

  “Who said anything about killing her? I came in to get the recording from you and bring it to the police now, before they release her and she has a chance to run.”

  Lucille didn’t believe him. “Good. But you can see how I got confused, right? What with you standing here in a ridiculous disguise and a gun poking out of your coat?”

  “Don’t worry so much, Lucy. It causes wrinkles.”

  Lucille snorted. “You’re impossible.”

  Beverly had moved closer to them, listening to every word. “Told you you couldn’t do it, Anton. You always were a pussy.”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s like a word-vomit volcano of TMI.”

  Simon shrugged. “Eh, I’ve been called worse. Now will you get out of here? If things go wrong and I do get arrested, I want to make sure you’re gone.”

  Lucille frowned. “What do you mean if things go wrong?”

  “Lucy, we’re standing in a psychiatric ward at a well-populated hospital where I, a fugitive from the law in a ridiculous disguise, am holding a gun to a former model’s fake rack. There is any number of ways things could go wrong. Such as standing around talking instead of moving. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She gave him a sideways hug and a kiss on the cheek for good luck. Then she turned and waved to Beverly. “It was interesting meeting you, Beverly. Have fun in prison!”

  “Bite me.”

  “A real charmer, that one.” Lucille grinned as she tottered out on her stupid, pinching boots. She was going to burn them when she got home.

  ***

  They were fucked. Here they were, held against their will by his crazy, tiny cousin who had his best friend’s balls in a vise. Not to mention her enormous, mobster-looking henchmen, of which there were two in this room. Brett recognized them; they worked for Stanton security, the private, highly trained personal guard of the Stanton dynasty. These were men who followed orders no matter what. Even when those orders came from a deranged attempted murderess who really should not be in charge, considering she was holding two innocent men’s lives at stake and trying to force one of them to marry her.

  Brett struggled with his bonds, his hand brushing against something in his back pocket. His cell phone. Conniving, manipulative, and bitchy were all great adjectives to describe his cousin. Brilliant, she was not.

  Brett somehow got the thing unlocked. Stupid touch screens. He hoped none of the burly henchmen were watching him since it looked like he was itching his butt. Their attention, however, was trained on their boss, who was in the middle of some complex mating ritual wherein she alternatively tried to woo Michel and junk punch him. They were smirking.

  He probed the screen until the slight buzz told him he’d hit a phone number and was calling someone. Please let it not be Michel, he thought, please let it not be Michel. Luckily, Sylvia started screaming at Michel just then. It covered up the sound of Lucille answering.

  ***

  The way out was far easier than the way in. No one stopped her or looked her way as she hurried through the halls. Please let Simon not do something stupid, she chanted in time to her footsteps.

  Outside, she turned her phone back on. It rang. Scary, she thought as she headed to her car. It was Brett. Lucille debated answering. She didn’t want to get into anything with Brett, at least not anything of the talking-about-feelings variety. She was on a high from the undercover work. She could see why there was so much sex in James Bond movies. All that stealth and subterfuge made a girl horny. And even though Brett claimed to want more and the sex hadn’t been that mind-blowing, she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather bang right at that moment.

  “Hey there, hot stuff.”

  Only before she could tell him to meet her at her place in twenty minutes, there was loud static and then a woman’s voice.

  “You don’t think I’d do it, do you? You don’t think I’d kill you? You sadly underestimate what I’m capable of,” said the voice. It sounded familiar. The phone cut out.

  Sylvia Stanton.

  Lucille sprinted the rest of the way to her car. Sometime between the tête-á-tête at her house and now, all hell had broken loose. Send a boy to do a woman’s job, she thought bitterly.

  Her mind raced. She had no idea where they were, only that Brett, Michel, and Sylvia were together and one of them would soon be dead. Simon probably had phone-tracing equipment in the creepy van he’d brought for their hospital break-in. But even if she had the equipment, she didn’t know how to use it and she couldn’t ask Simon due to the whole Beverly situation. If she alerted the police, Sylvia would off both men before the first siren finished wailing. The heiress sounded desperate and insane enough that Lucille had no doubt she’d follow through on her threat to kill.

  There was no time to contemplate motive or intent. Lucille needed to find them now. She decided to start at the most likely place and work from there.

  ***

  Brett didn’t know whether Lucille had gotten the call. She’d answered and said something provocative at him, so that was a promising beginning. But then Sylvia had got right in his face, like inches away from his nose. He jumped as far as the ropes binding him would allow, enough to come down on his cell phone. He heard a crunch as the screen broke and the phone cut out. They were well and truly on their own.

  His shoulder ached. It was stretched behind his back at an odd angle, the sling lying discarded on the floor beside him. After everything that had happened that day, all the sleep and the sex and the arguments, his arm told him it couldn’t take much more. But there was nothing he could do—he was being held hostage by a tiny blonde nightmare.

  They were in Michel’s “artist” room on the third floor. Brett had been there once before, when Michel had first moved in and the man had still invited him over for dinner and brainstorming. It was a small room in comparison to the rest of the house, boxy, with only one window high above the antique Persian rug. The space was covered in musical instruments, books, scraps of paper, and eclectic furniture that in no way fit the other home décor. The chair Brett was tied to, for instance, looked like something his niece would bring home from a furniture painting class, if he had a niece and she did that sort of thing. The one Michel was in was deep burgundy and leather, the type of chair an early nineteenth-century gentleman would lounge in while his valet brought him port and a cigar. Brett could only imagine the pain Michel’s arms were in, strapped around the wide middle of the chair, his ankles lashed to each leg. If Brett didn’t know better, he’d have said Michel was prepping for a kinky sex scene. All that was missing were some nipple clamps and a ball gag.

  The traitorous security guards were starting to fidget. Brett understood. Sylvia tended to monologue when she thought someone was listening, and here she had two unwilling and unmoving participants. Judging by the tone of her voice, she wasn’t happy with her fiancé about something and was making a big deal over it.

  “I just don’t get it!” she yelled, waving her arms around as she spoke. She’d always been abnormally loud. “Why, Michel? Why?”

  Michel looked confused. And dazed. It could have had something to do with the fact she’d kneed him in the gut a minute ago or the drugs Sylvia had used to get them to the third floor without a struggle or any number of reasons, none of which had to do with his ranting, murderous fiancée. Somehow, Brett thought none of those were it and that the expression had everything to do with said woman.

  “Why what, my sweet?”

  Sylvia scowled. “Don’t give me that.
You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Michel didn’t. None of them did. When Michel didn’t answer, Sylvia let out a frustrated screech and began wandering around the room.

  “I hate this room. I’ve always hated this room. That’s why you kept it, didn’t you? Because you knew I hated it and you just wanted to piss me off. Look at all this crap. Do you think I can take people on a tour of the house and risk them seeing this dump? No. But does Michel Polce, world-class asshole, care about that? No.”

  It was getting boring. She hadn’t told them why they were there, except that Brett was an ordained minister. Yeah, ordained online by the Church of America for the low cost of thirty bucks. One of those stupid, drunken mistakes. He wondered how Sylvia had even found out about it.

  Did Lucille make stupid drunken mistakes? Doubtful. She was always in control, always so put together. Except, of course, when he annoyed her and her eyebrow started to twitch and, next thing he knew, she was dragging him off somewhere to make out with him and then violently injure him again. Or when she gave that little sound and arched her back when he touched her the way she liked. That wasn’t controlled at all.

  Still, he wondered why she’d put up with all of his drunken escapades. Then he stopped. She hadn’t. He hadn’t had any drunken escapades since he’d met her. Not since the night they’d met, in fact, and he’d realized he needed to be on his game around this woman. He’d been drinking, but not alone. He’d been with people, drinking socially. Talking, having fun, laughing, scared shitless, and in pain, like he was now, but he’d been there and remembered all of it. Well, except when he’d passed out or been knocked out, neither of which were his fault.

  Sylvia had stopped talking and was staring at him.

  “What?”

  “Were you listening at all?”

  “No.”

  She growled again. “I said, you’re going to marry us now.”

  “Me and you? Gross. We’re related.”