I’ve got. Present. “So what? You were sleeping with her when he was off on dates with Richelle?”
He winked. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“How about fuck and tell?” Grant said. “Say you were sleeping with Kylie. I’m not clear why you’d imagine Josh would want to work with you, with his competition, with the other man.”
With a swipe at the air, Wayne dismissed the proposed conflict. “He never even fucking knew Kylie and I were still screwing. She kept distracting him by nagging about him going off with Richelle so that he played the ‘but, baby, you’re the only one’ tune.”
“Awful lot of gall to ask him to allow you in his video,” Roxie said.
“Wasn’t really my idea in the first place. My rep spoke to Dave. Dave’s people met with the label’s team. They got back to my agent. It’s not like I went out looking for Josh. I didn’t need him.”
Didn’t need Josh, so may as well kill him? Seemed iffy. Roxie smirked at Wayne. “You didn’t need Josh? You didn’t want his girlfriend? You weren’t trying to mooch off his fame to resurrect your name in the business? I’d say he stood in the way of a couple things you wanted.”
“Funny.” Wayne rolled his eyes.
Gray and silver had already chased away the sandy brown from his MTV days and lines grooved his face like a life-long Aussie in the sun. But it wasn’t sunlight that aged him, only abuse. His immature ocular reaction rendered him a teenager stuck in a wannabe silver fox body. Cosmetics and surgery could only fix so much, Roxie mused.
“I didn’t want Kylie. All I’m saying is that she wanted something from me no other dude could give her. I’m not dead. Why not have a good time if she’s looking for it? She came to me for a good lay, and I gave it to her whenever I could. My team wanted Josh’s help. And since he was in the running to do the theme song for the movie I’m starring in next fall, it made perfect fucking sense that we work together and present his music video to sell his music and my acting. But it’s not as though I set out to get his help.”
Grant sighed. “Then why not consider someone else?”
Wayne seemed to want to laugh. “You’re saying it like I had some power over this. I just got out of rehab. People think I’m some deadbeat piece of shit. I’m goddamn lucky to still have my agent. I’m going to do whatever the fuck they want me to do. And I did. They told me Josh’s video was a must. Had to get that exposure. So I jumped the hoops and tried.”
“That’s what you spoke to Dave about that night at Velocity?” Roxie asked.
She flipped the pages of her legal pad to the outline of Wayne’s movements from the club’s surveillance. First, he was seen conversing with Dave. Then Dave summoned Josh to join them. Left alone with Josh, Wayne’s expression had evolved from tight smiles to blunt frowns.
Wayne nodded. “Wasn’t the time and place, but yeah. He was there, may as well pester about negotiations.”
“Dave was for your participation in the production?” Grant checked.
“Yeah. He thought it was a good move. He was always sharp with plans and strategy. He knew how to see the benefit in every damn action. Dave wanted Josh to go along with it.”
“Did you comment on Kylie with Dave?”
Wayne narrowed his eyes. “Uh, no. Not that I remember. No point to. He never seemed to care much for her. Which, hey, I get it. She’s not the easiest to deal with. He was all business that night. Called Josh over to us and we chatted.”
“About the video?” Grant asked.
“Well, I did. He wouldn’t fucking give an inch. Said fuck no. Warned me to stay away from his woman.” Wayne made another teenage expression. “Which was a waste of his breath. He should have told her to stay away from me. Not the other way around.”
Can you be any more full of yourself? Roxie prided herself on censoring her snarkiness. “Did you go to the party that night to speak with Dave and Josh, or to hook up with Kylie?” Roxie asked.
“Neither.”
No ulterior motive to put himself at Velocity that night? She didn’t buy it.
Well, he was there, that was a fact. Surveillance didn’t Photoshop his presence for forty-five minutes. His room wasn’t booked and occupied by thin air. Roxie rooted through the file on Wayne in her mind, skimming through what he’d told the detectives. He’d come to the party, mingled, drank non-alcoholic concoctions, met some of the Hawks, ate food, and spoke to Dave and Josh. At 11:40, he entered the guest elevator, but didn’t activate entrance to his room until 11:58. Eighteen minutes was an awfully long time to walk down a single hallway.
“They say jump, I motherfucking jump. You think I can do what I want now? To get my life back, my rep told me to get my ass to that party as a face to the sponsor’s advertisement campaign. Since I was there, I worked on Josh.”
“And Kylie? You didn’t happen to meet up with her at the party?” Grant asked.
“Or in the eighteen minutes between your ride up the elevator and entering your own room?” Roxie added.
Nowhere in the detectives’ documents did they place Wayne and Kylie together at Velocity. Sure, it was a big setup, and plenty of bodies occupied the festive club space, but what were the odds the two fuck-buddies could resist such close proximity?
“No, I didn’t talk much to her at the party. She’d been too busy hawking on Josh getting too close to Richelle.”
“Upstairs?” Grant asked.
Roxie held her hand up and quoted her notes from his police interrogation. “You claimed to have tired from the party and went to your room alone. Watched some late-night shows and passed out. Stayed in your room the entire night. Your key card was activated once at 11:58.” She flipped back to preceding pages. “Kylie said she went upstairs to wait for Josh to come up to her room. Her key card activated her room once at 11:38.” She brought her gaze to Wayne.
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“Did you omit anything of importance prior to entering your room?” Roxie asked. “Kylie was already in her room.”
He shrugged. “Might have paid her a quick visit. Honestly can’t remember. It was a long night.”
“And in this possible visit you might have paid her,” Grant asked, “you were alone? With each other?”
Roxie understood where Grant was going with this. The timing of Wayne and Kylie both being in their respective rooms overlapped. In the space of six minutes, Wayne could have stopped by Kylie’s room before going into his own, and as she was already inside her room, she could have hosted a quickie.
“Yeah. Started going down on her.” Wayne shrugged like it was nothing of importance.
“No one thinks to confess this crap to the cops? To at least make sure they weren’t suspected in a murder?” Roxie squinted at him.
“Seriously?” Wayne smiled at them kindly. It was too gray to decide if he were honest and chiding or contemptuous. “You really think I’d fucking kill him? I told all the cops everything already, minus a little bit of loving. Kylie sure as fuck wouldn’t have tattled.”
Smug, Wayne? “Anyone witness you leaving Kylie’s room?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Saw some club server walking down the hall. Sexy little blonde.”
Roxie frowned. What server? The one Jaydon brought up to his room? She’d gone through the employees’ statements too many times not to notice that confession and the overlap of time. Unless the worker didn’t admit to seeing Wayne in that hallway so close to the time Josh had been shot.
“I just went through hell and back. I’m clean. I plan to stay that way. Why the fuck would I risk everything on that moron? What the fuck would I gain that I don’t have already?”
Well, for starters, get Kylie back, punish Josh for not agreeing to let you be in the video…
“Kylie?” Grant asked.
Wayne smirked. “She and I are always going to end up together here or there. No matter who’s fucking who. Not like it ever stopped us before.”
“And the video?” Grant asked.
&nb
sp; “What about it? Obviously I wouldn’t have wanted to kill the moron if I wanted to be in his goddamn video. What fucking good is he to me now? Not like he can do the video dead.”
Nope. No mourning period for Wayne. “Well, what’s happening with the video now? Or the song, for that matter?”
“Jumio’s going to do it.”
Grant cocked his head. “Dave’s other client?”
“Guess Dave impressed the film’s music coordinator. They look forward to working with him and his clients. Now that Josh is dead, he’s trying to get Jumio for the song. Don’t quote me on that. It’s all in early talks. I mean the idiot’s only been dead a few months.”
Ever the businessman, that Dave.
“And you’ll be in Jumio’s video?”
Wayne sneered at the question. “Remember? They say jump, I motherfucking jump. I’ll be in whatever video they want me in. They want me to show up in Jumio’s video, then I’m in it. As long as I still have the lead in the film, I’m not going to bitch about anything.”
Chapter Twenty
“Everything. I want everything Chris has on that music video agreement. Who started it and when. Names of the reps—Dave’s, Wayne’s, the film’s. Everyone who knocked heads on putting Wayne in Josh’s video, I want to see it.” Grant took a breath as he opened the door for Roxie. Rain had abated during their dinner and a misty steam bath enveloped them outside.
“I want to see correspondence. Who said what after Josh’s death. Who contacted Dave about Jumio. Or if Dave set it in motion.”
What were the odds? How could both of Dave’s clients be the contenders for the film’s theme song and consequently the follow-up production of the music video? Was it just because Dave and the film’s reps got along so smoothly—that they wanted to continue to scheme with Dave’s stars? Or was this a thickly layered maneuver?
If Josh wouldn’t cooperate and let Wayne participate, was he ousted so Dave could arrange Jumio to do the theme song for the film? Josh put out country-hip-hop…well, uniquely cross-styled crappy music. Jumio was hardcore rap. Quite a drastic difference of genres of music to slap on a movie.
He ran his hand through his hair as he waited for the valet outside, running a mile a minute with the questions in his mind.
“How badly did Dave want this song for his clients?” He mused to himself, but he heard the scritch-scratch of Roxie’s pen on paper next to him. “Who else was rumored to be connected to the film?”
And then there was the complication of Kylie thrown in the mix. His research list grew even more.
“When was word first given on the possibility of Wayne working with Josh? As in, when would Kylie have known this? How much contact did Kylie have with Wayne at the time? Were they fucking then? Or only after the negotiations began—” He waved his hand at Roxie’s grunt. “It will all be speculation, I know. But when were Wayne and Kylie together? I want a timeline of when they crossed paths.”
The rental car braked on the pavement in front of them and they entered quickly. His tirade of questions and demands didn’t cease. With every detail he commanded Roxie to dig out for him, he sank deeper and deeper into frustration.
There were too many overlaps, too many directions in the case. He’d given up on who. No physical evidence had been found to direct the police to point fingers at anyone other than Ben. And the only piece of truth in that matter was Josh’s DNA found under Ben’s fingernails—from the fight they’d had in the elevator.
It wasn’t the ‘who’ that Grant lost sleep over. It was the ‘why’. Why did someone go to such lengths to murder and emasculate Josh? And if a solid incentive seemed likely, he hoped it would identify the killer.
And why, indeed? Money? Fame? Jealousy? Lust? Power? Any and all of those capital evils could apply to nearly everyone on the VIP floor that night.
Pausing for a deep breath at a red light on the drive back, he glanced at Roxie in the passenger seat. Her eyes were narrowed as she furiously scribbled on the legal pad on her lap. No doubt she was attempting to record all his instructions since the moment they said farewell to Wayne at Geraldo’s Cut. He’d run his mouth and brain at the speed of light. How the fuck was she getting it all?
“What about after? If we’re looking at the times and places Wayne and Kylie met before Josh’s death, what about their trysts following his death?”
He stared at her with respect. No, she wasn’t whimpering at the onslaught of impromptu expectations. She was looking deeper and expanding on his research efforts. Roxie had the stamina and drive to not only keep pace with his dictations, she was vying to be one step ahead of him.
“Light’s green.” She nodded her head toward the windshield without breaking her concentration.
He resumed the drive back to their hotel. “Yes,” he answered. “Whatever Chris can find. We need to see it.”
As they parked, entered the hotel, and made their way to his room, he refused to let go of the storm of curiosities flooding his mind from Wayne’s cocky attitude and his admission to seeing Kylie behind Josh’s back.
“He says he’s at the beck and call of the studio and his agents. Are we supposed to interpret that as his actions are for the purpose of obedience? Or is that all an excuse to get himself back with Kylie, to steal her back? And has he been obedient, jumping hoops as he says? What’s the take on his relationship with his agent and reps?” He swiped his key card and entered his suite. Pacing, he went to the table to fling his keys and phone, and then to the mini-bar to get water.
Roxie had come in, still with her attention at the legal pad in her hand, pen twitching away. She absently leaned against the door and closed it with her butt.
“And if—”
“Hold up.” She shook her head as she wrote away.
He winced as he watched her hand rush to catch up with his words.
Maybe he was a bit too demanding. Even on an impressive assistant like Roxie. Just because he was operating at tsunami force, he couldn’t expect her to do the same. In the wake of Wayne’s claims, Grant couldn’t help but be fueled to investigate even further. Their dinner only opened more doors to explore, more twists and confusions to navigate through, setting him even further from finding answers, from solving Ben’s case.
“Sorry, about the bombardment. I’m just…” He met her at the table she’d walked to, still writing. “He’s so full of shit. And all this bullshit about Kylie. We’ve taken one step forward and fifty feet backward in all of this.”
Finally, she tore her focus from the legal pad and glanced at him, tossing the bound papers to the tabletop. “No, no. It’s fine. Just ran out of paper.”
She flexed her hand, making fists and releasing, as she crouched to the floor and rummaged in her tote. “I’ve got another pad in here. Go on. I’m listening.”
As she searched, he flicked through her pages of shorthand, all his commands for research following her label of “Dinner with Wayne”.
Eight pages. And her penmanship was minute. She must have been a hell of a meticulous note taker in her eternity spent at college.
“Well, let’s roll with what we have so far. Don’t want your hand to fall off.” He tossed a water bottle to her as she approached. “My laptop should be charged. How about I call Chris and talk with him first? Once he starts sending me some info, we can split it up. Maybe, you can tackle the history with Kylie and Wayne, and I’ll look into negotiations about the video and the film’s song.”
Roxie unkinked her neck and nodded.
“Want to check into your room? Before we launch into this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Eh, no point. My laptop’s good to go. I bet I can get going on the sexual affairs of one ex-model and one has-been actor.”
After kicking off her sandals, she collected her legal pad and laptop and plopped down at the end of the couch.
Tucking her legs under her butt, she got comfortable and took a swig of water. “So Wayne and Kylie agreed to get rid of Josh for a proper lo
ver’s reunion? That’s what you’re going for? Sex, lust, love. That’s the motive now?”
He slouched next to her, his phone and laptop between them, next to her legal pad. Stretching his legs out, he rolled the back of his head on the couch cushions, turning to give her his full attention.
“Maybe?”
Her brows rose in answer. “But why bother? Kylie wore the pants in her relationship with Josh. If she really wanted Wayne instead of Josh, no one was stopping her from breaking up with him. She could have left him. Clearly she could get away with cheating on him. Seems she got exactly what she wanted even with Josh hanging around.”
“Maybe she only wanted Wayne as a fling. Maybe staying with Josh served some other purpose,” he said.
“But what purpose? Satisfying her self-esteem because Josh wanted her? Kylie didn’t need Josh’s money. I can’t honestly see her loving Josh, not if she was constantly cheating with Wayne.”
Grant sighed. “Go figure she didn’t even mention it to us.”
Roxie snorted. “Why would she? Not something she’d broadcast freely. And we didn’t ask. Seems the police hadn’t asked either. Not like she’d want to mention, ‘oh hey, I’ve been banging the man who’s really upset he can’t get into my boyfriend’s music video, no biggie’. It would cast suspicion on her.”
“True.”
“And she had to stick to her story, right? She kept nagging Josh about pretending to be with Richelle. Why not put all her anger and emphasis on how mad she was about Josh pretending to date another woman…so no one would even dream of her behaving just as disloyally?”
She raised an important point, one that stabbed him in the gut. Infidelity. If Kylie had wanted out with Josh, she could have left. So clearly something was still there for her.
He could relate. As he had eventually discovered, Tara had cheated nonstop throughout their marriage. Since he’d never been an abusive asshole, she could have left him anytime she’d wanted instead of ruining his life. He’d pondered that mystery over many bottles and over countless sleepless nights.
Resisting Redemption Page 21
