Live and Let Lie

by Carolyn Scott

Naomi plopped back down on the sofa and drained her glass. Sofia was very still, her hands in her lap, not meeting anyone's gaze. I glanced at Dante to see if he was surprised by my revelations, but he wore a stoic expression. Only Angela was caught off guard.

  "Go on," she urged me. "What does their being friends have anything to do with this?"

  "Yes, answer that," Naomi sneered. "Particularly since I was the one who accused Sofia in the first place. Why would I do that to a friend?"

  "I'll get to that in a moment. One thing at a time."

  "For fuck's sake," Naomi muttered. "Do you think you're Miss Marple or something?"

  I ignored her. I kind of understood how my taking center stage would be killing her. She played the heroine in all her movies. She was the big star. The public loved her. I was not painting her in a good light, and she wasn't used to it. It didn’t help that a lowly extra was stealing her limelight.

  And it felt damn good.

  "It's all about the earrings," I said. Everyone looked to the earrings once more dangling from Naomi's ears. "But not those."

  "Which ones?" Angela asked.

  "Sofia's."

  Sofia touched the hair hiding her ears. "Mine? But mine cost very little."

  "No they didn't. You touch them a lot. And I mean a lot. At first I thought it was a nervous habit, but now I think you've been checking that they're still there. Not only does that mean they're new, but it also implies they're expensive."

  "For God's sake," Dante said with a roll of his eyes. "That's a bit of a stretch."

  Angela got up and bent over Sofia. She inspected the earrings until Sofia moved away. "They look real to me."

  No one dared disagree with her. Not even Sofia. That meant I was on the right track.

  "So she has an expensive pair of earrings," Angela said, sitting down again. "How is that relevant?"

  "At first I thought Naomi was jealous of Sofia. Since her lover likes to give her jewelry, she might have assumed her friend's new earrings came from the same person. I thought maybe she wanted to set Sofia up, somehow managing to get the earrings into her pocket."

  "That's ridiculous," Naomi scoffed.

  "Now you're taking giant speculative leaps," Dante said. "Give us evidence or shut up."

  "You're right," I said. "That's why I dismissed that idea. Lack of evidence. But the earrings are important. Why is a poor waitress and extra wearing them? Where would she get the money?"

  "She stole them," Dante declared. "Thank you for showing us a pattern, Cat. Now we can give the police something more."

  "I did not steal!" Sofia cried.

  "I don't think you did," I said. "I think you bought them with money you earned from blackmail."

  "Blackmail!" It was telling that only two people repeated me. The two who did not stayed quiet: the blackmailer—Sofia—and her victim.

  Dante.

  "Angela," I said. "I don't think it will come as any surprise to you to know that your husband and Naomi are having an affair."

  "That's crap!" Dante shouted, his voice high. "She's making it all up!"

  Angela turned her face away from him. Her eyes were clear and hard like the diamonds in the earrings. "I've known for some time."

  That shut Dante up. He sat back in his seat and crossed his leg over his knee. He jiggled his foot nervously. Naomi looked like she wanted to cry. She bit her lip and blinked back tears. She could kiss her next role in Angela's movie goodbye. But it wasn't at Angela that she glared, it was Sofia.

  "How could you," she snapped. "I thought we were friends. I told you in confidence!"

  Sofia leveled her gaze with Naomi's and shrugged one shoulder. "You get all the good roles, the fame, the men, the jewels. I get nothing. I want some for me. It is only fair."

  Naomi bared her teeth. "Bitch."

  Sofia shrugged again. "I am only your friend to get better parts, but you do not help me one little bit. Not one role. You are the bitch. I do not like you. I never like you." She spat a few more words in Spanish, then folded her arms with a humph.

  Naomi started to cry. Nobody seemed to care much, not even Dante.

  "Sofia found out about the affair from Naomi," I said in case nobody got it. "Clearly Naomi didn't know she was blackmailing Dante."

  "None of this has anything to do with her stealing Naomi's earrings," he said. "In fact, it only proves how amoral she is. I suspected all along that she was some kind of thief. First blackmail and then the earrings. You haven't convinced us she's innocent."

  "She is innocent. In fact, the earrings weren't stolen. Not really."

  He laughed. "Now you're not even making sense."

  "Naomi left the earrings in the room where she'd taken them off to have sex with you. Like she said, they were heavy."

  Naomi buried her head in her hands. Dante's face turned an explosive shade of red. Angela gave her husband a cool smile. She'd known all along, and now she'd been proven right. He said nothing. There was no point in refuting the affair now.

  "She forgot the earrings in the bedroom and came downstairs. When Angela noticed them missing and decided to hunt for them to expose you both, Naomi improvised. She claimed to have left them in the bathroom, knowing they wouldn't be there. But she hadn't counted on Angela calling her bluff. When they weren't found, Angela accused Sofia of taking them. In fact, she accused me first, then Sofia when she found out I had an alibi. She knew she'd left them in the bedroom, so it wouldn't matter who she accused. Nothing would come of it, because the earrings wouldn't be found in Sofia's possession. Or so she thought. We didn’t find the earrings the first time round because she didn't have them."

  "But I found them in her pocket later," Angela said. "She must have had them all along. The first search was poorly done."

  "No, it wasn't. She didn't have the earrings until a few moments before you put your hand in her pocket and found them."

  "But how? She was with us the entire time. Someone would have noticed her slip away to get them. In fact, everyone in this room was together throughout the search. If one person broke away and went ahead, then it would have been obvious who took them. We all entered the bedroom together."

  "That's not quite true. I hung back with Evan. You all went ahead. I don't know who entered the room first or what happened before I got there."

  Angela frowned, but it was Sofia who answered. " He was in the room first." She pointed at Dante.

  He held up his hands. "That's not true. I think I was second. Naomi, do you remember?"

  She made a growling sound at him. "You asshole. You went in first. You took the earrings."

  "What the fuck?"

  "Shut up," Angela snapped. To Naomi she said, "How do you know?"

  "Because he told me." She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Classy. "He pulled me aside in the Jacuzzi room. I was starting to freak out. I knew the room where we'd…had relations was next and the earrings would be right there on the bedside table. I remembered leaving them there and Dante worked it out too, but Angela never gave us a chance to go ahead and retrieve them. She kept us all together. While we pretended to search the Jacuzzi room, he told me to create a distraction when we entered the bedroom. Dante walked in first and as he made his way to the table, I started to scream and get hysterical. That’s when he took the earrings and slipped them into Sofia's pocket."

  "But how?" Sofia asked. "I did not see or feel him put them in."

  "Oh my God." Angela laughed and gave her husband an incredulous look. "Oh my God! You old circus clown."

  "I wasn't a fucking clown," he growled.

  "No," I said. "But you were a magician, right? I saw the pictures. You were holding a deck of cards in one of them. You used to do tricks?"

  "I was an illusionist." He sniffed. "I wouldn't expect you to know the difference."

  I cocked my head to the side. "Yep, you're right. I don't. But I did date a magician once, and he told me one thing that all magicians are taught. Even if you don't know how
they did a trick, you can usually work out when the trick took place. It happens while the audience is distracted. A card hidden in the palm of the hand or slipped to the bottom of the deck while the audience is looking elsewhere. The good ones make a joke at the same time for an extra layer of distraction. Naomi's hysterics took the focus off of you while your nimble fingers gathered up the earrings and carefully placed them in Sofia's pocket."

  Dante huffed out a long breath, all the fight gone out of him.

  "I thought he was just going to put them in his own pocket until Angela gave up the search," Naomi said to Sofia. "Now I'm glad he put them in yours. Bitch. I will never forgive you."

  Sofia merely shrugged.

  "Dante wanted to frame Sofia," I said. "He wanted her to be caught and arrested, so she couldn't keep blackmailing him. Did you know she didn't a have a green card?"

  "It was a guess," he mumbled. "Even if she did have it, arrest would have been enough. We could have struck an agreement. I could have had the charges dropped, and she would have stopped bleeding me dry."

  Sofia made a rude hand gesture and said something in Spanish. He told her to fuck off in the same language. That was the extent of my own Spanish.

  "Well," Angela said, chirpily. It set everyone on edge. Angela was never chirpy. "Where does this leave us? Ah yes. Dante, we're getting divorced. My lawyers will contact yours. Don't expect much in the settlement."

  "But we've been together for five years!" he cried. "That's got to be worth something."

  "It's worth shit. You cheated on me. And thanks to our pre-nup, you get only what you came into the marriage with. Nothing." Her eyes traveled from Dante to his mistress. "Naomi, you're fired. I can't work with people I don't trust."

  Naomi sobbed, but didn't appeal to Angela's better nature. I wasn't sure Angela had one anyway.

  "Sofia, you didn't steal the earrings, but you did steal from me through my idiot of a husband. He paid you from the allowance I give him. He doesn't know I have access to his account to monitor his spending."

  She smirked at Dante. He groaned and dug his hand through his hair.

  "I noticed large sums being withdrawn lately, but I didn't know why. I suspected a woman was involved somehow, and now I know who." She lifted her glass in salute. "Thank you, everyone. Well played."

  Well, fuck. We'd all been parts in her performance. I didn't for a minute think she guessed it would play out so well in her favor when she set the wheels in motion, but there was no doubt she'd ended up the best out of everyone. Unless you counted losing her husband. Maybe Dante was worth losing. He certainly wasn't worth keeping.

  Sofia came to sit by Angela. "Please, Ms. Levine, call the police again and tell them not to come. I can pay you back. All of it."

  Angela arched her brow. "I don't think so."

  "Please, I beg you." She removed her earrings. "Take them. I give back what I have not spent tomorrow."

  "I want all of it."

  Sofia swallowed. "I do not have it all anymore."

  "Too bad for you."

  Sofia hunched over and began to cry. Angela turned away, her jaw set hard, her eyes cold.

  "Here, take these." Naomi handed her earrings to Angela. "That should cover some of it."

  Sofia glanced up. "Thank you, Naomi, thank you. You are true friend." The woman was as fake and fickle as everyone else in Hollywood. I couldn't tell if she was being sincere anymore.

  Naomi sat back down. It would seem she was the least rotten of the lot after all. I was actually starting to like her. Then again, she did sleep with a married man.

  "Stop crying," Angela said to Sofia. She handed her Naomi's earrings. "Give these back to that slut."

  Sofia took them hesitantly and gave them to Naomi. "Why?" Naomi asked.

  "They're worthless."

  "They're real diamonds!"

  "I can assure you, they're not. Dante has a habit of giving fakes to his girlfriends. I should know, I received many."

  Dante sputtered a protest, but didn't actually form any words. Then he went quiet again. His foot wriggled faster.

  "I buy my own jewelry now," Angela said. "I like to know I'm getting the real thing."

  Naomi threw the earrings at Dante. They bounced off his head and onto the floor. "You worthless piece of shit. I hate you! You've ruined my career!"

  He closed his eyes and buried his hands in his hair.

  Angela laughed. "All right, I'll call the police and tell them not to bother."

  "Thank you," Sofia said. "Thank you, thank you."

  "But you will be working for me for free until you've paid off the rest."

  Sofia nodded. "Si, si."

  "Starting with my next movie. I need some Mexican extras."

  Sofia beamed. It had all worked out for her. Not only did she get to stay in the country, but she got an extra credit to her name. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. She didn't really deserve it.

  "Uh, Ms. Levine?" I said. "Do you have any parts for me?"

  "You can have something too. Maybe a dead body or something."

  Yay! I loved being dead. It was the easiest job in Hollywood.

  Angela got up to call the police back, but stopped and sniffed. "Can anyone else smell something funky?"

  I sniffed too. Uh oh. I knew that odor. I'd smelled it countless times while dating Evan. He was cooking, and when Evan cooked, trouble followed.

  He entered the living room, tray in hand. "Cookie anyone?"

  "Evan!" I cried. "What are you doing?"

  "You all need to chill out, so I baked something special with ingredients I brought with me." He offered the plate to Angela.

  "Um, I don't think you should," I said. I didn't want to get Evan into trouble, but if she was going to have one, she needed to be warned. "I wouldn't trust anything Evan made himself."

  "What are they?" she asked.

  "Hash cookies," he said.

  "Just what I need." She took one. "You, I'll employ again."

  Evan winked at me then offered the plate around.

  ***

  The following day I called Dad. I didn't know why. I guess I felt a kind of connection to him after solving the crime. Mom said he was "keeping out of trouble" for the day by helping his old partner at the office. Dad didn't have a cell phone, so Mom gave me the office number. Will Knight picked up the phone. Will had bought the P.I. business after Dad had a health scare and retired early. I'd met him briefly a couple times when Dad still owned the firm. He was kind of sexy and a little bit older than me. Problem was, he was boring. There was no way he would have let some of Hollywood's bitchiest bitches eat a hash cookie. He wouldn't even have let Sofia walk free.

  I didn't want to waste time talking to him. I had to practice being dead. "Is my dad there?" I asked after our polite greeting.

  "Uh, yeah, sure, but he's busy. You can talk to me for a few minutes."

  "No thanks."

  Silence on the other end. Okay, so that was a little harsh.

  "Sorry, that didn't come out right," I said. "I meant to say sure."

  "It didn't sound like it."

  I rolled my eyes. The guy should be grateful a young woman wanted to speak to him. He was in his thirties and still single.

  I tried to think of something we had in common to talk about, but I just didn't know him well enough. Small talk it would have to be. "How's the P.I. business going?"

  "Good. I'm really busy. I've got a new secretary now, but she's out to lunch at the moment."

  I sat on the floor and stretched my legs out in front of me, settling in for a long chat. Will may not be the most scintillating conversationalist, but he had a damn sexy voice. It was rich and deep like it came from a broad masculine chest. I could listen to it all day.

  "How about you?" he asked. "Got any roles lined up?"

  "I'm going to be a dead body in a new western."

  "Yeah? Good for you. I saw your last movie. You were fantastic in it."

  Okay, so the guy was pretty
nice. I grinned into the phone. "Thanks, that's sweet of you."

  "I'm serious. It'll only be a matter of time before you land a big part. So tell me how the audition for the dead body part came about."

  "I didn't have to audition. Sometimes it's who you know, you know?" I told him everything, not leaving out a single detail. I even told him about the hash cookies, since it had been pretty damn funny watching Angela and the others hugging one another after everything that had happened.

  When I finished there was silence on the other end. Oh crap, I'd bored him. He'd either set the phone down and walked away or fallen asleep.

  "Hello? Will? Are you still there?"

  "Yeah," he said quietly. "Still here."

  "Everything okay? You sound different."

  "Just…" He huffed out a breath. "Cat, are you nuts?"

  "Um, maybe. Why?"

  "First of all, did you have any of the hash cookies? Jeez, I hope not," he said before I could answer. "You dad would hit the roof."

  "Hey, calm down. I didn't. I don't do that stuff. I don’t use any drugs." I wasn’t sure why I added that. It was none of his business. I felt like I had to defend myself, but I didn't know why. He meant nothing to me.

  "Secondly, you shouldn't have gotten involved in the hunt for the earrings. That Angela woman sounds ruthless, and you knew she wanted to catch her husband and his mistress. You should have just let them fight it out. It could have gotten dangerous."

  "But it didn't."

  "But it could have. Husbands and wives can get violent when things start to go wrong."

  Sheesh, the guy's lectures were worse than Dad's. "How do you know?"

  Silence again.

  Ha. I'd shot him down. Good. The jerk had no right to lecture me. I barely tolerated it from Dad, I wasn't going to put up with a distant acquaintance telling me what I should and shouldn't do.

  "Your dad would have a heart attack if he found out you were putting yourself in danger, Cat," was all he said. Will’s reaction blindsided me. His voice had turned soft, but it still held a steely edge. "He knows I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

  "Can you?"

  "Sure. I know some moves." Yeah, choreographed ones from a bad action movie I had the misfortunate of being in. "Besides, there wasn't any danger."