Immediate Family (24 page)

“Whoa there. Better slow down.” He pried the nearly empty glass from her hand. “When was the last time you had anything stronger than root beer?”

Franny giggled, realizing she was ever so slightly sloshed. “I don’t drink. Ish bad for the baby,” she told him.

“I don’t know about the baby, but I think it’s kind of cute,” he said, smiling. “I’ve never seen you drunk before.”

“I’m no sush thing!” she declared, rearing back in indignation.

“Okay, inebriated then,” he amended with a laugh. “Remind me to hold the liquor on our wedding night.”

Oh, God. This was turning into a nightmare. What the hell could she have been thinking, drinking so much? She shook her head in an effort to clear it, struggling to form a string of coherent words around a tongue that felt swollen twice its normal size. “You don’t want to marry me, trush me. I’d make a terrible wife.”

“I disagree. In fact, I wouldn’t change a thing about you,” he said, gazing at her in bemusement.

“This is all wrong. I can’t marry you,” she tried again, enunciating each word as if for the hearing impaired.

“Why don’t I make you some coffee,” Keith said, rising to his feet.

“No! Wait!” She lunged to grab hold of his arm as he started toward the kitchen, slipping off the sofa and onto the floor in the process.

He helped her back up. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

She stood up to go after him, but the room began to spin, causing her to plop back down again with a groan. How the hell had she managed to screw things up so badly? Maybe this was God’s way of telling her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Who was she to throw away a perfectly good man? She, who didn’t exactly have guys standing in line.

Jay didn’t count. He was…he was…she didn’t know what he was. Not a boyfriend exactly, and not just a friend. She buried her head in her hands, letting out another groan. From somewhere in the distance she heard a trilling, but it was several moments before she realized it was her cell phone. She rummaged amid the jumbled contents of her purse, half of which ended up on the floor, before she managed to fish it out.

“Help! I don’t know what to do!” It was Stevie, clearly at her wits end. In the background, she could hear Ruth wailing at the top of her lungs. “She won’t take the bottle. She wants
you.”

“I’m on my way. I jush have to find the keys.” Franny began hunting in her purse for the keys to Stevie’s car as a fit of hiccups quickly turned into a fit of giggles.

“Are you
drunk?”
Stevie demanded.

“Course not!” Franny cried, adding with another giggle, “Well, maybe a little.”

“You’d better let Keith drive then.”

Franny realized with a sinking heart that the speech she’d planned would have to wait. You didn’t break up with the designated driver when you were three sheets to the wind and had a hungry baby to rush home to. Besides, whatever she said, he wouldn’t take her seriously. He’d just think it was cute.

Keith reappeared moments later carrying a steaming mug. “Who was that?” he asked. Franny explained the situation and he instantly took charge, assisting her to her feet and steering her out the door, an arm firmly around her waist.

“You’re a good man, Keith Holl’way,” she told him when they were in Stevie’s car, zipping along the road on their way to the freeway. She patted his knee, smiling at him blearily. It wasn’t his fault he’d chosen a woman who didn’t know her own mind.

A
fter dropping Franny off at the airport the following day, with a hangover bigger than all her luggage combined, Stevie decided, on an impulse, to drive over to Grant’s. She’d taken the day off, and besides, there was something she needed to discuss with him. It seemed her frequent visits to the mansion hadn’t gone unnoticed. The news community was abuzz with the rumor that she’d managed to wrangle an interview with the elusive Grant Tobin. She’d have to publicly set the record straight, and soon, or risk having someone else get the real scoop. The tricky part would be getting Grant to agree to it. He was like a skittish horse when it came to the press. Complicating matters was the rumor that the DA’s office was calling for a reopening of the investigation in the Lauren Rose case.

Cruising north on I-405, she speed-dialed his number, and was surprised when Grant himself picked up. She’d been expecting to get Victor. “Hi,” she said. “So you’re answering your own phone these days.”

“Victor’s in the gym,” Grant explained. Among the mansion’s many deluxe features was a fully-equipped gym, where the only person Stevie had ever seen work out was Victor. One reason the guy was built like a Sub-Zero. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. I just thought I’d swing by if you weren’t busy.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check my calendar,” Grant said in a dry voice.

Half an hour later she was pulling into the drive. The day was chilly, and she shivered as she stepped out of the car, wishing she’d worn a heavier jacket. In the far-off distance she could see Mr. Mori riding around on his tractor-mower, its drone so faint it might have been that of an insect. Grant’s housekeeper, Maria greeted her at the door.

“Mr. Grant say make yourself at home,” Maria said as she showed her in, explaining that he was on the phone. A short, round lady with an open, smiling face, she’d been with Grant for years and was more family member than live-in help.

Stevie thanked her and wandered around for a few minutes before a muffled clanging sound drew her to the stairs leading to the gym on the floor below, where she found Victor on his back bench-pressing what looked to be at least three hundred pounds. She waited until he’d finished his reps before approaching him. The reopening of the Lauren Rose investigation would mean more interviews with the household staff, Victor chief among them. Now that they were getting along a little better these days—she’d made a concerted effort to be friendly—she wanted to feel him out a bit, see if he knew anything he hadn’t told the police that might shed some light on what had happened during the time of Grant’s blackout that long-ago night.

He spotted her and rose from the bench, breathing hard and drenched with sweat. “Hey,” he said, lifting a hand in greeting.

“What are you up to?” She nodded toward the barbell he’d been pressing.

“Three-fifty,” he said with a shrug, reaching for the towel slung over the top of the weight rack and using it to mop the sweat dripping from his forehead.

“Wow. You must work out a lot.”

“One of the perks of the job.” He grinned at her, a flash of teeth that did nothing to take the chill from his demeanor. He tossed aside the towel and reached for a free weight, one heavy enough to have put Stevie’s back out, lifting it with ease, his biceps swelling with each rep.

“My idea of a perk is an extra vacation day,” she said.

He glanced at her without breaking his rhythm. “You don’t get much time off, do you?”

Pretending not to notice the faint suggestion in his tone that these visits of hers were somehow work related, she said, “In Hollywood even the dead don’t sleep.” Victor shot her a quizzical look, and she explained that dead celebrities were cash cows for their heirs. Though it was the living ones, she said, who kept her busiest.

“You like digging up all that dirt?” It was more a statement than a question.

She watched a dribble of sweat make its way down one scarred cheek. “I’m not in the business of exposing celebrities’ secrets, if that’s what you mean.”

“That so.” He gave her an arch look. “What about old rockers?”

“If you’re suggesting that this is all part of some grand scheme,” she said, jerking her chin upward to indicate the floor above, where Grant was presumably still on the phone, “you couldn’t be more mistaken.” What did Victor think, that she planned to make a circus sideshow of her own father?

“Yeah, I know, you’re only making up for lost time with dear old dad.”

She bristled at his tone. “Something like that.”

“You know who he’s on the phone with right now?”

“No, who?”

“His lawyer.”

It dawned on her then what this was all about: Victor must think she was after Grant’s money. That her plan all along had been to butter him up so he’d put her in his will. And the only reason it could possibly matter to Victor was if
he
was angling for the same thing. She played dumb, though, not wanting him to suspect that she was on to him.

“It must be important. He’s been on a long time.” She spoke casually, as if she had no idea what it was about, which in fact she didn’t.

“I wouldn’t know. It ain’t my business.” With a grunt, the houseman heaved the weight in a last curl that caused his face to contort and the veins on his bulging biceps to pop out.

She’d never before seen him without a long-sleeved shirt, and now she wondered if he was on steroids. You didn’t get monster muscles like that just from working out at the gym. She moved in for a closer look, fascinated and repelled at the same time. That’s when the tattoo on his forearm came into focus: a rose twined about a crucifix, complete with the head of a Jesus figure, its thorns forming the crown on Christ’s head. It seemed familiar somehow, and after a second it came to her: In her
Prime Time
interview, Lauren Rose had spoken of a crucifix and a rose, a scrap of memory she hadn’t been able to place in context.

Now the mists were clearing. She understood why Victor treated her like a party crasher and why he’d been so hostile the one time she’d asked him about that night. She recalled, too, the maid whose story had conflicted with Victor’s. Maybe, she thought, he knew more than he’d let on.

“Nice tattoo,” she commented, pointing at his arm.

“Thanks.” It didn’t escape her notice when he subtly shifted position so it was obscured from view.

“I knew a guy once who had the whole U.S.S.
Constitution
tattooed on his chest,” she said. “Though I imagine it must have hurt when he had it done.”

Victor grunted in response.

“You must have a pretty high tolerance for pain,” she went on. “Or maybe you just like inflicting it.”

His blood-engorged face darkened further and he dropped the weight to the floor with a resounding thud. “What are you getting at?” he growled, swinging around to face her.

“I’m just wondering if you know more about Lauren Rose than you’re telling.” As she met his cold gaze, she felt a chill skitter up her spine. But what was he going to do, take her out in broad daylight with Grant and the rest of the staff within shouting distance? She backed off nonetheless when he took a step toward her, not liking the look on his face.

“What business is it of yours?” he said, his dark eyes glittering with menace.

“You know that Grant thinks he’s the one who pulled that trigger?” she told him.

“How do you know he didn’t?”

“It’s possible,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. By his own admission Grant had been so high that night, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if a 747 had crash-landed in his backyard. “But I’m guessing he didn’t.”

“Then it’s like he said.” Victor reached for his towel once more, patting his face dry. “Anyway, there were no eyewitnesses. Plus, the only fingerprints on the gun were hers.”

“Whoever did it could have wiped theirs off before putting it in her hand.”

“Like you said, anything’s possible,” Victor said, with a shrug.

“Just for the sake of argument, if they were
your
prints, is that what you would have done?”

He shot her a derisive smile and shook his head. “No way. I ain’t fallin’ for that, lady. You may be good at getting people to talk, but I ain’t no Hollywood whore looking to get my picture in the papers.”

“Maybe you’d rather tell it to the police,” she said.

He gave her an odd, calculating look. “I already told them everything I know.”

“There’s talk that they’re reopening the investigation. I think they might be interested in having a look at that tattoo.” Stevie gestured toward his forearm. “Lauren seems to recall something about a rose and a crucifix. Who knows, maybe there’s a connection.”

“They can’t prove nothing.” He looked worried nonetheless.

“Maybe not. But I’m sure they’d want to talk to you even so.” She fumbled in her shoulder bag for her cell phone.

Victor flicked a nervous glance at it as she pulled it out. “You’re full of shit.”

“Try me.”

“What’s in it for
you,
a fucking exclusive?” He sneered.

“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in setting the record straight.” Stevie punched a button on the phone. She had the number for the LAPD on speed dial—you never knew when you were going to need a sound bite about a celebrity who’d met with either the wrong arm of the law or a questionable death—and now she scrolled down until she got to it. Her finger was hovering over the Send button when Victor snatched the phone from her hand, tossing it onto the bench that still bore the sweaty outline of his torso.

“I don’t need the cops crawling all over me. They give me enough heat as it is,” he said. Stevie recalled something in the old clippings she’d perused about Victor’s having a record—something gang-related in his youth.

“Okay, so tell me what you know.” She retrieved her cell phone and tucked it back into her bag.

Victor frowned, as if mulling it over. “Off the record?” When she didn’t respond, he gave a harsh laugh. “What the hell. You can’t prove nothing anyhow. You start talking shit about me, I’ll fucking sue your ass. I’ll say you’re one crazy bitch who’s out to get me.”

Stevie didn’t bat an eye. “Why would I be out to get you, Victor?”

“She
was.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? The bitch who started all this.”

“Lauren.”

“Yeah, her. She’s not what you think, all innocent and like. She had it coming.”

“Had what coming?”

He was looking straight at her but his eyes were vacant, as if he’d retreated to some other plane, a dark one that existed only in his mind. “She was playing him.” Meaning Grant, no doubt. “She was playing both of us, making out like it was really
me
she wanted. Fucking cocktease.”

“So you and she had a thing?” Every nerve ending in Stevie’s body was quivering, like when she was closing in on a big story.

He shrugged again, which she took to mean yes.

“Does Grant know?” she asked, zeroing in.

“He was so shit-faced most of the time, he couldn’t find his own dick,” Victor sneered.

Fine way to talk about your employer,
Stevie thought. But keeping this bottled up for so long had clearly had a corrosive effect. Since she knew Grant hadn’t kept him around all this time for his sunny personality, she could only suppose it was out of gratitude. For years, it had been Victor who’d picked him up whenever he was passed out, cleaning him up and putting him to bed. And apparently he’d done more than that; he’d also taken care of his boss’s girlfriend’s sexual needs. Still, that didn’t explain why Victor would put a bullet through Lauren’s head.

“You were in love with her, weren’t you?” she said, as comprehension sank in. “You couldn’t stand it when you found out she was using you, and you wanted to teach her a lesson.”

“It wasn’t like that.” He dropped heavily onto the bench, staring off into the middle distance, still wearing that vacant look. He appeared to be wrestling with himself, but apparently the need to come clean outweighed his sense of self-preservation. “I loved her, yeah. But all I was trying to do was get her to see she’d be better off with me. I coulda got hold of some money”—Stevie didn’t have to guess where—“we woulda been okay. Not rich, but we woulda had enough to get by. Only she laughed in my face. Said it wasn’t money she wanted from me. The way she looked at me, like I was a toy she was tired of playing with…I just…I don’t know…something came over me and I snapped. I knew where he kept his gun. I only wanted to shake her up a little, make her see she couldn’t get away with treating me that way. Only…” He dropped his head into his hands, clutching his forehead.

“The gun went off,” she finished for him.

His silence told her all she needed to know.

Stevie knew the rest of the story. In the end it had turned out to be the oldest in the world: a love triangle gone awry. Leaving Victor to his own tormented memories, she turned and walked away. As she passed through the doorway on her way to the staircase, she reached into her shoulder bag and groped for the tape recorder she’d surreptitiously switched on earlier when retrieving her cell phone, thumbing the Off button.