Authors: Casey Griffin
“That wasn’t him. I know it wasn’t. He’d never do anything to hurt me.” And besides, since that night she’d become well acquainted with Aiden’s body. His shape, his size, the weight of him on top of her. She knew for a fact that he wasn’t the pyromaniac. But again, she couldn’t exactly use that as an argument on Channel Five News. It was Barney. It must have been.
“Then maybe he had an accomplice,” Holly insisted. “Someone else working with him. That way, he could get the job done while making himself out to be the hero.”
“Excuse me?” Piper couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. “That’s a good imagination you have there. Maybe you should go back to the tabloids where you belong.”
Colin gave a bark of agreement. Holly glared at him as though she didn’t like the tone of his voice.
Waving Holly aside, Piper tried to open the courtyard gate so she could tell them just where they could go. Colin barked at their heels, nipping at the air threateningly. Before she could unlatch the gate, Hey, You blocked her path and Holly jumped right back into the shot.
“Isn’t it true that you’re dating Mr. Caldwell?” She shoved the microphone back into Piper’s face like a weapon.
Piper scowled. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“How do you respond to the allegations that you’re in cahoots with him?”
“In cahoots? What does that even mean?” She threw up her arms in frustration. “Who’s alleging that?”
“I can’t reveal my sources.”
“Your sources, meaning
you
.”
“Why are you avoiding the issue, Miss Summers?” Holly huffed, flicking a stray hair out of her face. “You were always around for the incidents. All three of them, to be exact. And Mr. Caldwell and yourself were the only witnesses the night of the fire.”
“What are you saying? That we had something to do with it?” Piper narrowed her eyes, hit with a sudden urge to wrap the microphone cord around the nosey reporter’s neck. Her voice shook with emotion. Zoe must have heard it too, because she came over and wrapped an arm around Piper’s shoulder in support, ready to jump in if she asked her to. Addison was still trying to soothe Toby with all the commotion.
Piper took a deep breath, trying to control her annoyance, which was in the yellow, bordering on red. She gripped her car keys in her hand until they bit into her skin. “What would I have to gain from burning down the rescue center?”
“I couldn’t help but notice the new paint job on your car as you drove up,” Holly commented innocently.
“My car?”
Hey, You shifted the camera to point out the gate door and into the parking lot for a shot of the VW Bug.
“Lovely,” Holly said. “I bet the job was expensive. Was it a gift? Or was it a way to buy you off?” she finished with a snarl.
Oh, what bad timing. “Have you lost your mind? Aiden and I could have died in that fire.”
Holly stomped her stiletto heel on the ground, her eyes round like that of a bull about to charge. “You used me for my fame to cover for your sick crimes, to get donations. Did you pocket the money?” She gasped a long-drawn-out breath. “Is that how you paid for the paint job? I bet it wasn’t the only upgrade to your piece of crap. Was it? Let’s have a look inside, shall we?” She reached down to rip the keys right out of Piper’s hand.
Piper wanted to take her car and drive right over Holly. “Get away from me!” she yelled. “You’re nuts.”
Holly wrapped her fingers around Piper’s forearm. Colin took ahold of Holly’s pant leg and began tugging. Hey, You backed up to get a panorama of the fight.
“All right. That’s enough.” Zoe grabbed the reporter by the waist, trying to pry her off her friend. “Holly. You and your camera guy both need to leave. Now.”
But Holly had a death grip on Piper. Her manicured fingers pried open Piper’s hand and the keys dropped to the ground. Zoe held her back, but Holly scrambled to grab them, her bright pink butt wiggling in the air as she simultaneously fought Colin off. He was growling viciously, Holly was screeching, Piper and Zoe were threatening, Hey, You was laughing, and it was at that moment that Addison lost her grip on Toby.
Tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, the dog leapt at Holly. The force of his lust drove her headfirst into the ground over, and over, and over again at the cameraman’s feet.
Achoo!
“Ouch!”
Achoo!
“Ouch!”
Achoo!
“Ouch!”
Hey, You backed up to get a wider shot with a look on his face that said it was Christmas morning. Piper dove for the keys and shoved them into her pocket.
When Addison wrenched the German shepherd off—although she took a little longer than necessary—Holly scrambled to her feet. Her hair lay flipped to one side like an eighties hairstyle, her blazer collar stuck up like the Fonz, and there was a suspicious brown smudge on her knee.
“Tell the truth!” she screamed at Piper. “You got the old lady who runs the place out of the way so you could shut it down. No one would ever suspect you. It’s the perfect crime. No cameras, no alarm system—”
“Because we couldn’t afford one!”
“—and no witnesses, except for the poor dogs. And they can’t testify against you, can they?” She shoved a shivering Chihuahua at Piper like the ultimate weapon of guilt to drag the confession out of her.
Achoo!
Piper gripped her head, feeling like she was going insane. “Where did that come from? Why does she have a Chihuahua? That’s not even one of ours!”
“That’s it,” Zoe said, yanking the microphone right out of Holly Hart’s talons. “We’re done here.”
Holly’s eyes were wild, the size of Denny’s pancakes. She spun toward the tall Japanese girl, but Zoe stepped forward, towering over the reporter despite her stilettos.
“We’re done,” Zoe repeated, shoving the mic into Holly’s chest.
Tugging down her blazer, Holly tossed her head and sniffed. “Don’t worry. I have all the information I need to run the story, anyway.” She began backing away to the gate, the camera still rolling. “Everything except motive.”
Piper wrenched open the gate. To make sure they left, Addison let Toby’s leash out, inch by inch, ushering them out with the threat of humping close at their heels.
“Motive, right.” Piper slammed the gate shut in their faces and threw her body weight against it to keep them out. The red and yellow
S
on her blue spandex crop top peeked out from under her raincoat.
Zoe noticed it and raised an eyebrow in question. Piper shrugged.
“So what is it, Miss Summers?” Holly’s disembodied voice called over the fence. “Insurance fraud? A marketing ploy? An excuse to close up shop so Caldwell and Son Investments can begin demolition?”
Piper paused, her hand reaching for the latch. “Demolition?”
Holly scoffed, “Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
Piper’s breaths turned to short gasps. Her stomach dropped into her shiny red boots. Dizziness washed over her, and she slumped against the fence, looking from Addison to Zoe. “He’s demolishing the rescue center? Is that what the rezoning application is for?”
Zoe bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Pipe. We just found out this morning.”
“We wanted to call you.” Addison hesitated. “But we were waiting to find out more before telling you.”
Piper tried to speak, but her mouth had gone dry. She licked her lips. “Before telling me what?”
“Wait; what?” Holly’s disembodied voice called over the fence.
There was grunting and muffled swearing above Piper. She jumped away from the eight-foot-tall fence to see Holly peeking over it. Her arms pinwheeled before she reached for a plank of wood to steady herself. Clearly she was sitting on her cameraman’s shoulders.
“You mean you really don’t know?” Holly’s face filled with a joy Piper had only seen in cartoons, like when Scrooge McDuck swam in his enormous vault of gold coins. “Oh, now
that’s
entertainment.”
“Entertainment?” Zoe snapped back. “I thought you were supposed to be reporting the news.”
But Holly’s rapt attention was on Piper. She smiled deliciously, every bit the tabloid journalist. “Your new boy toy is tearing down your doggy digs in order to build high-rise condominiums.”
“No.” Piper’s head shook back and forth. “No. Aiden wouldn’t do that. I know he wouldn’t.”
“He would. I checked it out this morning.” She let out a high-pitched scream as she dropped from view. There were a few seconds of scuffling and grunting before the gate opened and Holly and Hey, You burst back into the courtyard. She had regained some semblance of calm confidence. The expression on her face was luminous.
“The paperwork’s already gone to the city,” she said. “There’s a lot of support for the project since affordable housing is badly needed in the city. Sorry, sweetheart.” She smiled gleefully. “But your prized pooch Aiden is a dirty dog.”
“I don’t know,” Zoe said, her mouth pursing. “There’s got to be a procedure for this kind of thing. Shouldn’t the renters of the property get some notice or something?”
“Consider this your notice, honey.”
Addison threw Piper a worried look. “Are you okay?”
She wasn’t ready to answer that question. She wasn’t even sure what to believe since Holly wasn’t exactly the most nonpartisan source of information when it came to Aiden. “Have either of you spoken to Marilyn?” she asked. “We have to call her. She must know something about this.”
“We tried,” Zoe said, “but we still can’t get through, and she hasn’t returned any of our calls. Her ship docks tomorrow morning. We probably won’t hear from her until then.”
Addison managed to get Toby into one of the doghouses and latched the little door to keep him at bay. “But what about the insurance? I thought Aiden was taking care of the renovations with the claims adjuster.”
Piper thought back to Saturday. Aiden had been so busy with the insurance company and investigators. She’d assumed he was getting everything organized … then he handed everything over to Tamara. She frowned. Could Tamara have something to do with this? No. She was just his PA. He had the real power over the major decisions.
Piper ran her hands through her hair and gripped it like that might be the source of her pounding head. “I thought so too.”
“Do you see any hot construction men strutting around here this morning?” Holly waved an arm around them. “You’re not getting it. Think about it. Why would you fix up a building that you’ve been planning to tear down for weeks? Months, even.”
“Months?” Piper repeated.
Of course. This had been in the works since long before she and Aiden ever met each other. She recalled when she’d asked about his mysterious advanced deadline.
You’ll find out soon enough.
Those cryptic words, the look on his face. He was smug. He was pleased with himself.
If it was really true, if Aiden had been planning to tear down the center while romancing her all along, then he was laughing at her. She was a joke to him. And so was everything she cared about. A big joke.
She covered her face with her hands. She felt screwed over—in more ways than one.
“I’m going to kill him,” she said, although the lack of enthusiasm in her voice made it sound more like “I want to die.”
“Hey, You!” Holly snapped her fingers. “Are you getting this? Premeditated. Murder one kind of stuff. Zoom in.”
Piper sank to the ground, not even noticing the camera frantically filming shots from every angle. Zoe reached out and hissed something in Hey, You’s ear that made his face go slack and caused him to lower the camera.
“Why would he do this?” Piper asked. “Why would he keep this from me?”
Holly snorted. “Probably so he didn’t have to see that look on your face. Not exactly a turn-on when he’s trying to get you into bed. Am I right? Huh?” She began making suggestive sex faces. “A little carnal action? Did you give in to your animal instincts? Maybe even a little
doggy
-style?” She giggled like they were on a girls’ night out, you know, except for Hey, You eyeing Zoe in the background and holding his camera protectively in front of his crotch.
Addison cringed. “Well, at least he didn’t get the satisfaction.” When Piper looked up guiltily, she covered her mouth. “Did he?”
Piper winced but didn’t answer. “Look. There has to be some other explanation for this.”
Holly attempted to fix her hair using a compact mirror. “Explanation or excuse? Ever wonder why a rich boy like him didn’t whip out the old checkbook to help the center after the first two incidents? Help you buy a security system? Especially if he was trying to get in your pants?”
“He did.” She avoided Addison’s and Zoe’s stares. “But I wouldn’t accept it.”
“Accept it?” Holly scoffed. “He owns the building. If he wanted to make improvements, he would have.”
Piper had never thought much about it at the time because she’d been so determined to fix things on her own. But he owned the building, after all. Of course it would have made sense for him to upgrade the center and make repairs if needed. And it wasn’t like he was a cheapskate or anything, Piper thought, thinking of the new upgrades to her car.
“Because he didn’t want to mix business with pleasure?” It didn’t even sound right to her own ears, but she didn’t know what was right anymore.
“Oh, it was business all right. And sounds like he got the pleasure part too.” Holly winked.
Piper banged her fist on the ground, ready to deny the reporter’s accusations. But even as she wanted to stick up for him, negative thoughts started to creep into her brain. Like how stupid she’d been. A rich, hot CEO interested in her? A telegram singer? She thought back to his history, his life story as told by the tabloids, and developed even more doubts. It was too good to be true, and she’d even known it the day he offered her the job. She wished she’d applied at McDonald’s, after all.
The last couple of weeks with him montaged through her mind, how he made her feel, his lips on hers, the way he held her when he thought she was in danger, and how he instinctually wanted to take care of her—as annoying as it was sometimes. She mentally slapped herself for even considering him guilty of anything. Her instincts told her this was all wrong. Aiden just couldn’t … He wouldn’t—