The First Assistant (34 page)

As I lay in bed and looked out the window I decided that today I was going to have a good time. As far as I was aware no one knew the sordid details of my departure from The Agency yet, so I might as well go and have one last hurrah, wining and dining with the rich and famous be-fore I had to go into hiding and leave the country. And after the scare the day before with the invitation delivery, I was certain that my life had been cut short by a good five years. I’d actually grabbed my passport and wallet and was hiding in the bathroom when the armed guards had knocked at the guesthouse door. Luckily Lara and Scott were invited to the wedding, too, so the guards had left my directions and final invite in Lara’s care. But for some not-that-mysterious reason, my invitation was missing the plus-guest line. I had been invited solo, even though I had told Emerald I was dating Jason. I was sure I’d be on call at some point in the day.

The shower lifted my spirits a tiny bit, but they plummeted back down again as I took out the red dress and sexy Louboutin shoes that had been part of my demise. I wanted to take them back to Barneys, but I knew if I did I’d have an anxiety attack trying to get dressed for the wedding. And my life was anxiety-provoking enough at the moment. As I put the dress on, I felt like Scarlet O’Hara in that scene where Rhett makes her go and face the wolves at the party alone in that red and black dress. Though she’s innocent, of course. Somehow this memory gave me strength and I made an extra effort when I put on my makeup and slid into my shoes. I could survive this thing. I knew I could. I was innocent and the truth would come out in time. The only problem was, how much time did I have?

We’d all arrived at the requested location on the top of Malibu Canyon, but instead of being ushered into a tent and given a cocktail and canapé we were hurried into a fleet of waiting helicopters. They’d staggered our arrival times so that no one would be kept waiting, and I was in the first batch. The ride gave me a new perspective on life. But it wasn’t the coastline or all the tiny little houses that made me alight from that helicopter feeling like a new woman. It was who was on board that did that. I was the first one to climb in, and as I made myself comfortable in the back I looked up to see Katherine Watson. My face went hot with shame but instead of looking the other way and giving me the

cold shoulder, she walked purposefully in my direction. I wanted off the helicopter but everyone was pouring in the door and to try and get off now would make a total scene. So I just turned my gaze away and looked out the window. I knew this had been a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come.

Katherine took the seat next to me. She didn’t say anything and neither did I as the excited guests chattered away and said hello to the se-cret circle of the rich and famous that I definitely wasn’t part of. I counted the seconds wondering why she felt the need to take the one seat next to me when there had been an entire empty helicopter to sit in. But as the propellers started to whirr and the noise increased to a cacophony, Katherine tapped me on the leg to get my attention. I turned to her, braced for the assault.

“Elizabeth, I’m so sorry,” Katherine said as quietly as possible. She looked around to make sure that no one else was listening. “I know you didn’t blackmail anybody and so does Scott.” Was I hearing her correctly? “I wanted to come to you sooner, but I couldn’t until I got the fingerprints back from the lab. Amber was smart enough to wear gloves when handling the negatives but forgot to wipe the Scotch tape she used to stick the negatives to your chair.”

“But why are you whispering?” I said loudly, wanting to announce it to the world.

“I know this is a lot to ask, Elizabeth, but we need to keep this under wraps just for a couple of more days. The Scotch tape, though it exon-erates you in our eyes, isn’t the proof we need to really get Amber. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much I want to do that,” she said with a rueful grin.

I looked at Katherine and knew she meant every word. Amber had ruined my life temporarily. The damage she’d done was thankfully now fixable. But she’d struck a mortal blow to Katherine. Amber had destroyed her family. Her kids would now be a product of divorce and her faith in human nature would never be the same again. And the worst part was that Katherine had invited her into her house as a friend.

I nodded my head slowly. “So Scott knows the truth, right?”

“Yes. He never wanted to believe it in the first place but Amber was

so insidious. She even had me convinced. She’s been planning it for months. The police are still involved. They think she’s blackmailing more clients than we’ve been informed of, which is why your firing had to be so real. I suspected then that something was going on. But Amber has to be certain that you’ve been blamed so she can feel secure to operate again. It’ll just be a matter of time. And in the meantime, you will be paid your full salary and I will make sure The Agency compensates you for your pain and suffering.”

“Listen, Katherine, I don’t want to be compensated. My salary would be nice until I get my job back, but besides that I just want my name cleared.”

“I understand that.... You know, I used to think I was a good judge of character.” Katherine sighed and closed her eyes for a brief, painful moment.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, feeling a tremendous burden lift from my shoulders. I wanted to jump up and down and celebrate. I wanted to call Lara, who was on the next shift of helicopters, but felt I couldn’t be too celebratory in front of Katherine and I was sure Scott had already told her. I just had to manage to keep it all quiet for a bit longer. I truly wanted to see Amber go down and go down hard. No lit-tle slap on the wrist would do for that conniving cow.

“Katherine,” I said somberly. “Can I ask you a favor?” “Anything, Lizzie.”

“Can you get her deported?” I asked.

Katherine started to laugh. “I think I could manage that. I do run one of the most powerful agencies in Hollywood. There’s not much that we can’t do if it’s necessary.” She winked at me as the helicopter descended and the pilot spoke into our headphones.

“Hello, guests, welcome to Catalina. This is your final destination to-day. I do hope you enjoyed the ride, and send my best to the happy cou-ple.” I looked down at my red dress and my red-soled shoes and smiled for the first time in days.

Katherine and I stepped off the helicopter but went our separate ways. She apologized profusely before we landed as she said she would have loved to have a good old newly single girl time, but she didn’t want

our coziness filtering back to Amber somehow. And I agreed. Now that I knew my innocence was in the bag, I didn’t care if no one talked to me all night.

But I didn’t get a chance to feel lonely. I literally had just walked into the cocktail area and been handed a glass of vintage champagne when a woman with a headset hurried up to me.

“Elizabeth Miller, can you come with me?” she said officiously. “Look,” I said defensively, “I’m invited and I haven’t blackmailed anybody, okay? I have proof.” The woman looked at me strangely and then at my glass of champagne.

“I’m sorry, Miss Miller. It’s just that Emerald asked me to bring you to her the second you arrived. I should have made myself clear. Would you come with me, please?” she asked pleadingly. I blushed, embarrassed at behaving like such a paranoid freak. Obviously the last few days had taken their toll. I smiled and followed the stressed-out wedding planner. I couldn’t help but recall a similar situation the first time I’d met Emerald at the airport. I wondered what trouble she’d gotten herself into now. I felt truly flattered, though, that she had obviously called upon me to fix it.

I stepped into the suite and struggled to see anything through the gloom. All the curtains were drawn and the lights were out. The wedding planner quickly shut the door behind me. I took a step forward and heard a crunching sound. As my eyes adjusted to the low-level lighting, I looked down and realized I was walking on the remnants of various vases. There were white roses covering the floor. There had obviously been a serious meltdown. I heard sniffling in a corner.

“Em? It’s Lizzie. Can I come in?”

“I’ve been waiting for you. What took you so long?” she said accusatorily. I decided to ignore this as I’d always heard how stressed out brides got on their wedding day.

Instead, I followed her voice, as I’d done so many times before, and picked my way around the broken vases. I finally saw her silhouette seated at a dressing table in front of an enormous mirror.

“Can I open the curtains, sweetie?” I asked gently.

“I guess so.” She sniffed pathetically. “I just don’t want anyone taking

my picture at the moment. But I guess it’s probably safe as the perimeter is surrounded with armed guards. Jizzy’s taken this whole privacy thing a bit too far if you ask me. Something about his silly Hermetic Or-der of the Golden Dawn,” she said with annoyance. “Do you know this place had to be blessed at sunrise and sunset every day for a week be-fore the wedding?”

“It’s certainly a romantic location for the ceremony,” I said, trying to inject some positivity into the situation.

“He didn’t pick Catalina because it was romantic, Lizzie; he picked it because the airspace is restricted due to some military base in the area. He thinks he’s starring in his own personal action movie. I had to have it put in my contract that he’s not allowed to keep guns in our house.”

So there was trouble in paradise already. I walked to the window and opened the heavy curtain, letting the light pour into the gloomy room. I gasped as the warm afternoon sun landed on Emerald’s face. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen in my life. She looked like a fairy-tale bride. Her hair was pulled gently back from her face and her green eyes shone through the antique lace veil. Her dress was the thick-est, most luxurious satin in a subtle champagne color with the most detailed embroidery imaginable. Valentino had outdone himself. I had expected to see her looking like a Christmas tree dripping in diamonds. But she was tastefully adorned with an antique diamond, pearl, and emerald necklace. The green in the stone picked up a bit of green in the dress’s embroidery that then brought your focus back to her eyes. The only imperfection was the tear-stained cheeks and slightly smudged mascara.

“Oh, Emerald, you look so stunning,” I said and meant every word. I couldn’t even dream of looking like that on my wedding day. There were just some summits that us mere mortals would never be able to reach. Luke’s face flashed into my head.

“Really?” she said, lighting up for a second. I pulled up a chair across from her and lifted her veil from her face. I handed her a Kleenex to wipe her nose.

“Really,” I said, as I glanced at the clock. We really needed to get mov-ing if we were going to avoid a scandal. “So, what’s going on? When I

came with you to that dress fitting a couple of weeks ago, you said you were actually in love with Jizzy. You know it’s normal for couples to fight.” “There’s nothing normal about Jizzy. Let me tell you,” Emerald said.

Well, that wasn’t a great surprise. He’d purchased a wife through his agent. Certainly wasn’t a traditional form of courting that
I
was aware of.

“But I thought that’s what you liked about him?” I said.

“Even ‘unique’ has its limits,” Emerald replied vaguely. I got the impression that she really wanted to tell me something but was holding back. She looked around the room.

“Emerald, is there someone else in the room?”

“Not that I know of, but those HOGD people are everywhere. I have to drink blessed water or I won’t be pure enough to kiss my husband.” Poor Emerald certainly seemed in over her head.

“Well, at least we know Jizzy isn’t a fool. He picked you, right?”

Emerald could hold it in no longer. She leaned in so close that her lips touched my ear. It was in such a low whisper I could barely make it out. “He’s no fool, Lizzie. He’s a fairy.” She pulled back to see the im-pact her words had on me. Obviously it had the desired effect, as she seemed pleased for the first time since I’d entered the room.

“No,” I spluttered incredulously. It just wasn’t possible. Jizzy James had been the über-male icon for the last twenty years. Every girl I knew had dreamed about being ravaged by him at one point or another. But I guess we could all just keep dreaming. It all suddenly made sense now. Why I hadn’t put two and two together in the first place was the real mystery.

“I’m a beard, Lizzie. Just a beard,” Emerald said with perfectly pitched melodrama.

“A beautiful beard,” I assured her, knowing of no other approach but flattery at this late date. Good old Emerald started to laugh. Then she threw caution to the wind and spoke openly.

“I know it’s silly to be upset. I just wish someone would have told me. It wouldn’t have mattered, but at least I wouldn’t have been so shocked when his fucking boyfriend burst into our bedroom and tried to scratch my eyes out this morning.”

“So did you two . . . you know? Do it?” I whispered, now totally puzzled. “No. Not yet. We’ve only fooled around a bit. Kissed, you know, the

basics. He said we should wait until our wedding night. And I stupidly thought that was because he was so old-fashioned and traditional.”

“And we thought it was all about secret sects but really it was just about secret sex,” I joked. That one seemed to go right over Emerald’s head. She just looked at me blankly and I decided to keep the humor to a minimum.

“Or no sex, in my case. I just don’t know what to do now. Tell me what to do, Lizzie?” she pleaded.

I took a deep breath. My instinct was to tell Emerald to pick up that ninety-foot train and swim to the mainland if she had to. But that was what I’d do, and we were very different people. Anyway, her dress weighed fifty pounds, so suggesting an ocean swim wasn’t the best of ideas. As I seemed to be this girl’s only adviser, I had to try and approach the situation like an adult. Which was obviously a struggle for me at the best of times. “Em. You know there are two different ways to look at this situation. Op-tion A.” I sounded like my father. “If you decide to do a runner, I’m with you all the way. I’ll help you paddle back to LA in a canoe if need be. So there’s always that option.” Emerald nodded gratefully, but I knew I had to press on with Option B. “Or, you can look at the situation in a different light.” She waited patiently for me to flip the switch. “You were never marrying Jizzy for love in the first place, right?” I pressed on. Emerald nodded. “So just take your head back to where you originally started. It was a marriage of convenience and good for both of your careers.” I could see Emerald struggling to get on this bandwagon. “And to be honest, his homosexuality is really a blessing in disguise. Gay men make much better friends, most of them