The Private Concierge. Suzanne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ a boarded-up house like a cornered animal. She was not going to hide or cower or pretend to be repentant.

      All right, she was glad she hadn’t killed him, but that was all.

      She tugged at the last column of drapes, which didn’t want to open. The whole house was computerized, including the window treatments, which were programmed to open and close morning and evening, as well as adjust for daylight saving time. They could also be controlled by remote, but given her mood, yanking was mandatory. She would have yanked the devil’s dick if she’d been able to get her hands on it.

      Someone had caught her on tape this morning dealing with that stubborn mule of a homeless man, and then sold the footage to a muckraking gossip Web site. From there, the networks had picked it up, and all day long Priscilla had been forced to watch hideous clips of herself abusing a defenseless, unconscious person.

      That made her the monster, of course. She’d been advised by her publicity people to call an attorney, avoid the press and say nothing, but that wasn’t her style. And she’d had to talk to the police. They’d shown up on her doorstep, ready to cart her down to the station to question her. It was only because she’d hyperventilated and had to breathe into a bag that they’d agreed to talk to her in her home.

      There was no one she could call. Her parents would have added to the embarrassment. They were free spirits who lived in a ramshackle double-wide on a scrubby patch near the California-Oregon border that technically put them in Oregon and saved them a buttload in state taxes. They didn’t wear shoes and were the impetus for most of the Do Nots in her book. She’d had no time to make friends since she got to L.A., or do anything but focus on her career. Her road to success was the express lane, total and all-consuming.

      So, she’d brazened it out alone, telling the police it was self-defense and the man had been harassing her for days, part of which was true. He had been harassing her, and she was defending her dream, damn it, even if this was a different guy. She’d even admitted to giving him money, explaining that she lived alone and was terrified of him.

      Thank God, he’d gone away this morning. He’d regained consciousness well before the police arrived, hustled off her property and disappeared. Despite a thorough search of the neighborhood, they hadn’t been able to find him, and no charges had been pressed against her. That was the only bit of luck she’d had.

      Priscilla continued yanking curtains, and when she had them all opened, the living room resembled an amphitheater with the audience hidden in the darkness beyond the windows. She poured herself a glass of an excellent French cab, swirled it and held it to her nose, taking in the hints of cherry and licorice. She advised people on how to choose wines. Mostly she was faking it, and any wine expert would have known, but the public didn’t. She’d been elevated to the level of expert on many things, which could be the problem.

      She coughed as the wine went down wrong. Maybe it was too much pressure for a pimply-faced kid who’d grown up in a border town and ate fast food with plastic forks. Maybe that’s why she was cracking up, insulting people—and now, assaulting them.

      Her Darwin phone rang, and she could tell by the ring tone that it was Lane Chandler, but she’d been fielding calls and advice all day, including from Lane, who’d joined the chorus in advising her to speak with an attorney. Apparently TPC even provided legal consults for its top-tier clients. But Priscilla didn’t trust attorneys. She didn’t even have an assistant, which made life hellishly busy, but she harbored deep fears of being exposed as a fraud and a hick.

      Besides, Priscilla Brandt had done just fine on her own.

      She left the wineglass on the bar and walked to the window, defiant, hands on her hips. Indignant tears welled. Let them look at her, the assholes. They were lucky she wasn’t naked, wielding a bullhorn and staging a protest for privacy rights. They could try to destroy her, but she would never let it happen. She would even find some way to turn this debacle around and exploit it for the good of her career. But she wasn’t about to do anything as ridiculous as going to rehab or donating time to a homeless shelter. Let the retarded, boozed-up movie starlets do rehab. She was an author.

      Possibly she would turn this into a chapter of her next book. Not a catastrophe after all, but a life lesson. Don’t let the turkeys get you down. Shoot them and eat them with prune stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner.

      Her phone rang again, startling her. She’d left it on the bar, but she wasn’t taking one more call tonight unless it was from Skip McGinnis, the kid who would be executive producing her talk show, provided he ever got his head out of his ass. If he was looking for excuses to drop the ball, he certainly had one after today’s hot mess. She’d been calling him all afternoon, but kept getting his voice mail with that lying message about how important her call was to him. All she wanted was a chance to explain in her own words.

      She rushed to the bar, but the phone’s display said the call was from an unknown caller, probably the press. Damn McGinnis. This was humiliating. Every call that wasn’t him felt like another rejection, and they were piling up. She should have let her manager call him. Let her collect the rejections.

      She toyed with the phone, wondering what to do. The last couple of messages she’d left him might have been a bit snappish. She probably shouldn’t have threatened to go over his head and have him fired if he didn’t call back, but he couldn’t have taken that seriously. Surely. Maybe she would try again, something humorous. To make up for the surliness.

      She got his voice mail on the first ring, but the message had been changed. His voice was tight and furious. “If this is Priscilla Brandt, your show is as good as dead. And if I had my way your career would be dead, too. Don’t. Call. Back.”

      Pris gasped and dropped the phone. How could he do that? Everyone who called him was going to hear that message. She felt her knees buckling and was afraid she would end up on the floor. It was all over. Tomorrow’s papers would have the shots of her collapsing after Skip McGinnis rejected her via voice mail.

      She pressed her palms to the counter and hung on. No, she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. No way! In an act of symbolic defiance, she upended her wineglass and drained the entire thing. When the wine was gone, she banged the glass on the bar, shaking, but grateful that her nerve was coming back. No one was going to talk to her like that. There was only going to be one career in need of life support when this was over and that was his. Skip McGinnis, that pipsqueak excuse for a talk-show producer, was finished.

      

      Rick Bayless was struck by two things as he listened to the woman who called herself Lane Chandler dictate information about her clients—the moody rhythm-and-blues track playing in the background and the tension crackling in the air. From his vantage point at the door of her office, he had a three-quarter view of her stretched out in the chaise. She was facing away from him, holding what looked like a high-tech cell phone, and he’d made a mental note of the names she mentioned, some of whom he recognized as VIPs of one stripe or another. Her comments were candid, as was her obvious annoyance with certain clients. But it was difficult to concentrate on what she said when his mind kept screening the image of a frighteningly seductive fifteen-year-old, who turned out to be as challenging as any street criminal he’d ever dealt with.

      He’d taken her for older, eighteen at least. She’d stared right through him with her chilly azure eyes. They were as blue as jewels, and she was as bold and wary as any professional streetwalker he’d ever come across. She’d promised him his money’s worth, anything he wanted, things he’d never dreamed of, whatever that meant. As he’d moved closer, he’d spotted her lean, wiry frame and gamine features—and realized he was dealing with a kid.

      A kid? It had СКАЧАТЬ