Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
To Do:
- Add Charlie to shit list
- Buy sunscreen
- Background checks
“I knew we should have taken an Uber,” Claire hissed as she dragged her suitcase behind her. Rosie trotted at her side, clearly thrilled to be out of the cargo hold. Luke pulled a luggage cart with the dog crates behind him, Winston strapped to his chest.
“Is that Charlie?” He squinted at the tall brunette in platform wedges, white capris, and a coral peplum top. At 5’10”, she had clearly inherited her height from Jack. No one would have even guessed that they were sisters.
“It sure is. I’m going to murder her.”
Charlie waved enthusiastically and the sign she grasped that read “Welcome home from prison, Claire!” wobbled.
“There she is! Here’s your auntie, home from the slammer,” Charlie called loudly to the teenage boy next to her. Several people turned to look at them.
“Hope you guys like toilet wine,” Claire replied equally loudly. Luke chuckled.
Ryan, Claire’s nephew, shook his head and adjusted his earphones. “I told her not to,” he said. He reluctantly accepted a hug from Claire and Mindy and a handshake from Luke. Shaggy brown hair hung in his eyes, and it looked like he was due for a shower.
“Charlie,” Claire said, drawing her sister into a tight embrace. They hadn’t seen each other in person since Thanksgiving. “Cute sign.”
“Just wanted to properly welcome you to the City of Angels. Sorry for not making it out for the sentencing,” she whispered in Claire’s ear. “Rivera Era got caught in another infidelity scandal.”
“He’s been busy this year,” Claire said as she drew back. “Thank you for picking us up.”
“No problem. I wouldn’t miss a chance to hang out with your live-in boyfriend.” Charlie wiggled her eyebrows as she hugged Luke.
Claire shot her a dirty look. “I’m twenty-six. Remind me, what were you doing when you were twenty-six? Oh, that’s right, you had a toddler.”
“Yeah, yeah. I missed you too. Come here,” she said to Mindy. They hugged.
“Are you going to tell us all the hot gossip in the car?” Mindy asked as they broke apart.
“As long as you adhere to the cone of silence,” Charlie said, waggling one finger. “I know things about this town that would make your head spin.”
“I love it.” Mindy followed Charlie to the exit. “Tell me everything.”
“He’s one of my most problematic clients,” Charlie said quietly. The two of them walked ahead. “Are you familiar with Bitcoin?”
Luke and Claire hung back slightly. He took her hand. “Doing okay?”
She blinked as they stepped into the sunshine. Palm trees waved overhead. The weather was stunning—seventies with a light breeze. How amazing would it be to plan proposals in an area where the weather was almost always the same? Well, as long as nothing was on fire.
“I think so. The crushing reality of Brad’s timeline is starting to set in, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“We’ll set up your corner of the office when we get home.” He wrapped one arm around her as they descended into the mass of colorful characters roaming outside the airport.
Right. The office. Luke had already briefed her on his California house and, at her request, provided her with a floor plan. It was considerably smaller than his East Coast house and would mean that he, Claire, and Mindy would all share the third bedroom as office space. The chances of them making it three weeks without murdering each other were slim. Luckily, Luke was due to be in the studio for most of their visit.
How had living with Luke for six months made her this bougie? Her old apartment had only one bedroom and was barely the square footage of Luke’s kitchen, and she had never felt cramped.
Twenty minutes later, they were hurtling through traffic on an impossible twelve-lane highway. Claire’s knuckles ached from gripping the door handle. She glanced over her shoulder. Ryan, squashed in the middle seat, was holding Winston and looked thoroughly unfazed. Mindy and Luke were on their phones. Did no one else care that they were inches from death on every side?
“I don’t know how you drive this every day,” she told Charlie and cringed as someone merged into their lane with what looked like half an inch of space between the cars. West Haven certainly had more potholes than LA, but at least there weren’t four million people trying to use the road at the same time. She squeezed Rosie so tight that the dog gave her some serious side eye.
“You get used to it.” Charlie flipped off someone in another lane. “So, as I was saying, one of my biggest coverups of the year was for Big Z.”
Big Z was a forty-something rapper with more money than sense. Claire vividly recalled waving her gangly limbs around to one of his bigger hits at her middle school dances. He demonstrated his lyrical prowess by cramming no fewer than seventy-five mentions of the word “ass” into a single song.
“He rear-ended a school bus while tripping balls on ayahuasca.”
Mindy gasped. Her head popped between the driver and passenger seats. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Fortunately, no,” Charlie said. “If Ryan had been on that bus, I would have severed Big Z’s testicles from his body myself. But anyway, two new cruisers for the LAPD and a brand-new scoreboard for the school district later, the problem took care of itself.”
“What a dirtbag.” Claire frowned. How often did celebrities buy their way out of trouble in LA? At least the community had gotten something out of his douchebaggery. But she was definitely removing him from her Pump Up playlist.
“I wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for dirtbags,” Charlie muttered, swinging over two lanes of traffic without even blinking.
Luke’s hand reached through the gap between the seats and stroked the back of Claire’s arm. She pulled out her phone and texted him.
Claire: We’re going to die.
Luke: If we die, your sister does NOT get Rosie and Winston.
At least they agreed on something. After a harrowing forty-five minutes, Charlie pulled to a stop in Luke’s driveway. Claire barely gave the house a glance as she all but dove onto the concrete. She would rather put on a fur bikini and waltz into an ESA meeting with a plate of sliders than get back on the 110. Rosie jumped out next to her and shook vigorously.
“Thanks again for picking us up. Want to come in?” Claire asked as she heaved her suitcase out of the trunk.
“Nah, I gotta get this kid to lacrosse practice,” Charlie said, nodding her head toward Ryan, who had been silent the entire car ride. He reluctantly handed Winston to Luke.
“Love you. See you for lunch on Wednesday?”
“Sounds good.”
Claire shut the door with a snap and fought the urge to collapse onto the grass with her arms wide open. She had never been so pleased to be out of a car. She had vastly underestimated the traffic situation in LA. Brad’s proposal timeline was definitely going to need some fine tuning.
“Okay,” Luke said as he fished his keys out of his pocket, “I ordered some groceries, they should be here by eight. I’m getting pizza for dinner.”
With any luck, it was the same place he had paid to fly a pizza boy cross-country to her as an apology. The memory of that crust lived rent-free in her head.
“Backyard is fenced in so Rosie and Winton can play without wandering into traffic,” he said as he turned the knob and thrust the door open. “And I have a call out to a security company. They’ll be here tomorrow to install an updated system.”
His worn jeans hugged his butt as he walked into the house in front of her. It was sexy when he used his bossy, take-charge attitude for good instead of evil.
While his West Haven house was huge and classic and full of hardwood floors and every kind of luxury, this house was smaller, sleek, and modern. The floor was tiled in a herringbone pattern, and all the furniture was black and expensive-looking. A small sitting room stood to the right of the front door, with a staircase disappearing upstairs on the left. A short hallway led to the—again, sleek and modern—kitchen and dining room. A deck led off the kitchen to the backyard, which was indeed fenced in. Another hallway led to a powder room and long, skinny living room.
“Where’s the basement? These binders are going to clutter up the office.” Claire opened a door in the hallway only to find a closet.
“It’s LA. We generally don’t do basements. Earthquakes,” Luke explained as he opened another door to reveal a water heater. He flipped a handle and closed the door. A rushing sound announced water flowing through the pipes. “Wasn’t that in any of your natural disaster research?”
She nudged him.
“Upstairs.” He took her suitcase and headed up. Rosie wiggled in her arms, so Claire let her down gently, and she rocketed up the steps past Luke to investigate.
“Our room.” He opened the first door on the right and flung her suitcase inside unceremoniously. Claire cringed. Good thing her laptop wasn’t in there. “Mindy’s across the hall,” he said, opening the door for her and flicking the light switch.
“And here’s the office.” He ducked, and the string that dangled from the attic access dragged through his hair. He opened a final door, revealing a moderately sized bedroom with a desk and computer monitor. It wasn’t what her bougie ass had gotten used to, but it was doable.
“You’re going to have to keep the noise down when you’re video chatting with Sawyer,” Claire teased as Mindy elbowed her way into the office. “These walls look thin.” She rapped on one.
It was going to be a tight squeeze with even two of them, but they had been through worse. Before Claire had the warehouse, her one-bedroom apartment had been their office, and they had shared it with her ex-fiancé Jason, the immobile and chronically unemployed lump.
“Oh, good,” Mindy said, approaching a bare corkboard fastened to the wall. “We can use this for the new murder board.”
“What do you mean new murder board?” Luke growled.
Claire turned to him. “Come on. You can’t be surprised. They burned my warehouse down. And they threatened my mom and sisters. That’s not going to go unpunished. I’m tired of them messing with my life and my livelihood. We’re going to figure out who the cult leader is, and then we’re going to?—”
“Murder him,” Mindy interrupted darkly.
“Right, or, as an alternate plan, we’re going to tell the FBI and let them handle it.”
Luke shook his head. “Don’t get involved. It’s not safe.”
“When has that ever stopped me before?”
“Maybe one security system isn’t going to be enough,” Luke said with a sigh.