Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
To Do:
- Establish a designated disguise bag
- Follow up with helicopter company
- Plan alternate routes for B proposal
When Luke walked into the living room that evening, Claire was taping a strand of red yarn between a photograph of Dr. William Taylor and a large question mark. The double-sided whiteboard they had bought after visiting Santa Monica was slowly becoming covered by ESA theories. The corkboard in the office hadn’t had enough space.
“This doesn’t look like a safety meeting.” He picked up the almost-empty bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the end table. His gaze shifted to Rosie and Winston, who were wearing matching bandanas that Claire had bought during a mini retail therapy session before they headed home.
“Yeah, we got kind of distracted.” Claire set her glass on the table. She rubbed at the marker smudge on her hand.
Was he still in a bad mood? Would he be upset about the ESA board? He seemed more relaxed, and he hadn’t dragged his toolbox in with him.
“I see the car is still in one piece.” He leaned against the doorframe.
“Despite Los Angeles’s best efforts,” Mindy said.
“You know you could take the metro,” Luke said with eyebrows raised.
“We’re not trying to get sold into sex trafficking.” Mindy turned back around to face the board.
Claire stood and squeezed his arm as she passed him. In the kitchen, she popped a plate of food in the microwave. Her mind had buzzed with the conversation he’d had with Olivia since she got home. But how would she broach the subject?
Heavy footsteps thudded into the kitchen. She didn’t have to turn around to know that Luke had followed her. The microwave beeped, and she yanked the door open.
“I made some pasta.” She handed the warm plate over like a peace offering. “I thought some carbs might help after your long day.”
“Thank you,” Luke said with a kiss. The kitchen chair squeaked as he sat on it. He didn’t immediately jump up and dismantle it, so hopefully his stress had leveled out.
“How did everything go at the studio?” Claire lowered herself into the chair across from him.
He wound pasta around his fork. “Honestly, great. The music is excellent, the editing and photography they helped with turned out great. They didn’t shit all over my vision at all.”
Claire smiled. “So selling your soul to Streamster wasn’t the worst decision of your life?”
“Not yet, anyway.” He shoved a heavily laden fork into his mouth and groaned appreciatively. “We should be completely finished in two weeks. Then it’s just up to Streamster to get it on the release schedule. This is fantastic, by the way.”
“Thank you.” Claire flushed. She didn’t often do the cooking at home, and when she did, she sometimes got distracted with work and burned it.
“How was your day?”
“Mostly good,” she said. “Traffic was crazy and I now understand why you shat on my timeline. Brad requested half a dozen changes.”
“As a surprise to no one,” Luke interjected.
“Right. Oh, and Mindy almost freaked out because we kept accidentally stumbling upon vegan restaurants. But we had some amazing tacos and saw the ocean.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So what was the deal with the guy you sent me the picture of?”
“It was probably nothing,” she said, but a lump formed in her throat. “He just gave me bad vibes when I passed him. I was wearing a wig when I saw him, so I don’t think he recognized me anyway, even if he was ESA.”
“How were you wearing a wig? I thought you stopped carrying those around.” It was true. She had stopped carrying disguises shortly after most of the West Haven ESA members had been arrested the previous summer.
“Old habits die hard. Especially when people burn your office down. Speaking of burning things to the ground, are we going to talk about Olivia?”
He sighed and reached across the table for her wineglass, taking a long sip before putting it back. “I’m impressed it’s taken you this long to bring it up.”
“Come on,” she said gently. “You can’t blame a girl for having some questions when her boyfriend’s ex shows up at our door with a cake and a motive. I saw it in the trash.” A waste of cake if you asked her. “Don’t you want to just tell me and get it over with? Or do you want me to passive-aggressively hint at it for the next two weeks?”
He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Fine. Olivia lives two blocks down. We met the day I moved in. I pulled up to the house in my dad’s Porsche and found a girl twenty yards down the road unconscious in the driver’s seat with her car wrapped around a telephone pole. The car caught on fire, and I pulled her out. It’s how I got this,” he said, tugging his collar to the side and showing off the long, thin scar on his neck.
Aha. Mystery solved.
Claire’s mouth dropped open. “That’s the best meet-cute I have ever heard. I can’t believe it was wasted on your ex.” The audacity.
He shrugged. “We dated, things went south, end of story.”
“But you asked her to marry you,” she said in a reverent tone. “You hate proposals. What happened?”
Luke’s mouth hardened into a line. “She turned into a different person. When we met she was sweet, worked in a bakery. She had inherited the house from her grandmother, and she was just trying to make ends meet. When we started dating, I think she got accustomed to my lifestyle and wanted more of that stability for herself. She decided to become an ‘influencer’ and lost a ton of weight and started promoting herself all over the place. Then she leaked her own sex tape.”
Her eyes flew open wide. There was a Luke sex tape out there? She was simultaneously aroused and indignant. That hadn’t come up during the light internet stalking she had done before agreeing to work with him for Kyle and Nicole’s proposal. How would she explain that one to her mother?
“I’m not in it,” he said flatly.
“Oh, wow. I’m sorry.” Something wasn’t adding up. So Olivia had cheated on him and he still proposed to her? That was some wildly poor decision-making.
“Don’t be,” he said, shoveling his fork back into his pile of pasta. “I thought we could get past it. I was making plans to move to Pennsylvania, thought for sure she’d come with me and get away from that toxic LA lifestyle. Bought a ring and everything. But I was an idiot. And thank god she didn’t say yes. We would have been miserable.”
“Just so I’m understanding this correctly,” Claire began, pausing to consider her next words. “Your girlfriend cheated on you and released a sex tape, and your first instinct was to…propose to her.”
“Love makes you weak. And stupid.”
She straightened up like he had slapped her.
“Well, not all the time,” he added hurriedly. “Just when you’re with the wrong person, I guess.” He tore off a hunk of garlic bread and shoved it in his mouth like a caveman.
She pushed her wineglass to him. He drank appreciatively from it.
“No wonder you think what I do is stupid.” She pulled a fresh glass from the cabinet and popped the cork on a new bottle. Luke would never propose to her after everything he’d been through. She may have to take a leaf from Mindy’s book and propose to him…if they ever got to that point in their relationship. Would they? Would he even say yes? Maybe she needed to run herself through the checklist. They would one hundred percent fail the in-laws section.
“I was pretty jaded when we met,” he admitted.
“I understand.” She grabbed his free hand and pressed a kiss to it. This was the most personal information Luke had divulged since he told her about his brother pulling his dad off life support. If she overwhelmed him with questions now, he would run away like a startled bunny. It was time to back off.
“Thanks for telling me the truth. We can do the safety meeting when you’re done if you want. Or we can just blow it off. You’ve been through enough today.”
He raised one eyebrow. “But what if a fire tornado rips through Burbank and releases all the animals in the LA Zoo?”
“Very funny.” What a silly question. Obviously they would utilize Luke’s outdoor speakers to play sounds of natural predators to repel whatever wayward lion or howler monkey wandered their way.
Leaving the table, she filled one side of the sink with suds and scrubbed at the pasta pot. Her brain buzzed with the new information Luke had divulged. For a smart guy, he had done some dumb stuff.
She deposited the pasta pot in the drying rack. Luke’s presence snuck up behind her, warm and comforting.
“You must think I’m an idiot.” He picked up the pot and a towel.
“Nah.” She dunked his plate in the suds. “I spent five years of my life with a Cheetos-snarfing donkey. I get it.”
Her phone rang, and she glanced at the screen. Alice. They hadn’t talked since Claire had arrived in LA. It was time. She answered before she could change her mind.
“Hang on. Hey, Mom. How’s Miami?” Claire drained her wineglass and clamped the phone between her shoulder and ear. The glass landed in the bottom of the sink with a clunk.
“Oh, everything’s fine, sweetie. I just wanted to let you know one teensy thing.” The bottom dropped out of Claire’s stomach. Alice sounded different than she normally did. More hesitant, even tense. Had Roy been attacked by a gator on the golf course?
“What’s wrong?” Her voice quavered.
Luke stopped drying and looked at her.
“Everything’s fine,” Alice repeated, “we just had a small run-in with an attempted intruder.”
The edges of her field of vision went dark, and she backed against the counter. Luke put his hand on her shoulder. “What do you mean? Who was it? Was it ESA?”
“Let me talk to her,” came her stepdad’s voice through the phone. “Claire?” Roy asked.
“Dad? What happened?”
“Your mother saw someone lurking in the azalea bush outside and she hit him over the head with a rolling pin. The police are here now.”
“Okay.” Claire’s breath hissed slowly out of her mouth. There was no need to panic. It could have been any run-of-the-mill creeper. Alice had gained a few overly invested fans from her show, and it was Florida, for god’s sake. A meth addict riding a gator had been spotted on her mom’s street just the week before. “Was it like an Amazon delivery driver or was it an actual bad guy?”
“Well, he had a bottle of chloroform and a bag of zip ties with him and he was playing a recording of a baby crying, so unless your mother ordered a very specific murder kit, probably a bad guy.” Roy always had jokes.
Her breath came in jagged gasps. She gripped the countertop and started her breathing exercise, but the darkness inside was threatening to overwhelm her. “Okay, let me look at some flights, I’ll see how soon I can get there. Tomorrow at the latest.”
“No, mija ,” Roy said firmly. “There’s no need. There’s nothing you can do. Your mom’s fine. Her aim was great. He still hasn’t woken up.” An ambulance siren wailed in the background.
Mindy lurked into the kitchen holding Winston.
“I have to call Charlie and Bri,” Claire said, taking more deep breaths. “Call me the second there’s an update.”
“Will do. We love you.”
“Love you too.” Claire ended the call and stared at the phone in her hand.
“What the hell happened?” Mindy asked.
“My mom clobbered some guy in their garden with a rolling pin.” She clicked on Charlie’s contact. “It had to have been ESA. They’re going after my family. Again. Mindy, call Bri. Tell her to have a neighbor search her apartment inside and out.”
Mindy ran into the living room. Rosie jumped up and put her paws on Claire’s leg.
“I’m going to check the property.” Luke pulled a gun out of the kitchen junk drawer and tucked it in the waistband of his jeans.
“Luke, you’re going to shoot your buttcheek—hi, Charlie. Listen, is Bill home? Good. Have him check your house immediately. Someone just tried to abduct Mom.”