Chapter 58
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
To Do:
- Unpack new Tasers
- Refill prescriptions
- Google red carpet etiquette
“Let me guess. Mysterious hooded figure. No identifiable features. Emerged out of the shadows and promptly disappeared. He seemed to have an intricate knowledge of which businesses have security cameras, so it’s impossible to tell which direction he came from,” Claire said. It took every ounce of self-control in her body to not reach through the phone and strangle Detective Smith.
“Well, yes.”
She could practically see the tips of the detective’s ear reddening.
“Great. Thanks for the update. And the smudge of red fluid?”
“Initial testing indicates that it was ketchup.”
“Awesome.” Well, at least it wasn’t actually blood. “Any news on the dig site by the Colonial Bank building?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss?—”
“I figured.” What good was having a detective’s cell phone number if they couldn’t even tell you when a missing victim was located? Honestly.
“Never mind. Have a good day, Detective.” She hung up without waiting for a response.
“Same shit as usual?” Luke asked. They were elbow to elbow in front of the master bathroom mirror. His California house was cute, but it needed some serious updates. His green eyes seared in the mirror as he fixed his bowtie. He looked like an international spy setting out to seduce a foreign enemy.
“Same shit as usual,” Claire parroted. Yet another reason why catching bad guys couldn’t be left to the men.
She leaned forward and brushed another coat of mascara over her lashes. The one-shoulder amethyst cocktail dress she had picked out for the occasion had better be comfortable to sit in. Or run away in, depending how angry Charlie got.
Their handful of days in West Haven had been a veritable whirlwind. She had managed to drop off her business plan for Tender Hearts rescue, locate a murder victim, test Heather’s instincts, and plan the majority of Luke’s premiere. There was no rest for the weary.
Luke grunted and frowned at himself in the mirror. “I don’t understand your obsession with awkward family dinners. You don’t think Charlie suffered enough at Thanksgiving?”
“You don’t understand because you have a velociraptor instead of a mother and your brother…well, you know.” They were leaving in five minutes. It wasn’t the time to remind Luke that his brother pulled the plug on their dad before he had a chance to say goodbye.
Luke grunted.
“Sorry. You’re right. But family is very important to me, and now that I’ve been able to at least partially put my anger toward Jack aside, I want Charlie to try too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It was different for her, though. She was way older than you when she left. She was practically an adult.”
Claire shot him a dirty look. “She accepted Bri after a little bit of persuading. They went out for sushi together while we were in West Haven. Whose side are you on, anyway? Stop trying to crap on my blended family fantasy.”
Luke titled his chin toward the mirror and appeared to be inspecting for rogue nostril hairs. “Why is it so important for you that they all get along? Your dad cheated on your mom.”
“Yes, and my mom was able to forgive him.”
“Only after he jumped in front of a bullet for you.”
She dabbed a bit of perfume on her wrists. The GPS watch she had been wearing since her first abduction didn’t really go with the dress or the gold stilettos she was wearing, but thanks to the near-constant threats on her life, it was staying on.
“It was pretty decent as far as apologies go.”
“And how does Roy feel about you starting up a relationship with your bio-dad?”
She turned to stare at him. Why was Luke being such a dick? “Why are you so upset about this dinner? Is it because I’m making you dress up two nights in a row? I promise we will veto dress clothes for a whole week after Bri’s premiere tomorrow. Sweatpants only.”
He shook his head. “I’m just trying to prepare you for all the arguments Charlie’s going to fling at you tonight.”
“Really? Because she already agreed to come, and it kind of just sounds like you have a problem with Jack.”
He glowered. “I don’t have a problem with Jack. Well, beyond the fact that you seem to be doing his job for him.”
She groaned. “Don’t remind me. Speaking of families, your mother RSVP’d ‘maybe’ to your premiere.”
“Classic Rachel.” Luke ran his hands through his hair once more and turned away from the mirror. “Are you ready for this shitstorm?”
Claire glanced at her clunky GPS watch. “I guess I have to be.” She took his arm and followed him downstairs.
“Hang on.” He pulled out his phone and opened the app for their security system. He studied the screen. Apparently ESA was not tailgating outside, as he ushered her into the car a moment later. With the dogs safely checked in at daycare, they set off for the restaurant.
Forty minutes later, the tension was already sizzling at the dinner table. Claire sipped the rest of her glass of wine and picked up a roll from the bread basket. Today was definitely an exception to cutting back on alcohol.
Charlie, looking like the President of the United States in a killer navy power suit, was staring daggers across the table at Jack, who was at least pretending to not notice. Tanya sat next to him, dressed in yet another one of her signature floral muumuus and gushing over every detail of the restaurant’s decor.
“Oh, what a lovely centerpiece,” she said, reaching out to stroke a rose petal with one finger. “We grow knockout roses at home. They’re blossoming this year.”
Brianna and Claire exchanged a glance. Pruning a thorny bush in the nude sounded terrifying to Claire, but according to Tanya, it was remarkably freeing and a way to commune with nature. What was an errant thorn to the nipple when there was nature to commune with?
Luke fiddled with his napkin. If they had been at home right now, he would almost certainly be oiling cabinet hinges or replacing lightbulbs. He was clearly uncomfortable being the only male besides Jack at the table. Bill, Charlie’s husband, had been called in to a work emergency, and Charlie had refused to expose their son Ryan to Jack’s “toxic influence.” Brianna was still eschewing men after her last disastrous relationship.
Jack cleared his throat. “Claire, I meant to tell you. The dig went well. Jennifer Heiser’s body was uncovered.”
Claire’s stomach clenched. She grimaced. The image of Jennifer, the beautiful basketball player who spoke fluent Portuguese, was burned into her mind. “I’m…glad?”
Jack nodded. “Because of you, her family can have some closure.”
“Did Barney say anything else? Will he tell you more about—” A curt look from Jack cut her off.
“Why don’t we discuss that later?” Jack said. “Charlotte, how’s work going?”
Charlie wrinkled her nose. No one called her sister by her full name. “Busy. Lots of PR nightmares out here. I had TMZ quash two different stories about one of my clients just this afternoon.”
“I think you need new, less problematic clients,” Claire commented over a piece of bread.
Charlie shook her head and lowered her voice. “Big Z is a goldmine for a publicist. There’s always something to cover up or spin, and at this point, I know so many of his secrets that he has to keep paying me to keep quiet. Same with Lady Larissa. If I went to the news and told them what kind of beauty treatments she was into, she would be cancelled before the end of this sentence.”
Claire shuddered. What the hell was Lady Larissa doing for beauty treatments? Bathing in the blood of virgins?
“Sounds like very interesting work, sweetheart,” Tanya said earnestly.
Charlie’s eyes moved over Tanya’s body like an X-ray machine at an airport. Claire could practically hear Charlie’s internal thoughts about being called “sweetheart” by the woman who broke up her parents’ marriage.
“It is,” she said after a beat. “What do you do for work, Tanya?”
Tanya leaned forward. A bit of her blond hair dragged through the butter dish. “I’m a bit of an entrepreneur,” she whispered conspiratorially. “How much do you know about essential oils?”
“Oh, look,” Brianna interrupted loudly. “Food!”
Charlie, a carnivore through and through, dug into her prime rib. She made steady eye contact with Jack as she cut through it. Jack cleared his throat again and stuck a fork into his vegan pasta dish. Tanya took one bite and exclaimed for a full five minutes about the blend of flavors.
Luke squeezed Claire’s thigh twice under the table—his agreed-upon nonverbal cue that she was making a stress face.
“I can see why this restaurant’s your favorite, Charlie,” Claire said, spearing some roasted chicken on her fork. “Is there where you and Bill had your first date?”
“You know that it is,” Charlie said, sopping up some of the juice that had leaked out of the prime rib and shoveling it into her mouth. “You used to love prime rib, Jack. Didn’t Mom make that on your birthday? You know, the last one right before you abandoned the family.”
Jack wiped his mouth on his napkin and set it on his lap. “I’ve made a lot of changes in the past two decades, Charlotte. Go on and say what you want to say.”
Charlie banged both of her hands on the table. She hit her fork, which spun into the air and clattered onto the floor.
Claire held her breath. Luke stroked her hand under the table.
“Didn’t you ever feel guilty, even for a minute? Sleeping with the woman from the health food store.” Charlie paused, stabbing a finger at Tanya. “Betraying your marriage to a hard-working woman, not even having the common sense to use protection, bringing this perfect human specimen into the world?”
Brianna’s face flushed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup again, and she was, as always, lovely. The makeup-free complexion must have come from Tanya.
Claire braced. Charlie was just warming up. This molten flood of feelings had been brewing for two decades. The only reason they hadn’t come out at Thanksgiving was because of Claire’s careful refilling of wineglasses.
“Did you feel nothing? Did we mean nothing to you?” Charlie leaned forward and stared Jack in the eyes with a look that made Claire’s toes curl. “Didn’t you care that you left your wife and two daughters all but destitute in a stupid apartment full of spiders? I had to start working another part-time job to help pay the electric bill. I was sixteen, Jack. You stole my teenage years from me.”
Jack dropped his fork and sat back in his chair. “As I have explained to your sister?—”
“Don’t interrupt me.” Charlie’s nostrils flared.
People in the restaurant were still staring, and several of them whispered and pointed. It was hard to tell if they were looking at the shouting, emotionally battered publicist or Brianna, whom Claire kept forgetting was famous.
“You abandoned your family to start a new one. Tossed us out like yesterday’s leftovers. And you disappeared from our lives.”
“Charlotte, I emailed you several times?—”
Charlie stood and planted both hands on the table. “So what? You think I wanted an email full of empty apologies from my biological father four times a year? I wanted a dad. By the time Roy came around, I was eighteen and headed to college. We have never asked for anything from you. And here you are, trying to tell me how to live my life because a bunch of serial killers are trying to?—”
“Charlie,” Claire whispered and tugged on her sleeve. “Not in front of the public.”
“You’re right. Sorry.” Charlie took a deep breath and sat back down. She shifted her gaze back to her father. “You have no right to concern yourself with my welfare after two decades of neglect. I want you to stop putting agents outside my house and stop having me followed. You don’t get to have an opinion on my personal safety. If I want to get drunk and stumble down the street naked with a backpack full of Girl Scout cookies, I’m going to do it. And I don’t need your protection. So back off,” she punctuated with a final jab. She picked up her wineglass and downed what was left.
“Well,” Claire said, folding her napkin and tucking it underneath her plate. “This was really fun, guys. It’s always great to get the family together. But we should probably get going. Check? For the love of god?” She frantically scanned the room for their elusive server. That was enough for one night.
“Charlotte,” Jack said, staring at his daughter. “Please stay for a few minutes. I want to talk to you. Everyone else is free to go,” he said to the table. That was all the excuse Claire needed.
“Thanks for dinner, Jack. Tanya. See you all tomorrow.” Claire jumped out of her seat. If Jack didn’t smooth things over before Brianna’s premiere, it was going to be a very uncomfortable event. Brianna had worked so hard on this movie. There was no way Claire was going to let the Hartley dad drama overshadow her special night.
“Oh my god,” Brianna whispered behind them as they walked out into the cool night air. “I thought she was going to pull out a sword and decapitate him.”
“Honestly, I think it was a productive dinner.” Claire checked her phone for messages.
“In what way?” Brianna raised her eyebrows.
“Charlie’s been waiting to say all that to him for a long time. She’s like a little tea kettle. She gets super angry, boils over, then simmers down in time to make a delicious beverage. Seriously, her apology sweet tea is the best. She makes it with mint from her garden.”
“Anybody want subs?” Luke asked as he unlocked the car door. “I’m still starving.”
“Yes,” Brianna and Claire said in unison. She had barely touched her chicken during the shouting match.
“Let’s pick up some more wine too,” Claire said. “I have a feeling we’re going to get a visitor.”