Chapter 28
ALEXA
With Chase in Japan, I’d called Marcel, and Marcel had told Priest about the Donna problem.
Priest had called an old friend, who’d called his wife, who’d called a friend of hers, and now Donna was safely stowed at a women’s shelter in Sacramento.
Apparently, booking her an Airbnb would have been a terrible idea because without a support network, she would have gone right on back to Bo, which I didn’t really get because when I left home, nothing on earth would have convinced me to return.
But Nolan said everyone processed trauma differently.
So, the shelter it was, and they had therapists on hand for those weirdos who liked to talk about their problems, plus I’d offered to rent Donna an apartment for a year when she was ready for a fresh start.
We’d arrived home around six. Home. The vineyard was beginning to feel that way, and although the travel bug hadn’t left me completely, I no longer had the urge to jump onto an airplane at the slightest hiccup.
Nolan had headed into town to pick up dinner from Sanguine, presumably as a sort of apology for taking me for a picnic on a firing range, and Juno was sleeping in the hallway outside my bedroom, protecting me from any stray intruders.
Life was good, right?
Wrong.
I’d just stepped out of the shower when I heard a low growl followed by a soft thump and then a yelp.
Juno. When I ran into the hallway with a towel wrapped around me, the dog was pressed to the floor on her belly, watching with amber eyes as a pink-suited ass disappeared into the bedroom at the far end of the hallway.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
No answer. I ran down the hallway, past Juno, into the bedroom Nolan had been sleeping in until he decided to share with me. Marielle was poking around the cushions on the window seat.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked again.
“Oh, I left a book of fabric swatches somewhere.”
“I meant, why did you kick Juno?”
“I didn’t kick her. She was in the way, and I tripped.”
Yeah, sure. I’d heard enough people get kicked—not in person, but through my earpiece while Jez and Dusk and Tulsa and Dice interrogated suspects—to be familiar with the sound. It had been a thump and a yelp, not a curse and several hurried steps as Marielle tried to right herself.
“Really? You didn’t spot a seventy-pound dog lying in the hallway? Do you need your eyes tested as well as your morals?”
“What do you care? You don’t even like the dog.”
“I like her better than I like you.”
“That’s because you have no social skills whatsoever.”
Maybe not, but I did have a gun.
“At least I’m not dumb enough to insult my client’s girlfriend and still expect to keep working here.”
“Girlfriend?” She snorted. “You’re nothing but a passing infatuation.”
“Get out.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. This is Nolan’s home, not yours.”
“You want me to call him?”
She folded her arms. “Go right ahead. He knows my worth, plus we have a contract.”
Nolan didn’t exactly know my worth because I hadn’t told him, but when I last checked, Marielle had less than forty thousand bucks between her two bank accounts, whereas Astela was valued at eighty billion and I had other investments too. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Nolan and I share a history, and I have a lawyer.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I mean, yeah?”
“Nolan’s going to hear about this.”
“Well, clearly. I’m going to tell him as soon as he gets home.”
Marielle took two steps toward me, but Juno got between us, growling. The bitch tried kicking her again, but this time, Juno jumped out of the way.
“That dog is vicious!”
Once, I’d thought so too, but now I’d changed my mind.
“Nah, she’s just smart. If I was a dog, I’d try to rip the seat out of your pants too.”
“You little—”
“What’s going on?” Nolan asked from the top of the stairs. They were carpeted, and he’d climbed them without making a sound. Or perhaps our raised voices had covered the noise?
“Your little friend is throwing her weight around.” Marielle’s voice had risen an octave and turned from whiny to saccharine, the way it always did when she was speaking to Nolan.
“She’s a two-faced psycho,” I muttered.
“Huh?” Nolan said.
For Pete’s sake. “She’s all sweetness and pleasantries when you’re around, but when you’re not, she insults your girlfriend and kicks your dog.”
“She kicked Juno?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Marielle snapped. “Are you going to let her speak to me that way?” A hint of the whine had returned.
“He’s not my dad. I don’t have to ask permission.”
“Well, he looks as if he could be. Scammers are starting young these days.”
“Scammers? What in the chicken-fried fuck?”
“Oh, don’t tell me a sob story. You showed up out of the blue and finagled yourself a place to stay, and I know you’re not paying rent,” Marielle said. Nolan had told her that? How else would she know? “What exactly are you contributing toward this ‘relationship’?”
She used little finger quotes around the word, and I was glad I’d left my gun in the bedroom because bloodstains were a pain to get out of carpet.
“So far? My cyber skills and a five-figure security system to stop you from tampering with stuff around here.”
“What? How dare you accuse me of something so heinous?”
For a moment, I was transported back to my childhood, watching Mom’s emphatic denials of whatever shitty thing she’d definitely just done.
Like the time she’d snuck into the laundry room with Dad’s car key and come back empty-handed, right before he was meant to go on a golf weekend with his work buddies.
The key got washed, the housekeeper got the blame, and Dad stayed home because somehow, the spare key had also gone missing.
Anyhow, that was the moment I knew for sure Marielle was guilty of at least some of the “accidents” around here. Her sabotage skills surpassed her acting ones. When she glanced toward the other end of the house, to the empty master suite, another thought hit me—how did Nolan’s shower start leaking?
“You’re telling me it’s just all a big coincidence that these ‘distractions’ started happening after I arrived and interrupted your plan to play happy families with Nolan?”
“You have an overactive imagination, young lady. And you enjoy stirring up trouble.”
Okay, the second part was true, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a conniving shrew.
“Alexa isn’t a scammer,” Nolan tried.
“Oh, please. Once she’s bled you dry, she’ll disappear into the sunset with her other boyfriend, and you’ll be left licking your wounds. Where did he go, huh? Where’s Chase?”
“He’s on vacation,” I growled. My voice had gone weirdly low, possibly because I was thirsty, but probably because I was really, really pissed off. I kind of liked it. I needed to use this voice in work meetings.
“It’s all part of their little game,” Marielle told Nolan. “Did you pay for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, but it was my choice.”
“That’s what she wants you to think. Consider this objectively—she doesn’t even have a proper job. Most of the time, she’s just messing around on her computer.”
A part of me wanted to blurt out that I was a closet billionaire, but the bigger part needed to hold my secrets close.
My finances were nobody’s business but my own and my accountant’s.
Making my net worth public knowledge would bring too much unwanted attention, possibly even danger.
Jay was Astela’s frontperson; we’d agreed on that from the start.
And Jay got incessant letters begging for money, plus he had to travel with security if he went farther than the grocery store, and even in the grocery store, he’d gotten followed a couple of times.
I was ready to snap back when Nolan got in first.
“I’m well aware of Alexa’s employment status, and I fully support her chosen career.” He sounded remarkably calm. Had he been taking lessons from Brax? Or Grey? “Marielle, why are you up here? You’re not working in this part of the house.”
“I misplaced a book of fabric swatches.” Did she? Or was she coming to knock a hole in another pipe? “Look at her, standing there like a harlot in that towel, all—”
“I’d just finished showering when Juno yelped,” I said, my tone icy cold as I channelled Jez. “What do you expect me to do? Put on a fucking cocktail dress?”
“I doubt you own one. But maybe you should get back into the shower and wash your mouth out with soap?”
“Leave,” Nolan told her. “Right now.”
“I’m just looking out for you. This will end in tears, you mark my words, and they’ll probably be yours.”
“I don’t care how good your credentials are—you’re not coming into my home and insulting Alexa.”
“Don’t forget we have a contract,” Marielle said smugly.
“Does it include a disparagement clause?”
“I… Uh…”
“I’ll have my attorney take a look. When I find your fabric swatches, I’ll mail them.” He motioned along the hallway. “Out. I’ll lock the door behind you.”
Marielle gave me a mutinous glare, stuck her nose in the air, and marched off along the hallway. Finally. For weeks, I’d hoped Nolan would grow a backbone and fire her, but it had taken a while for him to see the light. One of Nolan’s strengths was his loyalty, but that could also be a weakness.
I fetched Juno a dog treat from my purse, then shooed her back into the hallway. She had her own bed in the kitchen, and I didn’t want her sleeping in mine, not with all her slobber and fur and doggy breath. Ugh.
The front door slammed, and through the open window, I heard the crunch of gravel as the trash took itself on a one-way trip down the driveway.
Good riddance.