Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Rochelle
While Jesse went to meet Princess Gabby, Rochelle decided to play the Game. Not a decision, really. Just a toying with the keys of his laptop. What else was she supposed to do in this room that looked like every other hotel that had ever momentarily contained her life?
The site was easy to find, once she Googled it.
She’d been there enough times. She scrolled past the first part, the medical definitions that made her cringe—the exias and the limias, the people who ate only at night, the ones addicted to exercise, the ones who craved sand or chalk.
Pica, that one was called. So ugly these names, and the afflictions they represented.
Then she found the one she was seeking. Clicked on symptoms. The answer flooded onto the small screen in blue and white, a wave of information. Now the game began.
Often have a history of abuse. She was free of that. A point for her.
Frequently have feelings of insecurity. Who in Hollywood wouldn’t? Call it a draw.
Prone to shoplifting or breaking the rules. Another point for her.
Sexually capricious. Not for many years. Make it half a point.
She was okay. Every time she played the Game, comparing herself with the stereotypes, she knew that. She didn’t even need to answer the other questions. Oh, hell, why not?
Frequently has excuses for missing meals, saying she or he has eaten earlier. Okay, maybe one point for the devil, but if you’re not hungry, you’re not hungry.
Regardless of weight, considers him- or herself fat. Another twinge. She got up from the computer and walked to the full-length mirror on the wall beside the window.
She wasn’t slutted up, as Jesse called it.
Just the jeans, just the soft heather-toned sweater over them.
Damn, her ass. He was right about that. Her thighs.
They weren’t dangerous yet, but she could see the spread.
The Clen wasn’t working fast enough. She needed to increase the lunges and talk to Blond Elvis about his toys.
Okay, give up a point. What woman today over thirty wouldn’t feel the same way?
Especially if her husband was having drinks with one of the sexiest women in the world?
Believes being thin is akin to power. You’d better believe it, baby. Guilty on that one, all the way. But who cared? She’d still won the Game.
That was why she liked to play the Game.
She always won.
She glanced over at the courtesy bar. There would be nuts in there, cookies, maybe crackers, along with the requisite alcohol. Perhaps she could just find something to chew. She wouldn’t have to swallow it.
But first, where the hell had Jesse hidden her cigarettes? She just hoped he came back soon. And that somehow he didn’t notice that Princess Gabby, and not his over-the-hill slob of a wife, was the one with the killer body.
Gabriella
Gabriella lucked out. The shuttle from the hotel was a black sedan.
The young, buff driver looked as if he’d been cast for the role, and the Hilton was only six blocks away.
She wouldn’t have to be embarrassed in front of Jesse McArthur, jumping out of some Yellow Cab, the way she and her grandmother used to when they made a trip of similar length downtown.
“I could have walked it,” she said to the driver.
“A princess shouldn’t have to walk.” He got out of the car and opened the back door for her. A well-meaning man, sweet, the way Christopher was sweet.
“How’d you recognize me?” She hated herself for trying to beg one more good moment out of this encounter.
“The story in the newspaper.”
She looked up into his eyes but couldn’t read whether or not there was sincerity there.
What did it take to understand men? To know which ones were good, and which ones were rotten?
It wasn’t easy, not like shopping, where you could spot last year’s fashion disasters on the sales racks, where you could identify the plastic-wrapped rotting vegetables on the kiosk at the grocery store.
She handed him the tip, fingers closed around the bill, pointed down.
“You have a way back?” he asked.
“They have a shuttle here, don’t they? Besides, I can always walk.”
His face seemed to go masklike. She, who prided herself on her ability to read people’s moods, tried to slip into his thoughts and ran into a wall.
“Don’t walk, not even six blocks.”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I?”
He looked away from her, then back, into her eyes. “We’ve had calls at the hotel. I didn’t think anything about them until I met you.” Then, her money still clutched in his fingers, he seemed to snap to attention. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You tell me I should be concerned about walking six blocks, and you won’t tell me why?”
His eyes became shadows, his posture even stiffer than before. “I can’t tell you that, but I can be here when you’re ready to go back. Just give me a call. You’re a nice lady. I’m happy to do it.”
“I want to know about the calls,” she said, feeling that thread that ran through her bloodline pull her up to her highest stance. “Perhaps I should speak to your supervisor?”
“All right.” He shoved the money into his pocket.
“We’ve had phone calls asking when you were arriving and what room you were in.
Of course, the front desk knows better than to give out that kind of information.
One desk clerk said she was offered a bribe to tell.
I’m just worried that she might not be the only one. ”
“The press.” Probably the reporter, that damned Rikki Fitzpatrick. She was trying to track her down again. That was fine. She’d had tougher interviews. And if it wasn’t the reporter? But it must be.
“I appreciate your telling me,” she said.
“Just be careful. There are a lot of nuts out there.”
She watched him return to the car, wondering if he was telling her the truth, or if he was one of those nuts he was talking about. Or both.
Lucas
“Jesse McArthur is meeting Princess Gabby in the cocktail lounge of his hotel.”
Bobby Warren’s voice sputtered through the phone. “How do you know?”
“First, Jesse called Ellen to find out where she was staying. Less than an hour later, the princess called. Just said she felt we should be aware, under the circumstances. There’s no reason she shouldn’t meet with him, I guess. She said she just wanted us to know in case it came up later on.”
“Where’s Shelly?”
“In their room, probably. Princess Gabby said he was meeting her alone.”
“You guess, Luke?”
“Rochelle’s in the room.” Damn, the old man could be a pain in the ass. “Why does it matter where she is?”
“I just want to be sure she’s okay.”
“I’ve got the room number,” he said.
“I never call a lady friend unless she asks me to.”
Lucas sighed and looked outside at the falling gray evening. “Call her, Bobby. You know she’d love to hear from you. How many women get a call from Bobby Warren on a Thursday night?”
He could hear the self-satisfied chuckle under the reed-like voice. “I might just do that. How are you coming with the reporter?”
“She’s exemplary,” he said. “I can’t find out anything to indicate why she’d be out to cause trouble for us.
” He stared out into the dusky light, trying to decide if he should share his suspicions, that he felt Rikki had other motives.
No, Bobby didn’t need intuition right now.
“She got an award last year for a series on bulimia, so she may have an ax to grind. I’m still looking into it. ”
“And you’re attracted to her, maybe?”
“My loyalty is to you.” He spit out the answer before he could think. “If you don’t know that by now, there’s no way I could convince you.”
“I know that.” A sigh, maybe just a labored breath. “You’re like my own son. You know that, too.”
“Did you take your supplements?”
“Of course. Did you take yours?”
“I will, right after we hang up.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Good night, Bobby.”
“Good night to you. Hey, Luke?”
It was Bobby W’s way, that last question of the day. “Yeah?”
“I still think you’re attracted to Rikki-Rikki.”
“You’re crazy,” he said, then realized he was holding only a dial tone to his ear.
The old bastard had hung up on him. But he’d tagged him first. It didn’t make any difference, though.
He wasn’t about to act on his feelings. He didn’t need to single out this woman.
There were plenty to go around. Including the one in the next office.
He picked up the phone and pushed the button labeled Homer.
Ellen didn’t answer. Not like her to leave so early.
Mild disappointment flitted through him.
He was going to ask her to dinner, not a date, just one of those extended business days they shared occasionally.
She’d made it clear from the start that theirs was a professional relationship only, and that made it possible for them to be friends without games or expectations.
Might as well leave for the day. He could pick up something on the way home, maybe drop by Bobby W’s. No, the old man would be into the bourbon by now, and that was getting too sad to witness.
He had just turned off his computer when Ellen burst into his office.
“I was just going to call you,” he said. Then he saw her flushed face and wide eyes.
“I’m glad you’re still here.” She shoved a tablet of scribbled notes into his hands. “I just got this from the people doing the background check. Rikki Fitzpatrick had a cousin.”
“Had?”
“She died.” Ellen moved next to him, jabbing her finger at the words she’d jotted down. “Just two weeks ago, Lucas.”
The words on the page taunted him. It couldn’t be. He felt Ellen beside him, was vaguely aware of her perfume, of the suddenly too-warm room closing around him.
“Lucas, what is it?”
“Oh, God,” he said. “Not Lisa Tilton.”