Chapter Ten
Ten
I asked Melanie Joan if she was all right. She choked out a “no” and asked me to come to her town house. I asked if she was in physical danger and she said “no” again, but added, “My life is over.”
Her sobs grew louder. I knew she wasn’t willing or able to tell me what was wrong, believing instead that I should witness the horror in person.
I told her I’d be there right away, and she recited the address—a strange thing to do, considering I’d rented her town house for more than a year and it was only about six blocks away from where I worked.
“Do you want me to bring Spike?” I said.
“He’s on his way,” she said.
I hung up the phone, grabbed my purse, and headed out of my office, with Rosie scurrying after me. I was neither insulted nor surprised that Melanie Joan had called Spike before me. Rosie was my emotional support animal. Spike was hers.
I attached Rosie’s leash and told Blake that if I wasn’t back at the office by five p.m., he should lock up and leave.
—
Melanie Joan’s butler, Harold, greeted me at the door.
I knew him well. He’d worked for the author for years, in all five of her residences.
He was about my dad’s age, but he had perfect posture, a nearly line-free face, and thick salt-and-pepper hair that seemed to be his own.
I’d often thought that Melanie Joan spiked his coffee with whatever youth drugs she was popping, just so he could keep up with her.
“Mr. Spike is in the drawing room with Ms. Hall, her editor, and her literary agent,” Harold said.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “the drawing room.” Harold must have seen me trying to make calculations, and so he made a subtle gesture with his head at a closed door just past the foyer. When I lived here, I’d always thought of that space as the TV room, but to each his own.
“Thanks, Harold,” I said. “Who is Melanie Joan’s literary agent these days?”
“Mr. Gault,” he said. “He just arrived from L.A.”
Oh, really, now? “Tony Gault?” I said.
“Yes.”
“He’s her film agent.”
“He handles it all now,” Harold said. “After that…series of unfortunate events, Ms. Hart decided to streamline her representation.”
I gave him a look. Calling what happened with Melanie Joan’s previous agent a “series of unfortunate events” was like calling the Titanic a delayed boat trip.
He said it again. “Mr. Gault handles it all.”
I didn’t relish the idea of being in the same room with Tony Gault.
I was relatively sure that the last time I’d seen him, he’d been in the process of putting his clothes back on.
And the memory was not an unpleasant one.
(I was engaged to be engaged—not dead.) That aside, I didn’t want to go into the so-called drawing room blind.
I was annoyed at Spike for not psychically sensing I was at the door.
Harold’s jacket pocket dinged. He plucked out the phone and switched it to vibrate. I eyed the case—crystal-studded, with the Gucci logo at the center.
“This is Ms. Hart’s phone,” Harold said. “She asked me to keep it for the moment.” He dropped it back into his pocket. It vibrated, as if in protest.
“Harold?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Can you please tell me what the hell is going on in the drawing room?”
He nodded sagely. “Ms. Hart’s editor brought over papers to terminate her contract.”
“Oh…man.”
“Act surprised when she tells you.”
“I will.”
Harold leaned down and scratched Rosie behind the ears. “Good girl,” he said.
I wondered which one of us he was talking to.
“I blame the new regime, you know,” Harold said.
“Pardon?”
“Mr. Scepter,” he said. “The son. He’s not like his mother was.”
“That’s what Melanie Joan says.”
“We’ve known him since he was a boy, Ms. Hall and me. And by ‘known,’ I mean tolerated. Barely tolerated, in my case.”
“I think she’s with you on that,” I said.
“My assessment of him is this: He has always adored computers more than books. More than writers.” He stopped petting Rosie and stood up straight. “And he’s always been a little shit.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I’m sorry for the offensive language,” he said.
“No offense taken,” I said.
The door to the drawing room opened. Spike exited and closed it quickly behind him. I could hear Melanie Joan bellowing from within. “This cannot be happening! I will not allow it!”
“What took you so long?” Spike said. “It’s bad in there. I had to physically hold her back from strangling her editor.”
I nodded. “I can’t really say I blame her.”
“He was a true advocate for Ms. Hall when Mrs. Scepter was alive,” Harold said. “His opinions seem to have changed with the regime.”
“When they change that easily, they aren’t worth much to begin with,” I said.
“Indeed,” Harold said.
Rosie reared back onto her hind legs and placed her front paws on Spike’s shin. He scooped her into his arms. I was beginning to think he was Rosie’s emotional support animal, too.
I followed Spike back in. Melanie Joan had redone the TV room since I lived there.
There was emerald-green silk wallpaper, an antique chandelier.
No TV. At the center of the room was a large polished mahogany table.
It was all very Founding Fathers, save the miserable woman at the far end of the table in head-to-toe St. John, her forehead affixed to the mahogany.
Evan Woodrow was on one side of her, Tony Gault on the other.
Both seemed to be trying, in vain, to keep her from exploding into tiny pieces.
“This can’t happen,” Melanie Joan kept saying, over and over.
“This can’t happen. It can’t happen. It cannot. ”
“Melanie Joan?” Spike said. “Sunny’s here.”
She looked up at both of us. Her eyes glistened. “This can’t happen,” she said.
“I’m afraid it can,” Evan Woodrow said. He looked at me. “Help me out here, Sunny.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said.
I moved toward Melanie Joan and put my hand on her back, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Tony. I glanced at Spike. If he remembered my extended fling with Melanie Joan’s agent, it wasn’t registering at the moment. He was too busy staring at Evan Woodrow like he wanted to kill him.
“Evan,” Tony was saying. “I think there’s a very real chance we can fix this, especially with Sunny on board.”
“Fix it how?”
“Melanie Joan publicly apologizes, Book Babe publicly forgives Melanie Joan. We do a press conference. You resume publication—and sell even more copies of Stronger Alone.”
“None of that sounds likely,” Evan said. “No one knows who Book Babe is. And beyond that, I don’t make the rules.”
“Why not?” I said. “Why not make the rules, just this once?”
“Sunny can find Book Babe,” Spike said.
Evan looked up at him. He started to say something, then stopped. Probably out of fear.
“Evan, Sunny was the one who put John Melvin behind bars,” Tony said. “If she can do that with a psychopath, imagine what she can do with some…random librarian.”
“We don’t know that she’s a librarian.” Melanie Joan said it into her hands. “She might be a failed actress.”
Tony looked up at me. Unfortunately, he’d aged very well. “Is that true, Sunny?”
“There’s a strong possibility,” I said.
“See?” Tony said. “She’s already got a lead.”
Evan let out a heavy, whistling sigh, like a balloon deflating. “I’ll try and buy a few more days off Greg,” he said.
Melanie Joan stopped sobbing. Her spine straightened. She plucked a Kleenex out of the box in front of her and dabbed delicately at her eyes.
“Thank you.” She said it to me, not to Evan Woodrow.