Chapter 48
AN HOUR LATER, DETECTIVE CAMERON Wallace leads Cole and Barb into Seaside PD’s brightly lit basement archives, periodically checking the case number he’d scrawled on a piece of paper in between glances at Barb.
The basement houses thousands of cases going back decades, some solved, some not, and it’s much bigger than Cole expected it to be.
Then again, a lot of bad shit happens in Seaside.
She’s certain that if she looked, her father’s name would be found in more than a few of these old boxes.
“I haven’t been down here since PD built the new space,” Barb says to the detective. “This is much better than that dank cave back at the old building.”
“You need to come by more,” he says with a smile. “You’re always welcome here.”
The detective is cute, and Barb seems very at ease with him. She seems to have overcome her awkwardness around boys, which shouldn’t surprise Cole considering how beautiful she grew up to be.
“With the docuseries coming out, we’ve had a few requests to see this particular case file,” Detective Wallace says, glancing over at Barb yet again.
He actually seems a little shy around her, though her former friend seems completely oblivious to it.
“Lorelei Glass being one of the Carnival Killer’s victims and all. ”
“I don’t like calling him that,” Barb says, her gaze roving over the neat stacks of boxes. The ceilings down here are at least ten feet high, and each aisle has a stepladder to access the top shelves. “It’s a stupid nickname and it glorifies him.”
“Thank you,” Cole says to them from behind. “I’ve always felt that way, too.”
Neither of them respond, and admittedly, the lack of acknowledgment is a little irritating. In her pocket, she feels her phone vibrate. She pulls it out, frowning when she sees the name on the call display. What the hell? Why is he calling her?
“Uh, guys, you go on ahead,” Cole says, stopping. “I’ll catch up. I—I have to take this.”
Neither Barb nor the detective appear to have heard her, and they continue down the aisle without breaking stride or conversation.
Cole ducks down a different aisle and accepts the call. “What do you want, Asher?” she hisses. “You’re not supposed to call me. We had a onetime arrangement, remember?”
“Yeah, but I have some intel for you, gorgeous,” Asher Kaye says, his lazy voice purring in Cole’s ear. The paparazzo never sounds like he’s in a hurry, but wherever he is now, he must be outside. She catches sounds of traffic in the background. “Free of charge, of course.”
“I can’t really talk right now.”
“I found out the name of the woman Jordan is sleeping with,” Asher says. “Thought you’d like to know.”
“Oh,” Cole says, startled. From somewhere in the basement, she hears a man laugh. Barb must have said something funny to the detective. “It doesn’t . . . it doesn’t matter.”
“Are you serious? You don’t care who your husband is screwing?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t care,” she snaps. “I said it doesn’t matter who she is.”
“Remember how I told you I got an anonymous tip that Jordan was at the hotel with his mistress?” the photographer says, seemingly oblivious to Cole’s aggravation.
“Well, I got curious as to which one of your Trophy Wives co-stars hated you enough to phone it in. I had a buddy of mine trace the call. Turns out it wasn’t one of your pretend friends after all.
It was one of your real life friends, Annika Roth.
She’s your neighbor, right? Married to that old geezer billionaire, Lionel Roth? ”
Shit. Asher was never supposed to figure out that it was Annika who called him. She was supposed to use a burner phone, or call from the hotel lobby. Clearly, Annika hadn’t done either.
“The call traced back to her,” the paparazzo says. “And when I compared the photos I took to the pictures of her I googled, it’s pretty obvious to me that the same woman who was sleeping with your husband is the same woman who made the anonymous call.”
Cole doesn’t say anything.
“Cole, did you hear me?” Asher says. “The call came from inside the house. Annika Roth was sleeping with Jordan and she wanted it exposed. Which means your friend Annika isn’t your friend.”
When she still doesn’t respond, Asher mistakes her silence for shock at the bomb he just dropped. And there is no mistaking it is a bomb.
But it’s one Cole planted herself.
“I’m sorry, babe,” Asher says, and if he wasn’t such a leech, she might actually believe he’s sincere. “You don’t deserve any of this.”
“Are you going to release her name?” Cole asks him. “Because there’s no need to make Annika’s identity public.”
“Why are you protecting her?” Asher sounds confused. “This chick screwed your husband. Something like this could generate a lot of public sympathy for you, and after what happened in Vegas, you could use it. Unless . . .” He pauses. “Hang on. Did you already know it was Annika?”
Of course Cole knew. It was all her idea, once she found out that Annika wanted out of her marriage to Lionel as much as Cole wanted out of her marriage to Jordan.
The problem was, they were both stuck. They’d both signed terrible prenups which wouldn’t leave either of them with much if they walked away.
But Cole’s prenup had one thing Annika’s didn’t: a very generous infidelity bonus.
Jordan had been eyeing Annika for years, ever since she’d moved in with Lionel.
All Annika had to do was let Jordan get close to her, and then tip off the paparazzi anonymously.
But unfortunately, Cole’s attorney didn’t feel the photos Asher took were damning enough.
They were open to interpretation, and what they needed was irrefutable proof that Jordan was having sex with someone else. That’s when Cole hired Parker.
When Annika had come by the house later that day, it was so that Cole could show her where all the cameras were installed. At any time, if you change your mind, you don’t have to go through with it, Cole had reminded her. I can’t ask you to do this.
You’re not asking, I’m offering, Annika had said. Lionel’s already threatened to kick me out, and when he does, I’ll have nothing. At least after this, I’ll be able to start over. Just promise me you won’t watch the video. And promise you won’t hate me.
Cole had kept one of her promises. She did not hate Annika. The younger women was—and still is—her friend. And despite the voicemail she’d left Cole afterward, Annika did not need to be sorry.
“Thanks for the intel,” she tells Asher. “I have to go.”
“Why do I feel like I got played?” the photographer asks, then sighs. “Never mind, I don’t need to know. There is one more thing, though. You know Reality Bitch?”
“You mean my favorite site?” Cole says sarcastically, and as if on cue, she hears Barb call out her name from somewhere in the basement. “What about it?”
“Glynnis Glenn told me that the writer assigned to Trophy Wives quit suddenly,” Asher says. “Had some kind of crisis of conscience and doesn’t want to do it anymore. And since none of the other writers are as snarky as her, they might go easy on you next season.”
Cole is surprised. From what she’s heard, Glynnis Glenn pays her writers quite well. Did Barb really walk away from a paying job, for Cole? She never mentioned that part. Then again, Cole had been too busy yelling at her to give Barb a chance to tell her.
“Assuming there is a next season,” she says to Asher. “Even if they do want me back, I might just quit, too.”
“Aw, babe—”
“Don’t call me babe,” Cole says, and hangs up on him.
* * *
By the time she catches up to Barb and Cameron Wallace, her anger toward her old friend has begun to dissipate.
No, it wasn’t cool for Barb to rip her to shreds every week on a site whose sole purpose was to tear people down.
But that’s what happens when you’re on a reality show.
Cole knew the gig when she signed on. If it hadn’t been Barb writing about her, it most certainly would have been someone else.
“We were talking about Sydney Carlisle and Ingrid Larsen,” the detective tells Cole when she approaches. “I seem to have hit a roadblock.”
“I’ve still got a couple more theories I could run by you,” Barb says. “But I just need to see Lorelei’s file first.”
“She forgets she doesn’t work here,” Detective Wallace says to Cole, but he’s looking down at Barb with a grin. “But she could easily be a detective. She’s pretty—” His voice cracks slightly and he clears his throat. “Pretty thorough, I mean.”
If Barb notices the stumble, she doesn’t react. “Maybe I should sign up for the police academy?” she says, then chuckles. “I’d set a record for being PD’s oldest rookie cop.”
“You’d look good in the uniform, though,” Wallace says to her. “Blue’s your color. But maybe stick with writing. How’s the novel coming?’
Novel? Cole wonders. What novel?
“I’m making good progress,” Barb says. “Remember that agent in New York I told you about? She wants to read it when it’s done.”
“Of course she does. You’re a great writer.”
“Wait, did you say the name Sydney Carlisle?” Cole says, belatedly registering what the detective said a moment earlier. “From Showgirls, right? I know Sydney. Why are you talking about her?”
Barb glances over at her, and it’s almost as if she forgot Cole was there. “She’s missing,” she says. “She was on her way her to Seaside last week to meet friends, but she never made it. Somewhere along the way, she just disappeared.”
“Just like Kylie,” Cole says, shocked.
Barb comes to a complete stop. “What do you mean, just like Kylie?”
“Kylie Kahl,” Cole says again. “She was on the first season of Trophy Wives and she went missing after—”
“I know who she is,” Barb says. “I’ve been trying to solve her case from the sidelines for six years now. What about her?”
Cole’s gaze flickers to the detective. “I’ll tell you after. Let’s just finish this.”
“You can talk in front of Cam,” Barb says. “He knows I’ve been low-key obsessed with finding her.”
“Nothing about you is low-key,” Wallace says.
“Shut up.” Barb elbows him.