Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Do we tell her we’re coming over?” Alden asked Roz as she drove toward the beach.
“I don’t know.” Roz bit her lip.
Alden looked and thought about last night—when they reveled in being alive after their brush with death—and tried not to get distracted. “I think we go for it. It’s harder for her to say no when we’re parked in front of her gate.”
“We could lie in wait for her at Lunaria Lodge tomorrow. She says she plays pickleball on Wednesdays.”
“Last resort,” Alden said. “I’d like to rule her out before we start going down the list of Secret Screenwriters. And deadline looms.”
“Why doesn’t Duke just figure this out for us and save us some time?”
“Are you kidding? He’s waiting for us to do it. He’s living for your little love notes.”
Roz snickered, and Alden smiled.
They pulled up to Enolia’s gate like last time, and Roz pressed the call button on the intercom. There was no response.
“Try again,” Alden urged, so she did.
A minute later, a voice came over the speaker. “Yes?”
“Enolia,” Alden whispered.
“Ms. Honeywood? It’s Roz and Alden from The Courier-Beacon,” Roz said into the speaker. “Could we talk with you for a couple of minutes? We have some information about Wayne Vandershell that might interest you.”
Smart. Alden nodded and gave Roz the “OK” sign.
“All right. I have a few minutes,” the writer said.
A moment later, the gate slid open and let them in.
“No Craig,” Alden observed as Roz eased up the driveway and parked between the garage and the huge pink house.
“Good. He’s a watchdog we don’t need.”
“More like a lapdog.”
Roz quirked her mouth at him as she stopped the car. “He’s loyal. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Just the same, he tried to get rid of us before. I think it’ll be easier without him there. He’s probably still writing at the coffee shop.”
Enolia opened the door before they even had a chance to ring the doorbell. “Come on in,” she said, looking less formal this time in black jeans and a baggy shirt with a glittering gray and white zebra print, her hair pinned up. “Craig is busy, so I’m afraid I have no lemonade today.”
“Oh, we’re fine,” Roz said. “Thanks for taking the time.”
“You intrigued me.” Enolia led them into the living room, where she curled into her big chair. They sat catty-corner to her, on the couch facing the electric fireplace—currently dark—and the wall of bookshelves. “So. You’ve learned something about Wayne?”
“A few things,” Alden said. “Did you know that he had promised several writers that he was going to get their work made into movies?”
She looked down and smoothed her shirt when it didn’t need smoothing. Then she looked up. “Oh, I knew he had several protégés. He liked to foster young talent. Especially young women.” Her smile seemed odd. Hard.
Roz turned to Alden slightly, lifting her eyebrows. Run with it, she seemed to say. So he did.
“He asked them for money. I understand he asked you for money, too?”
The corner of Enolia’s smile twitched, and then it flattened.
“I see Mae has been talking out of turn. Oh, I don’t blame her.
She’s such an open-hearted soul. I suppose his financial records will be prodded and poked by those police people anyway.
Yes, I invested some money into the screen adaptations. ”
“Care to say how much?” Alden asked.
“I don’t know exactly. I mean, I know roughly.
Perhaps a hundred thousand? I was paying in installments, so he’d only received about half of that.
He said I might get credit as a co-producer eventually with a more significant investment.
I expected to make it all back and then some.
If you can’t invest in your own work, what can you invest in? ”
“It seems as if Wayne hadn’t made much progress on his movie projects.” Alden tried to be tactful. “Craig told us Wayne had something lined up at Netflix. In fact, my source there says no adaptations of your books are in the works.”
“And are you sure your source is correct?” Enolia sounded smug. “I’ve been talking with one of their content executives. Reynold Casper. He’s very excited.”
“Reynold Casper … he’s a friend of Wayne’s,” Alden said. “He works as a tour guide at Disneyland.”
Enolia’s smile faltered. Then she swallowed. “Perhaps that’s his second job.” Even she didn’t sound convinced. “Go get Craig for me. He talked to him too. He can show you the books and the correspondence. I’m sure it’s all there.”
Oh, this was going to hurt. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see his favorite author’s reaction when she saw the truth.
“Where’s Craig?” Roz asked.
“In his apartment above the garage,” Enolia said.
“What’s in the garage?” Alden asked. Roz shot him a funny look, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Cars, you mean? My baby-blue 1968 Mercedes convertible, for one. I love that car. But for more practical driving, there’s the Bentley.”
That was the practical car? Alden almost wept.
“And there’s the Toyota I bought for Craig,” Enolia continued. “Upstairs in the apartment, there’s a storage room with all my business archives as well. Craig looks after them. I don’t like them around me in my office. It hurts my creativity if I think too much about money.”
Spoken like someone who had a lot of it. Alden glanced at Roz.
“We’ll take a look and sort this all out,” Roz said, but her eyes told him she didn’t believe her comforting words.
The author seemed genuinely clueless about Wayne’s scam. If so, why did she yell at him in the alley behind Big Bang Books?
He’d ask that question when he got back. In the meantime, they were about to get some real juice for the story.
“I’ll get Craig.” Alden headed for the door. “I’ll be right back.”