Chapter Thirty-Six
Rhys rushed out of the older Lowrys’ swank neighborhood.
It lacked the gates and the guardhouses that tracked vehicles in and out like Jules’s neighborhood did, but it made leaving quickly significantly easier.
He wove through traffic. No matter what time of day it was, too many people crowded the streets, driving like they had nothing to do but clog the roads.
The ringing phone played on the Expedition’s speakers. Why the hell didn’t Wes pick up on the first ring?
Finally, he answered.
“I need you to get back to Diane and Peyton’s.
” Rhys maneuvered around cars and considered crossing into oncoming traffic to break ahead of this cluster.
The idea gave him pause. When had he become that guy?
He liked rules and order, and racing ahead through oncoming traffic didn’t fit his personal narrative. Nothing he’d done recently had.
Wes grumbled. “I’m all the way across town. It’s going to take me an hour to get there.”
His stranglehold on the steering wheel made his hands ache. “Just get there.”
“Where the hell are you?” Wes asked, catching the whiff of a big problem in Rhys’s tone.
“Meeting with a friend.” Wes had been Rhys’s second phone call.
The first had been to Ronaldo Menendez, a man Rhys had worked with more than fifteen years ago on the Jordan Everett assignment.
They’d remained in contact, helping each other spitball ideas whenever fresh eyes were needed.
Over the years, Menendez had kept tabs via Rhys on Jules, even as he’d risen in the ranks of the FBI.
Rhys could also be totally upfront with Menendez.
He’d fallen for his principal and didn’t have a clue what was obscuring his perception.
“Who?”
“Menendez.”
Wes let that sink in. “Do we need to send a patrol car over? Anyone from the security company they contract with—”
“No.” Rhys scrubbed a hand over his face. “There’s not an imminent threat. Just a gut feeling. I trust you. That’s it.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“That Tabitha’s not to be trusted.”
“Never had been,” Wes muttered. “Not to ignore your gut, but she has an alibi, and burning down Jules’s house isn’t a publicity move. That’s all that woman cares about.”
“Just keep her away if she shows up.” Rhys ended the call, unable to shake Wes’s words. He was right. Wes hadn’t been with Jules and Tabitha nearly as much as he had, but he had been there enough to see the ugly underbody of their relationship and the way Tabitha pined for attention.
What did the cops know about Mason that Rhys didn’t?
Tabitha had less skin in the game than Mason, and none of that made sense with the person in the photo with Scarlett.
Except Tabitha had left the room after Abigail ordered ice cream.
She could easily have approached someone from room service.
What would she get out of it? Rhys didn’t know.
He rubbed the back of his neck and gunned the engine, racing through a yellow light.
He phoned Scarlett but got no answer.
He redialed.
Again, no answer. It was late. She’d been partying. A million understandable reasons not to answer his late-night phone call surfaced. But the unanswered calls upped his stress.
He hit the brakes then changed lanes and sped onto the 405. Instead of redialing Scarlett, Rhys tried Vivian. She picked up on the second ring. He didn’t wait for her to speak. “Who’d Scarlett travel to New York with?”
“Hello to you too. What are you—”
“Who’d Scar travel with?”
“You mean in her personal time? Not that it’s your business, but to the best of my knowledge, no one. Not that she runs her social schedule by me.”
“Who would know?” Was it too late to call Callum’s wife, Grace? She and Scarlett were close. “Grace would, right?”
“Callaghan, what’s going on?”
“The wedding day. The day when everyone was trying to get that money shot of Jules in her wedding dress, there was a guy. Room service. He tried to take pictures in their suite. I grabbed him. Wes threw him out. Did he tell you that?”
“No.”
Wes would’ve looped in Sloane or Margot, and they’d keep a record of it for Jules’s legal team. “Room service guy is in New York with Scarlett.”
“You’re sure?”
“Christ, Viv. I’m sure.” She’d never questioned him before, and the timing of it now irritated the piss out of him. “He’s with her, and she’s not picking up the phone.”
“Take it easy. It’s late. She might be asleep. Let’s think this through. Gage,” Vivian said, her voice pulling away from the phone. “Track down Scar.”
Rhys checked the dashboard clock and calculated the time on the East Coast. Late. He’d process Viv being with Gage another time.
“The ticket came from Sloane,” Vivian said calmly. “Any event like that will have paparazzi—”
“Room service guy wasn’t paparazzi. Trust me.”
“I do,” she muttered. “I trust you, but…”
“Now he’s a guest at a party.” How the hell had Tabitha managed this? Better question: Why had she? Rhys couldn’t make that connection. “Make it make sense.”
Vivian didn’t. Silence hung in the air until she asked, “Where are you?”
He changed lanes for an upcoming exit. “Headed to meet Ronaldo Menendez.”
“And Wes?”
“On his way to Peyton and Diane’s. I told him not to let Tabitha in if she comes back. The ladies got into an argument, and I told her to leave and cool down. Sloane took her home.”
“I bet that went over well with Diane.”
“I don’t care.”
“This little thing you have going on with Jules,” Viv said cautiously. “It’s going to change things.”
His boss wasn’t an idiot. “Things have already changed.” And if Rhys didn’t clean up every single headache Jules had, he would relocate to California and follow her around like a guard dog, scaring off anyone who looked at her sideways. Maybe he would do that either way.