Temptations - The Complete Series Read online

  I never quite understood men like Nottingham. He was a billionaire, yet that wasn’t enough for him, apparently. He routinely dumped stock according to inside tips, or bought them on the same basis. This wasn’t yet known to the feds, but Dalilah was able to find this out through Lars and his team. She used this information to blackmail him into giving up his rights to her baby girl.

  I prayed that Lars could do the same for me. Please find some good dirt on Charlotte. Some dirt that will make her play nice. I shook my head. It would have to be some amazing dirt, considering that, if Slade doesn’t pay the price for Jordan’s murder, Charlotte probably would. She was behind it all, and that house of cards would come crashing on her head if Slade was exonerated for this murder. Self-preservation was always a powerful thing, and that had to be on her mind.

  Dalilah walked around with me, with Olivia in a sling on her chest. The little girl was sleeping, as usual, her little thumb in her mouth. I smiled. “Has Luke ever thought of doing a portrait of you and Olivia like this?” I asked her. Dalilah looked just like a picture, standing there, gorgeous without a stitch of makeup on, with an infant lying against her.

  “Oh, yes, we’ve talked about that. In fact, I think that we will be doing just that, as soon as everything calms down.”

  “How long do you think all this will take?” I asked her, while I stared at another picture. This one was a photograph of a person - a waitress who was standing at a counter with a dreamy look in her eyes. She wasn’t necessarily happy with her station in life, but she didn’t seem entirely dissatisfied, either. She seemed contemplative, as if she was thinking about the future, and it was going to be brighter than her present. Like me. I was hopeful, despite all the odds being against all of this.

  “With Lars, it really shouldn’t take that long, maybe a couple of days, maybe a couple of hours. He has told me that Slade has many, many layers of protection that are going to be difficult to crack. As for getting dirt on Charlotte, that might be a bit easier. Hospitals and rehab centers have a lot of security, but Lars has experience with that. He knows how to get into databases as well.”

  I wondered how I would use that information, even if Lars was able to get it. Threaten to sell her out to a tabloid? Tell her current director, David Fincher, about it? I knew that there was often an issue with addicts and others, as far as insurance went. It was difficult to get insurance on people who had drug offenses and were addicted, which was why some talented actors had problems getting work when they had a reputation of being a drug addict. Robert Downey Jr. came to mind. He was severely addicted in the 1990s, to the point where he was in prison. Not jail, but prison. You have to be a hard-core addict to end up in the big house. He was able to come back, of course, in spectacular fashion and became one of the most well-respected actors in Hollywood. Not to mention one of the most bankable.

  But Charlotte wasn’t Robert Downey Jr. She was new on the scene, and hadn’t yet built up the cache that he had when he made his comeback. He had been nominated for an Oscar before all his drama occurred. Charlotte had made one well-regarded movie, and was currently being spotlighted as the one to watch; the next Jennifer Lawrence. But she hadn’t quite gotten there. Something major in her background could be scandalous enough to stop her rise.

  Besides, if there was some scandalous dirt on her, wouldn’t Slade know about it and use it against her? Maybe, maybe not, it all depended on when it happened and how close he was with her when it did happen. He wouldn’t be able to get these records either, because such records are confidential and impossible to get for ordinary people. Lars wasn’t an ordinary person, of course, so he would be able to find information that Slade wouldn’t.

  We walked around some more, and Luke found us in a few hours. “You guys ready?” he asked.

  “We are,” I said. “At least, I am. By the way, I’m really impressed with this gallery. It really has come a long way since you guys have been able to get so many benefactors and financiers on board.”

  “I know. Our co-op is attracting some of the very hottest artists in the city too. We’ve had to turn some pretty amazing people away.” He shook his head. “Let this be a lesson to you, Serena. You can go from the very bottom to the very top in a short period of time. That’s what happened to me personally, and that’s what happened for Dalilah and me as a couple.”

  I paused. “We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?” I asked him.

  “We’re doing the only thing, it sounds like. If it’s a choice between this or prison for Slade, I think you know the answer to your own question.”

  We left the gallery and hailed a cab, since nobody had bothered to call the limo. Our plan was for me to pay a visit to my old neighborhood for old time’s sake, and then maybe get dinner a little later on before checking into our hotel. It all sounded like a wonderful time, and it would be, if I didn’t have so much on my mind. But I did have a lot on my mind, too much, and I couldn’t get my thoughts off of it.

  But I was going to try to forget about it for the evening, or else I was going to go crazy.

  Chapter 26

  Slade

  As much as I didn’t want to do this to Serena, I knew that I had to. That blonde was giving me signals that told me that she was really into me, and she could be an invaluable source of information. She was on Charlotte’s publicity team, but that didn’t mean that she was loyal.

  So, I called her that evening. She had given me her card, which had her cell phone on it. She picked up, not recognizing my number, apparently.

  “Hello, this is Sarah,” she said, answering the phone.

  “Hi, Sarah, this is Slade Bridgewell. We briefly met…”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice sounding anxious. A little too anxious. “I was hoping you would call. I mean –”

  “I was thinking that you would want to hear from me. Listen, can we meet for a drink?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Good. Let’s meet at the Seven Grand,” I said, referring to an old-school cocktail and whiskey bar downtown. The place was classic, with dark wood paneling, and discreet. It would be the perfect place to meet and pick her brain. “At eight. I’ll buy you a drink or two.” I didn’t refer to dinner, and I deliberately made the time for after dinner. I didn’t necessarily want her to get the completely wrong impression, although she probably would.

  “I’ll be there.”

  I briefly thought of the implications for gallivanting around LA, where the tabloid press ran rampant. But it couldn’t be helped. I was going to have to try to get some information from Sarah about Charlotte and hope for the best. Serena left me no choice but to try to do things underhanded.

  I walked around my house, which was huge and relatively empty. There were still some staff around, of course, as I had to maintain my home no matter what happened, but I was used to people wandering about. Before I met Serena, I had a lot of parties where people would stay the weekend or the entire week, just because I didn’t want to be alone. It was comforting for me to be around people. I had no idea why I was like that, except to say that there was a part of me that was very lonely. It had been rough to grow up the way that I did, with a mother in prison and adoptive parents that were very remote. It didn’t help that my adoptive sister, Alice, had the hots for me from the time we were young teenagers. She wasn’t my ally, because she was always trying to manipulate me into bed, as sick as that sounds.

  Serena actually brought something to my life that I had never had – a sense of stability. Our connection was powerful and I didn’t want to break it for anything in the world. Of course, there were so many things that were threatening it, between Charlotte and…well, it was only Charlotte that threatened us -- Charlotte and her sick machinations.

  As much as I was angry with Serena for apparently going behind my back and doing things that I explicitly told her not to – and I was quite certain that was where she was right at that moment, trying to find evidence to exonerate me – I loved her for do
ing that, as well. I was at war with myself on this one – she was putting herself and my mother in danger. That infuriated me. Yet her heart was in the right place, which softened the blow.

  Eight o’clock rolled around, and I found a place to park and went into the bar. It was already alive with people, and I hoped that I could be anonymous. I was wearing a baseball cap and had dressed down. I looked around, and nobody really noticed me coming in. I kept my head down, and hoped that people still wouldn’t notice, and looked around. I spotted Sarah in a back booth, waving to me, and I went over.

  “Slade,” she said. “I was hoping you would call me.”

  I sat down. “Well, I knew that I had to get to know you. By the way, do you mind ordering the drink for me? I don’t want to be too conspicuous.” It was less of a problem in San Diego, being out and about, although it was still a problem there. But in Los Angeles…there were paparazzi everywhere you turned. I was always a prime target for them, too, as they loved to portray me as the playboy without a care, while my partner was dead -- murdered by me.

  “Of course, what do you drink?”

  “Scotch neat,” I said. “They have some good ones here. Order me a Macallan double-malt,” I said, looking at the menu. It was $100 a glass, but I knew that it would be worth it.

  The waitress came around, and Sarah ordered.

  “So,” she said seductively. She was the typical woman who was around Los Angeles – fit, with firm runner’s legs and very large breasts, which were probably fake, but would be damned impressive if they weren’t. Her eyes were big and blue, and her face was like a gorgeous Barbie doll. Of course, in LA, one never knew just what was real and what was fake. Her features were perfect, perhaps a little too much so. At any rate, she looked like a woman who went after the man that she wanted, and usually ended up getting him. “What caused you to give me a call?” She sucked on her straw suggestively with her full lips, and I felt her foot lightly brush my own.

  I was going to have to play this just right. I didn’t want her to know right away that I was using her for information. “We had a moment at Charlotte’s house,” I said. “And I knew that I had to get to know you better. A lot better,” I added with a suggestive raise of the eyebrows.

  She giggled lightly. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, I know that you’re in trouble and all of that, but…” Then she lowered her voice. “I always thought that you only dated the A-listers, so I was surprised that you would give me a call.”

  I used to date A-listers, but I’m totally off the market now. Lock, stock and barrel. “You’re not an A-lister?” I asked lightly. It was meant to be flattery and a light joke all at once.

  “No,” she said. “My clients are, though. Like Charlotte.” At that, she rolled her eyes, and I knew that I was getting somewhere. I had this feeling that she was not a loyal publicist, and I was beginning to find out how right that was.

  “What was that eye-roll about?” I asked her.

  “What eye-roll?”

  “When you said that Charlotte was your client, you rolled your eyes.”

  “Oh. Well, she’s fine, really. A little demanding, but not any more so than any other actor or actress in his town. I do have some good ones, though. Some of the people that you read about who seem to be the nicest people really are; others, not so much. We manage their image down to a tee.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I don’t get the actors and actresses who have a harsh reputation. Why their manager and publicist don’t lock those things down, I have no clue. It’s so easy to kill a story – just threaten the magazine or website with no access to the star forevermore, and they always dance. Especially if it’s somebody big.”

  After that, we chatted for awhile about different things. Nothing too serious, because I needed to back off, just a little bit. I was gathering information in my head as I spoke with her. Information that might help me get what I wanted out of her. I tried to keep the sexual innuendo to a bare minimum, but she didn’t do the same, as she made suggestive comments to me, again and again. I glided over them effortlessly though, not giving her anything in that regard.

  After about an hour of small talk, I took a sip of my Scotch, and wondered if the time was right to prime the pump. I had just met this woman, yet I was getting the vibe that she was ready to talk. There was something about her demeanor that told me that she was.

  What she said next gave me my opening.

  “Anyhow, I’m ready to leave the business. I’m tired of these prima donnas and their attitudes. They’re not real, anyhow. None of them are. That’s why they’re actors.” She laughed a little, drinking her own Tanqueray and tonic. “If you think about it, how could you really be an actor if you had your own soul? How could you constantly become somebody else? Although some of the people in the business are genuinely nice, great people. They don’t work for me, but I know of them.”

  She was getting drunk, I could tell. Her eyes were starting to become unfocused, and she was slurring her words. Her hands were shaking, just a little. She was a tiny woman, really, probably didn’t weigh more than 115 lbs, even though she was around 5’6”. She had apparently adhered to the LA code of “thou shalt not get fat.” Her frame was that of a small bird, and, with her jacket off, I could see how scrawny her arms were.

  “What about Charlotte?” I asked her. “Is she one of the prima donnas?”

  “Oh, god yes. She’s one of the worst ones. The very worst ones.”

  “What have you heard about her?”

  “What have I heard about her or what do I know about her?”

  “What have you heard about her?”

  “That she’s crazy. Literally crazy. As in, not Hollywood crazy, but Norman Bates crazy.” Then she laughed. “Oh, that’s a dated reference, huh? But she is, according to the people who work more closely with her than I do.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Who are your contacts in the media? If I gave you a story, would you be able to get it to the right people?”

  “I have contacts with all the magazines in town, and some major nation-wide ones as well,” she said, naming off all the biggies – Vanity Fair, Elle, Time, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker were some of the ones that I was hearing from her. “So, yes, once I quit this hell-hole, I certainly could blow up a good story about her. If I have some excellent proof of whatever it is you’re saying, of course. I wouldn’t just take anything as a story. I would get sued for slander so fast…” She shook her head. “And I would never want to cross that woman without some solid proof. She would hang me out to dry, and so would all those magazines. They’re respectable. Of course, if you want to make shit up, feel free – The National Enquirer and The Star will take anything these days,” she said with a giggle. “Oh, I shouldn’t say that. They’re actually good at making up shitty headlines to make you buy the magazine, and then you get into the article you find it’s nothing like what the headline promises. That’s their MO, and I’ve been sucked into that more than once.”

  I knew something about Charlotte, something that I knew would alter her “It Girl” image forevermore. But did I have proof of it? No, no I didn’t. I didn’t necessarily know how to get my hands on proof of it, either. That was something that I was just going to have to talk to Serena about when she got back from wherever she was. I didn’t know where she was right at that moment, unfortunately, as she had apparently left her phone at her house. I knew that she wasn’t at her house, too, because I had driven by there more than once. She was out of town, up to no good, and I knew why – she was trying to find information that would exonerate me. That was the only good explanation for why she would up and leave, right before I was going to plead guilty, and right before she needed to be in Sacramento for the California bar.

  “Why do you ask?” Sarah asked me. “About Charlotte? Do you have something that would blow up her image in the press? Right now, her publicists and managers are keeping a tight rein on her in the press. They’re not letting anything get out that wou
ld damage her. She’s going to be a big star, according to everyone, and her team is going to make that happen for her.” She smiled devilishly. “Oh, how I would like to puncture that balloon.” She rubbed her hands together. “I would never work again in this town, but I don’t want to. After what I’ve gone through out here, I’d really like to just go back to my hometown of Atlanta and become a personal trainer.”

  I could barely believe my good fortune. I had found the one woman who was ready to leave the business and was therefore ready to talk. She had excellent media contacts, and she was drunk. It was a perfect storm for getting a story about Charlotte to blow up wide. That might be the one thing that I could hold over her head to make her back off of Serena, my mother, and me; maybe. Malcolm would have to be dealt with however, because Charlotte wouldn’t go to prison for anything. If Malcolm was going to roll on her, she still wouldn’t let me get out of pleading guilty to Jordan’s murder, even if I went to Sarah with a story that I had about her.

  I shook my head. I was close, but it wasn’t going to work. I still had no proof of anything, and I had no idea how to get it. I was running out of time, too. And there was the issue of Malcolm. If I didn’t plead guilty, and Malcolm was on the hook for that murder, then Charlotte would be, as well. That would be enough for her self-preservation instincts to kick in. I couldn’t see her letting me off the hook for anything, even a bad story that would hit the press and ruin her burgeoning career.