The First Assistant (25 page)

“We have an incident room. If you’d like to follow me,” he said, and led me out of the office and along the hallway toward the elevator.

“Elizabeth, good to have you back.” Katherine Watson was coming out of the elevator as we passed.

“Good to be back,” I lied, wishing for happier days in Thailand, like the time I’d tried to bribe Emerald out of her trailer with Krispy Kremes I’d had couriered into the country at triple the cost of my weekly salary. “What was the purpose of your trip to Thailand?” A second cop, an even meaner-looking female officer, stared at me over her coffee. They’d taken up residence in a glass-walled corner office on the second floor,

and everyone who walked by stared shamelessly in on my interrogation. It must have been some burglary to warrant them setting up an incident room, I thought uneasily, especially if they’d been here for a month.

“Business,” I said working on the premise that the less information I gave them the quicker I’d be out of here.

“Business?” the woman officer asked. I nodded in affirmation. “Have you ever used drugs, Ms. Miller?”

“I’m sorry?” I replied.

“Are we to take that as an admission that you have?” she asked. Good God, this was completely surreal. I hadn’t even gotten to my desk yet.

“No,” I said ambiguously.

“No you’ve never taken drugs or no that wasn’t an admission?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” I suddenly said. I’d had enough of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. I suddenly found myself with my Washington head on—from the days when I was a smart intern with a job for a sen-ator, in the days when I had a brain that I got to use. Not when I was a risible Hollywood assistant who got drugged by gangsters and wound up accidentally breaking up with the man she loved most in the world.

“It’s not an admission. And I fail to see what that question has to do with the burglary in question.” I pulled myself up in my seat and prepared to get myself out of this hell, even though it was at least taking my mind off the fact that Luke was probably having a Monday morning of languid sex with Emanuelle in the tasteful house in Malibu I’d read about in
InStyle
. I brushed the thought aside for the purposes of self-preservation.

“Now, unless I’m a suspect in your investigation, I suggest you fur-nish me with the details of what was stolen so that I might actually be of some help to you with your enquiry,” I said, managing to impress even myself with my snittiness. The cops looked at each other briefly.

“Sometime after the twenty-first of November, several highly confidential documents went missing from the office of Mr. Wagner,” the woman officer informed me. “We’re treating this as a case of either industrial espionage or a serious breach of privacy laws.”

“What?” I choked.

“The files were highly confidential. They also contained copies of some photographs of a sensitive nature that have since been used to

blackmail several high-profile clients of The Agency.” The man sat back with his arms folded as though he’d already decided I was guilty and he just wanted to figure out how tight he’d have to make the thumbscrews before I confessed. But sweet Jesus, I
was
guilty, I suddenly realized. Well, not of blackmail, of course, but of burning the damned paperwork. And then I considered the photographs with a heavy heart.

“These photographs?” I asked cautiously. “Were they of Emerald Everhart dancing on a bar?”

“How did you know?” The woman narrowed her eyes at me.

“I sent the film to my boss, Scott Wagner, to keep safe. They could have ruined Emerald’s career if the press had printed them. It’s standard practice when dealing with stars.”

“Those particular photographs were sold to the press. Others are missing and being used to extort money from clients,” she said haughtily. “God, I wish I’d thought of that.” I smiled. Something about these two po-faced bullies made me want to behave badly. They couldn’t arrest me for smiling could they?

“Are you saying that you might have done such a thing?” Columbo was obviously keen to hasten along his finest hour.

“Of course not, or I wouldn’t have sent the photos of Emerald to Scott, would I?” I said.

“Unless you were trying to cover your tracks. Even a fool could work out that little smokescreen,” he said. And I had to admit he had a point. That coupled with the fact that I had been the one to “steal,” aka burn, the paperwork definitely gave me the hue of guilt. Even if I wasn’t. Or wasn’t technically guilty, anyway. Unless burning paper was a crime.

“It’s our belief that whoever took the files is likely to be the blackmailer, or in league with the person who is blackmailing clients. We were alerted to the theft by an employee of Mr. Wagner’s,” the woman told me. I took this piece of information on board and then attempted to look as innocent as possible.

“I’ll try to recollect events in November and let you know if I recall anything suspicious,” I said and made to leave my chair before they could arrest me on a technicality. “Perhaps you have a card you could give me.” I held out my hand and the male officer fished in his pockets reluctantly. “As you and Ms. Bingham-Fox were the only two keyholders for the

filing cabinet in question, and owing to the fact that we’ve eliminated her from our enquiries, we will be interviewing you further,” they informed me as I straightened my black pants that I hadn’t even had the will to iron this morning, I had been so suicidal.

“You know where to find me,” I said as I left the office. Doubtless they’d be calling me back, if only because I’d been such a snooty bitch that they’d want to make me suffer. But I didn’t care, I could hardly suf-fer any more if I was locked up in the state penitentiary than I was over the breakup with my boyfriend.

Fortunately Scott was still away on location in New York because I wouldn’t have wanted him to slip in the blood that was going to be on the carpet after I’d finished with Amber, I thought, as I steamed down the hallway toward my office, not even stopping to smile at people who were ambling around the building.

“I think you’ll find that’s
my
desk.” I shoved my way through the door and stood above her as she flipped through the trades.

“Oh, you’re back. I thought they’d have plenty of evidence by now to incarcerate you.” She sighed without looking up.

“Get out of my seat,” I snarled.

“Oh, there’ve been some changes around here,” Amber said as she continued to look at V Page, doubtless to see if she’d made the cut at last night’s big premiere.

“Scott’s completely okayed the move. I told him I was sure you wouldn’t have a problem with me sitting here.”

“Well, I do. So move before I have you fired.” I was in no mood to be messed with, having already lost almost everything that mattered to me in the world.

“Oh, you don’t want to piss me off, do you, Elizabeth?” She broke off from her reading. “Not when your very freedom’s on the line,” she said pointedly. She was so insidiously poisonous that I couldn’t help but have my curiosity piqued.

“What are you talking about?” I sniffed.

“Well, I’d say that burning files is a very suspicious thing to do.” She shrugged and smiled at me.

“Who called the police?” I snapped, getting unpleasantly close to her face. She didn’t even flinch, she was so unnatural.

“The police came after yet another one of Scott’s clients had been blackmailed over photographs from our ‘private’ archives.” She smiled and then picked up
Entertainment Weekly.
It was true that Scott’s clients more than most seemed to be the most likely to be photographed in compromising and indiscreet situations and that our file of naughty snaps was bulging more than most at The Agency. And it was true that only Amber and myself had access to those files.

I resigned myself to having to sit in her chair. At least until Scott got back from the set and I could sort this whole mess out. Though come to think of it, I wasn’t sure how I could tell him that there hadn’t been a burglary at all, just a big, flaming bonfire of documents pertaining to the biggest names in the business. And simply because I’d been too lazy to do anything meaningful with them. Nobody in this entire building ever went into their filing cabinets to look up old documents, there simply wasn’t enough time in the day, and if you wanted a figure or a contract you just called the client’s lawyer. And Scott was even less likely to dirty his hands with yesterday’s documents. I’d taken a very cal-culated, safe risk when I made my small bonfire. Clearly, though, it hadn’t paid off. I shrank into Amber’s seat reluctantly. I’d get her back, I vowed to myself. I just wasn’t sure exactly how I’d do it yet. And so far her English slyness was most resoundingly outwitting my American sassiness. But I would even the score. Even if it killed me.

That night, as Lachlan splashed in his bath, oblivious to my woes, Lara and I sat on her baby’s bathroom floor and wondered how we could best rid our lives of Amber without further risk of imprisonment, on my part at least.

“I think we should hire a man. I met this guy at J.Lo’s birthday party who gave me his number. He was a total thug,” Lara volunteered as she soaped up her mewing son’s hair.

“Too obvious, especially because the police are on to us. I think we need to marry her off instead. Let’s have a dinner party with some rich old director and invite her,” I said as I pulled at the leg of one of Lachlan’s rubber bath-time toy animals.

“Then we’d never get rid of her. She’d be lurking at every premiere, wearing a better outfit than us and making passes at our husbands,” Lara said dismissively.

“I don’t have one,” I reminded her. The only good thing about this whole burglary business was that it was a great displacement activity for curling up in a ball and sobbing in the corner of my room with Luke’s stray sock.

“Well, my husband, then.” She scowled. “I swear to God she wants you out of that office so that she can get her hands on Scott once and for all.”

“Do you think she’d let something as petty as me stop her from doing that?” I asked. “Because if you do, I think you’re underestimating her. She’d glory in the fact that she was doing my best friend’s husband. She’d probably have sex with him on
my
desk while she did her typing.” “Please.” Lara glared at me and pointed to Lachlan who was such a prodigy in his mother’s eyes that even at thirteen months he’d understand not just what I was saying but it would serve to reinforce negative

female stereotypes to her spongelike son.

“Maybe I have to tell Scott what happened with those papers,” I said eventually. “I mean, he does understand the nature of addiction. And I was seriously, probably clinically, addicted to Su Doku.”

“Not in other people.” Lara shook her head and lifted Lachlan into a towel with a hood and bunny ears. “You can’t confess. We have to somehow prove that Amber set a trap for you and was trying to frame you. It has to be her blackmailing everyone, right? I mean only you and she have access?”

“Maybe there was a burglary as well,” I posited. “I mean, it’s not impossible.”

“I’m convinced it was her, and when we find out it is, she’ll definitely be out on her ass in the cold.”

“Don’t forget she has Katherine as her champion,” I reminded Lara. “Once we show her up for the blackmailing harridan that she is, it

won’t matter.”

“Okay,” I said, unconvinced. “But this isn’t
Cruel Intentions,
Lara, it’s my life. Try to remember that, will you?” But Lara wasn’t listening. She was clearly enthralled by some noir fantasy where she got to wear a Roland Mouret femme fatale dress and wreak vengeance with her snakeskin purse.

As Lara read a story to Lachlan and I was mooching around the

kitchen, my phone began to vibrate on the counter. I dashed toward it, as I had every time it had rung since Saturday morning, and thought I must be hallucinating when I saw Luke’s name appear on the screen. I wanted to answer it but I was rendered motionless as it bounced up and down, oblivious to the earth-shattering significance of its mission. I moved my hand to answer it and then snatched it back, lost in a vortex of indecision and fear. Was I angry? Forgiving? Contrite? Excited to hear from him? Or on a date with someone else already? I was at a loss to know what to do so waited impatiently for him to leave a message. Though after five minutes of waiting for the message light to flash, I realized that he wasn’t actually pouring his heart out but that he’d hung up without saying anything. Which only exacerbated my dilemma. To call back or not to call back?

After an hour or so in which Lara and I exhausted my fears, anxieties, regrets, and hopes for the future, including rather shamefully that Emanuelle get hit by a truck, it was finally decided that I would call Luke back and accept his apology.

“Okay, just do it,” Lara said, looking with heavy-lidded eyes at her watch. “It’s almost eleven. You can’t call him after that.”

“He stays up late,” I told her.

“You can only call someone after eleven if you’re fucking them,” she said firmly.

“Okay, I’ll call him in a minute,” I promised. “But just remind me, what’s he doing now?” I asked, craving reassurance.

“He’s realized that he made a huge mistake because he was so jet-lagged and tired and now his house is all empty and he doesn’t like hav-ing takeout alone and there’s nobody there to tell how his day was and he’s regretting it and wants you back,” Lara repeated by rote.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” Lara said confidently as she cleared away our wineglasses. “What else would he be doing?”

Sadly, Luke was doing something
very
else when I finally plucked up the courage to call him.

“Hold on, I’m going outside,” he said as I held the phone away from my ear so as not to be deafened by the blare of Franz Ferdinand.

“Where are you?” I asked, as though I were genuinely, casually curious and not still his suspicious girlfriend.

“Some place called Avalon!” he yelled. Oh, so only the hottest club in town on a Monday night, I thought with a mounting sense of concern. Already this was not going as Lara had promised.

“Sounds fun,” I said, then moved on swiftly so as not to overplay the inherent difference between a broken man and one on the town with Paris Hilton
et al.
“Well, I was just returning your call.”