Ah, he was taking it that way then. I admit it wasn’t anunpleasantthought, which boded well.
“Where are you?” I asked. “So I can consider my options.”
“Charlatans.”
God.Of course he was—haunt of the rich and famous. Seedy. Impossible to get into unless you were of course, us. It was a garish place and exactly where I should have expected Caleb to end up. He was probably surrounded by page three models and members of the royal family right now.
“Ohhh, that does sound fun! I guess I’ll maybe see you there.”
———
There was another call to make before I went back to Harper, and thankfully the time difference stateside meant Ruchi was still up to take my call.
“Nadine! Congratulations on the win.”
“Thank you. So look, I’m about to go do something reckless and hedonistic.”
“And I get a heads-up this time rather than reading all about it in the morning paper?”
“See, I’m learning how this publicist thing works.”
“Courteous of you. So which strings do you need me to pull?”
I took a breath. “Any chance you can get the hotel to wipe their CCTV for the next hour or so? I’m trying to be discreet, I really am, and I think I can pull this off.”
“Is this something I need to talk you out of doing altogether?”
“No, I’m just having fun!”
I racked my brain for something that might work and added. “And I don’t need a record of all of them coming to the hotel.”
If there was one thing Ruchi would never do it was tell me who I could and couldn’t sleep with. But she had to assume a threesome or, god forbid, a full-on orgy would cement us back in party-girl Nadine space when we were trying to move back to respectful actor.
A shame I’d do even worse than that press-wise by the end of the evening.
Ruchi sighed. “I’ll find out who to bribe.”
“Thank you!”
“Yeah, yeah. Have a good night. And for god’s sake, use protection.”
———
I went back to my room to grab my dress before returning to 311 to put on a dead man’s clothes, pausing only to slide that eternally present necklace into a pocket. If I had ever needed luck, it was now.
“How many outfit changes does your plan entail?” Harper asked, taking the dress between her thumb and forefinger and rubbing the beads between them.
“A good story needs a good costume designer, you know that.”
“Navy always flattered you,” she said, letting the fabric fall back to the now-clean bed.
It was not really a suitable response, but then, the image that filled my mind was hardly suitable either: Harper in that beaded dress, the gentle curve of it across her chest, her hair, I imagined, would be swept to one side in a thick coiling curl or the sort of elaborate braid that took hours. I pictured her walking, the way the lights would glint off the edges of her, and that turquoise necklace, polished and shining in the groove where her collarbones met. I wanted to see it, wanted to pour her into my clothes, would have let her slip on my very skin just to see how it fit.
But I couldn’t say that, so instead I said: “Let’s go bury your husband.”
———
Harper had a singular job in all of this, and I was still concerned about her ability to pull it off. I stood, cap drawn low over my face, refusing to lean because Joel did not lean, he stood tall and straight, but if I tried that the height difference between us might become obvious, so instead I rummaged through Harper’s handbag perched atop the suitcase containing the real Joel, feigning a search for the car keys already tucked in the pocket of my—his—tracksuit.
