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“Yes,” I growled.
When they laughed, I decided it was time for me to go. I could figure this out in my apartment where I could think more clearly. My plants never interrupted with stupid fucking questions or observations, and that was just one of the many reasons why they were better than people.
I nodded brusquely to the PI who had reappeared. He was sitting at the bar with a water, squeezing a second lemon into it. When he saw me, he jerked his head in the universal come here gesture.
I paused and glanced around, sure he must be talking to someone else. This wasn’t how we played this game. But now he was drying lemon juice off his fingers with a cocktail napkin and then holding up his hand, halfway between looking like a mob boss beckoning over a minion and a student half-heartedly raising his hand to answer a question.
I made my way over, trying not to show my surprise. He was probably going to ask me to buy him another drink, or maybe get him out of some of the parking tickets I knew he was collecting. He was getting too familiar, I decided. Son of a bitch would probably expect to be invited to The Walker Agency holiday party.
Up close, he looked like a basset hound. Droopy eyes, long face, cheeks that seemed to fold down from his hollow eye sockets. Friendly though, and a little sheepish. Again, I wondered what he was going to ask me for.
“Hey boss,” he said.
I realized it was the first time I’d heard his voice. Low, gravelly, like he’d spent a few years gargling rocks. But, like his face, friendly.
“I’m the boss, huh.” I slid into the stool beside him. I wasn’t sure why I was sitting down. If he’d asked me for something, I’d have refused by now and been on my way to the door. But he hadn’t asked, and he was looking at me with those sympathetic, droopy brown eyes, like I was the dog, and he had to put me down.
“You jump, I jump,” he said. “I’d say that makes you the boss.”
“I haven’t seen you around as much lately,” I said. “I thought maybe Kim had gotten tired of paying you guys for nothing.”
“She did. But then there started being something.” His voice was still rough around the edges, but there was an apologetic note underlining the gravelly tones. I was starting to get a bad feeling about where this conversation was headed.
“Something,” I repeated. “Something like what?”
He looked down at the lemon rinds floating in his water, his mouth tugging down. “Come on, boss. You know what.”
I’d always prided myself on my ability to read people, but now I prayed that that was all bullshit, that I was as perceptive as a fence post. Because what I was reading in the sideways glance he sent me was that he knew all about Lily. Which meant Kim was going to know all about Lily. Which meant…
My stomach turned. The peace I’d felt only minutes ago turned inside out. Kim had signed the NDA in exchange for the final payment, but this wasn’t information she’d take to the press or put in a book. It was information she’d pour into Halley’s ear like poison.
I had a few hands to play now. First, I bluffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He sighed, and his breath skidded across the bar. “The girl, man. The blonde. Your daughter’s pal. The one you took to Giardo’s.”
“Lily?” I tried to laugh. “That’s just my daughter’s friend.”
He winced, like he was embarrassed for me. “There are pictures. The two of you leaving a club together, pulling her into the dark doorway. Leaving Giardo’s hand in hand. More than I can count of her getting on your private elevator after work and leaving in the morning. An interesting one of her this morning wearing what I’m guessing is your shirt.”
Pictures he’d taken, I was sure, but he was careful not to include that part. I felt, strangely, like he felt enormously guilty for what he was doing. Which gave me hope that the next hand I laid down would end the game.
“It isn’t what it looks like,” I said quietly. “It was just a few times.”
Another sideways glance that told me the lie hadn’t worked. “There’s also a woman named Victoria. Claims Lily told her everything.”
I was sure that was a lie. Kim had set this up somehow, but damned if I knew how. Although I guessed I’d made it pretty fucking easy once I let my guard down. “You were there all along,” I said.
“Just doing my job.” But his gaze fell from mine.
“Why now? You’ve had these pictures for a while.”
He shrugged. “She owed me some money. She finally settled up.”
She’d settled up with the fucking lump sum I’d given her in exchange for the NDA.
“If you give this to Kim, it’s going to destroy my daughter,” I said, my voice even lower. “Do you have kids?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, and then with a little wince of sympathy. “But I don’t fuck their friends, so I can’t say I know exactly how you’re feeling.”
