Millie stood in front of her son. Seeing her, he turned off the saw and lifted his shield. “Bri, sweetie, look who stopped by,” she said, making it sound like Dee had dropped in for tea.
“I’d love to get a quote from you on the cost of replacing the cabin that burned down,” Dee said, getting right down to business. Brian was an attractive man, with a nose that stopped at sloping too much and a thick head of hair whose color matched his brown eyes. But either he had no personality or he was keeping a lid on it until he met the right person, which Dee knew she wasn’t.
“Got it,” the contractor said. “I’ll take a look and send you an estimate. You can give your contact info to Millie.”
He flipped the mask down, turned the table saw back on, and resumed work. Dee found it interesting that he referred to his mother by name. Mostly likely, he did it to maintain a semblance of professionalism. But she also wondered if it indicated a strain between them and a desire to detach himself from the kind of mother who might border on being a “smother.”
“Brian, honey, don’t forget you have to pick up the flowers I need for Sunday’s arrangements at church,” Millie yelled over the din from the saw. She sniffled. “I still can’t believe that special boy is gone. Heartbreaking.”
Dee and Millie headed back to the office area, but Dee glanced back in time to see Brian Oakhurst shove a two-by-four through the saw with increased ferocity.
Dee left her cell phone number and email address with Millie, but only after enduring ten additional minutes of the retired English teacher extolling the miracle that was her star pupil, Michael Adam Baker. By the end of it, Dee’s sympathies were with Brian.
If he did kill him, his mother should be indicted for driving him to it, she thought when she finally made her escape.
She arrived back at the Golden bummed out that she didn’t have any valuable new clue to run by Jeff.
It turned out she didn’t need one.
Dee found Jeff waiting for her in the motel lobby. “Finally,” he said when he saw her. “There’s been a development. I didn’t want to call you about it, because I didn’t know where you’d be. It’s intense. I have to say, I didn’t see it coming.”
“What’s going on?” Dee’s anxiety level ticked upward. “What happened?”
Serena emerged from the lobby’s restroom. Tears streaked her face. “The horrible park ranger O’Bryant arrested Callan’s assistant, Marisa, for the murder of Michael Adam Baker.”
CHAPTER 26
Dee’s jaw dropped. While Marisa was on her list of suspects, the news of the assistant’s arrest still came as a shock. “Seriously? When? Why?”
“This morning. She was helping me load a cheese board into the car, when the ranger appeared with a bunch of other police cars. Thank God my babies were inside with the sitter when they showed up. It was awful.”
The distraught woman dropped her head into her hands. Jeff guided her to the lobby seating area and she collapsed into the couch. He took a seat next to her. Dee claimed the other side. “Do you need water? Something to eat?”
Serena shook her head. “I knew Callan was on the list of suspects because of his falling-out with Michael. Callan turned over his phone logs to the police. His cell business calls from when he was up here and not in L.A., where he mostly used his office phone, matched Marisa’s.” She lifted her head. “What most people don’t know is that assistants listen in on pretty much every call an agent makes. It’s a way of verifying conversations and also saving the agent the time of repeating any information the assistant needs to follow through on.”
Dee, veteran of several agents, did know this, but she could see from Jeff’s appalled expression that this was news to him. He folded his arms in front of his chest. “And no one complains about this blatant invasion of privacy?”
“No,” Dee said, “because in the time it would take for an agent to share the details of a conversation with their assistant, another agent could have reached a showrunner and gotten their client the job you wanted. Go on, Serena.”
“Marisa is extremely loyal to Callan. To be honest”—Serena put to words exactly what Dee was thinking—“she was in love with him and considered herself a way better match for him than me.” She wiped away a tear that had slipped over her lower lid onto her cheek. “There have been days when I thought she might be right.”
“She’s not,” Dee declared. While she had her own doubts about the agent’s relationship with his wife, she had no doubt Callan would never trade Serena in for a power-hungry recent college graduate. A hot, non-power-hungry recent graduate, maybe. But not for someone whose own ambition posed a threat to his.
“Callan could never do better than you,” Jeff said, his ire raised. “You deserve better than him.”
Seeing Jeff slip into hero mode, Dee shot him a subtle message to tone down the testosterone. “You haven’t told us what led to the arrest,” she said to Serena.
“They found incriminating texts from Marisa to Baker on his cell phone. She threatened to kill him—on the night he was murdered. They found her fingerprints on his cell phone. The police think she killed him and tried to wipe the phone clean, but got scared off by Stoney the bear or something.”
“That’s it?” Jeff stroked his chin, currently home to trendy beard stubble. “It doesn’t sound like much to go on. Then again, any take I have on this is based on watching TV cop shows and not an in-depth knowledge of the process.” His phone sounded an alert. He checked it. “I get notifications from the local TV station. O’Bryant’s holding a press conference.”
He held up his phone so the women could watch with him. Ranger O’Bryant was front and center behind a podium. Raul Aguilar was only half visible in the background, and the half Dee saw looked miserable.
The ranger shared his update via prepared notes, but a tone of self-satisfaction still managed to underscore his stiff reading of them. “ ‘We applaud our law enforcement team for the diligent efforts that led to a suspect’s arrest in the heinous murder of TV writer-producer Michael Adam Baker, and we can assure the citizens of Foundgold, Goldsgone, and the surrounding areas that with the perpetrator apprehended, there’s no present danger to the community. We won’t be taking questions at this time.’ ” He took his notes and left the podium, a trail of law enforcement officials in tow; Raul, head down, brought up the rear.
Serena burst into tears. “I can’t believe this is on the news. Every entertainment site and blog is going to pick it up. It’s going to destroy Callan.”
Dee did her best to comfort Serena. “We should get her home,” she murmured to Jeff. “She should be with Callan right now. If he’s not in Foundgold, we’ll figure out a way to get her, Emmy, and Oscar down to L.A.”
Jeff went to his cabin to get his car fob. Dee and Serena met him in the Golden’s circular driveway and the three took off for the short ride to the Finlay-Katz abode.
To Dee’s relief, Callan’s black Range Rover sat in the couple’s driveway. Jeff parked in front of the house. Serena threw open the car door and raced up the home’s front steps, with Dee and Jeff close behind. She used an app on her smartphone to unlock the front door and the three went inside.
“Callan?” Serena called, anguish in her voice. “Callan?” Panicked, she clutched Dee’s arm. “Oh, God, he’s not answering.”
Dee peeled Serena’s fingernails from her wrist, where they were beginning to draw blood. “Don’t worry, Serena. I’m sure he’s—”
“In here, babe!” called a chipper voice from the kitchen.
Serena, Dee, and Jeff raced to the kitchen. Callan stood in the room’s center, leaning against the long, granite-topped island. He was attired in jeans and a V-necked black cashmere sweater, whose combined cost, Dee was sure, belied the casual air they gave off. He’d obviously been working the phones; he held a cell in each hand.
Serena threw herself into her husband’s arms. He managed to hug her, while still holding tightly to his phones. “When I didn’t hear you, I thought something terrible might have happened.” Callan’s sweater muffled Serena’s voice.
Callan, his palms occupied, gave her hair a stroke with the back of his hand. “Sorry. I was on the phone with my publicist.” He held up a phone.
“Agents have publicists?” Jeff asked, flummoxed. “I don’t get it.”
“Some agents have their own agents,” Dee explained. “To handle their personal deals.”
