Delilah turns to Sharon. “Trust me when I say she deserves this.”
“Preaching to the choir,” Sharon says.
Delilah opens the takeout containers and dumps the lobster noodles all over the buttery leather of the driver’s seat. Then she joins Sharon under the umbrella and the two of them splash in the puddles all the way back to Sharon’s car.
28. Thursday, August 22, 10:05 P.M.
The Chief and Zara find Bull standing by the fire department’s barricade, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched, eyes red and watering. The Chief has never had a beef with Bull; in fact, he kind of likes the guy. Likes him but doesn’t quite trust him. Ed would never, for example, have gone into business with him the way that Addison did.
“Bull,” he says. “We have questions for you.”
“I’m sure you do, mate,” Bull says.
The Chief looks over at the garage. “There’s an apartment on the second floor, right? Where Coco lives?”
“Yes,” Bull says. “Two bedrooms, though she has it all to herself.” He clears his throat. “We treat Coco very well. I have a hard time believing she did this.”
“This?” Zara says.
“Burned our house down,” Bull says. “Then disappeared into thin air.”
Into thin air—Leslee’s exact words. “Would you describe your relationship with Coco for us, please?” the Chief says.
“She was an excellent assistant—organized, responsible…”
“What about your personal relationship?” Zara says. “Did the two of you get along?”
“Of course,” Bull says.
“Your wife seems to think that Coco has feelings for you,” the Chief says. “Would you agree?”
Bull’s nostrils flare like… well, like a bull’s. “That’s rubbish.”
“Leslee told us Coco used to hang out in your office,” the Chief says.
Bull runs his hand over his face. “Ahhh,” he says. “She did come by my office a few times, but it wasn’t like that.”
The Chief and Zara wait.
“We used to talk. Listen, I know my wife isn’t easy to work for. I used to check in with Coco to make sure she was okay and that she wasn’t harboring resentments that would build up so that she felt like stabbing us in our sleep. Or burning our house down.” He shakes his head. “I thought we were friends.”
“Just friends?” Zara asks.
“That’s what I thought. But I’m often clueless when it comes to the women in my life.”
The Chief recalls the last time he set foot on this property, during the hot-tub party. He feels his dinner churning in his gut. “Just tell us what was going on between you and Coco, please, Bull.”
“A few weeks ago she came to me with a script she’d written.” Bull stands a little straighter. “I do some producing, which we told her when we met her down in St. John. I now think she might have manipulated us a bit. We hired her; she moved up here to work for us, and then she hands me this screenplay out of the blue. She’d never mentioned it before.”
“So you think she was using you?” Zara says.
“Using might be a strong word,” Bull says. “Taking advantage is probably more accurate. And I respected her for working the angle. Leslee and I do it all the time.”
The Chief coughs. He’s quite glad Andrea isn’t here. Or Delilah. Or Addison. “So you read the screenplay?”
“I did,” Bull says. “I gave her positive feedback but I couldn’t pass the script on to anyone I knew. It wasn’t viable. Which wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She tried to persuade me otherwise—”
“Sexually?” Zara says.
“I think there was an implication of that, yeah,” Bull says. “But I nipped it in the bud. I’m married, for better or worse.”
For worse, the Chief thinks. Bull and Zara turn to stare at him. Did he say that out loud?
“I told Coco I’d read whatever she wrote next,” Bull says. “The problem with these artistic types is that they get attached to their projects. That script was Coco’s baby. But to me and the rest of the world, scripts are a commodity. And this one I knew I couldn’t sell.”
“When you turned Coco’s screenplay down, did she leave your office in tears?” the Chief asks.
“She did, yes.”
That explains the lovers’ spat, the Chief thinks.
“Are you aware that Coco is in a relationship with Lamont Oakley?” Zara asks. “They’ve been seeing each other since the Fourth of July.”
“Huh,” Bull says. “I didn’t know that, but then again, I’m not vested in the love lives of my employees.”
“But Leslee is vested,” Zara says.
“Oh god, yes,” Bull says. “If she found out, she wouldn’t be happy.”
