Five years and six months later,
Present day…
Rule
A lot of people believed I lived a glamorous life. As though being a sin eater for the rich and famous somehow made me royalty. It didn’t.
Yes, it paid ridiculously well. Why wouldn’t it? I did illegal shit to cover up stupid shit. I was taking all the risk, so yeah, I insisted on being paid well for it. Could you blame me?
However, there was no glamor that came along with doing this job. It afforded me a nice place to live and work, but that was all window dressing. Underneath was where it got interesting.
Parking my car at the curb, I got out and fed the meter. I could’ve driven down the alley behind the building and parked in the lot we shared with a few other businesses, but this was easier. Waiting for the gate to retract was a test of my patience, and everyone knew I had very little on a good day. It was still too early to tell whether today qualified as good.
The tree-lined side street was fairly empty, but the same couldn’t be said for Sunset Blvd, which was packed with commuters at this time of morning. This small section of West Hollywood was where residential met commercial, and the building I owned just happened to be an eclectic mix of both.
It had once been someone’s house but was converted into commercial space long ago. The first floor still resembled someone’s living room that opened to an eat-in kitchen. There was a bathroom and a bedroom on that floor for the nights Rhyan decided she was too tired to go home. The second floor had been gutted and redesigned for our needs. It provided a central place for my employees to congregate as well as an address that put my clients at ease. As for me, I didn’t care one way or another. I came in each morning because people expected that of me, but spent most of my day in my car.
“Give me an update,” I said as I reached the top of the stairs and started across the rustic hardwood floor toward my office.
As was the case each morning, my employees sauntered out of their workspaces, following behind me to give me the daily news. It was a routine I started several years ago when I realized there was far more going on than I was aware of, and keeping a finger on the pulse of this company was as important as fixing things for my very rich, very famous clients.
“Clark Huxley and Wayne Parson have officially settled on their private island, set up to live out their lives in seclusion.”
I glanced at Wallace Hoffstadtler, more adequately known as Red Wally, thanks to the fire-red hair that matched his equally fiery temperament.
“Anyone looking for them?” I asked, pulling my chair out from my desk.
“No.” He tucked his hands in the pockets of his worn and faded jeans. “And based on our research, no one’s going to. They weren’t exactly liked by many people.”
No, they definitely weren’t. Both men had caused tremendous emotional and physical trauma to those they tormented—specifically, my best friend Creed Granger and the people he loved. Wayne’s and Clark’s deaths had been far too kind, in my opinion. Not to mention, too abrupt to set up in advance. There’d been no way to set up a crime scene without running the risk of dragging innocent people into the resulting investigation. So we’d gone with the cleaner option of burying the bodies in the desert and creating a trail to a private island so that, in the event someone did go looking for them, it looked like the men had gone off together.
To be honest, I didn’t expect anyone would even miss them. Perhaps some pain-in-the-ass detective hoping to make a name for himself, but other than that… The world was a better place without them.
“In all fairness, you did warn Wayne.”
I glanced up at Red Wally’s identical twin brother, William, a.k.a. Willy.
I didn’t bother telling Willy I wasn’t losing sleep over either man’s death. Nor would I. I’d dealt with the fact I had put a bullet between Clark’s eyes. It was in the past with all of my other transgressions, buried as deep as those bodies had been.
“Moving on,” Rhyan Ambrose said as she strolled into the room with her coffee cup that read: LET’S KEEP THE DUMBFUCKERY TO A MINIMUM TODAY.
Rhyan liked to refer to herself as my Girl Friday. She wasn’t wrong. I relied on her for everything, and she was damn good at what she did. No, she wasn’t quite the wiz with a computer as Jinx was, but she kept this place running smoothly and provided a second set of hands when I needed them, always willing and available. The thrill for her was the risk of getting caught. So the riskier the job, the better she was at it.
As always, Rhyan looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. Her short, inky black hair was chopped at a million different angles and somehow managed to look sexy. In a grungy, disheveled way. Plus, her preference for thick black eyeliner went perfectly with her monochrome wardrobe and the chunky boots she favored, which somehow made her look menacing despite being barely five feet tall and thin as a rail.
“Hold this,” she told Red Wally as she passed him her coffee cup. “Don’t drink it.”
He grinned, then winked as he took a sip when she turned her attention to the iPad in her hand.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” Rhyan told him. “I promise.”
She tapped the tablet screen, her nose scrunched as she focused. When she lifted her head, she turned the iPad so that the screen was facing me.
“These are the most recent pics of Laikyn,” she said, skimming her fingertip across the screen to flip through the images.
“Who’s the guy she’s with?” Red Wally asked, tilting his head forward to look.
“Wes Carver,” Rhyan explained, stealing her coffee mug back.
While she rattled off the details of Laikyn Quinn’s most recent suitor, I listened with half an ear. I knew everything there was to know about Wes Carver. Just like I knew everything about Sean Strall and Aaron Middleton, the previous two men she was rumored to have dated in the past six months. We weren’t the only ones who’d gotten a candid glimpse at her everyday activities. Every gossip magazine and blog was splashing photos of Monica Quinn’s daughter and her newest himbo, as Rhyan liked to refer to them.
“Is it serious?” Willy asked.
Rhyan rolled her eyes. “Doubtful. He’s Monica’s most recent attempt at marrying off her daughter now that she’s twenty-two and eligible for her inheritance.”
I cleared my throat to stop Rhyan. When she looked my way, I shook my head. I didn’t want that information to be passed around freely. The only reason Rhyan knew about it was that Jinx had been otherwise preoccupied and unable to keep an eye on Laikyn when I needed him to. I’d relayed as few details of the job as possible, but Rhyan was a nosy one. She didn’t like taking assignments without having all the information.
“Sorry, boss.” She set the iPad on the desk. “Anyway. She’s going to a party tonight with him at the home of his … uh … ex-girlfriend. Would you like me to check it out?”
“No. She’ll be fine for a night.”
“Got it.” Rhyan turned to Jinx and took his phone when he held it up. She glanced at the screen and began to read Jinx’s update. “The priest is in the clear. Victor Ingram took the fall for the assault. He’s looking at a year max.” She looked up at Willy. “Did you talk to him?”
“I did.” Willy ran a hand through his shaggy red hair and turned his attention to me. “He’s cool. Wants you to confirm you’re even.”
“We are. Once he serves out his sentence. But I’ll ensure he hears it from me.”
Jinx finished typing something else and passed the phone back to Rhyan.
“Father Andrew understands you’ll call on him for a favor in the future as payment,” she read aloud. “He wasn’t happy about it.”
Red Wally snorted. “The priest damn near beats a guy to death, asks you to cover it up, and he’s worried about paying the fixer? Figures.”
Rhyan continued as though he didn’t say anything. “And last but not least, with Jinx’s help, I was able to get detailed communications between Marcus Figueroa and Liam Dewhurst, proving their relationship is, in fact, real. His agent wants it kept under wraps, no matter the cost.”
Considering Marcus Figueroa was currently playing the role of a teenager on one of those kids’ shows and Liam Dewhurst was a forty-year-old sex addict who was arrested for beating his ex-wife several years ago, it made sense that his agent wanted to keep it on the DL. If word got out that Marcus was willingly hooking up with the man, the fallout would be grave.
“You three focus on that one,” I told Rhyan, nodding toward Red Wally and Willy. “Just give me updates when necessary.”
She nodded. “Cool.”
“You tell him about the new client yet?” Red Wally asked.
Rhyan’s eyes narrowed on him.
I leaned back in my chair and looked between the four of them. “What new client?”
When I met Jinx’s gaze, he shook his head. I didn’t know whether that meant he didn’t have any information or he simply didn’t want to share it with me. With him, it could go either way. We’d been in this business for so long that there were certain cases no one cared to talk about. When it came to the rich and famous and the shit they wanted to be buried, sometimes it was best not to admit to knowing a goddamn thing.
“Sally Elizabeth Warren,” Rhyan said, as though the name was supposed to mean something to me.
I shrugged. “What about her?”
“She’s having an affair with her stepdaughter.”
“So.” Aside from it being creepy as fuck, I wasn’t sure why I would give a shit.
“Her stepdaughter’s husband found out. He’s blackmailing her. Said he’d go to the media if she didn’t pay him a million dollars.”
“Considering she’s got a few dozen to spare, why doesn’t she just pay him?” Willy asked, frowning.
“A million a year for the foreseeable future,” Rhyan clarified.
I looked at Willy. “Who the fuck is she?”
“Remember that super hot chick from that one rock video?” Red Wally said.
Rhyan sighed. “She’s the girl who tied the cherry stem with her teeth and became every straight boy’s wet dream about a decade ago. A few years later, she was caught on camera with three girls and a guy in a scandalous orgy. They dubbed it the V-Squad.”
I didn’t recall any of it.
“Anyway, now she plays the mom on that popular sitcom.”
“From porn star to mainstream mommy,” Red Wally mused. “Can’t see that getting far.”
“It’s up for a primetime Emmy award,” Rhyan explained.
Red Wally grinned wide. “Color me corrected.”
Rhyan continued. “If she’s outed for screwing her stepdaughter…”
Well, that made more sense. It wouldn’t go over well to learn that the sweet, wholesome mom was putting her grubby hands on her kid. Didn’t matter that they weren’t related by blood.
“Anyone ever wonder why most of the cases we get involve famous people doing taboo shit?” Red Wally mused.
Personally, I never wondered about any of it. Their ill deeds paid the bills and then some. Plus, it wasn’t my place to decide who was wrong or right. As long as I wasn’t put in a position to hurt someone else to cover it up, I didn’t ask questions.
“You want that one?” I asked Jinx.
He shook his head emphatically.
I looked at Rhyan and lifted my eyebrows.
She chewed on her lip before saying, “You know this one’s gonna creep me out, right?”
“I’ll take the lead on it,” Red Wally offered as he smirked at Rhyan. “But you’re gonna owe me.”
“And the blowjob I gave you this morning wasn’t enough?”
I rolled my eyes and sat up in my chair. “Trust me when I say no one wants to hear about your sex life. Get out.”
Rhyan laughed as she sauntered out of the room, Red Wally and Willy following dutifully behind her.
Jinx didn’t stick around, either.
When I was alone, I grabbed Rhyan’s iPad and tapped the screen, pulling up the images of Laikyn Quinn. I knew I’d only have a few minutes before Rhyan came back to get it. In the meantime, it gave me a chance to look at the beautiful and enigmatic Laikyn Quinn without anyone around to give me shit about it.