“How much what?”
“How much would it take for you to get me the script for next season’s premiere?”
I felt my jaw drop. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The script. Look, I know you’re sniffing around for dirt. You’ll find it, especially about Quint and me. I couldn’t care less. But if you come across that script…”
She let the words trail off. I remembered her in the season finale, on her knees, her beautiful face bloodstained and defiant. Moonshine had made her a household name, and the second season promised to be even more lucrative.
“You want to know if you’re coming back.”
“Damn straight I do. Quint said the producers haven’t approved the script, and just to prolong the agony, he’s making the writers complete all of the Season Two scripts before we start filming. The investors want it, he says, but that’s bullshit.”
I remembered back at the Kennesaw base camp how Addison had been complaining about the same. Apparently she wasn’t the only one pissed about Quint’s handling of the script situation.
I shook my head. “I have no access to the scripts. And even if I did—”
“Oh, don’t even try it.” She laughed. “Former Special Patrol Officer Seaver? He’s obviously got bigger people to answer to. But you? You make your own rules. I can tell.” She lowered her voice, looked me in the eye. “Find that script, and I’ll triple whatever Nicky’s paying you.”
“He’s not paying me anything.”
She examined my features, decided to play it cool. “Whatever you say. Just remember, if you need a friend, you’ve got one in me.”
“How so?”
“I know things.” She bit her lower lip, like she was deciding whether or not to trust me. “Take Addison, for example. Her interest in Nicky is pure, no doubt. But she’s smart enough to understand that even true love can have a profit margin.”
“What does that mean?”
“Talk to her and find out.” Portia dropped her sunglasses on her face. “There are some smart moves to be made here. Getting me in your corner is one. And you can start by finding that script.”
She smiled, shouldered her bag. And then she walked right out of my shop and into the dazzling high noon glare.
Chapter Thirty-four
Getting into Trey’s apartment required two separate keys, a swipe card for the elevator, and a visual inspection by the concierge, who in a less fancy place would have been called the manager and who would’ve had better things to do than lurk in the lobby glaring at me. It was after seven when I finally stood at Trey’s door, juggling my research and the take-out bag containing my dinner. I opened the door with my foot, switched on the light with my elbow…
And then I froze.
The turquoise cactus stood in the middle of his living room, its metallic plates and mirrored dongles reflecting the lamplight. The thing had all the subtlety of a disco ball, and there it was in Trey’s black and white apartment. I was still standing there gawking when I heard the ding of the elevator and a familiar tread. I waited as Trey came up behind me.
“I had nothing to do with this,” I said.
“With what?”
I stood aside. He stopped in the threshold, cocked his head.
“It’s here,” he said. “Very good.”
And then he went inside as if there wasn’t a grotesque turquoise cactus next to his coffee table. I followed him, incredulous.
“You were expecting this?”
He placed his briefcase on his desk, unknotted his tie. “I told you I would take care of the situation.”
“Yes, but I didn’t expect you to have the situation delivered.”
“It was the only way I could keep it secure.”
He had a plastic bag over his arm from a place called Menswear Incorporated. He draped it over the sofa and circled the cactus with hawkish intensity. Suddenly he paused, then pointed.
“There.”
I followed his finger and saw a ragged hole barely bigger than a pencil eraser. He pulled a penlight from his pocket and directed the beam around the marking. Then he marched right to his desk and rummaged around until he found a small ruler and a yellow notepad. He brought these back to the cactus, dropped into a crouch.
“Well?” I said.
“It’s a bullet entry.”
“No exit?”
“Highly improbable. This cactus appears to be solid wood, at least eighteen inches in diameter.”
He slapped the ruler up next to the hole, measured it twice. Scribbled that into the notebook propped on his knee.
I peered closer. “What are you doing?”
“A field estimate on the angle of impact. Arcsine of width divided by length.”
He was speaking in trigonometry again. I didn’t bother asking for a translation because I understood the thing that mattered: we had before us the evidence that Nick Talbot was telling the truth, that he wasn’t delusional, that on Friday night someone had stood at the edge of his property and fired a bullet at him. Up until this moment, criminal wrongdoing had been hypothetical. Now it was real, tangible, and evidential.
Trey went to his desk and retrieved the camera. He handed me the ruler. “Would you hold this next to the entry, not touching it?”
I did as he asked while he knelt at the base of the cactus and snapped a series of close-up photographs.
“The cops are not going to approve of your chain of evidence,” I said.
“Since we’re not law enforcement, chain of evidence won’t officially start until the investigation moves to active status.”
He moved in for a close-up while I held the ruler in place. That was when I finally noticed the rest of the apartment. A spanking new file cabinet stood next to his desk, which supported a mountain range of folders. On the wall above that was a giant whiteboard covered in circle maps and hierarchy trees, dry erase marker lines connecting theories and suspects. He’d mounted corkboards on both sides of that and stuck notes, photos, and newspaper clippings all over every square inch.
In the middle of the
