Eight

A quiet conference room at the Hilton Resort on Mission Beach was the perfect place to set up my computer. The manager was very accommodating. It also was perfectly located across the street from the restaurant Jace suggested for lunch.

I took out the blazer from the bag encasing it and hung it from a convenient coatrack that I had Jace place behind the table. I gave him my phone to take a picture of me standing beside it.

I started to twist my hair up, but I stopped when Jace’s lips dipped into a serious frown. Not an attractive look on his otherwise handsome face. “What?”

He held up the phone, aiming it at me. “You, um, look better with it down.”

I had the clip ready to hold the up-do in place, but with the way Jace was staring, I wasn’t so sure it would be a good idea. Would I look too stern? Maybe having it loose would make me appear more approachable and Lemon might feel more inclined to be completely honest with me. I dropped my hair and tossed the clip into my bag. After I ran another coat of rose-colored gloss over my lips, I smiled at Jace. I had to hold the pose for much too long before I heard the click of the camera.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the phone from his hand. As I sat down at the table, I sent that picture to Lemon without any message attached. If she was smart enough to build her own marketing company from scratch, then I didn’t think she’d have a problem deciphering my text. My phone rang, and I smiled when I saw Lemon Beauchamp’s name on the caller ID.

I let it go to voicemail.

“What are you doing?” Jace asked, taking the chair next to mine. “I thought you wanted an interview?”

I quickly sent a short text to Lemon.

<<May we speak via FaceTime?>>

“I do, but I want to see Lemon’s face while we talk, not just hear her voice.” I had my FaceTime application opened and ready.

Jace chuckled. “So you’ll let her hang, wondering about that jacket until she speaks with you in person?”

“It’s not a jacket. It’s a thirty-five hundred dollar designer blazer.”

Jace sounded like he choked and his neck flushed red. “We committed a felony stealing that—that piece of clothing, all because you suspect it belongs to another woman?”

Now I felt heat flush my face. An angry blush wasn’t something I wanted showing up before a face-to-face with a possible suspect, someone engaged to a prince. Jace would’ve never questioned Harry on this—I was positive.

“It’s a gamble, I know, but I’m willing to take that chance if it means I get this interview—” A number popped up on my FaceTime call list—with Lemon’s name next to it. I placed my phone next to the computer with the recording app turned on. I then adjusted the perspective of my picture a bit, making sure the blazer could be seen over my shoulder before I accepted the call.

“Good afternoon,” I said, while trying not to frown. My mood should’ve been better since I got what I’d wanted, but an irritating cloud of frustration grew over me like so many blood-sucking mosquitoes. I wanted to swat Jace away from me and out of the room altogether.

“Max, you have my blazer,” Lemon said without any greeting. Her red polished finger pointed at me for emphasis. She was as rude as I expected her to be. Just perfect.

I looked over my shoulder and casually gazed at the beautiful red item for a long moment, and then gave her a little innocent grin. “Maybe. Can you identity it?”

If Lemon could lift her chin any higher, I’d like to have seen her try. “You know very well it is. You obviously retrieved it from Brittany, and I don’t even want to know how. I paid over three thousand dollars of my hard-earned money for that blazer, and I want it back.”

“Amore mio, you have no need to worry about such things…” A voice as smooth as soft butter with a barely perceptual Italian accent came through the microphone. The prince had to be sitting next to Lemon. She turned to face him, and her expression softened as her red-coated lips tipped into a minute smile. I could see the love in her eyes when she gazed at him.

“I know,” Lemon said. When I had her attention again, she stared over my shoulder at the blazer. “That should be a size two.”

“Brittany is a size two,” I said. I then ran my little finger slowly along my bottom lip, smoothing the gloss I’d applied a few minutes earlier. Lemon’s mouth dropped open for a moment before she gasped a loud breath. “I left a lipstick in the pocket—Tom Ford red!”

I looked at Jace and nodded. He reached into the pocket nearest him. It was empty. Then he tried the right pocket and pulled out the tube I knew was in there. He held it up for Lemon to see. “She’s correct,” Jace said. “It’s her jacket.”

“It’s a blazer,” I told him, but Lemon said it at the same time. I nearly laughed. My spirits were rising. “I’ll have this expressed over to you, if you’ll text me an address.”

Lemon’s posture changed. Her shoulders relaxed and her chin came down some. She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

“It’s not a problem. I’ll charge it to Taylor’s expense account, since she hired us to find out who put the razor blade in her omelet Saturday morning—”

Much like I’d expected, Lemon’s eyes blew open wide and her mouth dropped open—again. “And you think I had something to do with it?”

I kept going. “Monday, while out in a remote area near Scottsdale, Taylor had a flat tire and had to walk to get cell reception. Someone in a truck tried his level best to run Taylor down—” Lemon gasped, and it was at the moment I knew she didn’t have anything to do with Taylor’s incidents. She’d shown true surprise without losing my eye contact, which was what I’d hoped. She’d been my favorite contestant on Marry Me, and now she was going to be a real life princess.

“Where is Scottsdale, Limone?”

Lemon looked to the man next to her. “It’s in Arizona.” She turned her attention back to me. “What’s Taylor doing in Arizona?”

An impossibly handsome face inched his way into the view screen, pressing his cheek against Lemon’s. “My fiancée was with me in Monterra this week. I can attest to that.”

My heart skipped a beat staring at His Royal Highness Prince Dante of Monterra. His rich black hair, olive skin, and light brown eyes looked as scrumptious on a computer screen as it did on a high-def flat screen TV, except now he was talking directly to me.

“Prince Dante—” I very nearly went all fan-girl speaking to him. I took in a controlled breath and continued. “I’m not accusing Lemon of driving that truck, or for shooting me—”

“You were shot?” Lemon asked after an audible gasp.

I reflexively lifted my injured shoulder. “Yes, Wednesday night when I was taking Taylor to a safe-house. I’m okay, but I need to know—” I tore my eyes away from Dante’s perfect face and back to the pretty blonde next to him. “Lemon, did you hire someone to intimidate Taylor?”

“No, I didn’t—I swear!”

“She asked you some very personal questions while you were in the bathroom alone with her, thinking you were off-camera. You couldn’t have known you were being recorded, and we didn’t see you, we only heard your voices. You must’ve been angry when you found out about that and you may have wanted to get some kind of revenge on her—just to get some satisfaction.”

“Now hold on there, missy. Just because a cat has kittens in the oven that don’t make them biscuits.”

Jace chuckled softly at the southern idiom. So did Dante. I had an inkling of what she meant. “We heard all about your engagement to another man, and yet how you were in love with the prince—”

“You’d have a hissy fit too if you had your personal life secretly recorded even after you were told it was ‘just between us’. If that woman is even speaking to you, you better be on your guard—she’s probably recording everything you’re saying, too. Bless her heart.”

I thought back to when I took Taylor back to my home. The next morning, while I was getting as much information as I could out of her, she’d been asking me personal questions, as well. I thought we were bonding. We even talked about my being a widow.

I flashed back to a brief conversation about office romances where Jace’s name came up. Had she been recording me? She always had her phone out. My heart jumped. What had I said about Jace, exactly? Had I been harboring secret feelings for him for a while—even before noticing them last night? I’d have to text Bullet to do some secretive snooping at my home while Lia kept her busy.

Did I need to tell Lemon about my recording her? I certainly wasn’t going to use it on a show. It was the way I kept notes, and only for my personal notes.

“I’ll keep that in mind…” I tapped a finger lightly on my knee, thinking about the relationship between the two women.

Dante kissed Lemon’s cheek before moving out of the camera’s view. “I’ll give Mother an excuse for your tardiness to dinner, amore mio.”

I caught my breath. Dante was referring to the Queen of Monterra. After he left and I once again had Lemon’s attention, I asked her something that had been in my thoughts since the end of the show. “How did you and Taylor meet? You knew her before the show.”

“We’re former sorority sisters, Zeta Beta Gamma’s, and I knew she worked on Marry Me as the director’s assistant. I’d see her name in the credits and think good for her—she’s succeeding. We sisters are supposed to look out for each other, so I reached out to her to get Dante on the show as the bachelor to promote tourism in Monterra. She jumped on it faster than a thirsty wood tick. It got her promoted. She should’ve been grateful, instead she bullied me into being one of the contestants at the last minute to keep the show alive.”

“That was after they kicked off those three women who knew about Dante?”

“That’s right. But Taylor promised I wouldn’t have to go past the first episode. She lied to me.”

“And she lied when she secretly recorded you.”

Lemon nodded, but I could see her eyes had taken on a misty sheen. The pain hadn’t subsided. “There’s a Zeta saying—sisters before killing misters. What she did to me was more unforgivable than any breakup I’ve ever had, and believe me, I’ve had plenty.”

“Do you think she treated you any differently than the others?” I asked.

Her mouth took on a hard edge. “I thought she treated me better, but…” she shook her head, “thinkin' back on those six weeks in the house, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without someone crying. It made for dramatic TV, and I’m not so sure Taylor didn’t have her sticky fingers in it.”

“Can you think of anyone specifically who might want to hurt Taylor?”

Lemon gave a sharp laugh. “Every contestant on Marry Me. We all felt manipulated by that—that woman at one point or another.”

I glanced at Jace. “Well, we ruled out Brittany. She didn’t have the opportunity or the means to do this.”

“Have you investigated Abigail Morris-Mansey?”

“Abigail…” I said, nodding. She was the blonde that always had beautiful waves flowing down her back, and big, soft brown eyes. “She’s the British actress on East and West. She was hysterical when Prince Dante left her standing alone, but I’d think she’d be more inclined to go after you than Taylor.”

Lemon leaned a little closer to the screen. “Frankly, Max…the Queen’s guards are on alert for her.”

“She’s a good lead,” Jace said softly.

“You might also check on Taylor’s assistant, Sue Ann Williams. Taylor snapped her fingers and Sue Ann cringed as she jumped. A Zeta sister deserved better than that.”

“This girl was one of your former sorority sisters, too?”

“Yes, and she was hungrier than a bear on a three month fast to break into the business.”

“Another possible lead,” Jace said just as softly.

“Who is that?” Lemon asked, leaning sideways as if her movement would change perspective on my end.

I moved the computer a little to my right until the camera encompassed Jace, too. “This is Jace Atmore, my best investigator.” Through the little display in the upper right corner of the screen that held our image, I saw Jace’s head snap toward me when I called him that. I might not have told him that before.

“Nice to meet you, Jace,” Lemon said with a wide smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Jace said with a nod.

“Thank you for gettin’ my blazer back. I really appreciate it. Max, you never answered me about what Taylor was doin’ in Scottsdale.”

“She was scouting for a new location for Marry Me, but yesterday she told me that she’s in the development stage of producing her own show, though she wouldn’t tell me anything about it except that it would be a reality show.”

“Who would be the executive producer?”

“Burdette.”

“So he’d be paying for it. Or rather his wife would be footin' the bill. That took some doing, gettin’ her to open her purse for another show. I wonder…” Lemon squinted off toward the left.

“Wonder what?” I asked.

“Abigail had an affair with Matthew Burdette.”

“No way—” I wondered if there was another reason she made it all the way to the end.

“What if Taylor knew of Burdette’s affair? She might’ve used it as leverage to get her own show.”

“And that would give Burdette a reason to hurt Taylor,” Jace said.

“Or kill her,” Lemon added. “His wife is the money behind Marry Me, and his other productions. If she found out about the affair, his days of being an executive producer would be over.”

“Another person of interest,” Jace muttered.

“He’s up in Los Angeles?”

“Or at his home in the Hollywood Hills. I can get you his address if Taylor hasn’t already.”

“No, she gave me a wide list of names and addresses. Trying to figure out where to start has been the hardest part.”

“Huh—so you started with me?”

I leaned closer to the camera. “Lemon, that whole show seemed to revolve around you. You were the viewer’s favorite from the very beginning. We all took it hard when you stormed out, crying and heartbroken. I cried—”

“You did?” Jace asked softly.

I ignored him. “Can you tell me if Genesis is okay?”

Lemon frowned. “She’d given her number to Rafe before she knew he wasn’t Dante. Technically, she was wrong when she did that, but she was in love with him. Rafe gave me her number, but she won’t pick up my calls or answer my texts. She won’t even take Rafe’s calls. Genesis was hurt and angry. I don’t blame her. She just needs time, I think.”

“Did she return to Iowa?”

“She’s a farm girl, so I’d say that’s a safe bet.”

I gazed at Jace, lifting my brows, silently asking him if he had any questions.

“Lemon, does Taylor have a boyfriend or an ex that might want revenge on her?” he asked.

It was interesting that he would look at that aspect of a woman’s life. I hadn’t thought about it. That was shortsighted and stupid of me. Most violence against women was due to domestic issues and I completely missed it.

“To be honest, I don’t know anything about Taylor’s personal life—at least not since college.”

“Did she date around, or did she have a steady boyfriend?” Jace asked, staying with the same subject.

“Taylor was popular.” Lemon stopped with that. I understood what she meant, and it would seem that Jace did too when he went on to another question that didn’t involve men.

“Do you think that Taylor would be the type of person who would set herself up and make it look like someone was after her—for sympathy, or maybe for the publicity?”

She didn’t answer right away while she drummed her fingers on the table in front of her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she did, but I would be disappointed. That's a new, dangerous low. I mean, if she could do that, what wouldn’t she be capable of doing?”

My arm pulsed in pain. If Taylor had done that, then she might’ve accidentally killed me all for some stupid publicity?