And that could be the reason Devon had looked so frightened that day in the woods—Richard may have just ambushed her. After our walk, while I’d idly checked out the buildings on the property, he had headed toward the large barn, but he could have bumped into Devon on the way and initiated a showdown with her. It was, after all, only ten minutes or so after the hike that I had found Devon sobbing. And maybe a verbal bitch-slapping wasn’t all Richard had arranged for the weekend.
I was going to have another little chat with the cagey Richard Parkin. But first I needed to learn more about his sister. For the second time in a couple of days, Cat Jones’s name popped into my mind. Before she’d taken over Gloss magazine, she’d been the editor in chief of a hip downtown magazine called Get, where I’d worked as well, and there was a chance she knew Richard, or at least was friendly with people who did.
I phoned her office, and of course her assistant picked up. Cat hadn’t answered her own phone since the 1990s. I wasn’t surprised when I was handed the “Unfortunately, Cat is in a meeting right now—may I have her call you back?” line, but I was surprised when the assistant suddenly asked me to hold, as if someone had gestured to her. When she released the hold button, she offered an update. “Cat says she will call you back in twenty minutes. What number can she reach you at?”
So I had piqued Ms. Jones’s curiosity. She probably thought I was calling with hot industry gossip, which Cat absolutely thrived on. When it came to herself, she of course favored only flattering chatter and tidbits, especially press items accompanied by fetching photos of her with captions like “Purrrfect Comeback” or “Puss in Boots,” but as for anyone else in the media world, she preferred the mean and salacious, even if it was all mere speculation.
While I waited for Cat to return the call, I phoned a rental agency for a car to drive out to Pine Grove the next day. There was no way I could drive my Jeep. Last weekend all the houseguests at Scott’s would have had the opportunity to see it, and I couldn’t take the chance of being spotted in Pennsylvania.
“Well, well,” Cat said when she called back exactly twenty minutes later. “Are you still on your book tour?”
“No,” I said, snorting. “My publisher doesn’t believe in them. But they set me up on a wonderful blog tour. I’ve stayed at some of the best Web sites.”
“I enjoyed your book party, by the way,” Cat said, disingenuously. “Lots of interesting people there.” She had stayed all of fifteen minutes, two of which were spent air kissing and the rest eyeing the Buzz reporters I’d invited, as if she had come face-to-face with the last leper colony on earth.
“I was glad you could make it,” I said.
“Though I would have liked more of a chance to talk to you. I honestly didn’t think I’d be seeing so little of you when you went to Buzz.”
That was funny. She was making it sound as if I’d bolted. And yet she was the one who’d given me the boot, when she’d decided to jettison the human interest and crime stories in Gloss to make room for pieces like “78 Ways to Apply Body Butter” and “Green Tea: It Does Anything You Could Possibly Think Of.” I’d been pissed at first, but in the end I couldn’t blame her—if she didn’t boost circulation fast, her job and her ever-present herd of town cars would be at risk. I’d figured in time we’d manage to restart our weird kind of friendship, but so far it hadn’t happened.
“I’m sure you’re crazed right now, but maybe we could do a dinner after the holidays,” I said.
“I take it that’s not why you’re calling today, though.”
“No, you’re right,” I said, smiling at her little zinger. Cat was the master of those. “I need a favor—or rather a piece of information. I’m in a bit of a jam, the details of which I won’t bore you with, but I desperately have to get my hands on some facts about Richard Parkin. Do you know—”
“What kind of jam?”
“I promise to tell you when I see you next time, but it would take too long now—and I need to move quickly.”
There was a pause, and I could sense her plum-colored lips forming into a pout and a finger brushing a strand of long blond hair away from her face.
“Well, I never fucked him,” she said after a few seconds. “But I’ve certainly met him. I’ve even sat at the same dinner table with him on several occasions.”
“He had a half sister who died about fourteen years ago. She was a model in the UK. Have you ever heard anything about that?”
“God, no. And that surprises me. It’s not like him to forgo an opportunity to milk some human tragedy.”
I sighed, feeling nearly defeated.
“Can you think of any way for me to dig up this info?” I asked, nearly pleading. “It would help if I could talk to someone who knew him during his Fleet Street days.”
“Well, though I never fucked him, I know someone who did. Claire Trent. She’s a friend of mine in London. She used to write, but she married a rich banker and now sits around all day eating the proverbial bonbons. Would you like her number?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Do you want to get in touch with her first and let her know I’ll be phoning?”
“Not necessary. I’ll put my assistant back on, and she’ll give you the number. Just tell Claire I suggested you call. She’s looking for diversions these days.”
“Thanks, Cat. I’ll talk to you after Christmas.”
“Right,” she said, as if only seeing would be believing.
When I phoned Claire Trent a minute later, a housekeeper answered, her British accent so thick I could barely make out what she was saying. It sounded as if Mrs. Trent was out but would be returning within the hour. I told her I’d prefer not to leave a message because it was a surprise.
After I hung up, I made coffee and paced around my living room. I was tempted to call Richard right then and confront him, but I knew if I did it without all the facts in hand, I might not be able to elicit anything valuable.
As obsessed as I was about the case, Beau kept intruding on my thoughts. I’d thought I might hear from him this morning, and yet so far nothing. Up until last night, he’d been the one on the offensive, badgering me for contact. Now things were flipped. Once Beau had spotted me with Chris, he’d cast me in the role of bad girl. Did this mean that if I didn’t reach out, I’d never, ever hear from him again?
To distract myself, I checked my email. And lo and behold, the lovely Skyler had finally sent me links to several of Whitney’s stories. I watched each of them, which was about as much fun as cleaning out my wallet. Whitney, it turned out, had been no Diane Sawyer. She was gushy on camera and hyper concerned looking, as if she were reporting live each time from Darfur and she couldn’t help but let her emotions get in the way. I soon found the story on anorexia. According to Whitney’s intro, an “explosion” of cases in Fort Worth had many local parents “worried sick.” The piece was light on science, heavy on emo.
One thing became clear as I watched the rest of the stories, Whitney had definitely been trying to branch out of food stories and into the health arena. In addition to the anorexia piece, there were stories on excessive sweating, skin cancer, women conceiving with donor eggs, and the brilliant Emmy Award–winning series the publicist had mentioned, The Mite That Roared. Nothing set off any alarms.
Though an hour wasn’t quite up, I phoned London again. I was still struggling to translate what the housekeeper had just told me when a new voice came on, announcing, “This is Claire.” She was eating as she spoke—perhaps the proverbial bonbons that Cat had mentioned.