“Bennet? You know him?” he asked her.
“Of course. My family and the Bigelows kind of run in the same circles, though I can’t exactly say we were friends.” She pointed a stern finger at him. “And don’t you dare start in on rich people again.”
“I wasn’t about to.”
She offered him a doubting sniff.
“So tell me about Bennet.”
“Well, he’s old.”
“How old?”
“Oh, honestly, sixty-five, maybe. He’s been with the family for as long as I can remember. You could talk to my mom. She would know more.”
“Actually, I’d like to talk to Bennet himself.”
“I’ll go with you tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You need to stay out of this.”
“But I hired you,”
“Yes, and if you wanted to do everything yourself,” he said irritably, “you shouldn’t have.”
“You need my help on this,” she assured him.
“Oh?”
“Bennet likes me,” she said. “He’ll be happy to talk to you if you’re with me. He won’t be so thrilled if you’re on your own.”
“Genevieve, seriously—”
“If you don’t let me help, I will start doing things on my own,” she said softly.
He stared at her, frustrated.
She had him, and she knew it. He still had that protective thing going on, which wasn’t what she wanted, but it would have to do for now.
“So what time are we going to see Bennet tomorrow?” he asked dryly.
She smiled. “I’ll talk to him in the morning. He goes to church, and I’m taking Mom to church, so I’ll see him there. So let’s say about…one?”
He nodded, eyeing her cautiously, as if he had just realized she might be a species of dangerous animal he had misjudged.
“One o’clock, then,” he said.
Joe stood there in the doorway for a moment, and she couldn’t help staring at him. Joe, whose sandy brown hair fell over his forehead in such a casual and sexy manner, whose eyes seemed to reflect the world and his knowledge of it. Whose shoulders filled the doorway, whose jaw could be so hard and stubborn. Joe…
For a split second she thought that he was going to move forward. Come closer. Even touch her.
And finally he did.
He reached out—and tousled her hair.
“Tomorrow, then, kid. See you. And until then….”
“I know, I know. I’ll be careful.”
Then he was gone. And she locked the door—as he told her to do from the other side.
When she went to bed, she found herself staring at the ceiling and thinking about loss, about death.
Leslie’s death. And the deaths of the prostitutes she herself had tried so hard to help. They had been nothing but disposable members of society to so many people, but she had known them as women with hopes and dreams. So much loss.
Then there was the loss she faced herself…
The loss of a life once filled with promise but now controlled by fear. Not hers, but everyone else’s for her.
The loss of a life never really lived…
By the time her phone rang Sunday morning, Lori Star had given up expecting anything good.
At first the news media had embraced her, but then they had dropped her like a hot potato. Perhaps they had found out about her arrests; she didn’t know. Apparently they now believed she was some kind of a fake. Which she usually was…
But not this time.
It had been terrifying when she had first felt the sensation of being somewhere else, being someone else.
Not just because it was like some sort of out-of-body experience, but because there was more to it. That sense of pure malice and…evil had been terrifying.
She was shivering just from that thought, that memory, when the call came through.
“Hello?”
“Miss Star? Miss Lori Star?” The voice on the other end was cultured, courteous.
“Yes?” Her response was wary, despite the caller’s tone.
But on a different level, she already felt excitement. She just knew that this was someone who believed in her.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you on a Sunday morning, but I’m anxious to get out there with my story before anyone else beats me to it. I’m from the New York Informant. You’ve heard of it, I hope? We follow up on the stories other papers leave behind when they rush off to cover the latest celebrity scandal. We like to stick with things and cover them in depth.”
She sank down on her sofa, very glad that she’d been home to answer the phone.
“That’s wonderful,” she said, trying not to sound too eager. “And of course I’m familiar with the paper,” she lied.
“We’re also willing to pay, and pay well, when someone helps us with a story.”
She tried to be careful with her reply and not let on how curious she was as to just what he meant by paying well. “Of course,” she said simply, having decided not to ask how much. The amount he volunteered almost staggered her.