Page 15 of Dirty Love

Yes she did. “You sound awfully sure of that.”

“I was supposed to. I had a concert in NOLA the night before.” She gives me a faint smile, one that sayshaandno, I won’t tell you moreat the same time. “And then I…didn’t.”

“Where did you go instead?”

“Fargo.”

There was no trace of that. “How?”

“Private plane.”

“No flight plan was registered.”

She crosses her arms. “No.”

“That’s a federal offense.”

“I wasn’t flying the plane.”

“But you were aware at the time that you were heading in the opposite direction of your cell phone, your passport, and your entire entourage?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why was I aware? Because I’m a sentient being,” she snaps, her green eyes blazing. I can feel Jason watching me, going,what the fuck, man?I never lose my cool, and it’s gone now.

I spit out the next question. “Why did you go out of your way to make it appear like you spent a weekend with Gerome Lively, when really you went to…”

“Fargo.” She waits.

I wait longer.

Jason finally interrupts. “Ms. Leyton, have you ever met Gerome Lively?”

The tip of her tongue peeks out the corner of her mouth. Thinking. She glances up at the ceiling, then rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes,” she finally admits.

“How many times?”

“Once.”

He frowns at me. My research is rarely wrong. I have four visits, based on information I’ve cobbled together from her passport, her cell phone history, and commercial flight data. A week on a yacht in the Mediterranean, the phantom weekend to his estate in the Florida Keys, one trip to his private island in the Caribbean, and they definitely attended the same fundraiser here in L.A., hosted by a big-name movie producer.

“Tabitha,” I say quietly. Might as well cut to the chase. “Did Gerome Lively rape you?”

—eight—

Tabitha

I shouldn’t have told him to call me Tabitha. It’s way too intimate. It was supposed to knock him off his game, not give him a weapon against me.

I don’t know who these guys are or what they want, but no way am I answering that question. I don’t trust sincerity, I don’t trust badges, I don’t trust men. Three strikes and you’re out.

The muscle-bound one who doesn’t talk much gives his friend a warning look that the blond guy completely ignores. I guess he just went off script.

Good. That means that I’m in charge now, and that’s exactly how I like it.

“Rape me?” I roll my eyes even as my stomach twists uncomfortably. “I thought this was about money.”

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