Page 39 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

T ravis and Sol sat nervously on the luxurious couch Sol had found so incredibly comfortable the last time she’d been in that particular Hancock Park mansion.

But now it was somehow not such a cozy experience.

Had the sofa’s upholstery always been this scratchy?

She even found the house uglier this time around.

During her first visit, she’d admired the dark hardwood floors, built-in bookshelves, and fireplace.

But she now found the place slightly old-fashioned and stuffy, and the bookshelves were suspiciously devoid of many books, considering the house belonged to an editor.

She kept thinking about their earlier visit to the chocolate boutique Cacao Vieille, which had confirmed some of the suspicions she and the detectives had been garnering. The fact that they seemed to be onto the right person made her feel even more uneasy.

She was also feeling a bit insecure in her casual style—her suitcase was still missing. But next to Travis, clad in a well-fitting tweed suit, she looked like a total Lululemon mom with her yoga pants and Luke’s sweatshirt .

“Almost there,” they heard their host from the kitchen down the hall. Sol and Travis looked at each other, worry etched in both their faces.

“You sure you don’t need any help?” Travis hollered to their host. He had tried for friendliness, but his tone had come out a bit nervous and strained.

“I have everything under control,” Emily finally said from the living room. Jason Zit’s widow brought in a tray with a teapot, cups, saucers, and giant chocolate chip cookies. She placed everything with ease on top of the coffee table.

“This looks delicious,” Sol said, and she really hoped Luke and Divya, who were parked nearby and were listening to this whole exchange thanks to the recording device strategically placed in Sol’s belt bag, would not decide the mention of food and beverages was reason enough to intervene and barge in.

“I got the cookies from Levain on Larchmont,” Emily explained as she served some fragrant black tea in the three delicate china cups she’d brought.

“With everything that’s happened ...” Emily continued, sitting in an armchair in front of Sol and Travis.

Her eyes were red and puffy, her voice broken.

“There’s a nonstop flow of people coming and going, making questions and inquiring about how things are. And I like being prepared.”

“I think everyone would understand if you didn’t offer them anything,” Sol said tentatively. She, for sure, would have preferred it.

“It actually keeps me occupied if I have to run to the store to buy some baked goodies, and I can offer tea to visitors,” Emily said, grabbing one of the teacups. She sipped from it.

“And how are you? Travis and I just wanted to come and make sure you’re holding up,” Sol said, grabbing the closest cup of tea and taking it to her lips but not tasting it. She knew if she so much as made a sipping or slurping sound, Luke would be pounding at the door.

“I’ve been better. But surprisingly not as bad as I thought I would be.

Not sure if that makes me the most terrible person ever,” Emily said, and Sol couldn’t think of what to say or how to react while Travis kept looking suspiciously at the tea offerings in front of him.

“I mean, it was a terrible accident. But, of course, you know we were separating. Everybody knew. So it’s not as if I lost the love of my life.

I simply lost an extremely annoying person. It’s still devastating?—”

“I didn’t know about the separation,” Sol said, and she was tempted to ask Travis whether he did, but her colleague’s gaze was fixated on the food and drinks in front of them. “But I think I understand.”

“You have two ex-husbands, right?” Emily asked. It always annoyed Sol when people remembered every single detail about her life, but she couldn’t remember a single remarkable thing about them. That lack of knowledge was exaggeratedly true when it came to Emily, and she couldn’t understand why.

“I do. I only ever wished one of them to disappear from the face of the earth, though,” Sol said. She knew for that chat to be mildly successful, she was going to have to pay her dues and share more than she’d normally be comfortable with. “But I think I understand what you’re saying.”

“Do these have nuts?” Travis blurted, referring to the cookies in front of him, and Sol thought her former colleague was definitely nervous and on the jumpy side.

“They have walnuts, yes!” Emily said. “Sorry about that. I keep forgetting you’re allergic. Oh my god! I could have killed you! Couldn’t I?”

“It takes more than a few cookies to get rid of me.” Travis chuckled. “I never trust cookies.”

“I’d say we could all agree Travis has been extremely lucky with this allergy of his,” Sol said, leaning back on the sofa and trying to relax in the situation but not missing a detail in Emily’s reaction. “And his mistrust in certain foods.”

“How so?” Emily asked, and she did look genuinely confused.

“Well, because obviously I’d be dead otherwise,” Travis said. “Whoever wanted Jason dead tried getting rid of him during the awards ceremony, and I got handed his plate by mistake.”

“Is that what happened?” Emily said in horror, and Sol had to hand it to her. The woman’s performance was flawless. Or could she, perhaps, be telling the truth? If that was the case, Sol and Travis were being the most atrocious, nosy guests.

“We really don’t know,” Sol intervened, still set on reading as much as possible from Emily’s facial expressions and body language. But if she had been riled up by the chat of almost killing the wrong man, Emily wasn’t showing it. “But I think that’s one of the possible scenarios.”

“I just thought it all had been a terrible misunderstanding,” Emily said, sounding genuine again. “And some fan had sent Jason some poisoned chocolates by mistake.”

“By mistake?” Travis said. He sounded a bit judgy.

“I know, it sounds so silly. But who could have any reason to kill him?”

“Other than you, you mean?” Travis said.

Sol had doubted his presence up until that moment, even if he had more of a relationship with Emily and gave them the perfect excuse to visit her.

But he’d been completely out of it until then.

On the other hand, Sol didn’t think she’d have been able to pose such a prickly—yet relevant—question as Travis had just done.

It was clear the job Divya and Luke wanted done was a team effort, and she was happy to be paired with Travis for it.

“Why, because of the affair rumor?” If Travis’s question had been a blow, Emily’s face barely showed it. “The police already cleared me of that. He didn’t have a girlfriend!”

“I didn’t know about the g—” Sol started but interrupted herself. It was better not to lie if she really wanted to get something out of that conversation. “Why was there a girlfriend rumor?”

“He started it,” Emily said, and for the first time, she sounded bitter. She’d quit being the nice, sweet woman for just one moment, showing a different, fiercer face.

“He pretended he was having an affair? What’s wrong with men!” Sol couldn’t avoid saying. “No offense, Travis.” She took her hand to Travis’s sleeve.

“None taken,” Travis said with an understanding smile.

“My second ex-husband did the same thing to me! He thought that would help him lure me back!” Sol raised her eyebrows.

She was so enraged, reminiscing about the whole situation and empathizing with Emily, that she almost forgot she wasn’t supposed to drink any tea.

But she was able to stop herself before doing it.

It wasn’t that she thought there was any chance of Emily having poisoned the cups in the kitchen before serving the tea in front of them.

She just didn’t want to give Luke a heart attack.

“Jason didn’t want to rekindle anything. He wanted me to leave him!” Emily said, and there was a hint, again, of that fiercer side of hers .

“I’m sorry if I’m prying,” Sol said. “I’m trying to understand how some men’s minds work, since I’ve also been on the receiving end of a fake affair. But couldn’t he just have asked for a divorce instead of playing such a hurtful game?”

“He should have, but that would hardly have gotten him anything,” Emily said cryptically, but she left it at that.

They all either drank or pretended to drink tea for a whole uncomfortable moment of absolute silence.

Sol’s mind was spinning, throwing options on what to say next, but nothing seemed to be appropriate or smart, considering her task.

She was starting to understand that Divya’s and Luke’s job was, indeed, more complex than she’d ever given them credit for—not that she had any intention of letting them know that.

But her tried and true technique of falling silent so that her interviewee subject would continue talking, and hopefully reveal something about themself, wasn’t exactly working on Emily.

The woman had been married to a journalist, after all.

“So, you two have the afternoon off work, I presume,” Emily said in a not-so-subtle change of subject.

“My afternoons are perpetually off,” Travis started. “Didn’t you hear I was forced to retire?”

“I think I may have heard something. Sorry about that.” Emily was, once again, a model in politeness and empathy. “What about you, Sol?”

“Huh. I’m supposed to be writing this article from the interview I did with Victor Lago,” Sol said. The events from the last few days hadn’t allowed her to focus on work much. “But I somehow haven’t gotten to it yet. I honestly don’t know what to say about it.”

“About Haughty Horizons ?” asked Emily.

“Yes, I mean. I guess I’ve never been like Simon Smith,” Sol said, in all honesty. “I don’t find any pleasure in publicly destroying someone else’s work. But the thing is, I hated the movie. And I don’t really like Victor Lago.”

“So you don’t think critics can be nice?” Emily asked. It almost moved Sol to realize that the woman—who she was there to see for entirely calculating reasons—had actually hit a nerve and put into words something she'd been thinking for a while but hadn’t fully articulated.

“Travis has always been a nice critic,” Sol reasoned.

“I still got booted. Perhaps I’d still have a job if my writing had been a bit harsher in some of my views,” Travis lamented. “It surely seemed to work for Simon Smith. I’ve heard he’s getting a seven-figure book deal.”

“Seven figures? Are you kidding me?” Sol scoffed.

After a few agreements from Travis and Emily and some backchanneling sounds, they found themselves once again in perfect silence, except for Travis’s pretend slurping of his tea.

“And are you taking a few days off work, then?” Sol finally thought of asking Emily.

She didn’t know what Emily did professionally.

They’d now officially reached the point in the relationship in which it was bad not to know and almost even worse to admit it.

But she thought she needed to ask, nonetheless.

“Oh I’ve been taking the whole day off for the last”—Emily said, squinting as she thought—“fifteen years?”

“So you don’t work?” Travis asked, and it looked like he was also clueless when it came to Emily’s occupations.

“Good for you. If you have any advice on how to spend my mornings, and afternoons, please do tell. So far, the only thing I have on the calendar, besides SoulCycle, is hot yoga and power walking. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. “

They left half an hour after that, when they’d run out of ideas for new topics of conversation. The chat hadn’t exactly cracked the case, or gotten a confession, but Sol was certain about three things, and she made sure of sharing them the moment she got into Luke and Divya’s car.

“She feels no remorse, not even when we mentioned the poisoning of Travis—but that could be because nothing awful happened to him. There has to be a prenup. And you should probably find out what Emily did when she was working.”