Page 42 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

“ W hy don’t you tell me what it’s about then, Emily,” Sol said, purposely using Emily’s name to create rapport.

“A few days ago, you didn’t know my name,” Emily told Sol. “Even if we’ve met at several work functions. For years, I’ve been either Jason’s wife or simply no one because people couldn’t remember me. You certainly didn’t.”

“Oh, come on! Don’t measure anything by my inability to remember a name!” Sol replied. “I’m the fucking worst. I’m a self-centered, selfish brat who gets upset if her hairstylist is running late or if she can’t secure the hottest restaurant reservation in town.”

“Yet you still get people to like you and remember you. You have friends. You managed to get yourself a boyfriend who looks like the love child of Daniel Day-Lewis and Monica Bellucci!” Emily said in an almost reproachful tone.

Sol had to recognize that Emily had managed to describe Luke in an alarmingly concise and accurate way.

“Partner,” corrected Sol. “But believe me when I tell you, I also don’t know how that last part came to be possible. A part of me still thinks I banged my head against a wall, and he’s just a figment of my imagination. Any moment now, I’m going to wake up and realize I made him up.”

“Only you didn’t, honey ,” Emily said, and Sol remembered Emily using that same word without meaning it in the past, with her now-late husband. Cold sweat ran down her back.

Sol stopped eating right away, even if she knew it was impossible for Emily to have tampered with the food while it had been in front of her that whole time.

She didn’t allow herself to look up and give away the location of her two accomplices, but she was almost sure Luke’s vigilant stare was on her. And she felt relieved just knowing it.

“Since you’re no longer eating, are we done?” Emily finally said.

“I feel you still have things to tell me.” Sol tried to persuade Emily, but she knew she’d probably lost her and Emily was already planning to leave.

“Only things you probably know: Be extremely protective of your byline and what bylines you decide to publish under,” Emily said. “I heard you wrote a book. Don’t wait for others to tell you what to do with it.”

Sol was tempted to ask what Emily meant by that. She wanted to have a nice conversation with a potential friend and a colleague. But she was there for other reasons.

“I saw that Jason won several journalistic awards during his career,” Sol said. “I’m guessing those were actually for your work.”

“Regardless of who wrote what, he was the one to get the accolades. And the one whose last name people remembered. What’s my last name, Sol?”

Shit .

“Zit?” Sol guessed .

“As if I was ever going to take that ridiculous last name!” Emily said.

“Okay, so you got tired of people not realizing you were the only actual talent Jason had.” Sol had run out of time and needed to ace her next lines. “And, on top of that, he dares concoct a fake girlfriend to see if you’ll leave him so he gets to keep some of your money.”

“I’ve told you, money has nothing to do with this!” Emily said.

“But humiliation does. First, he embarrassed you by giving up on a career at which you were excelling for him. Then he never gave you the credit you deserved. He shames you in front of everyone, telling them he’s being unfaithful?—”

“Since the girlfriend ruse hadn’t worked out, he was planning on incapacitating me, declaring me medically unfit, institutionalizing me, and getting the fucking money,” Emily said.

Sol couldn’t believe her ears. Her arched eyebrows attested to that, as did her saucer-like eyes.

“Fuck! Could he do that?”

“Let’s say by that point, I was too pissed to figure out whether he had any chances.

I wasn’t going to risk it,” Emily said, her tone calm and collected.

“So yes, I may have laced his food with cyanide. I felt bad for Travis, though. I never meant for him to get hurt. I’m so relieved nothing major happened to him. ”

“Oh, he knows,” Sol said. “But what happened at the party?”

“I found a way of distracting the waiter serving our table, and I tainted Jason’s food while the waiter was otherwise occupied. I never predicted he was going to switch the plates! But, in hindsight, I guess that’s what happens when you offer someone weed. Their senses get impaired.”

“And then you realized it was Travis who’d been poisoned and raised the alarm.” Sol tried following Emily’s tale.

Emily looked Sol straight in the eye. “I don’t believe in collateral damage.”

Sol nodded. She believed Emily.

“Which is why the second time around, you chose a much more private place.”

“I bought the chocolates, with cash obviously. Injected them with cyanide and posted them to the house. I was well aware that Jason had such a sweet tooth, he would not be able to resist eating the whole thing, even if he didn’t know who sent them.

” Emily chuckled, shaking her head as if still in disbelief.

“His ego was so over inflated, he thought they were from a fan!”

“Was it always the plan to eat some of the chocolates yourself?” Sol asked.

“The spouse is always the main suspect, honey. But no one could suspect poor me, could they?” Emily said, her eyes fierce, almost menacing. “So how did you get me, then?”

“A hunch,” admitted Sol. “And a visit to Cacao Vieille. There’s a shop person there who remembered a redheaded woman buying a big box of chocolates one day before Jason died.”

“No one ever remembers me!” Emily argued, her features stern.

“They are one of those people who never forget a face.”

Emily chuckled. “Oh, the irony! ”

“Is it wrong to say a part of me thinks Emily was too kind and should have probably opted for a more painful way of getting rid of Jason?” Sol said when she, Luke, and Divya finally got in the car after Emily’s arrest. They’d been interviewed by Hunky Dory for hours and had given him the recording of the conversation where Emily had confessed.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Luke asked her from the driver’s seat. He took one of her hands, which lay limp in her lap. He was a bit worried about her.

“He tried incapacitating her!”

“He was a right piece of shite!” Divya agreed from the rear seat of the car.

“He was,” Luke said. “And this is why I’ve been insisting that you shouldn’t get involved. You look like you’ve been run over by a bloody train.”

“Delightful. Apparently, I feel like shit and look like shit,” Sol said.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Luke tried a smooth left turn on Santa Monica Boulevard. Whoever had designed intersections like this deserved his utmost antipathies. “You look beautiful, you always do. But I can see this bloody case has taken an emotional toll on you.”

“I don’t think I had realized before,” Sol said, and she kept her eyes lost on the horizon, not looking at him. “How hard this profession of yours can be.”

“Oh, it’s never this bad!” Divya said. “You just picked the wrong case to be all nosy. The last thing we did in London involved finding a sixty-something-year-old woman who had argued with her brother twenty years ago, and the two of them had lost touch.”

“In the end, they reconciled and it was quite heartwarming,” Luke said, his hand still holding Sol’s.

“Can we all go have dinner—something simple and yummy like pizza or burgers—and get very drunk?” Sol said. She’d finally broken out from her staring-at-the horizon bad spell to turn first to Divya, then to Luke.

His heart eased as he locked eyes with her. His gaze silently promised her love and worship.

“Absolutely,” he told her.

“Sounds dreamy,” Divya agreed.

Sol inputted the address of Burger Lounge in Santa Monica on his cell phone so that the car navigation system guided them there, and the three of them sat in perfect comfort and silence, still mulling over the case.

“Is the client happy?” Sol asked Luke and Divya.

“I talked to the people at Marquee Media before getting interrogated by bloody Hunky Dory,” Luke said.

“They did sound happy. Claudia especially. But I’m starting to understand why you were so adamant about not working for her again.

The woman is not nice. She dressed down one of the writers with me on the phone.

Had absolutely no problems telling them they were the most mediocre reporter she’d ever worked with. ”

“Ai! I feel for them. She really can be the worst.” Sol was reminded of some of her own bad experiences with the editor. “But, tell me, she wants to write about Emily, right?”

“I’m afraid she does,” Luke said.

Sol chuckled. “She’ll have to figure out her last name first.”

“I think that’s probably the reason nothing has been published yet,” Luke said. “But she said she’ll put in a good word for the agency.”

“And mention you in all the articles?” Sol asked, and did she sound chuffed about the idea of the agency getting loads of publicity?

“Something like that, yes,” he conceded .

“And the best thing is, we can finally send all those invoices. And we’re going to charge them extra for working out of town,” Divya contributed.

“Yeah, let’s make that extra hefty,” Luke agreed. The whole away-from-London thing had been extremely uncomfortable.

Sol interlaced her fingers with his, as his right hand was still on her lap, and he smiled. They were going home, and they’d survived that bloody city. Not only that, she’d asked him to move in together. Perhaps Los Angeles hadn’t been such a terrible experience, after all?