Betrayal (11 page)

Tallie and her father chatted for a little while, and then she went home. Hunt was out and had left her a note. He was having drinks with Mr. Nakamura’s lawyers. They were getting the last details of the contract worked out, and he said he wouldn’t be home late. He got home shortly after she did and was tired. Tallie looked exhausted and was lying on the bed.

“You look beat,” he commented, as he took his jacket off and threw it on a chair.

“I am,” she said without moving from their bed. “It’s been a tough week.”

“At least you’ll be home from location soon. I miss you when you’re gone,” he said with a smile and sat down on the bed next to her. She didn’t know whether to hit him or cry, or take him in her
arms
and hold on for dear life. She didn’t want to lose him, but maybe she already had.

“Do you?” she asked, her voice small and muffled in his chest.

“Of course I do, silly. Do you want to go out to dinner?” She shook her head. She was too tired and down to want to go out.

“Not really.”

“I can rustle something up here.” She nodded, wondering how many more nights like this she would have with him, how many home-cooked dinners and sharing the same bed. If Meg told her that he was involved with someone else, this was all going to be over, and she realized that it was possible their days were numbered. The very thought of it wore her out, and made her immeasurably sad. She already felt as though she had lost him. In her gut, she believed what Brigitte had said, and feared it might be true. It had happened to her before, though not after four years. This time she had thought she was safe and home free. Maybe not.

He went downstairs then and made an omelette and a salad for both of them. He opened a bottle of her favorite wine, and they sat quietly in the kitchen and ate dinner. Tallie was very quiet, and he put some music on. But she couldn’t think of anything to say to him. He asked how the last two days of shooting had gone, and told her about his meetings with their investor’s lawyers, and he said everything was going well. And after dinner, Tallie took a shower and went to bed. She had hardly said a word all night.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking worried about her. She was painfully subdued.

“I think I might be coming down with something,” she said vaguely. “I’ve been feeling weird since yesterday.”

“Then get some sleep,” he said, tucking her in, and he went downstairs to his office to look over some papers the lawyers had given him to read. And she pretended to be asleep when he came back upstairs. She felt like she was living a nightmare with him. It was a lonely feeling, and when he turned off the light, there were silent tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.

She went to the gym early the next morning, and called Max in New York afterward. She was out with friends for lunch in some noisy place, and Tallie was relieved. It was hard to talk and Max said she’d call her later, so she didn’t hear the tone of despair in her mother’s voice.

Hunt played tennis with friends that afternoon, while Tallie read new script changes and added to them, and he suggested they go to a movie that night. Tallie felt as though she were moving underwater and they were moving in slow motion. She wondered how long the investigation would take. It felt like an eternity and had only been a day, if that.

She realized that one of Meg’s investigators must have followed them when they went to the movie, but she had no sense of it. Meg had assured her that they were good, and Tallie knew they must be. There was nothing to suggest that they were being followed or watched. When she looked around, she saw no one. And Hunt suspected nothing.

It felt like the longest weekend of Tallie’s life. They took her father to lunch at the Ivy the next day, at Hunt’s suggestion. It was a production taking him out, but Hunt had always been sweet about doing things like that, which made Tallie even sadder now. What if that was all over? She could see why people didn’t confront a
cheating
spouse, as Meg had said. There was so much to lose. But she couldn’t see living with him if she knew he was being unfaithful to her. She couldn’t have done it, but losing her life with him would be hard if that was what happened in the end.

Lunch at the Ivy was busy and noisy and her father made an effort to appear normal, but she knew he was as disturbed as she was. They sat on the terrace and saw several people they knew. Tallie could barely get through the charade and was relieved when it was over.

Brigitte checked in with Tallie twice over the weekend, which was unusual for her, and she sounded uncomfortable too. She said that she was enjoying the spa in Palm Springs, but Tallie suspected that if she had been, she wouldn’t have called. Brigitte was clearly worried. And so was Tallie. Only Hunt was oblivious to what was happening and thought she was sick. He made a gentle attempt to make love to her on Sunday night, but Tallie just couldn’t. She wanted to wait for Meg’s report now, and she told him she thought she had the flu. He brought her dinner on a tray and made her chicken soup, which nearly made her cry.

“You don’t have to spoil me like that,” she said sadly.

“I want to. I love you, Tallie,” he said, and sounded so sincere. It made her wonder if Brigitte was wrong and had heard inaccurate office gossip. She didn’t know what to believe. More than anything, she felt confused. And they chatted like old friends while she ate her soup. He tucked her into bed afterward, with a kiss, but she couldn’t sleep. She’d had nightmares all night whenever she did.

She drove herself back to Palm Springs on Monday morning in
the
SUV she’d borrowed from the set, and she was in her trailer by six
A.M.
She tried to rouse herself to think about her work, but everything was hard right now and took ten times the effort it normally did to get her motor running and concentrate on the film.

She handed the script changes back to the writers, and by eight the cameras were rolling and they were back to work. Brigitte had gone to L.A. for the day, to do some work, and she didn’t come back to Palm Springs until Tuesday. Brigitte arrived in the Aston Martin, looking as sexy as ever. She put on a big show of being jolly and in good spirits. She had brought Tallie her mail from the city and had a number of things to show her. Tallie pretended to be interested but she wasn’t. She didn’t care about anything right now except what she was waiting to hear from Meg. It was Thursday when Meg finally called, six days after they had met. They had been the longest six days of Tallie’s life.

“How are you?” Meg asked her politely. She sounded businesslike and cool, and Tallie wanted to scream at her to tell her everything immediately. She couldn’t wait a minute longer, but that wasn’t the way Meg worked. She was professional and precise.

“I’ve been going crazy waiting to hear from you,” Tallie said honestly. She was in her room at the hotel, and hadn’t gone back to L.A. all week. She told Hunt she was still feeling sick, was too tired to drive back to L.A. at night, and didn’t want to expose him to her flu.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said quietly. “Sometimes it takes a few days to get the lay of the land. This is actually pretty quick for us, but I
know
it must seem long to you.” It was the understatement of the year.

“Interminable,” Tallie said grimly as she lay on her bed. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I’d rather we meet face-to-face. I can come out there if you like. When are you coming back to town?”

“Tomorrow night, or maybe in the late afternoon.” Part of her wanted to press Meg to tell her now, and part of her didn’t. She was afraid to hear the results of her investigation. What if she hated what she heard?

“I’m clear anytime tomorrow,” Meg said crisply.

“Four o’clock?” Tallie suggested. “I’ll try to get out of here after lunch.” She could drive herself in again, and she was going home for the weekend. She had kept her dealings superficial with Brigitte all week, or avoided her completely. She wasn’t comfortable with her at the moment. Tallie felt as though she had been blindfolded and didn’t know where she was, or with whom, or who to trust. Her confidence in the people closest to her had been shaken, until she talked to Meg. Only she could reassure her, and Tallie didn’t know if she would, or make it infinitely worse with her report. She was dreading what she’d hear.

“Four is fine,” Meg confirmed. Tallie didn’t ask her if the report was good or bad. She was too afraid to know, without the details. And she was awake all night after they spoke.

The shoot the next day seemed endless and her nerves were on edge. She had a meeting over lunch in her trailer with the writers, and as soon as it was finished, she took off, without saying
goodbye
to Brigitte or anyone else. The AD was taking over for her again and seemed pleased. And Tallie kept her foot on the gas all the way to L.A. She was at Meg’s office at four o’clock sharp, with her heart pounding. She felt her stomach tie in a knot as Meg’s secretary showed her in.

Meg stood up with a warm smile as Tallie walked into her office, and she invited her to sit down across her desk. Tallie had never been as nervous about any meeting, or as frightened about what she was going to hear. Meg’s face gave away nothing, she was a pro. But she looked sympathetic, which Tallie read as a bad sign.

“Well, I think we have what you wanted to know. Not all of it, after this brief an investigation, but enough to give you a general picture.” Tallie noticed she had a thick file on her desk with a number code on it, which represented Tallie’s case. She was discreet if nothing else.

“We’ve been following Hunter Lloyd since last week, and doing a superficial assessment of his financial situation. There are records we don’t have access to, like his bank records, but we checked his credit, spoke to some people at his bank, and investigated as much as we could about how he spends his money. He has a big income, as you know. And his assets are solidly invested in a diversified portfolio. Everything we found tells us that he’s financially sound. He’s not afraid to spend money, as you probably also know. He drives a Bentley sports model that he owns, he has solid real estate holdings and investments. He’s not irresponsible about his money, and it looks like just about all his purchases and transactions are done by credit card. There is absolutely nothing we turned up that suggests he’s in financial trouble, needs money, or
has
a shady reputation. He has an A1 credit rating, and from what I was able to find out, he seems to make no purchases with cash. All the stores he deals with are paid by credit card. In fact, he seems to charge everything. There can always be something hidden we didn’t find—this was really an initial investigation, not a forensic financial one—but he looks solid as a rock financially, and my gut tells me that he’s not stealing cash from you. He has absolutely no reason to. Another three hundred thousand dollars a year would be nice, but he just doesn’t need your money.” Tallie nodded as she listened. It was reassuring, but if what Meg said was true, then Brigitte was lying, which was upsetting too. But at least Hunt was clean about the money. It was what she had thought too. Why would Hunt steal from her? There was just no reason to, he had a lot more than she did, and he wasn’t a greedy person. He had always been generous with her, and paid way more than his share of their expenses. As far as the money went, Brigitte’s story didn’t hold water.

“The rest of what we found out about Mr. Lloyd is more disturbing. Our sources were consistent and told us that he has been involved with this young woman in his office for about a year. It may have begun as a situation of sympathy. She was in fact the victim of domestic violence from her estranged husband. She took him to court repeatedly over it, was hospitalized once, and is currently waiting for her final decree of dissolution, in about two months. Her ex-husband was jailed twice for abusing her and their son. The boy is three years old. And she does work for Mr. Lloyd. He sees her in the evening several times a week, meets her at the Chateau Marmont and Sunset Marquis, and spends the night with
her
frequently when you’re out of town. He stayed with her three times this week. She leaves the child with a neighbor, and they usually go to a hotel. She may be afraid to have him stay at her house in case her ex-husband is watching or stalking her. They seem to spend a lot of time together.” And with that, she took several blown-up photographs out of the file on her desk, and spread them in front of Tallie. He was kissing a beautiful dark-haired young woman in one of them, and in another he had an arm around her shoulders and was holding a little boy’s hand, at the zoo. Meg pointed to the photograph and explained that it had been taken the previous Saturday. Tallie remembered that he had told her he was playing tennis with friends. Instead he had gone to the zoo with this woman and her son. The little boy looked very cute.

“Her name is Angela Morissey. She is twenty-six years old. And he has told several people he plans to marry her. She believes that to be true too. And she has told people that in confidence.”

She showed Tallie several more pictures of them then, going to a movie, coming out of a restaurant with the boy, and getting out of his car at the Sunset Marquis. He looked like he had a whole life with her, and they both looked happy whenever they were together. Tallie suddenly wondered if she had let him down in some way, if she complained too much, or wasn’t as much fun, or was too tired after working too hard. Or was she too old since the girl was so much younger? Why had he done this to her? She had to fight back tears as she looked at the photographs. It nearly broke her heart to see them, and he looked like he loved the little boy.