Robert B. Parker's Bad Influence E-Book

Alison Gaylin

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Sunny Randall Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 363

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

FROM ONE OF THE TOP 10 BEST-SELLING AUTHORS IN THE WORLD 'Parker packs more meaning into a whispered "yeah" than most writers can pack into a page' —The Sunday Times Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates the dark side of social media in this new exciting thriller. Sunny Randall's newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all of the perks that the lifestyle entails — a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board to protect Blake and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies, schemes and ties to Boston's mob. Sunny must learn new tricks - and call in old friends - to stop a killer.

Leseprobe

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FORROBERT B. PARKER

‘Parker writes old-time, stripped-to-the-bone, hard-boiled school of Chandler… His novels are funny, smart and highly entertaining… There’s no writer I’d rather take on an aeroplane’– Sunday Telegraph

‘Parker packs more meaning into a whispered “yeah” than most writers can pack into a page’– Sunday Times

‘Why Robert Parker’s not better known in Britain is a mystery. His best series featuring Boston-based PI Spenser is a triumph of style and substance’ – Daily Mirror

‘Robert B. Parker is one of the greats of the American hard-boiled genre’ – Guardian

‘Nobody does it better than Parker…’ – Sunday Times

‘Parker’s sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist’– Newsday

‘If Robert B. Parker doesn’t blow it, in the new series he set up in Night Passage and continues with Trouble in Paradise, he could go places and take the kind of risks that wouldn’t be seemly in his popular Spenser stories’ –New York Times

PRAISE FOR THE SUNNY RANDALL SERIES

‘A magnetic new gumshoe’ – People Magazine

‘Parker’s trademark dialogue, chockablock with wit, has never been better, nor have his psychological insights’ – Chicago Sun-Times

‘Great stuff, Parker fans. Sunny’s back!’ – Booklist

‘Splendid’ – Publishers Weekly

1

‘Were we ever like that?’ I said. ‘Please tell me we weren’t.’

‘We weren’t,’ Spike said. ‘Believe me.’

I was with my best friend in the bar of the restaurant he owns, both of us transfixed by a couple twentysomething influencers sitting at a dimly lit table and taking selfie after selfie, a bottle of pricey cognac looming behind them like a chaperone. I’d been told their names were Blake James and Alena Jade – apparently, last names had gone the way of MySpace. I’d also been told that they were Instagram’s ‘it’ couple, and having them here, in Spike’s, would be sure to transform it from ‘just some place’ into a ‘destination.’

It made sense. Between them, Blake James and Alena Jade had close to a million followers, and getting them both here in Spike’s, together, could ensure a house full of big-spending fans, each one of them desperate to stand in the spot where their inked-up, Fashion Nova−wearing, iron-pumping, duck-face-making idols had stood.

Blake James in particular. In addition to his wildly popular Instagram account, Blake was a YouTube sensation, with legions of viewers tuning in to his workout video channel, The Shred Shed.

As irritating as it may have been to Spike and me, I hoped the presence of these two sentient mannequins would give Spike’s a much-needed prestige infusion. Despite a post-pandemic uptick in business, inflation and supply-chain issues had taken their toll on the place – just as they had on most restaurants. And my friend, for all his hard work, was back in the red.

I was worried Spike might do something stupid to keep his tavern afloat. Again. Which is why I listened to a woman named Bethany Rose who called herself a ‘media concierge’ and assured me she could ‘martial the power of the Gram’ to ensure that Spike would never feel the need to swim with another loan shark. But more on that later.

All you need to know at this point is that Bethany Rose brought us Blake and Alena.

Blake rested his chiseled chin on Alena’s bare shoulder, a selfie stick holding the phone high over their heads, the two of them pouting up at it contentedly.

Spike stared at them. ‘How can anybody spend that much time looking at themselves?’

‘Maybe they’re looking at each other.’ I took a swallow of my pinot noir – a nice year, recommended by Spike, and probably one-twentieth the price of the influencers’ cognac. I did have to admire Alena. Looking the way she did took more effort than I could ever imagine mustering – and I’m not exactly low-maintenance.

I once had a drag queen client and I doubted he spent as much time with the contouring brush as Alena did. Her face was so sculpted she seemed almost unreal, and her shimmering hair was perfectly behaved, like a swath of black silk. She had to have spent tens of thousands on plastic surgery to get that body – which was really something you’d see only in comic books or the Kardashian family.

Blake, meanwhile… Okay. If I was going to be honest, I didn’t mind looking at him. ‘I’d love to paint that man,’ I said. I hadn’t intended to say it out loud, but sue me. He had the most symmetrical face I’d ever seen.

‘Meh,’ Spike said.

I stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s not my type. I’ve punched too many guys who look like him.’

Blake raised his glass for another selfie and smiled, his Caribbean-blue eyes an exact match with the sleeveless jacket he was wearing, his teeth gleaming nearly as much as his exposed, tatted biceps. And then Blake shouted, ‘Let’s do a cheers!’ like a five-year-old.

A couple of Spike’s regular patrons shot him death glares. The bartender visibly cringed. Even Alena looked embarrassed.

I turned back to Spike. ‘I get what you’re saying.’

He sighed. ‘Is this really necessary?’ he said. ‘I mean… the last time this place was in trouble, I handled it.’

I raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Okay, I guess I shouldn’t have –’

‘Taken out a loan without reading the fine print?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Gotten involved with the Russian Mob?’

‘Yep.’

‘All of the above, plus breaking a loan shark’s nose and nearly getting both of us killed?’

‘Yeah. Except for the nose-breaking part. I stand by that decision.’

I grinned, clinked my glass with his. ‘Let’s do a cheers to that,’ I said.

‘To Spike’s,’ he said.

‘To Spike’s.’

He swallowed his wine, then glanced at his watch. ‘So… the customers should be rushing in any minute now, huh?’

Spike was watching the door. I was, too, but not for the same reasons. Unlike my best friend, there was only one customer I needed to see walk into this place tonight. And that was media concierge Bethany Rose. She was late.

2

It wasn’t long before new customers began streaming into Spike’s – dozens of them, all under thirty, the girls in rompers and sky-high heels, the boys in skintight T-shirts and stinking of Axe spray, all of them spray-tanned within an inch of their lives. It wasn’t the typical crowd you’d see in Spike’s – or in Boston, for that matter. It was more like Hollywood meets Jersey Shore. But Spike didn’t seem to mind. When the fourth or fifth group started a tab, I saw him smile for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long.

‘This media maven – what’s her name?’ Spike said.

‘Bethany Rose. And it’s media concierge.’

‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Color me pleasantly surprised.’

I had to agree. Even if this wasn’t my ideal bar clientele, money was money. I glanced at the door again. ‘She should be here.’

‘Who?’

‘Bethany.’

‘Why?’

I sighed heavily. ‘We’re supposed to talk terms.’

I’d spoken to Bethany Rose the previous day at the suggestion of Lee Farrell. It felt weird to hear a no-nonsense cop like Lee use a term like media concierge, but as he said himself when I told him Spike might lose his bar again, ‘Bullshit times call for bullshit measures.’

Lee had known about Bethany from his niece Emily Barnes, a pretty college student with a habit of getting herself into un-pretty situations. These days, Emily was earning extra cash and free swag as an influencer – a noble pursuit, comparatively speaking. With Bethany’s help, she’d become what they call a micro-influencer, with close to fifty thousand followers. Lee had no idea what that meant, but he was still proud. And who could blame him? It was legal.

Anyway, Emily had done one of those email intros between Bethany Rose and me, and yesterday, Bethany had given me a free consultation via Zoom. She basically looked the way I’d expected her to. Kris Jenner haircut, a rope of expensive-looking pearls, cheekbones that angled out from her face dramatically, and plumped-up lips that were no stranger to the needle. Looking at her, Bethany Rose could have been anywhere from thirty-five to sixty-five. It was impossible to tell – especially since she went so heavy on Zoom’s ‘touch up your appearance’ feature. She wore a tailored black jacket that probably cost more than my kitchen renovation, which made me wonder if I was wasting my time. The economy was tough for PIs, too, monthly expenses for my home and office had skyrocketed and, solvent as I may have been, it was hard to justify dropping a small fortune on something as ephemeral as potential word of mouth. I’d decided to keep the consultation short and sweet.

My first question for Bethany: ‘What the hell is a media concierge?’

‘If you have to ask, Sunny, you can’t afford me.’

I hadn’t even cracked a smile.

‘I can put your friend’s business on the map,’ she had said.

‘How?’

‘I have a five-point plan.’

‘What are the points?’

She’d gone on about reach, demographics, and algorithms for at least six solid minutes, sprinkling her pitch with info about her ‘stable of influencers’ and a lot of social media lingo. ‘The Gram,’ she’d said repeatedly, her blue eyes lighting up each time she said it, as though it were some kind of wonder drug.

‘Look, Bethany,’ I’d said, once I could get a word in. ‘You seem great. And your pitch is…’ I struggled for the right descriptor. ‘Well, it’s the bomb.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But Spike and I don’t have much in the way of extra cash these days. I’m thinking you’re probably out of our league.’

‘Don’t be so sure,’ she had said. ‘Emily told me about your private investigating business.’

‘Meaning…’

‘Meaning I have a problem that requires your services.’

‘You want to barter?’

‘Yes.’

I’d blinked at the screen, at her flawless image. ‘Details, please?’

Bethany told me she’d send her two most popular influencers to Spike’s the following night pro bono. (I didn’t bother to tell her she wasn’t using the term properly.) ‘A few minutes of these two, the business they bring in… You’ll see what I’m capable of doing for your friend.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I’ll come by the place myself at ten p.m. That’ll give Blake and Alena enough time to get the word out. You like what you see, I’ll give you all the details you need.’

I looked around now at the hectic bar. A group of bearded wannabe hipsters was taking selfies with Alena, while Blake and two barely-of-age girls were doing another cheers. The bartender was taking orders faster than he could fill them, and Spike was across the bar talking to his manager, a huge grin on his face. Everyone was drinking and spending as though the world wasn’t about to end. There was no denying it. I was liking what I was seeing.

I felt a light tap on my shoulder. ‘Sunny Randall?’

I spun around on my corner barstool, and there she was. Bethany Rose. In the flesh.

‘Sorry I’m a little late. I had a hotel opening on Newbury and traffic was a nightmare.’ Strangely enough, I still had no idea how old she was. She looked very much the same as she did on Zoom, though she was smaller than I expected. Doll-size. Standing next to my barstool, she was able to look straight into my eyes, and when I stood up to shake her manicured hand, I could fully see the top of her sleek black pixie cut.

She asked if we could talk somewhere quiet, and we found a table near the window. Spike spotted us and came over to introduce himself. Before I could explain who he was, Bethany told him she’d like to place her order and asked for a glass of Blake and Alena’s fancy cognac.

‘This is the owner,’ I said. ‘Bethany, Spike.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Bethany said. ‘You look so young, I thought you were a hot waiter.’

Spike grinned. ‘She can stay.’ He pulled up a chair and joined us.

Bethany trained her eyes on Spike. They were hard to look away from – the same color as the sky in van Gogh’s Starry Night. They had to be colored contacts. ‘Your girlfriend’s lucky,’ she said. ‘Big, strong drink of water like you…’

I could have sworn he blushed. ‘Boyfriend,’ he said.

She turned to me. ‘Always the best ones.’

Spike blushed even more. No doubt about it. This woman knew how to make friends.

Spike called a waiter over and we all ordered. Pricey cognac for Bethany, more of that good pinot for Spike and me.

After he left, Bethany smiled brightly at both of us, then gestured around the room like a boat-show model. ‘You guys like what you see?’ she said.

‘Absolutely,’ said Spike. Not even attempting to give her the hard sell.

‘How do we know this isn’t just a coincidence?’ I said. ‘I think the night game just let out at Fenway.’

A reach. And Bethany knew it. ‘You let me work my magic,’ she said, ‘and in a few weeks, you’ll consider something like this a slow night.’

‘Wow,’ Spike said.

I sighed. ‘Tell me about your problem.’

Bethany removed a file folder from her Birkin bag. ‘You and I are women, Sunny. We have to work that much harder to prove ourselves every single day, and I think it helps us develop thicker skin than the guys.’ She glanced at Spike. ‘Present company excluded, of course.’

‘Understood.’

‘I have a lot of young, gorgeous women who are clients. A lot of them have gotten… unwanted attention from followers. Alena included.’

‘I’d imagine,’ I said.

‘Anyway, these girls, like I said, are tough. Assholes slide into their DMs, they do like I would do. Tell ’em to fuck off. Nine times out of ten, it works. That’s the end of it.’ She pushed the folder across the table and gave me a long, meaningful look.

I opened the folder. Inside was a series of printouts – isolated screenshots of direct messages and comments on Instagram posts, nearly a dozen from different accounts, all saying the same thing.

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.

‘Creepy,’ Spike said.

‘I assume you checked out the accounts that posted these comments,’ I said.

Bethany nodded. ‘Fakes,’ she said. ‘You click on them, they no longer exist.’ She thumbed through the stack, selected one of the printouts, and tapped on the profile picture. ‘Recognize this girl?’

I did. Most everybody in Boston did. The profile pic was of Carlotta Espinoza. Influencer. Problematic side piece of a powerful political consultant. Missing person and, ultimately, murder victim. ‘Nice reference,’ I said. ‘Clever.’

‘I thought so.’

The other profile pic choices on the fake profiles weren’t as inspired: cats, plant life, household-name celebs like George Clooney and Oprah. It was understandable. Besides Espinoza, I was unaware of any other dead Boston influencers the stalker could have sourced.

‘So, you have no idea who might have created these profiles?’

‘Nope.’

‘And your client doesn’t, either?’ I said. ‘No enemies? No angry exes?’

‘Hell hath no fury like an angry ex,’ Spike said.

‘Don’t I know it,’ Bethany said.

Spike fist-bumped her.

She looked at me. ‘No troublemakers that I know of.’

‘Is it possible,’ I said, ‘that your client could be keeping something from you?’

She shrugged. ‘Possible, yes. But highly improbable.’

The waiter came by with our drinks and I closed the folder. I’d gotten anonymous threats before. More than once. In my line of work, it was a given.

Not too long ago, I came home to find a picture of my dad, the red light of a rifle scope superimposed onto his face. I knew what that was about: some lowlife, trying to scare me off an investigation. But that didn’t make the feeling any easier to handle – all that hate coming at you from an unknown source. It’s like being the target of that rifle scope. Someone else has all the power.

Bethany thanked the waiter and drank her cognac, swishing it around in her mouth for a while before swallowing it. I sipped my wine.

‘Have you tried going to the police?’ I said to her.

‘They don’t care. They’re overworked. They think it’s nothing. You know this, Sunny. Kids get bullied online into killing themselves and the cops don’t get involved until it’s too late. They’re not going to waste time looking into some influencer’s hate mail.’

‘Good point,’ I said.

‘Look, this client of mine is sensitive,’ she said. ‘And scared.’

‘So, in exchange for martialing the Gram or whatever it is you said you can do to put Spike’s back on the map,’ I said, ‘you’d like me to track down the stalker.’

‘Well, yes. But also –’

‘Also?’

‘You can shoot a gun, right? Emily told me –’

‘I’m not going to kill for you, Bethany.’

‘I will,’ Spike said.

‘He’s kidding.’

‘Don’t be so sure.’

‘I don’t want you to execute this person,’ Bethany said. ‘But I’d like you to spend some time with my client.’

I blinked at her. ‘Like a bodyguard?’

She let out a heavy sigh. ‘In his case, it would be more like a babysitter.’

‘His case?’ Spike and I said it at the same time.

Bethany nodded slowly, and I followed her gaze to Blake, who was standing up on his tiptoes, raising his glass and yelling, ‘I’m the king of the world!’ so loudly, the girls next to him were plugging their ears.

‘His case,’ she said.

3

I may not look it, but I’m a very good bodyguard. Thanks to my experience on the BPD and whatever genes I inherited from my police captain dad, I’m cautious, observant, reasonably calm under pressure, and a pretty good shot – qualities that, believe it or not, tend to trump bulk and muscles when it comes to keeping people safe. And when it doesn’t, I’ve never been shy about calling for backup.

As a result, I’ve taken on several extremely challenging jobs that could be classified as protection-for-hire, most recently Melanie Joan Hall – yes, that Melanie Joan Hall, bestselling novelist/cottage industry/serious handful.

I imagined guarding Blake James would be a piece of cake compared to guarding Melanie Joan – mainly because guarding a rabid honey badger would be a piece of cake compared to guarding Melanie Joan.

But tracking down his stalker was a different matter. Unlike Melanie Joan, whom I’d known for years and who even owned the house I used to rent, Blake James was a complete stranger. If I was going to find out who hated him enough to leave those comments and send him those texts, I needed to learn more about Blake – or at least the world he lived in.

So, once I got home to my loft and gave Rosie her nightly soup bone and belly rub, I poured myself a glass of Malbec, stretched out on my couch, and logged in to Instagram.

It would’ve probably surprised my closest friends that I did, in fact, have an Instagram profile. It had been created by my older sister, Elizabeth, who, during a rare tender moment following my breakup with Jesse Stone, decided to enroll me on one of the dating apps – one that connected directly to the Gram.

In typical Elizabeth fashion, she’d created it under my given name, Sonya, which she knows I hate. But to her credit she did post some nice photos of me – some with our mom and dad, some with Rosie, some with her (in which she predictably outshone me, but whatever). She even posted a few shots of my paintings – a gesture that I must say I was moved by.

Not enough to use the dating app, though. Despite the fact that it had been around for most of my adult life, I harbored a deep distrust for social media of any kind. The idea of voluntarily revealing all that personal info to strangers had always struck me as dumber than dumb – and I’d seen far too many cases of internet stalking, fraud, catfishing, and worse to change my mind about it. Ever since my early twenties, when I’d shut down my meager Facebook account after some jerk tried to blackmail me for nudes via private message, I’ve used the internet only for work and for the purchasing of shoes – an approach I believed could lead to world peace if more people shared it.

Anyway, a few days after Elizabeth created my Instagram profile, I’d changed the handle to @RosieRandall, switched out my sister’s carefully curated snaps for a few glamour shots of my dog, and exited the site forever – well, until now.

The first thing I did was to send a direct message to Blake James (Glad to be working with you! Best, Sunny – and Rosie!)Next, I did the same thing his 529,000 followers did: I checked out his pics.

Besides the shots of Blake posing next to Alena at Spike’s (which he’d hashtagged#DateNight, #Spikes, and #Co-gnacBuzz), I didn’t see anything special at first – a whole lot of selfies, most of them shirtless, in gyms or parks or beaches, doing chin-ups or looking adoringly at bottles of vitamins or protein powder, the comments so full of heart-eye and fire emojis you’d have thought nobody knew how to type actual words anymore.

As I continued to scroll, I couldn’t help thinking how shocking it must have been for Blake to spot a threat among these declarations of love. How scary – like finding a bloody knife in a bouquet of flowers. The comments had, of course, been deleted, nothing remaining but the printed-out screenshots Bethany had given me. But it made me feel sorry for him – this poor, silly guy who became visibly hurt when people didn’t ‘cheers’ with him at Spike’s. He must’ve been terrified.

Alena was different. Whereas Blake was twenty-one with the personality of an eleven-year-old, this Gen Z beauty had a soul as old as the dawn of time. A Bosnian immigrant with a thick accent, a deep, sultry voice, and a thousand-yard stare, she’d stood with her arm around Blake’s waist in a way that felt more protective than romantic, and didn’t even crack a smile until Bethany told her I was there to help Blake with his ‘little problem.’

‘You find the person who posts this evil saying,’ Alena had said. ‘I will rip them limb from limb.’

‘That’s probably not necessary, sweetie,’ Bethany had said.

‘Probably not,’ I had said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

According to Bethany, Blake and Alena had been ‘official’ for nearly two years. But there wasn’t much to show of that relationship on Blake’s Instagram – or of any relationship, for that matter. Besides tonight’s shots, the most recent picture I could find that wasn’t a selfie was one from two months ago – Alena in a dimly-lit restaurant, blowing out the candle on a pink-frosted cupcake. The caption: Happy birthday, Babe! #LoewsHotel #NARS #Feelin24 #Blessed. No one else was in the picture. And the first two hashtags were paid promotions.

Strange. But what did I know? In the world of influencers, this post was probably as heartfelt as it got.

I switched over to Alena’s Instagram and scrolled through a sea of arched backs, skimpy outfits, pouty faces, and product placement. Alena was the only person in most all of the snaps, except for the ones taken in Spike’s and one from a few weeks ago, in which she posed with a couple other girls in bikinis aboard a yacht in the harbor – all of them as tanned and toned and surgically enhanced as she was. They toasted the camera with cans of some energy drink called Gonzo. (#Gonzo #Boats #BFFs #HotGirlSummer.) I wondered if these girls were really Alena’s BFFs, or simply coworkers, arranged on the deck of this fancy boat like Barbie dolls. Looked more like the latter to me.

It was interesting to me that there was no record of Alena’s birthday dinner on her Instagram. No solo pictures of Blake, either. If it weren’t for those perfectly posed shots with the cognac at Spike’s, you’d never know the two of them were a couple.

Rosie whimpered a little, so I scooped her up onto the couch and let her curl in my lap. ‘You ready for hot girl summer?’ I said to Rosie.

She glanced up at me and promptly fell asleep.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Me neither.’ I raised the glass of Malbec to my lips and drank, returning to those shots from Spike’s – Blake and Alena, still in the blush of their early twenties and ‘attached at both hips,’ according to Bethany. #DateNight. Like a long-married couple. Maybe lasting love worked only fortheveryyoung.OrmaybeIwasjustinacynicalframe of mind.

Ihadn’tbeenonadateinmonths – notsincemy fling withTomGorman,asweetnewspapercolumnistwhom I’d promptlydumpedassoonasheutteredthewordexclusive. I knewI was being harsh,but I couldn’t helpit. I really, really likedhim.Icouldseeafuturewithhim.Andthatwasa big fatredflagifthereeverwas one.

As I’d grown to learn, sexual relationships could come and goforme,butromanticoneswerechronic,roiling beneath thesurfacelongafterasplitandflaringupregularly, no matterhowcuredIbelievedmyselftobe.Istarted dating Jesse Stone because he reminded me of my ex-husband, Richie Burke.Bigmistake.Ayearafterourbreakup,Ithought of Jessefartoooftenformyowngood,andhadmorethan once succumbedtothose thoughts.

AndthoughRichiehadremarried,fatheredason,anddivorcedsincewe’dpartedways,hestill,inallhonesty, remained the love of my life. (Yes, I’ve discussed this in therapy. Repeatedly.Astheysayonsocialmedia,don’t@ me.)

IsippedsomemoreMalbec,listeningtoRosie’ssoft snoring,andtoldmyselftosnapoutofit.Ihadworkto do thatincludedsubjectingmyselftoseveralepisodesof The ShredShed.Ineededto focus.

BeforeleavingAlena’spage,Itookanotherlookat the yacht picture. The girl to Alena’s left caught my eye, and when Ienlargedtheimagewithmyfingers,IsawthatIwasright: I knew her. She’d changed since I saw her last – lip fillers, a new makeup palette, her hair bleached platinum. But she was still Lee Farrell’s niece, Emily Barnes.

It wasn’t Emily I was most interested in, though. It was the woman captured in the frame behind her – captured being the operative word. I enlarged the picture more in order to see her better, caught mid-turn in a chic black shift, both hands fanned in front of her face so that all you could see of her was red nail polish and a shiny black pixie cut.

Rosie shifted in my lap. I patted her head. ‘Looks like Bethany doesn’t like having her picture taken,’ I said.

4

My breakfast meeting with Bethany and Blake was at The Blue Hut in Southie. The Blue Hut was a classic greasy spoon, open all night. It had stood in the same spot, serving poor-to-middling food, for more than half a century. It was a favorite for area cops because of its location and hours. And as a kid, I’d enjoyed many a breakfast there with my dad, pushing my food around on my plate but reveling in his company.

Mom and Elizabeth wouldn’t have been caught dead eating at The Blue Hut. And neither, I imagined, would Blake and Bethany, but they’d asked to meet somewhere ‘safe,’ and thanks to its clientele (if not its grade from the health department), this place filled the bill.

I showed up ten minutes early and scored us a booth. Bethany and Blake arrived on time, at eleven. They turned heads – Bethany polished to a high gloss in a sleeveless black dress with the Prada logo on the front, Blake in a tight black T-shirt, tattooed guns out and fully loaded. They both looked like they’d stepped out of one of those bingeable streaming series, where everybody is gorgeous and lives like royalty and yet, despite all that privilege, someone winds up getting murdered.

I was hyperaware of all the dropped jaws in the room, all the blue uniforms.

I stood up to greet the two of them. I noticed a tattoo on Bethany’s shoulder – a delicate red rose that was as tasteful as the rest of her ensemble. She air-kissed me on both cheeks. I wondered if anybody in here had ever seen a live-and-in-person air-kiss before.

Bethany, in particular, seemed out of her element. ‘This place is interesting,’ she said, before diving into the booth. I half expected her to throw a hand over her face, the way she’d done in Alena’s yacht picture.

Blake said hello and shook my hand. His grip was weak for someone with such enormous biceps.

After we were all seated, I looked at Blake. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’ I was referring to what I figured must have been a walloping hangover, considering all the cognac I’d seen him consume the previous night. But he didn’t take it that way.

‘I was feeling pretty happy,’ he said, ‘until about an hour ago.’

A waiter approached our table and asked what we’d be having. I ordered a banana nut muffin and coffee. Blake ordered a burger without the bun, a hard-boiled egg, and a side of bacon. Bethany ordered hot water with lemon and a bowl of berries.

After he left, I asked Blake what happened an hour ago.

He handed me his phone. I looked at the screen and saw a direct message from someone who called themselves AvengingAngel and used a black rose as a profile pic. You reap what you sow, it read.

I tried giving him a smile. ‘That line’s getting kinda old,’ I said.

‘It’s from the Bible.’

‘They’re just trying to scare you, sweetie,’ Bethany said. ‘And Sunny will find them. Won’t you, Sunny?’

‘I’m going to try.’

‘The thing is,’ Blake said, ‘I always get these comments and DMs when I’m alone. And I’m not alone that often. It’s like… like they’re watching me.’

Bethany patted Blake’s hand, then squeezed it – an oddly intimate gesture, I thought, for a manager (concierge, whatever she called herself) and client. Blake turned to Bethany, his gaze soft on her face. ‘It’s gonna be okay,’ he said. ‘Right?’

She kept holding his hand. I got a weird feeling – like I should give them their privacy. Then the waiter returned to our table, breaking the spell. He set down my coffee and muffin and Bethany’s hot water and berries. ‘Your ketoplatter will be up in a second,’ he said to Blake, smirking.

I looked at Blake. As expected, he was oblivious.

I drank my coffee. Bethany sipped her hot water. Her bowl was full of grayish strawberries, a few shriveled blueberries thrown in for variety. She gave it a disdainful glance and pushed it away. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Did you figure out who the stalker is yet?’ She smiled to let me know she was just kidding.

I smiled back. ‘You guys aren’t making it easy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was online for probably two hours last night, researching Blake. Alena. You.’ I broke off a piece of my muffin and tried to eat it. To call it stale would have been a compliment. ‘Outside of the products Blake and Alena endorse, I came up with nothing. No hometowns. No family. Not even last names.’

‘That’s intentional,’ Bethany said.

‘I figured. But why?’

‘The less complicated your online presence is, the more aspirational you are.’

‘Aspirational?’

‘When you’re influencing, you’re projecting perfection,’ she said. ‘It’s like your friend’s restaurant. When we do his social media, we’re obviously not going to show pictures of empty tables and dirty dishes, even though everyone knows those things exist. You use filters, Photoshop. People, places. You want them idealized. Not realized. That’s the whole point of creating an image. And the cleaner and simpler that image, the better.’

‘What about you, Bethany?’ I said. ‘I looked you up. No Instagram. No Twitter. No TikTok. You have less of a social media presence than my dog.’

‘Your dog is cute,’ Blake said. ‘Nice profile pic.’

‘Thanks. I think so.’

‘Will I get to meet her when you’re my bodyguard?’

‘She usually comes everywhere with me,’ I said. ‘Only reason why I didn’t take her here is she’s picky about her scraps.’

Bethany didn’t glance away. She sipped her water, her bright gaze locking with mine. ‘I’m not a star, Sunny, and I have no desire to be. What I am,’ she said, ‘is a star-maker.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Who’s your biggest star?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Which of your clients has the most followers? Who rakes in the most money?’

‘You’re sitting next to him,’ she said.

‘I figured.’

Blake grinned.

‘We’re in talks to make The Shred Shed into a regular TV series, so he stands to be next-level soon.’

‘What are the odds someone might be trying to get at you,’ I said, ‘by scaring your biggest-earning client into hiding?’

She put her cup down. ‘It’s… It’s possible.’

‘But it’s also possible Blake could have an enemy he doesn’t know about.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Last night,’ Blake said, ‘coming home from Spike’s, a car followed my Uber right up until it dropped me off.’

Bethany looked at him. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

‘I didn’t want to scare you.’

The waiter came back with Blake’s burger, egg, and side of bacon. ‘Anything else?’

‘You have Sriracha?’

The waiter scowled at him.

‘We’re good,’ Bethany said.

I took another sip of my coffee and waited for him to leave. ‘My point is that this stalker could be anybody, because you’ve given me nothing to help narrow it down,’ I said. ‘If I am going to protect Blake – and you – I need more than online personas. I have to know exactly who it is I’m protecting.’

Bethany was quiet for several seconds.

Blake sliced up his boiled egg, carefully laying the slices on top of his burger. Then he followed it with all of the bacon. At the next table, a uniformed cop complained to his partner about his Yankees fan brother-in-law. I drank more coffee. Blake cut into his burger. Bethany continued to watch me. Seconds ticked by.

Finally, Bethany spoke. ‘What do you need to know?’

‘Well, for starters,’ I said. ‘What are your last names?’

5

‘You took those people to The Blue Hut?’ my dad said.

‘Yep,’ I said.

‘What did they think of it?’

‘Not a lot.’

He nodded. Sipped his scotch. We were sitting in The Street Bar at the Newbury hotel – our standing weekly get-together for drinks and catching up. As usual, I was bending his ear about my latest clients, gleaning whatever info and advice I could from Captain Phil Randall, who, though many years into his retirement and enjoying the fruits of it in elegant surroundings such as these, remained the savviest investigator I knew. ‘You can’t really appreciate The Blue Hut,’ he said, ‘unless you’re coming off a nine-hour stakeout.’

‘Or if you’re seven years old and willing to risk ptomaine for a little quality time with your father.’

‘I thought you said you liked the pancakes.’

‘They were okay,’ I said. ‘But TBH, I prefer this place.’

‘TBH?’

‘To be honest.’

‘Ah.’

‘Text speak.’ I took a large swallow of my cosmo. ‘Less than twenty-four hours with these people and I’m already talking like them. Shoot me now.’

My father sighed heavily. ‘I’m old enough to remember when influencer wasn’t a real word.’

‘Same,’ I said. ‘It feels like a million years ago.’

‘So,’ my dad said. ‘Any thoughts as to who might want to threaten… What’s the kid’s name?’

‘Blake James.’

‘Sounds like a movie cowboy.’

‘His full name is Blake Jameson Marshall. Which… well, that kinda sounds like a movie cowboy, too.’

‘It does.’

‘But he doesn’t look like one. Unless you’ve seen a movie cowboy with a SpongeBob tattoo on the back of his neck.’

My dad drank more scotch. ‘Can’t say that I have.’

‘To answer your question,’ I said, ‘it’s tricky. Blake says he has no enemies. He loves everybody and everybody loves him. But I don’t think he has a realistic view of his surroundings.’

‘How so?’

‘Okay, for example, at The Blue Hut, he asked for Sriracha to go with his weird keto meal. The waiter looked at him like he wanted to punch him in the face, but Blake was completely oblivious,’ I said. ‘Last night at Spike’s, he had too much to drink and got very loud. Some of the regulars were clearly pissed off, and Spike himself would have tossed him out of there if he hadn’t brought in so many new customers. But Blake…’

‘Can’t read a room.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Probably has enemies he doesn’t even know about.’

‘Right again.’

‘Makes him difficult to protect,’ he said. ‘Fortunately, I know my little girl is up to the job.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ I raised my glass. ‘Want to do a cheers?’

‘Do a what now?’

I winced. ‘By the time I finish with these people, I’ll have no language skills left.’

Dad clinked his glass with mine, and we both drank. ‘At least I knew what you meant that time,’ he said.

He asked me if he could help at all, and I told him I hoped so. I let him in on everything I now knew about Blake Jameson Marshall – which, truth be told, wasn’t a lot. He was twenty-one. He hailed from a little town in Indiana called Greendale. He’d grown up on a farm. His father had died in a tractor accident about fifteen years ago. Blake’s mom, Lisa, ran the place now. His older sister, Rain, was a third-grade teacher, but Blake didn’t have much contact with either one of them. Not with anybody from Greendale, he claimed. Not since he decided to leave the farm at eighteen to pursue a modeling career in New York. Lisa and Rain weren’t on social media, so they probably didn’t even know that Blake got only as far as Boston, where he met Alena during leg day at Equinox and fell in love. (‘My very first girlfriend,’ he said.) Alena introduced him to her manager, Bethany Rose (her real and full name, she insisted; she even showed me her driver’s license), and before long, Blake was making more money on the Gram than he’d ever hoped to earn on NYC runways.

‘So, he doesn’t owe anybody,’ Dad said. ‘No outstanding debts?’

‘According to him? No,’ I said. ‘But who knows? Somebody back in Greendale might feel differently.’

‘A friend of mine from back in the day moved to his old hometown – one of the suburbs of Indianapolis – and became police chief,’ Dad said. ‘He’s still there, far as I know. Maybe he’s got some Greendale connections.’

‘Can you give me his info?’

‘I can when I get home.’

I shook my head. ‘You still haven’t learned how to put contacts into your phone.’

‘Who says I want to learn?’ he said. ‘My paper address book hasn’t failed me yet. And it doesn’t cost me any data.’

Dad. Still on a limited-data plan. Hell, it was less than two years ago that he’d finally given up his flip phone. But he probably had the right idea. There was a lot to be said for relying on one’s memory, even for something as simple as phone numbers. My dad was aging. We all were, but he seemed to be doing it more rapidly as of late. He had been using a cane since his gunshot wound last year, and I worried that his reliance on it might be a permanent thing. I also knew from Mom that he was on stronger blood pressure meds, and that he’d recently been diagnosed with what she said was ‘very mild diabetes.’ But though he may have been physically frailer, Phil Randall’s mind was as sharp as ever. ‘All the important numbers – like yours – I got right here.’ He tapped his head and gave me a sly smile, as though he’d been reading my thoughts. Maybe he had been. I wouldn’t have put it past the guy.

I smiled back.

‘So, on a different note,’ he said, ‘have you talked to Richie lately?’

I sipped my cosmo, the name a slight stab to my heart. ‘Not for a while,’ I said. Such a strange story, Richie and me. When we fell in love, my dad and Richie’s father, Desmond Burke, were archenemies. And while they may have tolerated our marriage and subsequent post-divorce friendship, their animosity for each other continued unabated – no surprise, considering the fact that Desmond remained one of Boston’s most powerful crime bosses, and Phil had spent much of his career trying to put him behind bars.

But things began to thaw between them around the time of Phil’s shooting. They spoke occasionally. They asked each other about ‘the kids.’ It may have been a ‘life’s too short’ kind of thing, but these two men – who still despised each other above all else – seemed to have found some type of common ground in the idea that they both were still alive, that they both had children who loved them and who, at one time at least, had loved each other.

Yet the closer Desmond and Phil got, the bigger the rift grew between Richie and me. At first, I thought it was because I’d rejected his idea of getting back together. But when I texted him one night after too many glasses of wine and told him I was willing to reconsider, he texted back No. You were right. I’d spoken about this to my shrink, Susan Silverman, who suggested that a clean break might be the healthiest thing for both of us. But while that may have indeed been true, it’s also a known fact that in life, the healthiest things are often the least pleasurable.

Dad drank his scotch. I finished my cosmo.

‘So, you probably haven’t heard,’ Dad said, ‘that Richie is moving away.’

I stared at him. ‘What?’

And then, wouldn’t you know it, my phone started ringing. ‘Dad, you can’t just say that. I need details.’

‘I don’t have details,’ he said. ‘Desmond mentioned it.’

‘When?’

‘A little while ago.’