Trust Me on This - Jennifer Crusie [42]
He was doing something legal? Maybe he was going straight. Maybe everything would be all right, after all. The problem was, it just didn’t sound like Brian. He was never legal or innocent or truthful. She thought about the appointment book again. One thing for sure, Sherée told herself as she punched her pillow and prepared to go back to sleep, she was going to check out Dennie in the bar at one. Compton and Prentice might be dupes, but she wasn’t going to be.
At ten, Dennie headed for the Ivy Room a little light-headed from lack of sleep and more than a little nervous from what she was going to do. She’d rehearsed several different approaches to convince Victoria to help her with Janice, but when she sat down across from her, she took one look and forgot them all. Victoria’s usual amiable smile was gone, and she looked troubled instead.
Dennie picked up the heavy red damask napkin by her plate. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”
Victoria blinked at her, as if she’d appeared out of nowhere. “Good morning, dear.” She focused on her, and her smile came back. “No, I’m not upset. Just … puzzled. Things to work out.” Her smile was full wattage now. “I ordered coffee and juice and a basket of muffins to start us out. Too hungry to wait.”
“Works for me,” Dennie said. “What are you puzzling? The Prentice compound?”
Victoria beamed at her. “Isn’t it a wonderful idea?”
“No,” Dennie said. “It stinks on ice. That man is a crook, and you are not dumb, which means you know he’s a crook.” Victoria looked slightly stunned so Dennie patted her hand. “I really want to know all about it, but I can wait on that. But I need to convince you to do me a huge favor, and I’m not sure how to go about it. What’s a good way to convince you to do something?”
The waiter brought the drinks and muffins, and Dennie smiled around him at Victoria, exuding honesty and charm as fast and as hard as she could so Victoria would be bowled over by her openness.
“You’re like Alec,” Victoria said when the waiter had gone, and Dennie thought for a minute that she might be still doing her vague act. “He charms the socks off people, too, and then they wonder why they trusted him. It’s because he does the fake openness so well. Everything about him says, ‘Trust me on this,’ and the whole time he has an agenda.”
“I just said I had an agenda,” Dennie protested.
Victoria picked up a muffin and split it with her knife. “Yes, but you said it with such charm, you knew I’d be disarmed.” She buttered it calmly and then took a bite. “I’m not. You’re up to something. What do you want?”
Dennie picked up a muffin to buy time. Blueberry, she noticed when she split it open. She hated blueberry. Bad omen. “I’m a reporter,” she said. Might as well get the bad news over with first.
“That’s a relief,” Victoria said. “Until you insulted Brian Bond at the dinner table last night, we thought you were a thief.” She polished off the first half of her muffin with a great deal of zest. “I’m fairly sure there are about three hundred fat grams in each of these. I plan on having at least one more.”
“You thought I was a thief?” Dennie said. “You thought I was working with Bondman?”
Victoria poked through the muffin basket. “There must be another blueberry in here.”
Dennie handed her plate over. “Alec thought I was a thief?”
“Thank you,” Victoria said, taking the plate. “He hated it. I’ve never seen him more reluctant to arrest anybody.”
“The son of a bitch,” Dennie said conversationally. “At one point, I actually considered sleeping with him.”
Victoria shoved the muffin basket at her. “Well, consider it again. He’s very sweet, and he seems quite taken with you.”
“You want me to sleep with somebody who’s going to put me in jail?” Dennie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ll tell him not to now.” Victoria polished off the last of her first muffin and started on Dennie’s. “So you’re a reporter. What does that have to do with me?”
Dennie shoved Alec aside for the moment and went back to Plan Z,