Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One Read online

  Smoke and Mirrors

  Hollywood Knights Book One

  LB Clark

  Copyright 2013 LB Clark and Lone Star BookWorks

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  This one is for my boys, especially Bryan, Benny, and Ryan. For my girls, especially Heather, Erin, Katia, and Minka. And for my Dirty Bitches. Thank you all for being a part of my amazing journey.

  Chapter One

  “For the last time, I am not calling my agency “Hollywood Knights!”

  Lori, the newest and youngest addition to my circle of friends, pretended to pout. “Aw, Jenny. You’re no fun!”

  “Blow me.”

  “Not even if you had the right equipment,” Lori said.

  I rolled my eyes and shoved the last bite of my garlic breadstick in my mouth so I wouldn’t say anything I’d regret later.

  When I’d announced my intentions to move my consulting and investigations agency from Florida to L.A., where I’d been living for the past few months, I’d expected my friends there to react. I had actually expected them to react in a positive way — cheering, congratulations, champagne...something. What I’d gotten instead was a half-hour’s worth of god-awful name suggestions, including one that wouldn’t go away — Hollywood Knights. Never mind that the word ‘knight’ conjures images of a man with armor and a sword, and never mind that there is only one of me, my friends were determined to call my agency Hollywood Knights, regardless of what I decided to name it.

  “So when are you officially moving to L.A.?” another of my friends, Dylan, asked, unconsciously rubbing her hugely pregnant belly.

  “I’m not sure. Depends on when I can find office space, I guess. And somewhere to live.”

  I guess part of me was hoping that one of my friends would offer me a place to crash, because I was disappointed when all I got were a couple of nods. Elizabeth, who I’d known the longest, didn’t even give me that much; she was too busy texting.

  Sighing, I dropped my half-eaten slice of pizza onto my plate and leaned back into the couch cushions. My new friends here in California didn’t seem too interested in my big announcement. But then my old friends in Florida hadn’t, either. The only people who had shown any genuine interest in the idea were my family — my brother Chris, my mom, and my niece, Hannah. They were excited about the move, even though I wouldn’t be any closer to them. They lived in Texas, of all places. Chris’s excitement I could at least understand. A little. My moving to L.A. would give him one more excuse to come and visit, like having his girlfriend and best friend living out here wasn’t enough of a draw. And Hannah probably had all sorts of ideas in her head about rock stars and actors and glamour and glitz. Mom...I had no idea why she was so thrilled with the move. I also knew that she wasn’t likely to tell me, so I just chose to let it ride.

  After a minute or so, Elizabeth looked up from her text and smiled at me. “Need any help packing?”

  “Domestic bliss wearing thin already?” I teased. She’d been living with London, her boyfriend —one of her boyfriends, I should say, since she had two of them— for less than a month. I knew there was no way she was tired of London yet.

  “Hell, no. But I can drag myself away for a couple of days if you need help,” she said. “Oh, and answer your phone.”

  I looked at her like she’d lost her mind, since my phone wasn’t ringing. And then it did, and I have to admit that I was spooked for a second. I snatched the cell off the coffee table and checked the caller ID. It was Seth, my brother’s best friend, who I’d known since I was in high school. I couldn’t remember the last time he had called me, but it had been a while.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on tour?” I said when I answered.

  “Whatever happened to just saying ‘hello’? And I am on tour. We just got done with soundcheck a little bit ago, and I’m about to faceplant in a plate of steak and potatoes, so I need to make this quick, okay?”

  “Um...you called me.”

  I swear I could tell he was rolling his eyes from the way he huffed air into the mouthpiece. “You’re not helping,” he said. “Short version, you need a place to stay in L.A., and I need someone to keep an eye on my place while I’m on the road. Get Elizabeth’s key, do whatever the hell you want to one of the guest rooms, and don’t skinnydip on Thursdays unless you want to give the pool guy a free show. Okay? I gotta go.”

  “Wait...Seth! Don’t you dare hang up!” I glanced around the room at the other girls watching me: Lori looking slightly confused, Dylan with a bemused smile, and Elizabeth, who seemed both guilty and proud of herself. The pieces clicked into place.

  “I really need to go, Jen.”

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” I lied. I had questions and concerns, but they could wait. “Call me later and we’ll work out the rest of the details.”

  Seth sighed. “There are no details. Elizabeth has a key and an alarm code for you. Don’t skinnydip on Thursdays. That’s it. Oh, and don’t drink my Scotch.”

  “I don’t drink Scotch.”

  “I knew there was something not quite right about you,” he said.

  “Lots, actually. Anyway, thank you. And there are details. And we’ll argue about them later. Go get your steak on. And kick ass at the show tonight.”

  “Thanks. Later, Angel.”

  He ended the call before I could even say goodbye, but that didn’t surprise me. What had surprised me, though, was his calling me ‘Angel’. He’d given me the nickname when I was seventeen, and I had almost forgotten all about it. But apparently he hadn’t.

  I pushed away the shock of hearing that nickname again and turned to glare at Elizabeth. “Really?”

  She just smiled. “I knew he’d make the offer, anyway. I just expedited things. You know how guys are, especially Seth. It can take them forever to get their heads out of their asses long enough to figure out what’s going on around them. And by the time they do, poof! Opportunity’s gone.”

  “No shit,” I agreed. “Now if you can find me office space that easily, I’ll be your new best friend.”

  “Hey!” Dylan cried. “No taking over as Em’s best friend. That’s my job.”

  “Whatever you say, Mom.”

  Thanks to my foresight, I saw the pillow she threw at me just a few seconds before she hurled it. My foresight usually existed as a sort of low-level awareness of what would likely happen in the next few seconds. It was almost like white-noise for the sixth sense; something I could sense but that wasn’t likely to distract me. When I wanted to, I could concentrate on a person or situation and get a clearer and longer-term picture of future possibilities. Even though I could use my ability for every single question from what I should eat for breakfast to who would win the Super Bowl, I chose to limit the use of my foresight for two reasons. First, the future is constantly changing; even the tiniest choice by anyone involved can change the probabilities from one moment to the next. More importantly, calling on my magic or metaphysical talent or what-the-hell-ever is taxing; if I tried to use it for every little thing, I'd never have the energy for anything else. So over the years, I'd developed the talent that had manifested when I was eleven into a delicate tool instead of trying to use it like a sledgehammer. I'd also turned it into an ability to save my own ass—and sometimes other peoples’ as well.

  I was never in any danger from the pillow, but without the foresight, Dylan would have taken out half a pizza and two perfectly good bottles of beer. Thanks to my gift, though, I managed to snatch the pillow out of the air and send it back her direction, where it bounced off t
he wall to land at her feet.

  “I hate that you can do that,” she said.

  “You hate that I can walk without waddling.”

  “You better watch it,” Lori warned, “or next time she’s gonna be throwing something a lot more dangerous than a pillow.”

  “Nah,” I said. “She loves me.”

  It was true, too. I could get away with saying shit to Dylan that no one else —except maybe Elizabeth— would live through. She understood that, from me, smartass remarks and veiled insults were the equivalent of big, snuggly hugs. It was something we had in common.

  Chapter Two

  Despite the uncertain terms of our arrangement, I was glad that Seth had given me a place to live, and I was grateful to Elizabeth for setting it up. When I’d first come to California a few months before, I’d crashed with some friends in San Bernardino. It didn’t take long to realize that my long-distance friendship with Carla and Pam should have stayed long-distance. They were nice ladies, but we had very little in common besides our ties to the magical world. And they had a thing for watching reality TV, which was the proverbial straw that sent me running. I moved into a cheapish hotel, where I usually stayed when I wasn’t guarding a client 24/7. After sleeping on Pam’s couch and then spending a few months bouncing between my clients’ homes and the hotel, having an actual house all to myself sounded like heaven.

  By the time I left the hen party to move into my new digs, it was already pretty late. I took Elizabeth’s key, stopped to grab my gear and check out of my hotel room, and made myself at home at Seth’s place. Just because I could, I helped myself to his Scotch, which I had to water down with Coke before I could stand to drink it. I took my Scotch and Coke upstairs and sipped at it while I unpacked what few things I had with me. I hadn’t been planning on staying gone when I’d left Florida back in March. I hadn’t been planning on a lot of things when I’d left Florida...like having to say goodbye to a man I’d once loved —had still loved, to be honest— while comforting his grieving girlfriend.

  I sighed and pushed Robbie out of my mind. Tonight was a night for celebration, not mourning. I had chosen a direction, plotted my course, and forged ahead. My paperwork was all in order, and I had a place to live. As soon as I could find office space and get my apartment and office in Florida packed and moved, I’d be ready to start a new chapter. No, a whole new story. Jenny Marshall: California Edition.

  Still sipping my drink, I wandered downstairs in search of Seth’s library. As a traveler and a gadget-obsessed geek, he’d graduated to an e-reader or a tablet or somesuch ages ago, but I knew he still had books. I’d seen them —lots of them—somewhere, back when I’d first gotten a tour of the mansion Seth called home, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen them since.

  A systematic approach to my search seemed most logical, so I went with it. I started at the front door and wound my way through the downstairs rooms —foyer, living area, kitchen, home theater, home gym. When that turned up very little, I headed back upstairs to continue my search. I knew the library wasn’t in my bedroom, and I didn’t think I’d seen a lot of books in Seth’s room, either. A handful, yes, but not shelves full. So I poked through the upstairs rooms as I had the down —guest bedroom that had been Elizabeth’s room, linen closet the size of most walk-in closets, extra bedroom that seemed to be serving as a storage area.

  Just when I’d decided I must have imagined finding any books in the house, I poked my head into the last of the extra bedrooms and struck gold.

  Rather than the stuffy formal libraries I’d read about in a million books, this room was a cozy reading nook and informal office. There were a couple of oversized recliners with a table in between them, good reading lamps, and an old-fashioned writing table that would be just about the right size for a laptop. Other than the small bit of space taken up by the writing table, the walls were covered with shelves and shelves of books.

  I moved closer to the shelves and ran my fingers over the spines. Antique volumes shared space with tattered paperbacks. Shakespeare rubbed shoulders with Steinbeck and Sparks. There seemed no rhyme nor reason to the placement of the books, except that those in a series were more or less kept together. I found myself smiling. Knowing Seth, he could find any book he wanted in this chaos at any time but wouldn’t be able to find a thing if they were properly organized. I knew plenty of people who’d be driven nuts by the jumble, but my philosophy is that there is a time and place for everything; the organization, or lack thereof, of someone else’s book collection in his own house...well that’s just not worth getting bent out of shape about.

  I grabbed a book at random. A quick scan of the back cover, and I shoved it back into its spot on the shelf. It took a few more random grabs before I found a book I could live with. I took it and my Scotch back to the bedroom, changed into my version of pajamas, and curled up in bed to read.

  The book had just drawn me in when my cell rang. I thought about letting it go to voice mail, but when I saw Seth’s name on the caller ID, I answered.

  “You all settled in?” he asked. His voice was rough and he sounded tired.

  “Yep. Unpacked, made myself a drink, gave myself a tour of the house, and jacked a book.” I traded the book for my drink and settled more comfortably against the headboard.

  “I told you to stay out of my Scotch,” Seth said.

  I looked down at my drink and blinked a couple of times. “How did you...?”

  “I’ve known you a long, long time, Jen.” He punctuated his declaration with a jaw-cracking yawn.

  “Thanks for the reminder that we’re getting old,” I said. “You sound like shit.”

  “I feel like shit. I think I’m coming down with something. Gonna drown myself in the giant fucking Q when I get off the phone. But you wanted to ‘work out the details.’”

  “It can wait.”

  “AND,” Seth said, raising his voice to talk over me --which had to suck for him-- and continuing like I hadn’t said anything, “I need you to understand that there aren’t any details to work out.” I tried to interrupt, but he added, “No, shut up and let me talk while I still have a voice.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re the most self-sufficient person I know, Jen. I know you don’t need my help. Besides, you really are doing me a favor by watching the place. And I like knowing that you’ll be there when I come into town in a few weeks; I hate being in that house alone. So, yeah...I don’t need rent money.”

  I sighed. “Seth—”

  He cut me off again. “If I needed your services, needed you to...I don’t know…solve some great mystery…would you charge me your going rate?”

  “Of course not,” I had to admit.

  “I don’t need rent money,” he said again. “If it’ll make you feel better, we can work something out. You can send your rent money to a charity or something.” He paused for a second and then added, “Or if you really want to do something for me, you can have a hot, lesbian orgy in my bed and send me the video.”

  I laughed. “I think I’m going to have to pass on that offer, Seth. For a whole lot of reasons.”

  “Damn.”

  I laughed again. “Go to bed, Seth.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Going. Good night, Angel. And stay out of my Scotch.”

  He ended the call before I could respond. Seth always did have to have the last word. I just smiled and went to make myself another drink.

  Chapter Three

  With the question of where I would live answered, I turned my attention to finding office space for my agency. I didn’t need anything fancy, and I didn’t need to be in the middle of the L.A. sprawl. Something humble closer to ‘home’ would work just fine.

  “First things first, though,” I said to myself and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

  I spent several minutes poking around in the pantry, fridge, freezer, and various cabinets. I found coffee for a machine I didn’t know how to work, a crapload of sodas, bottled water, and beer, something
that might have once been a loaf of sandwich bread, some stale chips, and enough liquor to float the Queen Mary. What I didn’t find was anything that I could even pretend to call breakfast.

  I considered finding a coin to flip: heads, I’d get dressed and find grub first; tails, I’d look for an office first. Instead, I examined the coffee maker, trying to figure out how it worked.

  I was still poking at the coffee maker when I heard the front door open and shut. I made a mental note to figure out how many people had keys to my new home and braced myself for an awkward situation.

  “Anybody home?” Elizabeth called out.

  “You’re up early,” I called back.

  “London always manages to wake me up when he leaves for the studio,” she explained as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, a white paper bag in one hand. “I figured I might as well drag my ass out of bed and bring you breakfast.”

  I asked her about the keys and she leaned against the island, looking thoughtful.

  “Hmm. I have London’s, Brian has one, and Teddy. Probably JT...yeah, I’d say about half of L.A.”

  “Joy.”

  “Elizabeth rounded the corner into the kitchen, a white paper bag in her hand. “After you left last night, I remembered the kitchen here was pretty bare. And since London always manages to wake me up when he leaves for the studio, I figured I might as well drag my ass out of bed and bring you breakfast.”

  “Here,” she said, offering me the bag. “This will cheer you up.”

  I took the bag and peeked inside. Then I took a deep whiff. Cinnamon.

  “I knew I liked you,” I said. “If you can show me how this space-age coffee pot works, you might just be my new favorite sister-in-law.”

  Elizabeth smiled so wide, it had to have hurt her face. I think she must have liked the term ‘sister-in-law’ more than I could have imagined. She showed me how to work the coffee maker, and within a few minutes, we were settled at the table with chocolate coffee and cinnamon scones—and Elizabeth still had that smile on her face.