Page 5 of Scripted for Love and Poison
Of course, there had been no drooling coming from her while she slept on the plane. The woman had some faults—lack of patience being the worst—but he had yet to catch her in a bad moment. Not even fresh out of bed and hungover did she look disheveled.
But Luke was tired and sore from the long flight, and he was afraid he didn’t look exactly refreshed after the shower. As if lack of sleep wasn’t bad enough, Sol had taken him on anemergencyshopping trip in the mall next to their hotel. Maybe that was what Sol meant by centric? The fact that the hotel was flanked by a labyrinth of seamlessly endless small high-end stores and at least three department stores.
After three bags full of garments that would get any normal person dressed for a month and a falsely advertisedquickvisit to a beauty shop, they had left all the merchandise in their room. Luke had given the California king-sized bed an appreciative, lusty look, but he hadn’t been permitted to act on his desires.
He was so sleepy that he had stopped by the first random place in search of a much-needed (and craved for) English breakfast tea. Sol had said something about going someplace different, but it was a simple tea. It shouldn’t be that hard. Apparently, it was, and itreallyhit him then that he no longer was in the UK. He was served hot water in a paper cup. The barista had added a splash of milk on top of it and then they’d opened a wooden box by the register with tea bags so that Luke chose his preferred one and dunked it himself in the now extra-lukewarm milky water.That thing was never going to be the right strength, color—or flavor.
After the tea calamity, he and Sol sat in traffic inside an Uber, trying to reach Simon Smith’s home across town. For some reason unbeknownst to Luke, public transportation hadn’t been an option to make their way there, even though he’d been assured the critic’s home was also in acentriclocation. He was starting to believe the word meant a completely different thing across the Atlantic Ocean.
“This couldn’t get more LA authentic,” Sol said enthusiastically.
Was she really trying to make the fact that they were stuck in the worst kind of rush-hour traffic sound like the perfect touristic experience?
In her defense, he hadn’t been exactly transparent with her about his lack of knowledge of the Californian city. Sol was under the impression that Luke had been to Los Angeles and had visited all the landmarks during a work assignment several years before. And while that had been technically true, the reality was that he’d been too busy and tired to get to know the place or enjoy it.
It had been a full week of endless driving and fast-food consumption, trailing their client’s ex-husband, who’d just moved to Los Angeles from London. The client had wanted Luke’s agency to find something about his ex, anything that would render him ineligible to get their children’s custody. Or some story similar to that one—Luke didn’t remember all the particulars. The case had happened almost ten years before, when he’d just started working in his first agency as a contractor. He was so junior—and young, merely twenty-three and out of uni—that he’d been employed mostly as the driver and errand person of the senior detective.
Driving in that city had been an absolute bore thatoccupied most of his days there. Congestion and bad traffic were such common occurrences that he couldn’t remember going more than 10 mph, on the motorway or the streets. He still could savor the elation he’d felt when the case had been deemed over and he was able to return to London. When his flight from Los Angeles to London had touched ground at Heathrow, he’d almost been one of those enthusiastic clapping passengers on planes. He suspected that trip, and Los Angeles, had instigated his longtime dislike of travel.
But he was with Sol now. If there was someone who could bring the charm up in Los Angeles for Luke, it was her.
“Remind me again, where does this mate we’re looking for live?” he asked, taking Sol’s hand, which had been resting on the car’s seat, and lacing his fingers with hers.
“North of Montana in Santa Monica, quite close to my old place actually,” she said.
“Really? Should we go and visit your old neighborhood after checking on the critic?”
Sol had shared a few details about the decade that she’d spent in Los Angeles after leaving Barcelona in her twenties, but she’d never been forthright about her California era. Luke was curious about the years she’d lived there before her move to London and before meeting him.
“Not sure there’s anything interesting to see there,”she told him, hoping Luke wouldn’t insist.
Sol’s second and least favorite ex-husband still lived in the house they’d both shared in Santa Monica, and the last thing she wanted was to accidentally run into him while strolling through the old neighborhood. “But we can go to the beach after this. I think we’re here,” she said, checkingher cell phone and making sure their driver had reached their destination.
They thanked their driver and got out of the car in front of a new-construction, courtyard-style apartment building. Sol was trying to figure out how to get access to the building if Simon was indeed not there—or not answering the door—when she saw the police cars and uniformed officers crowding the sidewalk by the building’s entrance.
“Is everything okay?” she asked one of the closest officers, who looked to be in charge and was in plain clothes.
“Afternoon, ma’am, everything is hunky dory,” the officer said. He was around her height and looked to be in his forties. Sol just wanted people to stop calling herma’am. “How can I help you?”
“We’re here to see a friend of a friend and were wondering if we could get inside the building,” Sol started, and she realized she had no clue where Luke had gone. He’d gotten out of the car with her, but he was nowhere in sight now.
“Afraid the building is off-limits right now unless you’re a neighbor. Do you happen to live here?” The officer had an extremely musical Southern Californian accent.
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I can’t let you in, ma’am,” the officer said with the most fastidious smile.
“But see, my friend really wants me to check on her friend who lives here. I’ve come all the way from London.”
“You flew from London for a house visit?”
“What? Of course not. But since we were already in Los Angeles?—”
“Then I’m sure you’ll be able to come back at a less inconvenient time,” the officer went on with his best smile.
Sol was going to protest despite the futility of it, but she saw Luke coming her way.
“Want to go to the beach now, cara?” he asked her, and she would have tried to persuade him to stay and help her convince the officer to let them in the building, but she recognized the hint of mischief in Luke’s eyes.
