Page 75 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“No one ever remembers me!” Emily argued, her features stern.
“They are one of those people who never forget a face.”
Emily chuckled. “Oh, the irony!”
“Is it wrong to say a part of me thinks Emily was too kindand should have probably opted for a more painful way of getting rid of Jason?” Sol said when she, Luke, and Divya finally got in the car after Emily’s arrest. They’d been interviewed by Hunky Dory for hours and had given him the recording of the conversation where Emily had confessed.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Luke asked her from the driver’s seat. He took one of her hands, which lay limp in her lap. He was a bit worried about her.
“He tried incapacitating her!”
“He was a right piece of shite!” Divya agreed from the rear seat of the car.
“He was,” Luke said. “And this is why I’ve been insisting that you shouldn’t get involved. You look like you’ve been run over by a bloody train.”
“Delightful. Apparently, I feel like shit and look like shit,” Sol said.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Luke tried a smooth left turn on Santa Monica Boulevard. Whoever had designed intersections like this deserved his utmost antipathies. “You look beautiful, you always do. But I can see this bloody case has taken an emotional toll on you.”
“I don’t think I had realized before,” Sol said, and she kept her eyes lost on the horizon, not looking at him. “How hard this profession of yours can be.”
“Oh, it’s never this bad!” Divya said. “You just picked the wrong case to be all nosy. The last thing we did in London involved finding a sixty-something-year-old woman who had argued with her brother twenty years ago, and the two of them had lost touch.”
“In the end, they reconciled and it was quite heartwarming,” Luke said, his hand still holding Sol’s.
“Can we all go have dinner—something simple andyummy like pizza or burgers—and get very drunk?” Sol said. She’d finally broken out from her staring-at-the horizon bad spell to turn first to Divya, then to Luke.
His heart eased as he locked eyes with her. His gaze silently promised her love and worship.
“Absolutely,” he told her.
“Sounds dreamy,” Divya agreed.
Sol inputted the address of Burger Lounge in Santa Monica on his cell phone so that the car navigation system guided them there, and the three of them sat in perfect comfort and silence, still mulling over the case.
“Is the client happy?” Sol asked Luke and Divya.
“I talked to the people at Marquee Media before getting interrogated by bloody Hunky Dory,” Luke said. “They did sound happy. Claudia especially. But I’m starting to understand why you were so adamant about not working for her again. The woman isnotnice. She dressed down one of the writers with me on the phone. Had absolutely no problems telling them they were the most mediocre reporter she’d ever worked with.”
“Ai! I feel for them. She really can be the worst.” Sol was reminded of some of her own bad experiences with the editor. “But, tell me, she wants to write about Emily, right?”
“I’m afraid she does,” Luke said.
Sol chuckled. “She’ll have to figure out her last name first.”
“I think that’s probably the reason nothing has been published yet,” Luke said. “But she said she’ll put in a good word for the agency.”
“And mention you in all the articles?” Sol asked, and did she sound chuffed about the idea of the agency getting loads of publicity?
“Something like that, yes,” he conceded.
“And the best thing is, we can finally send all those invoices. And we’re going to charge them extra for working out of town,” Divya contributed.
“Yeah, let’s make that extra hefty,” Luke agreed. The whole away-from-London thing had been extremely uncomfortable.
Sol interlaced her fingers with his, as his right hand was still on her lap, and he smiled. They were going home, and they’d survived that bloody city. Not only that, she’d asked him to move in together. Perhaps Los Angeles hadn’t been such a terrible experience, after all?
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