or do something. She knew how much he loved Ruby. Was he really going to let his father steal his and Ruby’s one chance to be happy together?
But Forrest just stared at the floor and gave a small nod. “Yes, sir.”
Gloria could feel the chill of Pembroke’s gaze on her. “You, Gloria,” he said, “are going to be at that wedding. My contacts tell me your G-man expects you there. And we’ll be there with you, because I don’t trust you and we’re not letting you out of our sight. So long as you don’t misbehave, afterward you can spring your boyfriend. By then we’ll be long gone.”
Gloria peered quickly at Forrest, who still seemed to be trying to read some kind of hidden wisdom in the carpet.
“All right,” Gloria said. What choice did she have? “But if you hurt Jerome, you’d better believe you’ll be climbing onto that boat with a bullet in your back.”
Pembroke laughed again and slapped his thigh. “You really took that thing I said about moxie to heart, didn’t you? That’s what makes you a good performer, kid—you know your audience.” He stood and put the chair back by the desk. He turned back to Gloria and Forrest and clapped his hands. “Great, so we all know the roles we’re playing here.” He glanced at the others outside, then at Forrest. “I believe you have a chess game to finish.”
Pembroke moved in front of her when she tried to follow Forrest through the French doors. “Meanwhile, Miss Carmody, your telephone privileges are cut off.” He leaned closer so that he was speaking directly into her ear. “And believe me, I’ll know if you try to place a call here or anywhere else. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”
Then Pembroke approached the end table where the telephone Gloria had used earlier was sitting. In one swift move, he yanked the telephone straight out of the wall. It fell to the floor with a jangle.
He cracked his knuckles and glanced at Gloria. She tried not to let him see her hands trembling.
“Now,” Pembroke said, his voice an older version of Forrest’s when he was at the height of his charm. “Why don’t you go out and enjoy the day with my boy and his friends? After all, it is a lovely time of year.”
CLARA
Clara sifted through the contents of her file on Deirdre Van Doren. “I don’t see why I have to go to the wedding.”
She and Parker sat around the expansive oak table in one of the Manhattanite conference rooms with Solomon, the private dick who had proven invaluable to Clara’s research on Deirdre Van Doren. The rumpled PI was actually a real swell once you got past that top layer of snark.
They’d been working for hours—it had been early morning when they’d started and now Clara could hear reporters chattering outside about which restaurant to order lunch from. Clara had forgotten all about food. She’d been subsisting purely on cup after cup of strong coffee.
“I know you’re not too keen on watching Lover Boy marry someone else tomorrow afternoon,” Parker said with a cruel grin. He wore a deep-burgundy suit today with a skinny blue silk tie. “But you’re just going to have to suck it up. Real journalists learn to put their feelings aside.”
Clara picked up a photo of Deirdre that Solomon had taken. “Not having them in the first place must make the job real easy for you, then.”
Solomon scratched his neck. Clara could tell he was getting annoyed—sitting here while she and Parker fought like children. Solomon had been tailing Deirdre for the past week on the Manhattanite’s dime, and doing a much better job of it than Clara and Lorraine.
Clara raised the picture, held it underneath the shoddy light from one of the lamps. Deirdre wasn’t doing anything incriminating in the photo, but the way she happened to be looking over her shoulder as she walked across the Barnard campus had a distinctly smarmy feel to it. It would be great for the cover of next month’s Manhattanite.
Provided Clara got enough evidence to write the exposé at all.
“Stare at that long enough and you’ll give yourself a headache,” Parker said, taking a swig from the coffee cup in his hand.
Clara ignored him and walked to the corkboard on the wall, which was quickly filling with everything from copies of old police records to notes Clara had taken on a napkin from that greasy diner across from Priscilla’s. She tacked the picture