Jamil said. “And look what we have here. Paul Gilliard arrived at the Otis Estate at four forty-one on Friday afternoon. And at least according to the footage we have, it looks like he never left.”
He turned back to Jessie with a gleam in his eye.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now,” Jessie told them both, “I think it’s time we got to know Mr. Gilliard a little better.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jasper Otis was having a rough week, and almost all of it had to do with the Estradas.
As he walked down the hall from his business office in East House back to the residence in West House, he did a mental check-in to review where he stood. He had ongoing challenges with Beto, which would hopefully be definitively resolved soon. But the problems stemming from Beto’s ex-wife, Milly, were more immediately pressing.
What had begun as helping out an old friend had gotten unexpectedly messy. He had known from the first second there was a problem, when his cell phone rang at 3:30 a.m. and the caller ID said it came from his own bedroom. When he picked up, he heard Paul Gilliard’s desperate voice on the line.
“I screwed up, buddy,” Paul said. “And I need your help.”
“What is it?”
“I was with Milly Estrada, you know the lawyer? We were getting hot and heavy in your room and I took a little something to amp everything up and it got out of control. I got too excited, I guess, and I accidentally…yanked her neck too hard and it broke. She’s dead, Jasper.”
“What?” Jasper had asked, not sure he’d heard it right.
“I guess I don’t know my own strength and with everything I’m on right now, I didn’t even realize what I’d done.”
Jasper remembered trying to process the information as he lay next to the barely legal model he’d spent most of the last hour with, the one whose name he didn’t want to tell the cops because she had only officially turned eighteen hours earlier. Suddenly his raucous bacchanal had turned into a potentially empire-destroying nightmare. He remembered getting up and going into the bathroom where he could whisper without being heard.
“Just turn yourself in, Paul,” he’d insisted. “I’ll get you the best lawyers. We’ll show that it was the drugs that did this, not you.”
“You don’t get it,” Paul pleaded. “Milly was the best lawyer. She’s the one who saved me when I got in trouble before. If I turn myself in, all of that will come out. I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison.”
Jasper, who was feeling the effects of some chemicals he’d ingested over the course of the night, felt panic rise in his chest.
“They’re going to find out it was you, Paul. They’ll check for DNA or something. Better to go on offense and massage the story as best you can.”
“No,” Paul said emphatically. “We never actually did anything so there’s nothing to trace. Besides, I put her in your shower with the water running. Any physical evidence will be washed away. By the time she’s found, there will be nothing to collect. And if you have your maids clean up the place as soon as she’s discovered, then that will compromise the crime scene.”
“How am I supposed to justify doing that when the cops come?” Jasper hissed.
“I don’t know. Just say you couldn’t have a dead body in your bathroom—that it was too much for you. The police around here aren’t going to push you, of all people, too hard.”
“It’s too risky,” Jasper persisted.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Somehow, he knew what was coming.
“You know what was risky?” Paul said coldly. “Putting my career on the line for you. Do I have to remind you about that party where I found you with that girl? Do you remember how I convinced her mom not to go to the cops by giving her a producer credit on my movie? Do you remem—?”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” Jasper said. “You don’t have to go there. We’ll get this done.”
But now, three days later, it still wasn’t done. He was barely holding off the cops. Paul was still holed up in his home. And the possibility that his own proclivities might come to light was still frighteningly real.
He had to convince Paul that it was time to go. Oscar-winning matinee idols didn’t just drop off the grid for days on end anymore. He was going to be missed soon. And if he was still