“There was some older guy and an older woman. Gray hair. Serious. He wouldn’t shake my hand.”
She sucked air through her teeth. “Those were her parents. Wow, you went through a portal right into the seventh level of hell.”
I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.
“Look, I don’t know what all was said and done when you walked in there, but I’m gonna tell you this. None of it was her fault. Her brother, Derek? He moved out of the country to avoid introducing his wife to those people. This is not a you thing, it’s a them thing. If I know Ali, she’s probably freaking out right now.”
I felt my blood pressure going down. “Okay.” I tilted my head. “Is her brother really married to Lola Simone?”
“Yup. She never talked to you about Derek?”
“She did. She told me all about him and that he was married. She just didn’t tell me who his wife was, she just called her Nikki.”
“She didn’t even tell me until I saw it in the tabloids, and I’ve known her and Derek for ten years. She’s trustworthy and she keeps promises and she’d respect their privacy, even to you. She’s good like that.”
I puffed air from my cheeks. Well, I guess I couldn’t really be mad at her for doing the right thing.
Bri looked me in the eye. “Look, I know all about you. She tells me. I’ve seen everything but the dick pics. And I’m the only one who matters. Trust me.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Okay.” I nodded. “All right.”
Then my cell phone pinged. I pulled it out. It was Alexis.
“Is that her?” Bri asked.
“Yeah. She sent me an address.”
“Chateau de Chambord Street?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s her house.” She put her hand on the door. “Well, you better head over there. Don’t worry, Neil works until nine. I always check his schedule. I like to spray a little vinegar into his locker while he’s on shift. Let him go home smelling like a salad.”
I laughed. “Thank you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t thank me. Good luck, Daniel. I think you’re going to need it.”
I took the ten-minute drive to the address she sent me. As I wound through the streets, the houses got bigger and bigger and farther apart.
When I pulled up to the address she’d texted me, I stared up in disbelief.
Her house was a mansion. And not the way the Grant House was a mansion. This was the kind of place you saw on TV when you watched shows about celebrities. You could fit half of Wakan’s Main Street on the lawn.
She lived here?
I mean, I knew she had money. She’d offered me fifty thousand dollars like it was nothing. But I didn’t think she had this kind of money. I couldn’t even afford to pay the water bill on a place like this.
I got out of my truck, feeling unsure I should even leave it parked in the driveway. It looked like a clod of dirt dropped on a white linen tablecloth.
Alexis opened the front door before I knocked. She was still in her scrubs, and she’d been crying. She stepped aside without saying a word to let me in, and I peered around quietly.
It was cavernous. And cold.
Everything was gray, like a filter was over it. The floors were white marble and the ceilings were vaulted, which only made the room seem more hollow. Like an ice cave.
She sniffed. “This is where I live.” She said it like an apology.
She led me through the house silently. Our footsteps echoed as we passed an enormous living room with white sofas, a shiny black piano, muted Oriental rugs, expensive-looking paintings. There was a dining room with a table that could seat twenty and a huge crystal chandelier over it. Then a humongous kitchen, one she hadn’t even known how to use until a few months ago.
I remembered her calling me when the power was out and her telling me the stove was gas. I scoffed looking at it now. It was a huge Viking range, nine burners, double oven, a wall-mounted pot filler over it. Here I was thinking I was talking to her about a regular old oven and it was this. It was almost comical.
There were more bathrooms than I could count. Hallways bigger than my loft with marble tables that had fresh flower arrangements the size of my dog sitting on them. A library with twenty-foot-tall bookshelves and a sliding ladder. At one point we saw a maid. She looked at me like I confused her, like maybe I was a new employee or something.
We moved through an office that overlooked a lake out back. There were awards and diplomas hanging. Hers and Neil’s. So many between them, they covered half a wall. PhDs: Yale for him, Stanford and Berkeley for her. There was a pool with a waterfall through the French doors, and I remembered all the times Alexis sat out there to talk to me. Me sitting in my dusty, shitty garage where I made her sleep, and her in this place, like a palace.