“Okay, you guys,” Jules whispered. They’d all stopped giggling fast. “Sadie and Rod have got this and we do, too. It’s show time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Present Day
Studio City, California
Mission Day Three
“What if itwasn’tfrom natural causes?” Robin’s question made both Jules and Sam look up from the big table in his sister’s production office conference room. They’d stopped focusing on their breakdown of assignments when the first calls from their future team members starting coming in, reporting terrible but not unexpected stop-and-go traffic on both the 5 and the 405.
No one was arriving anytime soon—the drive from San Diego to LA was more likely going to take four or maybe even five hours instead of the estimated two and a little.
Whoever arrived first, Jules had decided, would go with them out to Devonshire Place to guard the perimeter while he did some digging in the garden. Robin knew that he hopedLindsey Jenkins—former LAPD—would be among the first arrivals, since he still felt very certain that his nighttime gardening was going to yield a body or three. And once that happened, it was best to get the authorities on the scene as quickly as possible.
But right now, Robin had come in to let Jules and Sam know that the food delivery Janey had ordered—BBQ with coleslaw and corn on the cob—had also been delayed. It was now forty-five minutes away. Friday evening traffic was sucking hard everywhere.
He’d sat down across the big table from Jules, his back to the door—which was exactly where Jules had been sitting, all those years ago, when Robin accidentally bumped into him in this very room. It was right after he’d royally fucked up his chance at a real relationship with Jules by getting drunk and sleeping with Jules’s ex.
It was always a little weird to be in here. And doubly so to be here with Jules because they hadn’t been together in this room since that long-ago day in the darkness of Robin’s before-Jules time. This conference room was where Jules had kissed Robin, and where Robin had kissed Jules back for the very first time as Robin—not as some character, some make-believe role he was playing—and he could still remember the heartstopping honesty of that moment in achingly sweet detail.
And he knew Jules remembered it, too. Hard not to. It had been such a painful mix of anger and hurt, of loss and bitter regret.
For Robin, it was as if he’d been reborn, right on this polished hardwood floor. Because mixed deeply beneath his overwhelming fear was the gut-punch recognition of love. He loved Jules—truly, deeply, madly, completely.
Of course, it had taken him much too long to realize that.
God, how far they’d come from that chaotic place where he’d been so desperately unhappy.
Now it was Jules who was struggling—although really to compare his situation to Robin’s brutally self-inflicted wound was shallow and insensitive.
“Gavin LaCrosse,” Robin clarified now as he gazed into the warmth of Jules’s eyes, hyper-aware of just how lucky he’d been that this amazing man had given him a second chance. He didn’t like to think where he’d be if his fight to win Jules’s forgiveness had been met with rejection. “I mean, isn’t it at least alittlesuspicious that you call to set up a visit, and he suddenly dies before you talk to him?”
“It’s less suspicious ’cause hewasa million years old,” Sam pointed out.
“Eighty-nine. And relatively healthy—at least according to his neighbors,” Robin argued, leaning in to read Sam’s timeline, looking for the date of the accident in which Marina Santana had been killed. Nope, it was on the other end of the paper towel roll, so he pushed his chair back and rolled his way down the table to find it. “I think it’s worth checking into. You know, what was his medical history. Did he even have heart issues? What kind of meds was he taking?”
“That’s a good idea,” Jules said. “I’ll add it to our checklist.”
“We’ve got a lot of things to follow up on,” Sam said. “A priority being to track down Ernest Harper.”
“He said he was going to be away for the weekend, but we don’t know where,” Jules said. “He’d mentioned something about checking on Devonshire’s Palm Desert property, but the TS report said he has a place up in Big Bear.”
“Those are the first places to look,” Sam agreed. “Well, really the second,” he added. “We stopped at his office on our way back here—” Robin felt his eyes widen at that news.Funny how Jules hadn’t mentioned that while they were upstairs. Despite being an award-winning actor, when he was caught off-guard, he could not maintain a neutral expression to save his life “—but he’d already left for the day.”
“We were careful,” Jules murmured because no, he had not missed Robin’s unspoken message ofYou seriously went to the office of one of the men you think is behind today’s attempt to kill you?!
“Sorry about my face,” Robin quickly said. “I just... I know. That this is what you do,andthat you’re good at it. I’m okay with it. Really. It’s just... expectations, right? This was supposed to be an easy case, and...” He took a deep breath in and exhaled. “I need to fine-tune my perspective. I mean, it’s better to assume that such a thing doesn’t exist—that aneasycase is a unicorn. I’ll feel better, if you assume that, too.” Like Janey had said earlier, it would definitely be best to not makethatmistake again.
Jules was already nodding in agreement.
Sam shifted in his chair. “What else you been thinking about in that giant head of yours?” he asked Robin.
It was obviously meant to be a distraction. Let the “Boy Wonder” pretend he could help.
But Robin ran with it, because hedidhave more to say, especially when he found the part of the paper-towel timeline that included the exact date of the hit-and-run, which, yes, as he’d remembered showed...
“More Gavin LaCrosse.” He looked up at them to explain. “For most of his career, he was a relatively low-level TV editor. Nearly all his credits on the Internet Movie Database are as assistant.” Neither Sam nor Jules seemed to understand his point, so he elucidated. “It’s a grunt job—assistant editor. It’s something you do for the short term so you can move up the ladder and become a real editor. But Gavin never did. Hejust stayed where he was for decades, which is pretty strange. Like... did he maybe have an issue with drugs or alcohol? What held him back? I mean, sure maybe he just sucked, creatively, when it came to actually editing film, but...” He shook his head. “Also, why did he end up on Milt Devonshire’s personal payroll? I can’t figure that out. Maybe, yeah, like Harper said, he had some brilliant idea for a TV show that Devonshire produced, but...really? That seems so unlikely for someone so consistently unambitious. But I’ve been thinking about it, and see, if you turn that why-did-Gavin-end-up-on-the-payroll question around, it becomesWhy would Milt Devonshire need an assistant film editor, or really any kind of film editor?” He looked across the table at Jules, whose head had come up from his laptop at that last question, surprise and a dawning awareness in his eyes. “You said something about a leaked video tape that you wanted me to look at—I’m not sure exactly why, but I think you said it was a tape that played a big part in Milt Junior taking a guilty plea for that manslaughter charge...?”
