The Private Concierge

SUZANNE FORSTER

“No one combines steamy suspense and breathless thrills like Suzanne Forster!”

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips

“Crackling sexual tension, a twisty mystery and some genuinely dastardly villains make this a fast, fun read.”

—BookPage on The Arrangement

“Hatreds and agendas converge with very wily plot twists as Forster brings her story to an unforeseen ending…a very original and clever story.”

—The Romance Reader on The Arrangement

“Only a writer of Forster’s skill could take the reader to the dark places in this story.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Lonely Girls Club

“An electrifying romantic suspense thriller that grips the audience…and never lets up.”

—The Best Reviews on The Lonely Girls Club

“Forster blends nail-biting suspense and steamy sexual tension into a seamless romantic thriller.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Morning After

“[Forster is] a stylist who translates sexual tension into sizzle.”

—Los Angeles Daily News

SUZANNE FORSTER

THE PRIVATE CONCIERGE

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks must go to Sergeant Podeska of the West Los Angeles Police Station for sharing his insights about crime and punishment in the west L.A. area. Surely our one conversation set records for producing usable information. It was a pleasure—and if there’s an award for demonstrating grace with rapid-fire questions and patience with a few obtuse ones, the sergeant richly deserves it.

Also, my deep gratitude to the ace concierge team at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, who will forever remain anonymous to ensure their continued employment. With great good humor they endured my quest for information about the concierge field and everything else relating to Century City and its environs. Plus, they answered questions no concierge should ever have to. Their restaurant recommendations and directions were great, too.

Finally, to reference librarians everywhere, and in particular to the Amazing William of the Los Angeles Public Library, for help above and beyond. And while I’m at it, I can’t forget the entire reference staff at the Newport Beach Public Library, my hometown branch and personal hangout.

Thank you all!

Prologue

Cox, Lucy: juvenile unit, prostitution

Case File: COX022378 15 lapd.juv.dtb

Closed: March 3, 1993

Sealed by Court Order: April 10, 1993

H e removed the legal-size folder from the file cabinet and gave the label a moment of reflection before opening it. Fifteen years ago, he’d stashed copies of the contents of the original case file in this locked cabinet in his home office. It was enough security for his purposes, although he would bring serious suspicion on himself if the file was ever discovered. The case was closed and had been sealed at the request of the juvenile offender, and the L.A. County Courthouse had the only official copy.

But he didn’t work for the law anymore. He worked for himself.

He sat down at his desk, opened the folder and looked at the last entry he’d made in the file: February 23, 1993: She walks free today, her eighteenth birthday. God help the weak of will and the feeble of mind, especially if they’re male.

He almost smiled, remembering his supervisor’s reaction. He’d taken some flack for this case, enough to end his law enforcement career. But he could also remember a time when he’d been more concerned about her, Lucy Cox, than about any unwary man who might cross her path.

Not anymore. He reached for a black-ink ballpoint, the kind he’d preferred for making case notes when he’d been a vice cop in the downtown L.A. bureau. He considered assigning the case a new number, but decided to stay with the original, based in part on his theory that people, like lab rats, didn’t change, they just learned new strategies for getting what they needed. Cynical, maybe, but he had more reason than most men to be that way.

He clicked the push-button pen and began writing the first new entry in fifteen years. It was about her, who she was today and why she hadn’t changed, either. And it was in his own words, his own unfiltered thoughts, because he had every intention of destroying these notes when he’d done what he had to do. No one would ever read this file but him.

Case Notes: Wednesday, October 9, 11:00 p.m.

Her real name is Lucia Cox. She changed it to avoid any association with her criminal past. But she hasn’t left her past behind. She’s still selling what everybody wants. She’s just found a way to make it legal.

He paused, aware of his quickening pulse. This was getting to him, getting too personal. And that was the problem. It was personal. He set down the pen, unable to write as fast as his thoughts were coming. She’d had the power at fifteen when he put her in jail. She was thirty now. She’d been free and on her own since eighteen, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that she’d planned her steps carefully, including choosing the perfect profession. She had some of the country’s highest-profile people in her care.

It should have been a match made in heaven for all concerned, except that Lucy’s clients were dropping like flies, being brought down by scandal, innuendo, and now, death. And no one seemed to get the connection but him. Her clients moved in the special spheres of power and privilege, isolated from the real world and its rules, and from anyone who would dare to tell them the truth. When you were that isolated, who really knew you better than your hairstylist, your personal trainer…or your private concierge?

1

Saturday, October 5

Four days earlier

Ned Talbert hit the brakes so hard his Alfa Romeo Spider snorted and its wheels dug into the gravel like a pawing bull. The back end lifted as if the sports car was about to do a somersault, and Ned’s knees knocked against the dash.

Geysering pebbles splattered the windshield.

He heaved himself back, grunting as the steering wheel disengaged from his ribs. Amazing the air bags hadn’t inflated. He’d barely missed colliding head-on with the entrance gate to Rick Bayless’s cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains.

The gate wasn’t just closed, it was padlocked. Even in the falling light, Ned spotted the shiny new lock as he struggled to get out of the Spider. His legs were jelly. Padlocked? Rick never padlocked the gate—and it wasn’t even 5:00 p.m., too early to close up the place for the night.

Ned broke into a run and didn’t stop. He could see he wasn’t going to get the gate open so he coiled and vaulted the chain-link mesh, leaving a strip of his pant leg on the scrollwork, leaving the door hanging open to his obscenely expensive new car, leaving it all behind, and running like a madman up the road to the darkened mountain cabin a thousand feet away.

Bayless had to be in there.

Ned could have been running the bases at Dodger Stadium. He could have been in the heat of a playoff game, that’s how adrenalized he was. But he wasn’t going to make it to home plate this time. Not without his friend’s help.

It was getting dark, but no light glowed in the cabin windows. Rick’s Jeep Commander sat in the driveway. Maybe he was taking a nap. Ned took all three porch steps in one leap and pounded on the creaky wooden door. No answer. He kept hammering, using his fist and making the door buckle with each blow. How could anyone sleep through this noise? He wondered about the odds of Rick having a girl in there. Ned had never known him to do that, but the way Ned’s luck was going, this would be the time. He hated the thought of interrupting them, but he had no choice. His life was in crisis.

“Rick, you in there?” he bellowed.

Ned hit the door with his shoulder and realized it was bolted. He was going to have to kick it in. Two blows shattered the wood enough that he could reach inside and open the bolt. The interior was dark, but light from the doorway revealed the lower torso of a man sitting in a straight-back chair by the far wall. Ned could see his denim jeans and his bare feet, but little else. His face and shoulders were masked by shadows. It looked like an interrogation scene, except that no one else was in the room.

Ned didn’t notice the gun until he saw Rick’s hands. They were in his lap, cradling a Colt .357 Python. Rick was a former vice cop. He’d carried a gun as long as Ned could remember.

Ned’s legs were jelly again. His whole body was limp.

“Rick, what the hell.” It wasn’t a question. It was a howl of despair. Ned knew what the hell was going on. He knew why Rick had a gun in his hands, and what he intended to do with it—and he couldn’t, by any stretch of good conscience, try to stop his friend, or even change his mind.

Ned knew the whole wretched story. It made no sense that Rick Bayless should be dealing with this. He was young, forty-two years old and in his physical prime. Ned had been jealous of Rick all his life, even though Ned was the star athlete. Hell, women swooned, or whatever it was women did around men who made their eyes lose focus and their minds swim with thoughts of drowning sex. They loved the dude, but only from a distance. No one really got close to Rick Bayless, not even Ned, and they had been friends since…forever.

“Buddy, are you sure? This is it? There aren’t any do overs.”

Ned’s voice broke, and Rick looked up. Ned couldn’t see his friend’s face, but he could see the movement of his head in the shadows. Rick’s gaze could burn paper, and those incinerating rays were now fixed on him. But his voice was tuned low, almost surprised.

“Ned, what are you doing here?”

Ned thought about whether he should tell him the truth, but then blurted it out. “I’ve got a problem, man. It’s bad. I’ve been looking for you everywhere, down at your place in Manhattan Beach, at Duke’s on the pier. I even checked out the old orange grove where you go to walk and think.”

Rick said nothing, which was significant because nothing wasn’t “Get out of here.” It wasn’t “Take care of your own damn problems for a change.”

Ned felt hope slam through him. It nearly knocked him over. Maybe he could talk his friend out of it? Rick was a sucker for a hard-luck story, and this one was the God’s truth.

“I’m being blackmailed. I’m getting anonymous calls from some crazy dude who thinks I’m into hard-core sexual sadism—whips and chains and leaving burn marks on my girlfriend’s genitals. It’s sick, man. He faxed me a picture that I swear isn’t me and Holly, but it looks like us. He’s threatening to fax the tabloids unless I throw the next game.”

Ned’s throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow. It sounded like he was strangling, and the pain was peppery hot. It radiated up his jaw.

He waited for his friend, and finally, Rick shook his head.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“I wish I could help.”

Another blow to Ned’s solar plexus. It felt as if his car had hit the gate and flipped this time. Ned wanted to cry. He fucking did. This should not be happening. God shouldn’t do things like this.

“Rick,” he implored, “we go back a long way, all the way. Don’t shut me out now. What can I do to help you?”

“You can leave, Ned. It’s all right. Really, it is.”

Rick’s voice echoed as if it were coming from somewhere else, heaven or another dimension. Ned gaped at the gun. He couldn’t seem to look anywhere else. He was waiting for Rick to say something else, but it didn’t happen.

Rick’s fingers curled possessively around the weapon he held. It was the only thing that mattered to him now, Ned realized, the instrument of his deliverance. He was going to do it.

“You can’t put this off long enough to help a friend who’s in deep trouble?” Ned croaked. “Are you really that determined? Are you really that selfish?”

“Goodbye, buddy.”

Ned nodded, but he couldn’t say anything, not even goodbye. “Yeah” was all he could manage before his throat sealed off.

Somehow he got his shaky legs to the shattered door and closed it behind him, praying that his friend would at least let him get out of earshot. Ned would collapse if he heard that gun go off. If it had been anyone other than Rick, any situation other than this, he would have wrestled the gun away. But there was no way to save Rick. The kindest thing was to let him be. But it was a damn tragedy.

Ned picked his way down the rutted road, knowing he could easily sprain an ankle in one of the deep holes. He had a home game coming up this weekend, and another practice tomorrow.

He almost laughed, but it was the kind of laughter that scorched everything it touched. How crazy was it that he was worried about twisting his ankle when his life was crashing down around him? Everything was on the line, his career, his reputation—

And his best friend was back in that cabin with a gun to his head.

At that moment what Ned recalled most clearly about Rick was the hellishly hard time he’d had teaching the big lug how to swim when they were overgrown sixteen-year-olds. Rick had a morbid fear of water. He’d never told Ned why, but it was crucial that Rick learn to swim, because the two of them had a plan. As soon as they turned seventeen, they were going to quit school, join the army, try out for Delta Force and become bona fide heroes. What better way to escape their drug-infested cesspool of a neighborhood than by fighting the enemies of freedom and democracy? Christ, those were innocent days.

Ned had been a magnet for trouble, and Rick was always bailing him out, but in that one small area, Ned had held the upper hand—Rick’s fear of water. Too bad their plan didn’t work. Even if Rick had learned to swim well enough to make Delta Force, it wouldn’t have mattered. A stomach ailment had kept Ned out, and Rick wouldn’t join without him.

Tears burned his eyes, but what came out of his mouth was helpless laughter. Rick was still scared shitless of water. But no one could deny his courage in cleaning up the streets of downtown L.A. when he’d worked in vice. He’d focused on runaway kids, drugs and street prostitution. The man was a legend. He’d actually busted a city-sponsored youth hostel that was exploiting the kids, and got local businesses to fund a new one, with a rehab staff and vocational classes. Not that he’d ever been officially recognized for it.

He and the brass had butted heads repeatedly, and Rick had finally left the force in a storm of controversy after Rick exposed a sex scandal involving several prominent businessmen. But that was years ago. Now he did private consulting work that couldn’t be discussed, for clients who couldn’t be named.

Ned came to the gate and stopped, wondering how he was going to vault it. He hoped to God his friend was making the right decision. And he hoped he’d just made the right one by leaving. There was nothing left now but to go home and deal with the puke the sky had vomited on his life. It was a filthy, stinking mess, and unless he could find some way to clean it up, baseball stardom as he knew it was over.

“Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way,” Ned said under his breath. It was a Pattonism that he and Rick had barked at each other repeatedly, ad nauseam, when they were kids, sometimes just for fun, but it could be a call to arms, as well. They had grown to adulthood in downtown Los Angeles, an urban jungle, and too often those three options were their only clear choices. Tonight, Ned was getting the hell out of the way.

Sunday, October 6

Three days earlier

Ginger Sue Harvey started every morning at the Midlands’ Gourmet Grocery by straightening the stock on the shelves and cleaning up after customers who moved things around and left them hither and yon. She’d clerked at the store for years, but now, as the newly appointed manager, she took special pride in restoring order and preserving the folksy charm of the converted mountain chalet. And she’d long ago divided her customers into two categories—destroyers and preservers.

No way around it, the ones who messed up her magnificent produce displays or moved merchandise from aisle to aisle were, without a doubt, destroyers. Some even left open boxes of cookies and chomped-on apples lying around. They made her want to call the police. There should be a special cell for people who filched produce and abandoned it, half-eaten and usually already rotting before Ginger Sue found it. The arrogance, the unmitigated arrogance. Really.

But since she couldn’t be calling the cops every day, she punished the destroyers by withholding new product samples. They would have none of the rich black olive butter and Seminole flour crackers she would lay out later today. Now, the preservers, they would be heaped with her gratitude and generosity. She might even make up little gift baskets for them to take home. It was Ginger Sue’s own special brand of behavior modification.

As she straightened the candy bars, gum and other impulse items on her countertop, she saw him through the window. He was putting change in the newspaper box. Her heart kicked into a higher gear, embarrassing her. Apparently she’d been hoping Rick Bayless would show up, even though he was one of the destroyers. He’d been especially bad yesterday when he stopped in for some things on the way up to his cabin.

He’d bought a padlock and two bolt locks and a stack of bath towels, but even more odd was what he didn’t buy. No food or drinks, nothing at all like the overflowing cart he usually brought to her checkout stand. You wouldn’t think a man buying locks could do much damage, but he’d knocked over her magazine stand like he was in a trance. She’d forgiven him that because she could see something was wrong. His expression was bleak, a man under siege. His clenched jaw was the dam against whatever emotion threatened.

She’d asked if he was all right. Of course, he’d said yes. He never talked much, but when you had this man’s unmistakable military bearing, close-cropped sandy hair and pale green eyes, you didn’t need to. Women were happy to fill in the blanks.

Ginger Sue hadn’t stopped filling in blanks since she’d met him, maybe two years ago when he’d bought his mountain cabin for cash on the barrelhead, or so the rumor went. She wouldn’t have thought twice about calling him handsome, despite the scar on his cheek and the notch on his upper lip, maybe even the kind of guy who broke hearts. But she figured it might be just the opposite. Woman trouble could explain his quiet manner and his way of looking at you from an angle, like he was guarding something.

Ginger Sue liked Rick Bayless, although she wasn’t sure why. She was also rather fond of his friend, the baseball player, who sometimes came up to the cabin with a girl in tow. He was polite and respectful, and he struck her as a kind soul, but Ginger Sue couldn’t say she approved of his taste in women. The one he’d had with him lately was a little on the flashy side, with her brightly painted nails and her ankle bracelet. She even wore a ring with a tiny precious gem on her second toe. Ginger Sue called that tacky—and she’d pegged the woman right away as the gold-digger type.

She gave her countertop another swipe with the disinfectant rag as the bell over the door jingled. In Bayless came, paper tucked under his arm. It wasn’t even nine, so he’d probably come down the mountain for some coffee, as he often did when he was in residence. Her store was in the village about twenty minutes’ walk from his place.

As he came closer, she saw that he was unshaven and bleary-eyed, as if he’d been on an all-night toot. It struck her that he might be grieving some loss, although that was probably a silly romantic notion. Keep it simple, sweetie. It’s just a hangover.

“Morning, Mr. Bayless. Anything I can help you with?” she asked.

“Just getting some coffee from the bar, thanks.”

Ginger Sue watched to see if his hand was unsteady as he held his plastic cup under the spigot. “You want a cinnamon bun?” she asked. “That’d go good with your coffee.” She’d heard cinnamon was some kind of sexual turn-on for men. Who knew? It might make him feel better.

When he came over to pay he set down the coffee and dug a money clip from the pocket of his jeans. He let the paper slip from under his arm and it fell open on the counter. As he laid down a five, Ginger Sue turned the paper around and skimmed the headline: Star Outfielder Dies in Murder-Suicide. The color picture of a crime investigation and the insert of a familiar male face caught her eye next.

Ned Talbert? Was that his friend, the baseball star? “Mr. Bayless, did you see this?”

She turned the paper around so he could view it. He’d just taken a sip of his coffee, and he let out a strange, strangled sound. Clearly he hadn’t seen the headline until that moment. Black coffee exploded from his cup as it hit the counter.

“Oh!” Ginger Sue ducked behind the counter, shielding her face with her arms. By the time she came back up, he was gone, flying out the door like a crazy man. The bell rang madly as the door crashed shut behind him.

She grabbed her rag and mopped quickly, but there was no way to stem the steaming morass. He’d scared her half to death, and look at the mess he’d made of her countertop. The coffee had already soaked a stack of TV Guide magazines and some credit-card receipts she hadn’t yet filed. That kind of behavior was enough to get a customer banned from her store, but right now, she just wanted to know what was going on.

2

Rick felt dread bloom in the pit of his stomach, cold and wet, like clammy flesh. He was only a few minutes from Ned’s place in Pacific Palisades, and Rick knew what he would find there, a crime scene in progress. He’d seen a million of them, but this wouldn’t look like anything he recognized. The corpse would not be a lifeless shell to be pitied, lamented and then analyzed down to the last gruesome detail. This was his friend, someone Rick knew only as warm, vital and human. Ned was a living, breathing part of him. And, worse, instead of wearing a badge that would give Rick jurisdiction over the nightmare, instead of taking charge and righting wrongs, he would be helpless to do anything.

His knuckles were blood-white against the steering wheel. He’d made the drive from the mountains to the beach in record time, despite having to ditch a cop in the foothills. The dread had been living inside him since he read the newspaper, but it hadn’t had a chance against his abject disbelief. Not Ned. No way. He couldn’t be dead. He was all that was left of their goofy boyhood dreams. He was supposed to carry the torch, be the man.