Identity Crisis(12)

‘Exactly,’ Don said. ‘K. Ryde almost single-handedly turned Barnet’s career around. Very few people know this. I only know it because, as I said, the Ryde Agency is the competition, and when K. Ryde agreed to take on Barnet personally, well, the Bachman agency didn’t stand a chance.

‘It’s a miracle I was able to get hold of him, actually. I took a chance with an old email address. K. Ryde is almost as elusive as Tess Delaney, but when the rich and famous have a PR disaster they need taken care of discreetly, it’s the Ryde Agency they go to. To this day Barnet won’t say a word about K. Ryde, only that Ryde’s the best, that Ryde’s a genius. There are no photos of them together, no text or email trails, no sightings, and God knows the paparazzi tried.

‘Apparently K. Ryde no longer has much involvement in the business. They say he’s retired. Maybe he’s a romance fan. I don’t know. But for Tess Delaney, he’s willing to do what he can.’

‘Look, I don’t care if you’ve got to call God out of retirement,’ Garrett said. ‘I don’t want to out Tess, so what can this Ryde fellow do for me?’

‘Turns out he has contact with a woman who loves Tess Delaney novels, who happens to live close to the Portland area, and who’s dying to meet Tess Delaney and do whatever Tess needs. Of course I didn’t tell Ryde the details; just told him what we needed, and that we needed the woman yesterday.’

Garrett sat up on the edge of his chair and wiped a suddenly sweaty palm against his jeans. ‘And?’

‘I told Ryde that there would have to be some coaching to make sure the woman could do what Tess needed her for and that this was top, top secret.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well,’ Don said. ‘I talked to the woman last night extensively, and if she can’t be your Tess Delaney, I don’t know who can. If you pull up your email, I’ve sent you her address. You set the time, and she’s yours.’

With fingers none too steady on the keys, Garrett pulled up his email and, sure enough, there was a message from Don with the address for a Kay Lake. ‘Got it,’ he said. Then he hung up and emailed the woman he hoped would save his bacon.

Dear Ms. Lake,

Ms. Delaney has agreed to interview you for the position. Can you meet tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the Pneuma Annex? Suite 3B.

Best wishes,

Gary Rose

Secretary to Tess Delaney

He sent the message off. It was brief. He’d found that brief was always better when keeping a secret was essential. Even when Tess was quoted in press releases, it was always very brief, very Garbo-ish. It wasn’t the first time he’d used one of the Pneuma Annex offices for official Tess Delaney business and, though Ellis grumbled about it, he always kept suite 3B open for him. And Garrett had always used the name Gary Rose for Tess’s secretary. Somehow it seemed right that Tess should have a male secretary. It was really only a way to give Tess Delaney and Garrett Thorne one more level of separation to protect their anonymity. He’d never had to meet anyone face to face before. He wondered if he should find someone to be Gary Rose this time too, but then that was another complication he didn’t need, and time was quickly running out. Besides, if he didn’t trust Don’s opinion on his future female self, he sure as hell wasn’t going to trust someone he’d hired off the street. After all, he was screening for the perfect Tess Delaney.

Almost immediately the response came back.

Dear Mr. Rose,

Tomorrow at 2.00 is fine for me. I look forward to it.

All the best,

Kay Lake

For a long time Garrett stared at the screen. He hoped this Ryde Agency was as good as Don said and that they truly had found him the right Tess Delaney. He was furious at being put in this position. Right now, he just wanted it all behind him, Golden Kiss nomination or not. He picked up a fountain pen and began to write on the back of a sheet of his waste paper again.

I’m not comfortable with any of what’s going on. There’s so little time to prepare. I don’t know who Kay Lake is, and that makes me really nervous. It makes me nervous that she’ll know my secret, it makes me nervous that the myth and the reality of Tess Delaney are about to collide in a very dangerous way.

But when I think about it, I suppose I’ve never really pictured Tess as anything but dangerous. Who could I ever tell that Tess writes my soul in a way I never could do it myself when I was younger and writing testosterone-laced shoot-’em-ups? I would have rather been the King of the Thriller. That was my dream. Then Tess shoved her way into my life, and instead, I’m the Queen of Romance. How the hell did that happen?