“How did you know where to go?” Detective Cooper asked.
Olly shrugged again and fixed his gaze on the wall behind the detective. “Rich must’ve figured it out.” Beads of sweat were running down his spine.
“Why did he need you to go with him?”
“Rich doesn’t have a car.” Olly went on to describe the encounter with Kane, including the neighbor butting in. As he did, it came to him—the old lady must’ve taken down his license plate. She’d looked like the neighborhood-watch type. It was the only explanation of how the cops had found them so quickly.
The detective was relentless with his questions. “What did you do after leaving?”
“Well, we drove back to the house.” Olly felt his face heat up but couldn’t bring himself to tell the cop about him and Rich getting sticky on the sofa. “I stayed for a while, about half an hour. We were, uhm, talking, and then I drove to Burbank to see my friend Jem and his partner, Nick.” Olly brightened up. “He’s a cop too, you know. Detective Nick Davies—over at the Hollywood station.”
Unimpressed, Detective Cooper scribbled something into his notebook. “How long did you stay with your friends?”
“Till about nine. Then I went home, watched a little TV and went to bed.”
There was a tap on the door. A man Olly hadn’t seen before poked his head in, twitched his eyebrows and disappeared. Detective Cooper excused himself and left Olly to stew in his own juices alone for a good half an hour.
When the detective came back, he remained standing by the door. “All right, son. Want to tell me the truth?”
Olly gulped. “I have.”
“What about the blackmail? Ms. Baker has told us all about it.”
Olly was certain it had to be a lie. He’d read about this stuff—people thought cops weren’t allowed to lie, but it wasn’t true. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said stubbornly.
“Uh-huh.” Detective Cooper opened the door wide enough for Sandy to stick her blonde and furious head in.
“Olly, don’t be an ass! Tell this nice detective the truth,” she snapped.
The door closed, and Olly cracked. He told Detective Cooper the whole thing, every little detail. Well, except for the sex with Rich. But the detective seemed to know.
It was past midnight when Olly was let out of the tiny room. Sandy collected him and Rich in the hallway. She was shooting daggers with her eyes and muttering under her breath all the way to the car, but didn’t explode till they all piled in.
“Have you two lost your fucking minds?” she yelled at them.
“Sands—” Rich didn’t get far.
“Shut up, Chard. It’s exactly the kind of boneheaded idiotic crap I expected from you, but why did you have to drag Olly into it?” She cast a deadly glare in Olly’s direction. “And you! You’re supposed to be the smart one. What the fuck?”
“We did it to help,” Olly tried to explain. “Didn’t want a scandal to ruin your chances for the new role.” In hindsight, he had to admit the plan was less than perfect.
She gave an unladylike snort. “Have you been watching Fangs?”
Olly nodded vigorously, but Rich in the back said, “You know I don’t. I’ve told you.”
Sandy huffed. “Well, if you did, you’d know the stuff that dickhead tried to blackmail me with is outright tame compared to the stuff I do on HBO. You remember the orgy scene from season three?” She aimed the question at Olly but didn’t wait for a reply. “I was fucking two guys and a girl. At the same time.”
“And then you disemboweled one of the guys and ripped out the throat of the other,” Olly added. He saw Rich pressing his hands to his ears.
Sandy started up the car. “Great scene. All sex is simulated, and the guys wear socks on their cocks during shoot. Most of them do, anyway. Compared to Fangs, kissing another girl and groping her boobs was mild stuff. Yeah, okay, I admit jumping into porn wasn’t one of my brightest ideas, but I shot only one scene. One of the crew had a freaking heart attack right there on the set. I took it as a sign and dropped out. Anyway…” She raised her voice. “If I fuck up, I’ll take the credit for it. Comprendo? I don’t need someone else to rush it and cover up for me. Everyone’s responsible for their own fuck-ups. Right, Chard?”
Only silence came from the backseat.
“Julie called me,” she added.
“She had no right.” Rich sounded like a stubborn child.
Sandy was gripping the steering wheel as if she was trying to strangle it. “I beg to differ. My brother spending every last penny he has on replacing the money his father embezzled from his own company is the kind of shit I need to know about.”