They’d only gone a few blocks and Jessie wanted to turn around. “Then we need to be with her.”
“You need to hear this first.”
Katie almost never left home without polish, and here Jessie looked into the eyes of her millionaire sister-in-law with hair that had barely been tied back in a ponytail and not a stitch of makeup and knew it had to be bad. “Don’t stop now.”
“She loves him. I mean really loves him.”
“C’mon, she knew him for two weeks. Monica falls in bed with guys, but not love.”
Katie stuck out her hand. “Five bucks?”
Jessie shook her head and shook Katie’s hand. “Sucker’s bet. Tell me what you know.”
“Yesterday was awful. Those punk lawyers should be horsewhipped for what they put her through.” Katie recapped the deposition for Jessie, leaving her angry.
“She wasn’t expecting Trent.”
“Did he say why he ran off?”
“Remember a guy named John?”
Jessie hesitated as they turned a corner in her old neighborhood. “Yeah. Oh, wait, Trent saw John and got the wrong idea?”
“Worse. John told Trent they were engaged.”
Jessie stopped that time. “Shut up!”
Katie nodded slowly. “So Trent, feeling like a third wheel, runs off.”
Jessie started marching again. “Monica doesn’t need a man who’s going to run off at the first sign of trouble.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I looked up old stories about the Fairchilds. Trent’s parents were killed in a plane crash a few years ago along with a woman.”
“OK?”
“I haven’t confirmed it, but this married woman was listed as a friend of the Fairchilds’ only her husband didn’t know them.” Katie looked as if she was sitting on a pile of answers but Jessie was a little lost.
“Help me connect the dots, Katie.”
“I need Jack to talk to Trent’s brothers. I think there is more to the story about who else was on the plane when it went down. Right after the accident Trent moved to Jamaica.”
“You think Trent loved the woman?”
Katie shrugged.
“And she was married to someone else?”
“Happily, according, to the papers. But the whole thing stinks. Like there’s a story there not being told.”
Jessie turned the block and headed back to Monica’s. “OK, so let’s say Trent loved this woman. If he knew she was married then why was he troubled to think Monica was hooked up with someone else? A guy who helps a wife cheat…” she shivered. Again, all lines drawn said this Trent guy wasn’t the one for Monica.
Katie held Jessie back. “What if Trent didn’t know she was married?”
Jessie froze. “You think that’s possible?”
“Does every cheating wife tell her lover she’s married?”
Jessie blinked a few times.
“I’ve known men who said they were single just to get laid when they had a wife back home.”
“That’s awful,” Jessie said.
“If men lie, women lie. And if you were Trent and you thought Monica was ready to marry someone else and playing around in Jamaica, wouldn’t you run far, far away if you felt bad shit happening again?”
“We don’t know if that’s true.” But there was doubt hovering over Jessie’s mind.
“We need to find out, hence my thought that Jack needs to talk to Trent’s brothers.”
He sure did.
They were nearly back at the apartment when Katie stopped Jessie again. “One more thing.”
There’s more? Her poor sister.
“Monica’s having nightmares. Woke up last night screaming for Trent and didn’t settle until I turned on the light. Then wouldn’t go back to sleep without the light on.”
Jessie bit back tears. “Oh, Mo.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Trent hesitated when he answered the knock on his door to find Jack Morrison standing on the other side.
“Morrison?” The knowing smile in Jack’s eyes told Trent the man was there for a reason.
“Fairchild!” Jack glanced behind him and nodded outside the room. “Can I buy you a drink?”
It was noon. “Sure.” Trent retrieved his wallet and key, left his room, and followed Jack.
“How’s your stay?”
“Everything I expected, Mr. Morrison.”
Jack chuckled, tipped his Stetson farther back on his head. In the elevator, he waved a passkey over a sensor Trent didn’t see and instead of the elevator taking them to the bar on the ground floor, it ascended.
Saying nothing, Trent rocked on his heels and waited for his host to lead the way.
They reached the penthouse level and stepped past a private foyer and into the suite. The room had every amenity Trent expected, plush carpet, hardwood floors, and stone countertops in the open suite, which hosted a kitchen to one side. By Trent’s guess, the suite housed a minimum of two bedrooms, maybe three. Impressive.
“What’s your poison?” Jack asked as he made his way to the wet bar.
“It’s early. How about a beer?”
“Dark or light?”
“Dark.”
Jack passed him a beer and twisted a cap off one for himself, took a swig.
“What brings you to LA?” Trent cut the ice with his question.
“Monica.”
Trent drank from the dark longneck bottle, hardly tasting the hops and barley the company making it wished he’d taste. “Funny. That’s the same name that’s keeping me here.”
Jack tilted his beer back again, crossed to the plush couch, and sat.
Trent followed.
“Yesterday was brutal,” Jack stated as if he was there. “Larry gave me a blow-by-blow.”
“If you need help paying for those lawyers—”
Jack waved off his offer with a flick of his hand. “After yesterday I might have to insist that Larry take the check. Seems everyone has a soft spot for a nurse.”
“He’s a lawyer, he’ll take it.” Though Trent thought perhaps Jack could be right.
“My sister spent the night with Monica.”
Trent hung on Jack’s word.
When Trent didn’t say anything, Jack continued. “Then this morning my wife calls me, tells me to call your brothers.”
That got Trent’s attention.
“I couldn’t exactly tell my wife that men didn’t work that way. And she better not find out from you that I didn’t bother with a call to your relations.”