Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One

Smoke and Mirrors

Hollywood Knights Book One

LB Clark

Copyright 2013 LB Clark and Lone Star
BookWorks

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously.

This one is for my boys, especially Bryan,
Benny, and Ryan. For my girls, especially Heather, Erin, Katia, and
Minka. And for my Dirty Bitches. Thank you all for being a part of
my amazing journey.

Chapter One

“For the last time, I am
not
calling
my agency “Hollywood Knights!”

Lori, the newest and youngest addition to my
circle of friends, pretended to pout. “Aw, Jenny. You’re no
fun!”

“Blow me.”

“Not even if you had the right equipment,”
Lori said.

I rolled my eyes and shoved the last bite of
my garlic breadstick in my mouth so I wouldn’t say anything I’d
regret later.

When I’d announced my intentions to move my
consulting and investigations agency from Florida to L.A., where
I’d been living for the past few months, I’d expected my friends
there to react. I had actually expected them to react in a positive
way — cheering, congratulations, champagne...something. What I’d
gotten instead was a half-hour’s worth of god-awful name
suggestions, including one that wouldn’t go away — Hollywood
Knights. Never mind that the word ‘knight’ conjures images of a
man
with armor and a sword, and never mind that there is
only one of me, my friends were determined to call my agency
Hollywood Knights, regardless of what I decided to name it.

“So when are you officially moving to L.A.?”
another of my friends, Dylan, asked, unconsciously rubbing her
hugely pregnant belly.

“I’m not sure. Depends on when I can find
office space, I guess. And somewhere to live.”

I guess part of me was hoping that one of my
friends would offer me a place to crash, because I was disappointed
when all I got were a couple of nods. Elizabeth, who I’d known the
longest, didn’t even give me that much; she was too busy
texting.

Sighing, I dropped my half-eaten slice of
pizza onto my plate and leaned back into the couch cushions. My new
friends here in California didn’t seem too interested in my big
announcement. But then my old friends in Florida hadn’t, either.
The only people who had shown any genuine interest in the idea were
my family — my brother Chris, my mom, and my niece, Hannah. They
were excited about the move, even though I wouldn’t be any closer
to them. They lived in Texas, of all places. Chris’s excitement I
could at least understand. A little. My moving to L.A. would give
him one more excuse to come and visit, like having his girlfriend
and best friend living out here wasn’t enough of a draw. And Hannah
probably had all sorts of ideas in her head about rock stars and
actors and glamour and glitz. Mom...I had no idea why she was so
thrilled with the move. I also knew that she wasn’t likely to tell
me, so I just chose to let it ride.

After a minute or so, Elizabeth looked up
from her text and smiled at me. “Need any help packing?”

“Domestic bliss wearing thin already?” I
teased. She’d been living with London, her boyfriend —one of her
boyfriends, I should say, since she had two of them— for less than
a month. I knew there was no way she was tired of London yet.

“Hell, no. But I can drag myself away for a
couple of days if you need help,” she said. “Oh, and answer your
phone.”

I looked at her like she’d lost her mind,
since my phone wasn’t ringing. And then it did, and I have to admit
that I was spooked for a second. I snatched the cell off the coffee
table and checked the caller ID. It was Seth, my brother’s best
friend, who I’d known since I was in high school. I couldn’t
remember the last time he had called me, but it had been a
while.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on tour?” I said
when I answered.

“Whatever happened to just saying ‘hello’?
And I am on tour. We just got done with soundcheck a little bit
ago, and I’m about to faceplant in a plate of steak and potatoes,
so I need to make this quick, okay?”

“Um...you called me.”

I swear I could tell he was rolling his eyes
from the way he huffed air into the mouthpiece. “You’re not
helping,” he said. “Short version, you need a place to stay in
L.A., and I need someone to keep an eye on my place while I’m on
the road. Get Elizabeth’s key, do whatever the hell you want to one
of the guest rooms, and don’t skinnydip on Thursdays unless you
want to give the pool guy a free show. Okay? I gotta go.”

“Wait...Seth! Don’t you dare hang up!” I
glanced around the room at the other girls watching me: Lori
looking slightly confused, Dylan with a bemused smile, and
Elizabeth, who seemed both guilty and proud of herself. The pieces
clicked into place.

“I really need to go, Jen.”

“I just wanted to say thank you,” I lied. I
had questions and concerns, but they could wait. “Call me later and
we’ll work out the rest of the details.”

Seth sighed. “There are no details. Elizabeth
has a key and an alarm code for you. Don’t skinnydip on Thursdays.
That’s it. Oh, and don’t drink my Scotch.”

“I don’t drink Scotch.”

“I knew there was something not quite right
about you,” he said.

“Lots, actually. Anyway, thank you. And there
are details. And we’ll argue about them later. Go get your steak
on. And kick ass at the show tonight.”

“Thanks. Later, Angel.”

He ended the call before I could even say
goodbye, but that didn’t surprise me. What had surprised me,
though, was his calling me ‘Angel’. He’d given me the nickname when
I was seventeen, and I had almost forgotten all about it. But
apparently he hadn’t.

I pushed away the shock of hearing that
nickname again and turned to glare at Elizabeth. “Really?”

She just smiled. “I knew he’d make the offer,
anyway. I just expedited things. You know how guys are, especially
Seth. It can take them forever to get their heads out of their
asses long enough to figure out what’s going on around them. And by
the time they do, poof! Opportunity’s gone.”

“No shit,” I agreed. “Now if you can find me
office space that easily, I’ll be your new best friend.”

“Hey!” Dylan cried. “No taking over as Em’s
best friend. That’s my job.”

“
Whatever you say,
Mom.”

Thanks to my foresight, I saw the pillow she
threw at me just a few seconds before she hurled it.  My
foresight usually existed as a sort of low-level awareness of what
would likely happen in the next few seconds.  It was almost
like white-noise for the sixth sense; something I could sense but
that wasn’t likely to distract me.  When I wanted to, I could
concentrate on a person or situation and get a clearer and
longer-term picture of future possibilities.  Even though I
could use my ability for every single question from what I should
eat for breakfast to who would win the Super Bowl, I chose to limit
the use of my foresight for two reasons.  First, the future is
constantly changing; even the tiniest choice by anyone involved can
change the probabilities from one moment to the next.  More
importantly, calling on my magic or metaphysical talent or
what-the-hell-ever is taxing; if I tried to use it for every little
thing, I'd never have the energy for anything else.  So over
the years, I'd developed the talent that had manifested when I was
eleven into a delicate tool instead of trying to use it like a
sledgehammer.  I'd also turned it into an ability to save my
own ass—and sometimes other peoples’ as well.

I was never in any danger from the pillow,
but without the foresight, Dylan would have taken out half a pizza
and two perfectly good bottles of beer.  Thanks to my gift,
though, I managed to snatch the pillow out of the air and send it
back her direction, where it bounced off the wall to land at her
feet.

“I hate that you can do that,” she said.

“You hate that I can walk without
waddling.”

“You better watch it,” Lori warned, “or next
time she’s gonna be throwing something a lot more dangerous than a
pillow.”

“Nah,” I said. “She loves me.”

It was true, too. I could get away with
saying shit to Dylan that no one else —except maybe Elizabeth—
would live through. She understood that, from me, smartass remarks
and veiled insults were the equivalent of big, snuggly hugs. It was
something we had in common.

Chapter Two

Despite the uncertain terms of our
arrangement, I was glad that Seth had given me a place to live, and
I was grateful to Elizabeth for setting it up. When I’d first come
to California a few months before, I’d crashed with some friends in
San Bernardino. It didn’t take long to realize that my
long-distance friendship with Carla and Pam should have stayed
long-distance. They were nice ladies, but we had very little in
common besides our ties to the magical world. And they had a thing
for watching reality TV, which was the proverbial straw that sent
me running. I moved into a cheapish hotel, where I usually stayed
when I wasn’t guarding a client 24/7. After sleeping on Pam’s couch
and then spending a few months bouncing between my clients’ homes
and the hotel, having an actual house all to myself sounded like
heaven.

By the time I left the hen party to move into
my new digs, it was already pretty late. I took Elizabeth’s key,
stopped to grab my gear and check out of my hotel room, and made
myself at home at Seth’s place. Just because I could, I helped
myself to his Scotch, which I had to water down with Coke before I
could stand to drink it. I took my Scotch and Coke upstairs and
sipped at it while I unpacked what few things I had with me. I
hadn’t been planning on staying gone when I’d left Florida back in
March. I hadn’t been planning on a lot of things when I’d left
Florida...like having to say goodbye to a man I’d once loved —had
still loved, to be honest— while comforting his grieving
girlfriend.

I sighed and pushed Robbie out of my mind.
Tonight was a night for celebration, not mourning. I had chosen a
direction, plotted my course, and forged ahead. My paperwork was
all in order, and I had a place to live. As soon as I could find
office space and get my apartment and office in Florida packed and
moved, I’d be ready to start a new chapter. No, a whole new story.
Jenny Marshall: California Edition.

Still sipping my drink, I wandered downstairs
in search of Seth’s library. As a traveler and a gadget-obsessed
geek, he’d graduated to an e-reader or a tablet or somesuch ages
ago, but I knew he still had books. I’d seen them —lots of
them—somewhere, back when I’d first gotten a tour of the mansion
Seth called home, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen them
since.

A systematic approach to my search seemed
most logical, so I went with it. I started at the front door and
wound my way through the downstairs rooms —foyer, living area,
kitchen, home theater, home gym. When that turned up very little, I
headed back upstairs to continue my search. I knew the library
wasn’t in my bedroom, and I didn’t think I’d seen a lot of books in
Seth’s room, either. A handful, yes, but not shelves full. So I
poked through the upstairs rooms as I had the down —guest bedroom
that had been Elizabeth’s room, linen closet the size of most
walk-in closets, extra bedroom that seemed to be serving as a
storage area.

Just when I’d decided I must have imagined
finding any books in the house, I poked my head into the last of
the extra bedrooms and struck gold.

Rather than the stuffy formal libraries I’d
read about in a million books, this room was a cozy reading nook
and informal office. There were a couple of oversized recliners
with a table in between them, good reading lamps, and an
old-fashioned writing table that would be just about the right size
for a laptop. Other than the small bit of space taken up by the
writing table, the walls were covered with shelves and shelves of
books.

I moved closer to the shelves and ran my
fingers over the spines. Antique volumes shared space with tattered
paperbacks. Shakespeare rubbed shoulders with Steinbeck and Sparks.
There seemed no rhyme nor reason to the placement of the books,
except that those in a series were more or less kept together. I
found myself smiling. Knowing Seth, he could find any book he
wanted in this chaos at any time but wouldn’t be able to find a
thing if they were properly organized. I knew plenty of people
who’d be driven nuts by the jumble, but my philosophy is that there
is a time and place for everything; the organization, or lack
thereof, of someone else’s book collection in his own house...well
that’s just not worth getting bent out of shape about.

I grabbed a book at random. A quick scan of
the back cover, and I shoved it back into its spot on the shelf. It
took a few more random grabs before I found a book I could live
with. I took it and my Scotch back to the bedroom, changed into my
version of pajamas, and curled up in bed to read.