Betrayal

Chapter 6

TALLIE STAYED AT the hotel in Palm Springs the night of Brigitte’s confession. She didn’t want to go home to Hunt, and didn’t want to say anything to him yet. And she was keeping her distance from Brigitte too. She understood that Brigitte’s motives had been good, but what she’d done was so wrong, not telling her about the money Hunt was taking, and about the affair. She still couldn’t understand why he was taking money from her, he had so much of his own. And she was just as disturbed about Hunt cheating on her. If it was true, and it probably was, he had destroyed the last bit of faith she had. Tallie lay in bed in her hotel room that night feeling sick. She wanted to call Max in New York, but she knew Max would hear it all in her mother’s voice, and there was no need to upset her too, and Max was crazy about Hunt. It would be a blow to her too.

Tallie didn’t bother to eat that night, all she did was cry, after working hard all day. And finally at nine o’clock she called her lawyer. He handled mostly contracts for her, but had taken care of a few personal matters too, and had managed to avert several lawsuits. She called him at home, and he came to the phone immediately after one of his children answered. Greg Thomas was an excellent attorney, and she knew he was discreet.

“Hi, Greg,” she said in a mournful tone.

“Hi, what’s up?” He sounded surprised to hear from her at that hour of night. Tallie wasn’t the sort of client who called him at home. She was always respectful of him, and called him during business hours, so he was worried this was an emergency of some kind, and to her it was. “Something wrong?”

“Possibly. Our big investor for the new film wanted an audit, and we’ve been dealing with that for the last two weeks. And some things came to light as a result. Our investor gave us a clean bill of health, but I’m concerned about a couple of matters that surfaced.”

“That’s too bad.” He was concerned for her. She sounded terrible to him. “What can I do to help you?”

“I’d like the name of a private investigator. I want to check this out, for my own peace of mind. I don’t know who or what to believe right now. I’ve heard some pretty bad stories, and I’ve got a lot of cash going out the door that I can’t explain. It’s probably what I’ve been told, and none of it is pretty. It looks like Hunt is stealing money from me and cheating on me, but before I confront him, I want to be sure.”

“Hunt?” He sounded shocked. He had met him several times, and knew about the movies they had worked on together. He had done a limited partnership agreement between them for the last two, and he liked him a lot.

“Yeah, Hunt. You never know about people.”

“I think you’re smart to check it out before you confront him. Who told you all this?”

“My accountant pointed out the missing money, and Brigitte just admitted that she knew about it, he’s been pumping her for money for three years, and she knew about the affair too. She thought she was doing me a favor by not telling me.”

“How well do you know her?” Greg asked coolly. He had heard stories like this before over the years.

“As well as I know myself. She’s like a sister to me. She’s worked for me for seventeen years, and I’ve never had a single problem or reason to doubt her. She comes from money, so she has no reason to steal from me, or to lie about Hunt. I would trust her with my life, my kid, and everything I have.” And she had only known Hunt for four years, as opposed to Brigitte for seventeen.

“There’s no telling about people. Human nature is a fearsome thing. Sometimes people who have no reason to be dishonest are pathologically unable to do the right thing.” That applied to Hunt, from what she had just heard. “I’m sorry, Tallie. I know how distressing this must be.” He had been through it before with clients, and it was heartbreaking to see the damage it caused, to all concerned. “I actually use a very good woman when I need an investigation done. She has her own firm, she’s an ex-FBI agent. She’s smart, nice, and tough as nails. I think I have her home number here. I’ll give her a call right now. I’ll call you back.” She gave him the number at the hotel in Palm Springs, and they hung up, and while she was waiting to hear back from him, Hunt called her, and her stomach did a double flip. She didn’t want to talk to him, given everything Brigitte had said, but if she wasn’t going to confront him yet, she had to pretend that everything was fine. Her hand was shaking as she held the phone.

“I miss you,” he said, as soon as she answered the phone. Since he was on his cell phone, she had no idea where he was and didn’t trust him anymore. For all she knew, he was waiting for his girlfriend at a hotel, and planning to spend the night with her.

“I miss you too,” she said quietly. Her words had a false ring to her own ears, knowing all she did now.

“How’d it go today on the set?” He sounded happy and relaxed.

“Okay. We’re moving along. We should be shooting back in town again in a few weeks.” But for now, she was suddenly glad they were there. It gave her a chance to breathe and figure things out away from him.

“I’ll come up tomorrow, if you want,” he said, sounding affectionate, and she didn’t know what to say.

“Sure, that would be great, but we might have a night shoot tomorrow. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be worth it, because I’ll be on the set all night. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.”

“That’s fine,” he said easily, and then sounded rushed, as though he’d gotten to his destination and had to go. “I’ll call you later,” he promised, and hung up just as the phone in her room rang, and it was Greg. She was feeling ill after talking to Hunt. Everything they had had for four years suddenly seemed spoiled.

“I got her,” Greg said immediately. “She said she’ll make time to see you whenever you’re free. I know you’re on location. Can you come into town?”

“I’ll do it. I think we have an easy day tomorrow.” She had lied to Hunt about the night shoot to keep him away. Now she was lying too, she thought with despair. She had always thought their relationship was impeccably honest. And all Hunt had done was lie. “I could probably be in the city by six or seven, at the latest. Do you think she’ll see me that late?” Tallie wanted to get the investigation started as soon as possible. She wanted to know the truth. She was miserable with it all up in the air.

“She said anytime you want. She’s a kind person, and I gave her an idea what this is about. She said you can call her tonight at home. I’ll give you the number.”

“Thanks, Greg.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry you have to deal with this. Call her-she’s at home right now.” They hung up, and she did. Her name was Margaret Simpson, and she had a young, warm voice on the phone, but she was businesslike in what she said. Tallie gave her a brief rundown of the problem, and Meg, as she called herself, asked her a few questions that seemed run-of-the-mill to Tallie. They made an appointment to meet at her office at six o’clock the next day. There were no important scenes being shot the following day, and she was going to leave the assistant director in charge when she left, which would be a thrill for him. It was rare for Tallie to leave the set before shooting ended, but this was important. She thanked the investigator for being available to her.

“Could you bring me a couple of photographs of the subjects?” Meg asked her. “It’s not vital if you can’t. But it would help.”

“There are good photographs of Hunt on his website, if you look it up.” Tallie gave her the address. “And I’ve got a bunch of Brigitte at the house.” She didn’t want to go there before the meeting and risk running into Hunt, but then she remembered a few she had on her phone, that she had taken recently of both of them. “I can forward you a few candid shots I have of them on my phone.”

“That’ll work fine,” Meg assured her. “It’ll give us a start. I take it you’re going to want surveillance on both of them, or just Hunter Lloyd?” Tallie nearly gulped. This seemed so invasive and so mean somehow, but so did cheating and taking money.

“I don’t have any reason to suspect my assistant of anything. She wouldn’t take money from me, and I think all she’s guilty of is not telling me what she knew about Hunt.” But she had denied all the hotel charges except one or two, which didn’t make sense to Tallie.

“It’s up to you, but it might be smart to check them both out, and figure out what’s going on. You’ve got a money issue happening, and a romantic issue with your man. The two aren’t related, but you’ve got concerns about two important people in your life. You might as well know what’s going on with both of them.”

“I guess you’re right. I think she meant well not telling me about him. She’s very protective and she didn’t want to upset me. But she kept it from me for a long time. She’s very sorry about it now,” as well she should be, Tallie thought to herself. “What do we do with the information once we have it?” Tallie asked the investigator. She was feeling overwhelmed. She had expected none of this to happen, and since Sunday her whole life had been upside down and her mind was in a whirl. She didn’t feel like she was thinking clearly. The only moments of sanity she had had were on the set, when she was occupied with her work and not preoccupied about them. The rest of the time, she felt distracted and confused, and suddenly afraid of what she might learn.

“That’s up to you,” Meg answered. “How you handle the personal side of this is your decision. People react differently. Some of my clients find out terrible things about their mates and decide not to do anything about it. They don’t want to rock the boat, and they just use the information to keep an eye on things in future and be more alert. Others make some major changes after they find out. The money is a different story. You’ll probably want to confront that, and depending on what we find out, you may want to involve law enforcement. It really depends if it falls into the criminal realm or not. And you’ll be the best judge about your assistant, and all of it. All I do is give you the information and enough backup so you know it’s reliable, and no one is lying to you. But you’re in charge.”

It sounded reasonable to Tallie, given how uncomfortable the situation was. Meg would give her what she needed to make her own decisions, depending on what she heard. She couldn’t imagine allowing Hunt to continue his affair, if it was true, without saying anything to him about it. If it was true, she was going to ask him to move out. And then she’d have to figure out what to do about their work together. It was all so complicated and felt like such a mess to her. But as much as this was a relationship and a person she cherished and was important to her, it wasn’t a marriage, with young children involved and the kind of situation where she might want to close her eyes to his having an affair. That sounded inconceivable to her. And there was obviously nothing criminal happening. Even if he had been taking money for the past three years, she would never bring criminal charges against him. She would ask him to return the money. He could afford to, and she was sure he would. This was entirely a private matter, not a criminal one. And if Brigitte had gotten sloppy about charging things to her, like hotel stays, she would have to deal with her about it, and decide what to do. In that case, it was more about poor boundaries on her part, which wasn’t okay. But that was hardly a criminal matter either.

“I don’t think we’ll need law enforcement,” Tallie said quietly. Just a doctor for her broken heart and shattered faith. Both felt injured beyond repair right now, and no one could fix that, only time. “I don’t think this is a criminal matter.”

“You never know,” Meg said reasonably. “We’re talking about a lot of money here. You can’t always tell what that will lead to, and what kind of discoveries you’ll make.” Tallie wondered if she should ask Meg to check Victor out too, but that seemed a little extreme. She was sure that her accountant was honest, even if he seemed distracted and over the hill, but he had picked up on the missing cash, so he wasn’t completely out to lunch. But she wondered why he had never noticed it before. That seemed somewhat negligent to her. But they could always investigate him later. First, she wanted to find out what was happening with Hunt, and possibly Brigitte. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Meg promised, and they hung up. As soon as they did, Tallie forwarded her the three photographs she had on her phone of Brigitte, and two of Hunt. And as soon as the photographs went through, her cell phone rang and told her it was Brigitte.

Tallie answered, and it sounded to Brigitte as though Tallie had been crying.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Brigitte asked, sounding miserable.

“No, I’m fine.” Tallie sounded sad and distant.

“I know you’re not. If it’s any consolation, I feel terrible too. I’m sorry I handled this all wrong. I’ll never do anything like it again. My first instinct is always to shield you from everything. It was entirely the wrong thing to do here.” They both knew that was true, and Brigitte wondered if Tallie would actually fire her. She wasn’t going to ask again, and just prayed that she wouldn’t, and could eventually forgive her so they could move forward together. But there would surely be changes now with Hunt. It didn’t seem to either of them as though there were any other choice. Tallie didn’t tell her about the investigator, thanked her for the call, and lay on her bed, thinking for a long time. Hunt didn’t call her back that night, and she didn’t call him. He texted her that he loved her and told her to sleep tight, and she wondered if he was with the girl from his office that Brigitte had told her about. Maybe that was why he hadn’t called. Tallie just read the text message with tears rolling down her cheeks and didn’t answer him. There was nothing left to say until she knew what was going on. She was relieved to be going to see the investigator the next day. And in her room, Brigitte was crying too.