All Night Long (5 page)

Without another word, Kat padded out of the kitchen, leaving Lydia alone. It was just as well. Lydia needed to think. She refilled her coffee cup and took it out through the sliding glass doors onto the redwood deck that adjoined the kitchen. There was a hole in the floor of the deck large enough for the trunk of
a palm tree that soared from the ground up through the deck toward the sky. From here, Lydia could watch as Kat walked out to the pool, stripped off her top and shorts, and then dove into the crystal water wearing just her black underwear. With strong, determined strokes, she cut through the water with her tennis player's arms.

Lydia felt awful for her. But she didn't have proof. And without actual proof, she wasn't ready to have the conversation with Kat that would surely result in the destruction of her relationship, and her children losing a parent. Lydia didn't care that Kat had asked to hear about any and all suspicious activity that she saw. Proof was required.

But … that didn't mean she had to do nothing. Right then and there, she decided that she'd have a serious talk with Anya. Tell her what she knew and what she'd seen. And tell Anya that she'd better get her shit together. Lydia knew Anya's drill. She'd get mad, she'd bluster, she'd bullshit. But Lydia didn't care. As she watched her mother's sister take out her aggression in the swimming pool, she knew that would be the right thing to do.

Before she even saw the crowd, Kiley could hear the buzz in the air. She walked across the hot pavement holding Serenity by one hand and Sid by the other. Platinum's sister Susan and her ramrod-straight husband, known to one and all as the colonel, walked four paces ahead of them. Slouching along behind them was Bruce, Platinum's fourteen-year-old son, clad in a suit jacket over a “Free Platinum” T-shirt, which he was now flashing at the crowd held back by police barricades.

It wasn't a crowd, Kiley decided. It was a mob. One part paparazzi, two parts family-values activists, and ten parts fans obsessed as only fans in Los Angeles could be. It had gathered in front of the gleaming white stone Beverly Hills courthouse to witness the start of Platinum's trial for the reckless endangerment of her kids. The same kids who'd been exposed to and endangered by her flagrant drug use. The same kids Kiley McCann tended to daily. The same kids whose hands she was holding at that very moment.

Then there were the drug charges. The police had found marijuana in plain sight in Platinum's living room. But drug charges were a dime a dozen in Los Angeles. It was the child endangerment that was captivating the gossip columnists and television pundits.

Sid made himself belch as loudly as possible, over and over.

“Stop it, Sid, you suck!” Serenity screamed.

“Nuh-uh,
you
suck!” Sid yelled back.

Both of them had a tendency to use bad language when they got upset or anxious.

“It's going to be okay, you guys,” Kiley assured them, even as the paparazzi and fans recognized the kids and began snapping their pictures.

Serenity stopped to pose, as if on the red carpet at a movie premiere. This morning she'd insisted on getting up at five a.m. It meant Kiley had to get up, too, to get ready to go to the trial. Serenity had tried on outfit after outfit, all of them better suited for an MTV music video than for a girl about to start the third grade. Kiley knew that the colonel—Serenity's uncle by marriage—would make the little girl take off said outfit as soon as he saw it. She warned Serenity that this was so. But somewhere in the world of kid logic, Serenity thought she'd be able to get away with it anyway.

When the little girl came down for breakfast in the bright green halter top and low-slung plaid boyfriend pants that bared her navel and a good two inches of pale little-girl flesh below it, sure enough, the colonel had ordered her to turn around and march right back upstairs. She now sported a pair of khaki pants and a pale blue short-sleeved polo.

Now, though, as Serenity posed, Kiley realized that somewhere along the way, the little girl had put on cherry red lip gloss, mascara, and blush. Up ahead, the colonel and Susan were heading into the security clearance area in front of the courthouse. He turned, saw that Kiley and the kids had stopped and that Bruce was actually signing autographs, and motioned them forward impatiently.

“Free my mom! Free my mom!” Sid began to chant.

Kiley could feel the colonel's glower from fifty paces away. She really, really disliked the man. According to Lydia, the colonel was cheating on his wife with Lydia's nonhetero boss, Anya Kuriakova. Lydia claimed to have caught them red-handed on the club golf course, with his marine-saluting palm on Anya's tush. Kiley liked Susan, Platinum's sister. The idea that her asshole of a husband was cheating on her—

“Free Platinum now! Free Platinum now!” the crowd chanted in response to Sid, who was pumping his fist in the air.

Kiley tugged the kids forward. “Come on, we have to go.” The kids might feel at home in this circus, but Kiley's churning stomach told her she had a long way to go.

“Bruce, is it true you did drugs with your mom?”

“Sid! Serenity! This way!”

“
Entertainment Tonight
—if I could just talk with you a moment!”

Kiley tried to tune out all the voices coming at them and urged the kids forward.

“Kiley! Hey, Kiley!”

She recognized that voice, and turned to try to locate it in the crowd. Tom Chappelle, the six-foot blond model who by some
fluke of nature Kiley was dating, was muscling his way toward her. In an old blue tennis shirt and faded jeans, he looked better than anyone else looked in a tux.

“Tom!” she shouted back, and the reporters pressed closer to her.

“Are you and Kiley a couple? Did you see kids doing drugs at Platinum's house?” one reporter shouted.

“No comment,” Tom called over his shoulder. “Hey.” He hugged Kiley. All around them, people snapped their embrace with cameras and cell phones. Tom, after all, was famous. Kiley felt utterly, hopelessly self-conscious.

“What are you doing here?” Kiley asked him.

“Same as everybody. I'm here to see Platinum,” Tom teased.

Kiley whapped him on the shoulder.

“I came for you, Miss McCann.” He gave her a dazzling smile. “But if you want me to head back into that teeming crowd—”

“God, no!” Kiley exclaimed. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me.”

“McCann!” the colonel boomed, hands cupped to his mouth. “Front and center, double-time!”

“That guy so rubs me the wrong way,” Tom muttered.

Kiley's reply was lost in the roar of the crowd, which began chanting Platinum's name. Kiley turned. The rock star had just emerged from her silver stretch limo with a burly bodyguard on each side, and they, the sheriffs, and her trio of attorneys began to move toward the courthouse steps.

“Mom!” Serenity cried. “Wow. Why is she dressed so weird?”

It occurred to Kiley that by “weird,” Serenity meant “normal.” Kiley could not remember Platinum looking more businesslike.
In a gray skirt suit and wide Chanel sunglasses, she looked about as serious and determined as her lead lawyer, Richie Singleton. Richie was straight out of central casting. African American, with a trim mustache, wearing an immaculate Ralph Lauren suit with a yellow power tie, he was all business.

“Mom!” Sid yelled, jumping up and down and waving his arms.

Platinum spotted her children pushing through the crowd toward her. Richie gave his lawyerly nod of blessing, and Platinum scooped up Sid in one suited arm and Serenity in the other while Bruce hugged the three from the side. If it wasn't for Kiley's knowledge of Platinum's underappreciated acting prowess, she would swear that the rock star's joyous tears came from the heart and not from the opportunity for good press.

Then Platinum motioned to Kiley, blinking teary false lashes. “Come on in here! You're part of the family, too!” Sid and Serenity opened their arms to welcome Kiley as the photographers did their thing.

Kiley obliged, even though she felt absolutely ridiculous.

Someone pushed a microphone into Platinum's face. She turned to address the throng. “I just want the members of the media and the whole city of Los Angeles to know that I'm innocent. I will be acquitted of all the charges. And I will get my kids back. Now, thank you for coming out. It means the world to me.”

Cheers erupted among nine-tenths of the crowd. A few family-values naysayers catcalled at the fringes, but they were quickly drowned out by the cheers.

“My lawyers and I will fight tooth and nail to get this lamebrain bull”—Richie shook his head with wide eyes at hearing the red flag—“crud overturned.”

More cheering. Kiley knew from experience that Platinum was not one to curb her language, but if ever there was a time for it, it was now. Near the back, she noticed a group of people holding a banner with the words PLATIMUM 4EVA in neat red lettering. Then it became impossible to hear or talk, because a news helicopter started circling overhead.

“We need to go in now,” Platinum's lawyer insisted, and the group headed for the courthouse steps, where the colonel and Susan had long been waiting. Kiley and Tom brought up the rear.

“Ms. McCann, a moment?” A handsome middle-aged man in an impeccable charcoal Armani suit and wingtip shoes approached Kiley.

“Spencer Lacroix,” he said, introducing himself. Kiley saw Platinum and the kids disappear inside with her entourage.

Tom put a protective arm around Kiley. “We need to go in, Kiley—”

“I only need a moment, Mr. Chappelle,” the older man insisted. “I loved your work in
The Ten
, by the way.”

The Ten
was a blockbuster movie in which Tom had had a small role.

Once Tom had moved away, Mr. Lacroix wasted no time in pulling a small envelope from his breast pocket and offering it to Kiley. “There's five hundred dollars in there. Buy something nice to wear to court tomorrow.”

Kiley furrowed her brow and tried to hand back the envelope. “I don't know who you are or what you want, but I don't want your money.”

“It's a gift. It would be rude to refuse a gift, wouldn't it?” Mr. Lacroix said smugly before registering Kiley's distrust. “I'm
editor in chief of the
Universe
? The most-read celebrity magazine in the entire world?”

Kiley knew the
Universe
. It was right up there with the
Star
and
People
, though it had a reputation for being more of a scandal sheet.

“I see from the look on your face you know my magazine,” Mr. Lacroix continued. “And here's what I know. You're Platinum's nanny from Wisconsin, your mom's name is Jeanne, and you're starting at Bel Air High in the fall. I also know that if anybody could use a big increase in their bottom line, it's you.”

Kiley's stomach tightened. “What do you want?” She felt Tom's arm tighten around her shoulders.

The editor leaned closer. “If you want two hundred more of those envelopes with your name on 'em, all you have to do is sit down with us for a nice easy talk on Platinum. I'm talking a hundred thousand dollars.”

But wait. That couldn't be right. She had to double-check. “Did you just say—”

“Six figures starting with a one,” he confirmed. “All you have to do is tell us about Platinum. The inside scoop the outside world wants to know.”

Kiley couldn't imagine betraying Platinum. Even worse would be betraying the kids, who trusted her completely. She thrust the envelope back at Spencer Lacroix.

“I'm sorry. I'm not the right person for this. You'll have to get someone else.”

As if Kiley was threatening him, Lacroix backed away with his hands up.

“Whoa, Kiley. Not so fast. Look, I'll let you in on a little secret. The
Universe
is going to run the story anyway. We know all
about the household, the drugs, the neglect. As far as your boss is concerned, the damage is already done. Platinum is bound for jail, these kids are going to be under the protection of the state, and the only thing you can do is think about your own future. All we want is a few quotes. You might as well get a little recompense for your trouble.” He took two more steps back. “Spencer Lacroix. I'll find you.”

Then he turned on his heel and left as smoothly as he had appeared.

Kiley hustled through the courthouse doors and took the elevator to the courtroom. There was a mob scene right outside the courtroom too, but down the hall a little bit, Kiley noticed Platinum's lead attorney pacing. His face lit up when he saw her. “There you are! Thought you might have abandoned ship. But I should have known, you got that McCann-do attitude.”

Singleton adjusted his glasses. “Ms. McCann, I tried to contact you sooner about this, but I'll have to tell you now. I'm going to need you to testify. It won't be until later this week, but it's crucially important. Please tell me I can count on you.”

Well, this wasn't unexpected. But if she was going to testify in a court of law, she would do it on her own terms. “Yes. I'll testify. But only if I can tell the truth.”

A wide smile spread across Singleton's lips as he opened the mahogany door. “That's all I ask. Now hurry inside, you two, before you miss the big entrance.”