Champagne Brunch: The Stiletto Sisters Series by Ainsley Claire (easy readers .txt) 📗

cookie with you. If an advertiser has pink dresses, they can bid and try to win the right to advertise their pink dress to you.” I lean forward. “But to see what cookies someone has and the searches they’ve done, you need to have their actual computer. So even if they use my services, I don’t have access to any particular bit of information to sell to someone else.”

I sit back. Take that, bitch.

“But you bill for each of those searches.”

“Our client users are billed a certain amount based on the plan they have with us, not by search.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Landon Walsh.”

“He’s a friend.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

I smile. “No.”

“What about Jackson Graham?”

I tilt my head, not sure what her question is.

“Did you sleep with Jackson Graham?”

“No. I don’t sleep with my friends. But Viviana slept with both of them before they met their fiancées.”

We spend the next two hours going through a few things, and I quickly realize how to tell when she’s trying to bait me. She picks up her pen from her notepad, so she doesn’t get many gotcha moments. Throughout the conversation, I keep my eye on the clock, and at one p.m., I stand. “Well, I guess that’s about it.”

“I’m not done yet,” she says, sounding a bit panicked.

“I’m afraid I am. We agreed to a one o’clock end time, and it’s one. I told you I had lunch plans. If you’d like to speak with me again, you’ll need to ask a judge.” I walk out of the conference room with Marci and head for the elevator bank.

Lindsey does not seem to have realized I wasn’t bluffing when I told her I’d be leaving at one, and he’s left to gather his computer and the notes in front of him.

Tatyana stands and yells from the doorway, “Viviana would like to see you. She misses you.”

My heart stops beating. I miss my friend terribly, but I know Viviana is not my friend.

“Remind her that she betrayed me. She knows what I do to people who deceive me.”

Marci joins me in the elevator when it arrives, and once the doors close, she reaches for my hand and squeezes it. We agreed before we started this morning that we’d not talk in Tatyana’s building at all, because we couldn’t be sure it wasn’t bugged.

As we step outside, AUSA Lindsey catches up. “Well, that was enlightening,” he says, a bit short of breath.

I look at him, confused.

“She had very little to say that was surprising,” Marci tells him.

“Oh… well…” he stammers. “It shows us she doesn’t have much.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Marci counters. “Viviana has documented reports of her everyday interactions with everyone she met over the last decade, or even longer.”

Marci and I leave him standing on the sidewalk and get in my car. Peter pulls into traffic to drive us to the Waterfront Café.

“Holy shit, woman,” Marci exclaims as the car picks up speed. “You were channeling someone fierce in that depo. I’d love to get a copy of the video so I can show it to all my clients who need instructions on how to manage a deposition.”

I shake my head. “She pissed me off making me wait. Every two and a half minutes, I adjusted my skirt. I figured it would make her believe I was nervous, but it also gave me something to do. I counted the seconds and then adjusted and began counting again, keeping count of the number of times I adjusted my skirt.”

She looks at me carefully. “Were you counting while we talked?”

I purse my lips. “Yep.”

“I can’t do that and be precise.”

I chuckle. “That’s because you didn’t grow up with my mother. She was tough.”

“I do know tough mothers, so I get it. Why do you think Viviana wants to meet with you?”

“To mess with my head.” I look out at the streets full of people. I need a break. The City is beginning to wear on me.

But I am getting away this weekend with Axel. And we’ve also talked about going to New York for a Yankees game. That would mean taking him to meet my parents. They won’t be happy he’s not Chinese, but they’ll survive. My sister covered the Chinese husband when she married Marvin.

“—so it may be hard,” Marci says.

I nod. I’ve totally missed everything she said.

“Here we are,” I announce, to cover my checking out.

We’ve arrived at the Waterfront Café. It’s located along the shore, just below the Bay Bridge, and has a spectacular view. It also has a private dining room you can rent if you don’t want your meeting to be disturbed. Today is one of those days.

When we walk in, I can see we’re the last to arrive. Walker Clifton is here, as are Nate and Mason and Jim—pretty much everyone relevant to Viviana’s case. Marci takes her place at the head of the table, and a waiter appears at my elbow, asking for a drink order.

“Water is fine,” I tell him.

He looks at Marci. “Unsweetened iced tea, please. No lemon.”

“How did it go?” Nate asks.

I shrug.

“Mia was a rock star in there,” Marci says. “As predicted, Turgeneva stalled.”

“For over ninety minutes,” I add.

Nate’s jaw clenches. He’d have walked out. Maybe that’s what I should have done.

Mason rolls his eyes and Walker looks up at the ornate ceiling and shakes his head.

“Before she started, our lady of the hour here—” Marci does her best Vanna White impression. “—asked Tatyana when Viviana hired her—if it was before she murdered Cecelia, when she was running all over the globe evading capture, or after she admitted to Nate that she’d killed his wife.”

“Were you that direct?” Mason asks.

“Pretty much.”