Moonlight Scandals by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“Here you go.”

Rosie was jarred out of her daze as the white-shirted waiter placed her root beer on the table in front of her. “Thank you.”

The young man smiled. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. I’m waiting for someone.” She picked up her glass as the waiter nodded and then backed off to take care of his other tables.

Looking up from where she sat in her booth, tucked next to the eye-catching, stunning spiral staircase that led upstairs, she saw Ross Haid yanking open the door to the Palace Café.

There had been several moments in Rosie’s life where she wanted to throat punch herself.

This was one of them.

But after what she found in her apartment, she needed to talk to Ross and this wasn’t a conversation one could have over the phone, because seriously, what the hell ? Why were there photos of Ross, a reporter who was after the de Vincents, hidden in her apartment—an apartment owned by the de Vincents. If Devlin had found this . . .

God.

She wouldn’t be able to blame Devlin for thinking she was somehow involved in whatever insanity that was going on, because this—this was certifiable.

Rosie toyed with the napkin as she watched Ross cut between the mostly empty tables. The restaurant wasn’t ridiculously cramped yet since it was still early in the day, but give it an hour, and all the tables outside and inside would be filled even though it appeared as if it were seconds away from pouring.

A tentative smile appeared on his handsome face as he slid into the booth across from her. “Got to say, Rosie, I’m still surprised that you called me this morning and wanted to meet.”

Not as surprised as she was, considering the last time she’d talked to him, she’d basically threatened physical harm if she saw him again.

“I don’t plan on having a long conversation with you, Ross. I still really don’t like you.” And there was a world of difference in her tone when it came to how she said that to Devlin and how she said it to Ross.

Ross knew it was true. The smile faded from his face as he sat back and shoved a hand through his blond hair. “I deserve your anger. I should’ve been up-front with you.”

“If you were up-front with me, I never would’ve set you up on a date with Nikki.” She tugged the paper off her straw. “That’s why you weren’t up-front.”

“I was interested in Nikki and not just—”

“Don’t want to hear it.” She lifted a hand, silencing him. “Because I am this close to kicking you in the balls under this table and it’s not why I’m here.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw as he looked away. “Then why are we here?”

“I have something I think you might find interesting.” Rosie took a sip of the drink, loving the taste of the sassafras root. She reached into her purse and pulled out the photo. “Here.”

His brows knit as he stared at her for a moment and then he glanced down. The blood drained from his face so fast, he looked queasy. His hand shot out as he snatched up the photo. “Where . . . where did you find this?”

“In the closet of my apartment,” she explained. “There was a photo album full of vacation pictures. Looked like Hawaii.”

Ross didn’t respond as he stared at the photo of him and the mystery lady.

“So, I want to know why there’s a photo of you and some woman hidden in my closet.”

He gave a slow shake of his head as a tremble ran down his hand, shaking the photo. “You found this in your closet?”

“Yep.” She crossed one leg over the other. “That’s bizarre, right?”

“I . . .” His gaze flew to hers. “Did you find anything else?”

“No,” she lied smoothly. “Just the photo album.”

“Did you bring the album with you?”

Rosie shook her head. “Just this picture. I want to know why this was in my closet.”

Swallowing hard, he laid the photo facedown on the table and then placed his palm over it. “You don’t know who she is?”

“No. Should I?”

“God,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “How quickly people forget.”

Rosie had no idea what he meant by that.

“I saw you last Friday—at the Masquerade.”

Surprised, Rosie jolted. “Excuse me?”

His eyes opened and that brown-eyed gaze slid back to Rosie’s. “Recognized you immediately, even with the mask. Surprised as hell to see you there. You left and headed upstairs,” he continued. “And Devlin de Vincent followed shortly after.”

She bit down on the inside of her lip. Had it been that obvious? Did others notice? A better question formed. “Did you follow us?”

A moment passed. “Just enough to know you were in a room with him. That is all.”

Rosie sucked in a sharp breath as the hand in her lap curled into a tight fist. Had he overheard them? Revulsion churned in her stomach. She wasn’t sure she could trust that he was being honest about not hanging around and listening, because truth was, she didn’t know the man sitting before her. She’d thought she did at one time, but not anymore. “Did you . . . did you hear us?”

He hesitated, and Rosie knew. She freaking knew that he’d heard something, and that was enough, but before he could continue or she could respond, a waiter in a white button-down appeared.

“Would you like to order something?” the waiter asked, his gaze moving back and forth between them.

As Ross shook his head, she forced her hand to unclench. Her nails had dug into her palm, leaving little indents behind. “We’re not ordering anything,” she said.

The waiter raised a brow but wisely backed off, moving to check on other tables while Rosie focused on taking a deep, slow breath.

Ross briefly closed his eyes. “Rosie—”

“Shut up,” she hissed. “I’m not here to hear about your perverted, creepy stalker tendencies. Why was this picture—”

“The de Vincents killed my girlfriend.”

Every muscle in her body locked up as she stared at Ross, her body reacting to what he said before her brain caught up.

Ross leaned forward, holding her wide gaze. “You want to know about this picture?” He slapped his palm down on the photo, rattling the glasses and silverware. “They killed my girlfriend and covered it up. I know they did. I just can’t prove it. Not yet.”

She still clutched the strap of her bag. “What are you talking about?”

The lines of his face were tense. “Do you remember a woman named Andrea Joan?”

She gave a little shake of her head as she searched for the name. “It’s familiar.”

“She was an intern for Stefan de Vincent,” he replied, his voice hushed.

The intern—the missing intern. Holy crap balls. Rosie’s eyes widened even further. Now she remembered the name. It had dominated the news for months before everyone just . . . stopped talking about her, stopped discussing what could’ve happened to her and if she was alive or dead.

“I see you remember now,” Ross said with a dry, broken-sounding laugh. “That woman in the picture with me? That’s Andrea.”

“Holy shit,” she whispered, her mind going in a thousand different directions as she drew in a shallow breath. “I thought she was missing—”

“Missing?” His lip curled as he coughed out another dry, broken laugh. “That’s what they want everyone to believe. After all, they made it look like that. To the world it looks like she just up and left, leaving everything behind, but I don’t think that’s what happened to her.”

She felt cold as she stared across the table. “I don’t know what to say, but that doesn’t answer how a photo of you two is hidden in my closet?”

Ross took a drink of water and cleared his throat. “We met at Tulane. Never believed in love at first sight. Thought it was a crock of shit until I saw her sitting in my comm class freshman year. Thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and the first time she argued with me—told me that three elven rings were not forged by Sauron—I fell in love with her.”

Her brows lifted. “Lord of the Rings ?”

“Huge fans.” A quick smile appeared and then faded. “When she was offered the internship with the senator, a paid internship, she thought this was her foot in the door. It was a big deal. Andrea had been so excited, and before she . . . she disappeared, I . . .” He halted and then took another drink of his water. “I was going to propose. She . . . vanished a little over two years ago and people have already forgotten she even existed.”

Sadness seeped into her as she watched him curl his fingers over the photo. She was still angry with him, but this . . . God, this was sad.

“Before she disappeared, she started acting strange.” He slid his hand off the table and left the photo on the table. “Working odd, late hours and she became detached and distant. She was—I don’t know how else to describe it other than she became paranoid. Convinced that someone was following her. I couldn’t get her to open up to me, to tell me what was going on. She would always tell me she didn’t want me to get involved, because she knew me—knew everything about me, and knew that I would, most definitely, get involved.”

He paused, glancing around the mostly empty restaurant. “Something was going on with the senator—with the de Vincents. That much I knew, because I . . . I started to follow her. A week before she went missing, she met with Lawrence de Vincent at the Ritz.”

Keeping her expression blank, she couldn’t help where her mind went with this information. To her, it sounded like Andrea might’ve been having an affair. “How do you know it was Lawrence and not Stefan? They were identical twins, right?”

“Right. But I got close enough to him to tell the difference. I did my homework, Rosie. Stefan always wore a gold Rolex on his right wrist. Lawrence wore his on his left,” he explained. “Besides, Stefan was at some event in Baton Rouge that night. She met with Lawrence.”

As much as she probably shouldn’t continue this conversation, she couldn’t stop the curiosity from growing. “But what does that mean? Why would she go to Lawrence?”

“I think that she went to Lawrence over whatever she knew Stefan was involved in. I don’t know why she would’ve trusted him, but I guess that doesn’t matter now.” His jaw flexed. “Because Lawrence is dead.”

“Lawrence committed—”

“No. No, he did not, Rosie.” Ross flattened his hands on the table again. “That’s utter bullshit. The police knew it. That chief? The one who died?”

“The one who had a heart attack while driving?”

“The man was in his forties with no known preexisting heart problems, but he had a massive heart attack that caused him to lose control of his vehicle and crash?” He snorted. “Come on.”

Many people didn’t know they had heart conditions until they woke up dead from a heart attack. “Ross—”

“I know it sounds weird, but hear me out. The de Vincents are involved in some bad shit and they have unlimited money and resources behind them to cover up said bad shit,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Look at what happened with the Harringtons. Parker’s dead. Sabrina’s missing?”

Rosie stilled. The reporter had no idea that Nikki was involved in Parker’s death, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him. “Okay. What if the senator was doing something shady that your girlfriend got mixed up in? What does that have to do with Devlin and what does that have to do with your picture being in my closet?”

Dipping his chin, he lifted his gaze to hers. “I think Devlin killed his father.”

Her mouth dropped open, and for a long moment she couldn’t think of anything, but then the night with Sarah came rushing back to her.

Murdered.

That was what Sarah believed the spirit had said, and if they’d been correct in assuming that the spirit was Lawrence?

But to suggest that Devlin was a murderer? Rosie shook her head. “Why do you think that?” she asked.

“Besides the fact that man has the cold, dead stare of a sociopath?” he asked.

Rosie flinched. “He does not.”

“Really?” Ross leaned in. “You’re involved with him, aren’t you? Rosie, God, you need—”

“What I am or am not with Devlin is none of your business,” she said, cutting him off. “But what is my business is why that was in my apartment.”

Ross fell back, lips pursed. Several moments passed. “Your place used to be Andrea’s.”

Her stomach pitched. Words completely left her. Holy . . . A tremor coursed through her. She’d moved into her apartment two years ago. Andrea had gone missing a little over two years ago, and there’d been a delay in moving in, because the previous tenant had left . . . their belongings behind.

“Oh God,” she whispered. She was living in the same apartment as the missing intern? The apartment owned by the de Vincents? Did Ross know that? Did he . . . ? “Wait.” Her gaze centered on Ross. “Wait a second.”

“What?”

“You . . . you came to me to do that piece on ghost tours in the Quarter. It was, like, a month after I moved into the apartment. I never saw you before then.”

Ross tipped forward again, clutching the side of the table. “Rosie—”

“Did you know that I moved into her place when you sought me out?” she demanded, eyes widening. “Is that why you sought me out?”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I started investigating the de Vincents and their staff. You came onto my radar when I saw that you were back from Alabama and were friends with Nikki, the daughter of their main house staff.”

Stunned, she sat back. “Holy God, Ross, you sought me out because I was friends with Nikki and living in your girlfriend’s old apartment?”

“Listen, you still don’t understand. You were connected to the de Vincents in a way and you moved into my missing girlfriend’s place,” he explained. “That’s suspicious as fuck.”

Everything . . . everything was suspicious as fuck at this point.

“I didn’t know about the hidden thing in the closet,” Ross said. “That’s really strange she’d hide a photo album in there. Are you sure that’s the only thing that was in there, Rosie? It’s really important. If there was anything else, it could be really important. Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Rosie lifted her gaze to his. “I’m sure.”