The Scoop Read online

  The Scoop

  Also by Fern Michaels…

  Up Close and Personal

  Fool Me Once

  Picture Perfect

  About Face

  The Future Scrolls

  Kentucky Sunrise

  Kentucky Heat

  Kentucky Rich

  Plain Jane

  Charming Lily

  What You Wish For

  The Guest List

  Listen to Your Heart

  Celebration

  Yesterday

  Finders Keepers

  Annie’s Rainbow

  Sara’s Song

  Vegas Sunrise

  Vegas Heat

  Vegas Rich

  Whitefire

  Wish List

  Dear Emily

  The Sisterhood Novels:

  Razor Sharp

  Under the Radar

  Final Justice

  Collateral Damage

  Fast Track

  Hokus Pokus

  Hide and Seek

  Free Fall

  Lethal Justice

  Sweet Revenge

  The Jury

  Vendetta

  Payback

  Weekend Warriors

  Anthologies:

  Silver Bells

  Comfort and Joy

  Sugar and Spice

  Let It Snow

  A Gift of Joy

  Five Golden Rings

  Deck the Halls

  Jingle All the Way

  FERN MICHAELS

  The Scoop

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  The Scoop

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 1

  Charleston, South Carolina

  It was an event, there was no doubt about it. Not that funerals were, as a rule, events, but when someone of Leland St. John’s stature bit the dust, it became one. The seven-piece string band playing in the downpour, per one of Leland’s last wishes, had turned it into an event regardless of what else was going on in the world.

  Then there was the tail end of Hurricane Blanche, which was unleashing torrents of rain upon the mourners huddled under the dark blue tent and only added to the circuslike atmosphere.

  “Will you just get on with it,” Toots Loudenberry mumbled under her breath. She continued to mutter and mumble as the minister droned on and on. “No one is as good as you’re making Leland sound. All you know is what I told you, and I sure as hell didn’t tell you all that crap you’re spouting. He was a selfish, rich, old man. End of story.”

  Toots’s daughter leaned closer to her mother and tried to whisper through the thick veil covering her mother’s head and ears. “Can’t you hurry it along? It’s not like this is the first time you’ve done this. Isn’t this the seventh or eighth husband you’ve buried? I’m damn glad that preacher said his name, or I wouldn’t even know who it is that’s being planted. I gotta say, Mom, you outdid yourself with all these flowers.”

  Toots rose to the occasion and stepped forward, cutting the minister off in midsentence. “Thank you, Reverend.” She wanted to say his check was in the mail, but she bit her tongue as she took a step forward and laid her wilted rose on top of the bronze coffin. She stepped aside so the other mourners could follow her out from under the temporary tent, which was open on all four sides. She stepped in water up to her ankles, cursed ripely, and sloshed her way to the waiting limousine, which would take her back home. “That’s just like you, Leland. Why couldn’t you have waited one more week, and the rainy season would have been over? Now my shoes are ruined. So is my hat, as well as my suit. Too bad you don’t know how much this outfit cost. If you did, you would have waited another week to die. You always were selfish. See what all that selfishness got you. You’re dead.”

  “What are you mumbling about, Mom?”

  Toots slid into the limousine and kicked off her sodden shoes. Her black mourning hat followed. She looked over at her daughter, Abby, who looked like a drowned rat, and said, “Of all my husbands, I liked Leland the least. I resent having to attend his funeral under these conditions. He was my only mistake. But one out of eight, I suppose, isn’t too bad.”

  Abby reached for a wad of paper napkins next to the champagne bottle that seemed to come with all limousines. “Why didn’t you just crisp him up?”

  Toots sighed. “I wanted to, but Leland said in his will that he wanted to be buried with that damn string band playing music. One has to honor a person’s last wishes. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t honor his, even if he was a jerk?”

  “Don’t you mean if you didn’t honor those last wishes, what’s-his-name’s money would have gone to the polar bears in the Arctic?”

  “That, too.” Toots sighed.

  The woman born Teresa Amelia Loudenberry, Toots to her friends, stared at her daughter. “How long are you staying, dear?”

  “I have a four o’clock flight. I left Chester with a sitter, and Chester does not like sitters. There’s just enough time for me to grab something to eat at your post feast, change into dry clothes, and get outta here. Can’t you hear California calling my name? Don’t look at me like that, Mom. I didn’t even know that guy you married. I met him at your wedding, and that’s the sum total of our relationship. If I remember correctly, you said he was a charmer. I expected a charmer. I did not get a charmer. I’m just saying.”

  “Maybe I should have said snake charmer,” Toots said vaguely. “Leland was like this gorgeously wrapped present that when opened was quite…tacky. I was stunned, but I did marry the man, so I had to make the best of it. He’s gone now, so perhaps we shouldn’t speak ill of him. I’ll mourn for ten days for the sake of appearance, then get on with my life. I’m going to find a hobby to keep myself busy. I’m sick and tired of doing good deeds. Anyone can do good deeds. Anyone can garden and grow one-of-a-kind roses. I need to do something that will make a difference, something challenging. Something I can really sink my teeth into. That’s another thing. Leland wore dentures. He kept them in a cup in the bathroom at night. I could never get used to that. He wasn’t very good in bed, either.”

  “That’s probably more than I need to know, Mom.”

  “I’m just saying, Abby. I don’t want you to think your old mom is callous. You have to admit I did have seven happy marriages. I should have hung up my garter belt when Dolph died. Did I do that? No, I did not. I let Leland sweep me off my feet, dentures and all. Sometimes life is so unfair.

  “That’s enough of a pity party for me. Tell me how it’s going out there in sunny California. How’s the job going? What’s the latest hot gossip, and who is doing what to whom in Hollywood?”

  Abby Simpson, Toots’s daughter by her
first husband, John Simpson, the absolute love of Toots’s life, was a reporter for a second-rate tabloid, The Informer, based in Los Angeles. She was a second-string runner, which meant she had to hit the pavement and find her own stories, then elaborate on them for the public’s insatiable appetite for Hollywood gossip.

  “Rodwell Archibald Godfrey, otherwise known as Rag to us underlings, called me into his office and told me he wants more product. I can’t make it happen if it isn’t out there. All the A-list papers seem to get the stories first. I think this is just another way of saying he is not happy with my work. I applied to the other tabloids, but they’re full up and not taking on anyone new. I’m doing my best. I just manage to make my mortgage payment every month and have enough left over to buy dog food. No, you cannot help me, Mom. I’m going to make it on my own, so let’s not go down that road. My break is coming, I can feel it. By the way, I brought a stack of future issues for you to read. I have stuff in all of them.”

  “I can’t get used to the idea that you people make all that stuff up, then it happens. And you print weeks in advance of what’s happening,” Toots said.

  Abby laughed. “It’s not quite that way, but you’re close. Well, we’re home, and you have guests. You really know how to throw a funeral, Mom.”

  “Event, dear. Funeral is such a dreary word. It conjures up all kinds of dismal thinking.”

  Abby laughed as she climbed out of the limo and marched up the steps to the wide veranda of her mother’s house.

  Both women raced upstairs to change into dry clothing before they had to meet with the guests who would be coming by to pay their last respects.

  Toots looked at herself in the long mirror in her room. Yes, she did look bedraggled, but wasn’t a widow supposed to look a little bedraggled? “Black is not my best color,” she muttered to herself as she tossed her mourning outfit into a heap on the floor in the bathroom. She donned another black dress, added a string of pearls, brushed out her hair, sprayed on some perfume, and felt refreshed enough to go downstairs and socialize for an hour or so.

  Burying the dead was so time-consuming. Even the aftermath took an eternity. All she wanted to do was retire to her sitting room to read the pile of tabloids Abby had brought with her. Not for the world would Toots ever admit that she was addicted to tabloid gossip. But for now, she had a duty to perform, and perform it she would. She had all evening to read her treasured tabloids and guzzle a little wine while doing so. She’d drink to Leland, and that would be the end of this chapter in her life.

  Time to move on. Something she was very good at.

  Chapter 2

  The minute the last guest walked out the door with a go-bag of food, the bereaved Toots galloped up the stairs and headed for her three-hundred-square-foot bathroom, where she ran a bath. She made two trips to the huge Jacuzzi with the pile of tabloids, four scented candles, a fresh bottle of wine, and her favorite Baccarat wineglass. She paused a minute to decide which bath salts she wanted to use, finally settling on Confederate jasmine since the scent was more or less true to the flower. She was, when you got right down to it, a transplanted Southern belle.

  Toots stripped down, and the clothes she was wearing went on top of the sodden outfit she’d discarded earlier. She’d never wear them again. Then again, since she was a stickler for protocol, maybe she’d tell her housekeeper, Bernice, to leave them until her ten days of mourning were up. That way she wouldn’t be cheating. And to think she had to wear black, which really made her look washed out, for another ten days. Nine more if you counted today. Well, she was definitely counting today.

  Toots sniffed at the delicious aroma emanating from the Jacuzzi. Wonderful! She lowered herself into the silky water and sighed happily. Toots leaned back and savored the first few moments of the exquisite bath before leaning forward to pour herself a glass of the bubbly that Leland had bought by the truckload for his wine cellar.

  “To you, Leland,” Toots said as she held her wineglass aloft. She turned up the glass and swallowed the contents in one long gulp. Now she could move on. She’d done her duty.

  Toots refilled her glass, leaned back, and fired up a cigarette. Smoking was a truly horrible habit, but she didn’t care. She was way too old to worry about what was good or bad for her. She was all about living and didn’t give a thought to the fact that cigarettes would interfere with that. Besides, she had every vice there was. She loved vices because they made for such good conversations. She liked to drink, smoke, was a sugar addict and a closet tabloid reader. She’d long ago convinced herself that being a vegan made up for all her bad habits. That shit, Leland, was forever giving her grief for her, as he put it, unsavory habits. “Screw you, Leland!”

  Toots was on her third glass of wine and on page four of the issue she was reading before she realized she couldn’t remember what she’d just read. What was wrong with her? Nothing ever interfered with reading her beloved tabloids. Until now. She closed her eyes and tried to figure out what it was that was interfering with her universe.

  Something was lurking somewhere inside her. She’d already scratched Leland. Abby was okay, at least for the moment. Did she feel rudderless? Did she need a man in residence? Hell no, she didn’t. Then what was bothering her? The nine days of mourning she allowed herself? She snorted. Any woman worth her salt could get through nine days of mourning by going out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Fit in a little shopping, and she’d be good to go.

  By the fourth glass of wine, Toots decided she needed…no, she didn’t need, she wanted to stir up some trouble. She needed some excitement in her life. Her thoughts carried her back in time to when she was young and full of piss and vinegar with her friends. Friends she hadn’t seen near enough throughout the past twenty years. They e-mailed, called, and sent Christmas cards, but life got in the way sometimes. Maybe it was time to call all of them and invite them for a visit. They were, after all, Abby’s godmothers. Everyone thought it strange that her daughter had three godmothers. Especially that shithead, Leland. She didn’t find it strange at all. Neither did her friends.

  Toots peered into the wine bottle. Empty! She climbed out of the tub, dried off with a towel the size of a tent, powdered herself, slipped into a black nightgown—because she was in mourning—and tottered out to the minioffice in her bedroom. It wasn’t really an office, just a little table where she sat to write notes to people she didn’t give two shits about, pay a few bills that she didn’t want her business manager to know about, and use her laptop to check out TMZ and Page Six several times a day.

  Toots fired up her laptop and proceeded to type an e-mail to her friend Mavis, who lived in Maine in a little clapboard house near the ocean.

  “I want you to come for a visit, Mavis. You were always the one with the ideas. How soon can you get here? By the way, I just buried Leland today, and I’m in a funk.”

  Five minutes later, the laptop pinged receipt of a return e-mail.

  “Sorry, Toots, I can’t afford a trip like that. I can’t leave Coco, my dog. She’s really my only friend these days. I’m sorry your dog Leland died. I didn’t even know you had a dog. It’s terrible when your beloved pet dies. Sorry, Toots, I’d love to see you, but my pension just won’t cover a trip at this time.”

  Toots blinked. How weird that Mavis thought Leland was a dog. She wondered why she thought that, then it dawned on her what her old friend meant.

  She hit the REPLY button.

  “I’ll send a first-class ticket for you and Coco. Leland was my husband.”

  The next response from Mavis was: “LOL, I forgot you married again. Too bad, too sad. You’ll get over it, Toots, you always do. I’ll be happy to accept your tickets and look forward to seeing you. It’s been way too long. Are the others coming, too?”

  Toots fired back, “I’m working on it now. More tomorrow.”

  Toots’s next e-mail was to Sophie, who’d married a philanderer, now with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, accordi
ng to Sophie’s latest e-mail. It was a known fact among the foursome that Sophie hated her husband and was only sort of/more or less taking care of him because of the five-million-dollar insurance policy she’d taken out on him some years ago. “I’m sticking around long enough to collect, then I’m outta here,” she’d said.

  “Sophie, I’m e-mailing you to invite you for a visit. I’m willing to send you a ticket if you can clear your calendar. It’s been way too long since we’ve seen each other. I have something in mind that I think you and the others will find interesting. It will be like old times.”

  Sophie’s response came through so quickly that Toots was surprised. “I can’t leave him here alone. This old bird is taking way too long to die. I didn’t pay that mountain of premiums all these years to get aced out of the payoff. Besides, I want him to sweat every day and wonder if I’m going to give him his meds and feed him. Which, of course, I do. What kind of person would I be not to do that?”

  Well, Toots decided, she could certainly relate to that. “Not to worry, Sophie. I’ll get you a nurse 24/7 for your husband. So you’ll come, then? By the way, I buried Leland today.”

  Sophie shot back. “Okay, I’ll clear my schedule that’s not really a schedule. Just let me know when my departure date is. Who is Leland?”

  Toots responded to her e-mail. “I’ll get back to you on the date. Leland was my husband. I have to do that ten-day mourning thing. Nine days if you count today. I am definitely counting today. You can watch me and know what it’s like, so you’ll know how to behave when that dud you married bites the dust. Mourning is tricky. You have to do it just right, or people will talk about you.”

  “What number is Leland?” Sophie queried. “I think you’ve been married more times than Elizabeth Taylor.”

  Toots quickly replied, “Leland was number 8, and I am never getting married again. More tomorrow. I have to e-mail Ida now. She’s going to be tough. Remember how we hated each other and pretended we didn’t? I think she’s still ticked off that I married the guy she wanted. She’d be a widow now if I hadn’t. I tried to tell her he was a big nothing, but he did have all that money.”