Black Canyon Conspiracy

As Lauren and Sophie drew nearer, the woman laughed and playfully swatted Phil’s shoulder. “You are so bad,” she chided.

“Come back after you get off and I’ll show you how bad—and how good—I can be,” he said.

She laughed again, then saw the two women. “I’d better go,” she said, and rolled her cart away.

“Hello, Phil,” Lauren said.

He turned toward her and arched one eyebrow. “You’re about the last person I expected to see here.”

Hair cut, clean shaven and wearing a polo shirt and pressed khakis, he looked much better than the last time she’d seen him. He had a tan and had put on a few pounds. Her ex-husband was definitely handsome. She waited for the catch in her throat that always happened when she saw him again after time apart, and was relieved when it didn’t come. Maybe she was finally getting over him. “You’re looking good,” she said.

“You, too.” He stood and kissed her cheek, and nodded to her sister. “Hello, Sophie.”

“Hello, Phil.” Her greeting was cool; Sophie had never liked Phil, and when he’d left Lauren for another woman she’d stopped trying to hide her disdain.

“What brings you two here?” he asked. “Did you miss me?”

“We wanted to talk to you about Richard Prentice,” Lauren said. No sense being coy.

Some of the cheerfulness went out of his eyes, replaced by edgy caution. “What about him?”

“The grand jury refused to indict him on charges of kidnapping,” Sophie said.

Phil’s surprise seemed genuine. “They think he didn’t do it?”

“Apparently, he persuaded them I made up the whole story,” Lauren said.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Oh, please.” Sophie folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Your comments in the paper—calling Prentice your good friend and practically accusing Lauren of being delusional—didn’t help matters any.”

“You know how the press can be,” he said. “Always taking things out of context.”

“Did Prentice pay you to say those things about me?” Lauren asked.

“Is that what you think?” He put his hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to shrug him off. “Lauren, honey, I know this is hard for you to hear, but you have to admit that the last few months we were together, you were pretty out there. Not yourself.”

“Neither of us was at our best then,” she said.

“Maybe so. But at least I didn’t suddenly decide to redecorate the whole condo and stay up for two nights in a row ripping out tile and moving furniture, only to abandon the project half-done two days later and start looking at new places instead. And what about the time you bought all that expensive cookware and enrolled in an Italian cooking course? You gave one dinner party, then almost never went into the kitchen again.”

Lauren did move away from him then. “None of those things hurt anyone,” she said.

“They’re not normal, Lauren. All I wanted was a normal marriage. A normal life.”

“So that’s why you became a drug addict,” Sophie said. “So things would be ‘normal.’”

He took a step toward her, but Lauren stepped between them. “Back to Richard Prentice. Why did you tell the paper he was such a good friend? You hardly knew him.”

“I figured it wouldn’t hurt my reputation to be associated with a billionaire, you know?”

“How does Prentice feel, being associated with you?” Sophie asked.

Phil shot her a look and turned back to Lauren. “Maybe you shouldn’t be going around asking questions about Richard Prentice,” he said. “I mean, haven’t you had enough trouble from him?”