Chapter One

The last place Marigold Luxe expected to be at 3:43 a.m. Sunday morning was the Ritz-Carlton in downtown LA. But there she was, wearing the jeans she’d picked up off her floor when the phone rang, along with the threadbare Indigo Girls concert T-shirt she’d been sleeping in. At least she’d had the good sense to throw a blazer over it at the last minute. Now the concierge was marching her down a long hallway with ridiculously plush red-and-gold carpeting and shiny brass wall sconces dimmed to a lighting level appropriate for the early-morning hour.

She heard the reason for her arrival before she could even see the room number on the door placard.

“Do you not know who I am?” The loud words were slurred. “I’m Ava Ashford! Dakota Oakley?”

For most talent managers, extracting drunk clients from hotels in the wee hours of the morning wasn’t a typical part of the job. But Marigold was known as the fixer at the agency where she was employed, and that meant going above and beyond for clients who needed special handling. And this time it meant being a big ol’ 3 a.m. party pooper at the Ritz-Carlton.

Marigold fixed her face into a calm expression, bracing herself for what she would find on the other side of the door. She held steady, but inwardly she winced when the concierge pushed it open to reveal her indignant, nineteen-year-old client wearing wide-leg jeans and a bra, standing with fists on hips, facing off with the hotel’s head night manager. The room was trashed—the sofa overturned, the floor littered with empty beer bottles and the passed-out partiers who had emptied them, and the large screen television mounted to the wall now featuring a huge spiderweb crack radiating from the center as if it had been used by Dakota Oakley for target practice.

“Seriously,” Ava continued her rant, “you’ve never heard of Homestead Hollow? Lez ride!”

The line from the show was actually “let’s ride,” but due to the sapphic inclination of Ava’s character, the fans had shifted her catch phrase to “lez ride” and it had stuck. To Marigold’s disappointment, it had also recently been spray-painted in big, jet-black letters onto one of the hotel room’s laurel-green walls.

“I assure you, miss, I have not,” William, the manager attempting to mitigate the situation, said before turning to Marigold. “Ah, Ms. Luxe. Thank you for arriving so quickly.”

“Thank you for calling me and not the police.” She handed him her business card on top of a few hundred dollar bills. “The firm will pay for all damages just as soon as we receive an invoice. We appreciate your discretion.” She handed the concierge a large tip as well.

“The only reason I did not alert the authorities was because the young lady gave me your name. We’d had numerous noise complaints about this room over the course of the night. When I finally came up here to investigate and found the suite in such a state…”

Marigold pulled two more bills from her back pocket and passed them to him under the guise of a grateful handshake. Unfortunately, this was not the first time she’d been called to the Ritz-Carlton to extract a rowdy client. “And I appreciate that, William. Give me a couple of minutes and we’ll be out of your hair.” She turned to Ava and changed her tone to reflect her displeasure. “Find your shirt.”

Ava seemed to register that the party was over. While she walked the room looking for the rest of the outfit she’d started the evening in, Marigold and the concierge rousted the stragglers from their various states of coherence and directed them to the security guards who waited silently in the hallway to escort them off the premises.

“None of these other folks are mine, so if they give you any trouble go ahead and call the cops. I’ll take this one with me.” She linked her arm through Ava’s to indicate she was officially on a short leash. “And thanks again, William.”

“Of course.” He gave her a curt nod and what she read as a hint of a sympathetic smile before retreating from the room.

* * *

“What the hell were you thinking?” Marigold had been driving for nearly ten minutes in silence before she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Apparently Ava was fine without speaking during the drive. She sat slouched in the passenger seat, arms crossed, staring at her knees. Marigold actually preferred quiet Ava to the boisterous, drunken, braggadocious version from earlier. The thing was, she was expecting at the very least, a thank-you for what had just occurred. So she couldn’t help poking.

“Okay, yeah. I know what you were thinking. ‘I’m Ava Ashford. I’m a big freaking deal.’ Right? But being on a popular television show doesn’t give you the right to behave like a…like that.” More silence. Marigold blew out an exasperated sigh. “I was sleeping, for heaven’s sake. Why did you have them call me instead of your grandmother anyway?”

The question was met with a wry look and more silence.

“Yeah, I get it,” Marigold said. “I wouldn’t have wanted my grandma to walk into that scene if I were in your shoes.”

“You missed the exit.” Ava finally spoke.

“What?”

“To my house. You missed the exit to my house.”

“I didn’t miss it.” Marigold kept her gaze trained on the road ahead of her. “I passed it. I’m taking you to my house to sleep this off. I don’t need you expressing your Dakota Oakley enthusiasm any further this evening. I mean, this morning. I’ll drive you home after some sleep and some breakfast. I don’t want you out of my sight until I’m certain you’ve sobered up.”

Ava leaned her head against the window of the passenger door. She looked like a sleepy little girl. Her single word was nearly inaudible. “Okay.”

* * *

When Marigold woke the next morning, Ava Ashford was not slumbering on the sofa where she’d been left in the wee hours of the morning. The blankets were still on the couch, and the just-in-case puke bucket was beside it—thankfully empty—but Ava was nowhere to be found.

A quick check of the front door confirmed what she expected: it wasn’t locked, the way she’d left it when she’d finally gone to bed only three hours earlier. Thanks a lot for that, kid.

She clicked the deadbolt back in place and rested her sleepy head against the door. “Damn it.”

Then she spotted the note on the side table, scribbled on the back of an old food delivery receipt.

THANKS, MARIGOLD. - A.A.