“Oh, come on, Jessica,” she said. “We both know that’s a lie. If what my personal assistant tells me is true—and I’ve seen the photos, so I know it is true—you seem to spend quite a lot of your time drinking in that grubby little bar along the street. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.”

“What did you say?”

“I know exactly who you are and what you want,” Catherine said. “And I can assure you it’s not going to happen. Your whore of a mother didn’t get a cent out of me, and neither will you.”

“My mother? You knew?”

Jessica’s head pounded. The room shifted and tilted all of a sudden, like she was on a small boat on a choppy sea. She felt like she was going to throw up. Perspiration dampened her skin.

Catherine said, “Give me some credit, Jessica. A PI from New York turns up out of the blue asking questions, and you don’t think I’m going to check it out? Check you out?”

“You’ve been following me?”

“Not me personally, no. I’m a little too busy for such menial tasks. I did enjoy looking at the pictures, though. That’s a very attractive friend you have, Jessica. Although friend probably isn’t the right word. That was quite a show the two of you were putting on outside that strip bar in Hollywood last night.”

“The black SUV. That was your guy.”

“Oh, so you spotted him? Maybe you’re not such a poor investigator after all.”

“He was kind of hard to miss.”

Catherine Tavernier smiled. “That’s the thing with Nate: he’s not the smartest. But he’s very nice to look at—a very personal assistant, if you know what I mean—and he does what he’s told. No questions asked. He’s also very helpful when dealing with my little . . . problems.”

“I’m not a problem. I’m your fucking sister.”

“Half sister,” Catherine snapped, the calm veneer slipping for the first time. “And even that’s being generous. You were a dirty secret, a meal ticket, nothing more than a bargaining chip. You were a problem then, and you’re a problem now.”

Jessica tried to focus on the older woman. “You knew about me back then?”

“I’ve known a lot of things for a very long time,” Tavernier said. “I just wonder how much you know? Did you know your mother was a dirty hooker who had sex with my father for money and then kept on screwing him again and again for cash? First, she wanted a job. Then a house. Then it was clothes, food, booze, drugs, a car. All paid for by my father in return for her silence. She knew exactly what she was doing when she got herself knocked up. The bitch must have felt like she’d won the lottery.”

Catherine Tavernier shook her head in disgust.