by Davis Bunn
Chloe’s chin quivered. But she clenched down tight and regained control. “If they won’t come around?”
“I’ll bring you back to LA myself. But at least this way you know you gave it your best shot.”
She remained like that, locked down tight, for a very long moment. Then she rammed open her door, almost leapt out, and started up toward the house.
As Chloe approached the front walk, the door opened, and Daniel’s sister appeared. She stared at the truck for a long moment, then ushered Chloe inside and shut the door.
Daniel breathed in and out, forcing air around the lancing pain caused by seeing his sister again.
Nicole’s voice held the same distress Daniel felt. “I need to go talk to her. Don’t I?”
“When you’re ready, and not before.”
A hand reached out and touched his arm. “I really, really like how you talk. With me. Not at me.”
Daniel had no idea how to respond. Silence gathered. He opened the truck’s four windows to the air and the birdsong. A car passed. From somewhere in the distance came the shriek of a band saw. Then silence.
Nicole surprised him by asking, “What was the mayor’s name again?”
Daniel turned in his seat. “Excuse me?”
“The bad lady you can’t get a handle on.”
“Lundberg. Catherine Lundberg.”
“Right. Her.” She traced the rim of her open window. “I’ve been thinking. What if Stella is right.”
Daniel swung around as far as he could go. “This Alabama Ukrainian is supposed to be really good at his job. And he couldn’t find anything that even suggested the mayor is on the take.”
“Sure. Okay. But what if it’s like you said back at the station?” Nicole turned from the window. “What if this isn’t about money at all? What if it’s something else?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . .” She shrugged. “Something you said when we were with the ice lady.”
“Kirsten.”
“Right. You’ve been bothered since the beginning at how sophisticated this is. You think it might be a bigger deal going down than them stealing from just one town.”
“So?”
“So what if the bad lady isn’t bad?” Her face was scrunched up again, only now there was an absence of the old pain. She was concentrating. Struggling to put this idea of hers into words. “What if she’s being forced? What if somebody else is robbing the city?”
Daniel felt as if the script was being written in the trees and street and lawn and silent house. “This is excellent. Only . . .”
“What?”
He drew the phone from his pocket. “Let’s see what our hacker friend has to say.”
CHAPTER 44
Stella made it to Long Beach before the freeway traffic slowed with rush hour. The Chevy only had seventeen thousand miles and drove well. Amber woke and climbed into the front seat, something she had insisted on doing since the day she turned ten. Stella wished her daughter a good morning and asked if she wanted to stop for food or a restroom break. When Amber did not respond, Stella glanced over and saw her daughter had her feet sticking straight out, like a little girl inspecting the toes of a new pair of shoes. “Is everything all right?”
Amber hummed a little note but did not speak.
“It’s not like you to be so quiet.”
“I’ve been remembering.”
“About what?”
“Daddy.”
Stella experienced the same uncertainty she had known ever since the previous week’s argument. Amber continued to break all their unspoken rules. Stella’s life was at least partly defined by how her daughter never became angry. She never raised her voice. She never lost her cheerful ability to lift Stella’s spirits. She never . . .
Amber never spoke about her father.
The man who had abandoned them and rarely visited and then left for Georgia. And remarried. And sent cards and called his own daughter maybe three or four times a year. Never, never, never.
Stella settled in behind a lawn-maintenance truck. It allowed her to focus on what was happening inside the car. It felt like her world was being canted sharply onto some new course. One she could neither identify nor even see clearly. Her little girl was changing, growing up, and becoming a stranger.
Amber broke into her thoughts with, “Do you remember, after he left? When things were so hard?”
Stella nodded her head. Unable to speak. She remembered.
“You cried a lot back then. I hurt too, Mommy. I cried with you sometimes, but it didn’t get any better. I didn’t know what to do. My sister was gone, and Daddy, and you . . . It felt like you were leaving me too.”
Stella unclenched the wheel long enough to clear her eyes. The truck in front of them remained somewhat blurry, but her vision was better now. Unlike her heart, which had shattered so completely it hurt to breathe.
“Then one night I heard you crying. I crawled into bed with you. I said I wanted to make things better.” Amber’s voice held to that same new tone, utterly calm and matter-of-fact, even though she was now using both hands to clear her own cheeks. “You said that we were going to get through this. You promised me. But you said you needed my help. Remember, Mommy?”
Stella managed a whispered, “No.”
“It’s true. I didn’t dream this. You said you needed me to be your little angel. I had to be there and sing for you and be happy for you, so you could find strength in me.” Amber was quiet for several miles, then said, “It was so hard.”
Stella wanted to find an exit and pull over. But it was tough enough just to keep a clear eye on the truck and the cars to either side.
“But I did it, Mommy. And you got better.”
She said, “You have been my angel.”
“But I’m tired, Mommy. I feel like I’ve had all these tears inside me. And I couldn’t let them out because you needed me to be happy.”
“Oh, darling, I never—”
“When I met Daniel, I thought he might be able to help me. And be the strong one. For you. And for me. Only you won’t let him.” She wiped her face again. “Now I don’t know what to do.”
CHAPTER 45
But their hacker did not answer.
The third time Daniel speed-dialed the Alabama number, Nicole said, “Here comes Chloe.”
Daniel cut the connection. The young girl looked more than beautiful, standing there on the home’s front step. The early-afternoon light angled between the trees and caught her in a golden spotlight. She positively glowed. Daniel could feel her magnetic draw and wished her parents were here for this moment. Chloe laughed at something Lisa said, then turned and started down toward them.
Daniel asked Nicole, “Do you want to go speak with Lisa?”
Her voice had shrunk to little-girl size. “Tomorrow. Maybe.”
It was the answer he had expected. “I think it would be a good idea if I went up.” Daniel took her silence as assent and opened his door. He approached Chloe and said, “Looks like things went well.”
“She’ll take me on. Her third and last intern.”
“And?”
“It all came together when I was inside.” She hugged herself. “You’re right. I need to let Mom and Dad be a part of this. If they want to.”
“You’re entering a huge change,” Daniel agreed. “Your life is taking a new direction. They love you. Let’s hope that’s enough to change them too.”
“And if it isn’t . . .”
“I’ll bring you back. Whenever you say.”
The grip she had on her middle tightened further. “Okay.”
He pointed up to where Lisa stood in the doorway, watching them. “Let me go have a word with my sister.”
* * *
The distance from Daniel’s pickup to where Lisa stood in her front door was not far. Call it a hundred yards. But it was long enough for the old tension to take hold. The vise was tight and somewhat pleasurable. All the desires
and flavors of his former life flooded in, inviting him to release the hunger, enjoy the forbidden pleasures. Just this once.
Daniel looked back to where the pickup rested in the tree’s shade. The two girls were not visible. He breathed in and out. Again. Feeling himself becoming anchored to the man they needed him to be.
Lisa broke into his thoughts with, “Is she there?”
Daniel turned around. “She is. Yes.” When Lisa merely continued to stare at the truck, Daniel said, “You need to make peace with your daughter.”
His sister responded by walking back inside. Leaving the door open. The message was clear. Come or go, it was his decision. But he needed to leave that portion of the conversation outside.
As he entered the foyer, Lisa said, “Chloe has promise.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Daniel shut the door. “She assumed getting here and having a chance would change everything. She’s just now learning it’s only shifted things up a notch.”
“She’s young,” Lisa said. “The question is, can she learn.”
“You did.”
“We both know I learned the hardest lessons before that woman ever stepped through her patio doors.”
That woman. The producer’s wife. The person responsible for giving Lisa her chance in life. Daniel said, “Chloe is sharp.”
“And quite attractive.”
“And intelligent. And the camera loves her. She’ll manage.”
Lisa made a vague gesture toward the kitchen. “You want something? I can fix you a drink.”
“I’m good.”
Lisa stood in the middle of the domed foyer, where the chandelier cast her in an ethereal glow. She always had a star’s ability to capture the spotlight.
“Don’t you want to know about your daughter?”
“Marvin said she was settling in.”
“That’s not the issue, and you know it.”
She looked out over the living room, past the sliding glass doors that vanished into the side walls, out to where her gardener trimmed an already perfect shrub. “I saw you on the news yesterday.”
Daniel knew there was nothing to be gained from pressing his sister.
“You said you’d never go on air again. Or come back to LA.” When he remained silent, she pressed, “That’s what you said. Or shouted.”
“I wasn’t the one yelling, and you know it.” He headed for the door. “Good-bye, Lisa.”
“Where are you going?”
“Our hotel. This conversation is going nowhere, and I’m tired.”
“Daniel, wait.” She showed him a little girl’s uncertainty. “What do I say to her?”
He kept his hand on the doorknob. “That you love her. You understand why she did what—”
“I don’t understand. I’ll never—”
“Do you want to hear what I think or not?”
The flatness of his voice, the hard edge, halted her tirade before she could really begin. That and the fact that he opened the door, showing her how close he was to walking out of her life.
“Go on, then.”
“Tell Nicole you understand she had reasons of her own to look for the truth. And that is what she found, Lisa. Despite years of your lying to her. And yourself. It happened, Nicole was right, and that’s why you’re angry. Because she found you out.” He hadn’t planned on being that tough, but her haughty attitude had always bored under his skin. “You’re the one who should be asking forgiveness. For the lies, for how you treated your own—”
“Stop. Just stop.”
“Your own daughter. You’ve spent years trying to mold her into someone she isn’t. Nicole is completely different from you. She is also a truly beautiful young lady. Perceptive, funny, incredibly intelligent. Someone who deserves a great deal better than you’ve ever given her. It’s time you accept her for who she is.”
“You’re making me cry.”
He was tempted to go to her. Offer the comfort she clearly wanted. But Daniel couldn’t tell whether it was an act or not. Lisa had always been a marvel at manipulating the moment. So he opened the door and said, “Last chance, sis. I’ll bring her by tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 46
A storm swept in off the Pacific that evening. Daniel was awake and seated by the window, watching the lightning cut silhouettes from the city skyline, when his phone rang. Nicole said in her little-girl voice that she and Chloe were scared.
Daniel found the two girls wrapped in blankets and seated on the fold-out sofa, not watching a black-and-white movie. They cut off the television as he took the room’s only chair. Rain lashed the window so hard the world disappeared, just washed away in the downpour.
The longer he sat there, the more irritated he became. He only half listened as the girls whined over the coming day. Chloe fretted about her parents and Lisa and the agencies. Nicole worried about whether she should actually meet her mom. They wanted more from him. Comfort, assurance, another something in the nonstop list of needs.
Finally, he rose, told them to get some rest, and returned to his room. Daniel stood by his bed until he lost the argument with himself. Then he grabbed his jacket and money and set out again.
He did not take his truck, in case the tide broke wrong and he was consumed. Instead, he returned to the habits of long ago. He walked to the concierge and asked for a limo. A taxi would not do. Not for where he was going. This time of night, arriving by taxi meant the occupant was either a tourist or a lowlife who guarded his wallet. A limo was Daniel’s pass to all the city’s midnight doors.
Daniel’s internal cauldron was spiced now by four years of unvanquished hunger. He was back. He had come to the wrong place for all the right reasons. The girls’ confidence in him only added to his conflicted emotions. Internal discord like this did not require a target, or a reason.
LA showed a secret face after midnight, one splashed with sparkling mascara and candy-pink lipstick. The smiles were electric, the crowds drawn not to the lights but rather the stars. Daniel had once been counted among the beautiful people. Not a top-tier name, of course. But he was a man on the rise, and the people who guarded the late-night doors had known it. The VIP tables were his, the hip young artists all knew him, or knew someone who made sure Daniel was included. Being included was everything.
He ordered the driver to head west and spent the ride trying to decide which place to hit. His favorite late-night club had been the Argyle, with a bi-level bar, sixties-era décor, a quiet alcove with a fireplace, and a two-story VIP table that had once been his to claim.
But as the limo descended into the city’s vibrant late-night crawl, Daniel knew there was only one place that suited the hour and his state of mind. He leaned forward and told the driver to take him to the Chateau Marmont.
Armed security stood at the entrance, which meant some major star was in residence. Daniel lowered his window, allowed the guard to take a good look, and was waved up the drive. All part of the show.
Chateau Marmont stood at the top of a rise overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Its white edifice had been completed just before Black Monday and the stock market crash of 1929. The hotel’s reputation had been going downhill ever since.
Sharon Tate and her bad-boy husband, Roman Polanski, had lived there. Jim Morrison had some of his most epic revelries on the hotel’s second floor. John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Bungalow 3. The hotel’s legacy was more sordid than the legends, because most of the truly bad stuff was kept hidden by the tight-lipped staff.
The Marmont bar had recently undergone a complete renovation, which meant its century-old décor sparkled and beckoned. Daniel took his customary place just around the curve, where he could survey both the bar’s clientele and all the beautiful people passing through the entrance. He vaguely recognized the older of the two bartenders, which was something, because for Daniel the Marmont had always been his last stop. When the night would not let go and his penthouse apartment had been just another place to pass out. That particular bartend
er had often arranged a room for Daniel, and he had always left a C-note with the concierge as a tip. The bartender had never thanked him, because as far as the outside world was concerned, the event had never happened. That was service, Marmont-style.
“Good evening, Mr. Riffkin. Nice to see you again.”
The name popped into Daniel’s brain at just the right moment. “Stephen.”
“Your usual?”
“Why not.”
It said a lot about the bar’s clientele that the house champagne, the bottle that was always kept open and ready, was vintage Cristal. The bartender placed the slender-stemmed glass down on a napkin, uncorked the bottle, and filled it to the brim. Another glass was set beside the first, this one to receive a finger of twenty-year-old vintage malt. These were Daniel’s late-hour drinks of choice—room-temperature whisky that seared its way down, soothed by golden bubbles one degree off ice.
Why not indeed.
“Enjoy, sir.” The bartender moved away.
Daniel sat there, staring at the two glasses.
Daniel was filled with the old exultation, a hunger as strong as fresh rage, the bitter triumph of playing king. He had known all along that his status was nothing more than a lie others accepted because it suited them. This station at the bar had been a mythical throne, a place to sit and bask for his very own mythical hour. The truth had been there in the eyes that watched him, the smiles cast his way, the laughter, the invitations. No matter how much he drank or stuffed up his nose, he had always known.
He ran a finger down the sweating champagne goblet and shivered. The blues were made for a time like this.
The bartender drifted back down his way. “Everything all right here, Mr. Riffkin?”
Daniel heard the raw edge to his own voice. “Can people change, Stephen?”
When the bartender did not come back with an immediate response, Daniel looked up, just in time to see the empty grave within the man’s gaze. All the dark hours, all the ghosts who wandered in and out of the man’s place of business, they haunted the bartender’s dark eyes.
