“We both have an early day,” he said. “How about I whip you up one of my special omelets?”
“I don’t have any eggs,” I said.
“Okay. How about pancakes?”
“No pancake mix, no syrup, and no eggs.”
“Toast?”
“Sure. I think I have a toaster. And the coffee is in the fridge,” I said, wanting him to leave my bed.
I’m not certain, but I think Brock sensed my distance. It was far better that than for him to know my sadness and fears.
I quickly showered and donned yet another bleak business suit. On some days they suited me well, I thought.
As I walked out of the bedroom Brock pulled me against the wall in the same hall where we had left our ripped off clothes from the night before.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I pushed him out of my way. “I’ll grab some toast but I need to run. Like you said, we both have an early day.” I scurried to the kitchen.
“Shit. The sun is barely up and we have time. I need you to know that I’m not the bachelor baseball playing hunk of the year most people think I am.”
My eyes rolled and Brock must have seen the smirk that crossed my face, spreading as fast and long as the tracks left in the snow by a team of Iditarod dogs.
His face turned to a crimson red. I could see the pulsing of blood at his temples.
“Listen to me! I can’t be celibate but I sure as hell am the best candidate to be monogamous. With you. I love you.”
I fell back toward the toaster, trying to disengage any connection, I suppose.
I said, “You love me as a childhood pal, but all grown up. Yesterday you thought I should have nails in my garage and get nailed. That’s what friends are for.”
“Damn it again! I love you. I always have and I always will.”
His eyes pierced my heart but it didn’t sting too much.
“Damn it again! Say it or I swear I’ll walk right out of here and this time I won’t come back. I can’t take it anymore.”
I wanted to say it. I knew it was true. But I also knew if I spoke those three words aloud Brock Townsend would be my next loved one to die.
Chapter Eighty
Choices
VICTOR ROMERO HELD his face five inches from the computer monitor. He studied the images over and over again. Dr. Nathan Judd, New York City. Dr. Judd Harlan. Tucson. Dr. Harlan Coal. Los Angeles.
They were one and the same.
Romero grabbed the phone.
“You sitting down, Wray?”
“Hell no! I don’t have the luxury. Not like your retired fat ass.”
“For your information, I’m working my ass off on your investigation.”
“What do you have?”
Romero told Detective Wray all he had found, then sent the images over to Wray’s computer.
“Sonuva bitch!” Wray yelled. “Did you hear I’m working on a double homicide that somehow must be connected to that scum ball?”
“Timing is everything,” Romero said.
“You’ve got that right. We can’t place Coal anywhere near the scene. Airtight alibi. And he’s playing all nicey-nice with us. Full cooperation and all that shit.”
“Get him in for a polygraph if he’s so damn helpful.”
“Already scheduled.”
BROCK STOOD IN FRONT of me, regaining his composure or at least the tawny color in his face, until he turned away.
“Brock?”
“About that self-proclaimed sabbatical from your best friends.”
“What about it?”
“You’re making choices, Lauren.”
This time I was the one fuming. “You’re damn right I am. My loved ones don’t get pissed off at me. They don’t move away to Mozambique. They die! Last time I took inventory I was down to one girlfriend!”
“Life is about choices. Sure, God gives us our starting ground. We’re born rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, or even diseased from the get go.”
Brock had a younger brother born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Ninety percent of children born with this affliction don’t make it past two years. Brock’s little brother made it to ten, and long enough to see his older brother have talent scouts come knocking at the door after watching him pitch a few games.
“You’ve made choices, Lauren” Brock continued. “You decided to go to university. You decided to major in journalism. You decided to go it alone and start up your first magazine, sell it for a fortune, then move here and start up another one.”
“It’s not exactly like heading west in a horse and buggy with Indian arrows flying at you.”
“But somewhere along the way you decided to become a victim.”
“No. That word is not in my vocabulary.”
“Maybe not. But it’s in your mind.”
“The deaths of my mother, father, fiancé, and two good friends are not in my mind.”
“But you’re allowing those events to come in and take up residence. You’re making a decision.
“Every decision we make come from one of two roots. It’s either a love based decision, or it’s one that’s fear based.”
I felt my rage escalate. “When did you become so all fucking mighty? God knows you sleep around with any pussy you can have for a night, you drink too much and smoke rancid cigars.”
“Touché. So I guess you and a whole lot of other folks would call me a hypocrite because we wild bachelors choose to call that behavior all part of the human experience,” he laughed.
A hypocrite and a sleaze ball. You bet! And now with the audacity to try and lecture me from some spiritual pulpit, I thought. “You might as well be oozing a snout full of snot. It would be preferable to the verbiage coming out of your mouth.”
“Slanderous. Even coming from you. Don’t you think I hurt like hell when my little brother died?” Brock’s voice cracked. “Hell, I had to see him on the sidelines, in a wheelchair, and we all knew I had a real chance at making it to the big leagues. This was my little brother, Lauren, and I felt sorry for him, but all he did was clap and cheer and whistle when I made a good play.
“And it killed me when Payton died. Maybe we don’t know how she died, but it doesn’t take away or alter the pain or the fact. And then Carly. Dear sweet Carly.
“Reconnect with the people that love you. Your disavowing their friendship is hurting them.”
“Okay, already,” I yelled. “Anything else you have to cram down my throat? Maybe a baseball with porcupine quills on it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Let’s nail this sonuva bitch so-called doctor.”
Chapter Eighty-One
The Professionals
Brock made one call and cancelled his physical therapy appointment. He implored me to do the same with my first meeting.
“I have an idea about how to get what we need from Coal so that you can and will get your sweet butt to the police. With everything.”
Once again his eyes penetrated mine and I closed my lids tight. There was no denying I trusted him.
I acquiesced and called my office and cancelled my morning plans. All of them. Then I closed my eyes again and held onto the countertop to stabilize both my body and my mind.
“Let’s take our coffees and go down to the beach. I need to feel the sand in my toes. It makes for a great pedicure for you,” Brock said.
We walked in a slow silence along the shoreline—the waves our only steady conversation. We slopped along the water’s edge, the sparkles of sand and foamy bubbles forming new patterns with each step we took.
“We need to get into that locked room at The Centre,” Brock whispered, barely audible above the sound of the waves crashing.
“I agree. I think.”
“We have to have something to tie this creep to those photos. And whatever he’s hiding, it’s probably behind the only locked door on his entire so-called free grounds.”
We sat down a few feet from the surf. “Have you really got a plan?” I asked.
“I have the start of a plan. We have a fireworks home-game coming up, and I’ve got clubroom passes, all the V.I.P perks we want. We invite Coal and make it an event for him and some of his boys he has in that cult of his.”
“Wait a minute. I never said it was a cult.”
“No protein in their diets, Laurs. It breaks the body down, and fast. Physically, and mentally, too. The chanting going on. No privacy.”
“Call it what you like,” I said.
“He knows he’d look like a fool or the fraud that he is if he turned down the free offer for his favorite boys.”
The thought sickened me. Who would watch those little boys?
“Okay. Suppose we get the good doctor out to your ballgame. If you’re playing, that leaves me to do the breaking in?”
“I said I have the start of a plan. Not a printed manual.”
“So we come up with one. They buy into it. Then what?”
“I’ll have security keep an extra eye on them at the game. It’s going to be up to you to get into that room.”
“Breaking and entering charges all on me.”
Brock grinned. “You did say they don’t believe in locks. You might have to plead your innocence in that you were just trying to help them stick to their own damn communal laws.”
We made the turn on the beach and headed back toward my house. I turned to check out the beach home formerly occupied by Coal’s assistant. The window coverings were closed tight. There was no sign of life. Literally.
“Hey, last night when you came home—what the hell were you thinking by attacking a burglar with a can of old mace?” Brock asked.
“You want me to become a burglar, but you come down on me for not protecting myself correctly?”
“First, I didn’t say we’d steal anything.”
“Glad to hear you use the word ‘we’,” I said.
Brock broke off our conversation to make a call. “That’s it. Geoff will take care of everything.
“And just so you know, Geoff and I talked about it yesterday. The security company that guards your office building will be out here starting tomorrow at your house. Full time. And Geoff will be with you when you go in to get a look at that wall.”
“You figured out all of that just now?”
“Like I said. We’ve been talking.”
I should have thanked him. Instead I said, “Brock, just what would you have done if you’d come into my house today and heard me in the bedroom?
“You mean like ‘heard’ heard?”
“Exactly.”
“Wouldn’t have gamboled into your bedroom, I guess.”
We didn’t talk about those three little words, but with Brock’s new plan in play, I knew he would come back to me without me speaking them. Maybe.
ALONE, I TUCKED MY head toward my knees and closed my eyes. My hands both fisted as I accepted the call from Detective Wray.
“What about Dr. Coal?” I asked.
Detective Wray’s response came quickly, “He’s a person of interest. Turns out Carly Posh had two real estate holdings and Coal seems to think he’s the new owner of both. For now he’s happy as a cold clam belly and willing to go the extra mile to help us. He’s coming in tomorrow for a polygraph.
“In the meantime, don’t do anything stupid. You got that?”
DO YOU EVER GET that dichotomous sensation that things seem to slow down and speed up at the same time? That’s how I felt.
I made the call from my car while finding a coveted parking space. Harlan Coal’s voicemail answered, thank god. I left the message for him that I’d been swamped with a new CoverBoy issue. I told him it would be another week or so and then hoped we’d find some quality session time together. I prayed he didn’t hear what felt like magpies pecking on the back of my larynx.
With my schedule tied up, Coal might be more inclined to accept the baseball passes. It’s not like I could be that important to him. But Coal would be up for a game of sticking anything to Brock Townsend during one of his games. And both games, I now deduced, were being played by professionals.
Chapter Eighty-Two
The Plan
I SAT WITH BROCK at the Santa Monica Pier where devouring fish tacos became my number one goal.
Brock couldn’t wait to tell me. In the time I had hung up my phone, parked, and walked to restaurant at the end of the pier, Harlan Coal had confirmed his tickets for the baseball game.
“Are you sure you’re up to this? You’re doing that thing with your neck and pulling at your ears,” Brock said.
“Just tell me when,” I said. We waited for our favorite table. Brock bought us a couple of Corona’s at the bar.
“Next Thursday’s divisional game. My first home game since I was benched. Coal and six of his little resident boyfriends. They’re confirmed to come early and stay late for tours and to meet some of the players.
“How do we know he’ll show?”
“Oh, he’ll show. They have private passes reserved with all the V.I.P. perks: a luxury box, the Adelphia Stadium Club for all the food and drink they can put away, Dodger Dollars for souvenirs, and locker room passes for after the game.”
“Wow! I’ll take you up on those locker room passes,” I said.
“There’s my old girlfriend, back again.
“More important, we’re in control of their comings and goings. I got them transportation in the form of a stretch Hummer. Told Coal it was part of the deal.”
I managed a wry grin with pursed lips sealed so tight I felt like a gator. I could close my mouth shut but there was little strength to open it again.
I managed, “Isn’t he going to wonder why you’re being so generous with him all of the sudden?”
“He thinks it’s all because of you. So our war continues. We’ll be like two gladiators fighting over our princess’s love.”
I didn’t go there with him.
Geoff had told me he’d help anytime. What I didn’t know was that he was an old pro at jimmying locks. I updated Brock, who said he already knew.
“Everything is set to go. So then, what’s wrong? Something is, honey. What is it?” Brock asked.
“Besides breaking and entering?”
“Shit. That ain’t nothing for you,” he teased, but his penetrating eyes revealed his concern.
“I’m missing a set of keys to my house.”
“Did you tell the security company?”
“Nah. The guy watching my house is a moron with muscles. And I’m not about to switch out every lock, then find them in the bottom of a purse somewhere.”
“They’re not with your car keys?”
“I keep a set separate for when I valet park.”
“I seem to remember teaching you to do that.”
“Then you get the credit that I lost them.”
The hostess led the way and we slipped into the cheesy white plastic chairs that adorned the funky deck. The moist sea breeze immediately began tangling my hair, feeling like a spa treatment in comparison to the city’s intense heat and smog.
“You know, I think it just pisses me off. There I was putting out an entire issue filled with articles on perverts, and I had no idea Harlan Coal could have been my lead story.”
“Quit beating yourself up. Let me ask you one more time. Are you ready to roll next Thursday?”
“Yes. I’m more than ready.”
“I’ll call you on your cell when I’m positive both Coal and his bevy of boys are at the ballpark. Then, only then, you and Geoff go and do your thing. And be quick about it, Laurs, even though I said you’ll have plenty of time. You’re there to get photographs. If you start feeling spooked, that’s it. You get out.”
The waitress arrived and without a glance at the menu I order the large plate of fish tacos.
Brock ordered another beer.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” I asked.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m going out tonight. Saving my appetite.”
S
o Brock took some bimbo out to dinner, then probably screwed her brains out, assuming she had any. One way or the other I had no doubt he had sated his appetite.
That next morning my doorbell rang. A locksmith had orders to change out every lock on every door. Brock Townsend had prepaid for it.
The arrangement, our relationship, suited me just fine.
FIVE DAYS LATER THE Dodgers were suiting up to play the Atlanta Braves. Geoff and I sipped on iced frappucinos from the front seat of his oh-so-obvious bright green P.T. Cruiser, parked several blocks away from The Centre. We were as ready as we’d ever be when my phone rang.
“Our guests of honor are in full attendance, at their box and ready to belt out the National Anthem on a Chamber of Commerce day here at Dodger Stadium,” Brock announced.
“Perfect,” I said with a lump in my throat.
I tossed my cell back into my purse and pulled out the camera. Within minutes we had scrambled to the front gate of The Centre. The halls that once beckoned me, and the walls of the inner sanctum that once coddled me, now scared the living crap out of me.
Geoff turned his dark brown eyes to me. “It’s not too late. You could go back to the car and let me take care of this.”
“No way.”
My mind fissured and leaked like a cold egg, spewing its contents into the middle of a boiling pot of water.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Breaking & Entering
GEOFF AND I WALKED around the compound as if we belonged to the community. Actually, Geoff strolled around as if he owned the joint. I felt more conspicuous than when I sat on Coal’s office floor with the short skirt.
Plenty of people meandered around the gardens. Open doors revealed others gathered on floors of both homes and community spaces. No locks and no clocks. I saw a buffet line under a covered patio. No protein that I could observe. Small circles of meditative spirits spread out under the shade of the trees. I noticed the play equipment at the far end. No children. Not one.
Why hadn’t I seen how weird this whole thing was?
CoverBoys & Curses Page 22
