Faces of Fear

by John Saul

  He nodded.

  “Conrad gets all of it?” Risa asked. “What on earth is in it?”

  Danielle smiled. “All-natural ingredients, and I can tell you I have no intention of telling you anything specific about it—I think I have more security on this formula than Coca-Cola has on theirs. I will tell you that the salve contains only substances that the body produces itself, but needs in extra quantities to promote the kind of healing that we’re looking for.”

  “What kind of substances?” Alison asked as she opened the box. There was a small jar inside. She unscrewed the top and sniffed at it. “Smells good.” She handed it to her mother.

  “This is so nice of you, Danielle,” Risa said.

  “Believe me, it’s my pleasure,” Danielle responded, and patted Alison’s hand. “Conrad is important to me, and my formulas are important to Conrad’s clients. And he tells me that Alison is his most important client, so I intend to see to it that she gets nothing but the best.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Risa said. “Maybe I can at least buy you lunch sometime? I know it’s not much, but at least it’s something.”

  “And not the slightest bit necessary,” Danielle said, checking her watch. “Oh lord, I’m going to be late for a brunch at the Polo Lounge—have to run.”

  As Danielle turned to kiss Conrad on the cheek, Risa noticed a long scratch down the woman’s neck that she hadn’t managed to cover with makeup. Maybe she ought to put a little of her special formula on that, she thought, then chided herself for being catty after the woman had come all the way over on a Saturday to bring Alison a gift.

  “I have to go, too,” Conrad said. “I’ve got other patients, so I’ll see you both at home.” He moved Alison’s breakfast tray back to her. “Your eggs are cold,” he said, putting the cover back over the plate. “Drink your juice and I’ll have a fresh plate brought up.” He kissed her on the cheek, then did the same to Risa, grabbed the chart, and left.

  “I don’t believe it,” Alison breathed when she and her mother were once more alone in the room. “Danielle DeLorian was just here. Danielle DeLorian! To see me!”

  “I know,” Risa sighed. “But I guess we’d better start getting used to it—we seem to be part of that crowd now. I knew Conrad knows everyone in town, but I had no idea they liked him as much as Danielle obviously does.”

  Alison started to laugh, then winced. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said. “It hurts.”

  “Sorry,” Risa said, but found herself laughing anyway. After last night with Conrad and this morning with Alison, life seemed very much worth laughing about. Conrad loved her, and Alison would be home this afternoon, and suddenly life was even better than laughter.

  Life, indeed, was perfect.

  THE GENTLE STRAINS of Stravinsky filled the operating room with soothing music, the rhythms almost perfectly matching Jillian Oglesby’s breathing, as Conrad Dunn cut a solitary hair follicle from the patch of skin he’d taken from the back of the girl’s neck and lifted it with tweezers.

  His hand hovered over the nearly microscopic socket he’d made for the follicle on her supraorbital ridge. The single strand of hair was perfectly aligned, but at the last moment he gave it a quarter of a turn before slipping it into its receptacle.

  Teresa and Kate exchanged a look, and Kate frowned uncertainly.

  “Doctor?” Teresa said.

  “I know,” Conrad said, his tweezers already poised to pluck the hair out again. He stepped back and took a deep breath, then looked up at the computer screen, where Jillian Oglesby’s high school photo had been enlarged to show nothing more than her eyebrows a few months before she was attacked. “I wish Corinne had never mentioned it,” he went on as Teresa swabbed perspiration from his forehead. “I would never have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out.”

  “What are you talking about, Conrad?” Kate asked, her eyes never leaving the monitors tracking Jillian’s anesthesia.

  “Look at them!” He gestured toward the monitor with his scalpel. “Don’t you see it? They were exactly like Margot’s!”

  Teresa again looked over at Kate, who shrugged uncertainly.

  “What right does she have to have brows as perfect as Margot’s?”

  “She grew them that way,” Kate said. “Doesn’t that give her an even better right to them than Margot had?”

  “I know,” Conrad sighed. “But somehow it doesn’t seem right that someone like this should have brows as perfect as Margot’s, especially without any help at all. And certainly not without having the rest of Margot to go with them. This seems…I don’t know…sacrilegious, I guess.” He tore his eyes from the monitor and focused once more on Jillian. “I just felt like I ought to give them one tiny imperfection—just a single hair slightly out of place. Add a little…what? Personality, maybe?”

  He glanced up at Teresa, whose eyes seemed not only perplexed, but disapproving as well, then turned to Kate.

  The anesthesiologist’s expression duplicated that of the nurse’s.

  And neither of them spoke, knowing Conrad Dunn could read their expressions at least as clearly as he would hear their words.

  “You’re right,” he sighed, plucking out the hair and discarding it. “She should be as perfect as I can possibly make her.” He chose another hair, excised it from the donor patch, and inserted it into the tiny pocket from which he’d plucked the offending strand. Working slowly and carefully, he continued to transplant the hairs, one by one, until both brows were full and arched every bit as perfectly as the ones displayed on the monitor.

  “Nicely done, Conrad,” Kate said nearly two hours later, when he was finally satisfied with his work.

  “They’re exactly as they were, and if she’s careful about keeping them trimmed, very few people will ever notice they’re not quite brow hairs,” Conrad said. Then he smiled at his surgical team. “Not that it matters—Jillian Oglesby will never be anything like Margot, at least not like the Margot I constructed before.” He squeezed a tiny dab of golden ointment from a small tube labeled HEALING HEALTH LABORATORIES and gently applied it not only to the brows themselves, but to the area around them, and then to the stitches at the back of Jillian’s neck from which he’d taken the patch of donor skin.

  “Can you finish?” he asked Teresa.

  “Of course,” the nurse replied.

  Conrad Dunn gazed down at Jillian Oglesby’s face, utterly relaxed in sleep. “They really aren’t Margot’s brows, if you actually study them,” he said. “The shape is there—no question about it. And the color. But this girl simply doesn’t have the underlying bone structure to show them off properly.” His eyes finally shifted away from Jillian’s face to the image of Margot on the wall monitor, a picture taken from full front, which showed her eyebrows in their full perfection. “That was the magic of Margot,” he said almost to himself. “That perfect bone structure.”

  “Which none of us will ever see again,” Kate said, deliberately disturbing his reverie. “She was one of a kind, and there won’t be another.”

  “Actually, that’s not quite true,” Conrad Dunn said quietly as he pulled off his gloves. “I believe Alison Shaw has it.”

  Part Three

  TRANSFORMATION

  23

  “WELL, I’M STILL NOT GOING TO TELL YOU I APPROVE,” CINDY KEARNS said, but even though the words hadn’t changed in the half hour Alison had just spent telling her best friend the latest details of her recovery from surgery, Cindy’s tone had softened, and Alison knew that when she finally saw her new figure in person, Cindy would be as happy about it as she herself was.

  “I just wish you could come over right now,” Alison sighed.

  “I could, if you still lived in Santa Monica,” Cindy reminded her.

  “I know. I wish I still lived there, too,” she said, but knew that wasn’t quite true anymore. She hadn’t just gotten used to living in Conrad Dunn’s enormous house, she’d started to feel comfortable in it. When she thought abo
ut her old room in the little house in Santa Monica, she realized she didn’t want to go back to it. “It would be even better if you lived up here in Bel Air,” she said.

  “Like that’s ever going to happen,” Cindy drawled. “My dad’s a fireman, remember? Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. What should I wear?”

  “We’re going to start inside, and then we’ll go outside for dancing. Just wear what you think you’ll be comfortable in. It’ll be fine.” Alison flipped the phone closed to end the call a few seconds later, then swiveled around in her desk chair to look around her room, trying to see it the way the Santa Monica kids who hadn’t already been up here—which was all of them but Cindy—would see it. They’d be expecting a big house—practically every house in Bel Air was large, and the newest ones were so big they looked ridiculous—but most of them hadn’t ever seen a bedroom as big as hers. Still, the room had started to look like her, with her favorite posters on the walls, her stuffed animals among the throw pillows on the bed, and her track medals and trophies on the bookcase.

  Not all that much different from her room in Santa Monica, she told herself, except for its size.

  And the thick Oriental rugs on the gleaming hardwood floors.

  And the beautiful paper covering the walls above the wainscoting.

  And the private bathroom she didn’t have to share with anyone.

  Okay, it was a lot different from her old room, but it was hers now, and she liked it, just like anyone would. So why was she feeling guilty? Or maybe the little knot in her stomach was just hunger. She looked at the clock—her mom wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. Maybe she’d go down and see if she could sneak or beg a snack from Maria.

  She was just getting up when there were two raps on her bedroom door.

  “Come on in,” she called out.

  Conrad opened the door, holding a large flat white box. “Hi,” he said. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Alison shook her head. “I was just talking to my friend Cindy.”

  “I brought a dress I thought you’d look good in tomorrow at your party,” he said, and handed her the box.

  Alison looked at it uncertainly. Didn’t he know she already had a dress?

  One he’d paid twelve hundred dollars for?

  She racked her brain, trying to remember if she’d mentioned it to him. But surely she had at least thanked him for it, hadn’t she? “I—I already have a dress—” she stammered.

  Conrad thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh, for God’s sake! How could I have forgotten?” Then his voice changed and he sounded almost like a little boy. “Maybe you could save the other one for another day? I found this one, and it seemed so perfect, and—”

  “I guess I could,” Alison broke in. “But what if it doesn’t fit?” Conrad stared blankly at her, and she had the distinct feeling that the thought had never crossed his mind. “Maybe I should try it on.”

  “Great!” Conrad said, his expression suddenly clearing. “And if it doesn’t fit, or you don’t like it, you can wear the one you already have.”

  Alison put the box on the corner of her bed, then raised the lid.

  When she peeled back the tissue paper, she gasped. A gorgeous black V-neck dress, made of the lightest fabric she’d ever seen, lay folded inside.

  She stared at Conrad in stunned amazement.

  “Go ahead,” he urged. “Take it out.”

  She lifted the dress from the box. It couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces. The back was cut low and the flared skirt, cut on the bias, had a diagonal hem dropping away from right to left.

  And a very discreet Valentino label.

  “Oh, Conrad,” she breathed. “This is beautiful.”

  “Try it on,” he said.

  She turned to look at him. “You’re sure?” she asked. “It must have cost—”

  “Just try it on,” he broke in, lowering himself into the wing chair by the window. “If you hate it, I’ll return it. If you like it, and it fits, you can either wear it tomorrow or it can stay in your closet until you need it.” His right eyebrow lifted archly. “Trust me—my first wife taught me that you can’t have too many dresses.”

  Alison was still torn, balancing the expense of the dress against the vision she had of herself wearing it. And she could see that Conrad truly did want her to have it. “Okay,” she finally said, clutching the gown to her. “I’ll be right back.”

  She went into the dressing room between her bedroom and bathroom, closed the door behind her, and quickly shucked her shorts and tank top. She no longer needed a bra, thanks to Conrad’s gift of two weeks ago, so she slipped the dress over her head, letting it drop into place.

  It fit perfectly.

  A glance in the mirror told her the dress demanded upswept hair, so she rummaged in the bathroom for a clip and pulled her hair up into a semblance of a French twist. Then she slipped her feet into the pair of black high heels she was planning to dance in tomorrow and opened the door. “Ta da,” she said, opening her arms and slowly twirling. “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s more than perfect,” Conrad said, standing up. “It’s like that dress was created for you.”

  Alison grinned happily at him. “Why don’t I think Valentino’s ever even heard of me?”

  “Well, if he hasn’t, he will,” Conrad declared. “How about I take a picture of you for the album at the office? We don’t have an ‘after’ shot of you, and in that dress you’ll sell my services to everyone who sees you.”

  Alison hesitated. “What about my hair? And shouldn’t I be wearing makeup?”

  “Not needed,” Conrad declared. “Better to see you exactly the way you are.”

  “Can’t I at least comb my hair?” she asked.

  “Okay, comb your hair while I get my camera,” he said. “But no makeup. I don’t want anything distracting from your figure.”

  He left her room, and Alison returned to the dressing room, brushed her hair out, then swept it back up into a real twist, this time pinning it carefully in place. By the time she was finished and back in her bedroom, Conrad had returned, with a large digital single-lens-reflex camera.

  “By the window,” he said, motioning her over to a spot where sunlight was flooding into the room.

  She moved close to the window and leaned against the wall as Conrad focused the camera and started taking one picture after another. Like Margot, she thought. This is just how Margot must have felt.

  As the shutter kept clicking, Alison wondered if Margot Dunn had felt anywhere near as uncomfortable in front of Conrad’s camera as she did right now.

  In fact, the whole thing felt kind of creepy—posing for her stepfather in her own bedroom. But what could she say? Conrad had been so generous to her, done so much for her.

  Besides, it would be over in a couple more minutes. What harm could there be in humoring him?

  If he wanted to take her picture, who was she to say no?

  24

  ALISON BRUSHED A FINAL TOUCH OF GLOSS ONTO HER LIPS, THEN stood back, took a careful look at herself in the full-length mirror, and decided that Conrad’s procedure had been worth it.

  And that’s all it had been, actually—just a simple procedure she recovered from so quickly that whatever discomfort she’d felt was already nothing more than a dim memory. Nothing like surgery at all. Surgery would have hurt a lot more, and would have taken a much longer time to heal. So why had she been such a baby about it? Especially now that she was seeing the results.

  The difference the procedure had made was more than simply an augmentation of her breasts. It seemed as if her whole figure had changed from that of an adolescent into one of a young woman. All her curves seemed to have been accentuated by the procedure, and with her hair swept up, some of Danielle DeLorian’s incredibly expensive makeup lightly applied, and the spectacular Mandalay dress, she looked more like a sophisticated eighteen-year-old than the barely sixteen she actually was. Even more important, she looked like t
he kind of girl who could play hostess to the kind of party her mother and Conrad had arranged, rather than the pizza-and-games-or-a-movie birthday parties she’d had as long as she could remember. If this was how she looked with just the one procedure—

  Her mother’s voice on the intercom shattered her reverie. “Alison, your guests are arriving.”

  “Be right down,” she answered, then put away her cosmetics, and took one last look around her suite to make certain everything was neat and ready for inspection—every one of her friends from Santa Monica was going to want to see it.

  She opened her bedroom door and started down the stairs, seeing her mother and stepfather waiting for her in the foyer as she came around the turn at the staircase’s landing.

  “Alison,” Risa whispered, her eyes widening as she gazed up at her daughter. “You look beautiful—just beautiful.”

  As she came to the bottom of the stairs, twinkling lights in the garden caught Alison’s eye. “But not as pretty as the garden,” she said, smiling happily.

  “Nobody’s going to look at the garden once they take a look at you,” Conrad said. “You look spectacular.”

  Alison felt the color rising in her cheeks. “Thank you, Conrad,” she murmured. “Thanks for all of this.”

  “Happy sweet sixteen,” Conrad said, and raised the wineglass he was holding.

  Before Alison could respond, the doorbell rang, and Ruffles came tumbling down the stairs, barking as loud as he could.

  “And that’s our cue to vanish,” Risa said, bending down to scoop Ruffles up before he could launch himself at whoever was at the door. “We’ll be in the media room if you need us.”