by Wendy Heard
She pulls them out of her pocket and I snatch them from her. I scrutinize every single one. Nothing on here looks suspicious. I hand them back to her and examine what she’s wearing. I search her skinny belt for a camera. Her button-down shirt is white. I can’t imagine she’s wearing anything underneath it, but I’m not sure how wires work; I’m not a cop. I feel like I’ve seen people hide wires under T-shirts in TV shows. “Unbutton your blouse,” I say. “Please.”
Her eyes go to the nearby door, the one marked Floor 12. I press my hand on the door to keep it from opening, and she quickly untucks her blouse and unbuttons it. She’s not wearing anything under it except a beige bra that matches her skin.
“Turn around,” I say.
She turns. I pull her shirt up to look at her back. Nothing is on her.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
She buttons her shirt up. I watch her, one eye on the stairwell. She tucks her shirt into her slacks and pulls the sleeves straight. She looks up at me and stops. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
She reaches for me, but I take a step back.
“Jazz?”
I feel torn up inside. I don’t want her to touch me. I want to run away from her.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Why did you ask me to come here?”
“I want to talk to you. This is too much. I think they’re just using me for now, but if they’re this determined to kill you and I know about it, I have to imagine they’re coming for me as soon as they get you.”
I nod. If she’s telling me the truth, this is probably right.
“So I think we should go to the police, and I wanted to know if you’d go with me. Maybe if both of us talked to them, they’d listen.”
I hesitate, afraid to say anything.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she cries.
“Because I don’t know if you’re you or if you’re them! Is this Sofia asking or is it the murder club speaking through you?”
She makes a wordless whimpering sound and presses her hands to her face.
A door opens somewhere in the stairwell. Footsteps echo below us. We freeze, waiting. Another door opens and the footsteps fade into silence.
In unison, we peer over the railing. The stairs spiral down floor after floor, empty.
She pulls me into the corner near the door, away from potential echoes. “I don’t want to tell the police. I want Charles to die. I really, really want him dead. But if he dies, that’ll implicate me, so we need to make a decision before they send someone after him. Do you understand? With Charles alive, I can say I was invited to join but never got as far as doing my assignment—would you please stop looking at me like that?” Her eyes sparkle with tears. “Your Carol is still alive, right? We can still go to the police. It’s not too late. It might be a good idea to go to a lawyer first, though. We shouldn’t go in there without representation. I’m sure they’ll do all kinds of things to get us to mess up our stories.”
Sometimes you do just have to trust someone. Sometimes there aren’t a lot of other choices.
I swallow. “I was thinking the same thing, except you’re right about the lawyer. I hadn’t thought about that. I have the license plate number off one of their members’ cars. And I have some other evidence in my apartment. I just need to get to it. We should bring those things with us.”
“What evidence?”
“Remember the Villains murder? I was there playing a show. That was how I got my flip phone in the first place. I also got the killer’s blood on me. It’s on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans at the bottom of my hamper.”
“How did you get his blood on you?”
“He was being a dick, so I gave him a bloody nose. That’s why he dropped his phone.”
She laughs. “Of course you did. Okay, well, you can’t go back to your apartment. They’re watching it.” She leans on the wall next to me so our shoulders are touching. “You know how they’re so worried about you having told someone?”
I nod.
“What if I tell them I saw something in your apartment, something that looked like... I don’t know. A letter or something. I bet they’ll let me go in and check it out.”
“Sofia, that’s really dangerous.”
“This whole thing is dangerous!”
We stand there, both of us heavy with the weight of it.
She says, “You have to go keep an eye on Charles. Make sure no one kills him.”
“Great.”
“Try not to hit him.”
“No promises.” She still doesn’t know about my little fight with him. I think I’ll tell her some other time. Or not.
I turn toward her and rest my hands on her waist. “You’re so tall in your heels.”
She runs her fingers through my bangs, straightening them. “I wish I had met you at a different time.”
“You wouldn’t have liked me if you weren’t in such a dark place.”
She frowns. “That’s not true.”
I smile, and the smile feels sad. “Yes, it is. But I don’t care. Pathetic, right?”
“Hey. Stop it. What’s your deal? Don’t create problems where there are no problems. Don’t we have enough to worry about?” I raise my eyebrows at this clapback, and she says, “Did I offend you?”
“No.” I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close. I can’t explain to her how much she didn’t offend me, how comforting it is to be told the exact and immediate truth. Her arms encircle my shoulders, and we stand there with our faces buried in each other’s necks.
“It’s really not true,” she whispers. It’s a nice thing for her to say. I can almost believe it.
I take a deep breath. Her throat smells sweet. “Let’s think about what we’ll do once we get through all this,” I say, my lips brushing the soft skin.
She squeezes me tighter. “Like what?”
“Something totally normal. Like taking the kids to the zoo or something.”
“Olive loves the zoo.” Her voice is so small and sad, it’s going to break me.
I nod, my nose rubbing against the collar of her shirt. “That’s perfect, then. We’ll make Joaquin ride the carousel. He’ll be so embarrassed.”
She giggles, just once, like a hiccup.
I pull back. “Okay. I’m going to go protect your terrible ex-husband.”
She looks like she feels sick. “Let me give you his work address. He works from nine to six usually, but he occasionally stays late.”
I pull my new Android phone out and have her program her number into it, and then I call her so she’ll have this number in her phone. She texts me the information about Charles, her lips set in a grim line. I pull my house keys out of my purse and hand them to her.
Hers is the only number I have in the contacts list. A faint, frightened voice inside my head wonders if I’m being foolish by trusting her.
I make a note to myself: when I get back in the car, I’m going to take the business cards Nielsen gave me and program the detectives’ phone numbers in, too, just in case.
35
BELINDA
BELINDA WAITS IMPATIENTLY, fingertips drumming on the steering wheel. She’s parked outside Jazz’s apartment, watching Sofia.
She checks her watch. 6:15 p.m. The daylight is starting to darken into evening. The sky is turning orange around the geometric silhouettes of apartment buildings, palm trees and telephone wires. She takes a sip of the stale coffee, grimaces and puts it back in the center console. There’s not enough coffee in the world to make her feel right.
The iPhone on her lap buzzes. Eager, she picks up the mobile and scans the screen for the text from the answering service. She nods in recognition—good, good—and goes into Contacts to dial the corresponding number. She activates the v
oice disguiser app and puts the phone to her ear.
It only rings once. “Hello?” comes the voice from the receiver.
Belinda closes her eyes to center herself. “Good evening,” she says calmly. “Are you alone?”
“I’m in the car. No one can hear me. I drove around the corner.”
“Good! And how did everything go?”
Amy’s now-familiar voice stammers, “It didn’t work. I’m so sorry.”
Belinda closes her eyes, grabs on to the first thing she can find—the steering wheel—and squeezes it hard. “Can you elaborate? Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
Belinda can hear the intake of air. Amy is a professional woman who works in a high-stress corporate environment. Surely she should have been able to take Charles by surprise. She should have been perfect.
Amy sounds calmer now. “So I went to the office building just like you said.”
“Good.”
“And I saw the man. The one in the picture you sent me. He was getting on the elevator.”
“All right.”
“But this woman was in the lobby, kind of hiding around a corner, and the second she saw me she started following me, watching me. I felt like she knew what I was going to do. Do you think the wig was too obviously fake? But why would—You should have seen her. It was downright rude, the way she was staring at me. I said to her, ‘Excuse me. Can I help you?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know—can you?’ And then she kept following me everywhere I went! Are you sure no one knows? What if the police—”
“It’s not the police.” Belinda prays for patience. “Can you describe the woman?”
“Young, black hair, light skin. Not an office worker. She was dressed more casual. Jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was straight, with bangs, in a ponytail.”
“Go home, pack your kit up and keep it hidden. I’ll follow up later with more instructions.” Belinda disconnects the call. Her limbs are full of heat.
What is Jasmine doing? Protecting Charles? Why?
This is the third time Belinda has tried to finish Charles’s assignment. She needs him dead. He’s like a cockroach that you step on over and over again, but it still keeps squirming.
She starts the car and peels away from the curb. Outside, Sofia is walking down the sidewalk, her face turned toward Belinda’s car as it screeches away. Belinda can’t care. She’s out of patience. And she’s eager to squash the cockroach herself. She’s been behind the camera for long enough; sometimes the director has to make a cameo.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
36
JAZZ
“FUCKING CHARLES,” I mutter to myself, following his stupid Lexus off the freeway. I think I saved him from a woman in the office building, this anxious-looking lady following him whose hair was clearly a wig.
Here I am, guardian angel, making sure Douchebag gets into his apartment all safe and sound. Why does it seem like the worst dudes always have guardian angels?
It’s rush hour, so Charles and I enjoy a leisurely drive from Woodland Hills to Sherman Oaks on the 101 accompanied by eleventy billion of our closest friends. Charles has no idea I’m behind him. He spends the drive on his phone. I wonder what he’s talking about. Contracts. Papers. I bet he’s talking to someone named Chad. The numbers don’t add up, Chad! I snort a little laugh to myself.
He gets off on Sepulveda and I follow him south toward the hill. By the time night descends, we’re on his quiet, upscale street with the flower beds and the streetlights that don’t flicker. Charles pulls into the underground parking garage and I park my rental car half in a red zone, banking on suburban meter maids being off duty by now. I lock the door and walk down the sidewalk to Charles’s building. I’m not sure how I’m going to get in, but as I hesitate in the driveway, an SUV swings in, almost hitting me, and opens the sliding gate. I slip through the gate as it closes and jog to Charles’s parking spot. His car is empty.
I contemplate leaving. I already stopped that woman in the lobby of his office building. But I should see him up to his apartment, right? Just make sure he gets tucked in all safe and sound. Fucker.
I follow the exit to a stairwell. Charles lives in apartment 204 on the second floor. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.
I trot up the stairs. I spent all day waiting in that horrible office building, keeping myself hidden from security guards, and my stomach aches with hunger. I let myself out on the second floor and hurry down the main hallway. This building is a dead ringer for Sofia’s, all fancy carpet, crown molding and personalized front doors. I can never get over how quiet these expensive buildings are, like hotels. Everywhere I’ve ever lived, you can hear your neighbors’ music, their arguments, their car alarms and dogs barking and sex.
I turn right and stop. At the opposite end of the hallway, a blonde woman in jeans and a black sweater is walking toward me. Is it bad for me to be seen?
The Android phone buzzes in my pocket. I back up around the corner and pull it out. The screen says Sofia.
I answer it. “Hello?” I whisper.
“Jazz, I did it! I did it!” Her voice is wild with excitement. “I got the clothes. But more importantly, I think I saw someone from the, you know, the murder club. Like maybe someone who runs it, or works for it or something! Maybe it’s the person from the phone calls! She was watching me go to your apartment, and then she peeled out when she saw me. And I got her license plate number!”
I peek around the corner. The apartment numbers are written on the doors. I can’t see the number on the door the woman stops in front of, but across the hall, the door is marked 203. The blonde woman has her head down and is fiddling with something by her side.
“What did she look like?” I whisper into the phone.
“She’s blonde, maybe in her thirties or forties. Her hair is cut in a collar-length bob.”
I take another careful look. The woman is knocking on Charles’s apartment door. “What was she wearing?”
“I couldn’t really see. Something dark. A black shirt, maybe. Do you think it’s enough to bring to the police?”
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
What do I do?
“I’ll call you back,” I whisper. I hang up the phone and put it in my pocket.
Should I say something? Yell? Run out? This might be the same lady Sofia’s describing. Or it could be a totally normal person, in which case Charles would know I’m stalking him.
The door handle turns and Charles’s door opens inward. A long, rigid shape swings up to the woman’s shoulder. A sharp sound—
Chht chht—
I freeze.
BOOM. Blood sprays red around the door frame.
The shape—a shotgun—swings down by the knocker’s side.
The blonde turns and runs, away from me down the hall in the opposite direction. I hesitate—do I run, do I try to help? I don’t want to get shot. But no, it’s a shotgun. It has to be reloaded. She can’t just turn and shoot me right away. I push off from the wall, run toward the open apartment door, where Charles is sprawled out on the tile floor, a gaping, bloody hole in the center of his chest. A small, heavyset woman kneels over him, crying and screaming in frantic Spanish.
He’s dead. This must be the nanny.
“Hey!” I yell at the woman. “Where’s the baby?”
A trembling hand points back into the apartment.
“Don’t let her see this! Call the police! Lock the door!”
She nods. Tears stutter down her cheeks.
I run in the direction the shooter went. A door slams at the end of the hall—another stairwell. I throw myself through the door down the stairs, following the woman’s echoing footsteps.
I leap down the last five steps and burst through the exterior door onto the side walkway. Ahead of me, the woman fumbles with
the shotgun, swings it up and turns it on me. I dive back into the stairwell just as the boom of another shot deafens me. The door shakes with the blast. Stucco dust rains from the wall. A car alarm goes off. I check myself, looking for gunshot wounds. Nothing. I’m fine.
I push the door open slowly. The woman is just making a left onto the sidewalk. I race out after her, get to the sidewalk and look left, right.
Faint, shadowy motion. The woman slinks around the corner. I run across the street to my rental car, fumble the keys out of my pocket with shaking fingers and get in.
A parking ticket is tucked behind my windshield wipers.
I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of it. I open the door, reach out to wrestle the ticket from the wiper and slam the car into first gear. I gun the engine and pull away from the curb. A set of headlights flashes and the car they belong to swings drunkenly onto the street in front of me.
It’s an old-person car, a beige Chevy sedan from the early aughts. I follow it onto Ventura Boulevard. She’s driving too fast and almost hops a curb as she turns right. I pull my phone from my pocket and search through the contacts. It’s easy; there are only three. Sofia, Nielsen and Patel. I debate for a split second and decide women are better in a crisis, so I press the button to dial Patel.
The line picks up after two rings. “Detective Patel.” Her voice is rough and tired, like she just smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes and stayed out all night drinking.
“Hi, it’s Jasmine Benavides. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was just in there the other day and—”
“Jasmine! I’m glad to hear from you. We’ve been trying to reach you. We found your truck.”
“Are you okay? You sound terrible.” Maybe I should have called Nielsen. I follow the beige Chevy onto Moorpark.
“I’m fine. I’ve...” She pauses. “You may as well hear it from me—you’ll be seeing it on television tomorrow morning. Detective Nielsen is dead. We were both poisoned, presumably by the killer we’re investigating, but I’m fine. Or, I will be fine. Jasmine, it’s urgent that we get you into protective custody. Where have you been?”
