by Lowe, Shelia
Annabelle made a scornful sound at Claudia’s lame attempt at humor. She handed back the comb. “What about Cruz?”
The question came out of left field. “What about him?”
“Do you think he’ll blame me about Paige?”
Claudia suddenly realized that Annabelle was unaware of what had happened to the athletic director the night before. According to Jovanic, Bert’s tale of Cruz’ arrest was only part of the story.
The police had arrived at the guest cottage with an arrest warrant to discover Cruz bloodied and beaten. He refused to name his assailants and was currently hospitalized in the jail ward. Now that the truth had come out about Bert, he would be released.
Claudia looked at Annabelle and decided that the girl had been through enough. She did not need to hear the whole truth about what her father had undoubtedly ordered done, and for no good reason.
“What happened to Paige had nothing to do with you. Cruz will understand that. He really cares about you, Annabelle. I think you’re probably one of his favorite students.”
“I don’t wanna go home, Claudia. I don’t want to see Dominic.”
“Sweetie, he’s your father . . .”
“Don’t make me go back there; I’ll run away again. Can’t I stay with you?”
“Joel is talking to the officer in charge right now, to see if we can at least take you home.” She glanced up as Jovanic approached, looking unhappy.
“We can’t take her without a court order,” he said, after pulling Claudia aside. “I thought maybe I could get around it, but Lieutenant Estevez isn’t going for it. She’s responsible for what happens to her. If it were L.A., we wouldn’t do it, either.”
“But Dominic asked me to be involved.”
“Claudia, honey, arguing with me doesn’t do any good. Talk to the lieutenant. She’ll tell you the same as she told me.”
“So what happens next?”
“They’ll take her to the hospital to be checked out; then, if she can be released, juvenile hall until Giordano picks her up. We won’t be allowed any contact once she leaves for the hospital. It’s the HIPPA law. It’s supposed to protect a patient’s privacy.”
A knot of anger started in her stomach and made its way up to the throbbing contusion at the back of Claudia’s head. “That’s fucked up,” she said.
Jovanic smiled. “Now you sound like Annabelle.”
Claudia shot him a that’s not funny look. The girl’s emotional state was fragile at best. The thought of having to leave her with strangers, even the “good guys,” worried her. The last time she’d spent time in juvenile hall she had attempted suicide.
Leaving Jovanic at the Jeep, Claudia went back to the patrol car where Annabelle waited. The distress on her face made Claudia feel as if she were about to personally perpetrate yet another betrayal on the girl.
Annabelle began shaking her head from side to side in protest. “No! No! No!” She jumped out of the patrol car, throwing off the blanket and pushing past Claudia. “I’m not going with them,” she shouted, drawing the attention of the emergency personnel who were trying to extract Lainie’s body from the SUV, and the troopers who were taking measurements and sketching the scene.
Claudia caught her arm as she started to storm off. “We’re in the middle of the desert, Annabelle. There’s no place to go.”
“Fuck that! If you won’t help me, I’ll—”
“Do we have a problem here?”
The two stripes on her sleeve said she was a lieutenant. Her badge identified her as Angela Estevez. She had a pretty face and a trim body, but thirty pounds of utility belt around her waist added some bulk. Annabelle glared at her, chin jutting defiantly, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Get back in the car, please,” the lieutenant said. “It’s time to go.”
Annabelle stared around wildly, like a panicked animal caught in a trap, knowing there was nowhere to go, but still looking for a means of escape.
“Get in the car, Annabelle,” Estevez repeated, firm not unkind.
“No! I want to go with Claudia!”
Estevez gave a nod to the young trooper. He pinned Annabelle’s arms and forced her into the back of the patrol car behind the cage, doing his best to avoid her kicks.
Claudia stood rooted to the ground, impotent tears of frustration and anger choking her.
The crunch of dirt under the patrol car’s tires echoed in her ears as they drove away, Annabelle clawing at the back window, her mouth silently forming Claudia’s name.
Chapter 35
Claudia stared out the window as they cruised past hotels and casinos on the strip on their return to L.A. the next morning. Even at nine a.m., Las Vegas Boulevard swarmed with visitors ready to risk their hard-earned cash on the tables or video slots.
She’d had a lot of explaining to do before Lieutenant Estevez had released her. She hadn’t even had identification, as her purse had been left in the hotel room. Lucky for her that Jovanic had the credentials and was able to vouch for her, or she might have been booked for larceny of a vehicle in her commandeering of the Saturn.
Back in their room at the Luxor, Claudia wanted to let Jovanic’s touch caress her into arousal. Despite the emotional and physical exhaustion that had threatened to overtake her, she had wanted his touch to erase the last memory of Annabelle’s desperate face from her mind. But her ghosts refused to leave, and they brought with them guilt and a sense of failure, making sleep a distant promise, unkept until the wee hours.
Now she just felt weary and depressed, like she had let Annabelle down. Logic told her that they had done everything they could, but logic didn’t ease the feeling that Jovanic could have done something more for her.
On top of it all, Dominic Giordano was pissing her off on the cell phone.
“I’m already talking movie of the week—” he was saying, sounding positively cheerful.
Claudia snapped Jovanic’s cellular shut, cutting him off midsentence. She shook her head, her lip curling into a moue of disgust. “Unbelievable bastard. After all Annabelle’s gone through, he can only think about how to get mileage out of it.”
“A real prince of a guy,” Jovanic said in a dry voice. “No wonder Annabelle’s got problems.”
“He sees a way he can use her to his advantage, so he’s hot to come out here and play loving daddy for the cameras. We could have brought her home if he’d just had his lawyer get a court order . . . Goddamn it!” Unwelcome tears welled up and she swallowed hard. She didn’t do vulnerable well, and at this moment she was feeling far too vulnerable.
It must be the concussion, she told herself, struggling to contain the kind of emotion that she rarely shared with anyone, even Zebediah. Long ago, she had learned that it was safer not to let anyone too close. With a jolt, she realized that this was exactly what Jovanic had been complaining about—her emotional unavailability. She firmly pushed the thought aside to deal with later.
Claudia corralled her emotions and made sure any trace of tears was gone from her voice. “I’m so worried about Annabelle,” she said. “I can’t get it out my mind—her little face pressed up against the window.”
Jovanic’s tone was cool and flat as usual, but she was learning to detect the subtle undertones that told her he cared. “She’ll be home by this afternoon.”
“Dominic is such a rotten influence. You know the news keeps saying he has ties to the Mob. What kind of environment is that for a kid? Especially a hypersensitive kid like Annabelle. Can’t you do anything?”
“Like what, Claudia. Drop Social Services a note that Giordano’s running a racket? I can tell you right now, that dog won’t hunt.”
“That dog won’t hunt? Where’d you get that from?” Jovanic flashed her the skinny eyes. She flapped a hand and said, “Never mind. Just help me figure out what we can do for Annabelle.”
He glanced over his shoulder to check traffic, then passed a blue-haired matron in the fast lane doing forty-five. “Do you know how dangero
us that is?” he bellowed, as if the matron could hear him. “They oughta revoke her license . . . Okay, look. Giordano says Annabelle’s not his child. So who’s he think is the father? Maybe you can start there.”
“Tony Belmont,” Claudia mused. “He was her leading man at the time and Dominic said Valerie was having an affair with him. Belmont was with her in the car when she was killed.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to track him down and see if he’s willing to talk about it. You’re the computer geek. Why don’t you start with the Internet?”
“The accident was eight years ago, but you’d think there would be something about him out there in cyberspace.”
“You’d think,” echoed Jovanic.
The idea of doing something proactive for Annabelle lifted Claudia’s mood. She dug a notepad from his glove compartment and started a list of keywords that she would use in her search for Tony Belmont.
The story of Annabelle’s rescue was plastered all over the six o’clock news. Various versions with a similar theme: Major studio owner’s daughter returned safely to the arms of her loving father. Photo of Dominic Giordano hugging Annabelle, who was scowling in disgust.
His publicity machine juiced that story for all it was worth, Claudia thought cynically, flipping stations. She stopped at Channel Five.
A bank of microphones had been set up outside the Sunmark Studios office for a news conference. Claudia watched Giordano shamelessly exploit the girl he had earlier claimed was not his biological child. She muted the sound, unable to listen to his voice.
Annabelle had her sullen face on and turned her back on the reporters who shouted questions at her. She looked toothpick-thin after her ten-day ordeal, and Claudia felt an impulse to reach through the television screen and snatch her up, give her a good meal and tuck her in bed.
Claudia’s name was left out of the story, which was fine with her. But Giordano had not returned the messages she left on his voice mail, and that was not fine. He didn’t need her anymore, and he was probably still incensed with her for hanging up on him.
She went up to the office and sat down at the computer. Starting with the Internet Movie Database seemed to make the most sense. She opened a Web browser and pointed it to IMDB.com, then clicked in the search box and typed “Tony Belmont.”
A handful of credits appeared for B movies in which Belmont had parts, including three with Valerie Vale. The one in which he had costarred with Vale was listed, and some walk-on parts in television shows over a decade old. Claudia noted that in his earlier listings he was sometimes credited as Antonio Belmonte. There was nothing after the accident.
A drawing of a shadow in the box where his head shot should have been indicated that no photo had been uploaded to the site. Disappointed, she clicked on the link to Valerie Vale’s name, which took her to a gallery of publicity shots from Vale’s films.
Enlarging one after the other, she finally came across a gallery that included a thumbnail of Valerie Vale on the arm of Tony Belmont.
Bingo! She clicked on the photo to enlarge it.
“Omigod!” Claudia stared at the actor whose picture emerged and the autograph he had written across it, her heart pounding with excitement.
She gave the computer the print command and began pawing through the stacks of files on her desk until she found the one labeled Sorensen Academy. Opening it, she took out the item she was looking for and laid it next to Tony Belmont’s autographed photo.
The answer had been there all along.
Chapter 36
Claudia banged on the door of Cruz Montenegro’s guesthouse.
“Cruz, I know you’re here,” she called to the staccato beat of her fist meeting solid oak. “Open the door. I need to talk to you.”
She heard a voice, but couldn’t make out what it was saying. The door slowly opened and her eyes popped wide. “Holy shit!”
When Detective Pike informed her that Cruz had checked himself out of the hospital as soon as he understood that he was released from custody, he had not described the extent of Cruz’ injuries.
His eyes were swollen nearly shut. A patchwork of purple stains beginning to yellow around the edges stained his face. There were a dozen stitches crisscrossing an angry-looking gash along his neck from his right ear, disappearing into his T-shirt, like a latter-day Frankenstein. The old scar across his mouth stood out more than usual on lips still puffy from the beating he had taken. A wide spandex belt supported his ribs.
“Hey,” he mumbled, barely opening his mouth. He moved aside for her to enter, then limped over to his armchair, lowering himself slowly.
Claudia took the same chair she had occupied on her last visit. “You look worse than Rocky after the big fight.”
“Looks worse than it is.”
“Don’t you think you should have stayed in the hospital?”
“Hate ’em.”
“Tough guy, huh? You ought to be where someone can take care of you, at least for a day or two.”
“Thanks for worrying.” He tried to say it in a light tone, but it just came out pitiful. “Saw ’belle on TV.”
Claudia grinned. “She didn’t have much to say, did she?”
Cruz tried a laugh, winced. “They bleeped her ‘fuck you’ to the camera. So straight up—what really happened?”
But Claudia wasn’t ready to go there just yet. There was something more pressing on her mind. She reached into her purse and produced the handwriting sample that had come from her file and the autographed photo she had printed off the Internet and leaned across to drop them in his lap.
“You’re Annabelle’s biological father, aren’t you, Antonio?”
Cruz’ body jerked in surprise. He leaned his head back against the chair and sighed, releasing the long-held secret that must have felt like dragging a boulder around on his back.
“What are you, a detective?” he said with grudging admiration. “Val told me she was mine. I believe it— Annabelle is a lot like me.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” Claudia said. “Her eyes aren’t blue like yours, but they’re the exact same shape, and so is her mouth.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
She told him about searching for Tony Belmont on the Internet. “Your face looks different now, but in the photo the resemblance to Annabelle was amazing.”
“Plastic surgery,” Cruz said. His hand went up automatically to touch the old scar and Claudia wondered whether it was a result of the accident in which Valerie Vale had died.
“It was your handwriting that clinched it,” she said. “When I saw the writing and the autograph on the photo and I compared it to the sample you faxed me the other day, I knew it was the same writer.”
His eyes slowly lifted to meet Claudia’s. “We couldn’t stop loving each other, but she always said he’d never let her go . . .” Cruz’ shoulders began to shake and his head bent forward. “She’d told Giordano she was gonna file for divorce—that she would fight to keep Annabelle. The next day she went over that cliff.”
Claudia got up and went into the tiny kitchen, took a clean glass from the drainer and filled it with water. “Why didn’t she leave him sooner?” she asked, returning and handing the glass to Cruz, who had his fists pressed to his eyes.
He cleared his throat and thanked her, then took a careful sip through his swollen lips. “She was scared . . . He’d made threats, been violent before.” His eyes dimmed with anguish as he remembered. “Giordano married her when she was seventeen and pregnant. He would have gone to jail if it came out he’d seduced her. He bullied her parents into agreeing to keep their mouths shut. Then he forced her to get an abortion. We met after they’d been married for a few years and the marriage was already over.”
Feeling helpless in the face of Cruz’ grief, Claudia desperately wanted to say something that would make a difference, but she knew there was nothing. Nothing could bring back his lover.
Cruz shook his head, looking defeated. “She wa
s beautiful, inside and out. Giordano always knew Annabelle wasn’t his daughter. But he was legally the father, so he held it over her head, to punish her—said he wouldn’t let her have custody.”
“Annabelle believes he was behind the accident,” Claudia said.
Cruz nodded. “She’s a smart kid, but Giordano is smart, too. The cops checked the car; they didn’t find anything.” A tear spilled over and started to slide down his nose. He swiped at it angrily, in exactly the same way Claudia had seen Annabelle do. “Goddamn it, I wish it had been me driving, instead of Val. Maybe she’d still be here.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Cruz. I think somebody else has already done that for you. A couple of times.”
He half smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Yeah, his goons paid me a visit right after the accident, cut up my face pretty good. It was a real clear message.”
“And now? He caught on to who you are?”
“What else?”
Claudia thought about Dominic Giordano’s reaction to what he had read in Annabelle’s diary. He’d said he was investigating Cruz. It would have been as easy for him to follow the trail backward to Tony Belmont as it had been for her. He’d been hiding in plain sight.
She said, “I suppose it’s not a coincidence that you work at the Sorensen Academy?”
Cruz shook his head. “I’ve kept tabs on Annabelle ever since Val’s death. When she came to Sorensen I was working at Gold’s Gym, Venice Beach. I got the word they were looking for a gym teacher here. Oh, ’scuse me—athletic director. Lucky break, huh? Put in my application, got hired. Worked out real good for me. I got to see my kid every day.”
“And Paige, too.”
“Yeah, Paige, too. That fucking Bert—what a whack job.”
“I guess the Sorensens never knew about the arrangement he had with his ex-wife. Unbelievable how he used the school name to recruit children for slavery. He always seemed so mild mannered, in a smarmy way.”
“Mild? Lady, you got no idea.”
“What’s that mean?”
“One Saturday night, Paige was here with me. We woke up next morning, Bert was standing over us with a gun at my head.”
