13 Under the Wire

by Gil Reavill

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And now this.” Alvarez couldn’t disguise his sour look. “You’ll be pleased to know that the department has put out a statewide APB on your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not her girlfriend, Chief,” Tester put in.

  “Julieta Bautista,” Remington said.

  “I didn’t mean—I made no judgment, Sergeant,” Alvarez responded quickly.

  George Sarin stepped up, as Remington feared he would. “May we speak?”

  “Do you know Mr. Sarin?” Deputy Chief Alvarez asked.

  “We’ve met.” Remington kept her voice tight and flicked her eyes at Tester, hoping he would intercede. Alvarez and his entourage headed in to eyeball the scene in the apartment.

  Sarin spoke quickly. “Mr. Loushane has delegated me—”

  “You can skip that part,” Remington interrupted. “That’s assumed.”

  “He’d like to offer you sanctuary at Wildermanse.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be staying with my dad.” Remington had called Gene as soon as the LAPD arrived at the apartment, to let him know what had happened. He said he would come down, but she had headed him off. He had passed the alert along to Tester.

  “I believe you should seriously consider Mr. Loushane’s offer,” George Sarin said. “Does your father have a security corps from Graystone Global on the premises?”

  Chuck Tester broke in. “Gene Remington has a lot of friends in the LAPD.”

  “I’m certain that is the case—Sergeant Tester, is it?”

  “It is,” Tester replied, well, testily.

  “But having friends on the force is not quite the same as having a well-trained professional security force protecting you.” Graystone Global staffed its ranks with ex-military. The firm had subcontracted a healthy slice of the dirty work in the Iraq war.

  Sarin looked toward the open door of the apartment, where the blood spatter showed up bright and garish against the white interior walls. “You can see what might happen if you allow yourself to stay exposed,” he added.

  “I’ll be all right.” Remington was distracted by Ellis, a few yards away in the darkness. It was as if they were keeping him in reserve as a lure for her.

  Sarin watched her watching Ellis. “I can tell you confidentially that Mr. Loushane considered extending this invitation before. Now he regrets not doing so. He feels you have been placed in great peril simply through association with his family. He wishes to make amends in any way he can.”

  Remington weighed the possibilities. “Can you excuse us for a moment?” she asked Sarin.

  “Of course.”

  She stepped aside with Tester. “I’m going to do it.”

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Tester shook his head. “Your mind is as transparent as a glass-bottomed boat, Layla. How can I make you understand? I’m telling you, your father’s telling you, the goddamned department is saying it in no uncertain terms—you are through with your personal investigations on this matter.”

  “Noted.” She turned back to Sarin. “Let me just get clear with the detectives here, and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Excellent,” Sarin said, as Chuck Tester let out a hiss of exasperation.

  Remington headed down the front walk to say hello to Ellis.

  —

  The expansive stone terrace at Wildermanse spread out between the two back wings, then dropped a few steps before embracing the rear of the house. Remington woke from a dream-ridden sleep to the washed-out, midmorning sunlight of a Southern California winter. Her second-floor bedroom gave a view of the terrace below. A pair of Graystone security goons had posted themselves there. They wore wraparound sunglasses, crisp black jackets and heavy boots. They didn’t bother to conceal their sidearms. She watched them in casual conversation with each other.

  Driving into the Loushane estate at dawn, Remington could scarcely believe the level of protection that had been thrown up around the place. It seemed like a bad dream. The gated entrance now resembled a military-style border post, with Iraq-style sandbagged machine-gun emplacements. An effort had been made to prettify the security measures, with the large concrete urns that acted as roadblocks planted with geraniums.

  “This is what it’s like now?” Remington had asked. “How long has it been like this?”

  George Sarin had sat up front with the driver. Ellis was in the back beside her. They held hands, not like lovers but like two children in a horror film. They hadn’t spoken much on the ride from Los Feliz to Granada Hills. Their own sedan had been part of a three-vehicle convoy, an SUV in front and one more behind them.

  The grilling by detectives at her crime scene of an apartment, the desperate worry over the fate of Julieta, the conviction that the attack had been meant for her all served to deepen Remington’s level of exhaustion. A single sentence had tugged at the edge of her fatigue. It’s not over. She wondered if it would ever stop, if the killings would go on until there was no one left.

  No one wanted her at Wildermanse. Chuck Tester and Gene Remington certainly didn’t. Her mentor-sergeant had been disgusted with her decision to go. When she called her father and told him that she would be with the Loushanes for the foreseeable future, Gene had objected strenuously. He told her that she needed to be through with the whole damn family.

  The only people who wanted her at Wildermanse were the Loushanes. Ellis, for one. He had been sweet and protective. Brockton and his father hadn’t been on hand when she arrived, but she knew they had engineered her installation under their guard.

  Now, looking down at the armed paladins on the terrace below, she wondered what was really going on. She hadn’t been able to retrieve much in the way of clothes or personal items from her wrecked apartment. She wore a white cotton nightdress of Caroline’s, taken from the extensive wardrobe in her friend’s bedroom. They were the same size. She was the surrogate. Caroline was the original.

  What did it mean for her to be at Wildermanse? Victor Loushane wanted her near. Insisted upon it. Why? She could be charitable and believe the old man feared for her safety, that the truth was as George Sarin had said, that the mansion possessed the necessary level of protection. But somehow altruism didn’t fit into the Loushane scheme of things. There were always cogs and ratchets, wheels within wheels.

  Ellis, perhaps. She realized that she had been installed in the same guest bedroom from their childhood, the one in which they had first kissed. Aren’t you curious? I know I am. But, no. Ellis would be too discreet, too sensitive to her need for independence, to manipulate the situation the way it had played out.

  She kept on her own shoes but dressed in Caroline’s clothes—her underwear, her socks. Her bra didn’t fit, reminding Remington how ample the girl had been in that department. Remington put on a long-sleeved white blouse and a pair of black jeans that she vividly remembered Caroline wearing. Then she went downstairs to eat the breakfast that Caroline wouldn’t be eating.

  Ellis wasn’t in evidence, but Brockton was. He sat at the dining-room table reading the Times. Everything at Wildermanse was perfect. The antique sideboard was Herter Brothers, the densely patterned wallpaper was modeled on William Morris—the Victorian design artist, not the Hollywood talent agency. The big French doors lined one side of the room and admitted an exquisitely tepid bath of northern light, ideal for the painting of watercolors, say, or for the eating of toast.

  “Ah,” Brockton said when Remington entered. She saw a shadow of distaste cross his face. They had never really gotten along.

  “Good morning, Brock.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he lied. “Has Margaret been taking care of you?”

  Margaret Baily, the head of household staff at Wildermanse. Remington told Brock that everything was fine. The Loushanes followed the English manner, in the sense of not having servants at breakfast.

  “There’s coffee,” Brock said, not noticing that Remington was already helping herself. He had laid flat his open newspaper, spreading it out
on the expansive table in front of him. Through the bank of windows, they could see the security personnel on the terrace.

  “I’m afraid that what happened last night has brought the press hordes down upon us anew,” Brock told her. “It probably won’t be a good idea for you to go out for a few days. Let this meddlesome media interest die down again.”

  “I’ll need to see my father.”

  “Of course. Dad has already invited Eugene to lunch. He’ll be here soon.”

  A prison visit, Remington thought. At the same time, she understood that she had voluntarily committed to being jailed, and reminded herself that this was where she wanted to be.

  “The back of the property is fine, though,” Brock continued. “I mean, when you want to get out. It’s cut off by the cascade and the fence, so George—you’ve met George Sarin, Dad’s chief of staff?—he’s given us free run back there.”

  “It’s really been awful for all of you, hasn’t it?”

  “I cannot tell you. These terrorists, these radicals—they won’t stop. Dad has aged a century in the past month. And he’s convinced that we’ve somehow dragged you into our mess.”

  “Where is he?” Remington asked. “I’d like to thank him for inviting me here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brock said, his voice choked. “Are you wearing my sister’s clothes?”

  “Leave her alone, Brock.” Ellis came into the dining room. “In fact, never say anything to anybody ever again.”

  He gestured to Remington and the two of them left the house and walked out to the cascade. They were careful with each other, as if each touch, every word, could raise a bruise. They sat in their favorite place, a collection of ancient bentwood chairs drawn up beside the waterfall. Ellis was the first to speak.

  “The Buddha tells us not to live in the past, that we should concentrate our minds on the present, but I can’t help it.”

  Remington had always considered Buddhism to be a most inhuman discipline. No desire? What could be more human than desire? Poor Ellis was trying not to dwell on the past, which was an impossibility when three of his siblings had died within a few weeks of each other.

  She put her arm around him. She was convinced that she knew exactly what he was thinking—that it felt so incredibly good to be in each other’s presence. Sometimes love isn’t a choice but a lifeline. Drowning people don’t choose to grab hold—the choice was made for them. What she and Ellis were doing wasn’t a preference, not exactly. It was an imperative.

  They kissed, long and tenderly. Making out—yeah, it raised new bruises over the old ones, but what were they going to do? The steady whoosh of the cascade flowed around and through them. They were just kids. She reached climax with her clothes still on (with Caroline’s clothes on) for the first time since high school. She felt as if she were dropping into the earth.

  When they broke apart, Ellis went to the fence and climbed onto the concrete lip of the cascade, gripping the chain links and looking back over his shoulder at her. A bark-like cough sounded above the rushing water. George Sarin stood a discreet distance away. She couldn’t be sure how long he had been there.

  “Your father,” he called. Remington didn’t know if he was speaking to her or to Ellis, referring to Gene Remington or to Victor Loushane.

  Both, it turned out. Lunch had been set out on the terrace. Seeing Gene at Wildermanse struck Remington as strange and somehow wrong. When she came up from the garden, she encountered Victor for the first time since she arrived. The old man gathered her up in an embrace, blubbering like a baby.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he kept repeating.

  Remington’s own father wanted her to stay with him at his condo, but she put him off. The conversation was incredibly stilted and awkward. She excused herself early on from lunch, pleading exhaustion. Ellis found her later that afternoon, and they made proper love. Remington discovered that she had developed a horrible tic, flashing on Val Duran whenever she was in the midst of passion with Ellis. She tried and failed to discipline her mind.

  Without really agreeing on it, both she and Ellis understood that their couplings should remain secret. He came to her at night, when the rest of the house was asleep. During the day they lazed, watched television together, played cards, ate cautious dinners with Brock and Victor. Wildermanse sprawled. They could avoid the others if they wished.

  “I hate this,” Ellis told her. “Why don’t we move out to the beach house?”

  “Your father wouldn’t let us.” They were in the formal living room at the front of the house. Even though it was seventy-six degrees outside, a fire burned in the fireplace. Remington lounged with an unread novel.

  Ellis wandered the room restlessly. “My father is insane. My brother is even more insane. The world is even more and more insane. We should just leave.”

  “What would we do?” Remington asked him. “Bring our own security force with us to Zuma?”

  That night Remington woke to find Ellis climbing into bed with her. She murmured a welcome. No moon, so the room was pitch-black. She reached for the light, but he slapped her hand away. Something was wrong. He was rougher with her than he had been before. She kept flashing on Val Duran. After Ellis entered her, he wrapped his hands around her throat, thumbs to her windpipe.

  Not her particular style of lovemaking. She tried to buck him away, but he kept at it, tightening his grip until he was choking her. Remington couldn’t scream. Twisting her hips to the side, she tried again to get the boy off her. Seconds ticked by. She was about to pass out. A dark veil dropped into place in front of the deeper darkness of the bedroom. She cocked her legs and with a mighty, desperate heave managed to dump him onto the floor.

  Choking and coughing, she tried to get her breath back. The boy came at her again, but a kick to the side of the head sent him reeling.

  “Ellis!” she wheezed.

  But it wasn’t Ellis. It was Val Duran. Trying to kill her. Nothing made sense. Val now had blond hair, like Ellis. But it wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. And it couldn’t be Ellis, either. Night terrors had plunged her into a bad dream. Overwhelmed by panic, Remington tore out of the bedroom into the upstairs hallway.

  The guest bedroom where they had lodged her was in the western wing of the house. Ellis and the others had quarters in the eastern wing. She didn’t know where she was running, what she was doing. Ellis had gone crazy, but Remington’s first impulse was to protect him, not reveal his madness to the rest of the family. It would be all right. It had to be all right.

  “Oh! Hey! Help!” she called out, her voice a hoarse scream.

  Footsteps running up the main stairs from the first floor—Graystone security personnel on night duty. Remington staggered onward toward the bedrooms of the eastern wing. Ellis loomed out of the darkness, and she yelled again. She tried to dodge away but he grabbed her.

  “Bad dream, baby, bad dream.” He attempted to hold Remington. She broke out of his arms.

  “You tried…to kill me.”

  The security guys had made it to them by then. The whole house was waking up. Ellis moved to embrace her again, and this time Remington accepted his hug.

  A wild-haired Victor Loushane came up to them. “What on earth…?”

  “Layla just had a bad dream, that’s all,” Ellis told him.

  Brockton, fully dressed and looking as if he never slept at all, just hung upside down by his claws, approached and gently separated Remington and his brother.

  “Search the house,” he commanded the security personnel. “Dad, go back to bed. You, too, Ellis.”

  Brock ushered Remington down into the kitchen. She was silent, still trembling. He microwaved a glass of milk.

  “I don’t know if milk is going to do it,” she said.

  He went into the pantry and came out with a bottle of Cognac, lacing the milk with it.

  The brandy hit her stomach like fire. Concerned that she might vomit, she retreated into the little powder room off the hallway near the kitchen
. The light sprang up harshly after the nighttime dimness of the house. Her face appeared not her own, like some other person’s, a frightened child’s. Gingerly, she tugged down the collar of Caroline’s nightgown.

  Around her neck was a band of ugly red welts, in the precise silhouette of a man’s hands.

  Chapter 19

  Karen Frost wondered if the couple really had the money. The estate at the top of Aliso Canyon represented exactly the kind of deal she wanted to be making. Karen’s real-estate career had been marooned down in the boring suburban flats of the Valley for far too long. She lusted after L.A.’s booming high-end market—seven-figure deals, eight-figure, the-sky’s-the-limit mansions, compounds and estates.

  She billed the property on Sesnon Boulevard in Granada Hills as “resort style.” Karen didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it looked good on the prospectus. And there had been a steady march of hopefuls through, their expensive footwear echoing on the travertine flooring. They poked and prodded at the stainless-steel kitchen fixtures and walked a circuit around the enormous kidney-shaped pool. People had looked but had made no offers. Karen’s exclusive on the listing was about to expire. At just under two million, the property was priced to sell.

  Now these two. Hermana and Ellis Guerrero. Karen wasn’t prejudiced, not in the least. The problem wasn’t that the couple was Hispanic but that they were too young. Midtwenties, she estimated. She was only in her late twenties herself, but that wasn’t the point. They had no credit profile and told Karen the wife’s father was going to guarantee the transaction. They kept talking about some sort of lease-to-buy deal. Karen didn’t know whether the Granada Hills Homeowners Association would approve.

  “Are there children?” she asked, wondering how the couple were possibly going to fill the five bedrooms plus guest suite.

  “There will be,” said the husband. He gave Karen a dazzling smile. “We’re eager to start a family.”

  Karen embarrassed herself for the first ten minutes of the walk-through, addressing the young gentleman as Elvis. She had actually been doubting whether she could possibly place a $1.9 million residence with someone named Elvis. That right there spoke of a low-class, low-rent background. Maybe it was different in Mexico. In the States, most folks named Elvis came from down in the hollow.