“She left home not too long after that one was taken,” he had said. “ ‘Someday, Daddy,’ she said, ‘I’m gonna get so rich I can buy you a big house.’ Three years later, she bought me this castle.”
“She sure kept her promise,” said Simone.
He stuck out a big, meaty hand, and Simone shook it. “I hope I was able to help you.”
“Oh, you did,” said Simone. “I’m pretty sure you saved my job.”
“Good. You seem like a nice kid—and don’t worry. You got an exclusive. I’m talked out for a while.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Deegan.” She started to open the door, then stopped. “One more question, if it’s okay?”
“Sure.”
“Did Emerald, by any chance, know Nia Lawson?”
He squinted at her. “The gal who fooled around with that congressman and then . . .”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Wait, you’re not saying there’s a . . . connection or anything, are you? Like some kind of trend?”
“No,” Simone said. “I wasn’t—”
“Because Emerald had her problems. But she wouldn’t . . . she wouldn’t do this to people who loved her because of a trend.”
“I know that.”
He trained his gaze on her, his expression very serious. “You can use everything I said,” he told her. “But treat my little girl fair, Tina. Okay?”
“I will.” Simone took her steno pad out of her purse, wrote down her cell phone number, and handed it to him. “If you think of anything else, give me a call. By the way, my name’s not Tina. It’s Simone. But please don’t tell Emerald’s assistant what I do, okay? She thinks I’m Emerald’s tennis pro.”
He smiled at her, and said, “Sure.” As if that were the most normal request in the world.
As she walked out to her car, Simone gazed at the prom photo, at Emerald’s eyes. Despite the smile, there was such sadness in them. And something else, something dark and secret. Maybe Emerald really did kill herself.
But the thought was interrupted by a tingle of fear, strong and sharp between her shoulder blades. Simone spun around, peered into the bushes that lined Deegan’s short driveway. When she saw no one there, her gaze darted up the street and down, searching for that black Saab, because she knew what the fear tingle meant. It was instinctive; there was no mistaking it.
Someone was watching her.
EIGHT
Holly took two Vicodin, slept for two hours, and woke up feeling groggy but a good deal clearer about what had happened at her window. She was not going insane. She was simply stressed out and grieving and, yes, hearing things. As she’d learned in one of her college psych classes, perfectly normal people can hallucinate aurally when under extreme duress.
She just needed to take better care of herself. She needed to eat, to get some rest. That way, the next time she spoke to the police, they might actually believe her.
Holly remembered her last conversation with Detective Bianchi, back at Emerald’s house.
I know you don’t want to face it, Ms. Kashminian, but your boss was a sad and troubled woman.
You didn’t know her. You never saw her alive.
That may be true, but—
Emerald would never kill herself no matter what you think. And the note . . .
We all know how you feel about the note, ma’am.
Holly rolled her eyes. “What a bitch.” Not to worry, though. She’d rest. She’d make an appointment to see that detective. And she would prove her point. Emerald had been murdered.
Holly’s phone rang, and she picked it up without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”
She heard nothing but breathing. She looked at the screen: BLOCKED CALL. “Keith?”
“Hnnhhh,” went the breath, with no voice behind it.
“Who is this?”
She heard the wet sound of a tongue clicking. Then the caller started to laugh. Holly slammed down the phone, but that laugh stayed with her—a laugh she not so much heard as felt, dry and stinging, down the side of her neck.
By the time Simone was back on 134 Freeway, the feeling of being watched had eased a little. But that didn’t stop her from glancing into the rearview mirror every three or four minutes, checking for that Saab as she gripped the wheel.
When Simone’s cell phone chimed, she nearly swerved into the next lane. She checked the caller ID and her heart rate slowed back to normal. Of course it was Nigel. Who else would it be?
“Details?” he said.
“Yes, Nigel, lots of them. Heartwarming, eye-popping, the works,” Simone said. “All on the record. Exclusive to the Asteroid.”
“Right,” said Nigel, in a tone that felt thrillingly close to praise.
Simone had an urge to pump her arm and shout, “Yes!” until Nigel said, “Do you think we could send a photographer over there for a shoot? New York says they’re willing to stay late.”
Simone cringed, her mind filled with images of those stacked-up newspapers, of headlines about psycho dads and apples not falling far from trees. “He won’t sit for a shoot,” she said. “I already asked him.”
“Right,” Nigel said. “Well, at least we’ve got the exclusive. ”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Oh, that reminds me, did Emerald’s dad mention anything about her doing pornos?”
Simone coughed. “What?”
“Escort work, perhaps? There’s been a rumor about for months, concerning her whoring herself around Hollywood before she got her big break.”
“No, Nigel. Emerald’s grieving father didn’t mention—”
“We’ll make do, then. Very good.”
Click.
Simone stared at her phone, thinking, Was that what he meant by details? For the briefest of moments, she remembered what Wayne Deegan had said: Emerald bought him that house three years after she left home. She was still unknown back then. How could she have made that much money?
Treat my little girl fair.
She forced the thought out of her mind.
The ringtone trilled again, and Simone picked it up, not to Nigel’s voice but to a woman’s—thick and a little slurry. “He’s watching me, Simone.”
Her shoulders tensed up. “Holly?”
“He called me. He didn’t say anything, but I’m sure it was him. He . . . laughed.”
“Who? Who called you?”
“Whoever killed Emerald.”
“What?!” said Simone.
For several seconds, there was no response. Nothing but shallow breathing and the faint buzz of static.
“Holly, are you . . . feeling okay?”
“I took a Xanax,” she said. “Listen, can I talk to you in person?”
“Well, I—”
“Please. I . . . I don’t feel comfortable with phones right now.”
Holly wanted to meet at the Green Earth Macrobiotic Café, which as it turned out was located in Beverly Hills, just a few blocks from the Asteroid. It was a spartan place with hard, unyielding chairs and lights bright enough to be used for interrogation.
It was also very loud. Because there were no draperies or carpeting or even tablecloths (Were vegans against textiles?), there was nothing at all to muffle conversation, so the minute you opened the door, you were practically knocked back against it by echoing, aggressive chatter.
Simone searched the noisy space until, finally, she caught sight of Holly sitting alone at a corner table, staring into a clear mug of tea. Even from across the room, she looked exhausted, defeated.
It was worse close up.
Holly said, “I hope I didn’t drag you away from a lesson or anything.”
“No,” said Simone. “I’m kind of between lessons.”
“Well, thanks for coming. I know this place is out of the way, but it feels . . . safe, you know? Maybe it’s the bright lights or something.”
“What’s this about a phone call?”
“Oh, that,” said Holly.
“Seriously, if this was yesterday, I would have just thought it was a prank call or the wrong number. But . . . ever since this morning . . . ever since I went to Emerald’s, I’ve felt . . . watched.”
“I feel that way too,” Simone said.
Holly gaped at her. “You do?”
“Well, not so much now, but earlier I did.”
“That must be why I called you,” Holly said. “Something tells me you’re the right person to talk to about this.”
“Intuition.”
“Yeah.”
Simone recalled Emerald back in the trailer. I’ve got good intuition about people. She felt that stab of guilt again and swallowed, as if to smooth it out, digest it. She eased herself into the chair across from Holly’s and said, very quietly, “You think Emerald was murdered? ”
“I know she was.”
Simone’s eyes widened.
A waitress the color of skim milk approached. “Can I get you anything?” she said, her voice just as tired and slow as Simone expected it would be.
“Tea,” Simone said, just to get her away from the table.
“We have chamomile, Darjeeling, jasmine, gingerpeach—”
“Same as she’s having,” Simone said. As soon as the waitress walked away, she said, “Did the police say it was murder?”
“The police don’t know a damn thing!”
She took a breath. “Okay.”
“Sorry. It’s just, if I hear one more time about no sign of forced entry, I’m going to scream. They didn’t know Emerald.” Holly opened the messenger bag she’d slung over the back of her chair, removed a thin stack of papers, and placed them on the table in front of Simone. “I want you to look at these.”
Simone thumbed through the stack, a series of notes to Holly written on lined paper in the same neat block letters she’d seen on the grocery list Holly had taken out of her back pocket earlier, at the crime scene. “Are these from her?” said Simone.
Holly nodded.
She began to read.H—PLE ASE PICK UP DRY CLEANING. H—WAS CALLED BACK ON SET FOR RESHOOTS. PLEASE CANCEL IV Y DINNER RESERVATION.
H-PLEASE BUY TIFFANY TIE CLIP AND BIRTHDAY CARD FOR DADDY. YOU CAN USE MY VISA.
“Notice anything?” Holly said.
Simone looked up at her. Outside of Emerald’s perfect, somewhat anal-retentive script there was nothing remarkable about these notes. “Umm . . .”
“What do they all have in common?”
“They’re all written to you?”
“Yes, but that’s not . . .” Holly sighed. “Okay. . . . You know those spiral notebooks? They’ve got the wire coil on the side, and you tear the pages out?” She made a ripping gesture with both hands. “Like this? The edge that’s been ripped out, it gets kind of crumbly.”
Simone had no idea where she was going with this.
“Look at all these notes,” Holly said. “They’re ripped out of spiral notebooks, but the edges are smooth. That’s because Emerald had a thing about shags.”
“Shags?”
“The crumbly edges. Whenever she ripped a page out of one of her notebooks, she had to make sure all the shags were off, and that the edges were smooth. It was like . . . a compulsion.”
“Interesting,” Simone said.
Holly closed her eyes. Her face went absolutely still. “The note she left.”
“You mean the suicide note?”
Holly nodded. “There were shags on it.”
Simone stared at her.
“She wouldn’t do that.” Holly looked up. Her eyes were wet. “She just . . . I know she wouldn’t.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Yeah, but they won’t listen.”
“Maybe . . . maybe they know best, Holly. Maybe people forget things like . . . shags when they’ve decided to kill themselves.”
Holly’s gaze went hard. “The police do not know best,” she said. “They think she wanted to kill herself because she was a . . .”
“A what?”
“She wasn’t completely happy.”
Holly’s voice sounded small and lost, and in her eyes Simone saw something else, something besides grief and anger. . . . “Holly,” said Simone, “what did the note say?”
The waitress came back to the table. “One ginger-peach, ” she said. “Can I get you honey or—”
“No.”
“Maybe some lemon or—”
“No.”
The waitress walked away, muttering something Simone couldn’t hear, though she was pretty sure she got the gist.
“It’s not important what the note said, because Emerald didn’t write it. I mean, not of her own free will.”
“Still.”
Holly exhaled. “It said, ‘I love you, Daddy. I’m sorry.’”
Simone searched her face. “That’s all?”
“Yeah. No reason why she did it. No instructions, nothing about Keith.” Holly sipped her tea. “Nothing about . . .” Her voice faded.
You. There was nothing about you in the note, no “I’m sorry, Holly,” and she must have known you were coming in early the next morning, must have known you would be the one to find her.
“Sometimes,” Simone said, “people want to hurt themselves so badly, they don’t think about who they’re taking down with them.”
“No,” said Holly. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I might.”
“You don’t.” She closed her eyes and started speaking again, her voice tremulous, pained, as if someone were dragging the words out of her. “When I found Emerald, she wasn’t wearing her bracelets.”
Simone looked at her.
“Do you have any idea how fucking weird that is? She didn’t even take them off to shower.”
“Maybe . . . maybe she wanted to get rid of worldly possessions.”
“Those worldly possessions,” Holly said, “were covering scars.”
Simone’s eyes widened. You can’t help but think . . . What is underneath? What is she hiding? She recalled the fresh pool of blood in the sink, the way Emerald had acted when she first invited Kathy and Simone into her trailer. Upbeat, but only temporarily. . . . Then, the terror in Emerald’s voice as she spoke to Matthew. I didn’t agree to answer questions about . . . my personal choices.
“She cut herself,” said Simone. “She cut her own wrists.”
Holly nodded. “The backs of her ankles, too. She said it released the pain. Made her feel more alive.” Her eyes glistened. “I’m the only one who knew—I don’t even think Keith . . . Her dad can’t find out. It would kill him, I swear to God it would.”
Simone recalled the blood dripping down the heel of the shoe—the shoe she’d assumed was Nia Lawson’s. The backs of her ankles.
“My third day working for Emerald, I walked in on her . . . bleeding into her dressing room sink,” Holly said. “She was so ashamed. I promised I’d never tell anybody. ”
“And you kept your word.”
She nodded, stared at her hands. “She needed help, probably. She was a self-mutilator, and that kind of thing can escalate. I’ve read up on it. But you know . . . you make excuses. You rationalize. The cuts weren’t that deep. It was her business, not mine. Everybody has secrets. . . .” She looked at Simone. “It’s amazing what you tell yourself, just to avoid doing the right thing.”
Simone cringed a little. “Yeah.” She took a sip of her tea and held it in her mouth—the tang of peach. It made her think of summer in Wappingers Falls, of fruit stands and mosquitoes and thick, humid air . . . of going through a whole day with nothing to hide. “What if it did escalate— the cutting?” she said, finally. “What if Emerald slit her own throat because—”
“She didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Holly exhaled. “Emerald had a secret collection of knives. No one knew about it except me. They were surgical knives.” Holly held Simone’s gaze. “She was killed with one of those knives.”
“I thought it was a par
ing knife.”
“That’s what I told the press. You understand?” said Holly. “Emerald didn’t want anyone to see those knives, didn’t want anyone to know about them. Ever. If she used one to kill herself, everyone would know. Everyone would see. The police. Her father . . .” Holly’s eyes were pink-rimmed and teary, her pupils dilated from whatever pills she’d taken. But Simone had to admit, she had a point.
“She didn’t ever want her father to know about the knives,” Holly said. “She didn’t ever want her father to see the scars.”
Simone nodded. “I understand.”
“Please,” said Holly, “don’t tell anyone.”
Simone said, “I won’t. I promise.” And she meant it.
As she left the restaurant and headed back to her Jeep, Simone saw that image once again—Emerald’s white hand on the bed, the frail, bare wrist crusted with blood. Holly could be wrong, she knew. Emerald was a cutter—a fragile, unhappy woman who had just found out that her boyfriend of two years had betrayed her yet again. If ever there was someone who fit a suicide profile . . . But as Simone recalled that lifeless hand, one unanswerable question entered her mind . . .
What had happened to Emerald’s bracelets?
Destiny’s finger was very swollen. The top part looked as if someone had shoved an air pump in and inflated it ’til it was ready to burst. She couldn’t move the finger. It was bruised close to black, plus it throbbed and throbbed—an alarm going off. She couldn’t do much about it, though, not now. Maybe once she got hold of her eight thousand dollars, once she found a bus and then a plane and traveled far from here, far from him. Then she could take care of the finger. Of course, by that point she might need to have it amputated.
When Destiny had first arrived here, at this crappy hotel, she’d knocked on her neighbor’s door. The neighbor was a skinny woman with steel-wool hair and terrible meth mouth, what few broken teeth she had clinging to her gums like shards of glass. Her eyes had that dullness that people’s eyes get when they’re ill, that overcooked look. At first, the woman had only cracked the door. But when Destiny had held up that finger, the crack had gone wide open.
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