by Chris Mooney
Cody nodded and flicked his gaze back up at the ceiling. He rubbed her back absently, Ellie seeing how the worry was tearing him up. And it tore her up, too, seeing how it ate at him.
“You don’t have to wait around for me,” Ellie said.
Cody stopped rubbing her back.
“It’s not fair, asking you to do this,” she said. “I don’t want you to suffer because of a decision I made.”
“And you think that’ll, what, just stop if we break up? Great plan.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying? What aren’t you telling me?”
Ellie knew what she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how to put the words in the right order. She wanted to start by telling him how knowing that he was worrying about her would distract her. It was exhausting enough worrying about what was in front of her and guessing what was around the corner, and she wanted to tell him about today—not the particulars but how she had never felt more excited or alive, her life’s purpose so clearly defined.
Sharing this, though, would only hurt him, and he was hurting enough—hurting too much. Cody put up a great front, but what people didn’t know was that behind all that muscle was a sensitive guy who was in some ways still a boy. A boy who thought love lasted forever, that it was special and could weather any storm. Cody was like a pop song, eternally optimistic, a catchy tune that took you out of the darkening swell of your own thoughts and made you believe, if only for a few minutes, that there was a lot of good stuff in this world, and it was yours for the taking, but only if you had the courage to surrender your heart.
“Don’t shut me out,” Cody said. “Talk to me.”
Ellie didn’t want to get into it. She was emotionally and physically spent, and now that she had gotten what she wanted from him—his flesh and his strength and the bruises she was sure he had left on her limbs and hips—she wanted his solidarity. She wanted him to say, Yes, whatever you want to do or whatever you need is fine by me. I won’t ask questions or put any demands on you. I am here for you and I won’t ask anything from you, and I won’t tell you I’m scared or hurting.
She knew her thinking was naïve and childish. Selfish. But weren’t all wishes, hopes, and desires, when you got right down to it, childish and selfish?
“I love you,” Ellie said, hoping to put the matter to bed, at least for tonight. “That hasn’t changed.”
“But clearly something has changed.”
Ellie felt a spike of anger. It died quickly when she reminded herself that Cody was hurting because of her. She had caused this, and truthfully, wouldn’t she be feeling the same way if the shoe were on the other foot?
“Just hang on for a little while longer. Can you do that?”
Cody moved closer to her. Stared at her for a moment before he said, “I’ll always have your back.”
Ellie nestled herself in the crook of his arm. She rubbed his chest and stomach, hooked her leg over his waist.
“Why is this so important to you?” he asked. “Can you at least tell me that?”
She thought about telling him about her brother and then decided against it—and not because she didn’t trust him, because she did. She didn’t want to share it with him or anyone else and run the risk of being talked out of her desire, maybe even obsession, to find her brother. She didn’t want to give that power over to someone else. She wanted to keep it close, tucked inside her, where it could grow, be protected.
“It just is,” she said.
“Does it have something to do with—?”
“No more questions, okay? Please? I just want to lie here and enjoy you. Us.”
Then, when he didn’t answer: “Okay?”
“Sure.”
Ellie turned and kissed his chest, wanting to lose herself in his flesh again but unable to stop thinking about the crack in their relationship—and it was there, no question. She could feel it splintering, and if she wasn’t careful, it would grow into a crevasse that would swallow them both.
CHAPTER 25
WHEN SEBASTIAN GOT sober, what surprised him the most was how his body betrayed him. Instead of being grateful that it no longer had to metabolize excessively large amounts of Scotch, it got good and pissed off. Those first awful months, he would hit the pillow every night, mentally and physically exhausted from dragging himself through yet another day of fighting off his insane craving for booze, and when he shut his eyes, the doctor-prescribed Ambien already floating through his bloodstream, his body stubbornly refused to shut down and rest.
People who weren’t alcoholics—“earthlings,” in AA speak—couldn’t understand that addiction was a living, breathing entity. It was like you were possessed. It lived inside a damaged part of your brain and it talked to you constantly and it could, and did, use your body against you, without your permission. Those early days when he hit the pillow, his addiction, which he came to view as a spiritual entity, like a demon, constantly whispered in his ear: Sorry, my man, no sleep for you. Not unless you give us what we need.
What the demon wanted—demanded—was a glass of Scotch. And not the cheap shit, either; only the top-shelf stuff would do. Sebastian refused. His addiction laughed. You can take as many sleeping pills as you want, amigo, but it’s not going to make a lick of difference. I control things around here, not you, and I’m going to prove it. And prove it his addiction did. His body had been hijacked, and it, along with the demon living inside his skull, introduced him to a new level of hell called insomnia.
Sebastian still suffered from bouts of it now, all these sober years later, only the insomnia was triggered by extreme mental stress. God knew he had a shit ton of it, so it didn’t exactly come as a surprise that he found himself lying wide-awake at two in the morning. He knew the reason why, too. He also had a strong idea about how to fix it, but had been putting it off for months now because the remedy was . . . well, insane.
So he had two choices: lie here in bed and continue to stare at the ceiling, or get up and do what he needed to do now, in the quiet of the night, when no one was watching.
Sebastian pulled back the sheets. He dressed quickly, making sure to grab what he needed from the downstairs closet, and then headed for the garage.
Traffic on the 405 was light. He made it to Westwood in good time.
In the daylight, the Parker Brothers Memorial Park resembled a peaceful, meditative retreat more than a cemetery—a beautiful and immaculately landscaped area with a rich, deep green lawn, abundant flowers, trees, and sunshine. Sebastian suspected Trixie picked this place because of the number of celebrities who were buried there. Trixie once dreamed of being an actress. That dream got put on hold when she discovered she was pregnant. She lived the life of a single mother until she moved in with Sebastian, four years later. Trixie went back to acting, got bit parts in re-creations of murders in true-life crime shows, and then eventually left it for what she felt was her true calling: being a stay-at-home mother.
The Park, as it was called, was obviously closed at such an ungodly hour. Sebastian drove past the entrance to visit the dead—a pair of wrought iron gates secured by a chain and padlock—and pulled onto the next side street and then parked in a neighborhood less than half a mile away. He walked with his head lowered, his jacket collar turned up, and his LA Dodgers baseball cap pulled low across his forehead. He also wore a pair of eyeglasses. A bit of overkill, he supposed, but every little bit helped when you were trying to disguise yourself.
Trixie had opted for a simple gravestone. It sat flat against the earth and contained her name and the dates of her brief time here on earth. His destination was two spots over—the grave site of an immensely popular yet troubled female singer who had died young of a heroin overdose. Her grave site was decorated with a haphazard mess of half-lit candles, flowers, cards, drawings, and assorted trinkets (he saw a Matchbox car and a perfume bottle, of
all things) from fans who came from all over the world to visit her. If he was being recorded, he wanted to appear like some nut who had been touched by her haunting songs. I’m probably nuttier than those people, he told himself, doing what I’m about to do.
Sebastian kept his head bowed and his hands in his jacket pockets. He took in a deep breath, the night air cold by California standards—in the low forties.
“My mother believed in the power of prayer. Believed that you could talk not only to God but to your loved ones. But she told me if you wanted to say something really important—like ask for forgiveness—then you had to do it at that person’s grave site.”
Sebastian felt silly, a grown-ass man talking to himself. The dead couldn’t hear or feel, because they were dead. But that didn’t prevent people from talking out loud, believing their loved one’s soul or spirit was in hearing distance, looming somewhere close by, watching and listening.
Sebastian had been raised in—or, he would argue, indoctrinated into—Catholicism by his Bible-thumping mother. And while he hadn’t stepped inside a church for decades, he supposed he still clung to the spiritual concept of a soul. Or maybe, deep down, he was terrified not to believe it. His adult self suddenly felt a lot like the little boy who believed the night-light his mother placed in his room kept the monsters under the bed and locked inside the closet.
“When I got out of prison, I went to her grave and apologized to her. Not for going to jail—that wasn’t my fault, as you well know—but because I wasn’t there for her when she got sick. Frank was, and while I’m sure she appreciated that—God knows I did—still, it wasn’t me. And that bothered me for a long, long time. But it felt good to go visit her and get it off my chest. Then, when I got sober, I went to see her again, and this time I asked for her forgiveness for everything I put her through—and I put her through a lot. Things I never told you about.”
Sebastian snorted. The sounds of the highway traffic filled his ears, and in the far, far distance he could see a faint orange glow, like that from an active volcano—the wildfires tearing their way through Northern California. He thought he could smell smoke, too, but surely he was imagining it.
“I don’t know if I believe in heaven, in that whole ‘You’re looking down on me’ thing, watching my every move. The nuns and priests drilled that into me at school and at church, and I found the whole thing creepy, to say the least. Anyway, if it is true, then you know what’s been going on. My mother, too. You both know why I’m here. Still, I’ve got to say it out loud. That’s what they teach at AA—not to carry shit but to let it out. We’re as sick as our secrets.”
Sebastian took another deep breath. This time he did smell smoke.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill your son,” Sebastian said. “I don’t expect you to understand or to forgive me, although I’d be lying if some part of me didn’t want that, because otherwise why would I be here? It’s been weighing on me, what I’m going to do—so much so that I haven’t been able to sleep. But I’m still going to do it. I have to do it, for reasons you understand, or don’t. Like they say in AA, I can’t control people, places, or things. Souls, I’m guessing, fall into that category. I will say that I’m sorry. That I wish there was another way.
“I loved you the best way I could and respected you, and now, even after your death, I wouldn’t want to do anything deliberately to hurt you. But he’s sick and he needs to be stopped.”
Sebastian paused, expecting to feel her spirit or presence or essence move through him and protest, maybe give him some sort of sign. What he felt was nothing. No stirring, no thoughts. Actually, that wasn’t true. He did feel something: he felt silly. Ridiculous. Reduced to a childlike state where he had once believed an angry, invisible man who lived in the sky would protect him from the monsters that lived in his closet and under his bed. Still, the woman who had shared his bed for nearly two decades was now lying six feet below him, sealed in a coffin packed in dirt. He felt that.
“It will be quick and painless. That’s the best I can do. The best I can promise.”
There. It was done. He had said everything he had come here to say. He had told the truth. Unburdened himself. It was time to go.
Sebastian walked away, expecting to feel at least a bit lighter, like he had on that hot August afternoon when he’d stood at his mother’s grave site, making amends for his drinking and alcoholic behavior, what he had put her through. Right now, though? Right now he felt troubled. He felt some new burden weighing him down. And why did he feel that familiar itch along the back of his tongue and throat—the one that could be scratched only by a good bottle of Scotch or, back in the day, by using his fists?
By the time he reached the highway, he’d had an epiphany.
Sebastian didn’t drive home. Instead, he took a detour to the Hollywood Hills.
To Ava’s house.
Sebastian killed the lights and parked across the street. Her sprawling home looked like some sort of dark, futuristic monolith under the blanket of stars. He stared at the dark windows, listening to the ticking of his cooling engine, thinking about Ava sleeping in there, along with eight words he had said to Trixie back at the Park:
I loved you the best way I could.
It was true. He had loved her and respected her to the best of his ability. But if he was being honest, Trixie had been his consolation prize. Trixie, with her blond hair and blue eyes and Barbie doll physique shaped by Pilates and eating low- or no-carb meals, was the anti-Ava—and hadn’t that been her appeal? Hadn’t he allowed Trixie and her kid into his life so he could forget about Ava? To keep his mind occupied with the reality of his life rather than constantly wishing for the one stolen from him? Trixie was a stand-in for the real thing, a placeholder. He supposed he’d realized that on some level, for all these years, but it had slept quietly, this truth, on the deep seafloor of his mind, and it had taken his getting shot—by her son—for him to get to this place to confront it. And if at any point during his time with Trixie Ava had knocked on the door or picked up the phone and said, “I want you back,” he would have said yes. Wouldn’t have hesitated.
The truth shamed him, yes, but it also freed him, made the air seem that much sweeter, the colors more vibrant. He had almost died, and he wasn’t going to waste any more time. Come tomorrow morning, he was going to reach out to her and, God willing, get his real life back, the one that had been stolen from him.
CHAPTER 26
CODY WAS STILL very much on Ellie’s mind as she woke up in the drowsy morning sunlight. She didn’t want to think about him, couldn’t stop thinking about him and their conversation from last night, Cody pretty much saying that if she gave up the undercover job, he’d be fine with it.
She’d never given up on anything in her life.
She felt bad for hustling him out of her room, but she needed to keep her head in the game.
Ellie got out of bed. It was half past seven, and she felt surprisingly refreshed and energized. She took a long shower, and by the time she finished she was no longer thinking about Cody.
It wasn’t much of an effort, either. Her need to solve the mystery of her brother far outweighed her feelings for Cody, or the nagging, guilty thoughts she had of him worrying about her and suffering from that worry.
Did that make her some sort of sociopath?
Make her, God forbid, in some way evil?
She didn’t want Cody to suffer, had, she reminded herself, given him an out last night when she told him he could see other people, as much as that would hurt her—and it would. But if she was being honest with herself, didn’t a part of her want him to say that yes, they should take a break? If they did, she wouldn’t have to worry about him. She could temporarily pack him up and put him away, examine Cody later, after she found her brother. That was far more important right now than Cody’s feelings.
And wasn’t that the definition o
f evil? Ignoring someone’s suffering for your own benefit? She did it with Cody, and now she was about to do it to someone else.
By the time she finished dressing, she was back to being Faye Simpson, back to business.
Ellie stood by the window, with its panoramic views of downtown Los Angeles and Southern California, the mountains and ocean, and called Frank. He had given her his private cell number, in the event of an emergency.
He picked up.
“It’s Faye.”
“Good morning, Faye.”
“Good morning.”
Ellie closed her eyes, and as she took in a deep breath she thought of Danny. Danny, dead and buried and all alone inside his casket. Danny, who had gone through an ugly, bitter divorce, his only salvation his dog, Boomer. The words spilled out of her.
“I was hoping we could talk,” Ellie said.
“We’re talking now.”
“I meant face-to-face.”
“Why?”
“That picture you showed me the night you took me to dinner.” Ellie was pleased at how confident she sounded. “I’ve come across some information I think you’ll be very interested to hear.”
“I’m listening.”
Her plan would work only if they spoke in person. It was a gamble, what she had in mind. Then again, Faye Simpson was a gambler by nature.
“I want to talk to you in person,” Ellie said. “Where would you like to meet?”
Frank told her to stay put; he’d come pick her up. She gave him the address for the Ritz-Carlton—the hotel, which had the same address as the private residences—and waited for him in the lobby.
An hour later, she saw his Buick pull up to the front of the hotel—the same SUV from the photo hanging on her office wall. She pushed her way through the revolving doors, dressed in the same clothes she had worn yesterday.
Frank got out of the car. He wore a nicely cut blue suit jacket with a crisp, dressy white T-shirt that, along with his sockless loafers and Ray-Ban Wayfarers, gave him a breezy, casual look.
