by Ian Bull
“He’s hiding in the Mexican desert with his tribe of wackos. How would he profit from messing with Julia and Steven right now? It’s too risky.”
Trishelle heads to the center of town and parks in front of the Malibu Country Mart. “I don’t know. But this shit makes me so hungry I’m going to eat an entire meatloaf sandwich.”
She gets out of the car and walks fast. I fall in step next to her. “We feed them first. Then what, handsome?”
“The LAPD and the County will figure out if they have enough to press charges. Meanwhile, they’ll be watching Julia and Steven to see what they do next.”
“Don’t the police have anything better to do?”
“Maybe not. This may be the most exciting crime to hit Malibu this year.”
“So, what do we do?”
“We keep them separated, so they’ll be nothing for the police to see. I’ll take Steven to his bachelor apartment. You take Julia back to the beach house. No visitors. Only answer calls from me. They shouldn’t talk to each other, either.”
She shrugs. “Is that really necessary?”
“Just for a few days. If the DA brings charges. they’ll subpoena their phone records, so why give them anything to subpoena in the first place? Let things settle. By mid-week, we’ll have a bigger picture of what happened and what to do.”
“You’re the security expert.”
What I don’t mention is that keeping them on lockdown is the best strategy if someone is really trying to hurt them. But there’s no reason to get her worried about something I can prevent.
We walk up the steps to the Malibu Country Mart, but she puts her hands on the screen door before I can open it. My brunette looks cool with her Jackie Onassis shades. “I want to talk about us. What are we doing, anyway?”
“We’re having a sophisticated and passionate international love affair.”
“That’ll work, but only for a little while longer,” she says, then opens the door for me. “Come on. I’ll buy you a meatloaf sandwich.”
Damn. I thought I’d dodged that bullet on this trip.
5
STEVEN QUINTANA
Saturday, March 9, 5:00 p.m. (PST)
California
Detective Adrienne Gum flashes a thin smile as she comes back in the room. She opens her black jacket, flashing the gold badge on her belt, then drops the legal pad on the table and sits down across from me.
“Where’s Julia?” My olfactory bulb is picking up her perfume in the air.
“With another detective. He’s checking her story while I’m checking yours.”
“We’re not the ones you should be questioning. You want Peter Heyman.”
Detective Gum twirls her pencil and narrows her green eyes. “Steven, you say that you knew that the car was going to explode. Yet, you don’t know anything about the explosives planted in the trunk, refrigerator, or oil drum. That doesn’t make sense.”
“The car chassis was close to the ground. There was clicking. It was a feeling.”
“Have you always had a feeling when bombs were about to go off?”
She’s taunting me, hoping I’ll get angry and rise to her bait. “When you’re in Afghanistan, if you don’t want to die from an IED exploding next to your Humvee, you develop a sixth sense about spotting them.”
This silences her, but she still smiles. “Did Julia Travers ask you to do it?”
“She didn’t ask me anything.”
“She’s the producer and star, and you’re just the stunt coordinator. Maybe you’re jealous of her success. Maybe you planted the dummy bombs to raise a ruckus.”
“Like I said, you should be looking for Peter Heyman. Yancy Mendoza can confirm everything. He’s been working for Julia to find Douglas Bushnell and Tina Swig.”
“This conspiracy sounds very elaborate. But the answers are usually closer to home.”
“Are we done then? I’ve answered all your questions.”
“Yes. You can go.” She stays seated, letting me find my own way out.
It feels good to walk out the front doors into the California sunshine. Carl appears and hands me a cup of coffee and a paper bag. “Caffeine and half of a meatloaf sandwich. It’s good.”
“Thanks.” I eat the sandwich in four bites, then chase it with a sip of joe. “Julia is still in there. We need to wait.”
Carl points at two black BMWs parked side by side in the parking lot. “Her agent and lawyer just got here, so they’ll be in there a while. Trishelle will wait for her.” He nods at the Audi parked in the shade of a tree. Trishelle smiles and waves from the driver’s seat. I wave back.
“I saw Heyman on the hill.”
He looks surprised. “Metal-face? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. His cheek was glinting in the sun. He pointed at Julia and me just before the explosion.”
Carl glances around as if Heyman might be watching from behind a bush right now. “Then you’re not safe, especially out in the open. Let’s go.”
6
JULIA TRAVERS
Saturday, March 9, 5:00 p.m. (PST)
California
My agent, Rick Telles, and Saul Berlin, chief counsel for The Griffith Agency, shift in their seats on either side of me. Detective Niall McCusker tugs at his rumpled suit and stares at the paper in his hand, then he looks at me with his tired face and asks the same three questions yet again.
“Did you have a permit for the explosive devices?”
“No, because we were attacked! There were men on the set I didn’t recognize, men who work for Peter Heyman. He pointed at us from the hill!”
“So, you had no fire marshal on set? No federal permit from the ATF either?”
“It was a press conference. We didn’t expect bombs to be going off. Steven and I were right next to the Ferrari that exploded. If he hadn’t tackled Eileen and me and pulled us under the table, we could have been killed.”
McCusker shakes his head. “The trunk was reinforced with plates. All the energy of the explosion went up instead of out. All that diving was dramatic, but you weren’t in danger. He also grabbed you before the bomb went off like he knew it would happen.”
Saul exhales like a deflating balloon. He puts his hand up. “Can we speak to our client privately, please?”
McCusker stands up. “I’ll be back in two,” he says and walks out the door.
Saul and Rick bring their chairs so close I can smell the ham sandwiches they had for lunch. “Celebrity Exposed is reporting that the explosions could be a publicity stunt arranged by you and Steven,” Rick whispers.
My pulse pounds in my temples. “Celebrity Exposed was not invited to the event. They’re liars, especially the editor-in-chief Larry Naythons.”
“Celebrity Exposed knew about the explosions as soon as they happened,” Rick says. “They sent a crew from Los Angeles and streamed interviews live to the internet. Six people from your crew insisted that the explosions were a stunt that Steven arranged.”
“The crew had four people, and Trishelle and I hired them ourselves. Heyman and his people infiltrated the set. It’s all fake.”
“Slow down, Julia. Let us help you,” Saul says. He’s a cross between Gandhi and Tony Soprano, lethal and calm in any situation. Yet, there’s a glimmer of concern.
McCusker comes back in, plops down, and sighs like an exhausted grandpa. “Okay, let’s get back to it. Steven Quintana served in Afghanistan, correct?”
“Yes. I don’t remember when or for how long.”
“The stunt car, refrigerator, and oil drum all had deflection plates. Our bomb expert says that soldiers built and installed similar deflection blast plates on the bottom of vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“So?”
“Do you think it’s possible that Steven did all of this without consulting you?”
I stare at McCusker. His smug mug tells me that he already believes it. Saul and Rick purse their lips and narrow their eyes.
I look back at McCu
sker. “That’s impossible. Steven would never do that.”
“Are you sure? Take your time answering.”
I turn back to Rick and Saul. “You back me on this, right?”
“We represent you, Julia, not Steven.” Saul and Rick each flash me an eyebrow raise, giving me permission to sell out Steven to protect myself.
I close my eyes. Steven, hang on. We’ll be together soon.
7
TINA SWIG
Monday, March 11, 7:10 a.m. Central European Time
Near Palermo, Sicily
Sicily is gorgeous, especially with spring on the way.
“You have friends in San Vito Lo Capo?” my Uber driver asks.
Nosy bastard. I lie to him. “My grandfather. He goes to church every Sunday.”
“Beautiful Norman church there. Wonderful children’s choir. Sublime.”
He drops me off at the church, and I walk two blocks to the beach. The sun is rising over the long stretch of white sand. The sound of music and children singing comes from behind me. They start choir practice early, poor kids.
Carlos, the young Italian bosun, appears in his formal, white uniform with the black and gold epaulets. “Miss? May I take your bag for you?” He’s discreet; he never asks my name and never asks questions except to serve me. No one on the yacht is allowed to know my name. They can call me Miss T. or ma’am, never Tina. A long dock runs out into the bay, where a motorboat is docked. “The tender is ready.”
He helps me into the small boat, and onto a cushion. It’s just past seven in the morning on Monday, March 11, and the sea is calm. A huge rock, Monte Monaco, rises like a massive pimple from the bay, marking one end of a beach that stretches all the way to Mount Erice on the opposite side. The rock is lit up yellow in the rising sun, and out in the bay is our yacht, Reckoning, ninety feet of pure bliss. It’s a moving mansion. We go to sleep in the same bed every night and then wake up off the coast of Malta or the Aeolian Islands or Ustica or Tunisia.
Douglas is right; it’s perfect for our work right now. We blend in with all the other yachts. No one cares where we go; we’re welcome to come ashore and spend our money in every port, no questions asked. Life is good when you are rich and anonymous. And it’s about to get better, now that the explosive fun has begun.
Carlos helps me off the tender and onto the swim platform. I climb the five steps to the main aft deck, walk past the covered dining tables, and through the glass doors into the main salon.
Computer screens and TV monitors are recessed into mahogany cabinets along one wall, displaying everything from our satellite communication to the ship’s internet traffic. We’re a moving international internet broadcast company, but right now, it’s the quiet before the storm. Our high-tech frat boys—Min, Ismael, and Elliot—are ashore whoring it up somewhere, like sailors on leave. They’ll be back on board and at their keyboards tomorrow, ready to ramp up the madness.
Douglas emerges from the master suite with his cropped, brown hair and perfect, two-day stubble on his handsome face. He wears loose pants and a raw silk shirt. He looks like a yachting billionaire, which is what he is.
“Hello, my sweet genius. How was your flight?”
“Uneventful.”
He kisses me. “That’s the best kind of flight to have.”
Rebecca, his redheaded steward, enters carrying a glass of champagne on a silver tray. She doesn’t make eye contact as I take the glass, then slips away before I can thank her. She’s always discreet, but never this modest.
“Were you just fucking her?”
“No. Do I seem guilty?”
“She does. And there’s nothing to be guilty about, even if you were. You had billionaire tastes before I met you. I just want the chance to keep pace.”
“Rebecca’s been with me a long time and is very loyal. But no, I wasn’t fucking her. I have a marathon with you coming up, both in bed and out, so I need my rest.”
Douglas is fifty-eight (I think), so he’d better get his rest. Otherwise, I might kill him with all my kindness. I never want him to doubt choosing me. “What have you been doing since we traded texts?” I ask.
“Monitoring the chaos in California. The police have questioned Quintana and Travers, so our fake news is working.”
“You look a little tired, my love.”
“I was up most of the night while you were flying, but I did my Krav Maga and followed it up with a thermal heat bath. I feel good after only three hours of sleep.”
“No cold thermogenesis?” Workers from Rome installed a special freezing chamber in the master bathroom before I left.
“That’s every second day, along with the juicing. It seems to be working.”
There’s no debate. He only seems five years older than me, not twenty.
Carlos returns to the salon after putting away my things in the master suite. He bows and then heads down to the crew quarters. It’s just Douglas and me now. We won’t hear from the captain or first mate. They stay on the bridge or engine room and never come into the living areas. Every need, from the air temperature to the depth of the anchorage to shore communication, Douglas controls with his touchpad. He issues a command, and they comply. Rebecca and Carlos serve our personal needs, while a chef stays in the galley below deck. Rebecca supervises a housekeeper, a woman who changes the linen and cleans our rooms when we’re elsewhere on the yacht.
Douglas takes me in his arms. “Hello there,” he whispers, sending an erotic pulse up my spine that explodes in my brain.
“We’ll start stage two soon. Do you have their phone numbers?”
“I do. All four of them.”
He smiles. I do love to please him. I don’t tell him how I get my information, and he doesn’t ask. We each have our secrets. It’s safer that way.
He releases me. “Go visit Devon. Rebecca is serving breakfast on the sundeck in thirty minutes, and I want both of you there.”
Up a short flight of stairs is the middle floor, with a sundeck and two smaller bedrooms. I knock at the first door, hear a grunt, and let myself in. It’s a teenager’s bedroom, with World Cup football and Marvel superhero posters on the wall, and two computer screens running. The drapes are open for a change, and the water outside is like a sheet of blue glass. Devon is strapped into his cherry-red wheelchair with the built-in computer monitor, but he’s gazing at the view.
“Hello, my gorgeous son. I missed you.”
He hits the power toggle with the palm of his right hand, spins around, rises to my height, and then zooms right at me, stopping one inch short. He grins.
“Show-off. Happy to see me?”
He slides his teeth over a mouthpiece, which works like a computer mouse. His tongue types out words that the computer turns into speech. It’s a neat little device Douglas invented for him.
“I don’t like it when you leave. Where did you go?” The voice of Paul Newman comes out of the computer speaker.
“I was securing your future. Us against the world, right?”
“Us against the world,” he says. It’s our little phrase.
“I like Paul Newman. Did Uncle Douglas give you your new voice?”
Devon nods. Douglas has done a lot for Devon—the hip wheelchair, the computer, and the voice alteration software. We can load a two-minute recording of any person’s voice into the computer, and, within minutes, the computer will sound like that person.
Devon is handsome, with sandy brown hair. He’s a fantastic seventeen-year-old genius and the light of my life. But, he’s also a quadriplegic with dyskinetic cerebral palsy since he was born breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. My condescending jerk obstetrician should have known and handled the crisis. But he didn’t, and I blame myself for not standing up to him earlier in my pregnancy.
Since then, I’ve dedicated my life to making Devon’s productive and happy, and to punishing any fool who gets in my way. I took that doctor to court, ruined him, and made sure his wife knew he was cheating on her
.
“I spoke to Professor Carlton today,” Devon says, throwing in a Southern drawl. “He wants me to try one of the Millennium Prize Problems from the Clay Institute.”
“Really? Which one?” We memorized all seven challenges, a mother/son hobby. Whoever solves even one earns one million dollars.
“The Hodge conjecture. Belgian mathematician Pierre Deligne first predicted that for projective algebraic varieties, Hodge cycles are rational linear combinations of algebraic cycles. I have an idea for a computer model that may lead to a proof.”
“That’s so exciting! When are you starting?’
“Tomorrow. I was staring at the view, thinking about the code I must write.”
“I’m so glad we found Professor Carlton. You’re going to have a degree from Cambridge University before you’re twenty.”
“And I’m going to win the Fields Medal before I’m thirty.” Devon’s grin covers his whole face. He’s in bliss, which means I’m in bliss because, when his brain is working in hyperdrive, he transcends his wheelchair.
“Uncle Douglas wants us on the sundeck for breakfast in ten minutes, my love,” I say and give him a long kiss on the forehead. I pull back. He smells like perfume. Rebecca’s perfume. His skin flushes red.
Now her guilty look and Douglas’s odd answer make sense. Did Douglas initiate their encounter? Did Devon do it on his own? Douglas must have at least given it a nod of approval since nothing on this yacht ever gets by him. He may have even suggested it and instructed Rebecca to proceed. How far did this encounter go? And how upset should I be? I shoot Devon a sideways glance. He flushes a deeper red and grins.
“I won’t ask. As long as you get that Fields Medal, darling.”
8
CARL WEBB
Sunday, March 10, 10:30 p.m. (PST)
California
I offer Steven a paper plate filled with spicy beef and broccoli. He sighs and takes it. We’re on the back deck of his old bachelor pad, sitting in Adirondack chairs overlooking the beach in Tivoli Cove. We’ve been here all day, lying low, doing nothing. It’s the safest choice after yesterday’s madness, but his legs are bouncing like pistons, he’s so restless.