by Marcus Sakey
Daniel moved to wrap his arms around her from behind. “So you did it.”
“Yes. I . . .” A shiver ran beneath her skin. “I did. I felt like throwing up, but I did it. Bennett got what he wanted, and I got free. I left Chicago and came to Los Angeles, the best place in the world to reinvent yourself. I came here and I said, ‘You’re no longer Elaine Sedlacek, model and victim and Stupid Girl. You’re Laney Thayer. You’re an aspiring actress with a reason to make it. You’re going to become a star, and eventually you’re going to meet a real man and fall in love, and you never need to think about Bennett again.’ ”
He closed his eyes. Her back was hot against his chest, and the smell of her was in his nostrils. “When did he come back?”
“Two weeks ago. In a way, I’m surprised he waited this long. He already knew my sins, after all. Maybe he saw me as an investment, waited for the money to get bigger. Anyway, when he did come back, it was the tape of seventeen-year-old me and the married congressman.”
“He said he’d release it.”
“Maybe my career would have weathered it—maybe—but maybe not. For every Drew Barrymore the public forgives, there are a hundred women whose names no one remembers. Plus, he’d blackmailed the politician, and there was no way to prove that I hadn’t been in on that. But really, it wasn’t those things. It was you. I didn’t want to put you through that. The embarrassment of it. Of people watching your wife . . .” She spun the ring on her finger. “And all he wanted was money.”
“So you bought the necklace to pay him off.” It burned him to think of rewarding this fucker who had taken so much from her. Maybe it was the simplest way to handle things, but Bennett deserved to be hit with a car, not paid off.
“He wanted that one specifically. And ten grand in cash.” She paused, looked at him quizzically. “I don’t know why he didn’t just want the whole thing in cash.”
“Taking out that much draws a lot of attention. Most banks don’t have half a million just sitting in the back room. Plus, with that much, it’s easy to include a bunch of sequential serial numbers, which the FBI might be able to track— What?” She had an odd look on her face.
“That’s almost exactly what you said before.”
“Before?” He caught on. “You asked me that before.” She nodded, and he said, “So what was that? A test?”
“I’m just getting used to it. It’s kind of interesting, though, don’t you think? That you would answer almost exactly the same way? I remember because when you said that about half a million in the back room, I flashed to the image, you know, fluorescent lights, a big metal door, stacks of cash on shelves. It’s like those words were in you. Waiting.”
“Yeah. My head is a wondrous place,” he said. A silence fell. The glass door to the balcony was open, and a breeze rippled the sheer curtains. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Did you tell me? About Bennett?”
“Of course.” She turned to face him. Her eyes were steady and close. “I told you years ago. All of it.”
“How did . . .” He realized he was frightened of the answer, but had to ask the question anyway. “How did I react?”
“You asked me to marry you.”
“I did?”
“That’s how we ended up getting married on a beach in Maine. We’d been dating about a year then, but that was our first real trip together. You’d been busy, writing for Brothers Blue—” she caught herself, explained, “it was a cop drama, great show but misunderstood, got canceled halfway through the first season—and we were in this place on the coast. Lying in bed, talking, you could hear the waves in the background, and I felt . . . safe. So I told you. And when I was done, you asked me to marry you, and I said yes, and you said you meant right away.” Her eyes in a happy distance. “So we paid a Unitarian minister five hundred dollars to marry us on the beach the next afternoon. You gave him your camera to take a couple of pictures, and then you said, ‘Thanks, we appreciate it, now get the hell out of here so I can do my wife.’ ”
Daniel was a writer, but he would have been hard-pressed to name the feeling that rolled through him. The warmth and love and trust, the sense of coming home and loving the view, all mingled with relief—after a week of shame and the very real suspicion he had done something terrible, to realize that of this, at least, he was innocent, that was hard to roll into one word.
But maybe bliss.
B
ennett waited for three minutes. Not a lot of time. About what it took to nuke a can of soup. Not a lot of time, but time enough; when neither Laney nor Daniel had returned to their cars by then, he knew they weren’t coming.
Ah well.
He climbed out of Jerry D’Agostino’s Jaguar and started across the parking lot. The screaming had stopped, and the running. But in typical herd fashion, now that the immediate danger was over, fear had been replaced by curiosity. There had to be two hundred people milling around the Farmer’s Market parking lot, circling at a distance. People were so predictable. He watched as a police cruiser pulled up, lights flashing. They burped the sirens a couple of times to clear a path, then two cops got out and hustled inside. Everyone stared after them. No one noticed him open his flick knife and cut the tires on Daniel’s BMW and Laney’s piece-of-shit van. If nothing else, at least he’d limit their mobility for a while.
It took him half an hour to make the drive back to Sophie Zeigler’s neighborhood. Bennett rolled with his windows down, arm on the door frame, wind pouring in. The Palisades were all peace and prosperity. Sunlight showered through the canopy, a woman pushed a stroller down the broad lane. He parked the Jag in front of her house and drummed his index finger against his lips.
This was a mess.
For two decades, he’d beaten the system by being careful. Keeping a distance. Made sure that no one who knew much about him stayed alive. His techniques had been honed over time, based on mistakes he saw others making. Again and again, people fell into patterns. Even the criminals got careless. Got too close. Let it become personal.
Is this personal?
He considered that. If it was, he needed to walk away. Start to care, and it all went to shit. The world was a game board. You couldn’t win if you valued your pieces too much. They were just means to an end.
For years he’d followed Laney’s career. She was his tech stock— he’d bought her cheap, and her value just kept rising. Another couple of years, she might have been doing features, raking in the big money, and he could have come after her for a lot more. Which made the mess he was dealing with salt in his payday wound. Plus, sure, it was annoying that they’d outplayed him at the mall.
But did he care? Not the way other people meant the word.
So it wasn’t personal. But it was still a risky situation. And there were always other opportunities.
But then, the clock was a factor. Homeland Security, the FBI. All those smart boys with expensive toys looking for him after that FUBAR in Chicago. It was time to move operations. Somewhere warm, with a nice corrupt government. Mexico, maybe. A lot of money flowing through those cartels. It would be easy for a careful, well-funded man to siphon off a fortune.
Unfortunately, you’re only one of those things right now.
Bennett pulled on gloves and strolled up the driveway of Sophie’s house. It took less than a minute to pop the locks on her front door.
The house was cool, air-conditioning running steady. He sauntered down the hall, glancing at the photos. Sophie in fragments, slivers of a life framed and hung like butterflies on a board.
Her bed was made, that neat way only women seemed able to manage, the duvet smooth, pillows spilling from the headboard. But her closet door was open, the light on. Bennett looked from one to the other, shook his head. Damn.
He went into the master bathroom to confirm it. The towels hung from the rack, and he remembered Sophie’s expression as he had held one out to her, the way she had known what he was doing. She’d star
ed, naked and dripping—she had a killer body for someone her age—and then taken what he gave her.
Bennett opened the medicine cabinet. Lotions and potions and creams and powders. Four kinds of hair chemicals, but organic deodorant. Bikini Zone and tweezers and a couple of prescription bottles, Lunesta and Prilosec and Allegra. Vitamin supplements. Expensive hand cream. Advil.
No toothbrush. No toothpaste. She’d run.
He left the bathroom, walked into the kitchen. Coffee mugs in the sink. The pot was still on. How much had he missed her by?
There was a phone on the wall, and he picked it up, dialed *69. A pause, and then a recorded voice. “We’re sorry, but directory information is unavailable for that number.” A payphone or a disposable cell. The happy couple had thought to warn her.
She hadn’t just run; she was hiding.
Her office was off the back, a small space splashed with sunlight. There was a slim retro desk of pale blond wood, a filing cabinet, a shelf full of books. Not law volumes, he noticed, actual books, novels. He skimmed the titles; her tastes ran to National Book Award winners.
Like everything else in the house, the desk was clean and neat. An inbox held bills and a couple of issues of Variety. There was a rice-paper lamp, a jar of pens, a stapler. A fax machine, but no computer; she would have taken that. He opened the file cabinet, thumbed through the neat tabs until he found her bank statements.
Huh. Should have been an entertainment lawyer.
Bennett placed the latest in the fax machine, pressed copy. He added recent bills from the three credit card accounts he found. Her auto insurance policy and cell phone bill. Last year’s tax return. By the time he was done, the stack was a quarter-inch thick. It would take the machine a few minutes.
He walked back to the kitchen, opened the fridge. Half a sixpack of Red Hook sat on the top shelf, and he pulled one of them, found an opener in the drawer by the sink, popped the top. Took a long, cold swallow.
Would they go to the police?
When he’d first approached Laney, he’d played it carefully, presenting her with a cocktail of lousy fates. Humiliation, yes, but also damage to her career, legal consequences, and the real motivator, the way she could expect her husband to look at her. The timing had been key, of course. He smiled to remember her expression when he’d sauntered into the spa. There was the fabulous Laney Thayer, celebrated legs spread wide so a woman could dab hot wax on her pussy. The—what did you call a waxer? Vaginal Design Specialist?—had started to yell, and he’d shushed her, said, “We’re old friends.”
The look on Laney’s face had been priceless, but she’d known enough to calm the woman, ask for a moment alone. Then tried to keep her dignity as wax cooled on her naked pubes.
After that, it had been a simple matter. Part of the art of breaking someone was offering what looked like a way out. Laney could afford to pay; she couldn’t afford to risk the police.
Would the scene at the Farmers Market change that? He didn’t think so, but both Daniel and Laney had been more erratic than he liked. Probably should clarify things for them.
The fax machine beeped, and he walked back to the office, rapped the stack of papers to even them, then replaced the originals in the file cabinet. He went down the hall and out the front door, papers in one hand, bottle in the other. The day was shaping up hot, and the cold beer tasted wonderful.
Back in his truck, he took out his cell phone and dialed.
5
The water scalded her calves and thighs, brought a gasp at her belly and breasts. But by the time Laney Thayer was submerged in the bathwater to her neck, the heat had already started to enter her, and she could feel her muscles relaxing, that leaning back ahhh moment. She’d poured complimentary bath salts under the running tap, and the water smelled of citrus and sage. The marble caught the heat of the water, bounced it back, and quickly she couldn’t feel where her skin ended and the bath began.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. You’re no longer Belinda Nichols. You’re Laney Thayer. And wow is it good to be home.
It wasn’t that simple, she knew. But it felt wonderful anyway. Ever since the moment Bennett walked back into her life, it had been one misery piled on another. The fear, the shame, the fights, Daniel’s terrible reaction, the panic of flight, her faked death and assumed lives, her half-baked plan to hunt Bennett down and kill him. Each had been worse than the last, and it was nice to call a time-out.
It was nice to be Laney Thayer again too. Being other people had been both a comfort and a strain. Every moment spent as Belinda Nichols or Barb Schroeder or Niki Boivin was time that she didn’t need to face the loss of her life, didn’t need to worry about her beautiful husband. But it had also worn heavy; something of each of those roles came into her, made murky the facts of her personality.
Now that was over. She and Daniel were back together. That part of this ordeal was done with. Now they just had to deal with Bennett. And with Daniel’s amnesia.
She imagined him on that beach, lost in every way. What a terrible, lonely experience. To remember everything you needed to live, and yet nothing of your life. To wake in pain and fear, like a wounded animal.
Yet in a strange way, how freeing it was. Daniel could choose to be anyone he wanted. He was unconstrained by the facts of his past, by ugly truths or terrible mistakes. Maybe that would all come back to him, eventually; but maybe not. Maybe all he would remember was the things he wanted to. Memories excavated like dinosaur bones. Unearthed gently, cleaned and polished until they shone. And the ugly ones, the things better forgotten, those could stay buried forever. She could help him, guide him toward some and away from others.
It could be a blessing.
Laney peeled the paper off a bar of moisturizing soap. A week sleeping in a van and washing in the bathrooms of gas stations had left her funky, and sex had added the fecund smells of sweat and spit and semen. She had that good ache, the sweet one that she knew she’d get twinges of when she walked, and those twinges would remind her of them in the bed. After they’d talked they’d made love a second time, slower, gentler, and during the whole of it she had forgotten all of their problems, all of the things that pursued them, and gotten happily lost in the moment. That was the best part about sex, really; not the orgasm, but the forgetting that led up to it.
The water had cooled, and she drained off a couple of inches, spun the tap to hot, refilled it. She stretched out one leg, scrubbed slowly and thoroughly, wishing she had a loofah or some exfoliant, then laughing at herself. Low maintenance, much?
Her best friend spoke from her purse.
Laney started at the sound, the motion sending a tsunami across the bathwater. She could see a faint tracing of green light at the lip of her purse, and then heard Robert’s voice again, muffled but clear. “Ring, sweetie.” A year ago, waiting for the grips to finish lighting a scene, he’d started playing with her cell phone. He’d been delighted to discover how to record a ring tone, and ever since then, every time someone called, Robert’s voice echoed from her purse or her pocket, saying, “Ring, sweetie.”
All of which was fine, except that she liked her privacy, a lot, and so besides Daniel, the only people who had the number to her cell phone were her agent, her director, her dad, her brother, and a handful of trusted friends like Robert. All of whom thought she was dead. So who would be—
There’s another name on that list.
Laney’s body slid on the marble as she grabbed at the edge of the tub and hauled herself out. Water ran off in sheets, soaking the thick white bath mat. She dried her hands quickly—“Ring, sweetie”— and fumbled through her bag, pushing aside the pistol, the keys to the van, the remaining bundles of cash. Glancing over her shoulder to be sure the door was closed, she pressed the talk button.
“Guess who?”
No, no, no, no no no . . .
“Funny thing, if I knew you were alive, I’d’ve called earlier. Could have saved some time.”
�
��Whatdoyou—” She made herself slow down. Looked at the door to the bedroom, lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “What do you want?”
“Here’s a fun fact. If you don’t want to be found, you should be sure to take the battery out of your cell phone. Even switched off, it’s basically like carrying a tracking device. Someone can triangulate on that signal, find you easy as pie.”
Her chest rose up her throat and cut off the air. The gun. She opened the purse, slid her hand inside, distaste for the weapon outvoted by panic. If he could triangulate on her, he could be, where? The lobby? Could he be as accurate as the hallway—
Over the phone, Bennett broke into laughter. “Ahh, I’m just playing. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.”
Laney didn’t let go of the gun. “What do you want?”
“I know I’m supposed to insert a little witticism here, like, ‘world peace,’ or ‘a glass of hot fat and the head of Alfredo Garcia,’ but instead, how about we just go with the classic ‘what you owe me.’ ”
Laney was about to retort when she heard footsteps approaching the bathroom door. Her heart went crazy. She dropped the cell phone on the counter, jerked the pistol up as the door swung open, her hands shaking, the door seeming to take forever—
“Whoa!” Daniel staggered back, raised both his hands.
She realized she was holding her breath, let it out in a rush. “Jesus.” She lowered the gun quickly.
“What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m, umm.” She glanced away, and her eyes fell on the cell phone. In her haste, she hadn’t hung up. Shit. No way to reach it without making it obvious. She looked away, set the pistol on the counter. Praying Bennett wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t draw Daniel’s attention to the phone. “I’m just jumpy.”
Daniel gave that single laugh sound he made, touched his fingertips to his temples. “Well, that woke me up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just, you know, don’t shoot me.”