RK02.5 - Trouble in Paradise

by Marcia Clark

  “Lucky for us, Madam Junaida decided to get even with Babu,” Toni said. “She helped us find Tammy Susie, which ruined Babu and your producer Mike’s little scam.”

  Toni made it sound a lot easier than it had been. Junaida, who’d heard about Babu’s scam through the fortune-teller grapevine, was reluctant to tell “outsiders” about it, despite their long-standing feud. It violated some kind of fortune-teller code. So when we’d first shown up with Erica, Junaida hadn’t intended to tell us anything. But she couldn’t help herself. She was dying to get even. So she wound up compromising by giving us the minimum: the house with green shutters. It wasn’t until Toni and Bailey and I went back the second time and voiced our suspicions—and used every interrogation trick in the book on her—that she finally cracked and gave up the whole story. I’ll say this much for Junaida: she’d be a real asset to the CIA.

  Bailey jumped in. “Your bun boy over there, Mike Borden, knew who we were because he was in the lobby when we got in this morning. And he knew Erica had teamed up with us because he was watching her the whole time so he could push her buttons, make her panic and call the police—”

  “The jerk deliberately tortured her all day,” Toni said, fuming. “He kept texting her, asking, ‘What’s going on with Tammy Susie?’ And when that didn’t work, he ordered her to bring Tammy Susie back to the hotel immediately.”

  I folded my arms and stared hard at Borden. “That little stunt of yours nearly gave Erica a nervous breakdown. And you’re just damn lucky Tammy Susie was okay.”

  Borden tried for a look of defiance, but the effort was undermined by his fearful sidelong glances at Kraft.

  After several long moments of silence, Kraft turned to Erica. “What if Tammy Susie really had been kidnapped?” He looked at her sternly. “I don’t know whether to keep you on the show or not, but I definitely can’t afford to have you wrangle Tammy Susie anymore.” Erica looked miserable, but she just nodded and said nothing. Then he turned to Borden.

  I prepared to enjoy the spectacle of seeing Borden get fired on the spot. He needed a good, hard ass-kicking.

  “Mike.” He shook his head. “That was friggin’ brilliant, man! Jeopardy, drama, you had it all. That would’ve scored us the highest ratings of the season!” Kraft held up a hand for a high five.

  Borden, taken by surprise, squeaked out a laugh and slapped his hand. “That was the plan!”

  “How’d you get Tammy Susie out of the dressing room?” Kraft asked. The admiration in his voice made me want to gag.

  “I met the store owner’s nephew before he took off for college. He told me about the hidden door because he thought it was funny. But when I came up with the plan, I remembered what he said. All I had to do was send Sasha—”

  “Are you out of your minds?” I said. “What if something had happened to Tammy Susie?”

  “Nothing was going to happen to Tammy,” Borden scoffed. “I knew Babu was totally safe because I vetted her. If you guys hadn’t gotten in the way, our ratings would’ve gone through the roof, and a fourth-season pickup would’ve been a done deal.”

  I looked from Borden to Kraft. “I’d call you pond scum, but it’d be an insult to pond scum.” And on that note, we walked out. We all fumed in silence as we headed for our suite. Were Tammy Susie’s parents in on the fake kidnapping? I couldn’t prove it, but I suspected they were. And I was half hoping to run into them now, so I could confront them.

  Fortunately for all of us, that didn’t happen.

  We got back to the room and showered. We decided to stay in and have dinner on the balcony where no one could disturb us. Our food came just as the sun was beginning to set. The sky looked as though it had been swiped with a giant paintbrush dipped in hues of red and orange, and the air was still warm and fragrant with the scent of lemon blossoms.

  Bailey sat down and unfolded her napkin. “Talk about no good deed.”

  “Right?” Toni said. “What a sterling collection of jackasses. They all deserve each other.”

  “Well, at least Erica won’t have to wrangle Tammy Susie anymore,” I said. I’d hoped Erica would quit the show after the shabby way she’d been treated, but jobs are scarce in television, and jobs on hit shows are harder to find than a born-again Christian at a Ricky Gervais concert. Erica had called shortly after we got back to our suite to tell us that Kraft had shown a sliver of decency and decided not to fire her. She intended to stay until she could either get promoted or find another show. But it was time to put work behind us… finally. Toni poured the wine and raised her glass. “Want to try again?”

  “To our vacation!” Bailey said, also raising her glass.

  We clinked and drank.

  But as Bailey and Toni rehashed the events of the day—the relief of a happy ending allowed us to laugh about it now—my thoughts turned to what Madam Junaida had said to me privately when we’d gone back to see her.

  After she eventually broke down and admitted she’d known about the kidnapping scam and decided to help us in order to thwart it, Junaida had asked to speak to me privately. Bailey and Toni smirked but obligingly left us alone and went out to call a taxi. I figured the little con artist was finally going to ask for money, and as far as I was concerned, she’d earned it. I pulled my wallet out of my purse, but she waved me off.

  “No,” she said. “I helped you for my own reasons. It would be bad luck to take your money. I asked to speak to you alone because I see something that I must tell you.”

  Oh, brother. Here we go. I could barely refrain from rolling my eyes. “Okay.”

  She pulled me into the parlor. “There is a man in your life. He is in a position of power.” She took hold of my arm and looked me in the eye. “With his help you will find her.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. A man in my life—no big deal. Anyone could take that shot and have a fifty-fifty chance at getting it right. And even saying that the man was in a position of power—which did happen to fit Graden to a T—could have been a lucky guess.

  But “find her”? How could a fortune-teller on an island in the Caribbean know that my sister, Romy, had been abducted when we were children? And that she’d been missing now for over twenty years? And that I’d been looking for her ever since? Barely able to speak, I asked Junaida, “Is she alive?”

  Junaida shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. That’s all I see.”

  When I stepped outside, the taxi was just pulling up. “So?” Toni asked. “What’d she say?”

  “Tell you later.”

  But I hadn’t. And I doubted I ever would.

  About the Author

  Marcia Clark is the author of Guilt by Association and Guilt by Degrees and the forthcoming Killer Ambition. A former prosecutor for the state of California, she is now a frequent media commentator on legal issues. She lives in Los Angeles.

  marciaclarkbooks.com

  A Preview of Killer Ambition

  In June 2013, Mulholland Books will publish Marcia Clark’s Killer Ambition.

  Following is an excerpt from the novel’s opening pages.

  PROLOGUE

  Rocky mountain peaks glowed lonely and austere under the nearly full moon. But the trail that led to God’s Seat, a throne-shaped outcropping high atop Backbone Trail, wound darkly under thick canopies of branches and overhanging boulders. One false step on that narrow path meant a thousand-foot drop and certain death, but the two lone figures walking single file up the trail moved at a heedless pace.

  The night was still except for the crunch of their footsteps on sun-baked earth: one confident and driving, the other stumbling gracelessly forward, blinded by terror, steps punctuated by weeping, a nearly inaudible murmuring—This can’t be happening… Can’t… No, no, no, no. Please, let me wake up. Please, please. This is just a dream. At the top of the ridge, beside a waist-high boulder, the larger figure stopped and threw a shovel to the ground, the clang of metal hitting rock.

  “Dig.”

  The smaller f
igure stared at the shovel, then abruptly doubled over, stomach heaving convulsively as the vomit rose up too fast to control. The larger figure watched for a moment, then, with cold disdain, flashed a vicious-looking blade. “You hear me? Pick up the fucking shovel and—”

  “Okay, okay,” came the reply, as clammy, trembling hands took the shovel and thrust it into the earth. Okay, okay… okay, okay… repeating it over and over, mantra-like—wheezing with the effort to breathe through a fear-constricted throat.

  “Faster.”

  Slowly, the hole grew deeper and longer. Okay, okay… This will be okay. Someone will come. Someone will come. Okay, okay…

  And then, miraculously, someone did come. A soft rustling, the sound of slow, tentative steps approaching. And, as if in a dream, a moonlit face emerged from the darkness.

  Three Nights Earlier

  Hayley and Mackenzie spilled out of the chauffeur-driven Escalade and into the throng of twenty-somethings in front of Teddy’s, the “it” club in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Long sparkling earrings and sequined minidresses on spray-tanned body beautifuls, well-toned pretty boys in carefully torn jeans and three-hundred-dollar T-shirts—the air heavy with the tension of feigned indifference, as though each and every one of them wasn’t desperate to gain entrée into the exclusive club. Hayley led the way through the crowd, her blonde head thrown back, stiletto heels hitting the ground with confidence. Mackenzie trailed behind, nervously pulling down her tube skirt as she instinctively reached for Hayley’s hand. Her eyes focused on the ground to avoid the angry glares of the waiting crowd. The jackhammering of her heart made her breath come in short, shallow gulps.

  When they reached the door, the bouncer, slender and sinewy, a spider tattoo wrapped around his neck, raised a skeptical eyebrow from beneath the worn brim of a black hat. Mackenzie wiped a nervous palm on her thigh before relinquishing her license. But Hayley, with a sexy-lazy smile, smoothly dipped into the cleavage of her leopard-print halter top and flipped her license out between two fingers. As always, Mackenzie watched with awe and envy, knowing she’d never master that kind of breezy nonchalance.

  The bouncer briefly scanned their IDs, then handed them back with a dismissive head shake. “Not even close.”

  Mackenzie’s heart stopped. Busted. But then Hayley stepped in and shoved a card under his nose. She looked him straight in the eye. “You sure?”

  The bouncer frowned and peered at the card, then took back Hayley’s license and gave it a second look. Suddenly, his face broke into a lopsided grin. “Your dad know you’re here?”

  Mackenzie felt giddy with relief—and foolish. After all this time she should surely know better. Clubs, private parties, restaurants— hell, even the Vanity Fair after-party on Oscar night—all happily opened their doors to the daughter of megastar director Russell Antonovich.

  “My dad sent me,” Hayley joked, with an intimate look that brought him in on it.

  Chuckling, the bouncer lifted the rope, then reached back and opened the door, unleashing a blast of music. “Have a nice night, ladies,” he said.

  Hayley grabbed Mackenzie’s hand and led the way through a wall of dancers whose bodies glowed under pulsing multicolored lights, their only guide through the near-impenetrable velvet darkness. A hand shot up and waved to them from a crowded horseshoe booth next to the DJ—the sweetest spot in the house. They inched their way over and squeezed in, Mackenzie practically sitting in Hayley’s lap. The walls seemed to vibrate with the thunderous bass, making conversation impossible. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t there to talk and they wouldn’t need to place orders: hors d’oeuvres were served continuously, and they always had bottle service. Tonight’s offering was Patrón Silver, and she and Hayley had doubles in their hands by the time they sat down. A cute curly-haired guy—was his name Adrian?—moved forward with a sexy smile and pulled Mackenzie out onto the dance floor. She didn’t sit down again till unknown hours later when she and Hayley collapsed into the back of the Escalade.

  Now

  Could that really have been just three nights ago? From her perch high on a hill in Laurel Canyon, Mackenzie barely noticed the spread of twinkling lights, the crawl of traffic across Sunset Boulevard and up La Cienega. She glanced to the west, where, just a few miles away in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Plaza, Hayley’s dad had his “party house.” It was a favorite hang of theirs when her dad wasn’t around. They loved to skinny-dip in the infinity pool that stretched from the edge of the hilltop and flowed under a heavy plate-glass wall, right into the living room.

  Laughing, partying, playing, sharing. The past year had been the best of Mackenzie’s life, and she owed it all to Hayley. Tears sprang to her eyes, turning the red and white lights on the streets below into long, blurry streaks. She pulled the photo, normally enshrined on the mirror in her bedroom, out of the back pocket of her jeans. It was a picture of her and Hayley at Colony, loose, boozy smiles, arms looped around each other’s shoulders. Her first night out with Hayley. And her first step out of the purgatory of “new girl” and, even worse, “poor girl” at the Clarington Academy prep school, aka high school for rich kids. Mackenzie got in on an academic scholarship, but she was a charity case and everyone seemed to know it. For the first few months she’d slunk through the hallways, a lonely, miserable misfit. Until one day, in gym class, she and Hayley had discovered a mutual hatred of field hockey. That’s all it took. Her life, her whole world changed overnight. How could that have been just a little over a year ago?

  Mackenzie clutched the sides of her head and tried to breathe. Hayley had said not to worry. That it would be okay. That she’d call and she’d explain everything. But for now, don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell.

  But that was three days ago. Three days, with no word from Hayley. Was she supposed to wait this long? What if something had gone wrong? Should she call someone? But maybe nothing was wrong and her call would just screw everything up. It’d be all her fault and Hayley might never forgive her. What was she supposed to do? Mackenzie dropped her head, hugged her knees, and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. It would be okay. Hayley would be okay. Hayley was always okay. She had to be.

  1

  “I’m guessing by your expression that dinner went pretty well after all,” Bailey said. Her expression had an obnoxious “told-you-so” tinge to it that made me want to lie. But I knew there was no point. Bailey was not only a top-notch detective in the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of LAPD, she was also one of my very best friends. She would see right through it. Still, I didn’t have to give it up all at once.

  I gave a noncommittal shrug, hung my purse on the hook under the bar, and slid onto the cushy leather stool. “It went okay.”

  It was ten o’clock on a Monday night, so the after-work crowd had largely cleared out of the Biltmore Hotel bar. The only exception was a well-dressed middle-aged couple on one of the velvety couches against the wall. They were enjoying Manhattans with a leisurely attitude that told me they didn’t have to worry about a morning commute. Though I didn’t recognize them, I guessed they were staying in the hotel. Being a permanent resident of the hotel myself, I could usually tell who was a guest and who had just dropped by for a drink.

  Drew, the gorgeous bartender, who’d been my buddy ever since I’d moved into the Biltmore a few years ago, gave me a knowing smirk. “Just okay? I don’t think so.” He tilted his shining black head toward the mirror behind him. “Take a look at yourself, girl.”

  Even in the dim light I could see the sappy expression on my face. Damn. Drew and Bailey exchanged an amused smile. They’d been together for about two years now—the longest stretch either of them had ever managed with a single partner. Most of the time, it was a beautiful thing. But there were stomach-turning moments like this, when their “oneness” made me want to bang their heads together. Hard.

  Bailey turned back just in time to catch my nauseated look—and ignore it. “And in case you were worried, you’re not alone out th
ere. Graden was actually whistling.” Bailey made a face. “All day.”

  Since Lieutenant Graden Hales was Bailey’s boss, she knew he never whistled. But I refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing how good it made me feel. I looked at her, deadpan. “Funny how annoying little things like that can be.”

  “Isn’t it?” Bailey deadpanned right back at me.

  Graden and I met a couple of years ago when he worked the case of Jake Pahlmeyer, a dear friend and fellow Special Trials Unit prosecutor, who was found dead in a sleazy downtown motel room, not far from the Biltmore. We’d begun dating, and I was just starting to believe Graden and I would go the distance when we had a major blowout over a violation of privacy; specifically, his violation of my privacy. He’d done some digging, otherwise known as “Googling” me, and found out that my sister Romy had been kidnapped when she was eleven years old. And was still missing.

  He hadn’t known that Romy’s abduction was my closely guarded secret, one I’d kept from even my besties, Bailey Keller and Toni LaCollier, also a Special Trials prosecutor. But my breakup with Graden had forced me to tell them about it. Bailey and Toni had been sympathetic to my upset—well, actually, fury—at what I called the trampling of my boundaries, but they’d made no secret of the fact that they thought I’d overreacted…wildly. “He surfed the Web, Knight,” Bailey’d said. “Hardly an act of high-level espionage,” Toni’d added. I knew they were right, but knowing something intellectually and dealing with it emotionally are two very different matters. It’d taken me a while to come around.