by Louis Barr
I held a degree in aeronautical engineering and flew jet aircraft. Such sophisticated machinery ran on fuel for the engines…wait for it…and electricity for everything else. Maybe I knew more than the average Hollywood princeling about electrical currents. Touching high voltage hurts like hell, but isn’t necessarily deadly. It’s the amperes that result in electrocution.
Tom Andrews probably died of ventricular fibrillation from a current of 110 to 220 volts at a fatal 100 to 200 milliamps. He’d likely been dead before he landed on his back.
I heard the crunch of gravel under tires.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gaslighted
Clint, Monday, May 14
On my first day back to work, I read the L.A. Times with my feet up on my desk, drank coffee, returned calls, drank more coffee, and replied to a backlog of emails. Then I pulled the newspaper out of the recycle box, tackled the crossword puzzle, and drank some more coffee.
Finished with all that, I checked the time. Shit, I’d gotten less done before noon than most people didn’t do all week at work.
To celebrate, I took Hope to Mousseau and Frank for lunch and cocktails. We talked, I sipped one beer, and Hope got half in the bag on several margaritas. Before she started singing and dancing on top of the table, I guided her back to my car and got her strapped in.
Back at the office, I let her sleep lunch off while I focused on Danning’s tablet, which was no longer locked, thanks to Mars Hauser. What a guy.
Shane’s email inbox had five unopened messages: a couple from Diana and the other three from cabin attendants who wanted Shane to fuck them. He had nothing archived, nada in the trash, and nothing sent. Apparently, Shane didn’t bother with his email. I couldn’t fault him for that.
I found around fifty nude photos in a file saved as “Playtime Pics.” I recognized a few faces, including a young, married, morality-preaching conservative network news reporter, a hugely popular rock band’s lead singer, and a city councilwoman with Shane taking her in the front and another man taking her in the rear. That Shane boy did get around.
Being forced to investigate so much nude flesh put a hellacious strain on my eyes. It’s a dirty job, but someone had to do it.
Home by 1730, I sat with Ian at the kitchen island, where we talked and colored.
Raoul made it home in time to join us for the evening meal. I grilled fresh salmon and asparagus spears dipped in melted butter. We ate poolside.
“Raoul, are you really Daddy’s boyfriend?”
Ian’s question came from Raoul’s smart-assed comment about my having the best brewski choices of all his boyfriends. Children seldom forget anything they hear.
“Let’s see,” Raoul said, “your dad and I are boys, and we’re friends. I guess you could call us boyfriends of sorts.”
“If you’re boyfriends, then why don’t Daddy and you sleep together?”
“You keep asking for it,” I mumbled to Raoul. “Ian, Raoul and I are friends, as you and Sage are friends. We’re not suitors or dating or steadies or boyfriends who sleep together. Do you understand?”
Ian shook his head. “I don’t get it. Sage and I are friends, and we sleep together when I stay overnight at his house and when we have a sleepover here.”
Oh, the innocence of children. “When you’re six-year-old boys, you can get away with sleeping together. That sort of companionship will likely mean something else when you get older.”
“Yeah, when my penis gets big like yours,” Ian said.
About to laugh his ass off, Raoul covered his mouth and pretended to sneeze, saying softly, “Fok-choo!”
At 2126 hours, I lay on top of my bed in sleep shorts, flipping through a spyware catalog. My eyelids drooped. Thanks to Doc Stenton’s talk therapy, I’d been granted a reprieve from two years of insomnia. I switched off the bedside lamp.
My cell phone vibrated.
It didn’t take clairvoyance to guess the caller’s name.
“Clint, I need your help!”
Diana sounded about a sneeze away from hysterical. I slipped out of bed and dropped my feet to the floor. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone keeps calling my private line and doesn’t speak when I answer. I’m certain it’s a man. I can hear him breathing.” She sobbed, then said, “He’s called four times in the past half hour.”
Four hang-ups in thirty minutes didn’t sound like some fuckwad repeatedly punching in the wrong phone number. Being her private line, it seemed likely she knew the caller.
“You don’t recognize the caller’s number?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to drop by, check things out, and sit with you for a while?”
“God, yes, thank you.”
She gave me her address.
I checked the child monitor. Ian was fast asleep. I got dressed, pulled my car fob, house key, and my Glock out of the safe, slid my phone into my front pocket, and headed down the hall to Raoul’s bedroom.
Raoul sat at the desk, poring over his company’s books. I tapped on his partially open door.
Raoul looked up from his laptop. “Yeah, Moose.”
“I need to leave for a while.” I told him about Diana’s frantic call. “Would you keep your ears open in case Ian wakes up and gets out of bed?”
“Not a problem.” Raoul grinned, stood, and stretched. “I have to mention this sounds like the oldest male lure in the female tackle box.” He snapped his fingers. “Did Diana say anything about her mansion’s gaslights dimming and hearing footsteps overhead?”
He’d spoken about one of my favorite old movies, Gaslight. “Sometimes you’re a real LMFAO-fest.” I shook my head, but smiled while doing it. “I’ll be home in a couple of hours, maybe sooner.”
Diana lived in what Angelenos call the Birds Neighborhood, due to streets such as Whippoorwill, Wren, Pheasant, and other pleasant-sounding fowl names.
High above the Sunset Strip, this Hollywood enclave is known for its panoramic views and privacy. More movie, TV, and music celebs reside here than in Beverly Hills, making it one of the wealthiest hoods in all of LA-LA Land. It’s also one of the safest, due to the attentive, head-thumping private cops on patrol around the clock.
I knew Diana had gotten frantic over nothing. A single call to the security service would’ve had the entire rent-a-cop hordes storming her castle walls. I’d known all along what she wanted—a package from the dick delivery man. I’m not as unsophisticated as I may sometimes appear.
I turned onto Partridge Drive, stopped outside Diana’s gates, and powered down the driver’s side window. I pressed the call button.
A dark-colored SUV rolled up and parked within an inch of my bumper. Fuck, the Gestapo had arrived.
A man who reminded me of a fuglier Hulk glowered at me. Then he shined a Maglite in my eyes.
“Lower that Mag before I shove it so far up your ass your face will glow like a jack-o’-lantern.”
He pointed the powerful flashlight down slightly. I handed him my PI creds. His lips moved as he read.
Diana’s disembodied voice came through the call box speaker. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Are you talking to me, Ms. Danning, or do you know this man?”
Diana’s voice turned clippish. “Yes, I know him. Thanks, Tank, you can leave.”
The private cop returned my PI license, mumbled something about getting lucky tonight, and returned to his SUV.
“I’m going to check the grounds,” I said to Diana. “Don’t open fire if you see a flashlight beam bobbing around.”
“Please be careful. Someone may be out there.”
A less than zero chance of that, I thought.
The gate swung open. I parked in the circular drive fronting the mansion, checked that I’d chambered a round in case some tool did get past the rent-a-cops and the gate, and slid my Glock back into its tension holster.
Diana had the grounds glowing like Times Square at Christmas. I killed my Maglite. Although the chan
ces seemed slim that anyone was out here, I checked anyway. Only doing my job, ma’am. Finding no one lurking behind any of the trees, bushes, statuary, shrubs, tennis court, in or around the pool house, I worked my way to the front of the mansion and climbed the marble steps to a pair of carved doors.
Before I lifted the knocker, Diana opened one of the double doors, rushed me inside, slammed it shut, and threw the locks. Melodrama, what great foreplay, I thought.
Wrapped in a blue silk robe, Diana hooked her arm in mine and ushered me along the manse’s marble entry hall. We made a turn into the media room. I sat at the bar.
Diana filled two short tumblers with a pricy single malt she served neat. I watched her stir one drop of water into each glass. I never would’ve pegged her as a scotch connoisseur, a discovery that got me thinking I could fall even more madly in lust with this woman.
She sat beside me and proposed a toast to a pleasant night.
We clinked glasses and sipped some great single malt. “Have you gotten any more hang-ups?” I could hear her saying, “Not since I called you.”
“None since I called you.”
Close enough. “Good.”
It could be someone was watching her house, but I didn’t mention it. “The caller must be someone you know. Either that, or some geek hacked into your cell service provider’s database.”
“I suppose either of those is possible,” she said vaguely. She fell silent studying my chest. “Raw power literally rolls off you.” She looked at my face. “And, darling, you’re a chip off the old blocks.”
“Pardon me?”
She said, “You inherited your father’s deep voice, dark blue eyes, lips, square chin, smile, and dimples. Then you have your lovely mother’s dark hair, black eye lashes, high cheekbones, and olive skin.”
I gave her a quick smile.
Diana brightened. “Did you know your father discovered me?”
Those who’d achieved Hollywood-legend status love to share their discovery stories. “Yes, I’ve been told Dad spotted you in a coffee shop.” The story had become a piece of Hollywood lore along the lines of the industry reporter who’d discovered Lana Turner (JFGI) drinking a Coke at a Hollywood soda fountain.
“I was late for my bookkeeping class,” she began. “I decided to skip it and stop for a cup of coffee.” She smiled fondly. “I was sitting at a table, drinking a double latte when your father spotted me. He introduced himself, then told me he’d never seen a young lady as lovely as I.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen. Anyway, he handed me his business card. Being a recent Seattle transplant, I knew little about the film industry; I hadn’t heard of either Liam Steele or Steele Productions.”
She sipped some scotch, then shook her head, smiling. “I figured this handsome but forward man might be a porn director.”
I laughed. Dad would’ve shit bricks if he’d known what Diana initially thought of him.
“But this Liam Steele gave off an earnest, confident vibe. A bright red aura surrounded him, telling me he was passionate, competitive, sexual, robust, and successful.”
I’d never noticed my father’s aura, but I didn’t scoff. She’d characterized Liam Steele to a T—well, my father and all other movie directors. It would not have surprised me to learn Diana regularly consulted with my next-door neighbor, Darla Love.
She swirled her scotch, then took a sip. “Your father and I talked in the coffee shop, and he met with my parents about a week later. Liam sent me to the best acting, voice, and dance teachers. He hired tutors, and I earned my high school diploma.”
Under the bar’s lighting, her violet eyes changed to dark blue, then deep brown—the same way Shane’s eye colors changed in his porn films.
“I was seventeen when Liam released Invisible Threads and launched my film career.”
She smiled at me.
I smiled back.
Sometimes, a man might miss a woman’s subtle signals. But my job required me to interpret body language and read the emotions of others. And right here, right now, I didn’t have my head up my ass. She wanted me to take her on a long, sweaty Pecos Bill ride.
Wordlessly, she took my hand. We walked up the grand staircase.
In her bedroom suite, Diana shrugged out of her robe and let it slide to the floor. She looked exquisite in clothing, but in the nude, she was a work of art.
In the military, I’d learned how to dress and undress posthaste. I got buck naked in about twenty seconds.
She gave me an up-down look. She reached into the nightstand, where she stashed what looked like a drugstore’s selection of condoms and lubes. She handed me a Durex XXL. “I’ve waited a long while for a man who could wear one of these.”
Her comment prompted me to check the condom’s expiration date. It was goddammed close. But I’d risk it. I ripped open the package between my teeth and gloved up.
We kissed tenderly, almost hesitantly at first; then I began kissing her like I fucking meant it. She responded in kind. Our hands ghosted over skin.
From this point, I needn’t draw you a picture. I’ll mention multiple orgasms on her part as I followed her slower, harder, faster, deeper commands. With all the bed rocking, moaning, screaming, and yelling, I half expected the fuglier Hulk to come crashing through a bedroom wall.
Later, we lay face-to-face, our legs entwined, both of us catching our breath in a drained, sweaty postcoital glow.
She traced my lips with a forefinger and spoke softly, “Liam was hung, but sweetheart, you are prodigious.”
A man’s mind freezes after swashbuckling sex. When I finally replied to Diana’s comment, I said something fucking brilliant. “What?”
“I was sixteen when your father and I first made love.”
Gobsmacked by her revelations, I looked into her eyes questioningly. She didn’t turn away.
Fuck me sideways, but I’d never known about Diana and my father’s sexual relationship. I felt like one of the Kennedy brothers, who allegedly shared Marilyn and other lovers with each other. And with Joe.
“I make no apologies,” Diana said. “Liam’s the only man I ever loved, respected, and adored with all my heart.” She paused. “Our affair lasted right up to Liam and your mother’s deaths. I still miss him every day. I’ve never regretted a moment we spent together.”
My father cheated on my mother for years, and I never had a clue. But I’d seen my mom and dad infrequently throughout my youth and teens. The last four years my parents were alive, I’d lived on the opposite coast at the USMA, also known as West Point. I suppose Mom knew. I’ve been told the wife is seldom the last to know. An offspring’s knowledge of such matters was optional.
I calmed my ass down. Knowing Diana had been married more than a few times, I had one question I needed to ask. “Who is Shane’s father?”
“Paternity is often dubious. Maternity is the only certainty. I’m Shane’s mother, and that’s all anyone needs to know.”
She’d answered my question. I’d nothing more to ask.
“No matter how much you look like your father, and no matter how much I enjoyed making love with you, I feel absolutely foolish thinking I could recapture the magic with you that Liam and I shared. I shamelessly used you.”
“No, we used each other.”
In a while, her deep, steady breathing told me she’d fallen asleep. I slipped out of bed.
Invading her master bath, I flushed the used condom down the toilet. Yes, it took a few flushes—plus using the plumber’s helper I found in one of the cabinets under the sinks. I stepped into the shower.
Ten minutes later, I looked into a mirrored wall and felt bad about Diana’s broken dreams. Hers and my own.
I got dressed and showed myself out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Morning After
Clint, Steele & Whitman Investigations, Tuesday, May 15
I made it to the office by 0840 hours. “Diana Danning phoned,” Hope said. “She wa
nts to speak with you. I checked your calendar and told her you’d be available at nine thirty.”
I stopped in front of Hope’s desk. “Did Diana say what she wanted?”
“She received a ransom demand in the wee hours of the morning.”
I’d expected a heart-to-heart call from Diana about last night’s romp and run. But a ransom demand—what brave new shit was this?
Shortly after Shane’s appearance in Laguna, Captain Flynn closed Danning’s missing person file. I’d decided to take a laid-back approach in my search for Shane. Had I missed something critical by setting aside my work following his disappearance-reappearance-disappearance acts? I let out a long breath. It was time to whip it up and do the job Diana hired me to do.
“Did Diana tell you what the kidnapper said?”
Hope passed me a transcription of her shorthand notes. I scanned the page.
Looking up at Hope’s monitor, I saw a full body shot of a man in uniform. “I take it you tracked down a photo of Deputy Scott Davidson.”
“Of course I did.”
I took another look at the deputy’s photo. “I wonder why that dime-store cowboy tried to pass himself off as a dead man. He had to know we’d learn the truth about Deputy Davidson’s death with a single phone call.” I looked at Hope. “Didn’t you wonder about that?”
Hope sighed. “Well, hell yes, I didn’t wonder too. Whaddaya, retahded?”
Translation: Certainly, I also wondered about that. What’s the matter with you? Are you a person with a developmental disability?
“I used my old badge number to get fax copies of the official reports on Deputy Scott Davidson’s suicide. I stuck them on your desk,” Hope said, pulling the pencil out of her beehived hair before answering the phone.
I started for my office. Before Diana arrived, I wanted to read the official reports Hope “stuck” on my desk.
I dropped into my office chair to peruse the lead investigator’s findings at Deputy Davidson’s death scene.