Unmasked

by R. Saint Claire

  Karla’s sapphire eyes, their edges hard like a cut gem, returned his gaze and held it steady. “No. Not since they left.”

  “And Jenna?”

  Karla took a long sip of her tea. “She’ll receive the very best care under Dr. Weiss.”

  Jorgé finished off his brandy and poured himself another.

  Warren stared at Karla from across the rim of his glass. “I didn’t know you spoke German.”

  “What?” The tea caught in her throat, causing her to gag slightly.

  Jorge’s eyes snapped to attention.

  Warren leaned forward on the sofa, rakish in his loose bowtie and slim cut tuxedo. He ran his finger around the edge of his glass, savoring their full attention. “I heard you speaking German to Jan earlier. Quite fluently actually.”

  Karla coughed, and swallowed hard. Jorgé’s dark eyes darted to Karla then back to Warren. Warren leaned in further, relishing her discomfort. He had waited for the moment—aided now with a bit of Dutch courage—to catch the butterfly in his net and slide the pin in slowly.

  Recovering her composure quickly she said, “I’m fluent in many languages, Warren. I am abroad so much on tour, and my daughter…Bianca…is in Europe most of the time. It’s important to have an appreciation for all cultures, don’t you agree?”

  Warren pressed. “Of course I agree, but it’s just odd because it’s so out of character for you.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

  “When I toured with you we traveled all over the world and you insisted that everyone had to speak English. It was quite an obnoxious quality.”

  “I changed.”

  He remained steady. “People don’t change.”

  She shifted. “Perhaps change is not the best word. Grown. I’ve grown…expanded.”

  “Aged?”

  “I prefer the word matured, but yes…aged.”

  “And yet you look exactly the same.”

  “Lucky me,” Karla said lightly, tossing her curls.

  Warren continued to stare at Karla, taking another long sip of brandy. Something I can’t put my finger on…

  “Our touring days were a long time ago, Warren. I wish you’d move on.” Karla’s tone was patronizing, and because he didn’t have a good comeback, he continued to drink.

  I let butterfly out of the net…for now, he thought, sinking further into the cushions and the drunken isolation of his thoughts.

  “Poor baby. Scared to death and all of us completely ignoring her.” Karla shifted the focus to Chrissie.

  Chrissie, now staring at the fire’s dying embers, had long ago mastered the art of shutting out her siblings’ squabbles. They never listened to her anyway.

  She turned tired eyes to Karla and said, “I’m going to bed.” She stood. For once, not waiting for permission. “I’ll check on Jenna.”

  Karla set down her teacup and said, “Dr. Weiss gave her a mild sedative. It’s best not to disturb her. I think we all could use some rest tonight.” She stood, smoothing the creases from her silver lamé gown.

  Warren hovered on the threshold of warm tipsiness turning to nasty drunk. His words slurred as he asked, “And where exactly do you retire?”

  Karla’s face was calm, sober, and undeniably beautiful in the warm glow of the fire’s dying light. “That’s my business, Warren.”

  He was a child suddenly. “Oh really? Won't you tell me? Pretty please?”

  Jorgé stood and stretched his muscled arms over his head, observing the scene with detached amusement.

  Karla’s voice was steady in her reply. “No I won’t tell you. And I won't try to help you with your obvious drinking problem anymore either. I learned a long time ago that no good deed goes unpunished.”

  The sound of Warren’s laughter and mocking applause echoed off the vaulted ceiling and traveled down the two main corridors. “How very profound! Where did you get that pearl of wisdom? ”

  “From you. I was kind to you, and you turned on me. I never understood why.” A low roar of thunder rumbled outside the window.

  Warren struggled to free himself from the deep cushions of the sofa. “Can you really be that dense?”

  “Is that was this is about?” Karla laughed, causing her dimples to appear in her firm cheeks. “Casper Volpe? You were in love with him, so what? People fall in love all the time. Get over yourself!”

  “Just answer me one thing, Karla.” Warren's voice trembled. “Did you ever love him?”

  Karla laughed, incredulously. “I don’t’ remember. Probably not.”

  “Why’d you marry him then?” He insisted, swaying on unsteady feet. Jorgé shook his head at Chrissie, but her eyes were closed tightly as if staving off a deep, personal pain.

  “Why did I marry the most successful film director in the world? Who’s the dense one, Warren?”

  Warren took a step forward, the loss of control evident in his quavering voice. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t remember what happened?”

  “Besides you making a complete ass out of yourself I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe you’re a better actress than your pathetic movie roles have ever shown, or else you are the coldest bitch who's ever lived!” Warren tilted forward, catching himself on the coffee table.

  “Stop it!” Chrissie shouted with a shrill scream. “I can’t take it anymore. Stop hurting each other! Please!” She looked at both of them with tearful, pleading eyes. “We’re a family!”

  A pop of an ember punctured the silence. Karla seized the moment to make her exit. “Goodnight, my darling…family.” She motioned to Jorgé, who cradling her elbow, escorted her from the room.

  Warren turned to Chrissie, sloppily gesturing with his glass—splashing brandy on his French cuff—and said, “Follow them down there and find out where they're staying.”

  “You follow them!” Chrissie shot back.

  He waved a dismissive hand at her to be gone, his words slurred. “What fucking ever.”

  Chrissie turned, and headed for her room.

  Warren called after her, his voiced dripping with liquor-coated contempt. “Goodnight dear, dull, dim-witted Chrissie. Pardon moi if I don’t escort you to your room, but Captain Jack and I have a date tonight.” He laughed at his own lame joke, and fell back hard into the sofa, causing the century-old floorboards to creak beneath him.

  As he watched the last of the orange embers turn to black ash, he felt the familiar, sweet, alcoholic cocoon wrap around him. Giving into it, he finished off the brandy, thinking he had never felt so warm and so safe as at that moment. And before he finally passed out, drooling down the front of his tuxedo shirt, his brain registered that this beautiful feeling felt a lot like love.

  11

  Jenna waited with her ear against the bedroom door for Karla and Jorgé to pass, then peeked out and watched them traverse the long tunnel of the west wing corridor until the last white trace of Karla’s platinum hair and shimmering gown disappeared into the darkness.

  At the sound of Chrissie’s clunky step, she ducked back into her room. She wasn’t in the mood for her younger sister’s company tonight, and although she relished the comfort Dr. Weiss’s sedative promised, she was saving it for later. Right now she needed to talk to Karla, sister-to-sister, and convince her that she had seen Mitch’s body in the lake earlier that day.

  After she heard Chrissie’s bedroom door close, Jenna quietly headed into the west wing, following the heady scent of Karla’s amber perfume.

  * * *

  Chrissie stepped out of the formal gown that was far too sophisticated for her, returned it to the closet and pulled the pink chiffon nightgown over her head (although a t-shirt would have suited her better). After she washed her face and brushed her teeth, she got into bed, read another chapter of the book she’d started—Karla had thoughtfully left several bestsellers on the nightstand—marked her place, and turned off the light.

  She looked forward to a good night’s sleep, and the
next day’s therapy session, hoping that she and her remaining siblings could make some progress towards peace. She doubted the accuracy of Jenna’s story, not because she thought she lied, but because she trusted Karla’s judgment unquestionably. Within minutes she was asleep, and if she did dream, she wouldn’t remember it in the morning.

  * * *

  Warren did remember his dreams—and his nightmares. As he lay on the sofa at an odd angle—one patent leather evening pump under the coffee table, the other dangling from his foot—the warm glow from the brandy he drank (so pleasurable at first) had now cauterized into a white-hot fireball, bouncing around his brain and manifesting into a fitful dream.

  At first he experienced the pleasurable feeling of soaring through the woods and over the lake, dipping high and low, his spirit rising god-like into a black, star-filled sky until he began to fall—limbs flailing desperately—into an enormous spiral like Dorothy's house in the cyclone, only in color—bold, neon color. Fighting a fit of nausea he woke momentarily (his throat burning with bile), changed positions on the sofa, and returned to his dream.

  The scene shifted, and he discovered his dream-self standing in the dark wings of a cavernous sound stage where everything moved in slow motion. Cameras rolled as Karla, encased in a halo of golden klieg lights and lip-syncing to the audio playback of the theme song from Body Parts, performed a fantasy musical number before a backdrop of moving clouds. Her flowing white gown undulated around her courtesy of a powerful off-stage fan.

  From just outside the perimeter of light sat Casper Volpe on his high director's chair, staring intently at his protégé. It was an image from real life, made more fantastical by the skewed reality of dream.

  Casper called Cut! in his smooth Italian accent, and something made him turn in Warren’s direction. As the two men’s eyes met, an electrical charge passed through Warren’s body. Casper smiled at him, his brown eyes soulful and intelligent, shimmering with wit.

  Warren stirred on the sofa (half awake now) the effects of alcohol easing him into a memory he tried for years to extinguish: the affair with Casper Volpe that had left him brokenhearted and nearly destroyed.

  After that first collision on the set (not quite as dramatic as Warren’s dream version, but nearly) Casper took an immediate interest in Warren. Karla’s self-absorption had its advantages, as she was apparently oblivious to the intense vibrations passing between the powerful director and her nineteen-year-old brother—a mere production assistant—the lowest rung of the film set hierarchy.

  A week into shooting, Karla needed to fly back to New York to tend to some business. Warren was more than relieved to see her go, and after dropping her off at LAX, he drove her rented BMW convertible into the setting sun with a six-pack of beer and a bag of tacos-to-go on the seat next to him. Feeling like a movie star in his polo shirt and Ray Bans, he relished the admiring glances he was getting from other drivers on the freeway, and looked forward to a relaxing weekend at the beach house.

  The red button on the phone message machine was flashing when he dropped the keys on the kitchen counter. He played it back and was shocked to hear Casper’s accented voice (not an assistant’s) asking Warren to join him for drinks. The address he’d written down after nervously returning the call was for a private club: an art deco mansion that had once belonged to silent movie star Ramon Novarro, Casper explained to him over the finest white wine Warren had ever tasted.

  Drinks became a lobster dinner, which became many hours of driving north where they talked endlessly into the night before finally landing at Nepenthe in Big Sur for last call, and then to Casper’s private cabin where a hot tub built into the side of a cliff practically touched the stars. And there, as the sun rose over the mountains, Warren fell hopelessly in love, experiencing an emotional truth he never knew was possible.

  And inside his dream, as he had in life, he felt Casper’s strong arms around him, felt the kiss that released his soul into the sky where it spiraled with the stars then vanished into the pink morning light.

  Casper and Warren’s relationship continued in secret. But as Karla’s performance floundered, causing the expensive production to go weeks over schedule, Casper became less attentive. Warren understood the tremendous pressure the director was under: a huge financial investment, as well as his reputation was at stake.

  One night the phone was silent in a way that caused Warren to panic. He drank too much and called around town till he located Casper (with Karla) at an exclusive party in the hills—for industry insiders only. Warren demanded to see him and threatened to drive out there, but Casper told him to cut out the shit in a voice that was so harsh it sent Warren weeping facedown in the Malibu surf after a booze and pill binge. He’d have drowned had it not been for a kind-hearted jogger who fished him out.

  When Warren arrived hours late and sick on set the next day, he was unceremoniously fired by one of Casper’s many assistants. Before he was shipped off in a cab to the airport, Karla reamed him out in front of the entire crew. Back in New York, Warren struggled to hold it together. When he saw the cover of Star Gazer announcing the rumored romance of director and star—the two beaming on the Body Parts set—he lost it completely. This time the overdose was intentional, and he ended up in a hospital room at Bellevue, trying to wrap his brain around why true love hadn’t prevailed.

  When he returned home to his dinky East Village apartment, numb from antidepressants and ten pounds lighter, he found an engraved Tiffany invitation asking for the pleasure of his company at a private ceremony to take place at Casper’s home in Big Sur. Warren tore it into tiny pieces, then crammed it down the garbage disposal.

  He continued to work for Karla’s many enterprises off and on, only because he needed the money. The film’s failure and the eventual dissolution of their marriage, gave him some solace, but not much.

  * * *

  Beneath the floorboards where Warren tossed and turned in a tumult of memory was another hidden section of Wolf House, mirroring the floor plan above with two long corridors running east and west. But in contrast to the tastefully rustic main floor, the basement level consisted of drab walls, linoleum tiled floors, and flickering fluorescents that bathed the sterile surroundings with bluish light.

  At the end of the east hallway was a small room where Anne lay on a hospital gurney, alive but barely conscious, in a corona of harsh light that blanched her pale face to near whiteness. A starched hospital gown replaced the soiled chiffon, and a white sheet covered her lower body to the waist. A monitor on the wall above her head beeped to the rhythm of a slow, but steady heartbeat.

  Large hands encased in latex gloves, entered the circle of light and deftly inserted a full syringe into the I.V. tube attached to her wrist, then picked up a scalpel.

  Quickly and decisively, the silver blade sliced into Anne’s face, cutting around the hairline to the ear, cheek, and chin, and back to where it met the incision on the other side. Then the gloved hands, white fingertips stained red, picked up a flat tool and began to separate the skin from the bone. After a bit of tugging, Anne's face was removed and placed it in a tray of clear liquid.

  The heart monitor beeped to the slow rhythm of Anne’s gurgling breaths then stopped altogether.

  * * *

  As Jenna moved down the west wing corridor, soft shades of lavender moonlight spilling in from the leaded glass windows provided just enough light to navigate her way. Each room (most of them empty and unrestored except for the library) jogged a memory of the times she and the other kids would sneak into the mansion at night using flashlights pilfered from the camp office.

  Jenna recalled a particularly rowdy game of manhunt they once played where Mitch had captured her and thrown her in a dungeon somewhere down this hallway.

  The library? No, she remembered how scared she had been because it was inside the wall—she’d screamed her head off till he let her out. A secret room! She was sure it was behind one of the wall panels. She pushed against one panel.
Nothing. She tried another. Then another. As she felt her way in the near dark, her hand rested on a recessed section of the wall. Remembering instantly, she pushed her weight against the it, causing the machinery inside the wall to groan and the panel to open with a loud pop.

  She stepped inside. The door creaked behind her and shut with a click, enclosing her in complete darkness. Her scalp tingled as she reached out to locate the door again and touched what felt like a dead animal, furry and rigid. She pulled back with a gasp. Then she remembered. The thing she felt was a stuffed wolf, mounted on a stand.

  I’m in the game room, she thought, relaxing her tense shoulders a bit. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she noticed the outline of a large window sheathed in thick velvet. She groped around till she felt a tasseled pull and gave it a hard tug. The curtains parted with a puff of decade’s old dust and Jenna found herself surrounded by beasts of prey, including an enormous black bear on its hind leg, casting long, threatening shadows across the walls and floor.

  Her instinct was to run back and return to her warm bed, but then she caught a whiff of Karla's amber scent, hovering in the dusty, stifling air, and followed it to a heavily carved oak door beneath which shone a sliver of red light. She turned the doorknob slowly and peered in through the tiny crack.

  Jenna knew at once she had found Karla's suite. She entered quietly and looked around. Despite the lavish furnishings, the room was a mess: empty wine bottles, ashtrays filled to the brim with crushed lipstick-stained cigarette butts, the unmade bed a tumult of black satin sheets.

  Feeling like she had entered a stranger's hotel room, Jenna instantly regretted her intrusion. In her haste to leave, she banged into an antique secretary. Reaching out to steady it she noticed a travel book for the Greek islands. Sticking out between the pages was what looked like an airline ticket. As Jenna pulled it out for a closer look, a mellifluous voice punctured the silence.