Jex Malone

by C. L. Gaber

  “You look completely fab-boo,” Deva says, using a new word she heard on some TV makeover series. Nat, who normally would take offense at any mention of her appearance over her intellect, beams broadly.

  I’m dressed in black pants, a cute raspberry-colored T-shirt, and cool hoop earrings—better than what I usually pick out for myself, although it lacks the glamour of Nat’s look. Leave it to Deva to accessorize even in the toughest of circumstances. Cissy and Deva got the sundresses. Deva’s dress is in shocking orange and Cissy’s is yellow. Both pair them with white flip-flops.

  Meanwhile, Cooper is in clean, tight black jeans and a black T-shirt. He absolutely refuses to wear the madras and patchwork vest that Deva bought to go with what she called “his L.A. ensemble.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” His exact words.

  “Fine, go out only half dressed,” Deva sniffed earlier this morning, adding, “You aren’t in the suburbs anymore, Coopster.”

  “No, I’m in loony land,” Cooper replied staring at me in the mirror for a minute and—maybe I was reading too much into his gaze—thinking I looked pretty cute in those cool, body-melding pants that make me appear to have something womanly going on. Those are my words and, sadly, not his.

  Made-up-in-your-head romance—or the real thing?

  Fact or fiction? Delirious about someone or delusional?

  Boys.

  Necessary or needless? That is the question. And there is no real answer.

  When we get downstairs, we waltz past a few photographers who are waiting in the circular driveway for some celebrity to come out of the star-packed hotel.

  “Wait, she’s over there! Get her! Zena! Zena!” a photographer yells as the group surges forward. They’re going after Nat, who apparently is pulling off this starlet look flawlessly! Cameramen rush toward us and I dodge a hurling 220-pound dude with four cameras slung around his neck and a smell that’s not too pleasant. I don’t have time to blink before I just barely miss getting hit by a giant, long lens that looks like a rocket launcher.

  “Hey, watch where you swing that thing, buddy!” I shout at him, only to feel Cooper’s hand wrap around my upper arm and pull me a few inches out of the way to safety. He leaves his hand there for just a second too long.

  For my safety.

  Uh huh.

  Nat instinctively puts her hand up to shield her face from the popping flashes as the paps start shouting questions at her.

  “What does it feel like to know that your husband is dating three new girls, Zena?” one of the paparazzi yells.

  “I thought the two of you were getting back together,” cries another one.

  “Hey, wait, you’ve got the wrong girl!” Nat cries out while Deva and Cissy pull her forward, stifling hysterical laughter. Is our Nat really being confused for a gossip-mag queen? Now, that’s something we don’t have to contend with every single day at home … I mean in my dad’s neighborhood.

  “No interviews, please,” Deva shouts out in her most authoritative voice as she hustles Nat around the side of the hotel. “Respect her privacy! Please! This is a difficult time!”

  Chapter 28

  Famous Girl Detective Quote:

  “Sir, I’ve worked big crime scenes before. I’ve got two hands. I’m ready to work.”

  —Lindsay Monroe, CSI: New York

  Everyone laughs, but then just as quickly reality settles back in as we try to figure out our next step. My dad’s voice rings in my ears. “Let the evidence lead you” is something I swear I’ve heard him say a million times. I can tell that Nat’s already thinking the same thing.

  “Let’s go to the theater first. It’s the closest destination and then we can go to the sign, the astronomy place, and then the castles around the area since they’re furthest away. That way we won’t be wasting time doubling back on ourselves,” Nat announces as if she’s already figured out exactly what we’re going to do and when we’re going to do it.

  “Nat’s our clue-keeper, so whatever you say,” I suggest, watching Deva nod in endorsement while Cooper just shrugs and turns over the engine. Who are we to argue with Nat’s criminal-busting experience after watching a zillion hours of mystery shows?

  Some forty-five minutes later, after struggling with the horrible Los Angeles traffic, we turn down Hollywood Boulevard and instantly spot the legendary Walk of Fame, where the most famous stars have put their handprints in cement in front of the famed Mann’s Chinese Theater.

  Nat grabs my hand. “Let’s go this way. You guys take the other side of the courtyard. Look for anything that seems out of place.”

  We step gingerly over the stars on the Walk of Fame, studying the courtyard carefully. Every inch of the area is paved over and the narrow sidewalk is decorated with large gold stars embedded into the cement featuring the names of movie stars from our beloved Tatum Ryan to John Wayne. Even Lassie has a star.

  “I don’t see how anyone could have hidden a body here,” Nat quickly surmises. “There’s no place to dig. There are just narrow flowerbeds, and people are around here all hours of the day. Tons of weirdos, too.” She makes an eye motion towards a man dressed up like Chewbacca for no other reason that he felt like getting his fur on today in public. “There’s no way she’s here,” Nat says.

  By the time we all regroup, Cooper is clearly annoyed and starts heading back to the car. We follow along quietly because this isn’t going the way we planned—not that we had an actual plan.

  “Okay, so now what’s the next stop?” Cooper asks once we are all back in the car.

  “The Hollywood sign,” Nat says decisively. “That makes a whole lot more sense. It’s remote; it’s on a hill. You’ve got dirt for someone to dig in and bury something or someone because it’s just wild brush up there. Deva, get on your phone and Google it. There should be a good map.”

  Deva quickly finds the route and starts directing Cooper’s drive toward the sign. She quickly glances at her voicemail box and notices that it is now full and is not accepting any additional messages. Gulping, I can only guess how many parental messages are there.

  “Uh, do you guys know we’re not supposed to go on the grounds around the sign? It says so in about a million stories I just Googled,” Deva interrupts. “We might get in some sort of situation.”

  “I don’t think a serial killer is worried about breaking the rules set for a sign,” Nat replies. “We have to go where he went.”

  We follow the twisting Mulholland Drive on the map to a small road leading up to the famed sign. Cooper steers the car as far as it can go until we reach a gate blocking the road. The rocky slopes of the hills are impassable, and a sign warns of security cameras monitoring the area.

  “Hmm, now this is interesting,” Nat says, surveying the craggy landscape. “Lots of scrub, deep ravines. You could definitely hide a body here. In fact, a jogger and her dog found a severed head here and later they found a few limbs.”

  She says this like she’s talking about finding cheese thingies and a chocolate chip cookie packed in her lunch.

  “But look, Nat, there’s security cameras out here. Don’t you think that would have scared Mr. Foster off? Although, those cameras probably weren’t here thirteen years ago,” I say, trying to sound officially official as a Drew-Id.

  A piercing siren makes us all jump. Puling up behind us in his large SUV is a tall, skinny park ranger.

  “Okay, everyone be cool and let me do the talking,” Deva instructs.

  “What are you kids doing here?” Ranger Rick (his real name) says, adjusting his wide-brimmed khaki hat. He looks a bit like my dad, minus 100 pounds, which makes me shudder because up until this point I kind of forgot Dad would be looking for me.

  “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to hike up here?” the officer says, bringing me back to the moment.

  “Sorry, sir,” Deva says politely. “We just wanted to see the sign and I found this road on Google.” She waves her phone at him as proof. “And we heard that
there might be some bodies buried up here, which is kind of creepy, so we were a little bit frightened.”

  “Yeah, ever since those maps were posted all over the Internet, I find what seems like a million people a day up here,” the ranger sighs. “You guys have to turn around. You can’t go any further and there’s nothing to see up here. You can’t hike the grounds either. Too much vandalism.

  “But I wouldn’t worry about dead bodies,” he offers, rolling his eyes. “After that jogger—which I’m sure you’ve probably heard about—found the head, the cops swept the entire area several times. The only bones up here might belong to a dead coyote.”

  “You’re sure they did a big sweep?” Nat asks. “I’m, uh, going to CSI camp and they wanted a report. Typed and double-spaced. There is homework at CSI camp.”

  “What camp are you attending?” the officer inquires, narrowing his eyes.

  Nat doesn’t miss a beat. “The LAPD CSI camp being conducted at Hollywood High.”

  “A friend of mine was a counselor,” Ranger Rick says in an appreciative voice. Then he leans his narrow noggin into the car.

  “There’s not even a chicken bone up there—and the cops found nothing else during the sweeps,” the ranger informs Nat like they’re two cops shooting the breeze.

  “Can we just take a quick picture and we’ll be on our way?” Nat asks, stalling for time.

  “I’ll allow it because you are spending your summer in such a constructive way. But if I don’t see you coming down in five minutes, I’m escorting you down myself,” the ranger answers as he turns and strides back to his truck.

  “Are you guys always so strict up here?” I ask and he skids to a halt. He stops, turns, and narrows his eyes to get a closer look at me. Obviously, we haven’t bonded in the same way he did with Nat.

  “Day and night, missy. We’ve got the park completely covered,” he replies. He turns with one last stern glance at me and resumes his walk to his truck.

  Nat stands with her back to him and kicks the stony ground with a toe. But it’s not out of frustration.

  “Ouch, this ground is hard,” Nat exclaims. “If Old Man Foster dug into it, he’d have to have a sledgehammer.”

  “Look, if we don’t get out of here soon, that guy’s coming back and there will be some kind of trouble. For all we know, there’s an all-points bulletin out for us right now,” I warn, presuming my dad is doing his job as both a detective and a father and everyone is looking for us, which is probably the case.

  We speed down the hillside, waving to the ranger as we pass him. He tips his hat and salutes us with the Big Gulp he was sipping on as we disappear around the bend.

  We make a quick pit stop at In-N-Out Burger, where Cooper devours two burgers and two fries and washes it down with a large chocolate milkshake, saying nothing as the rich food seems to calm his nerves.

  Before we even finish, Nat takes out the third picture and clears away a spot on the table so as to not get grease and ketchup on our clue. The sketch is of a big white domed building set in what looks like a large park. It’s a night sketch and the black sky is filled with about a million stars. Nat has already pegged it as a landmark known as the Griffith Park Observatory.

  “You can see the Hollywood sign from up there and the L.A. Basin,” Nat rattles on. “There’s four thousand acres of park up there. In fact, it’s one of the largest publicly owned parks in the United States. The place is quite famous and well-known around the world.”

  “Let’s go,” I say, savoring my last slurp of cola before we hit the car again.

  “There are trails up there and lots of them,” Cissy says, reading over Nat’s shoulder as we turn down Fern Dell Drive off of Los Feliz Boulevard. “Lots of places to hide someone,” Deva adds, as Cooper shows no reaction.

  We brighten when suddenly we’re in Griffith Park, which is grassy, deeply green, and tree-lined. Wooden bridges and a serene little waterfall greet us the minute we pull in, and the car swings left along a road that goes past a babbling brook. Picnic areas line both sides of the road, but we pass them to drive higher up the trail, which is actually quite a steep climb.

  We shoot straight up to the observatory building with its balconies and big white dome in the middle. I saw this once in the old James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause where a bunch of teenagers wear cool vintage clothes as they sit around, look at stars, and think about how life pretty much sucks for them.

  “Lots of people milling around here,” Nat says. “It would be hard to do something illegal because of all the security, the cameras, and Fred and Mary Tourist who hang around until ten at night when the park closes, but the stars are out in full force.”

  “They lock the gates at night and I’m sure there are cameras everywhere,” I jump in.

  “We need to look around,” says Deva. “Plus, the observatory looks sort of cool. I wonder if they have T-shirts for sale. At least, my parents will know that I did something educational when I ran away this summer.”

  We wander in the front doors and an eager ticket-taker wants to know if we’d like to see the show in the dome building, and three of us nod while Nat shakes her head as in “no thanks.”

  It’s decided that Cooper and I will pair up to examine some of the trails while the rest of them check out the terrain that’s closer to the main building.

  “We’ll meet in an hour at the car,” Deva promises.

  A few minutes later, Cooper and I are walking along a marked trail with the strong, pungent smell of eucalyptus and pine filling our noses. It’s fresh and delicious, and the sun feels so warm and good beating down on us. The weather isn’t hot, but pleasantly cool and breezy with the deep green summer leaves swaying in a lazy rhythm. If we weren’t looking for a dead body, it could almost be considered a date.

  Or a walk with a friend?

  Boys.

  Can’t classify them.

  Until the first kiss.

  “Cooper, are you all right about all of this looking around?” I finally ask as we walk up a steep embankment that leads us to another winding trail. With each step, we seem closer to absolutely nothing, although it sure is peaceful to be outside with the birds chirping and the occasional hiker passing us with a friendly nod of hello.

  “Jex, I don’t know how I feel anymore. I’m sort of running on adrenalin,” Cooper admits. “I’m not even so sure how I feel about anything, but I know I want to find out something and settle this once and for all.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s how I felt about this summer. I wanted to find out about my dad and settle things once and for all. I’m not even sure if he likes me. I never saw him that much when I was a kid.”

  Almost gratefully, Cooper instantly shifts out of his own drama and looks sympathetically at me, causing my stomach to twist in a knot.

  The last thing I want is his pity.

  Still, I can’t help it that my pulse jumps when he chooses to put his arm around my shoulder. A shot of pure happiness shoots through my system.

  We walk along in silence for a few minutes until we reach the end of the trail. We’re at the top and Cooper is facing the other way. Lightly, he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Jex, turn around.”

  I spin around and what I see takes my breath away.

  The sun is perfectly positioned in the sky to turn the City of Los Angeles into a glimmering spectacle. It’s as if every building is covered in sequins and is sparkling—more beautiful than anything an electric light could produce. It’s so beautiful that I can’t help but move closer to Cooper. Suddenly, we’re standing as one.

  Cooper looks into my eyes and I don’t want to ever pull away. He leans down a bit until he’s so close that his breath mixes with mine. My lips part and then … a loud scream ricochets through the woods.

  It’s the yelp of a toddler who has broken away from his parents to run to the top of the hill. He can’t help but run directly into Cooper’s left knee and tumbles backward onto his little butt.

 
“Bobby, you get back here right now!” screams his mother, who reaches us in mere seconds. Her disapproving look says it all as she quickly realizes what has been interrupted. She politely nods and says, “I’m sorry. He’s a little hyper,” while giving me a glance that almost screams, “You should thank me. You’re too young to be making out with hot boys in the woods.”

  I want to scream at her, “Why do you think woods were created in the first place?”

  But I say nothing.

  The moment is clearly over.

  “It sure is pretty here,” Cooper says a beat later, breathing deeply and pulling away like the suddenly cooler air is actually returning him to his senses.

  Deva, Cissy, and Nat had no luck prowling the grounds either and decided to take in the show as if it would offer them some clues.

  “Well, I know way too much about Mars and Orion and his belt, which wasn’t even Kate Spade,” Deva says, a shopping bag in her left hand. Obviously, she also found the gift store. “And I don’t understand why there isn’t a planet named Dior, but no one asked me.”

  “It makes absolutely no sense,” says Nat, who looks so frustrated that I think I even see tears in her eyes. “One thing is for sure. Murderers don’t like places filled with a constant stream of people. Yes, this is another landmark, but one that gets a lot of foot traffic.”

  “I bet this place is never quiet unless you count the middle of the night, and then there would be the guards,” Cissy adds. “You just couldn’t find the peace and quiet to do any dirty work.”

  “Let’s just go back to the room and regroup,” Nat suggests, kicking at a rock, the only sign of frustration she’ll allow us to see. “I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight because I need to study the clues again. We only have one more picture. There’s clearly something we’re missing, but I can’t figure out what.”

  She pauses for a moment. I can tell she’s thinking hard and running through everything we’ve seen in her mind.

  “And plus, we probably only have another day before our parents’ all-points bulletin is answered and they catch up with us. By the time the credit card companies get the charges called in, they will know exactly where we are and where we’ve been. Deva’s been using her phone too; they’re going to be able to tell the towers where the calls are coming from, which will identify that she’s in L.A. We’re going to be pretty easy to find, thanks to stupid technology.”