by Josie Brown
I nod. “I fell in love with Hilldale the moment I saw it. I’m sure Babette feels the same way.”
All eyes sweep toward our hostess, including Breck’s.
“In all honesty, I really haven’t had time to enjoy it.” She toys with her fork. “Lion’s Lair was only completed a few months ago. In the meantime, we go where Jonah’s business takes us—which, as you can imagine, is all over the world. But now that Janie is at an age where school and friends are becoming important, I wouldn’t mind putting down roots in a place that revels in normalcy.”
“‘Normal’? Is that how Hilldale seems to you, my dear?” Breck’s tone sounds sincere, but his eyes give him away. He’s mocking her.
Why do I feel as if I’m watching a cat toy with a mouse?
“Well… yes, of course.” Babette’s cheeks turn rosy with embarrassment. “As Franz points out, it’s the all-American dream. Comfortable homes, beautiful tree-lined streets, nice shops, wonderful schools. And our neighbors seem very nice.” She glances over at me, but her voice trails off, betraying her attempt at a convincing argument.
“They should be.” Franklin sniffed. “We built our museum here. It’s put this little hovel of a town on the map.”
Jack shrugged. “Consider it money well spent. Think of all the good will it bought you. This same estate, built in LA County, would have tripled your tax base, without all the benefits Babette just pointed out. And you’re only a half hour from the city, forty minutes from LAX—or more appropriately, in your case, Santa Monica Municipal.”
“My point isn’t that Hilldale has its upside. It’s that even this town has its dirty little secrets.” Breck toys with his port snifter. “Did you know that there are four convicted child molesters in Hilldale? Or that last year alone, there were twenty-eight cases of domestic violence, and three meth houses were raided? Five former porn stars have ‘retired’ here. I use that word loosely, considering the economy has everyone out their beating the bushes—or something—to make a buck. By the way, two of your neighbors are in the Witness Protection program. And let’s not forget the eight guys whose last homes were minimum-security Federal penitentiaries, where they were incarcerated for white collar crimes.”
Jack laughs. “You’ve certainly done your homework, Jonah.”
“If I’m truly going to make Hilldale my home, I want to know where all the bodies are buried.”
If he were nicer, I’d fill him in on that. As it is, he’s got enough reconnaissance to find out on his own.
“You see, my dear, there is no place on earth with the kind of tranquility we crave. All the more reason this summit has to succeed. If we want a perfect society, we have to build it from scratch.” Breck sighs. “Suddenly, I’ve got a voracious appetite for something sweet. I guess you’re right about me, Babette. I’m never satisfied.”
The dinner ends a little before midnight. Jack and I don’t speak on the drive home. Instead, we crank up the car’s stereo.
We have no doubt we’re being bugged.
When we get to the house, we pull into the garage and close the door behind us.
In a few hours, an Acme tech team will enter the garage through the door leading into it from the backyard and do a thorough sweep for audio and GPS bugs, crushing them in the middle of the street as if a large pothole knocked the damn thing loose.
In fact, Acme will create the pothole.
Our neighbors, whose cars will also hit it, will curse the hole and Town Hall until the damn thing is fixed.
As Breck pointed out, paradise is still a distant dream.
We have a motorcycle parked in the shed out back. While it’s still dark and Aunt Phyllis enjoys Stephen Colbert’s truthiness, we rev it up and head out for Acme, but we take a circuitous route in case we’re being followed.
Since our bike’s GPS is on Acme’s private satellite surveillance feed, we’re informed that we’re in the clear, even before we get to Acme headquarters.
Once here, Arnie practically snatches the memory stick out of my hand. It takes him all of eight minutes to retrieve and crack open the files holding the info on the Breck estate’s security feed.
Bottled beer is the way Acme celebrates its ability to shadow all the webcams in every room of Lion’s Lair. “Hot shit,” Arnie exclaims, “I’ve got access the archival footage, too.”
“So, open a file. I know, let’s see what the swells had for dinner tonight,” Emma says impatiently. “I’m guessing it wasn’t vegan.”
Not to let her down, Arnie clicks open a file with the time stamp of 9:13 p.m. A bathroom that is empty, thank goodness. The nursery shows Trisha and Janie playing with Legos. Two guards, sharing a smoke in an outdoor alcove. A cook in the kitchen, scrubbing a pot…
Yep, every room. Including Breck’s office, where my Acme team watch as Breck attacks me on the credenza.
Jack’s eyes narrow as he watches. Arnie, Ryan and Emma are smart enough to get the hell out of the room.
I stay to face the music.
“You said nothing happened!” Jack grabs me by the wrist as if he wants to shake some sense into me. “The son of a bitch practically rapes you, and you call that nothing?”
“I stopped it the moment I got the intel we were after, didn’t I? Mission accomplished, right?” I yank my wrist out of his hand.
My instinct is to slap him.
No, to cradle his face. To gently wipe away the anger I see there.
Our kisses are deep, sweet and desperate. We know we should stop it, that we should get a hold of ourselves, but we can’t. We won’t. He’s lost in his pain. I’m driven by my desire to have nothing come between us, ever.
Certainly not Jonah Breck.
As if reading my mind, Jack’s lips finally part from mine. “I hate the fact that you’re so good at what you do.”
How do I answer that?
I can’t.
Not now, anyway.
Ask me again when I’m a free woman, and we can both walk away from this life, together.
Not that anyone ever does.
But come hell or high water, we will certainly die trying.
Together.
As we leave, I ask Arnie to exchange my break-in with a loop of Breck’s empty office. That way, unless someone has replayed it between now and then, I’m in the clear.
And so is Breck, that son of a bitch.
Chapter 6
How to Make a Formal Introduction
When formally introducing one friend to another, take the hand of the first friend as you ask for the attention of the second, in this manner:
“Lavinia, for the longest time I’ve been looking forward to introducing you to Hortense Whatshername. She makes the most delicious chocolate Bundt cakes, and is a great fan of Dickens! Hortense, this is my dear friend Lavinia CantStandsYa! She throws the most interesting potluck book salons, which is now reading every Dickens novel, in alphabetical order. I think you two will have a lot in common.”
Then pat them both on the back, and step away.
In fact, run as far away as possible, especially if you’ve planted an IED in Hortense’s Bundt cake, since your objective is to be far outside of the debris field.
“Mommy! MOMMY!” Trisha is standing at the front door, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Cheever Bing’s mother is at the front door, with those other women you think are silly gooses, too!”
Great. Just great. It’s too early in the morning for this—and on a Saturday, no less. Since seven, Jack and I have been glued to our iPads, which now contains the intel Arnie has been extracting all night from Breck’s security feed. Jack is memorizing the dossiers on the strategy teams and security details of every head-of-state who will be attending, while Emma, now set up in the room over the garage, debriefs me via phone on the chatter around the deployment of three known assassins. One is Chechen,
another is Ukrainian, and the last is a Soviet rogue agent.
Not only am I up to my armpits in Acme intel, assassin sightings, and the quest for a divorce attorney, now I have to deal with Penelope Bing and her momtourage?
Not to mention whatever Jack has in mind for Breck. Copping a feel is going to cost him, big time.
Just like Trisha’s “silly gooses” declaration is sure to cost me something with the Bitches of Hilldale.
I have no desire to find out what. “I’ll be right there,” I holler down the stairwell. Not really. Better to send Jack instead. He’ll schmooze, flatter, make promises I can’t keep, and walk them out the door.
Damn. The risky part is all those promises. Still, I can’t keep Emma hanging on the line, so I wrap my arms around Jack’s neck and nuzzle his ear. “Jack, sweetie, how about going down and make up some excuse as to why I can’t see them?”
He groans. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“They like you! They’ll buy anything you’re selling.”
“Yeah, that’s the point. There’s nothing I wish to part with. Not to them, anyway.”
“Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?” “I make a frownie face. It works for Trisha, so why not for me?
Jack shakes his head and stretches tall, as if that will overcome a night of just three hours of sleep. Then he rummages for a T-shirt, finding one at the foot of the bed, and pulls it on over his drawstring running pants. It’s tight around his broad back and his bulging muscles. He hasn’t shaved yet, and his five o’clock shadow is prickly.
Aw, hell. If I send him down there, Penelope will never want to leave.
“Mommy!” Trisha’s yells, even more frantic now. “They brought a cake! Can I have some?”
Cake? That means Penelope is after something. And when Penelope has her mind set, even Jack won’t be able to get rid of her. “Wait, I’ll go down instead—”
“What, are you crazy? Penelope brought a cake? I’m outta here!”
“Remember,” I hiss at him, “promise her nothing! Nothing!”
Too late. Jack can’t hear me because he’s already halfway down the stairs.
Oh well. The way he looks, Penelope certainly won’t miss me for another ten minutes. I turn back to the phone receiver. “Emma, what were you saying about the Russian assassin?”
“Um… I’ll tell you in person. If you’ve got cake for breakfast, I’m coming right down.”
“But I was going to make oatmeal for everyone...”
It’s no use. She has already clicked off. She can’t stand wearing that silly blond Inga wig, but she hates my oatmeal even more.
They all do. Too bad. It’s good for them. Heart-healthy, lots of fiber…
Oh, who the heck am I kidding? I better get my ass down there before all the cake is gone.
Coffee has been poured. Apparently, the women have brought a Bundt cake.
By the time I get downstairs, Emma is already digging into a piece. As Inga, her bad Swedish accent allows her to beg off any attempt at conversation.
I get no such reprieve, despite knowing firsthand that nothing these women do or say makes any sense.
Trisha’s mouth looks as if she’s sporting a chocolate mustache, and Penelope Bing, Tiffy Swift, and Hayley Coxhead are giggling like little school girls. Not at Trisha, but at Jack, who has to bend down as he rummages through the fridge for some crème fraiche to lighten their brews.
Needless to say, no one looks up when I enter. The view is too captivating.
My taxi whistle grabs their attention. “What’s the nice surprise,” I murmur as I air kiss Penelope. “Excuse me for not opening the door for you. We had a late night, and as you can see, we were still in bed.” I nod toward Jack, who is cutting a wedge of cake for himself that’s the size of New York’s infamous Flatiron Building.
Considering he has a size forty-inch chest, thirty-two-inch waist, washboard abs and the ass of a twenty-six-year-old fireman, I’m sure they’re wondering where he puts it all.
Wouldn’t they like to know.
Tiffy nudges Penelope out of whatever fantasy she’s having about Jack. I guess it is showtime.
Penelope takes one last, longing glance at him. When she’s done, the dewy look in her eyes hardens even before they reach me. Game on. “Donna, darling, this is strictly a social visit. Hayley, Tiffy and I were talking about you just the other day: how it seems that… well, since Nola’s sudden move out of the neighborhood, you haven’t quite been yourself. We know how close the two of you were, and it pains us to see you so lonely.”
What a bitch! Penelope knows quite well that I couldn’t stand Nola. For that matter, there wasn’t a woman in Hilldale who liked her.
How could they? She was the neighborhood slut.
And unbeknownst to me, until her grisly and untimely death—at the hands of the real Carl—she was an Acme agent under deep cover. Her assignment: to watch over me and my family, should the Quorum somehow coming knocking on my door in search of what Carl left behind.
The Quorum did show up, and with the best Trojan horse it could send in: Carl.
Nola’s reconnaissance allowed Acme to pull the ultimate endgame: put Jack in Carl’s place. After a five-year disappearance on the day after we moved into the neighborhood, who’s to say he wasn’t my husband?
Me. Yes, I balked at first, but I soon got over it.
He is now the spy who loves me.
Cozying up to Carl cost Nola her life. But before she died, she was able to pass vital intel to Jack, which allowed us to stop Carl and the Quorum from pulling off one of the most horrendous terrorist acts ever conceived.
I realized too late that Nola was really a friend.
I said so, too late. Unfortunately, it was at her funeral, which was attended only by her Acme colleagues.
Acme’s cleaning service made it look as if she left town suddenly. The neighborhood gossips (three of whom have brought me this chocolate Bundt cake to die for) thought this may have had something to do with Jack’s late night encounters with Nola, which, apparently, were the talk of the town.
Little did they—or I—know, at the time, Nola would soon sacrifice her own life in order to save the whole Los Angeles metro area.
This is why, when Hayley pats my hand and murmurs in mock sympathy, “You must miss her terribly,” I must resist the urge to shove her face into what’s left of Penelope’s Bundt cake.
Instead, I look her right in the eye when I say, “Yes, Haley, I do.”
“Well, we think it’s marvelous that you’ve reached out to some of our new neighbors, in the hope of filling the gap,” Penelope declares briskly. “And you, too, Carl.”
Jack chokes on his cake. “Um… come again?”
Penelope honors him with an innocent smile. “Seems that Donna is great friends with Babette Breck.”
“Tiffy saw you at ballet practice with Trisha, Carl. She noticed you seemed quite chummy with Babette, too.” Hayley can’t wait to get that out. She gives me a sidelong glance. I’m sure she’s hoping for an explosive reaction.
Well, she isn’t going to get one. “Oh? I didn’t know your son, Logan, takes ballet, Tiffy.”
Tiffy blushes. Logan is nine and a bruiser. Her husband, Rex, is a Neanderthal. He would bust a gut if his kid participated in anything but football or wrestling. “Oh… no! Logan wouldn’t be caught dead in a ballet studio. I was at the pharmacy when I saw Carl with Babette, and...”
Her voice trails off. We can all figure out why, but I want to rub it in, anyway. “That’s odd,” I say as innocently as possible, “the pharmacy is four blocks away, on another street. You must have ex-ray vision.”
Penelope’s fork clatters onto her plate. “The point Tiffy is trying to make is that we find it admirable that you’ve taken Babette under your wing.” She waits for the others to nod
in agreement, which they do vehemently, like Bobbleheads in an Orange County tremor. “That said, we presume you’ll want to introduce her around at the next Hilldale Women’s Club luncheon. You know, membership has its privileges.”
“Really? No, I didn’t know. Maybe someday you’ll invite me to join.”
The women look from one to the other. I guess it somehow slipped their minds that I’d never been invited.
Yes, I’m having fun watching them eat a little crow with their cake and coffee.
Penelope clears her throat. “I’m sure it’s an oversight on someone’s part. It will be rectified immediately, of course. Hayley, please make a note of it.”
Hayley reaches in her purse for a pen and a tidy pad, in which she scribbles something down. I’m guessing it’s REDRUM REDRUM REDRUM…
I turn to Penelope. “You said something about privileges? By any chance would those include a vacation from school carpool for, say, the next month?”
Penelope’s eyes narrow. She mutters something under her breath (I’m guessing an expletive), but comes to her senses before saying it out loud. Carpool duty is a small price to pay, should I reel in Babette for her.
“I’m sure Tiffy and Hayley can arrange something.”
Her lackeys wince, but they know the drill.
Now that the ball is in my court, they head for the door. “The luncheon is Monday, one o’clock, the grand salon at Chez Chien Lunatique.”
For their benefit, Jack wraps his arms around me as I wave good-bye.
For my benefit, he doesn’t laugh at the fact I’m now roped into some silly club, which only wants me as a member because I’m their connection to the most renowned trophy wife in town.
I’m sure Babette would trade that notoriety for a few real friends, and a husband who adored her instead of mocked her.