“For a couple of years. A long time ago.” It was no surprise Victoria knew this. Everyone did.
“Well, my daughter is no nun. If you have a problem with that, maybe you should go back to the convent.”
“They wouldn’t take me. I wasn’t a very good nun.”
Sam chuckled. “Bad nun.” Running some pornographic filmstrip in his head.
Victoria glanced at him, irritated. “My point is, you don’t know what it’s like to be young and free and to blow off steam.”
Kate dug her fingernails into her palms. “I know it can lead to trouble.”
“Talk to Chelsea if you’re so concerned. You said it yourself. She’s an adult.”
“And she should start acting like one.”
“You’re not her mother.”
“Are you?”
Victoria bristled. “There’s no need to get personal. I understand that tonight’s…episode has upset you. But it was a one-time thing.”
“It wasn’t a one-time thing, and you know it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mila Farris.”
Silence for a moment, and a quick exchange of glances between Victoria and Sam.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Victoria said.
“Cut it out, Mrs. Brewer. You know. And so do I, even though you did your best to keep it from me. Which wasn’t smart, by the way. I can’t be fully effective if you keep me in the dark.”
“Whatever you’ve heard is just a rumor. Mila Farris has nothing to do with…with anything.”
“She was one of Chelsea’s hangers-on, just like the girl tonight.”
“Mila Farris is irrelevant,” Victoria said. “And how the hell did you find out about her, anyway?”
“People talk.”
“Which people?”
“I’m not answering that,” Kate said.
“Then I’m not carrying this conversation any further. It’s none of your damn business, any of it. And I understand my own daughter quite well enough, thank you.”
“Vicki’s a great mom,” Sam added, lazily scratching his cheek.
“Just keep the crazies away,” Victoria added. “Chelsea’s other problems will work themselves out.”
Kate took a breath, nodded. She pocketed her cell phone and got up from the divan. On her way out of the living room, she stopped at a corner table.
“There’s just one more thing.”
She picked up a large glass serving bowl with an ornately scalloped rim. The dish was heavy and solid and when it hit the wall it made a great crash, shattering to pieces.
Victoria Brewer shot upright, her glance ticking from the spray of shards on the tiled floor to Kate’s outstretched arm. Kate had slung the bowl underhand, softball style, with her full strength.
“Are you crazy?” Victoria gasped. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I take it you’re upset about losing that item.”
“You’re goddamned right I’m upset!”
“You can always replace it. But if you lose your daughter, you’ll never get her back.”
She walked out the front door and down the steps. In the house, Victoria was shouting that the price of the bowl was coming out of her fee, every penny.
“Go to hell,” Kate murmured as she slipped behind the wheel of her Jaguar and hit the gas, peeling out of the driveway.
Not a very pious sentiment. But then, she wasn’t a nun anymore.
MULHOLLAND Drive was a black, coiled serpent riding the ridge of the Hollywood Hills, and Kate took it fast, powering the XK through the sinuous curves, hugging the shoulder as the city swept up at her through breaks in the trees.
She knew she’d blown it. Rather than getting the Brewers on her side, she’d alienated them. But maybe nothing she said could have made them hear. Not if they didn’t want to.
She spun the wheel, navigating another S-curve, then clipped on her Bluetooth headset and pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t carry a handbag. Too inconvenient. She had lots of pockets.
She speed-dialed Grange. He answered, shouting his name over frantic hip-hop.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Stiletto.”
“She’s still out partying?”
“Believe it. She’s a piece of work, this one. Third club tonight, and it’s not even ten.”
“Try to keep her there. I’m coming over.”
“What for?”
“Just to check on her.” And to find out the other girl’s name.
She sped on, her fingers light on the wheel, the Jag’s aluminum chassis absorbing shocks in the road. Houses flashed past, recessed in roadside hollows. Treetops hooted with owls.
Her phone rang. The ringtone was “Lady Madonna.” Nun humor.
She answered without checking the caller ID. It was probably Grange calling back to say Chelsea was moving on. “Yes?”
“Hello, Kate.”
Not Grange. Him.
“Listen, asshole”—she pressed the rubber earbud tighter into her ear—“I’m getting a little tired of this bullshit.”
“You have a dirty mouth. I like it.” As always, the voice was electronically distorted. It could have been anyone. Could even have been a woman, but Kate was somehow sure it was a man. A particular man.
“You’re not as smart as you think,” she said. “My tech guys are closing in on you.”
“That’s a lie.”
It was. His calls had proven untraceable despite Alan’s best efforts.
“You’re pushing it, friend,” she said carefully. “There are laws against stalking. I should know.”
“Of course you know. You’re the security expert. But, Kate, you need to start worrying about your own security.”
“More threats? This is getting old.”
“The time for threats is over. It’s just about time to get down to business.”
“Any place, any time.”
“You don’t get to choose either the place or the time. It’ll be when you least expect it. You’ll never know what hit you.”
She tried to think of a riposte, but he was already gone. Her cell’s LCD screen displayed Unknown Caller, as usual.
“Jerk,” she muttered.
He’d been calling her for the past two weeks. How he’d obtained her private number, she didn’t know. The calls were untraceable, placed from a throwaway cell phone with a calling card, the kind of thing that could be purchased in any drugstore.
At first she’d thought he was a prankster. Lately she was beginning to take him seriously. She even thought she knew who it was. Couldn’t prove it. But she had her suspicions.
She caught Laurel Canyon and corkscrewed down, letting the steep grade do the engine’s work until she was back on level ground. Sunset Strip slowed her down in a sea of brake lights. She inched past billboards and neon. Waves of bass throbbed from maxed-out car stereos. From somewhere, a scent of night jasmine wafted through the warm September night.
She passed a comedy club with a line outside, everybody on cell phones. Lounging on the sidewalk was a homeless man, too beaten down even to cadge for change. Nobody noticed him. The city bred indifference. When she had been a nun, the sisters had jokingly referred to LA as Sodom.
Or maybe they weren’t joking. In Sodom the angels came as visitors and were not recognized. Would they be recognized here?
Up ahead, Stiletto. She eased into the left lane, and her phone rang again. The caller ID said it was Alan, her night dispatcher.
“Hey, chief. Great news. Sal French is on the warpath again.”
“Where is he?”
“Philippe’s Raw Bar, Century City.”
“I know it. I’ll get over there as soon as I can. Got another stop to make first.”
“Sal’s pretty hot under the collar.”
“He can wait,” Kate said, not giving a damn.
It was ten fifteen when she wheeled into the parking lot behind Stiletto. She killed the eng
ine and got out of the car.
There was a Glock nine in her glove compartment, the compact model known to aficionados as a Baby Glock, an ugly little pug-nosed thing sheathed in a pocket holster. Nun with a gun, that was her. She left it there, knowing the club would have a metal detector at the door. Anyway, Grange would be carrying. His credentials let him take a gun almost anywhere.
A few desultory paparazzi lingered by the club entrance. Bypassing the line of patrons, she walked up to the bouncer. The guy was new and didn’t know her. She was about to flash her creds and say she was there on business, but it wasn’t necessary. He looked her over, liked what he saw, raised the velvet rope. She passed through the metal detector into the cave of noise and body heat that was Stiletto.
She moved forward, all her senses heightened. High alert—her instinctive reaction to any crowded, busy environment.
Her threat-detection radar wasn’t picking up any blips. There was no one who looked out of place, no one studying the crowd with a predator’s rapt attention.
Except…
A man sat alone at a table, watching the dance floor where Chelsea could be seen in the rippling crowd. Something about him made her hesitate. Was it her imagination, or was he looking straight at Chelsea?
Through the shifting crush of people, she studied him. She estimated his vitals—better than six feet tall, two hundred pounds, age between forty and fifty. Bald, his scalp gleaming under the lights.
Not having her gun was a problem. But if he’d passed through the metal detector, he wouldn’t be armed, either.
She moved nearer, slipping her cell phone out of her pocket. When she was close, she lifted the phone and surreptitiously snapped his picture. For the files.
A trio of inebriated girls slouched past, giggling, blocking her view. Then they were gone—and so was he.
She jostled her way through the crowd and reached his empty chair. Looked in all directions. Chaos, a kaleidoscope of faces and silhouettes.
She struggled through clusters of people, shading her eyes from the downlights, making her way to the front of the club. Outside, she found the bouncer and showed him the photo on her phone’s display. “Did this guy just leave?”
“Who’s he? Your boyfriend?”
“Just someone I’m looking for.”
“We’re all looking for somebody.”
She cut him off with a hot glare that unmanned him. “Did he leave?”
Shake of his head.
“Don’t let him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a suspect in a crime.”
“You a cop?” he asked uncertainly.
She pressed two twenties into his hand. “Pretend I am.”
She plunged back into the maelstrom. Cut down a back hallway, found the fire door. Bold letters across its face: DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. ALARM WILL SOUND.
Would it? She cranked the handle down, pushed. No response. The door was locked.
Safety hazard, fire code violation, but it meant he hadn’t gotten out via the front or the rear. He was still in the club. She could track him down.
What was her strategy? Find Grange, have him join the search? No. Couldn’t distract him from Chelsea. The girl needed eyes on her. Go it alone, then. Divide the club into sectors, clear one grid at a time.
She was heading back to the dance floor when she felt a breeze.
There was an open casement window seven feet off the floor. Packing crates and pallets were stacked below. She climbed the rickety pile and stuck her head out.
Trash bin beneath her, the lid closed. A man could slip through the window and drop onto the lid. Then it was just a question of getting out of the alley. Brick wall at one end, padlocked gate at the other, but neither would be an obstacle for someone willing to climb.
Finding the open window couldn’t have been luck. He must have checked out the club before sitting down, maybe even moved the packing materials into place. He’d prepared an escape route.
He was smart. He was careful.
Someone to worry about.
Definitely.
KATE found Alfonse Grange near the bar, a bottle of Evian smothered in one fist. He wore an open-collared dress shirt and a pin-striped jacket with a cell phone in the front pocket. There was an earpiece in his left ear and a lapel mic by his throat, allowing hands-free operation of the phone once he hit speed dial. All her field ops were outfitted with the same rig. In an emergency they couldn’t be fumbling with the phone.
Grange cut an intimidating figure, but at the moment his threat profile was somewhat minimized by the oversized pink handbag cradled in one arm, out of which peeped a round, furry head. Chelsea never went anywhere without her toy poodle, Chanticleer.
“She’s got me holding her damn dog now,” Grange said as Kate approached him. Despite his complaint, Kate noticed that Grange was petting the poodle, who shivered appreciatively.
“Forget the dog. We just had a situation.”
Automatically, Grange looked toward the dance floor, where Chelsea Brewer was flailing around with two guys and another girl in what appeared to be a spastic prelude to group sex. “Do tell.”
“I spotted this guy.” She showed him the photo on her phone. “He was watching Chelsea, and he booked when I closed in.”
“Where was he situated?”
“Table at three o’clock.” Kate pointed that way, but the table was invisible behind a mirrored pillar. The man had chosen a seat that allowed him to see Chelsea on the dance floor without being seen by her bodyguard at the bar.
Grange frowned, deep parentheses cupping his mouth. He didn’t like missing something. He’d worked personal security his whole life, first for a rock band, then for the CEO of a software firm. “You say he took off?”
“Out a window in the rear hallway, if you can believe it.”
“Send the pic to my phone, and I’ll show it to the bouncers from now on. With any luck, we can freeze this creep out.”
She was already transmitting the photo. “I want you moving around more. Don’t stay in one position and let him hide from you.”
An eyebrow lifted. “You telling me how to do my job?”
“Obviously. He shows up again, have a talk with him.”
A talk with Grange would get anyone’s attention. He was 220 pounds of beefy muscle, his bullet head shaved bald, a chrome loop fixed in his left earlobe. He looked like an immensely expanded edition of Andre Agassi, and he covered ground with the same casually aggressive stride.
“You know,” Grange grumbled, still stroking the dog, “it would be harder for people to stalk her if she didn’t go clubbing every damn night.”
Tell me about it, Kate thought.
“She treats me like garbage,” Grange added.
“How do you think people treat her?”
He snorted. “Like a star.”
“Only fans and hangers-on. How about the people who matter?”
“You asking me to feel sorry for the spoiled little skank?”
“Just providing some perspective.”
Grange went silent, his fund of conversation depleted. The bartender asked Kate what she was having. She waved him off. She hadn’t had a drink in twenty years, not since the days when she would sit in her one-room apartment and cloud her head with booze and cry. One night something had broken inside her, and with calm deliberation, she had poured the contents of her liquor cabinet down the sink. The next day she had gone to confession and asked about becoming a nun.
“So,” Grange said, “you here to talk to her or something?”
“When she’s off the dance floor.”
“Now’s your chance.”
She turned. Chelsea and her gal pal weaved toward a side doorway marked Restrooms. The friend helped her walk, Chelsea stumbling and reeling as people made way, a sea of commoners parting before royalty.
No one made way for Kate. By the time she elbowed a path to the alcove and pulled the brass handle of the ladies�
�� room door, Chelsea was leaning over a toilet while her companion held her by the hair.
The bathroom was small and smelled of chlorine disinfectant. Two women were washing up at the sinks, but Chelsea and her friend were the only ones in any of the stalls. Kate tapped the girlfriend on the shoulder.
“I’ll take care of her,” Kate said. “Go back to dancing.”
The friend, heavyset and homely, sneered. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m her protection. You’re in the way. Get lost.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She glared up at Kate, squinting. Nearsighted, Kate guessed, and she’d left her glasses at home because she wanted to look pretty.
Chelsea lifted her head. “It’s okay, Gabrielle. She works for me.”
“I don’t like her.” The squint deepened.
“I’m crushed,” Kate said. “Outta here. Now.”
Gabrielle went. The other women headed out also, stealing glances at Chelsea as they left.
Kate helped Chelsea cough up the last of her stomach contents. “How much have you had to drink?” Kate asked as she flushed the filth away.
Chelsea showed a crooked smile, a parody of the lopsided grin that had made her a star on the Family Channel in her teen years. “Hey, you know me. Clean and sober.”
Everyone said she was beautiful, and it had to be true because she looked good even here, under the soulless fluorescent lights with flecks of vomit on her blouse.
“Right,” Kate said. “So how much?”
“Nothing.”
“I can ask Grange.”
“Aw, fuck. Couple drinks, is all.” She had this little lisp that everyone had found endearing when she was a kid, and sexy now. “Captain ’n’ Coke.”
“If it was only a couple of drinks, why were you puking?”
“Must’ve had some bad shrimp.”
“Quit screwing around and give me a straight answer. Grange says this is your third club tonight. You must have had at least one drink at each stop. That’s three, minimum.”
“Wow. Math whiz.”
“Probably, you exceeded the minimum, though. So what was it? Six drinks, or more? In addition to whatever the hell you were on when I saw you in that alley at eight o’clock.”
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