Damage Control: A Novel

by Denise Hamilton

  I got some coffee and sat down. It looked like I’d stumbled into a zombie convention.

  “Would you like me to stay here tonight?” I asked. “I could order in dinner, field calls. Be a general girl Friday. So that you can all get some rest.”

  I fully expected them to decline in their polite way.

  “Are you sure we wouldn’t be putting you out?” asked Miranda.

  * * *

  When I went upstairs two hours later, I found a spectral presence moving through Anabelle’s darkened bedroom, holding a candle that cast dancing shadows on the walls.

  She bent over an alcove and a second light appeared, then a third. An offshore breeze blew scented wax throughout the room like a long sigh.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This suits my mood better tonight than cruel hard light,” she said, walking toward me, hands cupping an ivory taper.

  She wore a garland of flowers in her hair. With her lace-trimmed nightgown, and the candle illuminating her face, she looked as solemn and virginal as the young girls who filed in procession, voices raised in song, through the cathedral on the Feast Day of Saint Lucia.

  She handed me the candle. “You light some,” she said.

  Then she began to cry. “None of my rituals will make it go away. I can’t pretend anymore. But I can’t face it either.”

  “I know,” I said.

  I lit candles until the room glittered like the boudoir of an icicle queen.

  The air filled with the scent of flowers in a sunlit meadow.

  Then I tucked her into bed like a child. She looked small and frail in her big four-poster bed, her hair spread out on the pillow like a bedraggled mermaid’s. Without makeup, her face was blotchy and red from crying, eyes puffy and bloodshot. The one where Randall had hit her was blooming in evil rainbow colors.

  “Oh, Maggie,” she said, taking my hand. “What’s to become of us?”

  I knew she didn’t mean our friendship, which seemed deeper, and more mature, this time around, despite, or perhaps because of, everything that had happened. She meant her family, whose carefully constructed façade was crumbling to the ground with each new revelation.

  “I’m so sorry, Anabelle,” I said. “About everything.” I squeezed her hand, thinking about Randall, about her father, her uncle, but also about her. Sixteen-year-old Anabelle, sprawled out on a fetid futon in Playa del Rey, grinding her face into the pillow and crying at something lost forever.

  And that would always be with us.

  “Will you put on some music?” she asked.

  “Sure.” I rose. “What do you want to hear?”

  “Surprise me.”

  I looked through her old CDs, found Boys for Pele, shoved it in and hit Play. Tori Amos sang:

  But threads that are golden don’t break easily.

  Anabelle’s eyes were shiny. “That’s true, isn’t it, Maggie?”

  “Of course,” I said, my voice thick.

  “Promise you won’t leave me.”

  “I promise.”

  “But what if I leave you? How can I go on?”

  “You have to. For Lincoln’s sake. For your parents. For yourself.”

  “It’s like I’m staring into a void. I’m standing at the edge, looking down. And something’s drawing me closer. All I have to do is lean over and let it take me. And I want to. I dream about it. A pillowed nothingness. It’s what I found so alluring about drugs. Until Randall. He kissed me like Sleeping Beauty, and I came back.”

  Her voice trembled. “But now he’s gone. And I want to go back to that place.”

  She was scaring me.

  “We’re all here and we love you. And Lincoln needs you. I want you to visualize backing away slowly from that void. Here, take my hand.”

  Her grip was cold, smooth, and dry as bone.

  “Will you stay here until I fall asleep?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She closed her eyes and passed into sleep within moments. I waited until her breathing became rhythmic and her fingers twitched in an involuntary reflex against my hand, the way Steve’s used to do as we drifted off to sleep in the early days, fingers entwined.

  Then I stood up and walked to the guest bedroom.

  * * *

  Miranda was putting clean sheets on the bed, bending over, tucking in the corners of the high-thread-count Egyptian cotton.

  My brain caught on something and snagged.

  Miranda never did housework.

  That’s what she had maids for. And the maid was downstairs.

  As I tried to convince myself that Anabelle’s mom wanted to put a personal touch on things to make me feel at home, Miranda straightened.

  “There,” she said, hooking a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Anabelle’s asleep.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re here, hon.”

  Miranda gathered the old sheets, then balanced a large cardboard box atop them. Old letters and photos poked out from under the lid, as if they’d been hastily rifled through and stuffed back haphazardly.

  “Well, good night, Maggie,” Miranda said, and left.

  * * *

  I went about getting ready for bed, washing out my underthings, brushing my teeth, and hanging up my clothes in the large walk-in closet. As I reached for a hanger, I noticed a shelf stacked with cartons of various sizes. There was an empty space where a box had recently been removed; I could see the discolored line where it had sat.

  I put my finger down and traced the almost imperceptible rectangle of dust. The space was the size of the box that Miranda had just hauled out.

  As I clipped my skirt to the hanger, I wondered what was so important in that box that it had sent Miranda upstairs on the pretext of making my bed. Something she kept on the top shelf of a closet in a rarely used guest bedroom. Was she afraid that I’d wander the room tonight, restless and curious, and eventually make my way to the boxes?

  What didn’t she want me to find?

  I thought about Miranda’s studied casualness as she made the bed. Her almost clinical detachment from her family. Could it be that I was missing something obvious right under my nose?

  I remembered what Tyler had said in the car as we drove to Emily Mortimer’s apartment:

  Maybe the wife did it. She found out about the affair and decided to off her rival.

  What if what nestled at the bottom of the box Miranda had just carried out was not more letters but evidence of a murder? Or even two? Emily had been strangled, but Randall had been shot. Randall the son-in-law who abused Miranda’s daughter. Was there a gun buried beneath the papers in that box? A gun that had recently been fired?

  My stomach roiled from too much coffee and Adderall and not enough food. And also from my conversation with Viken in the Blair parking garage, which had confirmed what I suspected: Tyler had lied to me. Again. Why? I suspected it was because he and the black ops Plumber were engaged in illegal activity on Blair’s behalf. Something that could put me in danger if I discovered it. So here I sat babysitting the Paxtons and presenting an earnest, innocent front to the media while the real work went on silently, behind the scenes.

  I tried to sleep, but tossed restlessly, fueled by paranoia, fear, and the ebbing chemistry of Adderall. I hadn’t slept well in days, which made me pop even more pills at work to stay alert. That in turn fed my paranoia. I tried to calm down and think rationally. It was crazy to think that my employers were engaged in criminal activity or that one of the Paxtons had murdered Emily Mortimer, then Randall Downs, and concealed the crimes. It was crazy to lie here and even imagine snooping in their closets for evidence.

  I hated what this case was doing to me. And yet I felt an equally strong compulsion to know the truth. How could I represent this family with a clear conscience when I suspected them of all sorts of malfeasance? I’d never rest until I knew for sure. If what I was about to do was unethical or illegal, well, that was the price to be paid.

  Fired up now, I got
out of bed and dragged a chair into the closet. Taking care not to disturb anything, I slid the remaining boxes out. I knew I shouldn’t snoop, but I couldn’t help myself. I was desperate to penetrate this family’s secrets.

  There were school photos of Luke and Anabelle, tax forms, fifteen-year-old receipts and invoices, insurance documents. And shoe boxes filled with real shoes. But nothing that might connect Miranda Paxton to murder.

  Disappointed and sneezing from the dust, I crawled into bed with a book but soon fell into twitchy nightmare sleep where I stood before the cameras, reading a statement from Senator Paxton that made no sense. The reporters jeered and pointed, and the fat, tattooed cameramen focused their lenses on my chest, until I looked down and saw my breasts exposed in a crocheted lace top, sandy and wet with ocean water.

  26

  The room was sunk in gray-blue shadow when I woke. Cool air blew in through the open window, bringing the salt tides, the rhythmic hush of waves breaking nearby.

  For a moment, I felt I’d come home after a long journey.

  Then wakefulness hit, and I wanted to bury my head under the pillow.

  Instead, I threw back the sheet and rummaged through the bureau, finding a pair of nylon running shorts and a baggy T-shirt that advertised a local surf shop.

  Then I checked on Anabelle. She slept like a child, burrowed under piled-up covers, her breathing muffled and steady in the dove-gray light. How many times had we moved sleepily through this room, gathering our school things, moaning at the alarm that woke us at the “crap of dawn”?

  I popped an Adderall, then tiptoed down the stairs and unlatched the front door, slipping barefoot through the wet grass and down to the street. The last news vans had given up and gone home, leaving behind a trail of fast-food wrappers. A coyote loped away with the remains of a hamburger in its mouth.

  I walked back inside and stood in the kitchen, thinking about making a pot of coffee. From the bay window over the sink, I could see into the backyard and all the way to the servants’ quarters that Miranda had long ago converted to her art studio. The door was ajar. Surely she wouldn’t mind if I took a peek? I was curious, about her latest work. Unlocking the back door, I walked down the flagstone path to the studio.

  At the door I gave a little knock, not wanting to barge in uninvited if she’d come down here to work in peace while the rest of the house still slumbered.

  No answer.

  I waited a beat, then stepped inside.

  In the dim light, arms reached for me, raking my face. I screamed and put my hands up to shield my head while my bare foot connected with something hard. My attacker made a strange sound and wheeled away, spinning and clattering to the floor. Other shadowy forms loomed in the darkness, surrounding me.

  I turned to run out but tripped. As I scrambled to my knees, I felt something smooth and hard. Now another of the shadows was heading toward me. As it drew nearer, I tried to catch my breath to scream, but it was upon me too fast, an elongated arm reaching to grab me.

  “Help,” I called, scooting backward.

  Outside, a gate latch clicked and I heard hushed voices in Spanish.

  Beside me, there was a short intake of breath and a muffled curse.

  Then the world exploded, blinding me.

  When I could finally see once more, the room was ablaze in light. I blinked, trying to focus, and realized I was huddled in a corner next to a collapsed mannequin. The room was filled with a dozen more mannequins in aggressive and kinetic poses, staring out with eerily blank eyes.

  Luke stood before me, holding a fiberglass thigh and looking out the window at the approaching gardeners. For a moment, I thought he meant to club me.

  “Luke!” I gasped in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well,” he said gravely, lowering the limb, “this is my parents’ house. What are you doing here, slinking around Mom’s studio when the only thing up is the surf?”

  “Your family asked me to spend the night. I couldn’t sleep so I came out here to explore.”

  Somewhere outside, a rake scratched against hard earth. Metal screeched as a ladder was pulled open. Here in the back forty, away from the sleeping household, the gardeners started early.

  We listened to the reassuring sounds and Luke seemed to make up his mind about something. Tossing his weapon to the tile floor, where it clattered noisily, he said, “I came out this morning to see how everyone’s doing and catch some waves before work.” He grinned. “Instead I find you looking for clues, Samantha Spade.”

  Were there any to find?

  “Your mother’s artwork is infinitely creepy and fascinating. I wanted to check it out.”

  I examined the mannequins. Some had their hands clasped in sorrow, beseeching someone out of sight. Others kneeled in supplication, or lay back with legs splayed in suggestive poses. Their clothes were couture and office and bedroom attire, but always in disarray, torn and wounded. Many had grotesquely swollen lips or extra eyes and teeth, and strange Picasso faces.

  “I guess we’re both a little jumpy these days,” Luke said.

  Outside, night was giving up its ghosts. Inside, the studio lighting gave Luke a sickly pallor, his white teeth looking almost skeletal in the sharp planes of his face.

  “Sorry, I didn’t see your car out front,” I said.

  “I took the Greek Way. My car’s out back.”

  It was an old joke I hadn’t heard in years. I laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “You have.” He stared with appreciation at my thin, bleached-out T-shirt and I remembered that my bra was hanging in the shower where I’d left it to dry.

  “Come down with me to the beach,” he said.

  “I’m a little too old to sit on the sand and watch you surf.”

  “I don’t have to surf. We’ll take the kayak and paddle into the sunrise.”

  “I’m supposed to stay here and keep an eye on things. The media will be back soon.”

  “Come on! Live a little! Everyone except Dad the early bird will be asleep for hours. Mommy dearest has her pills and Anabelle doesn’t like mornings. No one will even know you were gone.”

  I thought about it. Would it be a dereliction of duty if my day hadn’t even started yet? I’d be back before anyone was awake. I’d have my phone in case of emergencies.

  I thought of my aborted date with Rob Turcotte. My ill-conceived and botched affair with Tyler.

  Was work always going to take precedence while life passed me by? What could it hurt, going out on the ocean with this gorgeous man who had feelings for me? It would be the most romantic thing I’d done in years.

  “I don’t know,” I hedged, wanting to be persuaded.

  “Please come with me, Maggie. It’ll just be the two of us, gliding through the Pacific. I’ll tell your boss I kidnapped you.”

  The image was not completely unpleasant, I thought, as I let him take my hand and tug me out.

  * * *

  The air was balmy, the sky lightening to an oyster-shell shimmer.

  Luke zipped me into a wet suit on the deserted sand, his breath raising the tiny hairs along my nape as he whispered, “I love the smell of a girl in tight rubber.”

  The kayak made a pleasing scrunch of sand against fiberglass as it shot into the surf. Cool water lapped against the hull. The only sound was the slow rush of tide, the plash of our paddles, and the call of seabirds.

  The air grew warmer as the sun crested the sea, turning the water bloodred. We were several hundred feet out now, the sun illuminating the sandstone cliffs, panning across palm trees and bougainvillea and purple-red ice plants with the deliberation of a cinematographer.

  For once, the beach didn’t freak me out. I felt my tension and despair melting as the air grew warmer. Tiny wavelets lapped at the hull, carrying away the fear and replacing it with the promise that all would come around in time.

  The marzipan cliffs dwindled as we drifted farther out. A few Lego cars dotted PCH now, surfers bo
bbing like slick, shiny crows in the waves. This far out, you could see the entire Santa Monica Bay, the white sand like a French manicured nail rimming its edge.

  Luke’s lazy voice drawled behind me. “I was up late last night watching an old Hitchcock movie and it got me to thinking. Ever consider how easy it would be to kill someone out here? Just hit ’em on the side of the head and over they go, into the drink.”

  Luke’s paddle flashed above my head. Instinctively I ducked. He laughed softly.

  “Your perfect surface is beginning to crack.”

  His arms came around me from behind to hug me. Suddenly, they tightened painfully.

  “Stop,” I screamed, trying to break free.

  Luke was trying to kill me.

  We struggled, and the boat began to rock violently. Luke tried to shove me down, screaming, “Stop fighting me or you’re going to capsize us both. Over there,” he pointed.

  A commotion in the sea resolved itself in a foaming swirl of white water as something rose out of the sea.

  I saw smooth, rubbery gray skin, fins, and teeth. Lord, the teeth. And a snub snout and cold, pitiless eyes. The shark breached, torquing in midair before belly flopping with a tremendous splash and disappearing into the sea.

  “Paddle!” Luke shouted. “Paddle fast!”

  The displaced water was hitting us now, slapping hard against the kayak. I grabbed the paddle I’d dropped while trying to wrestle out of Luke’s grasp and rowed with all my strength.

  “What the hell was that?” I panted between strokes.

  “I think it was a juvenile great white,” Luke said, his voice wavering.

  Confusion rushed through me. Luke hadn’t tried to kill me after all. He’d tried to save me. He’d seen the great white and reacted instinctively by trying to shield me with his body. The painful pressure I’d felt had been his limbs contracting in fear. Hadn’t it? I was so flinchy and paranoid that I didn’t trust anyone anymore. But I couldn’t trust my instincts either, because they were shot to hell.

  “Shark,” Luke yelled now at the top of his lungs at the surfers bobbing close to shore.