Damage Control: A Novel

by Denise Hamilton

  “He asked for you.”

  “Then at least let someone come with me.”

  “We can’t risk scaring him away.”

  “What if I get killed?”

  Faraday looked as though he’d failed to consider such an insignificant detail.

  He sucked his teeth. “That is not going to happen.”

  “I don’t want to be out there all alone if something goes wrong.”

  “If he gets even a whiff that you’ve got a tail, he’ll split. Look, Maggie,” Faraday wheedled. “Slattery says he didn’t do it. He says he’s got this ‘proof.’ We need to hear him out, not jump to conclusions.”

  “But you’re the one who’s said all along that he’s guilty.”

  “I’m willing to be proved wrong.”

  A wave of paranoia washed over me. Was Faraday setting me up? Would this provide a perfect opportunity to get rid of me because I’d asked too many questions? I didn’t trust any of them anymore. Not Blair. Not Faraday. Not Tyler. Especially not Tyler.

  * * *

  Faraday liked the idea of meeting at Union Station because it was a busy, public place with plenty of security. And even at night, the place would be well lit.

  As I squawked my opposition, determined to defy him, Faraday put an arm around me and led me outside.

  “This is just between you and me,” he said. “But one of our clients is a biotech firm that’s setting up a medical trial for a promising new chemo pill. They’ve gotten incredible results zapping breast tumors in mice. I can get your mother a slot on the trial.”

  I pulled away and stared at him.

  I recalled how I’d surfed the Internet for stories about promising medical trials and sent Mom several e-mails with attachments of what I’d found.

  Faraday’s large eyes held mine in alert silence.

  “Hmmmm?” he said at last.

  I shook my head in disgust. “I see. But only if I go meet Jake Slattery, is that right?”

  “A small token of gratitude. Yes.”

  I considered. We were still awaiting the biopsy. After that, if we had good news, she wouldn’t need any of this. But I had to hedge my bets. I needed a fallback plan. I needed to be prepared.

  “How do I know you could even swing it?” I said.

  “Think about all the different deals we cut at Blair.”

  “I want it in writing.”

  He grimaced. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. These matters are sensitive for everyone concerned. You’ll have to trust me.”

  I thought about it. If Faraday reneged, I’d have something unsavory on him. Again, I wondered how far up the chain of command the rot went. Did it reach all the way to Blair himself?

  When this was all over, I vowed to extricate myself from the Blair Company and look for a new job. But right now, there was too much at stake to quit. My mother’s health. Anabelle’s sanity. Henry’s senatorial seat. A budding romance with Luke.

  “All right,” I said wearily. “I’ll do it.”

  * * *

  I got to Union Station twenty minutes early and stood nervously inside the wrought iron and wood and beveled glass doors of the elegant Art Deco building. The place was nothing like Grand Central in New York, but a pretty good crossroads by L.A. standards, with a steady stream of people coming and going.

  I didn’t see anyone who resembled the photo I’d studied of Jake Slattery. I tarried a few moments longer, then sat down in a plush leather and wood chair where I could watch the flow of traffic.

  Nothing.

  At nine fifty-five, I strolled back to the main lobby and stood just inside, scanning faces and fending off taxi drivers and porters eager to help me. Ten o’clock came and went and Jake Slattery didn’t show.

  At ten forty, my phone rang.

  “I’m glad you know how to follow directions,” said Jake Slattery. “And by the way, that jade green blouse really suits you.”

  “Where are you?” I looked around, creeped out at the thought that he could be ten feet away or anywhere in the vast cavern of Union Station. He was obviously close enough to see what I was wearing.

  “Never mind that. I had to make sure you came alone. Now, I’ve got some new instructions. Are you ready? Because after we hang up, you need to turn off your cell phone. No texting or calling anyone. I’ll know if you’ve turned it on, see, and then I won’t show. These precautions are purely for my safety. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  * * *

  The moon was up by the time I neared the restaurant in Silver Lake where Jake Slattery had directed me. I’d been tempted to call Faraday from the car. How would Slattery ever know? But as afraid as I was of meeting Slattery alone, I was more afraid of Mom missing the opportunity to take part in that medical trial. And that kept my itchy fingers from the phone.

  I wondered if Faraday had managed to set a tail on me. If he had, it was a pretty invisible one. But I didn’t harbor any false hope.

  I was on my own.

  I drove by the restaurant twice, telling myself that if it was dark or deserted, I wouldn’t risk it. I’d drive right back to the office. But there were tables out front, with people eating and drinking even though it was almost midnight. I found a good spot across the street and parked.

  The restaurant was crowded with denizens of the night, artists and musicians who’d slept away the heat of the day and only recently woken up. I figured I’d join the throngs of people outside waiting for a table.

  I’d just locked my door when I felt a gun in my back.

  “Walk,” a male voice I recognized said, propelling me forward.

  Just then, a hipster couple rounded the corner and began moving toward me, leading a boxer on a leash.

  I wanted to scream, but I was afraid that Jake Slattery might shoot me. Instead, I threw the couple an alarmed help-call-911-I’m-about-to-be-murdered look. But they were busy averting their eyes and dragging off their dog, which was trying to poop on the sidewalk.

  Slattery slung an arm around my shoulder like we were a couple out for a stroll and I felt the gun move to my side. He was a little taller than I was and wore long sideburns, a trucker’s cap pulled low, and dark sunglasses.

  He maneuvered me off West Silver Lake Boulevard and onto a residential street.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound normal and conversational.

  I’d read once about a woman who’d been raped by a man who swore he’d kill her so she couldn’t testify against him. Desperate to establish a human connection, she’d kissed him as he assaulted her. Despite all odds, it had worked, and he’d left her, bleeding and violated on the side of the road, but alive.

  Slattery didn’t answer.

  “Why do you have a gun?” I said, trying again.

  He snorted. “Wouldn’t you, if you’d been framed for murder?”

  A numbness crept over me. I felt oddly disconnected from my body. My next words were cold and eerily calm.

  “If you didn’t kill Emily, maybe you should give yourself up. It only makes you look guilty if you hide.”

  Jake Slattery jerked me along angrily and the words rushed from him in a torrent. He seemed desperate to tell his story.

  “Are you serious? The police framed me, man. They planted that porn in my trailer. I didn’t kill her!”

  “The cops say you left threatening messages on Emily’s machine. She was afraid of you.”

  Slattery stopped abruptly. We’d walked a few blocks by now, past a nightclub called Spaceland where I’d once spent many happy evenings. We were in Silver Lake Park, hiking through the grass. There was no one around.

  He turned, his face illuminated in the streetlight.

  “I loved Emily,” Slattery said. “That was my baby she was carrying. You think I’d kill my own child?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said, wondering if he would shoot me if I ran. The swings wouldn’t provide much cover. Would bullets penetrate the plastic of the jungle gym? />
  I said, “Why don’t you write a letter to the cops, laying out what you just told me.”

  “I did,” he said bitterly. “Made no difference. You think they’re going to take my word over a U.S. senator’s?”

  “So how am I supposed to help you? Do you know who killed Emily?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Oh, no. I save that for the cameras. That’s my insurance. When I saw you on TV, it gave me the idea.”

  Slattery’s gun arm was starting to droop.

  “What idea?”

  “I want you to represent me. Get me on some TV shows. I can’t pay you right now, but I’m good for it. I’m going to write a book, blow the lid off this conspiracy.”

  “What conspiracy?”

  He wagged a finger at me. “You can’t trick me.”

  I tried another tack. “My firm already represents Senator Paxton. It would be a conflict of interest for us to take you on as a client.”

  “You’ll be singing a different tune once you hear my story. You’re honest, I can tell. I’m a good judge of character. I’ll give you just one taste. Those drugs they found in Emily’s apartment? They were planted. She was no addict.”

  So Slattery didn’t know that his girlfriend regularly bought prescription drugs for Senator Paxton.

  “Maybe she bought them for someone else,” I said. “Does the name Stephen Ivan Dumbrowski ring any bells?”

  “Who?”

  The gun rose, wavering in Slattery’s hand.

  “Could you please put that away? I wouldn’t want there to be an accident.”

  Slattery regarded the gun. “Sorry about that, back at the restaurant. I just needed to get you somewhere a little more private.”

  “You could have tried asking nicely.”

  He snorted. “Like you would have done it.”

  But he lowered the gun.

  “Thanks. So what’s your proof?”

  “I told you I’m saving it for TV.”

  He paused, cocked his head. “What’s that noise?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  His gun went back up.

  “Move,” he said, hauling me back toward Spaceland. Inside the club, a band was in full throttle. The music was loud, jangly, raucous. At least there were people here. Hundreds of them. But they were all inside.

  Slattery led me to the back of the club, by the parking lot. The music grew louder.

  “That senator?” said Jake Slattery. “He’s rotten through and through. It’s—”

  Shots exploded near my right ear. I shrieked and threw myself to the ground. A wave of cold, sweaty nausea washed through me.

  And then Tyler was standing over me, breathing heavily, arms extended, hands clasped around a gun, ready to fire again.

  But Jake had disappeared.

  Tyler turned, the gun tracking through the parked cars and the darkness, looking for Jake.

  “Did he hurt you?” Tyler asked.

  “I . . . I don’t think so.”

  With trembling hands, I felt my limbs to make sure. Everything was fine. I tried to get to my feet but my knees collapsed.

  Tyler moved back and forth, shining a tiny flashlight on the ground, into bushes, between cars, looking for something. Then he walked back.

  “Take my hand. We have to get out of here. Someone may have heard the gunshots over the music.”

  His fingers tightened around mine as he led me back to the street.

  * * *

  I have no memory of getting to my car, but the next thing I knew Tyler was driving and I was in the passenger seat.

  “Are we going to the police?” I said.

  “I’m driving you back to the office. We’ll tell Faraday what happened and he’ll decide.”

  In my whacked-out state, this seemed eminently reasonable.

  “What about your car?” I said.

  “I’ll have one of the security guys pick it up.”

  I slumped against the seat and hugged my elbows.

  Tyler kept shooting me looks and asking if I was okay.

  Right before we got on the freeway, with the on-ramp already in sight, he turned down a residential street.

  “I thought we were going back to the office,” I said.

  Tyler drove a few blocks. The houses grew more run-down, with parched lawns and broken windows. He pulled over, put the car in park, and got out. Then he walked around to the back of the car. The skin on my neck started to crawl and I twisted around to watch him. I wondered where he’d put the gun and whether this was the moment at which I should jump out and run shrieking away. I didn’t have many instincts left to trust anymore. Tyler had rescued me. And yet . . . He was around the car now and heading toward the passenger seat where I sat, still strapped in. Would he shoot me and leave my body in the car? But that didn’t make sense. What would police think if they found me dead in the passenger seat of my own car? He opened the door and leaned in and unbuckled my seat belt.

  “Get up.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to make sure you’re okay and I don’t have to take you to the hospital.”

  He ignored my protestations that I was fine.

  I let him pull me to standing. His eyes flickered up and down my length and he ran his palm along my side, turning me completely around. I thought I saw his eyes flutter with relief.

  Then his arms wrapped around me and his hands caressed my hair. He laid his cheek against mine and I could feel him trembling.

  “He’s not going to risk your life again, Maggie. I won’t let him. I don’t care if he fires me.”

  I stood there, only partially registering his words, wondering why I felt so stiff and wooden.

  Tyler pulled back, examining me with concern.

  Unable to bear the intensity of his gaze, I turned away, blinking.

  “Of course! How stupid of me, Maggie. You’re in shock. Let’s get back in the car now. I promise it’ll be okay.”

  I thought about how people had said that to me all my life when things got bad and how it was never, ever true. Beyond that, I didn’t think much. My brain was a vast, blank emptiness.

  * * *

  We were almost to West L.A. when an important thought finally dislodged from my subconscious and drifted to the surface.

  “Tyler, how did you know where I was?”

  There was a long pause. “Faraday sent me,” he said at last.

  “But how did he know? My phone was turned off. No GPS. Did you follow me from Union Station?”

  “Too obvious. Slattery might have spotted it.”

  “So how . . . ?”

  Tyler gave me a lazy smile. “Faraday put a tracking device on the undercarriage of your car.”

  I shook my head. “What a clever bastard.”

  “It was my idea.”

  “And what were your instructions?”

  “To make sure nothing happened.”

  Now there was a comment that could be taken several ways.

  “And he gave you a gun to make sure?” I said dryly.

  “It’s mine. Got a permit and everything. I told you that the other night.”

  Tyler fell silent.

  For a moment we both pondered how far things had gone since that night. What a bad judge of character I’d been.

  “When I saw him waving the gun, I was afraid he was going to kill you,” Tyler said at last.

  “What if you killed him?”

  “He ran off. There was no body. No blood. I didn’t even hit him.”

  “What if you did and he’s wounded?”

  Tyler gave me a sardonic look. “Even if he goes to a hospital, it’s not like he’s going to use his real name. He knows the police are looking for him. And hospitals have to report gunshot wounds.”

  I thought about this.

  “I guess he can’t exactly file a police report.”

  Tyler shrugged. “If it ever came down to that, I’d claim self-defense.” He gave me a shrewd look. “You were there. You’d ba
ck me up.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably.

  Then I thought about how Jake Slattery had heard something at the park.

  “How long did you listen to us before you fired?”

  “I’d only just found you.”

  “Did you hear any part of our conversation?”

  Tyler hesitated, then shook his head.

  “Slattery said Emily’s murder was part of a conspiracy. He said Senator Paxton was crooked. He was starting to explain when you began shooting.”

  Tyler absorbed this news. He looked stricken.

  “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  I swallowed hard. “Nothing. I guess. It’s just . . . Yeah, Slattery had a gun. And he used it to maneuver me away from the restaurant. But I don’t think he would have—”

  “He abducted you with a deadly weapon. That’s some serious felonies right there.”

  “He was freaked out that no one believed his story. He wanted me to broker him a TV interview deal. He swears he didn’t kill his girlfriend. And now we’ll never know. He’s not going to resurface. We blew it.”

  Tyler’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing. Unable to stop, I went on.

  “I mean, look, if you feared for my life, why didn’t you just call nine one one when you realized what was going on?”

  Tyler looked as if he couldn’t believe my ingratitude. “They wouldn’t have arrived in time. I had to make a split-second decision.”

  We were nearing the Blair Building now. It was one a.m. And suddenly, the last thing I wanted was to face Faraday.

  I had nothing to tell him. Tyler had scared Slattery away before he said anything worthwhile. And with Slattery gone, so was all hope of getting my mom on board the cancer drug trial. I knew without having to ask that my deal with Faraday was off.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “Pull up in front and you can get out. I’m going home.”

  Tyler looked surprised but did as I asked. As I slid out of the car and walked to the driver’s side, glad that my legs were once more following my brain, Tyler regarded me with concern.

  “I think you’re making a mistake, Maggie. He’s been waiting all night to hear what you have to say.”

  “Then tell him what happened. I’ve got nothing beyond that.”

  Tyler stepped closer, as if to kiss me good-bye, and I sidestepped him.