The Fox's Choice

by M A Simonetti

  “Thank you, Cecelia,” I said to the maid. “Mr. Lafferty was just leaving.”

  “I’ll have the valet bring your car around, Mr. Lafferty.”

  Richard picked his teacup up and drained it.

  “We’re not done with this conversation, Alana,” Richard said. “We have to come up with a plan for you to meet your living expenses until your money is recovered.”

  “I have things under control, Richard,” I lied. At the same time, I felt comfort in knowing I could turn to him as soon as my stubbornness subsided.

  “You know where to find me.”

  “I do.”

  “I will go then. Keep your phone handy in case the cops show up.”

  I watched him leave and wondered why I didn’t ask him to stay. And then got busy looking for my damn phone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A life of total luxury sounds great until you actually live it.

  Once Richard left and Jorjana was busy with her physical therapy, I was on my own. I returned to my suite to find the bed made, a new bottle of Chardonnay restocked in the fridge and my clothes cleaned and pressed. I honestly had nothing to do.

  I entertained myself for about a minute looking for my phone. I found it exactly where it should have been- recharging in its docking station. I had a million emails.

  I hate answering emails on my phone. I prefer to handle my digital correspondence seated in front of my computer with a cup of coffee at hand. Unfortunately the cops still had my laptop from my beach house, not that they were using it to trace my missing money. I would probably get it back smudged with fingerprint powder and not so much as a ‘sorry’ for the mess.

  I thought about wandering down to the York library and asking Franklin for the use of his computer but that would require listening to the lecture that I just knew he was dying to deliver to me.

  I did have another option -I rent a cute little office in the Malibu Town Center. It is a comfortable place to meet with clients and lends a bit of professionalism to my image. It is just two little rooms but one of them has my other computer. Sadly the rent for the cute space was yet another expense that I did not have the money to pay for. All the more reason to get back to work.

  But first, transportation. Fortunately I knew just where to find it.

  The security office for the York Estate is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my bedroom suite. I found Rusty hard at work with his feet up on his desk and a plate of Danish balanced on his stomach.

  “I’m not interrupting anything am I?” I asked him.

  “Coffee break,” Rusty said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to go to my office for a little bit,” I said. “Can I borrow a car?”

  “You know you’re not allowed to leave without a guard, right?”

  “Allowed? What am I? Six years old?”

  “No, you are a grown woman who was abducted against her will and found drugged at a murder scene. Whoever killed Zane Daniels is still out there and as long as that is the case, you are in danger, Mrs. Fox.”

  Every independent bone in my body screamed that I did not need a babysitter. Not to mention the gossip that would ensue if anyone saw me being driven around town with a York security guard. I had my pride and my reputation to protect. The lingering pain in my hip made me reconsider. If nothing else, I have a strong sense of self-preservation. I agreed to the guard.

  “Good choice, Mrs. Fox,” Rusty said. “I’ll send my best guy with you.”

  Rusty’s guy met me at the front door. A York valet brought around a sturdy Range Rover and we were on our way.

  The drive into downtown Malibu takes all of ten minutes. Nine of them are spent winding your way down the hill from the York Estate. Jorjana’s home is not unique in this. Every home in Malibu has to deal with one geographical or weather related difficulty or another. Homes built on the beach like mine, are constantly pounded by Pacific storms that eat away at foundations and swallow up decks. I, myself, have replaced my deck three times in ten years. This is why my insurance agent is number seven on my speed dial.

  Malibu homes that are perched high in the canyons can boast of spectacular views- the better to see the wild fires racing towards them. Malibu homes nestled at the base of the canyon are in danger of being buried in the mudslides that always follow the wildfires. You must be made of tough stuff to live in Malibu. And have an extensive home insurance policy. Yet another bill I couldn’t pay.

  As Rusty’s guy drove the Range Rover down the hill, I remembered that I still had to figure out how to haul elephants up the hill for Jorjana’s party. Which was less than two weeks away. If nothing else, solving that problem would distract me from my own set of problems.

  The Malibu Town Center is a two-story U-shaped building designed in the Spanish Colonial style. The ground floor houses a better-than-average coffee shop, a jewelry store and a women’s boutique. The second floor is accessed by a set of outdoor stairs and a wrap-around balcony leads to the business offices. My little office is a corner suite that is light and airy and still private enough to meet publicity shy clients.

  We parked and Rusty’s guy agreed to keep an eye out for prospective bad guys from the comfort of the coffee shop. Silently I questioned just how this strategy would keep me safe. But I made my way upstairs without incident, opened the door to my office and was startled to find David Currie in the waiting area.

  “Darling! How are you today?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  My heart pounded like David had jumped out from behind a bush. I took a deep breath and told myself to calm down. It wasn’t like David never popped into my office without warning.

  When David is not busy with Jorjana and me, he works as the office manager for an outfit called Errands, Etc. His workplace is just two doors down from my office. He does have a key to my place. But he had no reason to be in my office unless he was waiting for me.

  “Rusty called me, darling, and asked me to keep an eye on you. You don’t mind a little company do you?”

  No wonder I was allowed to wander so easily off the York Estate. And why the guard took up a post downstairs.

  David smiled at me like a St. Bernard puppy with his big brown eyes. I knew him well enough to see the concern behind the smile. I could only imagine the phone calls that went on behind my back between David and Jorjana as they colluded to keep me safe.

  I should have been grateful. Instead I resented the situation I found myself in-with security guards watching my every move and my friends not letting me out of their sight. But the sting in my hip reminded me why I was in the situation in the first place. And I am decent enough to appreciate the love of my friends. So I told myself to be gracious and I gave David a hug. His return hug calmed me.

  “I’m glad you are here, David. Come on in.”

  I opened the door to the inner office and settled at my desk. A big picture window behind the desk looks out over the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) to the Pacific Ocean beyond. It brings a lot of natural light into the room, which normally I love. But something made me lower the shade. To hide me from eyes that might peer in.

  This new attention to privacy gave me pause. And I resented that too.

  “I have work to do, darling,” David said. “You just go ahead there and I will work right here.”

  David plopped down in one of the client chairs and pulled out his phone. I often kid David that his phone is his fifth appendage- he is never without it and he works it like a master. I admire his proficiencies with the technology but I need a bigger space to think in. I fired up my computer, pulled my paper calendar out of my bag and went to work.

  My clients hire me to gain access to social circles that would take them years to infiltrate on their own. If at all. Malibu society is tough to join. Most people think of movie stars cavorting half-naked on beaches when they think of Malibu. Or of celebrities stumbling out of places like Nobu with paparazzi chasing them down PCH. There is that element, it is true, a
nd the paparazzi are a real menace these days, but the true Malibu society is not found cavorting on beaches or drinking themselves silly at Nobu. The inner sanctum of Malibu society is found living quietly, far from the lenses of the paparazzi. The real power players in town keep to themselves and are highly suspicious of outsiders. That is where I come in. I know what everyone really does as opposed to what everyone admits to doing. I know who is sleeping with whom and who is related to whom. The latter info is most important given how many times people marry and divorce around here.

  My job is to allow my clients cross paths with other like-minded individuals. I do this by inserting them into social events that they would not have access to without me. I host small luncheons in local restaurants, I organize a charity event, I arrange shopping excursions complete with a chauffeur and plenty of champagne in the limo. I get my clients booked with the tennis pro, the golf pro or the mahjong instructors. On most Sundays Jorjana and I host a brunch for one hundred or so at the York Estate. In all of these settings, my clients are introduced to members of the Malibu elite.

  I don’t do any of this without doing my homework, however. My reputation would be in shreds if I inserted a nobody into my social circles. So I do my research- people who hire me must be referred to me by someone I know or stand up to my snooping around into their backgrounds. This all takes a lot of time. And I had lost a lot of time lately trying to get elephants delivered for Jorjana’s party.

  I made a note to research how to transport elephants.

  David and I worked in silence for the better part of an hour when I heard the outer door to my office open. I did not have an appointment scheduled. I felt my heart race again. I glanced behind me to see if I could escape through the picture window.

  Resentment rose. I so wanted my old life back.

  My desk is situated so I can see clients as they enter the outer room. A frosted glass door separates the two spaces but the design etched in the glass allows me a clear view. The outer door opened all the way and the York security guard entered, followed by a man who appeared to be in his late 30’s.

  “Mrs. Fox, someone wants to see you,” Rusty’s guy said to my closed inner door. “He says he has something urgent to tell you. I patted him down. He’s clean.”

  I looked at David who shrugged.

  “Send him in,” I said. “But please stay.”

  The inner door opened and the stranger entered.

  I put his age around 35-40. He was in good shape, on the tall side with the broad shoulders of a swimmer. He was dressed casually in jeans and V-neck sweater over a T-shirt. He looked weary.

  He also looked familiar.

  This stranger was a dead ringer for my father.

  “My name is Bradley Bennett,” the stranger said. “I’m your half-brother. Zane Daniels was my son.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You are Teresa Bennett, aren’t you?” Bradley Bennett asked.

  “My name is Alana Fox. Teresa Bennett doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “But you were Teresa Bennett? When you were a girl?”

  David was so still in his chair that I wondered if he was breathing. It felt oddly intrusive to have him there, as if the worst parts of my life had been printed up into a headline for all to see. Until the last forty-eight hours, Jorjana and my ex-husband were the only people in my adult life that knew the whole story of my childhood and why I changed my name when I went to college.

  I last answered to Teresa Bennett at my mother’s funeral because my flock of aunts refused to call me Alana.

  Teresa Bennett was my past. Why was she showing up now?

  “My name is Alana Fox. Call me Alana or get the hell out.”

  Bradley Bennett was not fazed by my directness. In fact, he almost smiled which made him look so much like my father that I felt my head spin. I hadn’t seen Jack Bennett in forty years and yet I recognized that bemused expression like I had just had a drink with him the day before. Or a waffle at Denny’s.

  “Yes, of course. Alana. May I sit down? I have a lot to explain to you.”

  David jumped up then and pulled the client chair forward. Very accommodating, David was. And then he settled himself right back down. David wasn’t going to miss this for the world.

  “Start explaining.” I sounded rude. I meant to be. I didn’t even introduce David whose eyebrows rose up to his hairline.

  “I’ve wondered about you all my life,” Bradley Bennett began. “I always hoped we would meet one day but I also hoped it would be under happy circumstances.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything,” I said.

  Still rude. Still meant it.

  “You seemed surprised. You never knew about me?”

  “No.”

  “You never wondered about our dad and what his life was like?”

  This guy was trying what little patience I had left. I was not Teresa Bennett of Clarkstown anymore. I left her behind thirty-two years before and that was eight years after I had last seen my father. Yeah, I wondered what had happened. I wondered where the hell my father had been all my life.

  I said so to Bradley Bennett.

  It was his turn to be surprised. “But they wouldn’t let dad in to see you.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Your mother’s family. Dad tried for years to drive to Clarkstown to see you and the cops always blocked the roads so he couldn’t get into town. Didn’t you know?”

  No, I hadn’t known. My mother came from a large family- she was one of ten children. Ten really close knit siblings that had been infuriated when my father left their sister. My Uncle Donald was the town sheriff and he had a mean streak. It would have been just like him to block the roads to keep someone out.

  But it was also like Uncle Donald to have planned a funeral procession all though Clarkstown to honor my mother as she was laid to rest. Who was I supposed to believe- an uncle who protected my family or this stranger that just waltzed in the door? And whose son had stolen my money.

  David sensed my confusion.

  “Bradley, why don’t you tell your story to me? I haven’t heard any of this so you won’t be confused by what you think Alana already knows. Is that OK with you, darling?”

  I nodded yes.

  I tried to loosen my grip on the arms of my chair. It occurred to me that breathing might be a good idea. Bradley turned and talked to David.

  “Jack Bennett is my father. And Teresa, uh, I mean Alana’s dad, too. He started a medical practice in Sacramento that was designed to treat patients with traditional Western medicine as well as alternative medicine like acupuncture and chiropractic. This was back in the seventies and was considered very cutting edge, if not crazy. But my dad really believed in this approach so he left his practice in Clarkstown to join. Shortly after he and Alana’s mother divorced. My mom is a chiropractor. When she joined the practice she had a son- my half-brother Keith. I think dad may have told you about Keith, right?”

  I nodded, recalling that last meeting at Denny’s. My father had presented the idea of a brother to me the same way a parent bribes a kid with the promise of a puppy.

  “Anyway, Dad and my mom fell in love and got married and had me. And the whole time while I was growing up, I had this sister that was never there. My earliest memory is driving down Highway 99 with Dad and Mom and Keith on our way to see Teresa. Dad would drop Mom and Keith and me off at a park in Stockton with a picnic lunch and promise to come back with her. Keith and I would play soccer and Mom would read and Dad always came back from Clarkstown alone.”

  This stranger in fJimt of me had known about me his entire life. Yet I had never known about him. I felt like a voyeur had followed me through my life. I wondered if this was how celebrities felt when fans claimed to know everything about them. I wondered why it had taken him so long to seek me out.

  “I was about six when Dad gave up,” Bradley went on. “He drove by himself to Stockton to go to your high school graduation but he was stopped for
allegedly speeding and thrown in jail. The cops said he resisted arrest and they roughed him up enough that he ended up in the hospital.”

  “Good heavens! Was you father frightened away then?” David asked.

  “You would think,” Bradley replied. “But no, he gave up because he couldn’t find Teresa anymore. It wasn’t until Rosalie died that he learned that Teresa had changed her name.”

  “Rosalie?” David asked.

  “My mother,” I explained. “She died when I was thirty. The obituary mentioned that I had changed my name.”

  I paused, remembering. The actual obituary had read “Rosalie Clark Bennett is survived by her husband Dr. Jack Bennett and her daughter Alana Fox, the former Teresa Bennett and…”

  My mother’s family never accepted the divorce. The argument that I had with my aunt Mary over the wording of the obituary resulted in compromise -my new name went in and the divorce did not.

  “Why didn’t he hire a lawyer to get to see me?” I asked Bradley.

  “It was the 70’s,” Bradley answered. “He had a new medical practice to establish and he was divorced. That was a stigma back then. He couldn’t risk any bad publicity that may have come out. Plus, he couldn’t afford an attorney. He and my mom and their partners put all the money they had into getting the new practice off the ground. He did what he could. I’m telling you, we spent hours driving back and forth on the weekends trying to see you. I didn’t get to join a swim team until I was seven.”

  That last little fact seemed to stick in his craw.

  “So Daddy gave up the search for his daughter and you joined the swim team and everything was fine, hmmm? You have a son of your own now? Zane, something?”

  David managed to deliver this prompt without it sounding snarky at all. I tried to remember if David knew who Zane Daniels was. Who had been where at Jorjana’s when the cops showed up? And another wave of confusion hit me as I wondered again how the son of the half-brother that I never knew I had was also the guy who was dead.