The Last Embrace Read online

  Critical Acclaim for Denise Hamilton and Her Stylish, Captivating Novels

  “An edgy evocation of postwar, hard-boiled L.A., à la James Ellroy…An unlikely combination of sweet and savory, but Hamilton makes it work with an engaging heroine and a cast of quirky supporting characters who seem to have walked off the set of Sunset Boulevard.”

  —Booklist on The Last Embrace

  “So much freshness and sass…comparisons with Raymond Chandler aren’t too far out of line.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Sexy and exciting.”

  —Janet Fitch, New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander on Last Lullaby

  “Like Raymond Chandler, Hamilton describes California in gritty, lyrical prose; like Sue Grafton, she shows a tough-skinned, tenderhearted heroine breaking a few rules.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A seductive tale…sharp, smart, and powerful stuff.”

  —Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Another Thing to Fall on Last Lullaby

  “One of the brightest new talents to enter crime fiction over the last few years.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Decades after my introduction to Christie, I’m still hooked on crime novels. I love the books by Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, Sara Paretsky, George Pelecanos, James Crumley, and Denise Hamilton.”

  —Carol Memmott, USA Today

  ALSO BY DENISE HAMILTON

  Los Angeles Noir

  Prisoner of Memory

  Savage Garden

  Last Lullaby

  Sugar Skull

  The Jasmine Trade

  SCRIBNER

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Denise Hamilton

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hamilton, Denise.

  The last embrace / Denise Hamilton.

  p. cm.

  1. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. 2. United States—History—1945–1953—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.A68C65 2008

  813'.6—dc22 2007043759

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0551-1

  ISBN-10: 1-4391-0551-0

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  This one’s for the booksellers

  and for

  Ray Harryhausen

  whose magic enchants us still

  THE LAST EMBRACE

  CHAPTER 1

  Hollywood—October 7, 1949

  It felt like she’d been running for days. With each step, a searing pain shot through her ankle. Her pace was jagged and she wanted to bend down and shuck off the other shoe, but there was no time, he was closing in, his breathing heavy and excited.

  She’d screamed when the man lunged out from between storefronts. The street was well lit, that’s why she’d taken this route home. Just a bunch of tidy little shops, the occasional night owl walking a dog.

  But the shopkeepers had already locked up and no one was out tonight. He’d grabbed her, and she’d wobbled and twisted her heel. His fingers had slid off her padded shoulder.

  Staggering free, she’d balanced on her good foot and kicked. The strap broke as her shoe flew through the air and connected with his groin. The man doubled over with a grunt.

  Then time had slowed to one of those black-and-white movie stills she plastered on her bedroom walls. She’d felt herself floating above her body, seeing everything from a great distance. Her attacker staggering, clutching himself while she wobbled on one heel, torn between shrieking and sprinting away. In the way of nightmares, she could only do one.

  The man had straightened, an acrid, black-rubber smell rising from him. Then instinct had kicked in and she’d started running.

  She had to get back to the Boulevard. It was late, but there might be someone on the sidewalk, cars on the road. Laughter and jazz drifting out of supper clubs. While here there was only the wind roaring in her ears.

  A hand reached for her arm. She twisted and her jacket tore, buttons of carved bone popping along her front. She swung her purse, heard a satisfying crack, felt droplets splatter her cheeks.

  The Boulevard was closer now, but her ankle throbbed and weakened with every step. A car horn shattered the silence and suddenly she was there, the headlights and neon dancing behind her eyes. If she dashed into the street, a car might hit her. She turned, skittering over the embedded sidewalk stars. The man put on a burst of speed and made a last desperate swipe, his fingers sliding through her hair.

  “Help!” she screamed, spying two well-dressed men in a twilit doorway.

  Startled, they moved apart. The red neon sign above their heads read THE CROW’S NEST.

  “Help, oh God, help me.”

  “Sirs, please!” came a man’s voice behind her. “It’s my wife. She’s been drinking again…must get her safely home.”

  The voice dropped, grew wheedling and reproachful. “Come back, dearest. You know no one’s going to hurt you.”

  “He’s not my husband,” she screamed. “Oh, someone, please help me!”

  The men in front of the Crow’s Nest slunk away and disappeared. She ran to the door and yanked, but it was locked. From inside, she heard music and laughter. She pounded, crying “Help!” but took off running as the slap of feet drew near.

  Up ahead, a car slowed for a red light.

  “Wassamatter, miss?” called a voice from the open window.

  It was a black Studebaker, the driver leaning over, holding something aloft that reflected off the streetlight.

  A shout went up behind her. “Sir! Grab her, please. She’s not well.”

  The man in the car cruised alongside. He was alone. Without thinking further, she reached for the door handle and hauled herself into the backseat, slamming home the lock.

  Ahead, the light turned green. With a screech of tires, the car took off. Braced against the leather upholstery, she tried to catch her breath. The car’s backseat was bigger than the Murphy bed in her apartment.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  In the gloom of the car, she saw only the outline of her rescuer’s head. The streetlights flickered past, making a jerky magic lantern inside the car. She saw a hat, checked jacket, square-cut jaw. Smelled cigars and leather.

  “Well, well,” the man said, “Do you always tumble so spontaneously into strangers’ cars?”

  She gave a wet hiccuping cry. Her ankle was swelling and throbbing in excruciating rhythm with her heart.

  “A m-man chased me down the street,” she stammered. “He wanted to…”—she squirmed at the memory—“to do me harm.”

  The man’s voice cut across the music on the car radio. “Good thing I came along.”

  “Who are you?”

  He tossed back the thing he’d flashed from the car. She caught it, ran her thumb along the embossed surface. A badge. Was it real, or a studio prop? Its very curves, the cold metal in her hand, unnerved her.

  He passed back a silver flask. “Calm your nerves.”

  His hand was large. A man’s ring, set with a s
tone and a crest, adorned his middle finger.

  She took a slug, confused about how close she’d come to being killed. No young woman in Los Angeles could forget Betty Short’s murder two years earlier. The one the press had nicknamed the Black Dahlia. For every girl who’d ever walked home to an empty apartment, accepted a date with a man she didn’t know well, waited at a bus stop after dark, the fear still lurked, stronger at times, dimmer at others, but always the same refrain: It could have been me. It could have been so many young women I know. And they never did catch him.

  She had her own reasons to be wary.

  “You’re some kind of detective,” she said, putting together the badge, the unmarked car, the plainclothes. She still hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. “You should arrest that animal before he attacks another girl.”

  The man snorted. “You’ve just blown my stakeout sky-high. I should blow my cover too?”

  “That’s what cops do, isn’t it?” she said thickly. If they were honest. If they listened to what a gal told them and did their job. “That man would have killed me. I could tell.”

  He appraised her in the rearview, in that clinical way cops did. There was something about his eyes, she wondered where she’d seen him before. On the studio lot? At a nightclub? The Hollywood Police Station?

  Self-conscious, she scrubbed at her cheeks. Glancing down, she saw the popped buttons and covered herself. She felt queasy, but she could handle it, only a few more days.

  “…a damsel in distress,” the driver was saying. “Aren’t I lucky.”

  There was a gloating, hungry tone to his voice.

  The big car turned smoothly to the right. She felt suddenly that she was on a tilt-a-wheel and wanted to get off.

  “If you could drop me at the nearest police station, I’d appreciate it,” she said. “Hollywood. Is that where you’re based?”

  “No.”

  She angled the badge, trying to read it, but the streetlamps did not cooperate.

  “Then what are you doing here? I intend to make a full report, you know.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  Alarmed, she scooted over on the plush leather, snicked up the lock button.

  “Oh, all right, police station it is,” the driver said, his voice mocking. “I hate to disappoint a pretty girl.”

  Instead the car turned again, pulled to the curb, and stopped.

  The man slung his arm across the seat and turned. For the first time, she saw his fleshy, handsome face. Again, it triggered some memory.

  “Why are we stopping?” she asked, her hand sliding to the door handle.

  Her senses thrummed with distrust. But after all, he had rescued her.

  The man held up an empty pack of cigarettes. “I’m all out of smokes,” he said, crumpling the paper in his big hand.

  She scanned for a newsstand or a liquor store but saw only dark, shuttered buildings, a restaurant at the far end of the block with taxis lined up.

  She looked back at the driver, not liking the look that was spreading like a grease stain over his face. Her fingers tightened around the handle, about to fling it wide. And then she must have done so, because the door swung out. As she steeled her body to flee again, a figure loomed outside and she smelled the acrid odor of black rubber.

  The man climbed in, shoving her across the length of the backseat. She hit the far door and began groping blindly for the handle.

  “Sorry about that,” the newcomer said. “The little minx isn’t getting away this time.”

  There. She’d found it. She pressed with all her weight and the door flew open. She tumbled from the moving car, ready to hit the ground and run again. “Help!” she screamed into the night. “Save me!”

  CHAPTER 2

  October 11, 1949

  Lily Kessler stood at the open window and breathed in the tart green oils riding the breeze. The desert had given way to citrus groves when the train hit Riverside. The glass was warm to the touch, the sky an azure dome with only a few tattered clouds. All of it bathed in a pure intoxicating white light. Lily had forgotten about the quality of the light in Southern California, how it illuminated the landscape. She hadn’t seen this kind of brilliance for five years in Europe, except on the Greek islands, where the sun reflected off the glittering Aegean.

  But the Santa Fe Super Chief was still two hours inland, miles to go before pulling into Union Station downtown, and Lily knew that the Pacific Ocean tossing in restless slumber off the coast reflected only vast cold depths. Images of her hometown washed over her. Los Angeles. With its sugar-white beaches, pastel bungalows with red tile roofs, hillsides already parched and brown by early autumn. Lily had never intended to return—the place held ghosts and shadows that no amount of sunshine could dispel. And yet here she was.

  It was all because of Joseph. She’d met U.S. Army Major Joseph Croggan while working at the OSS London office during the Blitz and they’d started a torrid affair, aware that each night might end in flames, each morning might mean good-bye. Following the German surrender, they’d tracked down Nazi spies and collaborators across the Continent, then stayed on with the new Central Intelligence Agency and made plans to marry. Instead, Joseph was dead, killed eight months ago in a freak car accident in Budapest. Reckless and reeling with grief, Lily had begged for a new mission. Instead, she found herself exiled to a desk job. Lady spies weren’t needed anymore, thank you very much. With Hitler vanquished, the Old Boys were reasserting control.

  By the summer of 1949, Lily knew she had to go home. She saw Joseph’s silhouette on every street corner, envisioned a dreary career filing the reports of less experienced male spies. So she’d quit. Arriving back in the United States only a week ago, her first stop had been the cornfields of Champaign, Illinois, where she’d delivered Joseph’s effects to his widowed mother. Lily had planned to stay three days, then take the train to New York City, where a former OSS colleague had offered a couch and a job lead.

  Then her plans had crumbled to dust once more.

  The train rushed forward, beating a conga line of syncopation in her head. Lily let it envelop her, swaying to its rhythms, hurtling through space while she pondered the mission bringing her back to Los Angeles. She imagined the rails stuttering Doreen Croggan, Doreen Croggan, Doreen Croggan. A girl she’d never met who would have become her sister-in-law. A girl who’d come to Hollywood dreaming of stardom in 1944, around the same time Lily had fled in the opposite direction. A girl who’d graduated from walk-on roles to a studio contract, changed her name to Kitty Hayden, and seemed awash with prospects, right up until last week when she’d disappeared into the L.A. air.

  After five years of living in bombed-out Europe, the midwestern tranquillity of Illinois had seemed like another planet. Lily found it hard to stop looking over her shoulder as she and Mrs. Croggan walked to the cemetery to lay flowers on Joseph’s grave. On the way home, Lily examined people on the street for hidden weapons while Mrs. Croggan pointed out landmarks: the quarry where Joseph and his kid sister, Doreen, swam each summer, the hill where Joseph crashed his bike and chipped his front tooth, the market that sold the coldest pop and creamiest strawberry ice cream.

  After dinner, Mrs. Croggan brought out a pitcher of lemonade and they flipped through photo albums. Joseph had been a serious child. Doreen was a leggy, pigtailed tomboy with a mischievous smile who could shimmy up trees like a monkey and outrun all the boys. Here she was with an oriole perched on her shoulder. Lily recognized the photo—Joseph had carried a dog-eared copy in his wallet.

  “You’re going to love my sister,” he’d said, pulling it out one night in a Vienna coffeehouse and giving her that earnest, crooked smile. “I can’t wait for you to meet her. You remind me of her, she’s absolutely fearless, and she hates like hell to see people get pushed around. This little bird.” Joseph stroked the photo, chuckling. “God, I remember him. Orville the Oriole. She found him half-dead in the yard, being stalked by the neighbor’s cat, and nu
rsed him back to health. He’d perch on her shoulder and when he finally died, she made us dress up and hold a funeral. I played ‘Taps’ on my trumpet and Doreen recited a poem by Emily Dickinson. She threw flowers on the grave.”

  Joseph had already been overseas when Doreen had blossomed into the sloe-eyed beauty who was voted Miss Champaign 1944, and his tomboy stories bore little resemblance to the glossy head shots Mrs. Croggan now brought out, the soft studio lighting accentuating Doreen’s cheekbones, her almond-tilted eyes, her glossy waved hair. She’d been in seven movies already, including The Bandit of Sherwood Forest with Cornel Wilde, Mrs. Croggan said with pride.

  By her third day in Illinois, Lily itched to book her ticket to New York. From the big easy chair in the parlor where she sat flipping through a magazine, she watched a rabbit hop across the lawn. The aroma of pot roast drifted in from the kitchen. Soon dusk would fall and fireflies would appear. Half-asleep, Lily barely noticed the car parking out front, the man getting out. Later, she’d call up her training and remember he’d worn a uniform and held a letter and rang the bell.

  She must have dozed off. She heard Mrs. Croggan talking on the phone in the kitchen, but she didn’t fully awaken until the older woman was standing before her, saying something awful had happened.

  “The telegram said she’s been missing for three days,” Mrs. Croggan said with a glassy calm, cooling herself with an ivory fan that Joseph had sent her from Florence.

  Lily tried not to sound alarmed. “Did you call the police? What did they say?”

  “That it’s not unusual for starlets to take trips with gentlemen friends. I didn’t like the insinuation in his voice. I told him Doreen was raised to know the difference between right and wrong.”

  “And what did he say about that?” Lily asked, slipping into the interrogative rhythms of her previous life.

  “He made a filthy comment about a long audition. Then I called Doreen’s roommate, the one who sent the cable, and she sounded more worried. She wondered whether Doreen had some kind of breakdown and came home without telling anyone.”