Damage Control: A Novel Read online

  “Don’t touch me,” I said.

  And without a backward glance, I got in my car and drove off.

  The whole way home, I replayed our conversation in my head. And one statement kept coming back to haunt me.

  “They wouldn’t have arrived in time,” Tyler said. “I had to make a split-second decision.”

  Maybe that was exactly why Tyler had tried to kill Jake Slattery. To keep him from spilling the identity of Emily Mortimer’s murderer. How could I have ever deluded myself about this man enough to sleep with him? The thought of it now made me sick.

  * * *

  I turned my phone back on as I drove home, and it rang repeatedly until I switched it to vibrate. I didn’t bother checking the calls. I knew it would be Tyler or Faraday, trying to coax me back, or make sure I wasn’t driving to the police station to report what had happened. And maybe if I hadn’t been so tired I would have considered it. But right now, all I wanted was to get home and crawl between the sheets.

  The porch light was out at the house, which is unusual. Usually Mom leaves it on so I won’t have to fumble for my key. But her car was there. Then I remembered. Mom was on her Elderhostel trip.

  The lock on our front door is old and ornate, with an iron clapper you have to lift before inserting the key into the hole. In the dark, it took me three tries before I got it right. Almost crying with relief, I turned the lock and pushed the door open.

  At the same time my phone vibrated again, reminding me of the messages piling up.

  The house was hot and still.

  I locked the door behind me, turned on some lights, and went into the kitchen to rustle up something to eat. The brutal exhaustion I’d felt driving home had ebbed into a more twitchy, keyed-up state. I realized I’d been looking forward to pouring out my heart to the one person I trusted utterly. Mom.

  My stomach grumbled, reminding me of the pizza I’d never eaten at Anabelle’s house.

  I got leftover sesame Chinese noodles from the fridge, forked a generous portion onto my plate, poured a glass of barley tea, and ate.

  Then I showered and got into bed, my thoughts floating on a sea of betrayal, murder, and conspiracy.

  The sparks that had flared between Tyler and me had made me overlook the obvious: He was a company man who would do as he was told. Tyler’s claim that he shot at Jake Slattery because he feared for my life was a clever way to justify what Faraday had probably ordered him to do from the start: Kill him so he couldn’t reveal what he knew.

  Tyler must think I was really stupid. What galled me most was that I’d wanted so much to believe him. When he’d pulled me to him and rubbed his hot damp cheek against mine, I’d felt that warm feeling start up in the back of my stomach. I could still feel it.

  Then the gun went off again, pop, pop, pop. And Tyler was standing above me, and for some reason I flashed on the man who’d chased me the other night. He’d worn a mask and a bulky jacket, and it was crazy paranoid of me even to think of it, but he was the same height as Tyler. I tried to hold on to that thought, but it drifted away like a feather as I plummeted down, down to the scant few hours of sleep that awaited me before I had to be at work again.

  41

  Light streaming through the curtains woke me at six forty-five. Realizing I’d overslept, I threw back the sheet and ran into the kitchen. I am Queen Caffeine and need my morning jolt.

  I squinted at the kitchen clock, looked out the window, and groaned. No wonder the light had seemed so muted. This wasn’t the sharp white light of morning. It was six forty-five p.m.

  I checked my phone, expecting to see a dozen progressively more irate texts from Faraday, but there was only one: “GLAD UR OK. PLEASE TAKE TODAY OFF TO CATCH UP. CU TOMORROW.”

  I read it five times. Faraday was tricky and it could be a grave mistake to take his words at face value. Was he being sarcastic? He’d sent the text at 9:05 a.m. I went to voice mail to see if he’d called.

  Nothing.

  For once, he must have meant it.

  I didn’t delude myself that he cared. But a sleep-deprived, nerve-rattled PR person was a liability who should not be allowed near clients, cops, or the media.

  I was in quarantine.

  I made coffee and showered. Then I poured a cup, got some cereal, and took my breakfast to the computer, where I scanned the wires for news of Jake Slattery. Nothing. If the police had found him, shot and bleeding, they were keeping it quiet.

  The only noise was my bovine crunching.

  The doorbell rang.

  I put on my robe, tightened the belt, and walked to the front door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Hi, Maggie. It’s Luke.”

  A warm, hopeful feeling came over me.

  I opened the door, realizing too late that my hair was slicked back wet, my face had no makeup, and there were probably bits of shredded wheat stuck in my teeth.

  Luke looked serious and worried.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He craned his neck and peered over my head. It wasn’t hard, I’m about five five in my furry lamb’s wool slippers.

  “Is Anabelle here?” he asked, his voice overly casual.

  “No. Is she supposed to be?”

  Luke’s brow creased as if he was trying to puzzle something out.

  At that moment, my manners came thundering back. I opened the door wide and stepped aside. “Come in, please.”

  He followed me into the kitchen, glancing around my modest house.

  At once I saw it through his eyes. How shabby and cramped he must find it after Villa Marbella. In a smaller part of my brain, I wondered how he’d gotten my address.

  “Sit down, please. What’s going on? Can I get you something to drink?”

  I patted my hair, willing it to dry in flattering waves around my face, wondering how I could excuse myself long enough to swipe on some lipstick. And pop an Adderall. I felt fuzzy and confused, like the world had slipped out of focus. Why was Luke here?

  He took a step closer, then stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Anabelle’s disappeared. I thought she might have come here.”

  He gave me a searching look, as if I might be hiding her inside the grandfather clock or the clothes hamper.

  “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  A horrible thought occurred to me. Jake Slattery. He’d be seething with rage, figuring I’d set him up. What if he’d gone to the Paxton house, seeking revenge?

  “Maybe she went back to Palos Verdes?”

  Luke shook his head. “Lincoln’s still at Villa Marbella. But Anabelle’s car is gone.”

  “When did you see her last?” I asked.

  “Yesterday morning before work. She was asleep. Miranda said she hasn’t been eating. But apparently she got a call last night, after you guys left. The next thing anyone knew, she came downstairs and said she was going out.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know. She said she was meeting a friend for coffee. But Miranda doesn’t think she came home. Her bed didn’t look slept in.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Dad doesn’t want to get the police and the media all riled up again until we’ve eliminated all the obvious possibilities.”

  “Has someone been to Palos Verdes to check?”

  An image came to me, a glowing white flower growing on the edge of a sandstone cliff, luminescent in the moonlight. Datura. What if Anabelle had gone home alone to commit suicide?

  “I was just there,” Luke said savagely. “I’ve been checking all her old haunts. That’s why I thought perhaps you . . .”

  A third ghastly image materialized: Anabelle relapsing and slinking off to score drugs. “Could this have strained her sobriety?”

  Luke paused. “That occurred to us. I was on skid row just now, showing her photo around. No one would admit to seeing her.”

  Luke’s phone beeped with a text.

  He read it and gr
ew pale. “Oh, God. I’ve got to go.”

  “What?” I craned to read it, but Luke was already texting and walking out.

  “She’s at Palisades del Rey. By the airport,” Luke said over his shoulder.

  Something roared in my brain and I pushed it back. This was no time to lose it. I remembered what I’d promised Anabelle the other day in her room. You can count on me. I won’t let you down.

  “Wait,” I called. “Let me put on some clothes. I’ll go with you.”

  “Hurry,” Luke said.

  Five minutes later, we were in his car.

  “I hope she’s not planning anything dramatic and stupid,” he said as we zipped down the hill, taking all the shortcuts, gunning for the freeway. Anabelle texted back that she was okay, and she’d call and explain soon. Luke read the words out loud, eyes darting between the screen and the road.

  A sense of urgency gripped me. The hot, dusty streets, where stray pedestrians moved in slo-mo along empty sidewalks, made everything strange and unreal. All around town, people were gathered in backyards and parks and beaches to throw meat onto grills and crack brewskis. Labor Day weekend. At a traffic light, I smelled carne asada juices dripping onto hot coals, the toxic bite of lighter fluid exploding against a match.

  The scent memory walloped me with unexpected force: Anabelle and I huddled around a pit fire at Zuma Beach with friends, towels draped across our sunburned backs to ward off the night chill. Nirvana was blasting from a boom box, Kurt Cobain still alive as we roasted marshmallows on sticks, then smeared them between melty chocolate and graham crackers, Anabelle’s face shadow-lit by flames as she lowered s’mores into her gleaming red mouth, all of us giggling with the munchies.

  By the time Kurt died in 1994, the only thing left to write was the requiem.

  Luke pressed harder on the gas.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “The last thing we want right now is to get pulled over.”

  Luke grunted.

  “Did you text your parents?” I asked. “Have they called the police?”

  “Calling the police is not something the Paxtons do lightly. Especially with Henry—”

  “But what if something’s wrong? It’ll take us thirty minutes, even if we go eighty.”

  “They want me to check on her first. Maybe everything’s okay.”

  Steering with one hand, Luke dialed, got Anabelle’s voice mail, and asked her to call back immediately. He didn’t mention we were also driving out to find her. He feared it might scare her off.

  Luke put his hand lightly on my knee. “I’m glad you’re with me,” he said. “If I can’t get through to her, maybe she’ll listen to you. Plus I’m going to need your eyes; I’ve got terrible night vision.”

  We were past downtown now, approaching the long soaring riser of the Century Freeway that curved west to LAX and the beach. Soon it was shooting us through the concrete pipe, smooth as a luge run.

  Luke’s phone beeped.

  “She’s still there,” he said, glancing down and almost hitting the cement wall. “She’s waiting for Tyler. He’s supposedly bringing her some info about Randall’s murder.”

  “Tyler?” My brain buzzed viciously. “That doesn’t make sense. And why would he want to meet her in some remote, isolated place? Unless? Shit, Luke,” I said, fumbling for my purse. “If you don’t call nine one one right now, I’m going to. He’s lured her out there to kill her.”

  “Your colleague?” Luke said, disbelieving.

  “There’s something very strange going on at Blair,” I said. “I don’t trust Tyler.”

  Luke hesitated. I could see him weighing the consequences. If we were wrong, and the cops broke up some crazy but harmless drama, it would be yet another PR debacle for Henry.

  I said, “What possible normal explanation could there be for Tyler wanting to meet Anabelle at dusk in such a creepy place? He’s seen her at your parents’ house. Why didn’t he talk to her there?”

  “Maybe there’s someone at the house he doesn’t trust,” Luke said slowly.

  “And who would that be? Your mom or dad? Your uncle Simon? Faraday. Me? You?” I laughed hysterically. “That’s crazy.”

  Luke groaned. Then he dialed.

  “Yeah, um, I’d like to report a woman in possible danger in Playa del Rey near LAX. In that ghost town between the airport and Dockweiler Beach. I think it’s called Palisades del Rey. She’s gone there to meet a man who might be armed and dangerous. You need to send armed officers there right away. What?” Luke’s voice rose, panicky. “I don’t know what the closest cross streets are. Wait! Yeah, um, okay, Vista del Mar is the main one, it runs along Dockweiler Beach and . . .”

  Luke turned to me. “Do you know the cross street?”

  I tried to remember. It was sixteen years ago. I could see the rusting chain-link fence, the KEEP OUT, NO TRESPASSING signs, the abandoned residential streets that even then were cracking as weeds pushed through the asphalt. How creepy and eerie and terrifying and oddly beautiful it had been, late at night, as the jets screeched by overhead. Like a portal into another world.

  “Sandpiper Lane,” I said. “I think that’s it.”

  Luke repeated it into the phone. I couldn’t hear the operator on the other end.

  Luke said, “Anabelle, uh, Downs. My name? Uh, Luke. Yeah. Okay, bye.”

  He clicked off the phone and I wondered how quickly the cops could get out there. I hoped that the flashing lights and megaphones wouldn’t precipitate another tragedy.

  “Luke . . .” I said, noticing he hadn’t used the Paxton name.

  “Hold on, I’m texting her now. She’s still not answering.”

  The car veered.

  “Let me,” I said. “We’re going to have an accident.”

  “Everything is under control,” Luke said.

  Furrowing his brow, he spoke the words aloud as he keyed them: “Maggie says ur in danger from Tyler. Abort. Run ASAP down to Vista del Mar. Meet us by gate.”

  He pressed Send, then exhaled loudly.

  The Century Freeway dumped us out at the beach. To our left were the glowing white lights of the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant, crouched on the dunes like an alien spaceship. He turned right as an enormous jet thundered over our heads.

  The dark expanse of Dockweiler Beach was dotted with bonfires strung like coral beads along the sand.

  The ocean might be eternal, but the rituals of our modern coastal tribes changed with the seasons. In summer, we bobbed in the waves and gathered around the cooking fires. In autumn, lifeguards hauled their boarded towers past the reach of winter storms. Winter brought the biggest waves and hardiest surfers. And spring was when we watched gray whales and humpbacks spout offshore, heading to the polar ice caps to fatten on Arctic krill.

  I didn’t tell Luke how Anabelle had brought me here to play chicken. Of the desolation and despair I’d seen in her eyes. I was frightened of what we’d find.

  “Maybe by the time we arrive the cops will have Tyler on the ground,” Luke said. “Or they’ll find my crazy sister all alone, dancing in the moonlight.” He sighed. “Either way, Henry will have a whole new scandal on his hands.”

  He paused, and wariness came into his voice. “Is that why you wanted me to call nine one one? More work for you?”

  I shot him a disbelieving look. “How can you even accuse me of that?”

  He slumped in the seat. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little unhinged. Sometimes I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

  The sea was jet-black and sparkly. A flock of brown pelicans flapped in lazy formation over the water, their prehistoric shapes silhouetted against the purple sky. Higher up, improbable birds of soldered metal screeched west over the Pacific.

  Inland, the dunes gave way to an eerie tableau: paved streets with streetlamps and fire hydrants and gaping concrete foundations where homes had once stood.

  The residents of Palisades del Rey had been forced to leave their close-knit neighborhood in the 1950s and ’60s
to make way for the expansion of LAX. As they left, their houses were condemned and torn down, hundreds of people scattered where once a vibrant community had stood.

  A tall chain-link fence surrounded the property. Luke drove slowly and we both scanned the ruined streetscape, looking for Anabelle. The place was deserted. At each gate along the way we stopped and got out and called, but our voices reverberated in the emptiness and were lost in the wind.

  There was no sign of police cars.

  We drove to the end of Sandpiper Lane.

  Night had fallen. A light breeze came up off the water. In the distance, the giant lights of LAX lit up the runways.

  Palisades del Rey was eerie and empty, a vast, sand-strewn City of the Dead. Beyond the fence topped with razor wire, nothing moved. The surf and the jets drowned out all thought.

  “We should wait for the cops,” I said nervously.

  Luke opened his door. “My sister’s in danger.”

  “She’s my friend too. But we’re not armed. And he is. He’s got a gun. He used it last night.”

  I started to tell the story but fell silent as Luke reached for the glove box. A small black bottle rolled out.

  I caught it, turning the smooth glass in my hands.

  Jules by Christian Dior, I read, trying to recall what it smelled like. “Didn’t you wear that in high school!”

  “This is no time . . .” he said, taking it from me.

  He was right, of course, but I was trying to stall until the cops came. The more I thought about it, the crazier this errand seemed. Anabelle wasn’t here.

  Luke tucked the bottle into his pocket, rummaged through the glove box, then groped under the seat, face scrunched in concentration.

  “Here it is,” he said in an odd, thick voice, pulling out a gun. “Who says we’re not armed?”

  “Please,” I said, shrinking back. “The cops should be here any moment.” I twisted around, scanning for flashing lights. Maybe the shrieking of jet engines and the roar of surf drowned out the approaching police sirens? A darker thought emerged. Would they also drown out a girl’s screams?

  Luke got out and walked around to my side.

  His eyes were huge and dilated, and his voice came fast. “Come on.”