A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (12 page)

CHAPTER 8

Jessica reached her father’s house around one o’clock, as planned. When she drove up, the gate to her father’s estate was opened for her. She went through the gate and drove up the long brick-paved driveway to the house, which was set well back from the road. By the time she drove to the front entrance of the sprawling 1940s single story home, Roberta Palmer was waiting for her. She waved as Jessica pulled up, then, walked around to the driver’s side window.

“Welcome Ms. Huntington, would you like to park in the garage?”

“No thanks. I’m planning to take off again. I’ll just leave the car here for now.” Jessica shut off the car and climbed out, extending a hand to Ms. Palmer. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Palmer. I appreciate your arranging for my visit on such short notice.”

“Roberta, please. It’s really no trouble at all. Can I help you with your bags?”

Jessica had packed in a remarkably efficient manner, for her anyway. She only had one bag on wheels and a small overnight c
ase. By the time she pulled the from the car, along with her laptop and purse, she was glad to have Roberta’s assistance. They went into the front foyer, and a rush of childhood memories washed over Jessica. The house had a comfortable, casual feel to it, even though it sported the fine finishes and furnishings both parents loved. Everything was a bit more traditional here than in the desert house. There were more curves to the furniture frames, buttons on the cushions, a splash of check or plaid. More wood was evident in this house, and brick rather than the stacked stone so prominent in the Rancho Mirage estate. Something radiated the same sensibility as the desert house, though. A comfortable elegance, large expanses of windows, and sliding glass doors gave it the same light and airy feel. Like the desert home, those glass panel doors could be slipped back into pockets that opened up the whole place, blurring the lines between inside and out.

Her father already owned this house when he married Alexis Baldwin. An old-style California ranch, the house comprised several wings, each with a low-slung, gabled roof. It was adorned with white clapboard siding and a rambling white picket fence. Sitting on nearly five acres, it was surrounded by grass and shrubs and trees that seemed lavish compared to the desert. Tall palms waved above the house along with Italian cypress, jacaranda, sweet acacia and African tulip trees. They all bloomed at different times of the year. Clumps of manzanita bushes stood out with their thick, leathery leaves and cinnamon-kissed bark twisted into fanciful shapes. Ferns, and giant-leaved elephant ears, lilies and wild roses, added to the lush feel of the place.

Jessica dropped her bags and rushed through the house to the back patio area. Built at the top of a slope, the house had a view of the city in the distance, magical at night. An infinity edge pool created the impression that you would drop off and tumble into the gardens below, if you stepped too close. The slope was, in reality, a gradual one. Jessica and her childhood friends had run up and down, playing hide and seek. They had all sorts of adventures on imagined jungle safaris, voyages to pirate islands, and escapes to fairy lands in those gardens.

Her mother loved this house and would have been happy to stay put when Hank Huntington got the urge to build his dream home in Rancho Mirage. After Jessica was born, they continued to shuttle back and forth between LA and the Palm Springs area until Jessica started school. Maybe that’s when the trouble began between Hank and Alexis. Something changed that drove a wedge between them by the time Jessica had finished grade school, ending in divorce not long after that. They had seemed so happy here. Who knew what it was that turned an apparently good marriage into a bad one? Jessica was in no position to judge.

Stepping back into the house, Jessica spent a few minutes chatting with Roberta Palmer who showed her where they had stashed the things Jessica asked them to purchase. She gave her the new pass code for the alarm system, and the device Jessica needed in order to operate the front gate to the estate, and the garage door. As soon as Roberta left, Jessica settled into her old room in her father’s house.

After her parents’ divorce, Jessica had continued to visit the Brentwood house but without her mother. She lost track of friends who had been with her throughout elementary school, once she was kicked out of Palm Valley. When she was expelled from St. Margaret’s Episcopal School soon after enrolling, she hardly knew a soul. Riding
, angry and alone, in the back of the limo transporting her from Rancho Mirage to LA, the dissolution of her family was painfully evident. Her father tried to make her feel better with outings to the zoo or ball park. She liked that he tried, but was too angry to tell him.

When she made the transition to St. Theresa’s, she also made friends again. After that, she almost always brought someone along. Usually Kelly, Laura, or both of them, accompanied Jessica on that limo ride to Brentwood. Relieved that she had companions, her father was often relegated to chauffer, sometimes delegating those duties to the limo service.

By then, Jessica preferred the excitement of Hollywood, shopping and spas to ball games or zoos. Hank tried to accommodate her changing interests. He surprised Jessica and her friends with tickets to the taping of popular TV shows at local studios. He bought tickets and pulled strings to get them backstage passes for an Alanis Morissette concert after hearing Jessica tell Kelly how much she liked her
Jagged Little Pill
album. He arranged special seats for Jessica and her friends at Fashion Week in LA, and red carpet events like movie premiers.

Mostly her dad remained behind the scenes, providing chaperones for Jessica and her friends, but rarely accompanying them. Somehow, though, Hank increasingly became the parent Jessica could talk to about her life and what she might do with it. He encouraged and rewarded her efforts to get good grades in school and inquired about the areas that interested her. He also talked about his own work, sharing what he liked and didn’t like about it. He showed her the designs in development, then, took her to the building sites. She listened as he talked about the Huntington family legacy. That included telling her stories about their role in the development of California. It also included visits to places like the Huntington Library, tangible symbols of the family legacy.

At his urging, Jessica began to read books about architecture, design and development. They discussed problems in cities, like sprawl, traffic, pollution, and the loss of neighborhoods, and about the need for well-planned, livable communities. Whether intentional or not, their conversations about such issues greatly influenced her career choices. So did his passion for good design and sensible development, for fairness and doing the right thing even when it was difficult in business. When she finally decided to pursue environmental studies and urban planning as an undergrad, she had a real head start from the hours spent discussing such things with her father.

She loved him most of all for trying: trying to make his life and the lives of others better, especially hers. Jessica was his daughter and cared as much as he did about figuring things out, solving problems, and making things right. It had shaken her to the core when Hank Huntington couldn’t fix his marriage. Now, here she was in the same situation, no better able than he had been to mend the breach.

She was her mother’s daughter, too. It was almost 2:00 and she had some serious shopping to do. Truth be told, she was more than a little nervous about her meeting at Paul’s law firm tomorrow. She wanted to create a good impression, and that meant finding the perfect dress. She had made a three o’clock appointment with an associate at Max Mara’s on Rodeo Drive. Store hours varied, and she was taking no chances. Jessica also asked that they have a tailor on hand who could make minor alterations while she waited. Or while she shopped nearby for shoes and bags once she had found “the dress.” Max Mara was not the only designer Jessica admired. She had come to trust the company’s prêt-à-porter collection, shopping frequently at their Palo Alto store, when she lived and worked in that area. If time permitted, she could order from their fall collection as well.

Jessica cruised down Rodeo Drive, taking in the palm lined street featuring a dazzling array of iconic designer names: Dior, Prada, Gucci, Armani, Versace, Cartier and Harry Winston. Plus newer, hipper names like Michael Kors, Etro, Juicy Couture, Jimmy Choo, Guess, and Bebe. She admired the architecture, set off by elaborate facades, expanses of glass, store names in bold lettering, and gleaming brass accents. She had planned to use the valet parking near Two Rodeo Drive and walk to Max Mara’s, strolling along the cobblestone pedestrian thoroughfare so often featured in the movies. As luck would have it, a Bentley was pulling out of a parking space close to the Max Mara storefront.

She could feel the blood pulsing in her ears. The thrill of the hunt, and the challenge to find the perfect outfit, had her on point. She struggled to modulate her excitement, hoping to avoid the embarrassment she had experienced on a number of occasions in the past year or so. Exhilaration had, at times, morphed into anxiety and even panic. “Focus, Jessica. Relax and focus,” she said to herself as she angled her white BMW coupe into the now empty parking space.

The first time her body betrayed her she had been in a doctor’s office. Waiting for the results of yet another pregnancy test, Jessica was caught up in a familiar mix of excitement and apprehension. Suddenly, without warning, she was hit by a torrent of heart-pumping, head-pounding, throat-tightening adrenalin. She feared it was a heart attack. As she stood up to get help from medical staff, she became light-headed and saw stars. The next thing she knew she was on the floor. She had been aiming for her seat but miscalculated and landed on the floor instead.

A slew of tests followed. They revealed nothing wrong with her heart; no brain tumor or other neurological problem, no diabetes or hypoglycemia, etc. It took a few weeks to do the tests and get the results back. During that time, the same thing happened again, several times. Jessica’s own careful review of test results, and a ton of internet research, finally led her to concede that she was experiencing an anxiety reaction.

Her physician made a referral and Jessica Huntington-Harper was officially given a mental health diagnosis by a psychiatrist: generalized anxiety disorder with episodes of panic. Since she was still earnestly seeking a baby at the time, she declined medication and pursued behavioral treatment.

It took her months to learn about the disorder and begin to acquire skills to manage the symptoms. That included learning to recognize the early signs that she was spiraling toward a loss of control. She developed a range of strategies: relaxation, thought-stopping and self-talk to counteract the rumination that could send her body into overdrive. All the good things she was doing, exercise, healthy food, and sleep were part of her continued recovery. More than once, Jessica had wondered if her body knew her marriage was over long before she stumbled upon Jim and that minx. The unavoidable truth of that discovery still caused a surge of neurochemicals and unwanted emotions.

“Stop!” Jessica commanded silently. Jessica called to mind her morning swim: the soothing feel of sparkling water, buoyant and cleansing, the steady rhythm of her stroke propelling her through laps. She counted off the laps in her mind as she locked the bimmer with a couple chirps of the electronic key, and fed the meter with coins from her purse. Much calmer, she observed that it was one hour parking. She
would run out and feed the meter if she had to, and hauling her purchases to the car would be a breeze.

Angela, the store associate at Max Mara, was waiting for her, and introduced her to Alfonso, the tailor who would be working with them. Based on their phone conversation, Angela had already pulled together a dozen items for Jessica’s consideration. The first thing that caught Jessica’s eye was a short-sleeved sheath dress in a deep red, with a split neckline. Made of a wool stretch blend and fully lined, it had a smooth feel to the touch and draped well. When she put the dress on, it was too large. Working out and eating right had begun to pay off. She had them bring her the same dress, in a size smaller.

Jessica took a good look in the mirrors surrounding her. The smaller size was nearly perfect. The color added a glow to Jessica’s complexion that made her green eyes look even greener. If she didn’t find something she liked better, this dress would work. She slipped into the pair of black Jimmy Choo pumps she had brought along from home. They worked, giving her the elegant, professional look she was shopping for. What a find, and on the first try!

Jessica next tried on a dress fro
m Max Mara’s studio collection that Angela had already swapped out for the smaller size. A gorgeous caramel color with side panels in black, the dress seemingly subtracted even more of the pounds she was struggling to lose. The sharp contrast of the inset panels added interest. Yet it had the same clean lines she liked, with short sleeves and a higher neck than the red dress. The concealed zipper and vent on the back of the skirt gave the dress an elegant look from the back too. She had found another dress that would work.

Angela had also chosen a couple sleeveless dresses for her. One, a wool-silk blend in a silvery gray, created a similar silhouette, but seemed a bit too casual for the work-to-dinner thing on Tuesday. It could be worn to the office in Palm Desert and she’d be grateful that it was sleeveless in the desert heat. A second sleeveless dress, in white with black color blocking insets and a detachable black belt, had a round neck. Pleats gave the line of the skirt more flare than the other dresses she had tried on. The black insets were dramatic from the back, and the zipper inset in black created a vertical line that flattered her figure. The classic lines, flawless cut, and drape of the fabric in both dresses promised to make it easy to look pulled together. Even if she didn’t always feel that way, Jessica intended to create the effect. In the fall when the weather cooled, she could add a jacket or cardigan, extending the usefulness of both dresses. She was on a roll.