From Cape Town with Love (48 page)

I hadn't taken a good look at the scar Spider had left on my cheek, but I might need more than makeup to go back in front of a camera. I didn't have the heart to tell Len yet. Until right then, I hadn't thought about it.

“Next week? Really?” Len said, deflated. Delaying the scene wouldn't sit well with the producers. “Okay. Let's say Monday.”

“Monday's not gonna happen, Len,” I said. “I need a week. At least.”

“Is there something you need to tell me, Tennyson?”

“Nothing I need to, and nothing I can. Sorry, man.”

The line was silent while Len pouted. Len knew I didn't divulge most of my secrets, but he hated to be left out of the Sofia Maitlin saga. “Well, I heard back from Rachel Wentz,” Len said finally. “She says it's fine. Just show up at the gate.”

“When?”

“She said anytime. They're in all day. Thank God the little girl is safe. I hardly slept a wink this whole time. Tennyson, just tell me this . . .” He struggled to find diplomatic language.

“No, I'm not fucking Sofia Maitlin,” I said. “Now, before, or ever.”

“Thank you,” Len said, relieved. “I hate to ask, but it's for your own good. Let this whole stink die, and we'll get you back to work. Six months from now, it's all behind you.”

It would never be behind me, but Len didn't need to know that either. “I'll update you on the shoot,” I said, as if I juggled movie shoots every day.

None of that mattered. All I could think about that day was Sofia Maitlin's smile.

If Len had known what I wanted to ask her, he wouldn't have helped broker our meeting.

He would have begged me not to go.

The paparazzi encampment down the street from Maitlin's house had thinned, but a dozen cameramen and three news vans sat hoping for footage of Maitlin taking her rescued daughter out for an ice cream. Or to the nearest airport. Where do you run?

No one took notice of the cab that pulled up at Maitlin's gate. The bandage across my cheek looked almost as bad as the bloody scar. Since ugly is a sin in Hollywood, nobody glanced at me twice.

I didn't remember the name of the man at the security gate. He was on Maitlin's staff, the one who'd reminded me of a college football player. Like me, he had aged.

He didn't greet me, since I was a reminder of our shared disasters,
and lost friend. I didn't ask when Roman's funeral was scheduled, and he didn't say so. Maybe I had missed it. He gave me a weak, pained nod and opened the gate.

Carter. That was his name. The guilt in his eyes pissed me off. I had slept off my guilt as I lay in my bed thinking of Maitlin's smile.

“You, me, Roman . . . we did good work, Carter,” I called as the cab drove me by. He glared like he thought I was being sarcastic. “It wasn't our fault.”

“Whatever gets you through the day,” he said.

Soon, Sofia Maitlin might need a new security team to protect her from her old security team. She really might.

“Wait for you here?” my cabbie said, taking a break from his Bluetooth. My cabbie was African, maybe Ethiopian. His name on the visor was Dawit.

“Yeah, hang out awhile,” I said. “This won't take long.”

Walking to Maitlin's door was a return to the scene of a nightmare. The shiny pebbles in the driveway only reminded me of our frenzied search for Nandi, doomed before it started.

Pretty isn't the same as happy; it only looks that way.

The housekeeper who'd stood with me beside Nandi's kidnapper in the kitchen opened the door. The memory passed between us, too, unspoken. She pursed her lips.

“Please follow me,” she said.

Somewhere, Nandi was laughing. With the ceilings up to the sky and a foyer as large as a courtyard, Nandi was suddenly all around me. I'll never be able to describe that sound, but it made me promise myself a date with Dad to church. It almost put me in a better mood.

Riding on Nandi's laughter, I didn't mind so much that the housekeeper was leading me across the length of the house, toward the back. I hadn't planned to see the backyard again.

I saw Maitlin through the sliding glass door before we reached the patio—she and Rachel Wentz were sitting at a shaded table near the pool, the same table where they'd been on the day of the party. The day Paki was sitting with them.

“Mr. Hardwick!” a familiar voice exclaimed behind me. Zukisa, the nanny, was overjoyed to see me. Her dark, lovely face glowed. She rushed
as if to embrace me, but stayed clear of my crutches, bouncing on her toes. “We have her back with us!”

“I heard,” I said. “How's she doing?”

Zukisa's smile faded fast. “It is still difficult,” she said. “She doesn't sleep well. Cries and cries. Won't stand the dark.” Her South African accent made each word a poem.

“Don't try to put her in a playpen,” I said before I could stop myself.

Zukisa's eyes widened:
How did you know?
She nodded. “Yes . . . it will take time.”

“She's got that,” I said.

I wanted to return Zukisa's smile, but I couldn't. I wasn't sure what I thought of her. I didn't know where she fit yet. She hadn't worked at Children First, but what if she was connected to Paki somehow, too?

“Are you going to be all right, Mr. Hardwick?” Zukisa called after me as I followed the housekeeper through the door.

“I will be,” I said.
One day.

Rachel Wentz and Maitlin both stood up when they saw me coming on my crutches, but they didn't move otherwise. Their conversation stopped dead.

Rachel Wentz was dressed for a day at the office, and Maitlin was in shorts and a T-shirt. I noticed her light dusting of makeup only because of the bright sun. Two brown ducks squabbled over bread in the water in the nearby duck pond.

Rachel Wentz glanced at Maitlin with a face for a funeral. Then she picked up her BlackBerry and stepped toward me, resting her hand on my shoulder. I wasn't sure what I thought about Rachel Wentz either.

“My mind can't fathom it,” Wentz said. “Thank you so much for everything you did to help Nandi. We'll never forget it.
Anything
I can do for you, don't hesitate. Call us about your compensation. I'm going to start dropping your name. You're a genuine hero, and that's a rare thing in this town.”

The old Tennyson Hardwick's fortune might have been made.

The new Tennyson Hardwick stood, and watched, and kept his thoughts to himself.

“Anyway . . . ,” Wentz said, looking pained. She turned to give Maitlin a long hug. “It's in God's hands . . . ,” I heard her whisper.

Then she gave me another pinched smile, and left me alone with Maitlin.

Neither of us said anything until I heard the glass patio door slide open and close again. Only the ducks were close enough to hear us.

“I'm sorry I can't bring Nandi out,” Maitlin said. “I just don't want to remind her . . .”

“She's seen enough blood,” I said.

Maitlin's cheeks went pale. She sat again, as if her legs had given out beneath her.

“Seat?” she said weakly.

“No thanks. It hurts when I sit down.”

Maitlin glanced at me, appraising my injuries. Then she looked away, toward the still water of the swimming pool. “I thought she'd drowned, at first,” Maitlin said. “When Zukisa and Roman came to the table and said Nandi was missing, I was afraid to look in the pool. Just last night, I dreamed she was at the bottom of the pool. This damn pool has always scared me. I wanted Nandi to have somewhere familiar to come home to, but . . .” She shook her head. “I can't stay in this house. It's torture to sit out here.”

The green lawn was empty, but I could see the phantom pirate ships, one red, one blue. A part of me would always be fused to this spot, searching.

“Nandi told us,” Maitlin said after a pause, still not looking at me. “Last night, she said, ‘Is Mr. Ten here?' She said Mr. Ten took her away from the bad men. She said you got cut with a knife. I didn't know what to make of her story, but now I see for myself. I don't know how you did it, but . . . thank you.”

“The FBI found Nandi,” I said, because I had to.

The mention of the FBI made Maitlin wipe away tears with a waiting tissue box. “Paki . . . ,” she sighed. “He's not a bad man. I think he met some bad people.”

“We all meet a few of those.” Maitlin had mentioned him first. “Was it in Cape Town? At the winery?” I said. “Was that where you first met Paki?”

Maitlin glanced up at me, a silent plea. But my eyes didn't give her anywhere to hide.

“Yes,” she said finally. “He was the on-site mechanic there. Handyman, plumber . . . he did everything. We were shooting
Vintner.
Almost three years ago.”

“And?”

She stared at the tabletop. “And . . . I was foolish.”

Until she said the words, I might have been talked out of believing it.

“You slept with him?”

“It was more than that,” Maitlin snapped, as if she were offended. “For six weeks . . . we were lovers. The whole world knew my husband was cheating on me, and in walked beautiful Paki. I cared about him—encouraged him to go to school. He was bright. He speaks four languages! He came to my room at night. No one on the set knew.”

“But you were engaged to a billionaire,” I said.

“Yes.” Instinct made her look around to make sure we weren't being watched.

“And you got pregnant?”

Instead of answering, Maitlin nodded, her head tilting slightly forward. “I was almost suicidal. I couldn't tell Alec. We were just getting past all the scandals, working toward a marriage contract. He felt guilty for what he'd put me through, so he was feeling . . . generous.”

Seventy-five million dollars. And that was if the marriage only lasted less than ten years. If they made it a decade? Maitlin would be able to buy her own studio.

Maitlin went on: “I felt trapped. I couldn't tell Alec, and I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the baby. I hid my pregnancy almost the entire first trimester, even from Alec.”

“Did you tell Paki?”

“No,” Maitlin said. “We thought . . .” She stopped herself. She hadn't meant to say
we.
Since she hadn't been working in league with her husband, that left Rachel Wentz.

“Don't blame her,” Maitlin said, reading my mind. “The first thing she told me was, ‘You have to tell your fiancé.' But she didn't know Alec like I do. He never could have married me. He's much too proud. It would have shamed his family in Greece.”

It's not like they could have pretended the baby was his,
I thought. Alec's family would still have its date with shame, no doubt.

“And there was all of Alec's money,” I said.

Maitlin's ears turned red. “It had been less than a year since my parents were killed, and Alec's scandals on top of that. I was a wreck, Mr. Hardwick. I lay awake nights for months out of sheer terror that someone would find out I was having a baby. And I couldn't take sleeping pills, antidepressants, tranquilizers—nothing. That was my diet, and I stopped when I got pregnant. I changed the way I lived.”

“How did you sell a six-month spiritual retreat to Alec?”

“Alec always knew I had a spiritual life—I spent a month in Tibet right after we met. I told him we were both about to start a new life, and I wanted to cleanse myself before I went to the altar. He would do anything to make me happy. Besides, Alec has his own life. A villa in Florence, his family castle in Greece, and compounds in Mexico and Buenos Aires. He wrote me a few sad letters, but I think my absence only made him more desperate to have me.”

“He never knew you were pregnant?”

“No one in America did,” Maitlin said. “Except Rachel.”

Of course. I reminded myself never to turn my back on
that
shark.

“Nandi was such an easy baby.” Her voice grew soft, as if she were talking to her daughter.

My throat was burning. I poured from the crystal water pitcher on the table, with thinly sliced oranges perfectly arranged across the ice cubes. I needed a drink to hear the rest, and water would have to do.

Maitlin went on: “I'd met Bessie in Cape Town, at a publicity event while we were shooting
Vintner.
She had a lovely orphanage—I couldn't forget it. All it needed was some sprucing up. More money for staff. And I thought . . .”

“Why not adopt your own baby?” I finished, when she didn't.

“It sounds . . . ,” Maitlin began, but stopped again. Maybe she'd never heard the words aloud. “An actress named Loretta Young did it in the 1930s. She was pregnant with Clark Gable's illegitimate child, and her contract with her studio had a morals clause. She fled to Europe with her mother, and later ended up adopting her own child. Rachel told me that story once. So many of my friends were adopting . . . and I saw an answer. Even Alec liked the idea of adopting a child—we talked about it. I could be Nandi's mother, but without the shame of an affair. Why
should she begin her life under such a cloud? I pledged my heart to Nandi under the moon and left her in the care of people I trusted. People I
researched.”

Mama Bessie's days in the orphanage business were about to end, I guessed. I wondered where her children would land after all of the dust settled. Children like Oliver.

“What about Zukisa?” I said.

“No!” Maitlin said, raising a trembling finger. “She has no ties to Children First. We met her independently, during a nationwide search for a nanny. She still doesn't know. I'm sure of it.”

If that was true, Zukisa might be the closest thing Nandi would ever have to a mother.

“Why South Africa?” I said.

“I didn't know where else to go. I trusted only Bessie—that woman was making miracles happen on a daily basis, and she needed resources. I gave her a large contribution, and
every penny
went to the children and that facility. And she took care of Nandi. You saw Children First—it's impeccably run. I knew my baby would be safe there. Bessie worked with Rachel to fast-track my application. I visited Cape Town whenever I could, and they smuggled her out to the hotel for visits. It was months, but it felt like a lifetime. I lost twenty pounds from the stress. That day you came was my first visit to the orphanage since Nandi was there. We thought it was time to go public.”