“Tsk, tsk, you’re such a poor liar. You’re scared, but I’m getting nowhere with you, so
please
call me first thing in the morning. I worry about you. I’ll try to make it in tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Helena hung up the phone. Tim always made her feel better. His flamboyance and energy could lift her spirits. He understood the deal. He’d been in recovery for five years himself after losing his lover to AIDS. He was a loyal friend and her personal assistant at
Shea Models
, the agency she’d started barely after she turned twenty-five. That was when she’d discovered that fourteen-year-olds on the covers of magazines sold more
Vogues
than she did.
She may have felt better about not drinking, but the idea of a stalker still haunted her. Maybe she should go to the cops. But any more malicious gossip to hit the papers could prevent Shea House from receiving the continued funding that it needed. Plus, it might drive another wedge between her and Frankie. That business article had it right when it reported that Frankie and Helena had been visiting more often. They were making real progress. Her daughter was her number one priority.
Helena looked over at Ella and said, “Want that walk now, girl?” The dog bounced up and twirled in circles for her mistress. “Okay, okay.” Helena zipped up her jacket as she opened the door. She shivered as the cool night breezed through her anyway. She breathed in the salty ocean air, apprehensive about taking the walk, but knowing that her poor dog deserved their nightly ritual. It made her feel better to see lights on in several of the beach houses along the Pacific Coast Highway.
As she and Ella approached their turnaround point, the dog became rigid and alert, the ruff of her neck bristling. “What’s wrong, girl?” The dog whined, glancing back at her. Helena had never seen this behavior in Ella, and it flooded her already edgy nerves with adrenaline. Ella growled while lunging forward, pulling on her leash. Helena couldn’t see anything, but decided to turn around instead of walking the extra quarter mile to their usual turnaround point.
“Come on, puppy, let’s go.” Helena tugged on the leash. The dog reluctantly followed her.
Helena broke into a jog, and they made it home in minutes. As she took her shoes off, she laughed. “We’re paranoid,” she said to the dog, thinking about the caller and angered that he’d frightened her so badly. “You’re a silly dog, and I’ve got an overactive imagination.” Ella wagged her tail.
Once they were back inside the cottage, Helena double-checked all the doors and windows. She noticed that the curtain rod in her living room was askew, and half the drapes on the oceanfront window drooped. Part of the pull cord was missing. Ella must’ve gotten a hold of the drapes, as she had once before. Nothing else was missing or out of place, and everything had been locked.
Helena rechecked the house, this time carrying a carving knife as she opened closets and peered inside the bathroom. When she thought she saw movement behind the shower curtain, she raised the knife, tore open the curtain and saw that the washcloth had gotten soaked and fallen off the rack.
“Jesus, I feel like Norman Bates,” she said aloud. She laid the knife on the back of the toilet, her hands shaking. When she finally settled down enough, she finished checking the house. No signs that anyone had been inside. She decided she simply hadn’t noticed the damage to the drapes before.
Helena collapsed on her bed, and Ella curled up next to her. She patted the puppy’s head. “Normally, I’d say get your butt off, 'cuz you need a bath and you sure got some stinky breath. Besides, you were obviously naughty when I had my back turned. But tonight, either I’m going crazy, or the bogeyman is after me.” She laughed aloud hearing how stupid that sounded.
In the back issue of
Vogue
spread out on her bed, Frances Kiley, nicknamed Frankie, studied the photograph of her mother’s face. Bono singing about a beautiful day boomed through the stereo speakers. Frankie’s fingers traced the outline of the picture thinking about all the times she’d admired Helena, not knowing the famous model was her real mother.
The photo was taken three years ago, before Helena had retired from modeling and started her own agency. Their resemblance was huge—both had green eyes, raven hair, and skin as pale as a geisha girl’s.
She choked back her sobs. She had known that this woman was her mother for over a year, but Frankie still couldn’t figure out how she felt about such startling news. At first, she’d been furious that her parents had lied to her and that Helena had abandoned her. Then that rage turned to sadness mixed with love for a woman she was just getting to know. Shrinks, her father, Helena, even people whose business it wasn’t, told her, “Don’t worry. It will all sort itself out.”
Yeah, right.
Life had thrown her some curves during the past year. At least her dad had enough sense to move them out of LA away from the jet set, who talked trash about others because their own lives were so mundane.
But the media maggots—Frankie’s name for the ever-present paparazzi—followed them no matter where they went. To her, the media were people paid to dig up good gossip, lay a few poisoned eggs, spread garbage around, and
voila
—deliver the kind of sensationalism craved by bored, overweight, undersexed, Hollywood-worshipping wannabes. Everywhere she’d gone in the last year, the media maggots were always in her face, popping flashbulbs and begging for any morsel of dirt they could use. Her family’s scandal had been headlined in detail, and in most instances, fabricated for every gullible moron to accept as gospel.
True, there were many things Frankie had finally come to understand. She remembered when she was much younger, having shown the woman she’d always
thought
was her mother a picture of Helena in a magazine. Frankie had wanted to get her hair cut like the woman in the photograph. Leeza had smacked her across the face, taken the magazine, and burned it. This made perfect sense now, but there had been several nights she’d cried herself to sleep, wondering why her mother didn’t love her.
When she was twelve, watching
The Exorcist
at a friend’s house, she wondered if she might be possessed. Why else wouldn’t a mother love her only child? She’d dreamed that her head would twist around and she’d vomit green slime, like Linda Blair did in the movie.
A knock at the door caused her to wipe the tears away. “Frankie?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
He cracked the door and peered in. “You want to turn that down?” She reached across her bed and flipped off her stereo. “How was your day?”
“Fine.” She closed the magazine and reached for Stuart, the stuffed puppy-doll he’d given her one Christmas long ago. He was soft as down, smelling like Spaghettios, Frankie’s favorite as a little girl. At least Stuart remained her faithful companion.
“Can I come in?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
Patrick Kiley sat down at the edge of his daughter’s bed. “Did you talk to Helena today?”
“I called, but she must’ve been out.”
“Did you leave a message?” She shook her head. “Honey,” he said, scooting closer to where she sat, Indian-style, hunched over Stuart. “I thought we all agreed that you’d start making a real effort. I know she wants to see you this weekend.”
“I did call. But I hate answering machines.”
“Since when? I hear you leave messages for your friends all the time. Don’t you want to go see her?”
Frankie flipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “Actually, I
do
want to see her.”
“Good. I think that’s
good
.” Her dad was a bit too emphatic for Frankie not to notice.
“I called her Mom the other day.”
Her dad grimaced, which he quickly forced into a smile. “Really?” He touched the ends of her hair and sighed. “Terrific. Look, kiddo, I know all the secrecy and confusion has hurt you, and that was the last thing we wanted to do.”
Frankie tossed Stuart aside. “But it does hurt. You’ve lied to me since I was a baby. And you let Mom, Leeza—whatever she was—treat me like crap. You were too busy to notice how mean she was. I never understood why.” She pulled her knees up underneath her chin. “God, Dad, she’d spank me or scream at me if she didn’t like something I’d said or done. I never knew what would set her off.”
Her dad looked as if she’d slapped him. They’d had this same discussion several times before, and Frankie hated guilting him like this. She was aware that it had become a manipulation.
“I’m sorry, honey. She’ll never hurt you again. If I could change what happened, I would. I thought Leeza would get over my affair with your mother and love you because you were an innocent child. But she won’t ever hurt you again.”
“Are you kidding? She didn’t have to do what she did. You have no idea what it’s like to go to school and hear kids call me ‘the drama queen.’ It really sucked.”
“That’s why I moved us up here to the ranch,” he said. They’d moved to their new place in Santa Barbara soon after the story broke, hoping that getting out of Los Angeles would help heal the wounds.
Frankie studied her father for a moment. He was so old-guy handsome, like Robert Redford in “The Horse Whisperer”—one of her favorite movies of all time. Because she loved her dad so much, she’d never reveal
how
rotten Leeza had really been to her. Frankie wanted to be a part of a family and always had. The only stability she’d had growing up was from her dad and her nannies.
“Helena would call me if she wanted to.” Frankie hugged her knees tighter.
“Giving you up wasn’t her fault. I convinced her, and so did Leeza, that you would be better off with us. She didn’t want to give you up. It broke her heart. But she was very young, and I was married to Leeza. Helena’s modeling career was beginning to take off, and we persuaded her that it would be best for everyone. Now, I know that separating you and your mom was wrong. Leeza lied to me about loving you. She didn’t want a scandal, and she didn’t want another woman to have me, even if that meant pretending to accept you.”
“Scandal?
She’s
the one who’s told everyone!”
“She was paid a lot of money for those stories. I guess that years of anger and a chance to finally get even with me and your mom was what spurred her on.”
“Why is she still so mad after so many years? Is it because you still love Helena?” Frankie held her breath, waiting for the answer. As hurt, frustrated, and confused as she was, she hoped her dad did still love her mom. Frankie wouldn’t give up on being part of a family.
Her dad patted her knee and stood up. “You’re an incurable romantic, my girl. But I think it’s time we both got some sleep.”
Stepping outside her room, he paused and without turning to face her, said, “I’m glad you’ll be spending more time with your mom. It’s hard on me, because of everything I’ve put you through. I don’t want to see you hurt any more.” Frankie could’ve sworn he was crying. “You have a right to explore a relationship together. I pray she can be the mother to you that Leeza wasn’t.” He shut the door behind him.
Frankie cuddled Stuart and said, “Know what, Stu? I hope so, too. But how can you be someone’s mother after so many years?” She held the stuffed animal out in front of her. In her best Robert Stack voice, she said, “And that, my friend, is another unsolved mystery.”
Once again, FBI Agent Tyler Savoy found himself working around the clock, struggling against what he’d come to regard as evil. He’d seen more than his share of violent acts during his career, some that put slasher movies to shame. Even though he’d witnessed brutally slain corpses and dealt with the bizarre minds of those who’d raped, stolen, and plundered—being an agent with CASKU—The Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit of the FBI—was his life. Now that Susie was gone, his work was his only focus.
The face Nick Yamimoto had been reconstructing for Tyler was taking shape and was beginning to appear human. The transformation was remarkable, from the skull that detectives had found in a shallow grave out in the Mojave Desert, to what Tyler could now see had at one time been that of a young woman.
Nick’s office was filled with many other clay formations, as well as sketches of victims and of possible predators. The small, brightly lit office smelled of acrylics and clay, combined with the stink of formaldehyde from several jarred human organs.
Tyler stared at what was taking shape from the clay Nick had been expertly molding. The victim was young—twenty tops. Tyler thought this one might have died at the hands of someone she knew. Not unusual—a majority of murder victims met their deaths that way.
Tyler’s intuitive gift—or curse, depending on how one looked at it—was what had led him into this line of work, combined with his own sense of personal loss. It enabled him to tune in to some of the country’s sickest minds. Before Susan had been murdered, he’d never guessed he possessed this so-called gift.
But from the moment Susan was killed, he
knew
. Tyler suddenly discovered within himself an innate ability to tune into the evil lurking within the minds of the sick and twisted and almost
feel
the pain that they caused. He actually thought he sensed the final electrifying slice that had eviscerated his wife. However, he convinced himself that he was a profiler through study rather than gift of spirit. Even though the moment he had begun to have unexplainable hunches and detailed visions and feelings somehow coincided with the day his wife was murdered.