Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (10 page)

     Thumbing through the CDs he had brought with him, he selected a disc, slipped it into the player and a moment later Chopin filled the air.

     Going into the bathroom to wash his hands, he looked in the mirror and glowered at the stranger glowering back at him. The man had deep lines on either side of his mouth, his hair was too gray for his age, and his brown eyes looked as if they had seen too much.

     Jack had had the dream again last night and had wakened that morning in sweat-soaked sheets. Fainting at the crime scene when the medical examiner rolled the corpse onto her back. When Jack had first gotten the call he had thought it was a routine investigation, just another od'd junkie, they
said on the police radio. And it
was
a junkie, the needle was still in her arm, heroin tracks on her white skin.

     Jack had stared at the pale face, thinking he knew it from somewhere. That nagging familiarity. And when it had come to him, and he had whispered, "Nina," his knees had given way and the floor had rushed up to slam him in the face so that he lay crumpled next to the naked corpse.

     What haunted him now was not the shock of seeing his sister's body, but the message she had left on his telephone answering machine just a few hours prior to her death: "Jack, I've managed to contact some of the names on my list. There's one in New York, one in Illinois and one in Santa Barbara. I told them I'm doing an article and would like to talk with them in person. The strangest thing, Jack, two of them said they were going away on a holiday. They had won a week's stay at a resort called The Grove. These women don't know each other, and they said it was a prize for a contest they don't remember entering. Jack, I think it has something to do with the owner of The Grove. Listen, something big is coming together. I don't want to say anything more until I've met with a contact tonight. He says he will only talk to me on condition of anonymity. I'll tell you all about it at breakfast. Wish me luck!"

     They were the last words he had heard his sister speak.

     Savagely drying his hands, he slipped into his leather jacket, set protective silver glasses in place and left his room in search of Abby Tyler.

     Abby studied her face in the mirror. She was worried about being recognized.

     Vanessa had urged her friend time and again to get plastic surgery, to alter her face, but Abby wouldn't hear of it. "Someday I am going to find my daughter," she would say, "and I want to be able to stand in front of a mirror with her and say, 'We look alike.'" Vanessa herself was lucky. She bore no resemblance to the waif-like creature who had made a daring escape from prison. Changing her hair, getting dental implants and putting on weight had altered her appearance so much that no one would connect Vanessa Nichols to the girl who was once victimized by sadistic prison matrons.

     Vanessa thought back to the day Abby found her, in 1985, thirteen years after they had parted company at a lonely crossroads in the New Mexico desert. Abby's search was inspired, having nothing more to go on
than a dream Mercy had once voiced. Abby had found Mercy—by then Vanessa Nichols—sitting at the view point on the City end of the Golden Gate Bridge, watching the fog roll in. By that time, Mercy had changed her name, gotten fake ID and birth certificate, scrubbed floors during the day and gone to school at night, landing a job at a large hospital on the housekeeping staff, cleaning patients' rooms and working her way up until, that foggy day in 1985 when Abby found her, Vanessa was the assistant supervisor for the entire housekeeping department.

     Abby had asked Vanessa to move back to Los Angeles with her, saying that she missed her, that Vanessa was the only person in the world she could trust, her only friend, who had been there when her baby was born—and Vanessa felt the same way, being powerfully lonely in such a crowded city, with no one to tell her story to, no one to say, "Hey, remember that time," to. But Vanessa had hesitated. "We're still fugitives, and if we are fugitives together, we have twice as much chance getting caught."

     "
Half
the chance," Abby had corrected. "Because we will watch each other's back."

     They had watched each other's back since.

     Especially now. When Vanessa saw her friend's eyes stray to the window, her gaze filled with pain and longing, Vanessa knew what was on her mind. To run over to Sissy's and Coco's cottages and find out which was her daughter. "Abby," Vanessa cautioned now, "go slowly. You're walking a tightrope. One slip-up and you will lose everything—this resort, your daughter, your freedom, even your life! You can't blunder into this. There might be ears listening. And Jack Burns, whoever the heck he is, I don't trust him. Abby, you've waited thirty-three years, another day won't hurt."

     When Abby brought her eyes from the window and looked at Vanessa, there was such naked want in them that Vanessa was briefly taken aback. "Shouldn't a mother know her own child," Abby asked with passion, "even if they have never met?"

     "I don't see a strong resemblance to you in any of them." But she knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. Vanessa's sister Ruby didn't look at all like her parents or her siblings yet was the image of a great-aunt on her mother's side.

     "That wasn't what I meant," Abby said. "I'm talking about instinct, knowing something in your soul."

     "Have you decided how you are going to approach them?"

     What do you say to a daughter who didn't know she was adopted? Or, if she knew, that she had been adopted through illegal means, that she was stolen from her birth mother, and that her birth mother was serving a life sentence for murder at the time?

     Jack Burns found himself at the departure pavilion by the airstrip where a few guests were waiting to leave. Everyone was cheery and upbeat, talking, laughing, a few kissing and holding hands, not at all the way vacationers looked at the end of a trip: tired, beaten, worn out. These people looked as if they had imbibed a potent tonic. And seeing the romantic smiles and dreamy eyes (and the ladies definitely glowed) Jack guessed what the tonic was.

     Winding his way through the heart of the resort, past a magnificent aviary filled with colorful exotic birdlife, he came upon one of the smaller of The Grove's pools—created out of rocks and surrounded by dense ferns so that it looked like a natural lagoon. He grudgingly admitted that he would love to strip off his jeans and leather jacket and dive in.

     On a small grassy area next to the lagoon, lounge chairs and tables had been set out, and a group of people were paying obeisance to a man in a tank top and shorts, who was talking in a too-loud voice about what a "pussy magnet" his recently won Oscar statuette was. "I tell you, the babes come panting for it. Got it over my fireplace, they take one look at the statuette and cream their pants. They spread for it, I tell you!"

     Jack knew him. Ivar Manguson, the famous director of titanic mega-hits involving state-of-the art special effects. He was known for carrying on a passionate affair with each current leading lady and then dumping her when the film was finished. He had even married one—the star of a disaster epic that broke box office records—and when he divorced her at the end of production had said it was because "she was no longer the character she played but an ordinary woman again."

     Jack was about to move on when he saw a cocktail waitress arrive with a loaded tray. One of the men in the group shot out a grabby hand and tried
to catch her ass. She sidestepped, but it unbalanced her and the tray went sliding.

     Cold drinks, ice and paper umbrellas fell everywhere.

     A frosty Mai-Tai landed in Manguson's lap. He jumped up, hands on his crotch, shouting, "Ow! Ow!" Dancing around in his two-hundred-dollar sandals. "Shit!" he shouted at the waitress. "You made it look like I've pissed my pants!"

     The flustered waitress snatched up a napkin from the table and tried to wipe him off.

     "Get away from me, you stupid bitch!" Shoving her so hard she fell to the ground.

     Jack ran over and helped her up. "Are you okay?"

     She nodded, in tears.

     Jack turned to the cursing and swearing man, who was trying madly to mop the cocktail out of his shorts, and said, "Apologize."

     Manguson gave him a dumb look. "What?"

     "Apologize to the lady."

     "Like fuck I will."

     Jack shrugged, looked at the waitress as if to say, What can you do? and grabbed Manguson's wrist, swung him around and, holding him in a painful arm-lock, said, "Apologize."

     "Go fuck yourself."

     Jack twisted the arm higher. Manguson grimaced and his face turned red. "You're breaking it, man!"

     "Say you're sorry to the lady and I'll let go."

     Two security men appeared through the trees just then, and behind them, Abby Tyler. "Is there a problem here?"

     "That bitch—" The man in the wet shorts began. But Jack cut him off. "This gentleman laid a hand on one of your staff. I am asking him to apologize to her."

     Abby sized up the scene, the frazzled waitress, the staring faces of the other guests, the beet-red cheeks of the man Jack Burns held in a clinch, and then at Burns himself who appeared calm yet had a strong hold on his captive who was now yelling,
"Don't you know who I am?"

     "Please release him, Mr. Burns," Abby said calmly.

     Jack said, "Just one word of apology is all I ask."

     "Please, Mr. Burns."

     He saw her steady gaze, the look of expectancy, felt Manguson struggle against his hold and, in disgust, released him.

     "That's more like it," the hot shot said as he rubbed his arm. "Get this idiot out of here," he said to Abby's security guards, gesturing at Jack.

     But the security men didn't move.

     "Hey," said Manguson. "Are you deaf?"

     Abby addressed him. "We will be happy to refund your money, Mr. Manguson, and make room for you on the next flight back to Los Angeles."

     He ogled at her. "What?"

     "You are clearly unhappy with our services. You will be reimbursed completely. My staff here will escort you back to your room and assist you in packing."

     "You're out of your mind!" he shouted, neck veins bulging. And then he saw the calm demeanor, the unflappable stance, frowned, tried to understand what had just happened. Then he said, "Fuck it. I'm outa here. And you can be sure I'm going to spread the word about this dump."

     He stalked off.

     Abby turned to Jack. "Thank you. It was nice, what you did."

     He looked at her in surprise. He had expected her to kiss up to the offended guest, offer to have the waitress fired. He had seen it in other places.

     "M-Ms. Tyler?"

     Abby looked at the young waitress who, although she had just addressed her employer, still had her eyes fixed on Jack. And Abby saw in those wide, grateful pupils what the girl saw: a man on a white charger, shield in one hand, lance in the other, a magnificent plume rising from the top of his shining helmet.

     Some women fell in love easily.

     "It's okay, Robin. Take the rest of the day off."

     After the waitress vanished through the trees, Jack said, "Your security men got here fast."

     "All of our staff wear small pagers that send signals in case of emergency. A push of a button and security is alerted."

     "Do you always come with your security men in an emergency?"

     "I happened to be in the security office when the alarm sounded." Abby removed her sunglasses to look right at Jack with that steady gaze again. "You handled Mr. Manguson well."

     He shrugged. "I'm used to dealing with people like him."

     "Oh?"

     "I'm a cop," he said, watching her.

     She didn't blink. "I hope you are enjoying your stay with us, Mr. Burns. Or should I call you Officer?"

     "It's detective, actually. LAPD."

     A twitch at the corner of her mouth. "I see."

     A bee flew between them, buzzing first around Jack, then around Abby, lingering near her perfume before buzzing away.

     "It's a nice hideaway you have here," he said, choosing the word on purpose.

     Her eyes remained steady. "Yes, it is a hideaway for my guests and I am very protective of them. To a degree."

     Jack felt grudging admiration. He had been to enough posh hotels, mostly on police business, to see managers pandering to assholes like Mr. Oscar Winner. But not Abby Tyler. She had integrity, he gave her that.

     "I'd like to buy you a drink, cup of coffee maybe," he said.

     Her guard went up as her instincts told her it was not a casual invitation. And it was the second one—why was he so eager to have a drink with her?

     "Mr. Burns, I would love to have coffee with you. Why don't you come to my bungalow this evening. Say, around ten o'clock?"

     He promised he would be there.

S
ISSY
W
HITBORO STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE SMALL
bookstore in shock. She had been casually browsing through Travel and Cookbooks when she came upon:
Sex for Dummies, The Joy of Sex, The Book of Sexual World Records, Sex and the Married Woman.