She knew she ought to let the people who loved her know she was okay, except that she wasn’t, and she couldn’t find any words that would not trivialize what she’d witnessed. She couldn’t bear to hear the silly comparisons people would make when they learned of Paige’s violent death.
I know how you feel. My mother just died. She was ninety-two.
We lost a child at birth.
My friend died of an overdose . . .
Only someone who had shared violent death could fully understand how it set you apart.
She would have talked to Kelly, but Kelly had sought her solace at the bottom of a bottle.
Claudia knocked back some of her own solace: a shot of Stoli diluted with a splash of cranberry juice. She would drink just enough to blur reality, bend the edges a little, until sleep arrived to afford the protection she needed from her thoughts.
Monday morning brought with it a minor hangover. She took her coffee out to the front deck and swung lethargically in the basket chair, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Around nine, a mustard-colored Hummer emblazoned with the Sunmark Studios logo pulled to the curb and Dominic Giordano’s driver got out. Juan waved up at her as he climbed the stairs. “Good morning, Ms. Rose.”
“Hey, Juan.” Her voice sounded as lifeless as she felt. “What’s up?”
He responded with a smile. “Mr. G. sent me to bring you over to the house.”
Some nerve “Mr. G.” had. How the hell did he know she wasn’t working?
Maybe he heard about what happened, dumbshit.
“He’s not in the car?”
Juan shook his head. “He’s working at the Malibu house today. Those news people, they got the place surrounded. I drove him in from the airport last night. Couldn’t barely get through the gates.”
“Then why can’t we just talk on the phone?”
It was an empty question. And the truth was, she had been toying with the idea of calling Giordano. Only, that would have been on her own terms, rather than answering his peremptory summons as if she were one of his employees.
Juan smiled. “I got my orders, you know? It’s up to you, Ms. Rose. It’s a free country. But he don’t give up too easy.”
Claudia regarded his polished black lace-up shoes and his chauffeur’s uniform and the neatly combed hair. He was just a working stiff, doing what he was paid to do. She unfolded herself from the chair and stretched. “God, I’m thrashed . . . Tell you what, Juan, you come in, have a cup of coffee, watch a little TV. I have a few things to take care of.”
She made him wait for almost an hour, during which time she heard his cell phone ring three or four times. She reckoned Giordano was on the other end, demanding to know what was taking so long.
She remembered the way he had treated Diana Sorensen while Claudia was hiding in the shower and thought,
Tough shit. Let him wait.
While Juan cooled his heels downstairs, Claudia phoned Jovanic.
“I was worried sick about you,” he said angrily. “Couldn’t you have just picked up the phone and let me know you were okay?”
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t . . .”
“You could’ve said you didn’t feel like talking. I was ready to send a black-and-white over to check on you, for chrissake.”
“I
couldn’t
talk, Joel. You might be used to seeing dead bodies, but I’m not. And this was someone I knew. I needed time to process it.”
“Nice try,” he said. “But I’m not buying that rationalization. If you’d just picked up the phone and said, ‘Honey, I’ve been through a terrible ordeal and I need some time alone,’ I would have understood. You think I’m such an asshole that you couldn’t do that? You left me hanging, imagining . . .”
“Okay, I apologize again.
I
was being the asshole, not you. But could you just cut me a little slack?”
He exhaled, giving up. “Yeah, fine. As long as you’re okay.”
Then she made the mistake of asking what he knew about the murder and about Annabelle. His tone cooled. “I don’t know anything, Claudia. I’ve been up to my ass in my case here, not to mention worrying about you. Annabelle is probably hiding out with whatever pals helped her engineer this little escapade gone wrong, trying to figure out how to cover her delinquent ass.”
“Dammit, Joel, why are you siding with
them
? I don’t believe she had anything to do with this . . . this . . .”
The temperature dropped a few more degrees.
“You’d better open your eyes and stop seeing that kid as some poor, wounded creature. She’s got big problems. Bigger than you can help her with. Let it go.”
Claudia picked up a worry ball from her desk and began squeezing it. “I know she has problems, but I don’t believe she’s violent. The only times she’s taken physical action was to defend herself and to defend me. I just don’t buy it.”
“So now you’re a psychologist?”
Claudia’s temper flared. “I may not have my doctorate, but I understand human behavior just fine. Handwriting doesn’t lie, Joel, and she doesn’t have the potential for that kind of behavior. In the news they said that Paige was strangled with a belt, for God’s sake—
a belt.
Annabelle doesn’t have that kind of strength, and I don’t believe she’d do that even if she could.”
“You’d be surprised at what people can do—even kids—in a desperate situation,” Jovanic said. “These days, kids kill all the time. Hell, I’m not saying she meant it to happen. Maybe she set it up with some of her gangbanger friends—they’d snatch Paige, hold her for a couple of days and get everyone good and scared—get media attention, some money, whatever. But something went wrong. She couldn’t control the situation anymore, or Paige tried to escape, or . . . Look, Claudia, I gotta go. Alex needs me. Just drop it, okay?”
I need you, dammit!
she thought as she said a frosty good-bye. There was a certain irony in their exchange, she realized. He had reached out to her the night before and she’d rejected him by not answering his calls. Now she needed him, but he was forced to choose Alex. She replaced the phone in its base, unsettled and resentful, feeling isolated and alone in her support of Annabelle.
Chapter 23
The drive along the busy Pacific Coast Highway from Playa del Reina to Dominic Giordano’s Point Dume home in Malibu took close to an hour. Juan dodged and wove through traffic, bullying smaller vehicles with the big Hummer. He kept glancing at the dashboard clock, nervous about the reception he would get from his boss for taking too long.
“You married, Juan?” Claudia asked, trying to distract him.
He shook his head. “Nah, but I got me a real nice girlfriend. We been talking about it.”
“Want me to look at her handwriting? Tell you if she’s a secret ax murderer?”
“You can tell stuff like that?”
“Not really. Handwriting can’t predict what someone’s going to do; it just shows
potential
for behavior.” She smiled. “I’m sure your girlfriend will keep the ax in the toolshed.”
“Gee thanks, Ms. Rose, now I feel
much
better.”
They drove past the Country Mart at Cross Creek, with its low-key chic and trendy shops. Here, where a greater number of celebrities lived than in any other town in the country, including Beverly Hills, the views of the coastline seemed even more impossibly beautiful than the one Claudia saw from her own deck every day.
When he’d said that the media had the place surrounded, Juan had not exaggerated the situation. As they rounded the corner onto the private road leading to the Giordano house, Claudia could see that the estate was under siege.
Television trucks on stakeout ringed the ten-foot walls surrounding the property. Cameramen milled on the street, conferring with their producers, minicams ready for action.
They drove past Michelle Gillette, the reporter who had broken the news of Paige and Annabelle’s disappearance, primping in a TV monitor. Claudia surmised she was preparing for the next important update:
Who killed the headmistress?
And
Where is the missing student? Special report, coming up next. Don’t miss it!
A security camera mounted on top of the wall panned its electronic eye over them as Juan cruised up to the gates. Taking advantage of the slowdown, the reporters rushed the car.
“Has Mr. Giordano’s daughter been found?”
“Anything new on the Sorensen murder?”
A reporter from Channel Four, a slight blond guy in a Windbreaker, rapped on the tinted window and shouted, “Is Mr. Giordano inside?”
Juan hit the brakes to avoid slamming into him.
“Are they crazy?” Claudia cried out.
“I think so, Ms. Rose. Don’t even look at them.”
The immense iron gates swung inward and the reporters fell away as the Hummer picked up speed and plowed through. Claudia looked straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact. Let them wonder who she was, if they could see her through the tinted glass. God knew, they were trying.
Behind them, the gates closed with a satisfying clang. They bumped along a dirt road that took them up a gentle incline for about a half mile before the house came into view: a sweeping lawn, blue-gray slate roof, a magenta thicket of bougainvillea caressing shell-pink stucco. In front was a one-story section with rounded walls. The rear section rose two levels. A grove of avocado trees fringed one side of the house, a rose garden the other.
They were high enough on the hill to afford a clear view of the ocean across the Coast Highway. From here, the surfers sitting on their boards waiting for a wave were nothing more than dots in the water.
It would have been on that private stretch of beach where Annabelle had made her suicide attempt a few months ago.
The thought of Annabelle made her stomach flip-flop. Every day that passed reduced the chances that she would be found alive.
They stopped in front of a four-car garage whose open doors revealed a Lexus, a limo, and a magnificent restored Stutz Bearcat.
Rich man’s toys.
In the circular driveway was a Mercedes. As Juan cut the engine the front door to the house opened. A man came out and slammed the door. He was short and beefy, a fireplug in a black suit. Even from this distance, Claudia could see the scowl on his face. He strode along the path toward his car with rapid, angry steps.
“Hold up a second, Ms. Rose,” Juan said, urgency in his voice. “Don’t get out yet.” It was only after the man had driven away, kicking up gravel, that the chauffeur hurried around to open Claudia’s door.
“Go on up,” he said. “I’ll be right here when you’re ready to leave.”
I’m ready now,
she thought, climbing out into the cool, still morning. The birds were noisy in the trees. Movement caught the corner of her eye and a young deer appeared, staring at her for a moment, its nose quivering before bounding off across the lawn.
For some reason, the sight of the deer seemed to bring the world back into balance again. Claudia smiled. “Thanks, Juan. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Good luck, Ms. Rose.” He touched the bill of his chauffeur’s hat in a salute.
Good luck?
Was she going need it, dealing with Dominic Giordano?
Dwarf lemon trees lined the path to the front door, their branches heavy with fruit, perfuming the air with citrus. The door opened and a woman as brown and wrinkled as a walnut came out, wearing a maid’s uniform. She gave Claudia a broad, welcoming smile and nodded at her. “Good morning, Miz Rose. Come on in. Mr. G’s waitin’ for you on the terrace.”
Claudia followed her into a room straight out of
Architectural Digest
. It was filled with light and space; the limestone floors and huge skylights brought the outdoors inside. At close to noon, sky and clouds poured in. She could imagine looking up at the stars at midnight, diamonds on black velvet.
The furniture was sparse: a celadon pot of bromeliads on a chunky spruce table, an oversize khaki sofa and chairs that had been designed for comfort, sisal rugs. Understated Asian motif artwork. At the center of the room, the branches of a large ficus stretched toward the high-beamed ceiling like Jack’s bean stalk. The splashing of a waterfall completed a picture that spoke of money and power, plenty of it.
Anyone could hire a decorator and create a beautiful environment, but they couldn’t mask the heavy energy that infused the place.
Claudia followed the maid past a tiled bar that overlooked the beach through floor-to-ceiling windows. They exited through French doors to a terrace where Dominic Giordano was seated at a table, his back to the door. He spoke without turning around, sounding peevish. “What took you so long? Sit down.”
Claudia crossed the terrace and rounded the table. “I’m not your employee, Mr. Giordano. I don’t have to account to you for my time.”
Early in the morning in his own backyard—if that’s what you called the rolling lawns with tennis courts and a swimming pool in the distance—the silver-streaked hair was as meticulously styled as the evening she’d met him in his limousine. A blinding white Ralph Lauren polo shirt and tennis shorts reflected off his deep tan.
When Claudia came around the table she saw with a jolt of shock that Giordano’s left leg was a steel prosthesis attached above the knee. The artificial limb had been hidden beneath his trousers when they’d met in his limo. She pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him.
“So why am I here, Mr. Giordano?”
He gave her a look of cynical amusement. “You want to ask about my leg, don’t you?”
A slight flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks. “Do you want me to ask?”
“I figure you gotta be curious, right? Here’s this rich guy who’s got all the shit anyone could ever want, and he’s a
gimp.
You’re wondering. Let’s get it out of the way.”
Claudia leveled a glance at him. “I thought you wanted to talk about Annabelle, but if you want to tell me what happened to your leg, go right ahead.”