Burn (20 page)

The sound of retching.

Before he could decide whether to stand there listening or retreat back down the hall, Andrew heard a toilet lid drop. A flush.

Soft footsteps padded across the tile of the kitchen floor. Heather appeared in a tank top and panties, hair disheveled, tangled strands hanging in her eyes.

She saw him and stopped. Andrew put the candy sack back where he'd found it. She brushed the hair out of her face. They looked at each other.

Then Heather continued on to the refrigerator, pulled the chair away, and closed the door.

“If you're looking for a late-night snack, ” she said, “we're out.”

Her voice sounded flat. Andrew wasn't quite sure what to say. He felt awkward.

“I need my car keys.”

Heather nodded without looking at him. “They're still in my purse.”

Andrew waited for her to say more, but she didn't. She bent down, opened a door by her knee, and retrieved a thin plastic garbage bag. She began collecting the empty containers and putting them into the bag.

“Look, ” he finally said, “I can find my way back to your dad's study and wait there for you. Unless you want me to wait here.”

“I'll bring them to you, ” she said.

Andrew nodded. He watched her a moment.

“Please don't stare at me.”

He didn't have anything to say to that. So he turned and left her be.

Back in her father's room of memories, he waited for a long time.

Thursday, August 16

By MELANIE ROTH

TIMES
staff writer

A soiled photo identification card may link local businessman David Lomax to the suspected murder of former employee Gregor Tavlin, police said late Wednesday afternoon.

“An ID badge belonging to Mr. Lomax was discovered during an authorized search, ” LAPD investigator Detective Adrian Timms confirmed. “Lab analysis revealed evidence that makes [the badge] potentially relevant to our investigation. That's the only

determination we've made about it at this time.”

Detective Timms declined to comment about the nature of the evidence. Despite findings related to the security badge, authorities have not issued an arrest warrant for Lomax, a junior vice-president of the Los Angeles corporation Lomax Enterprises. Investigators have been unable to locate the 30-year-old Lomax.

Lomax's father, Doren Lomax, is the founder and CEO of Lomax Enterprises and an appointed member of the LAPD Board of Police Commissioners.

Neither corporate officials nor legal representatives for Lomax Enterprises could be reached for comment Wednesday.

HE
wouldn't have thought himself capable of dozing again. He must have managed, because someone woke him up.

Andrew opened his eyes to a middle-aged woman with hard features and laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. She roused him by patting the back of his hand. He sat up in the armchair. Sunlight streamed into the room.

“You must be Rosa, ” he said. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Rosa smiled. “Time for breakfast, Mister Andrew. How do you drink your coffee?”

Andrew looked at his watch. It was 7:30 in the morning. He glanced to his left and saw that his car keys had been returned. They waited for him on the side table by the chair.

“Thank you, ” he said. “But I need to be going.”

Rosa didn't try to convince him to stay. Andrew left
her folding the afghan he'd been loaned. By following the housekeeper's directions, he found his own way to the front door.

Outside, the world was already on slow bake. Andrew walked out into the bright fragrant morning and into a wall of heat. The air outside wrapped him like a lead quilt, parched his sinuses when he breathed.

Crushed oyster shells crunched underfoot as he walked toward his car, which sat in the nearest bend of the circular driveway where Heather had parked it last night.

Andrew stopped at the driver's-side door and took one last look over his shoulder. By daylight, the grounds and the house seemed less palatial than the image Andrew had developed in his mind.

He couldn't wait to be gone.

Andrew got in the car, started the engine, and dropped into gear. He'd just started to pull away when the passenger door opened. Andrew hit the brakes reflexively

Heather Lomax got in beside him and shut the door. She had her purse with her, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing what looked like the same tank top he'd seen her using for pajamas a couple of hours ago. She'd pulled on a pair of cutoff jeans and jogging shoes.

“I'm ready, ” she said. “Let's go.”

“Excuse me?”

“My father gave you an address. I heard the two of you talking last night. I'm going with you.”

“Sorry, ” Andrew said. “But I don't think so.”

“No?” Heather tilted her head at him. “How do you plan to drive out of here? Going to ram through the gates, are you? Like the movies?”

Andrew kept looking at her. The gates. He hadn't even thought about it.

Heather held up her keyring, the one with the pepper spray and the little doodad that opened sesame.

Andrew sighed. He looked ahead, through the windshield.

Then he shot out his hand and grabbed the dangling keys.

He wasn't sure what happened in the meantime, but the pain shot up his arm like a bolt of electricity. His arm twisted, and he didn't have the keys in his grip anymore. His foot slipped off the brake momentarily, and the car lurched. The next thing he knew, he was biting the steering wheel.

“Not a terrible move, ” she said, holding him in a thumb lock, bracing his elbow with her other hand. “But you telegraphed it.”

“Thanks for the pointer.”

She applied more pressure.

“Ouch, ” Andrew said.

Heather gave one final twist and let him go. He sat up rubbing his thumb.

“Where'd you learn that?” he said. “Ninja summer camp?”

“Gregor taught self-defense courses at the club, ” she told him. “He designed this whole system, works for anybody. If you're big, it makes you quicker; if you're small, it makes you bigger—that kind of idea.”

“Neat.”

“Tell you what: next time, grab my shoulders. I'll show you another little thing. Works great on dates.”

“It's a little early in the morning, ” Andrew said, still massaging his throbbing thumb.

“Some other time, ” Heather said. “So what's the deal? Are we sitting here, or are we going?”

Andrew shook his head. This girl. He didn't have the energy.

“You're the gatekeeper, ” he said.

Beyond the high fence between the Lomax estate and the rest of the world, the quiet street wasn't so quiet this morning.

At first, Andrew didn't know what had gotten into Heather. As the gates opened, she launched herself up over the console between the seats and disappeared into the backseat so quickly he thought she might be having some kind of fit. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw only a lumpy, vaguely human-shaped pile of emergency blanket on the floor.

He saw the news vans parked out on the street as they rounded the final bend of the driveway. As they reached the gates, he saw miscellaneous crew hands hanging time along the curbs.

He guessed there must be news. He put on his sunglasses and rolled on through.

A slim blond woman with a microphone scurried in front of the car as a belabored camera guy trailed cables behind her. Andrew braked. The reporter hustled over, smiling with all her teeth. He rolled down the window and breathed in a lungful of hair spray.

“Carla Sheppard, Channel 5, ” she said, trying to peer inside the car. “Would you tell us your name, sir?”

“Plum, ” Andrew said. “Travis Plum. I'm a private investigator. You can call me at my office. Gotta go.”

He raised the window and punched the gas.

From the floor behind him, Andrew heard a muffled beep. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the gates closing again.

Heather looked at the Thomas Guide he kept under the passenger seat while Andrew turned where she told him to turn. Between the two of them, they managed to find their way onto a side street where a city crew was shaving old bark off the palm trees.

Curled strips of wood the size of boogie boards fell to the pavement up ahead, blocking their lane. He couldn't turn around because of the traffic behind him. So they waited while the guys on the ground signaled to the guys up above. Then they waited some more as the workers waved the oncoming lane through first.

While they sat there, idling, Andrew could feel Heather studying the Guide in the passenger seat. Besides feeding him directions, she hadn't said a word since they'd left the snarl of reporters back at her father's house. He'd responded in kind.

But for some reason, now that they'd stopped moving forward, the silence began to grate on Andrew's nerves. Part of him was curious to know what the old man had told her to set her off last night. Another part of him didn't want to get into it.

So he said, “That was something back there.”

“That was nothing. It was worse last week.” She didn't look up from the map.

“I take it you must be feeling better.”

“I'm feeling fine, ” she said. “Why?”

“You just seemed a little under the weather, ” he said. “When we bumped into each other earlier. That's all.”

Now she looked up for a moment. Straight ahead, out the windshield. She didn't look at him.

“Under the weather, ” she mused. “Tactful.”

“I'm just making conversation.”

“You're chatty all of a sudden.”

She turned a page and folded the Guide back on itself, rested the thick oblong book against her bare thigh. Andrew assumed the conversation was over until she finally spoke again.

“I've been under the weather since I was fifteen, ” she said. “So there you go. It's been under control for years now, but when I get stressed enough, sometimes the old habits still… flare up.”

Andrew didn't say anything.

“For the record, last night wasn't the first time I've broken down and binged since I got myself together. But it's the first time I've purged anything since my twentieth birthday. Hell of a way to kick off my thirties, don't you think?

Andrew didn't think anything. The guy in the orange vest up ahead started waving at him, so he pressed on the gas, eased around the worksite, and rolled on.

“That quieted you down, ” she said. “More than you needed to know?”

“It's really not any of my business.”

“You asked.”

“So I did.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you're right. It
isn't
any of your business. But it just so happens you caught me in a need-to-talk-about-it kind of mood. Normally I'd call my brother on a morning like this. Under the circumstances, I guess you'll have to do.”

Andrew thought:
lucky me.

“I saw you watching me eat last night at the restaurant. You saw me in all my glory in the kitchen this morning. So go ahead. Take your best shot. You've earned it.”

He took his best shot. “Why?”

“Usually it helps keep me honest, ” she said. “It's a
trick Greg came up with, actually. A way of holding myself accountable.” She smoothed the map again, making the thin paper crinkle beneath her hand. “I eat my meals slowly. And every time I pick up my fork, I've made a conscious decision to do it. I take ownership of every bite.”

“I mean, ” he said, checking his side mirror and changing lanes, “why? You're rich. Who cares what you look like?”

“My father is rich, ” she said. “And haven't you ever heard that money isn't everything?”

“Spoken like somebody who's always had it, ” he said.

“Don't think I don't know that I'm privileged, ” she said. “If this is your way of making small talk, you could use some work.”

“Just stating an observation.”

“Have you ever observed your own ass on camera?”

Andrew was forced to confess that he had not.

Heather sighed and waved at the air with a hand.

“Forget I even said that, it doesn't matter. That's just an excuse. It doesn't really have anything to do with looks. At least it never did for me.”