SUMMER of FEAR (8 page)

"Sorry to just appear. I must seem like a
ghost."

"Is everything okay?"

"Of course not, Russ."

"Come in."

"Thank you."

I left Grace in my study and went upstairs to check on Isabella. She was
deep in sleep. I stood there for a moment and looked at her face buried down in
the pillow. The crook of her cane was visible where it stood beside the bed,
and I wondered for the millionth time why the Good Shepherd had abandoned it to
her. Isabella would not be happy if Grace was to be here in the morning: She
believed that both Amber and my daughter were the worst kind of manipulators,
and she was always irritated—even during five years of marriage—when I
mentioned either of them. I learned it was easier not to.

Grace was looking at my bookcase when I went back into the study. In the
clean incandescent light, I could see she was a little pale and clammy. A dew
of perspiration marked her temples and upper lip with a very slight shine.

"Be a nice place to open a bar," she said.

"What'll it be?"

"Dry vermouth on the rocks, if you have it. A
twist."

I made two and brought them back. She had unzipped her parka but hadn't
taken it off. I studied her as she came across the room for her drink, feeling
as always the astonishment at seeing a part of me in her. She was a beautiful
young woman—eighteen years of age, strong, composed. She had gotten Amber's
face—with just a touch of my Monroe width to it. She had Amber's fine jaw and
full, relaxed mouth, her straight and narrow nose. But some things in her were
mine: the heavy, inexpressive brow, the readable brown eyes that could seem at
times so undefended. And these features had kept Grace free of Amber's most
powerful characteristic—her guile—the very quality, I might add, that had put
Amber's face on so many magazine covers and TV screens. Amber could suggest
anything from lust to innocence to betrayal to heartache—and plausibly connect
them to a certain shampoo, makeup, bra. But just beneath all these
"emotions," there was always the guile, i willingness to conspire,
the sense that there were only two people in this world: Amber and whomever she
was looking back at. It was a wholly private and exclusive contract. Grace, for
all her loveliness, could never fake that arrangement. And Amber,
I thought, never would again. The terrible vision of desecrated face came to me
as I looked at our daughter.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Two men, Russell, have been following me. One is with big ears,
and the other one is slender, with short hair, I’ve seen them outside my condo,
at my work, in a red pickup truck following me. They seem to be everywhere."

"What do they want?"

"How on earth would I know?"

"Have you called the police?"

"No. I came here instead, hoping for maybe one night peaceful
sleep."

"How long have they been following you?"

"I don't know. I noticed a few days ago."

"They've never approached?"

Grace studied me with a peculiarly lucid expression, as if she'd found
something in my face she'd never noticed before. "No. I've spent some time
with a boyfriend the last two days. but I don't believe he's capable
of...
protecting me."

"Who?"

"His name is Brent."

"Brent have a last name?"

"Sides. He's a bartender, but he wants to write
movie

"What bar?"

"Sorrento's—up in the Orange hills."

Grace finished her drink, put the glass on the coffee table and sat on
the couch. She looked down at the floor, her loose dark curls falling forward
and hiding her face. "He's got a crush on me. But as I said, Russell, he's
only a boy. He keeps showering me with gifts."

She looked up at me, her eyes a little wet.

"I hear you were at Amber's last night. I thought you two were
still hardly speaking."

Grace blinked, then furrowed the brow that reminded me so much of my
own. She studied me for a long, very strange moment, during which I felt as if
I were being contemplated by my own eyes. She shook her head slowly and looked
away. "I didn't see Mom last night," she said.

"Marty Parish said he saw you there, coming out at
eleven-thirty."

"Well, I'm telling you he didn't."

"He was positive—last night. Your red
Porsche."

"I don't know what to say, Russ, but I wasn't there. Martin drinks
too much to be positive about anything, doesn't he? The last time I saw Martin,
he was unconscious on Mom's sofa. That was a long time ago. Last night, I was
with Brent."

She studied me again. Her expression wasn't locked, but open—an
expression that offered as much as it took in. There was no cunning in it—not
to my eyes, at least. But there was confusion and curiosity, and a small amount
of what I can only describe as hopefulness. "What's going on, Russ? Have
you been seeing Mother again?"

"No. I talked to Marty today. That's when he said he saw you,
coming out of Amber's last night."

"Then Marty's been seeing her again."

I nodded.

"I've never understood how she turns you all into such grovelers."

"Brent Sides could probably enlighten you."

Grace's brown eyes steadied on my face. "That was never my
intention."

"Amber would say it was never hers,
either."

"It's like you crave the heartache. Does it really feel the
good?"

"Only when you're young."

"Like me."

"Like you. It's the way of the world. So
Jah
seh."

She looked up at me again, then stood. If the phrase startled her, she
gave no hint that it did. She looked out a window for a moment and shook back
her dark hair. "So God says. Russ,
look, I'll be honest with you. Can I just stay here one night? I'm tired of
being harassed, and I'm exhausted. I know Isabella isn't wild about me, but
I'll be out early."

"Sure, the guest bed's made up."

"The couch here would be fine."

"Suit yourself, Grace."

She held up her glass. "Have a nightcap with me? Something a little
stronger than vermouth would be nice."

I made two stout whiskeys and brought them back. We sat on the couch, at
what seemed a proper distance. I told her about Isabella and my work; she told
me about hers. The conversation was oddly formal and tentative, like that of an
old friendship held together only by some strained honoring of what used to be.
But for us, there was no used to be. Still, I couldn’t keep the feelings down,
the great, tender, protective urges that a man feels for his daughter. I felt
them spreading inside me until they reached some invisible barrier where they
eddied settled, pooled. It was just as it had always been—nothing for them to
have, nowhere for them to go. There she was, my girl sitting on my couch, two
proper feet away, telling me about selling clothes, and all I could do was sit
there. Of the severe injuries that Amber's annexation of Grace had caused me,
these were the worst: that she had torn away the object of my love and stolen
from my daughter and me the one thing that could never be returned—time.

I placed my hand over hers and looked at her. She ended a sentence
without finishing it, glanced at me, then turned her gaze to the floor again.
Her hair fell forward and hid her face. "I'm sorry, Russ. I could've just
gotten a hotel or something."

"I'm glad you're here."

For a while, we sat there, hand in hand, letting the touch be. Grace's
muscles wouldn't relax, though; she kept her hand in mine by an act of will.

"It's strange," she said. "I've spent my entire life with
Mom, having
fun.
I've been on every continent, lived in ten countries,
learned three languages besides my own—but I still can't understand what went
wrong. Something's missing, something that isn't there, but I can feel anyway,
like a phantom limb. Sometimes I feel like there's a part of me, a big part,
that's just now crawling out of the slime for the first time."

I squeezed her hand gently and smiled at her self-awareness, her
self-ignorance, her eighteen-year-old's combination of confusion and clarity.
"It'll never change, Grace," I said. "You'll be finding out you
weren't quite who you thought you were until the day you die."

"Quite a comfort, Russ."

Suddenly, she stood up. I hated the feeling of her hand slipping away.
"I should go."

"Don't."

She went to the window and looked down toward Laguna Canyon Road.
"I still hate her."

I let that pass for a moment, waiting her out. "You're just seeing
her for the first time."

"No. I really like hate her."

The thought came to me that at this moment in time Grace believed her
mother was alive. Not "I hated her" but
hate
her." Marty
Parish was lying—Grace had not been inside Amber's house last night. The hair
on my arms stood up.

Marty, what could you have done?

"Want to tell me about that?"

"No. Some things you can't elaborate on. I can't say it any clearer
than I just did." She turned. "Good night, Russ. Man, I tired."

I hugged her, but
she remained erect and unyielding, unoffering. "There's a blanket in the
closet," I said.

I lay beside
Isabella for a while, holding her close to me, watch over her shoulder as the
minutes ticked past on the clock.

At 3:40, I went downstairs with a flashlight, saw my study door shut and
the light off, then quietly let myself outside and into the dry stillness of
the canyon. The smell of sagebrush settled around me. The canyon road bent far
below, twisting: out of sight, unoccupied, barely lighted, peaceful.

I let myself into Grace's car and found the light.

Her glove compartment contained a few CDs, a tire pressure gauge, and
the usual registration and insurance documents. It also contained a wallet, in
which I found $680 cash, several credit-card receipts—mostly from Sorrento's in
the Orange hills, home of writer, bartender, fool-for-love Brent Sides. The
three-pack of condoms, I assumed, was probably for those moments when Grace
bestowed upon Mr. Sides that most intimate of gifts. The thought of his
eighteen-year-old daughter in coitus sits well with no father.

I popped the trunk release, got my flashlight, and climb out. Nothing
unusual in the trunk, either: jack and spare, two cans of oil, a squeegee, a
small tool kit. Pushed up near the dash was a box of glass cleaner, car polish,
silicone tire spray, sponges.

Lying flat against the far side was a box of thirty-three-gallon trash
bags.

I ran the flashlight beam across the label:
extra heavy duty.
I reached into the trunk, brought them
out, and checked the price tag for place of purchase, but there was only the
bar code. I fished out the ties—plastic, joined together, waiting to be pulled
apart—and compared them with the three in my wallet, taken from under Amber's
bed.

Same ties.

Same bags?

I finally went to bed just after four. I lay there
wondering whether Grace was lying, if so, why, and whether she could possibly
have it in her to kill. I did not believe she did. Sometime around five, I
drifted into an uneasy sleep, from which I woke in a nonspecific panic less
than an hour later.

Downstairs, I found that Grace had gone. She had probably coasted her
car down the hill to keep from waking us.

In my study, I
found her note:

Thanks, Russ—couldn't sleep much,
after all. Find anything juicy in my car? I went to pick up a few things. Be
back.

—Grace

Sheriff Daniel
Winters called at 8:10 that morning and told me he expected the Dina piece to
be big, subtly persuasive, well played, and on the stands by Tuesday. From the
tone of voice, I could almost picture the resigned furrows on his deep black
face. Dan Winters was a sheriff who understood the impurities contained within
the larger concept of getting things done. So I did what any writer does when
faced with impossible demands—agreed to everything.

He
was quiet for a long moment, then gave me an address in the Orange hills and
hung up. So, he had taken my bait.

The
house was a magnificent wood-and-glass thing, tucked within a stand of Jelecote
pines at the end of a long private road. There were two patrol cars, two
unmarked,
and
the Crime Scene van
parked in the driveway. When I got out the air smelled like a mountain resort.
It was already hot. There was a nervous buzz in my stomach.

Marty Parish met me at the back door and led me past two dubious
uniforms, down a long hallway, through a living room almost as big as my entire
house, then down another hallway toward, I assumed, the bedrooms. He turned
once to look at me as we walked but said nothing. I sensed a change in him from
the night before, a change that went deeper than the simple fact he wasn't dumb
drunk. Marty had a red patch where I'd kneed his forehead, but he also had the
level-eyed gaze of a man who's got something on you.