The Third Rule Of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (40 page)

Heartfelt thanks to the Hay House team: the brilliant editor Patty Gift, our first and biggest fan, to whom we owe this wonderful writing adventure; Reid Tracy for his insightful guidance; Quressa Robinson for her careful overseeing; Charles McStravick for his inspired artwork; Laura Gray for her expert editing; Erin Dupree and Darcy Duval for steering the marketing and publicity ship; and, of course, Louise Hay, for having the foresight to create the Hay House playground in the first place.

I am fortunate indeed to be represented by Sandy Djikstra and her accomplished literary agency, including Elise Capron, Jennifer Azantian, and Thao Le. I cannot thank them enough for their continuous care and expertise.

Where would I be without my beloved tribe of fellow scribes? Huge thanks to the people in my writers group, who read and responded to this manuscript in record time, and as always provided invaluable criticism, wrapped in warm support. They are my magnificent six: Bev Baz, Monique de Varennes, Kathryn Hagen, Emilie Small, Pat Stiles, and Barbara Sweeney. Thanks, also, to Tessa Chasteen for bringing her skills to bear on The Third Rule, helping fine-tune both plot points and character arcs.

Private Investigator Dana Champion sat and talked with me for hours, generously giving me a detailed inside peek at the specifics of a P.I.’s life in Los Angeles. She was both patient with the basics and unbelievably helpful with specifics. She also connected me with PI Ann LaJeunesse, whose wry humor and professional tales both inspired and impressed me to no end. I want to be them when I grow up.

Deep gratitude to Joan B., the inspiration for Ten’s buddy Jean—I’m so fortunate to count her as a close friend. Thanks, too, to Katherine King for escorting me into, as well as under, the Santa Monica Pier while sharing her event-planning expertise. A shout-out to the friendly folks at Star Helicopters—they let me clamber inside their chopper and borrow their office décor, and to Chuck of Chuck’s Auto Care for explaining the ins and outs of Shelby Mustang maintenance. A special bow to journalist Patrick Radden Keefe of the
New York Times.
His courageous, in-depth feature article “Cocaine Incorporated,” covering Mexican Drug Cartels, was a tour-de-force, and beyond invaluable.

Finally, my whole-hearted love and appreciation to my fiancé, Cameron Keys. I wouldn’t be successful, or sane, without your steadfast love and constant encouragement, much less your willingness to track down obscure BBC mysteries to cool my heated writer’s brain after long days at the computer. I am in awe of your uncanny ability to make me laugh or allow me to cry, whatever I need, whenever I need it. I’m such a lucky woman.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT
GAY HENDRICKS

Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., has served for more than 35 years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. He is the author of 33 books, including
The Corporate Mystic, Conscious Living
, and
The Big Leap
, and with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, has written many bestsellers, including
Conscious Loving
and
Five Wishes.
Dr. Hendricks received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Stanford in 1974. After a 21-year career as a professor of Counseling Psychology at University of Colorado, he and Kathlyn founded The Hendricks Institute, based in Ojai, California, which offers seminars worldwide.

In recent years Dr. Hendricks has also been active in creating new forms of conscious entertainment. In 2003, along with movie producer Stephen Simon, Dr. Hendricks founded the Spiritual Cinema Circle, which distributes inspirational movies to subscribers in 70+ countries around the world (
www.spiritualcinemacircle.com
). He has appeared on more than 500 radio and television shows, including
The Oprah Winfrey Show
and
48 Hours
, and on networks including CNN and CNBC.

ABOUT
TINKER LINDSAY

Tinker Lindsay is an accomplished screenwriter, author, and conceptual editor. A member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC), and Women in Film (WIF), she has worked in the Hollywood entertainment industry for over three decades. Lindsay has written screenplays for major studios such as Disney and Warner Bros., collaborating with award-winning film director Peter Chelsom. Their current screenplay,
Hector and the Search for Happiness
, with Egoli Tossell Film, stars Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, and Christopher Plummer, among others, and will be released in 2014. She also co-wrote the spiritual epic
Buddha: The Inner Warrior
with acclaimed Indian director Pan Nalin, as well as the sci-fi remake of
The Crawling Eye
, and
Hoar Frost
, with Cameron Keys, the latter currently in pre-production.

Lindsay has written two books—
The Last Great Place
and a memoir,
My Hollywood Ending
—and worked with several noted transformational authors, including Peter Russell, Arjuna Ardagh, and Dara Marks.

Lindsay graduated with high honors from Harvard University in English and American Language and Literature, and was an editor for
The Harvard Crimson
. She studied and taught meditation for several years before moving to Los Angeles to live and work. She can usually be found writing in her home office, situated directly under the Hollywood sign.

AN EXCERPT FROM …
T
HE
F
OUTH
R
ULE OF
T
EN

Topanga Canyon, Calif.
July 5, Year of the Water Snake

A vast herd of faceless children. Thick. Boundless. They slog forward, their pace slow and strained, their arms outstretched, as if striving to get somewhere that’s perpetually out of reach. Their eyes are pools of yearning, of faint hope mixed with despair.

Now I am in the midst of them, pushing through the thick morass of mixed and sticky emotions. I cast my eyes around, searching for a tool, a magic wand maybe, to wave over these struggling souls that I might ease their effort and aid them in their journey.

Fear invades. Acrid and biting, it’s sharp enough to pucker my mouth. What if I’m one of them? I’m in the middle of the herd, after all. My own footsteps are labored and sluggish, as if I’m wading through tar. My own heart is filled with a nameless longing. Am I, too, trapped in a futile journey?

No. This is not real.

I bend my knees and drop into a crouch. With a burst of muscle and hope, I propel myself up, away from the throng, and out of the oppressive grip of the dream.

My heart thumped against the struts of my rib cage. I turned my head to check the red digits of the clock beside my bed. 3:43
A.M.
and dead quiet except for a low rumble emitting from Tank. My cat, too, had been pulled from sleep. Now he sat upright next to my head, sphinxlike, purring, gazing at me with wide-eyed interest.

I slid my palm from the dome of his skull to the soft fur that surrounded his neck like a downy muffler.

“It’s okay, big guy. Just another weird dream.”

Tank lowered his head and placed it between his paws. His eyelids dropped like blinds, snuffing out a pair of glowing green orbs. Within seconds, he was sound asleep again. At 3:43 in the morning, this was a good skill to have. Unfortunately, only one of us had it.

I lay in the darkness as my pounding heart returned to a steady, slow beat. I consciously revisited the dimensions and images of the dream. There was something compelling about its emotional tone.

Allow.

I softened my awareness to feel into this particular flavor and found it buried in the borderland of belly and solar plexus: fear fueled by desperation.

Allow. Allow, Ten.

Inside the desperation two other distinct feelings huddled close, like fraternal twins fed by the same womb: the deep anguish of a being trapped in a difficult journey leading nowhere good and the powerlessness of a fellow being who is unable to help.

I knew what the dream was about.

The clock had advanced an entire minute. 3:44
A.M.
Woo-hoo. I surveyed my brain-space to determine if there was any possibility that I might get back to sleep. The answer was instantaneous: nope. I slipped out of bed without disturbing the rhythm of Tank’s easy snores.

The wood floor felt cool and smooth against the soles of my feet. I reached my arms high, then bent to lay my palms flat against the hardwood. As I padded, barefoot, toward my meditation room, I declared the day officially underway. A new day, and my first opportunity to practice a new rule: let go of expectations, for expectations lead to suffering.

I sighed. No matter what events July 5th might bring, anticipated or not, I was fairly certain of one thing: it was bound to be less upsetting than July 4th had been.

C
HAPTER
1

The long line of cars snaked up and over the hill. Grumpiness emanated from the family-filled vehicles like toxic gas. The July 4th traffic was brutal. Where was everybody going, anyway? Why weren’t they at home cooking burgers?

My car crawled, too, all the way from Topanga to Bill and Martha Bohannon’s home in Hancock Park, a two-hour drive that should have taken half that. I finally parked outside their house at 5:30. The smell of charred meat let me know Bill was already stationed at the outside grill. I was the first car there, so the bad traffic must be citywide. That fact made me feel a lot better, which tells you what kind of mood I was in.

I climbed out of my Shelby. Streaming slants of sunlight framed the Bohannons’ bungalow in burnished gold. I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and then inhaled and exhaled three times, deeply. Children’s laughter floated from Bill’s backyard. I smiled, grateful for the promise of frosty cold beer and friendship, and for the ability to reset my mood at any given time, if only I remembered to reach for that tool, the one that lets go of what was and accepts what is.

I have two favorite American holidays: July 4th and Thanksgiving, and for the past decade I’ve spent most of them at Bill and Martha’s house. My ex-partner from the LAPD Burglary/Homicide division might be married to a woman of German descent, but Martha’s commitment to celebration was decidedly un-Teutonic—sometimes I think she chose their house primarily because of the annual fireworks display visible from their backyard.

An American flag flapped merrily from its pole by their front stoop, and red, white, and blue ribbons were tied in bows on the branches of their magnolia tree. Some were tied more neatly than others, signaling that the twins must finally be old enough to participate in decorating.

I reached into the back of the Mustang for the six pack of Chimay White I’d set on the fiberglass shelf that stood in for the back seat on many ’65 Shelby 350s. Life was good. I had a steady stream of clients in need of the services of a private investigator and willing to pay handsomely for them. The income was enough to support me, my newly licensed friend and co-worker, Clancy Williams, and even a recently hired personal assistant. Even more impressive, at least to me, is that I had made it for more than a year without getting entangled in any romantic relationships—a record.

Tank seemed to approve. I was a steadier, happier roommate without them.

For a brief moment, I allowed myself to wonder if Julie might be here, but I brushed away the thought lightly, and it floated off, the faint trace of longing I still harbored for her almost as insubstantial as a feather.

Besides, Martha would have told me if her sister was coming.

I smiled. I was looking forward to taking my place on a chaise lounge with a chilly bottle of Belgian ale in one hand and a specially made garden burger in the other. Biting into a burger topped with ketchup, mayo, and a slice of sweet onion was pretty close to a religious experience—even for a vegetarian. Fabulous food and drink, a slew of grimy kisses from a pair of twin redheads, the warm love of best friends, and fireworks: like Martha’s red-white-and-blue bows in the branches, my expectations for the day were predictably elevated, jaunty, and filled with promise.