He found the manager’s apartment on the lower level at the end of the north building and knocked loudly. What had once been a darkly stained door was scratched, faded, and marred. It had a brand-new lock on it, however, and the door handle was sturdy. He glanced down the row of units and realized it was one feature available for every renter. Made him wonder if there had been trouble with break-ins.
The door suddenly opened inward and a skinny woman in her twenties with thin brown hair stood in the aperture. She wore a bright green bra top and tight jeans that squeezed over her flared hip bones, but the waistband was loose around her waist. Her collarbones were so defined it looked as if she was a skeleton with stretched skin.
Anorexia, he decided, making a snap judgment. The hell of it was, he was rarely wrong. “Are you the manager?”
“My dad is, but he’s not here. You want a room, you can put your name down and we’ll do a credit check, but we’re pretty full up.”
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Ben Drommer.” She tilted her head and gave him a good, hard look, apparently encouraged enough by what she saw to trust him a little. “I’m Erin.”
“I’m Rex. Has your father been manager here for a while?”
“Ages. The whole time I was growing up, and I’m twenty-two now. Eons before that, too. After the divorce, Mom moved away, but Dad stayed.” She shrugged. “You want a place or not?”
Rex pretended to think that over as he debated whether to play a game to get to the truth or just hit her straight on with what he wanted. He chose the latter. “A family lived here when their daughter was young. The daughter’s in her midtwenties now, so you might remember her?”
“Don’t count on it. You know how many people have lived here?”
“The last name was Gaines. They had a daughter who’s a few years older than you are.”
Erin shrugged. “You could always ask Marlena, I guess. She’s been here forever and that’s no lie. She’s in the other building, lower floor now. She used to be on the top, but Dad had to move her ’cause she couldn’t do the stairs.”
“Which unit?” Rex asked, turning to look at the building that ran perpendicular to the manager’s.
The two structures created an L-shape with a path between them. The interior walkways were overgrown by various succulents and threaded through with weeds. A listing jacaranda grew from a center planter, and Rex imagined when it was in bloom, the purple flowers might jazz up the place . . . then again, maybe not.
Erin pointed to the interior unit next to the lower eastern corner. “Number thirteen. Marlena didn’t care, but I’d never stay anywhere that had a thirteen in it.”
“Yeah?”
“Too unlucky.” She looked at him as if he were really slow.
“I know a guy whose address is 666,” Rex said.
“He’s alive?” Her eyes were huge.
“Last I checked. Like your dad, he’s lived there most of his life.”
She shuddered. “Some people just look for trouble.” With that, she closed the door as if he’d suddenly become persona non grata.
He supposed he had and walked down the cracked concrete to the door she’d pointed out. The number thirteen was nailed to the side of the door in wrought-iron numerals, the one above the three. He knocked loudly once again, but it took a couple tries before he heard what sounded like something being dragged across the floor and scrabbling at what he assumed was the chain lock. Finally, a wrinkled face appeared through the opening in the door and one blue eye raked over him.
“Hello, Marlena? I’m Rex Kingston.” He pointed toward the manager’s office. “Ben Drommer’s daughter Erin thought maybe you might be the right person for me to talk to.”
“Whad about?” Her voice was dry and creaky as if there wasn’t enough lubrication in her throat.
“A family that lived here fifteen or twenty years ago, maybe? Ralph and Joy Gaines and their daughter.”
“Whad’re ya sellin’?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to find the Gaineses.”
The blue eye stared for a moment, then he heard the chain lock being released. The door opened to reveal a woman bent over a walker that had wheels on the back two legs, rubber stoppers on the front two. When she flapped a hand at him, an invitation, and started back into the room, he realized she didn’t lift the walker, just pushed it along even though the front legs had no wheels. He determined she must be stronger than she looked as she moved her bent form back toward a chair with an ergonomic cushion. She sank into it with a sigh, leaving Rex to shut the door.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
He glanced around at the overstuffed furniture, which looked as if it needed the dust pounded out of it, and settled on a kitchen chair that was doing double duty in the living room. The shades were drawn and a strip of light, choked with dust motes, illuminated a row of brown paper sacks on the opposite side of the room like an accusing finger, pointing to the leftover newspapers she was apparently saving.
Rex caught a glimpse of several tabloids with screaming headlines. I HAD A GOBLIN BABY! was the easiest to read.
He turned to the old woman. “Do you remember them, the Gaineses?”
“Whad do you want ’em for?”
“So you do remember them.”
“Mebbe.” She squinted at him. “He do somethin’ wrong? Gaines?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He was always actin’ like he was so hoity-toity with that insurance business. Talked about how he was gonna git hisself a real house. Like we wasn’t good enough for him around here.” She snorted. “Little big man. The wife was even worse. Puttin’ on airs. Lookin’ down her nose at everybody and everything. She finally hightailed it outta here and left him standing around like he didn’t know what hit him. Stupid man. I coulda told him that it didn’t matter how he thought of himself, she knew he wasn’t good enough. Just took her a while to git up the gumption to go.”
“To Colorado?” Rex asked, remembering what Beth Harper had said.
“Mebbe . . . mebbe not. Don’t really know.”
“They had a daughter . . .” he prompted.
“Uh, yeah. Her. Always worried, that one. Little white face with big eyes. She spooked the Henderson boy, but then he was a little touched anyway.”
“What did she do?”
“Told him the world was gonna explode, or somethin’.” Marlena cackled in amusement. “Hid hisself under his bed for a week.”
“Did she mention a bridge coming down?”
Marlena pulled back and looked at him from the tops of her eyes, almost as if she were trying to peer over a pair of glasses. “You know about that? It was big talk around here for awhile. Her mama wanted to call the police, but her daddy said no. It wasn’t long after that, that they moved.”
“Do you know where to?”
“They didn’t tell me nothin’ on account I was so lower class to their level of people,” she said with a curl of her lip. Then with a shrug, she added, “Though I thought it might be south o’ here somewhere.”
“San Diego?”
She made a face. “Not that far. I don’t rightly remember.”
Rex asked her some more questions, but Marlena had started to wind down. He’d been in her apartment less than half an hour, but its darkness and a cloying scent of sour milk were getting to him. He thanked her and got up to leave.
“You come back again,” she told him. “I’ll tell you more.”
He wasn’t convinced she had more to tell, but he said, “I may do that,” and headed out her door, closing it behind him. As he turned toward the parking lot and his car, he heard her thumping her way after him to the door, no doubt to turn the lock again.
To date, his research had turned up a lot of Ralph Gaineses in Southern California. Apart from the one who’d resided in Costa Mesa, none had filled the bill to be the one he was searching for. Maybe Elizabeth’s adopted father hadn’t stayed in the state. Beth Harper h
ad thought Colorado, so maybe he should turn his attention there.
Why do you care? he asked himself as he drove away. This job isn’t likely to be a moneymaker. So far, there’d been no money at all, but that was his own fault. Still, he had to question his own motivation. What’s your end game, Rex?
The perplexing answer was, he really didn’t know. He’d signed on to help Ravinia, and he knew that, even after giving himself a good talking to, he wasn’t going to change his mind.
Channing Renfro heard the rain pounding on the top of his convertible and it turned his black mood even blacker. Goddamn pansy-ass drivers didn’t know how to fucking move in this stuff and when they did, they jagged from lane to lane and he was damn lucky he hadn’t been clipped by that Fiesta. He’d laid on the horn for all he was worth and had yelled “Fuck you!” over and over again, but what had the middle-aged white woman in the Fiesta done? Nothing. Just kept on white-knuckling it down the road, eyes glued straight ahead, mouth probably open in fear and stupidity. Bitch never even looked back.
He was lucky he’d made it to the club without a scratch, although this goddamn rain wasn’t doing his paint job any good. Oh, sure it was beading up on the hood of his BMW; he’d paid enough for the detailing that it goddamn better be, or he’d be in that asshole’s face again, the one that had done the work and charged him a fucking ransom.
It was a short jog to the front doors, but he didn’t feel like getting wet, so he sat in his car and fumed. There was an app on his phone, he recalled, something that skinny bitch, Delia, had suggested he get. She was gone, good riddance, but the app remained and he was pretty sure it was something to do with weather. Picking up his iPhone, he scrolled through several screens. Ah, yeah. Dark Sky. That was it. Clicking on it, he learned the rain was going to stop in his area in about ten minutes. Fine. Good. He’d wait.
Delia, Channing thought, now that his mind had touched on her. What a goddamn bitch. Moving out of their rental house . . . leaving him and John with the total rent. He oughtta sue her ass. Drag her into court. Make her pay. John didn’t have any money. Maybe a few bucks from the valet job he had, but most of that went to entertaining the ladies. It was those ladies that had turned Delia into such a screaming witch. She was always thinking Channing was screwing one of ’em. Okay. Maybe he had, but it was just one. And that was because he was so stoned he didn’t know who he was with. Well, he knew he wasn’t with Delia, but he didn’t care which of John’s women he’d ended up with, and then old faithful had kinda let him down anyway, which concerned him, but he wasn’t going to tell Delia that part.
He reached down and adjusted his balls through his sweatpants and thought gloomily about his sex drive. Something was a little bit off there. Delia had told him not to take all those natural supplements, but he’d kinda just wanted to slap her. Maybe they weren’t helping, and well, the steroids . . . his skin had sure broken out in a bunch of big, red zits. “Fuckin’ A,” he muttered.
What he needed was a good workout. Glancing through the windshield through the dark, he saw several other cars circling the lot, their headlights washing over him. Everybody wanted to be close to the doors.
Maybe he should just run for it. Fucking rain.
Scratching at one of the zits on his left shoulder, he glanced at Dark Sky again and saw that the rain was almost over. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes and started counting. He got to thirty-four and stopped. It was boring to count.
He glanced through the windshield. Rain was pretty much over. He grabbed up his cell phone, stretching back and lifting his right hip so he could stick the phone into his pocket. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel a few minutes then threw open the door, sick of waiting.
Stepping out of the BMW, he threw an angry look to the heavens. The rain had stopped, but that didn’t make him any happier. Weather report said it was coming right back. He hated the rain.
Across the way, he saw a guy get out of a car, no hat, oblivious to the precipitation. Kinda pissed Channing off. He could practically hear his mother saying, “It is just rain, you little shit,” or something to that effect. Made him miss her, though she’d been a worse bitch than Delia, in truth. Most of the time, he was glad she was gone.
He reached back inside for his gym bag, which was on the passenger seat. Blam! Something hit him alongside the head and the next thing he knew he was sprawled on the wet pavement. “Wha . . . wha . . . ?” He tried to get up but was hit again. Blam! He saw stars. And little cuckoo birds swimming around in a circle. Just like the fucking cartoons.
Dully, he heard noise, something funny . . . out of the ordinary. A whoosh . . . and heat and the smell . . . gasoline....
His eyes opened. My car! Some fucker had hit it with a Molotov cocktail!
He got a knee underneath himself.
Bam!
Pain exploded against the back of his head.
He was slammed back down to the ground. He tried to catch his breath, to stay awake. He was rolled over forcefully, a heavy shoe turning him.
What the fuck?
Too weak to struggle, he squinted upward.
Above him a demon in a mask was pouring something down on him.
Water . . . ? No . . . gas! “Fuck,” he tried to yell, but the bastard poured it into his mouth!
Spitting and twisting, Channing saw the lighter.
Then fire.
Great hellish flames cracking, burning.
His car. His beautiful convertible. “Ugh . . . ga . . . ga . . .” he sputtered, struggling to his feet.
He saw it as it happened—the red flash of flame that jumped from the car to him in a brilliant arc. It was almost beautiful. Blinding. Horrifying. He gasped. Too late as the gasoline rained upon his body ignited all over him. Burning. Scorching. Melting his face and his hair and his jogging suit.
Pain seemed to rip off his skin.
Running, yowling, a human torch, he raced around the lot as the fire consumed him. He screamed and screamed and screamed.
Chapter 20
“Symbiosis,” Ravinia said for the second time when Rex ignored her. Seated at his small kitchen table, staring through the window to the rain drizzling from a leaden sky, she was getting damn tired of being ignored. “I help you, you help me.”
“I’m already helping you,” he said distractedly, his gaze on the laptop screen. He was seated across from her, a cup of coffee having cooled beside him. “Tomorrow we’ll do the contract.”
He’d been distracted from the moment he’d returned with the news that yes, Elizabeth’s family had lived at the Brightside Apartments, and yes, the old woman who’d known them had thought Elizabeth was an odd child, and yes, they were on the right track. But that didn’t mean they had another plan. Rex had gone into his den and pulled out his laptop and he’d all but shut Ravinia out, which pissed her off no end.
“I’m trying to make a point here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Go ahead and make it.”
She wanted to slam the small computer shut on his fingers, but she figured that would fly in the face of her argument. Besides, he was working and that work was likely related to her search—at least she hoped it was—so she didn’t want to do something counterproductive.
“I could work for you. I could stay here and use your address and get my driver’s license. I have a birth certificate. I have my GED. I should be good, right?”
His fingers stilled and he eyed her over the top of the laptop. “Use my address?”
“I need an address,” she pointed out.
“How is any of that symbiosis?” he asked, surprising her that he’d been listening.
She spread her hands. “I help you and you help me.”
“I get the part about me helping you. Where does your help come in?”
“In the investigation. Tomorrow, the lady with the butt implants is meeting her lover, right? Kimberley Cochran.”
“Wait a minute . . . how did you know?”
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“I overheard you talking to the husband and I already know where. Casa del Mar. I looked around Google and a few other web sites,” she shrugged, proud of herself.
“You used my computer.”
“The laptop was open.”
“Jesus, you can’t go poking into people’s private lives, you had no right—”
”See,” she cut in, not wanting a lecture. She’d just taken a quick peek while he’d been in the shower and she hadn’t seen anything sensitive. “I can be an investigator.”
“It takes more than just Googling a name or two.” He looked perturbed, his jaw hardening.
“But they don’t know me—Kimberley Cochran or even her husband. No one. I’m just a girl. I can help you. I’ll follow her, and she won’t even notice me.”
“You look like a street person.”
She frowned. She was wearing her newly cleaned jeans and an army green T-shirt that she’d bought just before the trip south.
“You got lucky and got away with it at the Ivy . . . just . . . but it won’t work again.”
“I am a street person,” she pointed out. “Sort of.”
Rex gave a slight shake of his head, but at least most of his anger seemed to have dissolved as he returned his attention to the laptop. “I found a couple Ralph Gaineses I could call,” he admitted, seeming to consider her suggestion.
“But you don’t think they’re the right ones.”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.” He closed the laptop and stared off into space while absently scratching the beard stubble on his chin.
“You want me to get some new clothes, I’ll get some new clothes,” she said as he took a sip of coffee, found it cold and made a face.