She was valuable because she knew her stuff, worked eighteen hours a day, and both looked and sounded great on camera. Plus, she had instincts; she knew what made a story and how to present it. And, perhaps most important, she never missed an opportunity to ask the hard questions and keep at them until she got answers.
Yet he still hesitated. Was this the kind of carnage people really needed to see on their lunch break?
“Think of the ratings,” Tina said, again reading his mind.
She was right, of course; this would be the footage all the big guns would want to buy from them after their noon broadcast. He’d parlay that ten grand into fifty before the day was out. Bottom line: business was business, whether he wanted Alison to see something like this or not.
“Okay,” he said.
Tina Wong put the form, already filled out, on his desk in front of him.
Michael scribbled his signature with the red Sharpie he still held in his hand.
Bloodred, he thought.
Tina snatched the paper off the desk as if he might yet change his mind. “Thanks,” she tossed back over her shoulder as she disappeared out the door.
Michael picked up the remote and started the footage one more time, once again unable to turn away from the horror unfolding on the screen. He tried to imagine what kind of nightmares the poor kid who found that mess would have for the rest of his life, but already knew what they would be.
Endless replays of the horror he was watching.
A shiver ran through him as he played the clip yet again.
This was no murder of passion by a jealous lover, and this was no random robbery.
This was something only a monster could have done.
A monster who was on the loose right now somewhere in the vastness of Los Angeles.
Jesus God.
Tina was right. The public had a right to know. This was a big story.
The phone rang. For a moment Michael thought of letting it ring through to voice mail while he watched the footage one more time, but instead he picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hey, sexy.”
Michael smiled and relaxed back into his chair. “Hi, yourself.”
“I’m thinking we should have a drink after work tonight.”
He glanced over at the frozen last frame of carnage on the television screen. “I think I’m going to need more than a drink.”
“In that case, how about my place at six-thirty?”
“See you then,” Michael said, and replaced the receiver, making a mental note to call Risa and tell her he’d be home late.
4
CONRAD DUNN FINISHED DICTATING THE DAY’S SURGICAL NOTES, then checked his watch. Two-thirty: plenty of time for the afternoon rounds before heading home.
He paged Twyla to let her know he was on his way, then took the stairs down to the second floor of Le Chateau. As usual, the nurse was already waiting for him in front of the Rose Suite, apparently having once more anticipated his page. As he approached, she attempted a dance step the choreographer she’d been named after would have been ashamed of, and handed him Patricia Rothstein’s chart.
The kind of routine facelift that kept the place going, but in which he had little interest. Still, Patricia Rothstein had as much right to his full attention as anyone else, so he scanned the chart quickly to make sure nothing negative had happened since he’d seen her early this morning, knocked twice on the door, then opened it and walked in. Patricia Rothstein gazed up at him in obvious misery. Bruised eyes and a shock of dark hair were the only things visible amid the bandages that swathed her head.
“How are you doing today?” Conrad asked, resting a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Patricia’s daughter sat in a chair next to her mother’s bed, holding a cup of water with a drinking straw, but the dinner tray was untouched, which didn’t surprise him.
“No appetite?” he asked.
“Not kosher,” the woman mumbled through swollen lips. “Not Atkins.”
Conrad turned to Twyla, who stood just behind him with a clipboard. “Make a note for the kitchen,” he said. “Kosher and lean.” Then he turned back to his patient. “I’m sorry about the confusion. I’ll have a fresh meal brought up right away. How’s your pain level, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Twenty,” the woman said.
Conrad flipped through the pages on her chart. “Well, we can certainly fix that. And tomorrow we’ll get those bandages off your face.”
The woman grunted, and he smiled at the daughter, who smiled back.
Next door in the Magnolia Suite, Conrad found Imee Abeya looking far tinier than the average thirteen-year-old in the big hospital bed. The lower half of her face was lost behind massive white bandages, but her mother—not much larger than Imee—smiled and stood as Conrad entered, taking the doctor’s hand in both of hers and bowing.
Conrad gently disentangled his hand from Mrs. Abeya’s. “How’s our patient this afternoon?”
“She good,” Imelda Abeya said in her recently acquired and still very uncertain English. “Very good.”
“That’s what we want to hear.” He turned to the girl. “Imee, I’m going to take your bandages off now and we’ll see how everything looks, all right?”
The girl nodded, her eyes showing both excitement and fear.
Conrad wheeled over a stool, and as Twyla opened a sterile tray of instruments, he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. Picking a pair of scissors from the tray, he carefully cut the bandages and gently unwound them. The gauze was stained with a little seepage, but the girl’s bleeding had completely stopped, which was unusual for a cleft palette reconstruction.
He gave Mrs. Abeya an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up before proceeding.
The woman only kept chewing nervously on a knuckle.
Very slowly, Conrad unwrapped the gauze, and bared the repaired face of the young Filipina. Imee’s lips were still bruised and swollen, and a dark scab covered the stitch line from her nose to her lip, but the wound was healing very well. He peered inside the girl’s mouth with a small mirror and even smaller flashlight, then smiled at Imee.
Imee tried to return the smile, wincing when her lips moved.
“Easy,” Conrad cautioned, then turned to Imelda Abeya. “Much better.”
“Ah! Sí!” The woman wiped a tear from her cheek.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, eyeing Imee appraisingly.
“Beautiful,” the girl whispered.
“Sí,” the mother said.
“I’m going to rebandage this,” Conrad said quietly to Twyla, then went on speaking as he worked. “Keep her on liquids and pain meds for the rest of the night. Tomorrow I’ll have her start on a liquid diet, and she can go home the next day, so Sandra can go ahead and get their plane tickets. Make an appointment for her follow-up with Dr. Sabayán in Manila. Fax him and have him bill the foundation. Arrange for the translator to come tomorrow to explain all the post-op instructions to Mrs. Abeya, and make certain she understands that she must send us good, clear photos in three months.”
As Twyla finished with her notes there was a soft knock on the door and the office manager stepped into the room. “Dr. Dunn?” she said softly.
“I’m with a patient, Sandra,” Conrad said.
The woman bit her lip but didn’t move. “You’re needed in your office right away.”
Conrad Dunn frowned darkly. “I’m with a patient,” he repeated.
“I can finish bandaging,” Twyla offered.
“I’ll do it,” Conrad said. Sandra knew as well as the rest of the staff that he was never to be interrupted when he was with a patient. What was she thinking? “Whatever is in my office can wait five minutes.” Refusing to be hurried by even so much as a second, he carefully finished the bandaging, then smiled at the young girl and checked her IV drip. Only after a few last words with Imelda Abeya did he finally leave the room and head for his office on the third floor.
Sandra was
waiting outside his door, her face pale, her expression strained. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she held the door open for him to go in.
A man stood looking out the window at the view that swept down from Le Chateau over the hills above Westwood then on to encompass most of the greater Los Angeles basin. The morning haze had cleared, the outline of Catalina Island was barely visible on the horizon.
“May I help you?” Conrad asked.
The man turned around, and it wasn’t simply the grim expression on his face that told Conrad Dunn what had happened.
Rather, it was the sight of Ruffles in the man’s arms.
“Lieutenant Dickson, Dr. Dunn,” the man said. “LAPD.”
Conrad felt the blood drain from his face. He knew. Oh God, he knew.
He sank to the edge of the sofa.
The lieutenant set Ruffles on the floor, and the little white dog ran to Conrad and jumped up into his lap, whimpering and licking at his face.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Dunn,” the policeman said, “but we found your wife’s body on the beach below Vanderlip Park in Palos Verdes.” He hesitated, but when Conrad only looked mutely at him, finally spoke again. “She’d called in a report that a locked Lexus with a white dog had been abandoned there. She…” His voice trailed off as he drew a cell phone from his pocket.
Margot’s cell phone—the one studded with diamonds—that he’d bought her only last month.
“She left a message on this for you,” Lieutenant Dickson said.
“Margot,” Conrad whispered as a cold numbness began to spread through his body.
“I’m so sorry,” the lieutenant murmured, and set the phone down on the corner of the desk.
Starting to tremble, Conrad pressed the little dog to his chest as if to transfer the warmth from its body to his own, barely aware of the voices around him as Sandra spoke with the policeman.
“Margot,” he whispered again, grief burning inside him.
Grief, and something else.
“Why did you do it?” he whispered. But of course he already knew why.
Now the guilt began to burn hotter than the grief. He should never have made her go to the banquet last night. She’d told him she wasn’t up to it, but he’d insisted. And it had been too much.
It was all his fault. If only he’d begun the repair work on her face…
He looked up and saw her, stunning in a red Versace gown on the cover of Vanity Fair. He’d had the cover blown up, framed, and hung on his office wall. “How can I go on?” he whispered. “How can I possibly go on without you?”
But the calm beauty on the cover offered him no answers.
ALISON HEARD the garage door rattle open and checked the time. Eleven-thirty, which meant her mother thought she was asleep instead of talking with Cindy on her cell phone about going to a party Friday night. If her dad had seen her light on and told her mother, she could lose the phone for a week. On the other hand, so far her father had either never noticed her light on late or, if he had, hadn’t told her mother. And that thought led to another idea.
“My dad’s home,” she said, “gotta go. But when he comes in to say good-night, I’ll ask him about Friday night. That way I can tell my mother that Dad already said yes when I talk to her in the morning.”
“Okay,” Cindy said.
“I’ll call you back.”
“Tell me tomorrow,” Cindy said. “I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.” Alison clicked off her cell phone, moved from her bed to her desk—might as well at least look like she’d been studying—and waited.
And waited.
As the minutes ticked by and she still didn’t hear her father coming up the stairs, she went to the door, opened it, and listened.
Though she couldn’t quite make out the words, she heard her mother’s voice coming from the kitchen in that low, you-better-understand-what-I’m-saying voice her mother used when she’d done something wrong.
Maybe she’d wait and ask her dad about Friday night in the morning, at breakfast.
But before she closed the door to her room, she heard her mother’s voice rise abruptly and a single word resound clearly up the stairwell: “Lying!”
She froze.
Lying? Who was lying? What was going on?
She crept to the head of the stairs, where she could hear both of them clearly, then hesitated, wanting to find out what was going on but also to go back to her room, close the door, and pretend nothing was happening.
Knowing she should go back to her room, she sat down instead.
Sat, and listened.
“I CALLED the station, Michael,” Risa said, trying hard to control the anger that had been simmering inside her for the last two hours. She didn’t want to shout at him, and she certainly didn’t want to cry—whatever was going on wouldn’t be solved by either of those reactions. “They said you left the office at six.” Michael sank onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “So please don’t tell me you were at work until eleven. I’m not stupid.”
“Of course you’re not—”
“And I can smell liquor on your breath, so you’ve been drinking.”
Michael nodded. “I had a couple of drinks,” he agreed. “But I’m not drunk—nowhere near.”
“So who were you with?” Risa sat on the stool next to him. Before he could reply, she went on. “And please don’t tell me it was ‘a business associate.’ If it was, you’d have said so in the message you left.”
Michael looked at his hands. “It’s not what you think,” he finally said, still failing to meet her eyes.
Risa took a deep breath, forcing herself to keep her voice calm, to betray none of the anger that was rapidly coming to a boil. Of course it was what she thought it was; what else could it possibly be? “For God’s sake, Michael,” she said when she could trust her voice not to tremble. “We’ve been married for almost twenty years. We’ve been best friends—partners!” She took another breath, which escaped in a sigh of defeat only a second or two later. “My mother told me that a woman always knows when her husband is having an affair, and it turns out she was right. I know you’re having an affair—I can feel it.”
She saw Michael’s body tense, but still he said nothing.
She laid a hand on his arm, and at least he didn’t pull it away. “Michael, I know our sex life hasn’t been everything it could be. And I’m more than willing to take at least some of the responsibility for that.” A sob caught in her chest, and she paused before continuing. “For God’s sake, Michael, don’t just sit there saying nothing at all! At least tell me who she is!”
He finally turned to face her, unconsciously straightening on the stool, and when their eyes at last met for the first time since Michael had come into the house from the garage a few minutes ago, Risa felt a cold terror begin to spread through her body. Her husband betrayed no anger at all, or defensiveness, or anything other than two simple emotions.
Love and sorrow.
Whatever had happened, she knew with absolute certainty that it wasn’t just an affair.
“There isn’t another woman, Risa,” he said softly, taking her hands in his own.
Risa gazed at him in puzzlement. If there wasn’t another woman—
The truth came to her just as he spoke the words:
“It’s a man.”
As she tried to come to grips with what her husband—the man she’d lived with and loved for almost two decades and thought she knew as well as she knew herself—had just told her, the other shoe dropped.
“And we’re not having an affair,” he went on, his voice quiet but clear. “We’ve fallen in love.”
Tears sprang to Risa’s eyes and overflowed her lids. But even as her tears flowed, she realized she had absolutely nothing to say. Of all the things she had imagined over the last couple of weeks, this—this—had never even entered her mind.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” Michael said, and put one hand on her chee
k. His words and his voice were gentle, and his hand felt warm.
She jerked away. The last thing she needed was his affection or—worse—his pity. Not now. The pain of betrayal seared through her guts, and suddenly she could barely breathe.
“I wish it were different,” she heard him saying, and now his voice sounded as if it was coming from far away, from a place she already understood she could never go. “I’ve wished that for years now.”
“Years?” she demanded, snatching at the single thing she could grab onto to save herself. Her voice took on a hysterical edge. “You’ve known for years?”
Michael bit his lips, nodding silently.
“You’ve been carrying on with another…a man for years?”
He looked at her as if she’d slapped him. “Of course not!” He tried to take her hands again, but she pulled them away from him. “I still love you, Risa,” he said. “I’ve always loved you, and I always will. Just not…” His voice trailed off. “Oh, God, Risa. I’m so sorry.”
Sorry. Sorry! What the hell did that mean? And yet she could see in his eyes, in his expression and body language, that he was, indeed, sorry.
And all it did was make her feel helpless, more helpless than she’d ever felt before. “What’s his name?” she finally asked while she tried to assimilate his words, tried to look back and find clues to this inconceivable news, this unexpected body blow from which she wasn’t sure she could ever recover.
“Scott,” Michael said. “Scott Lawrence.”
“How long?”
“A couple of months. One month, three weeks, and two days, actually.”
“Which is almost a week longer than it took you to propose to me,” Risa said, making no effort to keep the edge out of her voice anymore. “At least I know you waited to tell me until you were absolutely sure.” Finally the sorrow in her husband’s eyes was replaced by pain, and she almost detachedly noticed that his pain somewhat assuaged her anger. And knowing that, she realized how much she wanted to inflict the pain and anger within her on him. But if she gave in to it—gave in to her own desires as readily as Michael had obviously given in to his—the fight wouldn’t be contained, and it wouldn’t hurt only Michael.