Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (13 page)

The mortar set. And for a second I thought, No! It can't be! but the longer it sat, the firmer it cured. It had to be true. It explained everything.

I touched Hali's arm and whispered, “Max … is he your
father
?”

Her eyes got huge. Then she gripped the steering wheel with both hands and shook it so hard I thought she was going to rip it right out.

It was scary. Like raw hatred erupting from her soul. The whole car shook like we were in an earthquake, and then suddenly she collapsed onto the steering wheel, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed, “I hate him! I
hate
him!”

Marissa's looking at me with her eyes and jaw cranked completely open. She mouths, “No wonder!”

Hali comes off the wheel and wails, “Mama's going to kill me!” Then she goes back to sobbing into her arms.

I whisper, “We won't tell, Hali. I swear.”

Marissa leans forward and says, “Really, Hali, we won't.” It didn't make her stop crying, and I could tell that nothing but time would. It was like being in a room with a pinched hose—we'd unkinked it, and now it was going
to whip around soaking things until the pressure had gone down.

When she'd petered out to a trickle, I asked, “When did you find out?”

“Last night! After you two and Dominique left. Mama finally told me. She was so upset that Max wanted to marry Dominique that she couldn't keep it inside anymore.”

“But why didn't your mom tell you before?”

“Max made her promise not to.”

“Why?”

“Something about the scandal ruining his reputation in the industry.” Anger rolled across Hali's face like thunder. “The stupid godforsaken industry! Everything they do is based on
appearances
. Nothing beneath the surface matters to
any
of them. It's all just how it looks.”

Marissa whispers, “But I don't get it—if Max has you, he already has an heir, so why's he all of a sudden want to get married and have a baby?”

“Mama says men want sons. Or at least offspring that look like them.” She snorts and says, “I don't fit either bill, now do I?” She shakes her head, and her voice starts trembling as she says, “All my life I trusted them. All my life they lied to me.” Then she breaks down, crying into her hands.

I whispered, “Hali, I'm so sorry,” and I was. I felt miserable for her, and in a way for me too. I mean, I couldn't help thinking about my own mother, not wanting to tell me who my father was, and me, in my heart of hearts, always having been a little afraid to pull it out of her.
Would it be like this for me? Where knowing was worse than not knowing?

Gently, I asked her, “So what are you going to do?”

She smeared the tears across her cheeks. “I'm going to start by moving out. It's bad enough being a servant, but to your own father? Maybe Mama's got no pride, but that's not me. I am out of there, first chance I get.” She takes a deep breath, then lets it out, long and choppy. “You know, I feel better. All day I felt like I was going to explode, but now I know what I've got to do. I've got to get a move on. Ready or not, honey, I am
gone
.” She gives Marissa and me half a smile and says, “So there. That's my secret. What's yours?”

I looked away. How could I tell her? My mother would
kill
me. And yet it felt so unfair not to. There was so much about what my mother had done—and was doing—to me that would make Hali feel like she wasn't alone. But what would happen if I told Hali the truth and she blabbed?

Marissa whispers, “Tell her, Sammy!”

I look at her like, Marissa, I can't!

She looks right back at me like, You have to!

I glanced from one to the other, then closed my eyes and took the first step out of Dominique's Dungeon. “Hali, I swear myself to secrecy about Max. Nobody's going to find out from me. Or Marissa—right, Marissa?”

Marissa nods and says, “I swear.”

I look straight at Hali and say, “But you've got to promise that what I'm going to tell you stops with you. It has to stay inside these Bug walls.”

Hali looks at me, then Marissa, then back at me. And
for a second there I'm afraid she's going to laugh at us, but then she nods, raises her right hand, and says very seriously, “I swear.”

I watch her for a few seconds without saying a word.

“I do! You have my word. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It's important, Hali.”

She looks at me and says gently, “I know.”

I take a deep breath and say, “Okay.” Then I let it out and take the next step up. “My name
is
Sammy Keyes, I
am
related to Dominique, but…”

Hali just looks at me, waiting.

I turn to Marissa, and her eyes push me up the next step. “But she's not my aunt.”

Hali searches my face for the answer, and apparently it's written all over it. She whispers, “She's your mother?”

I nod and look down.

“But… why is she …? What is she …? She can't be!”

I let out a little groan. “Oh, she is, all right.” So I explained to her about my mother leaving me at Grams' so she could go off and make it as a movie star, and how she'd changed so much in a year that I felt like she was someone I didn't even know anymore.

Hali was quiet for a minute, then asked, “Her real name's Lana?”

“Yeah.”

“I love that name. Way better than Dominique.”

I shrug. “Yeah. Forget I told you what it was, though. You've got to keep calling her Dominique.”

“So where's your dad in all of this?”

So I had to tell her about
that
. And when I'm all done, I sigh and say, “And after what I've seen you go through, I'm thinking that maybe I don't want to know who he is. Not ever.”

We all sat there, quiet. And I felt strange. Like I'd climbed out of Dominique's Dungeon, only to be petrified by the light.

Finally Hali says, “Wow.”

I look her right in the eye. “You swore. You can't get mad and blurt it, you can't tell Max or your mother…. It stays right here, no matter what.”

She nods and says, “I won't break your trust,” then puts her right hand up, palm out, steady, waiting.

Her hand is not there to be slapped, I can tell that much. But I'm not sure what it
is
doing there, until my left hand kind of floats up to meet it. And when I press my palm against hers and hold it there flat and still, Hali says, “You have my word.”

I nod and tell her, “You've got mine, too.”

It was a promise I was about to regret.

Marissa watched us make our little palm pact, then cleared her throat and said, “Hey, aren't you two worried about me?”

So we press palms with Marissa, laughing and promising to keep each other's secrets, and then Hali says, “Now fill me in on these pictures you stole.”

“Borrowed,” I corrected her. “I'm just going to go in and ask the guy some questions, then I'm going to return them before Max even knows they're gone.”

“But why do you have them?”

“I want to find out if Opal's been to Cosmo's Curios.”

“So what if she has? Why are you so interested?”

I take a deep breath and say, “Because I think maybe Opal is the one who killed LeBrandi.”

“Opal? Hmmm….” She seemed to like the idea. “Wouldn't that be classic.” She frowns at me and says, “But there's a house full of cops back at the mansion. Why not just tell one of them?”

Marissa pipes up with, “Because Sammy can't go anywhere without cutting through a briar patch, that's why.”

“Marissa!”

“It's true. Here we are in Hollywood, and what am I
doing? Walking down the Avenue of the Stars? Touring celebrities' homes? Checking out a movie studio or spotting movie stars? No! I'm in the back of a beat-up Bug— excuse me, Hali, I don't mean any offense—parked in a service alley behind a pawnshop.” She rolls her eyes. “If this isn't typical, I don't know what is.”

Hali grins at me. “You attract trouble?”

“No!”

Marissa snickers. “She put the ‘bur’ in burdock.”

Now, the last thing I felt like being was the new definition for one of Miss Pilson's vocabulary words. And I certainly didn't see myself as “nature's very own Velcro hooks,” so I turn to Marissa and snap, “Stop that! You know why I didn't tell the police!”

Hali's eyebrows creep up. “Yeah? And why would that be?”

Before I can stop her, Marissa says, “Sammy thought her
mother
killed LeBrandi.”

“Marissa!”

“Oh, please, Sammy. It's the most ridiculous thought you've ever had, and you've had some really wild ones!” She turns back to Hali. “Her mom got up to take some aspirin at the same time Sammy heard something banging around next door. So of course Sammy thinks her mother—who's got the muscles of a mouse—went next door to kill LeBrandi.”

Hali shakes her head at me. “Why?”

My little backseat mouthpiece answers for me. “Cause Sammy's mom is desperate to get the part of Jewel because it'll get her out of marrying Max.”

Hali bit the inside of one cheek, then the other. “It's got a certain desperate logic to it.”

I was glaring at Marissa, but it was no use. She just shakes her head at me and says, “Sammy, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She may have changed, but not
that
much! Now can we please go in there and show that guy the pictures? I'm getting claustrophobic back here!”

Hali opens her door to let Marissa out, saying, “You want me to come in the shop with you?”

I shake my head. “Nah. That's okay.”

Marissa squeezes out, and Hali says, “I don't really think you should go in there solo.”

I grab the pictures and get out, too. “Don't you think that would look kinda, you know, suspicious, having you escort us?”

Hali checks around and decides that for an illegal parking spot, this one'll work just fine. She says, “Well, I'm at least gonna walk you up there,” and when we round the corner onto Hollywood Boulevard, she adds, “How about I give you five and then come in?”

I shrug and say, “Ignore us, though, okay?”

She grins at me. “You're pretty pro for a kid, Burdock.”

The dirty look I gave her was completely wasted. She was way too busy laughing it up with Marissa to notice.

Near Cosmo's Curios I rearranged the photos so the head shots were upside down on Claire's picture, then put them in the crook of one arm like a schoolbook.

Hali hangs back and whispers, “See you in five. Don't get yourself killed in the meantime.”

We nod, then head past the last set of barred windows and whoosh right through Cosmo's steel door.

It felt like we'd walked through a portal into a different world. Outside we were looking at a jail cell, but inside, Cosmo's was like a high-end jewelry store that had been dropped inside a gallery of exotic pieces of art.

I nudge Marissa and nod across the store at the row of spotless glass showcases. “Maybe the necklace and ring are up there!”

Marissa glances at the jewelry cases and the white velvet vanity stools in front of them, then clasps her hands behind her back and pretends to inspect a shiny brass Aladdin lamp. She fakes a smile and says between her teeth, “We're not exactly dressed for success, Sammy. Don't start snooping, okay? Just ask!”

“Sorry, girls. That one's genie got away.” The voice was deep and gruff but friendly. Like a big brown bear chuckling over his own joke. The man came from behind the counter and approached us, saying, “Is it three wishes you're after? Or can I help you with something real?”

He
was
big, but dressed just right for velvet cushions. Black slacks, high-gloss shoes, starched white shirt with cuff links, and a blousy purple tie. The only thing that gave away that he was playing a part was his hair. It was black, really thick, and greased back. Which would have gone with the rest of him just fine, except there were little flecks of dust or lint or something all through it, and the wide grooves that ran from front to back looked very rough. Like he'd combed his hair with a pinecone.

I smiled and said, “Actually, I only need one wish.”

“Oh?” One eyebrow went up, but the other stayed put. Like maybe he'd be better off not knowing.

“Yeah. And I was told you might be able to help.”

The second eyebrow didn't budge. “How's that?”

“It's my mother.”

“Your mother?”

I let out a heavy sigh and whispered, “She's got amnesia, and she's disappeared.”

He looks me in the eye, and I guess in my mind there was enough truth to what I was saying to convince him. He nods and says, “And why do you think ol' Cos can help?”

“Because a guy in a store up the street said he was sure he'd seen her in this neighborhood. Would you mind looking at a few pictures?”

He shrugs and says, “Sure, why not?”

So I walk over to the jewelry cases and spread out the three head shots. “Do any of these people look familiar?”

Just then the door whooshes open and Hali comes in. Cosmo sizes up her flip-flops and toe rings and keeps half an eye on her as she starts browsing. “Why you got three different women here?” he asks me.

“Just to make sure.”

He considers this, then plops a thick index finger right on Opal's nose. “This your mom?”