Unscrewed (3 page)

3

S
OLBERG,” I SAID by way of greeting. I was gripping the phone in both hands, holding on like a sun-welted businessman reeling in a tiger shark.

“Babekins.”

The Geekster’s voice was as nasal as ever. I remembered to be strong, because even though he was a stunted little techno nerd with a retarded sense of humor and a laugh like a wild ass, he had a world of knowledge at his geeky fingertips.

“You busy?” I was trying to sound casual, but my mind was bouncing.

“I was just about to make Angel here some popcorn.”

“Elaine’s there?” Elaine, aka Angel, was my best friend. And it was my fault she’d hooked up with an electrodweeb. That knowledge can still bring tears to my eyes.

“Yeah. She’s a hell of a—Sorry, sweetums,” he told her, ineffectively covering the mouthpiece. “A
heck
of a Scrabble player. You wanna talk to her?”

“No.” Ignoring Laney’s presence gave me a chance to pretend she was touring the Louvre with Johnny Depp instead of being holed up with a vertically inadequate myope. “Listen, Solberg, I need a favor.”

“Shoot.”

It was just a turn of phrase. I reminded myself not to get excited. Taking a deep breath, I jumped in. “I need Rivera’s home address,” I said.

There was a pause, maybe the sound of some eye-popping. “Jesus! I mean, geez, Chrissy.” I could hear him shuffling his feet. They were size 12, huge for his five-foot-seven frame. I refused to contemplate what that meant in the dimensional scheme of things. “The grim lieutenant don’t exactly have me on his short list of friends now. If I—”

“Not the lieutenant,” I said. “The senator.”

There was silence for seven heartbeats. I counted them in my head, but they were almost drowned out by Madonna’s crooning lyrics.
“Like a Virgin,” my ass!

“Senator Rivera?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“The grim lieutenant’s prestigious sire?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.” He sounded ultra-controlled, as if he were on the edge of a precipice and didn’t want to make any false moves, lest he teeter into the yawning abyss. But I was already in the damned abyss, wasn’t I? And Madonna was down there with me, singing up a storm. “What’s going on, babekins?”

“A lot of unnatural shit, that’s what!” I snapped. There may have been a bit more vitriol in the statement than I had intended. But Solberg was as charming as a bald lab rat and he was dating Brainy Laney Butterfield, possibly the most beautiful woman in our stratosphere. What did that mean for the rest of the female population?

Growing up together, I had always fantasized that she and I would marry matching brain surgeons and take high tea with the queen at Buckingham Palace. But if the royal guard heard Solberg’s hee-hawing guffaw, they’d shoot him from the parapets and feed him to the Celts.

“Unnatural?” he repeated, but I wasn’t quite cruel enough to tell him there was nothing so aberrant as he and Laney existing in the same solar system.

“Get me the address,” I said instead, “and I won’t tell Laney what you did when I drove you home in your Porsche.”

I could feel his mind whirring on the other end of the phone line. He’d been as drunk as a frat boy when I’d dropped him off in his neo-riche neighborhood one hot summer night. If I said he’d danced the mambo with Shamu while wearing his boxers on his head, he’d believe me. And he doesn’t even wear boxers.

I can’t begin to tell you how sad it makes me to know that.

Still, for one elongated moment of silence I thought he might argue.

“Gonna take me a couple minutes,” he said instead, and excused himself.

I hadn’t even finished off my carton of Freaky Deaky when he called me back, rattled off an address, a warning about messing with powerful politicians, and a plea not to tell Laney anything that might alter her high opinion of him. But he didn’t have to worry. She’d seen his scrawny frame decked out in swim trunks and still hadn’t called the pound. Knowing that, there seemed little I could do to change the unpredictable tides of fate. “I’m a changed man, babe,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t do nothin’ to—”

I hung up on him and crumpled the scrap of address in my palm—3430 Tramonto Drive, Pacific Palisades. A ritzy part of town. Real estate there runs into the bazillions, and houses hang suspended over the bay like crystal chandeliers. It would take me nearly an hour to get there. Not that I was planning to spy on Rivera. That would be beneath me. Sophomoric and suspicious. If the lieutenant and I were ever hoping to get past the heavy breathing stage, I was going to have to learn to trust him. Trust, after all, is the cornerstone upon which all secure relationships must be constructed. The very bastion…

“‘Like a Virgin’!”
I gritted, and tossed the empty ice-cream carton in the trash.

Ten minutes later I was chugging up the 210, systematically berating myself the whole way. From what I had heard, Rivera’s relationship with his father was prickly at best. I should give them a chance to work things out. On the other hand, I wasn’t intending to interfere. I was simply going to see if he was there.

Relatively comfortable with that justification, I followed my trusty MapQuest directions and turned onto the 405, then merged onto the I-10 and traipsed northwest along the Pacific Coast Highway. During daylight hours the spectacular view can take your breath away. At night it’s more likely to take your life. Fog was just beginning to creep in from the bay, flowing like tattered, gauzy sleeves toward the rugged bluffs.

My thoughts were just as threadbare, worn at the seams, frayed at the edges.

The fact that Rivera was willing to lend a hand when his father called was a good sign, I reminded myself. A sign of healing, perhaps. As a therapist and a friend, it would be wrong of me to resent his efforts. In fact, when next I spoke to him I would commend him for his attempt to mend familial fences and…

A police cruiser streaked up behind me, flashing lights cutting through the ragged mists, siren sounding eerie in the muffled night. I checked my speed. Seventy miles an hour in a sixty-five zone. Damn it to hell. I worked up a full head of steam as I crunched onto the shoulder of the road. Wasn’t like I was stealing old ladies’ life insurance policies or—

The cruiser zipped past, taking Sunset Boulevard and heading west.

I wilted with relief and gave myself a mental shake. There was no need to rush. Nothing to worry about. The wheeling lights had already disappeared by the time I turned onto Los Liones, but I could still hear the siren.

Or another siren. I glanced in my rearview mirror. The cop car behind me barely slowed for the turn, careened around me, then sped into the encroaching fog.

I scowled. Seemed like an awfully good neighborhood for such goings-on. But maybe some rising starlet was serving pretzels and Heinekens, incurring the rush.

It was difficult to see my directions even with my interior light on. I missed a turn, made a U-ey in a cul-de-sac, and took a right onto Tramonto Drive. An ambulance pulled in behind me.

Something balled up in my stomach. It might have been the Freaky Deaky, but Edy’s and I have a working relationship. I keep the company in business, and it doesn’t mess with my gastric system.

Up ahead, it looked like Christmas. Red and blue strobe lights were rotating in their plastic casings atop cop cars. A tall, rough stucco house was caught in the crisscross beams of the cruisers, the terra-cotta roof scalloped against a blue velvet sky, the front door open as if to invite all comers. Apparently, Senator Rivera lived in a hopping neighborhood.

An officer in blue stepped into my headlights, hand raised as he walked toward me.

I managed to brake before plowing him down like roadkill. My curiosity was roiling as I powered open my window. “What’s going on?” I asked, giving him a smile and a glimmer of cleavage.

He bent slightly at the waist, but he was either gay or distracted, because he barely noticed the display. I gave him a quick appraisal. Good-looking, young, attractive in a narrow, academic sort of way. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, his voice amazingly devoid of emotion despite his age or lack thereof, “you’ll have to turn around here.”

But I had almost reached my destination. In less than a minute I would know whether Rivera’s Jeep was parked in front of his father’s manse. And if it was, well, then I could get on with that trust thing, couldn’t I?

“I’m afraid I’m unable to do that, Officer,” I said, lowering my tone an octave and trying to imbue it with sincere intelligence. I retracted the smile and wished I could do the same with the cleavage, but the cleavage was pretty much out there. “I have an appointment. But it will only take me a—”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupted. I hate being interrupted more than I hate Brussels sprouts. But growing up with three perpetually adolescent brothers can do that to a girl. “You’ll have to come back—”

“That’s impossible.” Interrupting other people, however, doesn’t bother me in the least. “But I can park here, if you prefer, and walk—”

“Like I said, ma’am, you’ll have to turn around.”

I also hate being called “ma’am.”

“I have an important engagement with—”

“What kind of—”

“It’s a private matter.” I could feel my adrenaline start to blend with the estrogen in my blooming system. It mixed a heady brew. “Between myself and my client.”

His brows lowered a quarter of an inch. “Are you counsel?”

Counsel? I let the question swirl around in my head. “Mr. Rivera’s expecting me,” I said. “His house is just up ahead. If you’ll let me…”

There was a moment of terse silence, then, “Did he call you?”

Umm. “Yes.” Sometimes the truth’s as good as a lie, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“McMullen.”

He glanced toward the house, impatient. “Pull over to the curb. Wait in the car,” he said, then strode purposefully toward the front door of the stucco castle.

Weird. Backing up a little, I cranked the Saturn’s wheels toward the lawn. Maybe I should just turn around and go past Rivera’s house from another direction, I thought, but in that moment I caught the number written in black metal scroll against the pale stucco—3430, Senator Rivera’s address. A little bit of vertigo struck me.

The car door seemed to open by itself. There was a mob standing on the sidewalk, five men and two women crammed together like people do in times of tragedy and excitement.

“What happened?” My voice sounded hoarse.

“Don’t know.” The guy who turned toward me was pure yuppie. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a perfectly ironed dress shirt in mandarin orange. If I could have seen his hands I was pretty sure his nails would have shone with a fresh buffing. “The police showed up about half an hour ago. But they won’t say what’s going on.”

“Somebody’s dead.” The second guy was a few pounds heavier but just as yuppie.

“You don’t know that, Dave,” said Mr. Perfect.

“It happens just like this on
CSI
and somebody’s always—”

“This isn’t—”

My mind tuned them out as my attention wandered toward the street. And there, parked across Tramonto Drive, was Rivera’s Jeep. A wave of nausea curdled my stomach.

And something hit me in the back of the head. It might have been a thought. Or a premonition. Sometimes they come at me like disoriented bats.

“You Ms. McMullen?”

I turned.

A man in a tan tweed jacket and blue jeans strode partway down the winding stone walkway that led toward the house, the officer who’d stopped me at his elbow. Their heads shifted together. A few words were spoken. Maybe they were too quiet to hear. Maybe it was the swelling waves in my head that kept the world at bay.

“You Ms. McMullen?” he repeated. The suit was medium height, square-jawed, no-nonsense. I lurched back in time, to another place, another crime scene, another officer. I felt off balance. Maybe it was the three-inch heels.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Graystone. Officer Bjorklund said you had an appointment with Mr. Rivera.”

“What happened?” I asked. Dread was a greasy ball somewhere just south of my esophagus now.

“We’re still attempting to determine that, ma’am.” His blond hair was thinning and gleamed in the wheeling lights. “At approximately what time did the lieutenant call you?”

The lieutenant! They weren’t looking all grim-faced and hard-eyed about the senator at all. They had assumed I was there on the younger Rivera’s behalf. Why? The possibilities made me feel dizzy, sick. “I have to talk to him,” I said.

Graystone grinned, but his eyes were hard. “Now, here’s something new, Bjorklund. They don’t usually lawyer up
before
they’re charged. When did you last speak to him, Ms. McMullen?”

“Listen,” I said, “I know my rights.” I didn’t really, but I was starting to consider reading up on that. “And I’m fully aware that I don’t need to address any questions until—”

“When?” he gritted, and stepped up close. His eyes were silver blue in the eerie lights of the cruisers. Fog shivered past. The crowd behind me seemed eons away, leaving me alone in a sea of uncertainty.

“Just a couple hours ago,” I said.

His expression didn’t waver, but his eyes flashed in the surreal lights. “Bjorklund!” He grabbed the younger officer’s arm, drew him close, murmured something short and quick.

“But—”

“Get your ass in there and do it.”

Then Bjorklund was gone.

“Is someone dead?” My words came by themselves. No thought processes involved.

“How long have you been his attorney?”

My attention snapped to him. The lights on the cruisers turned crazily. The world whirled with it. “What?”

He narrowed his eyes, a freight train slowing down, taking stock. His gaze didn’t shift, but he seemed to assess me just the same: the filmy blouse, the ridiculous skirt, the heels. He gave me his friendly face and drew a careful breath. “What’s your given name, Ms. McMullen?”