Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

Heading in the opposite direction of her destination because she needed time to wind down, she turned up the volume on Bach and drove until her body grew cool and loose and itchy in that wonderful pre-Leap way. Hanging a left turn, she roared up several blocks of inky residential hillside, drove past a Dead End sign, and zipped around the curve of a cul-de-sac. Reversing direction in a quick swoop, she returned to Sunset, slid into light traffic, and floated west over the Beverly Hills border.

As if she’d entered a new country, the scenery shifted from clubs and cafés and show-business office buildings to gated mansions graced with chlorophyll. Another half a mile of relative quiet passed before she headed south on broad, flat avenues, continued past both big and little Santa Monica boulevards, and entered the B.H. business district.

At this hour, not much business going on; all but a few shops were dark. Rich folk had pools, tennis courts, home theaters, home spas, home everything. Why venture out to mingle with the yokels?

Precious few yokels, as well, just a scatter of tourists and window-shoppers. Easing the Aston toward Wilshire, Grace caught an eyeful of her goal but stopped half a block shy.

The Beverly Opus was a ziggurat of pink limestone and smoked glass, introduced by a valet parking area paved in slate and centered by a palm-fringed fountain. High-end chrome was routinely displayed as proof of the hotel’s elite clientele but valets in top hats and tails were more than happy to park any decent vehicle out front for a twenty-dollar tip.

It wasn’t thrift that led Grace to enter a public lot charging a flat fee of three bucks after eight p.m., providing you had a credit card to feed the robotic entry machine.

Preparation was all.

Driving straight up to the top level, she searched for the darkest, most remote corner she could find, one blocked from easy view by a pillar.

She nailed it easily, tucked in the southeast corner, a grease-spotted slot flanked by two pillars.

The kind of space self-defense manuals warned women to avoid.

Perfect.

The Beverly Opus was three years old and rumors of its closure had circulated since its opening. Maybe that would finally come true — there were, she noticed, fewer glitz-mobiles than the last time she’d been here, half a year ago.

No paparazzi glomming from the sidewalk, another bad sign.

There was never a shortage of camera-demons at the nail salon on Camden Drive where Grace got her weekly mani-pedi, but the Opus had been abandoned.

Tsk.

She continued past the valets and the doormen. Six months ago she’d arrived with a different hairstyle, different dress, different makeup, different stride. But even if she hadn’t varied her appearance for tonight, no one would notice another slim youngish woman toting a briefcase.

Business traveler, synonym for invisible.

Sure enough, the three clerks at the reception desk didn’t look up as she passed.

She strode across the marble lobby, past an oversized pietra dura center table graced with a flower arrangement that could’ve supplied a month of funerals. Continuing up a long hall lined with still-open but customer-less gift shops peddling cashmere and silk and velour leisure wear, she found her way to the lounge, a cavernous place made larger by a thirty-foot coffered ceiling, and set up with nebulous seating areas, potted orchids, and a burnt-orange grand piano currently unoccupied.

The room was two-thirds empty, every drinker scoring plenty of personal space. Taped smooth jazz competed with the clink of glasses and the draggy murmur of obligatory chitchat.

Selecting a two-person loveseat that faced the piano but was well distant from it and from the bar beyond, Grace settled, placed the snakeskin briefcase next to her, the bag on the sofa. Crossing her legs, she dangled a shoe, appeared to grow contemplative. Then, as if coming to a conclusion, she unclasped the case and drew out a packet of investment mailers from a cold-call fool angling for her business — boring crap she stockpiled for nights like this one. Pulling out a jargon-ridden pamphlet on emerging markets, she pretended to be fascinated by charts and graphs and dishonest attempts to prognosticate.

It didn’t take long for a Spanish-accented voice to say, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

Looking up, Grace smiled at a small, thick waiter in his fifties. Miguel engraved on a little brass badge.

“Negroni on the rocks, please. Hendrick’s Gin, if you have it.”

“Sure we have, ma’am.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Something to eat, ma’am?”

“Hmm... do you still have cheese toast?”

“We do, sure.”

“Cheese toast with the Negroni, then.” Favoring Miguel with another smile, she returned to her financial miseducation. A few minutes later, the drink and the snack were placed near her right hand and she nodded and thanked Miguel without laying it on too thick.

Sip, nibble, sip some more.

The bitterness of Campari was perfect, cutting through all the financial pie-in-the-sky, and the cucumber nuance of the Scottish gin was an additional pleasure. Last year, Grace had gifted herself with a week in Florence, staying in a far-too-large suite at the Four Seasons. The bar had served up something called a Valentino, riffing on the classic Negroni with more cucumber and other stuff Grace couldn’t identify. She’d promised herself to learn the recipe, hadn’t so far.

Such a busy girl.

Continuing to fake-read the financial b.s., she thought about Florence, mind flashing like a fast-shutter camera.

The Leap she’d taken there.

Just after midnight, the hotel’s perfect Tuscan gardens.

A lovely man in his late forties named Anthony, British, a banker, reserved and polite, not at all handsome. Beautifully surprised when she responded to him in the bar with a cool upturn of lip and flash of black-brown eyes.

Then the rest of it, the poor fool crying out that he loved her as he came.

Figuring he’d try to find her the following morning, she’d checked out early, drove to the Tuscan outlets, and scored some budget Prada. Then on to Rome, where she ate salt cod and fettuccine with dried beef in the old Jewish ghetto and girded herself for the eleven-hour flight back to home sweet home.

The Haunted needed her. Anthony would cope.

Drinking and nibbling and reading in the Opus lounge for precisely five minutes, Grace looked up, pretended to stifle a yawn, kept her head and eyes as immobile as possible, and scoped out the room.

Near the piano were four useless multiples: three triads of business-types and a quartet of nerdy-looking weeds who were probably computer wizards and a whole lot richer than their inept fashion suggested.

To her right sat two solo females: a sixtyish but still foxy blonde, maybe even an experienced hooker with way-off-the-charts boobs, a pre-melanoma tan, and a platinum dye-job that seemed to provide its own illumination. All that came packaged in a minimal sleeveless black thing that showed off slim but age-hardened legs and overbaked, sun-puckered cleavage.

The woman’s demeanor shouted Someone fuck me, already! and Grace figured she’d eventually get her way.

The second woman was plain, dressed in a brown suit that wasn’t her friend. Like Grace she was reading what appeared to be business papers. Unlike Grace, she was probably serious about it.

Last but not least, to Grace’s left, two possible targets.

Solo males.

The first was an extremely tall black guy with stilt-legs who might be a retired athlete, drinking Diet Coke. His eyes met Grace’s with momentary interest, then shifted abruptly to the right as he got up to greet the gorgeous wife and ten-year-old daughter who’d suddenly materialized. Final swig of soda and Happy Family was off.