Brian Freeman - Stripped

Stride heard his cell phone ringing. One of the nurses looked at him sharply, and he nodded in apology. “I’m a police officer,” he said.

He found a quiet corner to answer the phone. “Stride.”

“Detective, my name is Flora Capati,” a woman said, her voice bright and foreign-accented. “I run a senior care facility in Boulder City. The Las Vegas police gave me your number.”

Stride was puzzled. “How can I help you, Ms. Capati?”

“It’s one of my residents. Her name is Beatrice. She’s been beside herself the last two days, and I promised I would call you in order to calm her down. She insists you’re making a terrible mistake.”

“A mistake?” Stride asked. “About what?”

“Well, Beatrice claims she knew Amira Luz.”

The crowd gathered like bloodthirsty witnesses to a hanging, ready for the Sheherezade to fall. Thousands of them trampled on the parking lot and green lawns of the Las Vegas Hilton, their eyes riveted on the old hotel across the street. They pushed and shoved for a better view and kept checking their watches. It was almost high noon. Hanging time.

The street was closed, traffic rerouted to the east and west a quarter mile away. The gawkers were cordoned off at a safe distance, away from the danger zone but close enough to see the action. Helicopters hovered overhead with their cameras poised, delivering a live feed for the lunchtime news. Stride could smell steak grilling and realized that dozens of people in the Charlcombe Towers were giving barbecue parties and staring at the spectacle from their balconies. Everyone was a voyeur today.

No doubt Boni was up there, too, alone on the top floor, with a drink in his hand, missing the spotlight. Waiting for his little girl. Saying good-bye to Amira one last time.

It was a beautiful day for an execution. The wind was still. The faces on the demolition team showed nervous excitement. They were pros who had done this dozens of times before, but the last few minutes before that little spark of electricity jumped through the wires had to be nerve-racking, no matter how much planning had gone into the job.

Radios chirped. The site was clear, ready to go.

“Where is she?” Serena asked, standing beside him. She looked around at the crowd with unease.

“She’ll be here,” Stride said. “It’s part of the show.”

As if on cue, a ripple of noise ran through the crowd. There was a car on the closed-off street, a limousine slowly rolling down the center of Paradise Road. It eased to a stop, and the driver hurried around to open the passenger door.

Claire climbed out of the limousine and blinked. Flashbulbs popped. Voices cheered. She seemed taken aback for a moment, and then she smiled and waved, looking every inch the performer. The new executive, cool and confident, who was probably wondering if she could make it to the stage without throwing up.

She glided through the roped passageway that led from the street to theriserconstructed on the parking lot opposite the Sheherezade. There was a red carpet along the route, and she took long, easy steps in her heels. People called her name from the crowd, and she beamed at them, warm and friendly. A man in a dark business suit hurried down the steps of the stage and met her halfway and whispered instructions in her ear. She nodded and looked unfazed.

The head of the demolition team met her, too. Stride could hear what he said. “Everything is ready for you, ma’am.”

Claire followed them to theriser, but she stopped when she saw Stride and Serena off by themselves, between the stage on one side and theflockingcrowds of people on the other. She whispered at the man in the suit, who looked pained and pointed to his watch. Claire calmly shook her head.

She came over to join them. All the eyes followed her.

Stride noticed that Claire stared at Serena the whole time.

“Look at you,” Serena said.

Claire smirked and gave them a mock curtsy. She was dressed in a burgundy business suit, custom tapered to her curves, with diamond accessories adorning her wrist and neck. Her flowing strawberry blond hair was carefully pinned up and styled.

“Do you like it?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Claire blushed. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“You’ll do fine.”

She soaked in the atmosphere around her. The sights, sounds, and smells. Her new world. “I haven’t had time to properly thank you both. For everything that happened with Mickey and Boni. I don’t know how you did it.”

“No thanks needed,” Stride said,

“A part of me wishes I was back at the Limelight. It was easier then. Singing my songs. Before all of this happened with Blake.”

Stride and Serena looked at each other.

“Do we tell her?” Stride asked.

He and Serena had talked about it through half the night, and they were genuinely torn. Maybe the truth wasn’t necessary. Maybe it was good enough to leave the lies in place that had been there so long.

“Tell me what?” Claire asked.

Their conversation seemed loud, but it was drowned out by the crowd. Stride felt exposed, talking about it here, but they had decided she needed to know before she pushed the button. Before the Sheherezade became dust and debris. So that she knew, as the building fell, what she was losing.

Except now, when they had to say it, Serena looked as if she couldn’t find the words. Stride knew there was a part of her that was in love with Claire, in a part of her soul that he couldn’t reach. She didn’t want to hurt her. But Serena had spent enough time running from the truth herself to know that there was no finish line.

“Blake wasn’t Amira’s son,” Serena told her.

Claire opened her mouth but didn’t find any words. She looked around as if everyone had heard. She stared at Serena, certain that she was joking, and then shook her head. “That can’t be.”

The dead seriousness in their faces was enough to convince her.

“But I could see it in his eyes,” she protested. “He was Boni’s son. He was my brother.”

Serena’s voice was sympathetic. “You saw what you wanted to see, Claire. So did Blake. You wanted to believe you weren’t alone. He wanted to believe that he’d found the mother he had been looking for his whole life. But he was wrong.”

“You mean everything he did was for nothing” All those innocent lives?”

“You’re here,” Stride said. “Boni’s not. Mickey’s not. So maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.”

“You can’t be sure about this,” Claire said.

“I’m sorry. We are sure. We talked to a woman named Beatrice Erdspring who was Amira’s nurse during the pregnancy. She knew what happened to the baby. It wasn’t Blake.”

“Then who was Blake’s real mother?” Claire asked.

Stride spread his hands. “We’ll probably never know. He was one of the throwaway babies from back then. Off the record and under the radar. He had the bad luck to wind up in a terrible home.”

Claire looked up at the Sheherezade, remembering, and Stride thought she was anxious now for it to be gone. She would push the button, and the memories would be rubble. He also wondered if her mind had leaped ahead of them and was dragging her places she didn’t want to go.

“Boni told you about Blake,” she said. “He sent you to Reno. Boni had to know Blake wasn’t Amira’s child.”

Serena nodded. “He did.”

“Then why?”

“He knew that Blake believed it,” Stride said. “As far as Blake was concerned, he was Amira’s son. Boni was happy for us and everyone else to believe it, too.”

“He could have stopped it,” Claire whispered. “That son of a bitch. He could have told Blake the truth. How many people could he have saved?”