Kat Richardson - Vanished

After my unpleasant flight, I was not in a good mood when I arrived at LA International. The baggage people at LAX added to my irritation by refusing to hand back my bag. It seemed that the X-ray tag that let them know there was a properly inspected and secured firearm in the case had gotten buried, and someone had freaked out when they saw the shadow of my pistol in the scanner. I had a long, boring, and circular discussion with everyone at the baggage office about handing it back. When they wanted to read me the riot act because they’d bungled the tagging and given some poor monkey on the X-ray machine a fit, I got a little testy, and that’s not a good idea with security people. By the time the luggage supervisor was involved, everyone was beyond pissy and I’d spent an extra forty minutes just trying to get my property back.

Therefore I was a bit short with the car rental clerk. It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening and I had very little tolerance left, so when he smirked at my chest, I snapped at him.

“What?” I demanded.

“Umm. your shirt’s funny. ”

I looked down, having forgotten what I’d thrown on under my Seattle-necessary leather jacket for the flight to the warmer climes of Los Angeles in mid-May. It was a dark blue T-shirt with van Gogh’s famous evening sky above a picture of a giant, gore-fanged bunny menacing a tiny human figure. “Starry Starry Night. of the Lepus!” it read. My bookstore-owning friend Phoebe had given it to me for my birthday on the principle that if you won’t shop for yourself, your friends have carte blanche to give you things they think you should wear.

“Oh, gods,” I groaned. The shirt was too conspicuous. I’d have to dump it at my first opportunity and hope Phoebe would forgive me.

“I wasn’t checking you out, I swear!” the young man objected. “I’m just kind of into schlock film,” he added, pink-faced and defending his casual glance at my chest.

“Right.”

“Hey, it’s Night of the Lepus ! One of the worst films ever made—mutant rabbits attack Arizona. It’s—umm. ” He could see me losing interest and patience. He shifted back to business, and I wouldn’t have thought anyone’s face could have gone that shade of red without makeup. “So. would you like to upgrade to a midsize car for only six dollars more per day?”

“No. Thank you.” We wrangled for a while longer before he let me have the compact car I’d reserved and I set out into the spring twilight looking for my hotel.

Most people visiting out-of-town relatives will stay with said relatives—especially if they live in a house like my mother’s four-bedroom cliff residence. But my mother’s M ideas about my life and my own aren’t exactly in sync, and it’s better that we not occupy the same house—or the same state—for long. The prospect of interrogating Mother about my past was already about as attractive as swimming in razor blades; I didn’t need to live with her while I did it. By the time I’d checked into my hotel, it was after eleven and late enough to ignore any urge to call and let my mother know I had arrived.

But morning was inevitable and I made the call as soon as I was up and dressed—which wasn’t that early.

A sultry female voice answered the phone. “Hello?” Mother was feeling femme fatale-ish.

“Hi, Mother,” I said. “I got in late last night, and this was my first chance to call you.”

Her voice swooped up in theatrical delight. “Snippet!” In spite of the fact that I tower over her by five inches, that’s been my mother’s nickname for me since I was five and suddenly a real human in her eyes, instead of a parasite. “I’m just having breakfast. You have to come up and join us.”

“Us?”

She ignored that. “Come up, sweetie! See you in a few!”

And, having issued her orders, she hung up. As much as I hated feeling summoned, I wanted to get it over with, so I headed down to the ghost-stuffed lobby of my once-grand Hollywood hotel.

The building was like something out of a Stephen King novel to me—ghosts, murders, crimes, and monstrosities lurked in every shadow—but at least I could see them first. I considered that I should have booked a more boring venue, but the haunting ratio isn’t a lot lower in most newer buildings—people just want to think it is—and I’d loved looking at the crazy California rococo facade back when I’d never seen a ghost. It tickled me a bit to finally be a guest. A dead flapper scurried, blood-spattered, down the hall, things watched me as I passed down the staircase of painted tile, and a tragically beautiful face gazed at me from a mirror. I didn’t stop to find out what any of them wanted. I didn’t need another mystery right now. I just retrieved the rental car and drove.

My mother’s house clung to a hillside far from the site of Cary Malloy’s death—I wasn’t ready to face that twisting bit of road yet. I stopped the car for a moment at the bottom of the street, peering out the side window at the curvaceous white plaster building hanging from the steep canyon walls like a hornets’ nest buzzing with orange and yellow energy clouds. She had one part of her dream, at least—she’d always wanted a house in the canyons. Judging by the colors around the place, I figured it hadn’t mellowed her out much, but I guessed I’d find out for sure in a few minutes. I hadn’t seen my mother since acquiring my Grey sight and I wasn’t sure if the manic flares of energy around her home were better than what she’d have shown me a few years ago. I shoved the car back into gear and growled up the twisty, eucalyptus-lined road.

The smell of the dusty trees, cholla, and canyon weeds reminded me of long treks up the ridges as a kid and of baking-hot days on “ego duty” with Cary—watching the houses of minor celebrities for suspected stalkers and known exes with grudges. It was the scent of the seemingly endless summer of southern California childhood. It should have made me smile, but I felt my brow creasing into a frown. Something nagged in the back of my head, making the memory bitter beyond the remembered misery of sweltering hours of dance rehearsals and auditions wearing fake smiles and unbroken shoes that raised bleeding blisters for the sake of five minutes’ beauty. That particular sunshine made me morose.

The house didn’t seem any more restful when I got closer to it, in spite of the architect’s best efforts. It was still too active in the Grey for my comfort. I pulled past a gate that shut behind me and into the narrow, trellis-covered shelf that served as a carport, between an older, forest green Jaguar convertible and a spanking-new Mercedes coupe. That brought my eyebrows up, but the thought that prompted it got no further as I was hailed by my mother’s voice from a speaker set in the creamy white wall.

“Sweetie, come through the gate to the terrace. It’s on the left.”

I left my bag in the car—who was going to steal it? — but I kept my jacket on. I walked through the rustic gate in the plastered wall, which was as white and perfect as wedding cake frosting. My boots clacked onto a bed of smooth indigo stones pretending to be an oxbow surrounding the white marble island of the terrace. The view spread beyond the wall in the perpetual canyon haze of blue eucalyptus dust as if the pebble watercourse had widened into a river of sky. It would have been a restful haven if only my mother hadn’t lived in it.

My mother and a man who looked like an accessory to the fake-Mediterranean decor sat at a round redwood table facing the view over the scattered remains of the morning meal. So much for “join us for breakfast.”

Mother smiled and waved like Princess Grace. I admit she looked great, if too thin. She’d given up the battle against gray hair and embraced a dramatic sweep of silver through her chestnut mane. Makeup and artfully casual clothes added to her morning polish. It would have looked better without her apple green aura—possessiveness? Jealousy? I wasn’t sure.