Tami Hoag - Secrets to the Grave

Bordain fell sideways against the table, sending food and drinks flying. Anne scrambled forward on her hands and knees, grabbed the bench, grabbed the edge of the table as she tried to get her feet under her.

They lunged for the knife at the same time.

One of them struck the end of the handle and the knife spun out of reach.

Anne dashed around the end of the table and lunged for the knife again.

Bordain threw herself halfway across the table and grabbed the knife, blade first, cutting her hand. An animal roar tore up out of her chest, not of pain but of rage.

Haley was screaming and screaming. Anne could see her in her peripheral vision, out of harm’s way. But then the little girl came running.

“No!! No!! Don’t hurt my mommy!!”

Bordain wheeled toward her, the knife clutched in her bloody hand.

On the wrong side of the table, Anne grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a loaf of French bread—and swung it like a bat, hitting Bordain in the side of the head, diverting her attention from Haley.

“Leave her alone!” Anne shouted, not knowing if Milo Bordain could even hear her. The woman’s eyes were like flat pieces of colored glass. Her face was twisted grotesquely as she came at Anne with the knife.

Anne ran around the end of the table and leaned down to scoop Haley off the ground, the only thought in her mind: Run!

Already wounded herself, she was going to pick up thirty pounds of wiggling, screaming child and try to run.

It never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be able to do it.

She never felt the knife slice her side as she grabbed up the girl and ran.

The buildings of the ranch seemed so far away. It seemed like her feet pounded the ground but gained no ground. In the distance, she could see the deputy running toward them, but not getting any nearer.

She could hear her own breathing, the air rasping in and out of her lungs. She could hear her feet thudding against the ground. And in the far, far distance she thought she could hear a siren.

She didn’t dare look back.

Then suddenly something hit her shoulder from behind and she was falling.

Trying to shield Haley, Anne twisted as she fell, hitting the ground with her shoulder. At the same time, the deputy planted himself and shouted for Bordain to drop the knife.

She didn’t.

“Drop the knife!” the deputy shouted.

Milo Bordain looked at the knife in her hand, some kind of terrible realization dawning.

“Drop the knife!”

Slowly her fingers peeled away from the handle. The knife fell to the ground. Bordain fell to her knees, emotions tearing through her. She opened her mouth to cry, but no sound came. She curled into a ball, her broad shoulders heaving as she sobbed silently.

Trying to suck in some air, Anne pushed herself up onto her knees. Haley flung herself into Anne’s arms, crying and crying.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

“It’s okay!” Anne panted, holding her tight. “We’re okay! We’re all right. It’s over.”

And then, somehow, Vince was there, holding them both, and they were safe.

102

“No one was supposed to get hurt,” Gina began. “We never meant for that at all. We were trying to do something good, really. It was all supposed to work out for the best for everybody, but most of all for Haley.”

“Let’s start at the beginning, Gina,” Vince said. “Tell us about you and Marissa.”

They had gathered in her hospital room—Dixon, Mendez, Hicks, and himself. She was strong enough for it now.

She would be sent home in another day or so, though her ordeal was far from over. Her ankle would require more surgery and physical therapy, and would probably always be a reminder of what she had gone through.

For now, though, the more superficial of her physical injuries had begun to fade from view.

“At the very beginning,” she started, “Marissa—she was Melissa then—she and I became friends in the seventh grade. We lived in Reseda. I had a normal family. Marissa grew up in the foster care system.

“Her mother was killed in a car accident when she was eight, and her father became an alcoholic and couldn’t take care of her. It was really sad. He died when we were seniors in high school.”

“So family was probably really important to Marissa,” Vince said.

“Yes. She loved to hang out with my family, and she was always taking care of the other kids in the foster homes she lived in. You didn’t know her, but Marissa was the kind of person who would just open up her heart and draw everyone in—especially little kids. She always said she was going to have a big family of her own one day.”

Vince offered her a tissue and patted her hand. “I wish I could have met her,” he said. “It sounds like she was a very special person.”

Who had also perpetrated blackmail and fraud, he knew. But then people were never only one thing.

Gina nodded and struggled for a moment with her emotions.

“So the two of you stayed friends through school and then ... ?” Mendez prompted.

“We both got jobs, got fired, got other jobs. But we always stuck together. I only had brothers growing up, and Marissa didn’t have anybody, so we became each other’s sisters.”

“And by 1981, where were you?” Dixon asked.

“We were living in Venice near the beach. I was working in downtown LA in the garment district. Marissa was a starving artist. She would sell her paintings at the beach on the weekends, but she worked as a hostess at Morton’s steakhouse to pay the rent. That’s where she met Bruce Bordain.”

“And they got involved ... romantically?”

“Marissa got involved romantically,” she corrected him. “I don’t know. Maybe it was because of her not having a dad or whatever. I mean, Bordain is old enough to be her father, but she really liked him. He made her feel special. He bought her gifts, took her places. He gave her the whole song and dance about not being in love with his wife, and how they didn’t even live together.”

“But it was just a passing thing for him?” Vince said.

Gina nodded. “She was just a toy for him. And then she got pregnant and that was the end for him. She called him and told him, and a few days later she got a check in the mail from him to go get an abortion.

“Can you believe that?” she said, disgusted. “ ‘Go take care of it,’ he said in his note. Like it was nothing. Like, like she was having a wart removed. Then he stopped returning her phone calls.”

“Did she have the abortion?” Vince asked.

“It was terrible,” Gina said. “She didn’t want to. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to keep the baby. She wanted Bruce to love her. The stress literally made her sick. Then she miscarried and everything went wrong. She started hemorrhaging. I thought she was going to die!”

“That’s when she had the hysterectomy,” Dixon ventured.

Gina nodded. “It was worse than if he had killed her. Having kids was Marissa’s biggest goal in life.”

“She took it hard,” Vince said. Marissa would have been twenty-three years old at the time. Young, with no family to fall back on, working as a hostess, and her knight in shining armor had set off a series of events that had utterly destroyed her fantasy of a perfect life.

“So where does Haley enter into this?” Mendez asked.

“Once a week we both volunteered at a women’s shelter in Venice,” Gina said. “We met this girl our age. She was pregnant. She called herself Star, but we never knew her real name. She said she came to LA to become a movie star, but changing her name was as close as she ever got.”

“And the father of her baby?” Vince asked.

“We never knew. I don’t think she knew. One day she’d tell us it was her drug dealer, and the next day she’d say he was a struggling actor or a big-shot director.