Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Rochelle
At least Jesse hadn’t killed them on the freeway. He dropped her off in the driveway, leaning over the seat when she got out.
“Get something to eat,” he said. “I’ll grab a sandwich on the way to the office.”
She walked slowly inside, glad the nightmare of the last two days was behind her. Not much mail, mostly bills, but there would be an e-mail from Megan. Her baby never missed a day.
She entered through the front door, trying to keep the bills from slipping off the catalog. Damn. Jesse had forgotten to set the burglar alarm before they left for Santa Barbara.
She dumped the mail on the white-tiled bar and stopped for a moment to look at the large framed poster beside the black refrigerator.
Admit it, she had looked pretty good; no wonder the poster was a collectors’ item now.
If you had a Charlie’s Angels and you had a Rochelle McArthur, you had two of the most important looks in the past two decades.
She’d like a cigarette, but she hated to smoke in this home she loved as if it were a living thing. No, just resist the urge. Go through the mail, first this stuff, and then the computer.
A creamy envelope slid out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
An invitation to something? She tore open the envelope and reached inside.
What the hell? A card of some kind. She pulled it out, staring into Julie Larimore’s enigmatic smile.
She turned it over. On the left side was the printed slogan: You’ve Got to Want the Body.
To the right, where the address should be, someone had printed in large capital letters, “Don’t try it. ”
She dropped the card. What a cheap shot, a prank.
Was this amateur threat really supposed to scare her off?
The prankster didn’t know who she was dealing with, and it was a she, of course, someone petty, like Tania Marie.
Still, she felt violated to receive something like this in her own home, her sanctuary.
She picked it up again, thinking she’d have to talk to Jesse. Maybe they could turn this around to get her back on Bobbo’s good side, point the finger back at Tania Marie. Only she would stoop to something this childish.
As she started to put it back in the envelope, she realized something else was in there. She turned the envelope upside down, and two pieces fell out. It looked like a photograph, torn from a magazine.
Holding them side by side, Rochelle felt a tremor. It was a photo. A photo of Megan.
Rochelle clutched the phone and leaned against the kitchen sink, looking through the window at the vine-covered fence, tiny yellow flowers trailing along the wood. It all looked so safe, but it wasn’t. She wasn’t.
Megan answered on the first ring.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course. What’s the matter, Mom? Your voice. You’re not still smoking, are you?”
“Listen, baby, because this is really important.” She felt as if someone were strangling her, as if she were speaking through a crushed windpipe. “I want you to come home, right now.”
“What’s wrong? Is it Dad?” Always Daddy’s little girl. He was her first concern.
“We’re okay, honest,” she said. “I just want you with me at home.”
An audible sigh, and then Megan’s voice returned to normal. “I’m in the middle of finals, Mom. I can’t give you that four-point average if I drop the ball now. Has something gone wrong with your Killer Body gig?”
Still pressing the phone to her ear, Rochelle reached out to close the blinds. “Yes, something has, and I want you home, finals or not.”
Rikki
When I hear Lucas close the upstairs door, I know I’m in trouble, and I’m ready for any excuse as to why Bobby Warren won’t be joining us.
I’ve taken the moment of his absence to stand at the window across from the sofa and admire the view, something I wouldn’t allow myself with Lucas in the room.
Nothing like being in someone’s home to level the playing field.
Just a day before, I’d contemplated how well he and I might have gotten along if we didn’t have our separate loyalties standing between us.
Something about his reserved sexiness appeals to me, surprising considering the self-imposed hiatus of my love life after that one night with Den.
Now I’m thinking it’s more than Lucas’s loyalty to Bobby Warren and mine to my aunt that stand between us.
It’s the difference between this condo sanctuary of black leather and chrome, this island-dotted ocean view, and my home in the San Joaquin Valley.
A nice-enough home, except for my crazy neighbor to the left, who uses his big black pickup as a living room, where he can be seen reading the newspaper every morning.
Except for the 106-degree heat in the summer that would drive anyone but a native to saner climates.
Except for my too-small backyard, which shrunk to postage-stamp status after I got a wild hair and planted it with tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapenos, which immediately took over.
Except for the vacuum cleaner that stands like a greeter just inside my front door, and the piles of paper—bills, magazines, hand-written notes to myself for stories yet to happen.
Except for all of that, a nice-enough home. But what would Lucas think?
It’s flat-out depressing when you view your life through the eyes of a man you’re contemplating whether or not you should get to know better.
Besides, I haven’t thought about anyone like this since that disaster with Den, and I just can’t anymore.
I learned the hard way that a man who requires too much thought, too many questions about yourself and your relationship, is like a boulder.
There’s no way you can rise above the problems and complications of life when you’re hanging on to that big, all-consuming rock.
Why hasn’t Bobby Warren come down those stairs?
Just when I’m ready to go up and find out for myself, I hear footsteps and turn to see Lucas.
I can tell by his stem expression that he’s going to try to weasel the old man out of this interview.
And I resolve to climb over him and his posh Italian leather sofa if that’s what it takes to get to what I was promised.
Then he tells me.
“Bobby’s really upset. Julie just called him. That’s where he’s been, talking to her on the phone.”
I sense a lie there, an omission, at least.
“Julie Larimore? You really expect me to believe that?”
Lucas shoots me a look so irate that I want to duck. Then his eyes change, and he looks like the other Lucas again. In a flash, I remember Hamilton’s words. Anger is a secondary emotion. Pain. Fear. Which one have I triggered?
“He believes it happened. He claims it was her voice, even though it was muffled.”
“Then, let me talk to him. Maybe I can help.”
“That’s impossible.” In a smooth couple of steps, he blocks my way to the staircase, and I realize for the first time how large he is.
“If Julie Larimore really did call him, we need to find out everything we can.”
I move closer. The stairs are my goal. Surely he won’t grab me if I maneuver around him, and I must. This is too important. No way am I going back to the motel until I hear what happened from Bobby himself.
“Don’t, Rikki.” Lucas blocks me again, stepping to the side just before I can skirt around him.
I wanted to kiss this man just a few minutes ago.
Now he’s ready to go to blows with me. “We’ll talk to you before we talk to anyone, but for now, a couple of hours at least, Bobby W and I need some time to discuss this. You understand, don’t you?”
Through his glasses, through his dark eyes, I see the truth. He is scared, and I—a woman whom moments before he made feel desirable for the first time in a long time—am suddenly his new worst enemy.
I move closer, try to make him hear me through the fear. “We don’t have the time for private meetings, Lucas. You don’t, and neither does Mr. Warren. If Julie Larimore was really on that phone tonight, she may not have much time, either. I have to go up there and talk to him.”
I see the resolve in his features, realize how he won those weightlifting titles. He simply doesn’t give; he’d drop before he did.
“I’m sorry. I really am. But if you don’t leave right now—”
“Cut the crap, Luke.”
At the top of the staircase, Bobby Warren, dressed in a sea-foam-green sweatsuit, stands erect as a monarch before his subjects.
“Mr. Warren,” I begin, but he interrupts me before I can continue.
“Get the hell up here,” he says. “You’re right about timing. We can’t help Jules if we sit on our butts around here all day. Isn’t that right, Luke?”
Lucas doesn’t reply. I don’t have to look at his eyes to feel the fury in them. But he steps back, almost sinking into the chrome rail.
By then, I’m already on the stairs, smelling Bobby Warren’s bourbon breath beneath his Obsession or whatever high-powered, upscale scent with which he’s doused himself, following him into the second bedroom that must serve as Luke’s office.
Once there, I don’t know what to do next.
The desk, on large black casters, turned to face the ocean, is glass with a greenish cast to it.
Bobby Warren heads for the teak-backed, black upholstered chair behind it.
Then he just collapses—all of him, not only his body, but his skin, his gaze, his attitude.
“I can’t help you,” I say, “if you don’t let me help you.”
“Rikki.” I feel Lucas at my back before I hear his voice, a voice that, at this minute, I’m not sure I can trust.
“She’s right.” Tears squeeze out of Bobby Warren’s eyes. He jerks his head toward Lucas. “I have to talk to someone, Luke.”
“We can discuss that later.”
“No, I do. I really have to talk to someone right now.” He returns to me. “Jules called me just now on my cell phone. Do you believe that, or do you think I’m a crazy old man?”
How do I answer? I stand before him, trying to tug down the sweater I wore because I wanted Lucas to notice it. He did. Bobby Warren hasn’t, thankfully, and now he’s far too distracted to be interested in it or me.
“If you say it’s true, I’m sure it is.”
He nods, his dark eyes so unfocussed that, for a moment, I consider calling 911 or taking him to an emergency clinic. He’s aged a decade easily since the first time I spoke with him. And he’s worried.
“No one will believe me,” he says. “Not even Luke believes me.”
Then it comes to me, how to know for sure. I move closer to him. “She called you on your cell phone?”
He nods, picks it up from the glass desk. “I know it’s my Jules. She said she missed our calls. She always called me every morning for motivation before she started her day. The voice was muffled, but I know it was hers.”
“There’s an easy way to prove that.” I can barely breathe, so I turn away and stare at the safe black-gray-white painting on the opposite wall. “Your cell keeps a record of all phone calls, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so.” He holds it up, in front of his nose, the way my uncle George, Carey’s late husband, used to hold a magazine when he was trying to read without his glasses.
“Bobby.” Lucas’s voice booms behind me.
I move closer, put out my hand. “Do you mind?”
“Bobby, we need to talk about this.”
“Why? I have nothing to hide, and this girl’s trying to help.”
“She’s trying to get a story.”
“Maybe she’ll get the right story this time, and help us find Jules.” He hands me the phone. “You’ll help us, won’t you?”
“I’ll try.” I can’t help shooting Lucas a look of triumph.
I press the up arrow on the black keypad and the rectangular screen lights green: 01 New Calls; 21 Total Calls.
“Do you see anything?” Bobby asks.
“There is a new call on here.” I hear a sigh of what sounds like relief from Lucas. He must have thought Bobby made it all up, that it was some alcoholic fantasy. It still could be, of course. That one call could be hours old. “We’ll find out in just a second.” I press the arrow again.
Wireless Caller.
“Do you know this number?” I offer the phone to Bobby, then realize he can’t see. Vanity. The old man won’t wear glasses.
As he fumbles, I lean down beside him and am almost overcome by heavy aftershave unsuccessfully masking bourbon. It reminds me of Rochelle McArthur’s overdone scent, her attempt to hide the smell of her nicotine habit.
I take the phone from him again, press the talk key and put the phone to my ear.
“It’s ringing.”
That surprises me. Not a telemarketer, a real phone number, connecting me to a real person. Maybe.
I hear the click of an answering device. No, not a real person, after all. A machine. I walk back to the painting, unable to face the hope in Bobby Warren’s suddenly alert eyes.
“Hi. You’ve reached Julie. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back soon as I can.” The soft voice leaves no doubt as to its authenticity.
“What is it?” Bobby gets up from his chair. He and Lucas form a wall between the desk and me. “Did you get anything?”
I hand Lucas the phone. “I think you’d better listen to this, and then we’re going to have to call the police.”