into the house as if I’d been invited.
“Why?”
“Research.” The lie came easily as I walked past her into the large entry room, which opened onto the living room with its sensational hillside view of the canyon.
The first thing I noticed was that the table was gone: the antique washstand near the door that we’d used as a catchall for mail and keys. And that the floor, which had been Spanish tile, had been replaced by white marble.
“I’ve been working on a teen thing, and she said she’d help me with some background.” Those tiles had been so beautiful. Brilliantly colored, hand-painted, consistent with the Spanish Moorish design of the house. Who could possibly think this white stone was an improvement?
“When?” asked Lynda.
Jonathan came in from the kitchen, a look of concern disturbing his usually sanguine features. “I called the O’Connors and the Rosens and the Delaneys. Nobody knows anything.” He stopped short when he saw me standing there.
“Brett. What are you doing here?”
I was unprepared for the bolt of longing that shot through me at the sight of him. Jonathan was tall and well proportioned. The curve of his jaw, the roundness of his cheeks, cleft in his chin, indentation of his lips, even the tendrils of his richly layered hair combined to give his slightly rabbinical features a soft and sensuous intelligence. He wore his muted grey, hand-tailored wool suit as easily as a jogging outfit and moved with a natural grace, his fluid movements calling up images of rocking hips and rumpled sheets. The images were unwelcome.
“I came to see Julia.”
“She’s not here. You’d better go.”
His body and eyes were as closed to me as a locked gate, and he waited for me to leave. I stayed.
“Has something happened?”
Jonathan and Lynda exchanged a look just as the girls had. Her eyes told him “keep quiet.” Nonetheless, he allowed, “Julia’s off playing hooky somewhere. Nobody knows where she is. She hasn’t been to school in two days.” An unspoken argument was taking place between Jonathan and Lynda, all in the eyes. Jonathan’s confession had been some sort of gauntlet from which Lynda felt she could now retreat.
“I’m leaving,” she said.
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Handle it however you want. But I have a 5:30 over the hill, and I’m not going to be late.”
She headed for the door, but Jonathan blocked the way.
“The police will want to talk to you.”
Lynda blinked in outrage. “The police! If you call the police, this will all be up on Jason Ratt’s website before you hang up the phone.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“I know. But you should be. Don’t you see this is just what she wants? I suppose you think this is a coincidence. That of all times, she picks now to do this.” Her eyes glinted with the sure knowledge she was right. “If you call the police now, how’s that going to look to Alliance?”
“Jonathan, please. Is Julia in trouble?”
I might as well have been an ant crawling along the baseboard for all the attention they paid to me.
“Julia’s more important to me than a merger with Alliance. The police are looking for Caleigh; we have to tell them Julia’s missing too.” Jonathan’s voice broke. “They say the trail goes cold in 48 hours.”
“Nothing’s happened to her. She’s a spoiled brat, hell-bent on destroying everything you’ve worked for, and everyone can see it but you. When she can’t get what she wants, she pulls a stunt like this to get negative attention.” She elbowed her way past Jonathan. “Well, I for one will not play that game with her. I’ve got the whole team assembled; I’m not missing this meeting.”
“Julia came to see me in Malibu. I saw her yesterday.”
Abruptly, they both remembered I was there.
“What time?” asked Jonathan. And then, as an afterthought, “Why?” And then, “You’d better come in.”
If I was going to stay and talk to Jonathan, Lynda wasn’t going to leave. She took out a cell phone and punched a button. “It’s me. Traffic’s horrendous. Call everyone and push it back a half hour.” She followed us into the living room. “What else?” She murmured as she listened to her messages, grunting slightly at each, until she exclaimed, “Oh, fuck him. Tell him...” she looked at her watch. “Never mind, I’ll call him myself. Remind me. There in a jiff.” She pressed the off button and tossed the phone back in her bag.
When I lived there, the biggest piece in the living room had been a huge, sectional sofa that Jonathan and I could lie perpendicular to one another, me with my laptop, him with a book or a pile of scripts, a soft chenille throw for each of us. Sometimes it was Julia curled up opposite while Jonathan read in his armchair, feet on an ottoman, staring out at the wonderful view of the canyon. We were a family of readers; there was a pillowed nook by every window. The room had been functional and comfortable, an eclectic mix of antique and contemporary pieces; the Moroccan rug from the last century, the inlaid wood coffee table made last year by a carpenter/actor in Santa Monica.
The only thing left was the view and the fireplace. The furniture that filled the space now was angular, spare, and minimalist; repelling, rather than inviting. Not a pillow out of place, not a newspaper or magazine to give any indication that anyone spent time in this room; nonetheless, it made an imposing impression. It was the perfectly designed set for the successful Hollywood power couple, including silver framed photos of Jonathan and Lynda, gazing starry-eyed at each other in romantic getaways in secluded spots—except, then, who took the picture? It was expensive and beautiful, but generic, as if Lynda or her designer had walked into a showroom and bought everything in it at once.
“I guess it was about eleven a.m. I wasn’t thinking about it being a school day. I was so glad to see her. I didn’t stop to think.”
“No, you never did.” Jonathan’s words were meant to wound. They succeeded.
“She said you had mentioned to her that I was staying at Gerry Talbot’s, so she knew where to find me.”
I looked to see the effect it would have on Lynda to know that Jonathan and Julia still talked about me. It registered. I wondered where the rug was now. Or what happened to the case that housed found treasures, like Jonathan’s beloved antique toy soldiers. I remembered the excitement I’d felt when I’d spotted a complete set at the flea market. I’d given them to him for his birthday, and I knew he loved them. They were gone.
“Why did she come to see you?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to betray Julia’s confidence, but I also didn’t want to stand in the way of her getting help if she needed it. “She was worried about Caleigh Nussbaum. She said that Caleigh hadn’t been to school, and she was afraid something might have happened to her. This was before the Nussbaums had gone to the police.”
Jonathan and Lynda didn’t speak, but I could tell
