South by Southeast (37 page)

“I know, I know. I forgot you're such a neat freak.”

For a moment, we both smiled. It was the best I'd felt all day. But it didn't last.

I took April's hand into mine, rubbing her lithe fingers one by one. “If I'm right about Escobar and what he's doing, I don't have much time,” I said. “The police are processing the scene and evidence, and Nelson said I should expect an arrest warrant. Maybe this is Escobar's way of getting even—I tried to send him to jail, so he'll send me.”

My lawyer, Melanie, had told me not to worry, but she didn't know Escobar the way I did.

“Ten, that's why I want to be with you,” April said. “You need me now. If we're together, we're together through everything.”

“Not this,” I said. “Not Escobar. Please trust me. I'm not just bailing, I promise. I need you, April, but you have to stay away from me for a while. We'll use the phone. I'll call you.”

“If you were just running away from me, would you know the difference?”

I gave a short sigh. “Maybe I'll learn that in therapy,” I said. “But right now, I have to deal with this.”

“You called the therapist?” April said, hopeful.

I wanted to please her so much I almost lied. “Not yet. I have the card on my desk. I'm trying, April. Give me a minute, baby. I'm scared.” I rarely spoke about being afraid. I had faced killers and kidnappers before, but this time, I was weary and in the dark.

“I know,” April said. “I'm scared, too.”

I might be wrong about Escobar, but I didn't know any other way to explain how I'd been so closely tied to Mother's murder. If it wasn't Escobar, then who? How?

“If you have doubts about me and my involvement in this, I understand,” I said.

“Please—I know you didn't kill Mother. And I know you care about me.” April shrugged. “I guess that's enough for today.”

“I can't take a chance on losing you like Dad,” I said. “Not to him.”

She nodded, hugging me. “Okay, Ten. It's fine.”

But it wasn't okay or fine. Far from it.

Our kiss was over too soon. I missed April before I climbed out of her car.

“Clip. Safety,” I told Chela, and I handed her my Glock. “You remember.”

Chela and I hadn't been shooting in a couple of months, but we had gone to the range three times in the past year. Chela knew how to fire my 9mm.

“You hear anything you don't like, get into the safe room.”

Before she died, Alice had built a hidden room adjacent to
her kitchen that had served as a pantry until I cleaned it out and equipped it for its given purpose. Over the years, I'd stocked the safe room with camping supplies, batteries, and canned foods. An empty wooden rack for wine bottles camouflaged the door from the outside, but I'd moved all but two bottles so Chela could open the door easily.

Marcela was already gone. With a little persuasion, Marcela had agreed to take her Mediterranean cruise early and repay me for her ticket. I'd considered moving with Chela to a hotel a few miles outside L.A. but quickly rejected the notion. Moving might spook the police and give them an excuse to move in faster. Arrest me, leaving Chela unprotected. If Escobar was following us, it wouldn't matter where we went. It was better to stay near my neighbors. We both knew my house best.

“Wish you could come with me,” I said. I was on my way to see Louise Cannon. Cannon didn't want to see me, but I had told her I was coming.

“I don't want to be around her,” Chela said.

Louise Cannon reportedly had dated Escobar for three years, and Chela was sure Cannon must have known or suspected what Escobar was. I wasn't as sure, but it was possible she knew something. And in case Escobar was keeping tabs on his former girlfriend, it was best to keep Chela far out of his sight.

“Keep your phone and gun with you at all times—even in the bathroom,” I said.

“Got it,” Chela said. “But I won't be following you around everywhere, so get used to leaving me here.” She paused. “Except at night.”

“No,” I said. “Not at night.”

I couldn't remember the last time my house hadn't felt crowded. Now it was nearly empty. I'd had so much, and I'd barely noticed.

“What am I supposed to do if they arrest you for real?” Chela said.

“I'll bond out when I can. It might be a day or two. Might be less.”

“What if you can't?”

It was hard to imagine a bond I wouldn't be willing to pay, but Chela was right: I might not have the choice. That was up to a judge. With no income, my savings account would go fast. I could live with Escobar hurting me, but I couldn't stand him hurting my little girl, too.

“If I do time, nothing has to change for you,” I said. It was the first time I'd let myself imagine going to prison. “The house is paid for except for the taxes. Melanie can work out the bills if you keep expenses low. I want you to go to school.”

Chela rolled her eyes. “B average, Ten. College is expensive.”

“We'll figure it out. Start at a community college. Don't slow down because of me.”

“Slow down?” Chela said. “I graduated five months ago. I'm not exactly racing.”

“It's time to start, Chela. Pick a direction. Ask Bernard. He's good at planning.”

“He's an alien. He'll be running that stupid studio before he's twenty-five.”

“Do it for Mother, not me. She couldn't admit it, but this is what she wanted for you.”

By the time I mentioned Mother, I was whispering. The weight of her softened my voice. Mother was a new tragedy, and we hadn't recovered from the last one.

Chela sobbed loudly, her forehead resting against my chest. I cradled the back of her head. We stood that way a long time while I held her tightly. Bringing up Mother that way was a dirty trick, but I had to fight for Chela with every weapon I had.

Chela let out a wail like I'd never heard from her. Her cry was so deep it seemed to vibrate the walls. She clung to me, nails digging.

“I hate him!” Chela screamed, her words nearly smothered by her sobs. “Please find him, Ten.” Chela was trembling.

“I'm trying, sweetheart. I hate him, too.”

I hadn't known I could loathe anyone as much as Escobar. He had killed my father. He had killed three people we cared about. Could I find him before I got mired in the snare he'd laid for me? Maybe not. I hated him for that most of all.

“I'll find him, Chela,” I said. And then in another man's voice, “I'll kill him.”

LOUISE CANNON HAD
disappeared from the public eye after Escobar's double life was revealed. I might be the last person she wanted to see, but I couldn't help that.

Yeah, and don't be fooled. She might know more than the police think.

While a few paparazzi were still staking out the Studio City offices of Escobar's production company, Trabajando Films, I knew it wasn't likely that Cannon would show up there—although I drove past to see if I could spot Escobar haunting his old home. I saw two young employees go inside, one male and one female. No luck spotting Escobar. No Cannon.

But Elliot had told me how to track Cannon down. The guy had burst into tears as soon as he heard my voice on the phone, telling me how sorry he was about Dad, but I finally calmed him down. He was protective of Cannon, but he told me she was back in L.A., and he'd heard she was using an editing bay at Matinee Studios in West Hollywood. “Go easy with her, Tin Man,” Elliot had said. “She's in shock.”

Join the club,
I thought. Cannon wasn't answering my calls, just as I wasn't answering most of mine, but I'd left a message on her cell phone to let her know I was coming to see her.

Matinee Studios, near Roscoe's Chicken N Waffles on Sunset and Gower, rented out its state-of-the-art editing facility in the western-themed shopping complex. Inside, the décor was heavy on mirrors, rubbed bronze panels, and odd sculptures from found objects like street signs and empty paint cans. It didn't feel warm or homey, but with the entrance in the rear, Matinee afforded privacy to its clients. As was typical, the studio had a wall dedicated to movie posters and framed photo stills from the projects that had come through its doors.

Nuestro
Tío Fidel
was one poster, signed by Escobar and the movie's star. Escobar's wildly scrawled signature reminded me that I was in the right place.

I called Cannon from the lobby, blending in with other clients milling in conferences. This time, she picked up her phone right away.

“Yes?” she said, already frazzled.

“Louise, it's Tennyson,” I said. A long pause. “Please hear me out. I need to talk to you for ten minutes. It's urgent. I'm right here at Matinee.”

“Here?” Louise said, distraught. I didn't have to wonder if she was at the studio.

“Please,” I said. “We're both going through a terrible time, but—”

“I can't talk to you right now,” she said. “I'm sorry about everything.” Before the phone clicked off, I heard a toilet flush in the background. She was in or near a bathroom.

“Excuse me,” I said to the twenty-somethings grazing near a vending machine at the edge of the lobby. “I need to find my girlfriend in the bathroom.”

“Little girls' room is that way,” said a woman, pointing down the hall. She'd roped her hair in Japanese-schoolgirl-style pigtails that made her look twelve instead of twenty-five. “Turn left for girls, right for boys.”

I thanked her and sprinted down the hall. Since I seemed to know what I wanted and where I was going, the lobby guard barely glanced at me. The hallway was long, lined with closed doors to the editing bays. I sped up my pace.

I rounded another corner in time to see Louise Cannon walking briskly away from the swinging bathroom door, her hands shoved into her pockets, head low.

“Louise!” I called.

She stopped in mid-track, not looking back. I jogged up to face her, smiling as if she were my favorite sister.

Louise Cannon wasn't fooled into returning my smile, or maybe she wasn't capable. The tip of her nose was still sunburned and peeling from Miami, but the rest of her face was as pale as a powdered corpse from Elliot's makeup chair. Her hair was stringy and limp around her face, her eyes sunken deep. She wasn't sleeping well, either.

“People will see you,” she whimpered.

“Where can we go?” I said. “I just need a few minutes, and I'll be gone.”

Cannon walked around me, following her previous path like an ant on the march. “Come on,” she said, resigned. “I wish you hadn't come here. This is the only place I have.”

It's not my fault you have lousy taste in men
, I thought, but I kept my expression pleasant. Louise Cannon wasn't the only one who had been fooled by Gustavo Escobar.

Cannon's editing bay looked like a second home; she'd brought in a large bean-bag chair and afghan in the corner for sleeping. The counter was lined with empty Coke Zero bottles and takeout containers. Cannon and April would be good roommates, I thought.

Cannon moved quickly to turn off her monitor, but not before I saw what she was editing: Brittany Summers in a full scream from the
Freaknik
footage. A bile-like flavor rose in my throat. Barely two
weeks after Escobar had been revealed as a serial killer, Cannon was either obsessively watching the footage or trying to finish the film. I tried to keep the surprise from my face, but from Cannon's sheepish eyes, she knew what I was thinking.

For a long moment, neither of us knew what to say.

“I didn't know,” Cannon said finally. “That's what you're wondering—what everyone is wondering. You're thinking, ‘How could she
not
know?' But I didn't.” She found a bottle of water hidden in the collection of empty Coke Zeros and took a long swig.

“I'm not thinking that,” I said.