Lizzie peeked from behind the curtain when I pulled up outside our motel room.
Seeing it was me, she opened the door and stood behind it, something tentative in her manner.
I kissed her and took my tie off, then checked around the room, hoping against hope that was where I’d left the photograph of the girls.
‘What’s wrong, Charlie?’
‘I misplaced something. I’m—’
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’
I turned to see Lizzie holding the photograph towards me. It showed the two girls hanging from either side of a palm tree trunk, posing with one leg bent at the knee, making a mirror image. Both of them laughing. Nancy’s head thrown back, Julie with a snaggletooth on the left side of her mouth. At a guess, both of them in their early twenties.
‘You found it? Where was it?’
Her free arm was across her stomach, her elbow propped on it. ‘I took it from your jacket.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I had to find a way to get through to you. And even that didn’t work.’
‘This is—’ I reached across and took it from her fingers, staring at her, the silence between us like a brick wall. ‘I spent all morning canvassing people with no picture to show. What were you thinking?’
‘I could ask the same of you. Think about what you just said.’
‘You’re trying to hinder me, is that it?’
‘No, never. I wanted to do something to give you pause – to stop and think. But nothing is working. You’re obsessed, Charlie, and you’re ignoring the danger we’re in.’
‘How can you stand there and say that to me?’
‘You’ve been gone all day. All day, not a word. Even after what I told you last night.’
‘I’m—Goddammit, Lizzie, I’m trying to figure this out. I need your help, not some try at silent protest.’
‘I am helping. I’ve been walking around for hours showing this photograph to people. I told you I couldn’t face sitting here wondering again.’
‘You did what?’
She took a step closer to me. ‘Exactly what you would have done. If nothing else, to prove I wasn’t acting out of spite.’
I held my hands out. ‘You accuse me of ignoring the danger and you’re out there parading yourself for Siegel to find.’
‘What does it matter now? They found you, they’ve made their threats. Why would they even care to look for me?’
My own thoughts from that morning, somehow sounding deluded coming from the mouth of another. I took a breath and put my hands on her shoulders. ‘This isn’t a game. They—’
She shrugged me off. ‘Don’t patronise me. I’ve lived through every second of this with you, I know damn well how serious this is.’
Alice’s memory lingered in the space between us. My sense that an unvoiced accusation was close to the surface: that she was tired of me acting as if I carried a heavier burden of grief than she did over the loss of her own sister.
I screwed my eyes closed, trying not to raise my voice. ‘If they don’t know where you are, they can’t harm you. That’s the one thought keeping me going right now.’
‘They found you before, Charlie. They let you go without so much as taking your telephone number. They can get to us anytime they like if we stay in the city, you must see that.’ She walked to the table and planted both hands on it with her back to me. ‘What you mean to say is that you don’t care if they kill you so long as they can’t touch me.’ She gave me a hard look in the mirror. ‘You can’t know how terrifying it is for me to realise that.’
I put my hands on my hips and looked at the wall, flailing for something to say as it dawned on me she’d recognised something I hadn’t yet seen in myself. ‘I’m trying to protect you.’
‘You’re being reckless on account of something you can’t fix.’
I went over and stabbed the tabletop. ‘If they’re alive, I can find them.’
She lifted my finger off the table and interlinked it with hers. ‘You can’t bring Alice back. Any of them.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Please don’t deny it. I know how it weighs on you.’
I turned away, feeling my eyes film with tears. The silence an indictment of my guilt, the memories beating their way to the front of my mind. ‘I can’t stop thinking … if I’d just been quicker and asked the right questions sooner …’ I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand and then slapped the wall. ‘Goddammit.’
She put her arms around my neck, and I felt a fool as my tears started. The images wouldn’t leave my mind. I untangled myself from her and moved away, ashamed of my weakness.
‘She was my sister. I’ve had all the same thoughts and I still do.’
‘Not the same thoughts. Even now I think about killing them – Richard Davis and Harlan Layfield and all their type. I’m angry all the time and it means nothing because when I had the chance I couldn’t bring myself to.’
‘That’s the difference between you and them.’
‘Inaction.’
‘Stop this.’ She lifted my chin to look her in the eye. ‘Charlie, stop this. You’re not to blame and eventually you’ll come to see that. But we’ve got to deal with what’s in front of us.’ She ran her thumb over the tearstain on my cheek and we stood like that without speaking, traffic noise outside and the chatter from some other room’s radio an undercurrent to the quiet.
After a minute she said, ‘You never told me what happened with Mr Bayless last night.’
My thoughts were so wrecked it took me a second to place the name. ‘He said he can’t pay. He was in shock, I think. I can’t blame him.’
‘That poor man.’
‘I told him he should run.’ I said it softly, indicating I recognised the irony.
‘Do you think that’s wise?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do. I felt like a heel even going there but I had to warn him at least.’
‘Of course. Do you think he’ll listen?’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it. He was more worried about where he’d get work if he left. He thinks he can talk his way out of it.’
‘How?’
I told her about his idea of working off the debt. ‘There’s something else as well. There’s a man been asking questions about me. He says he’s a cop but I’m not sure.’
She closed her eyes in a manner that suggested she couldn’t take much more.
I told her the rest – about going back to Mrs Snyder’s and Angela Crawford’s story and the call to the LAPD.
Her face turned quizzical at the last part. ‘I don’t follow. So this man is a real police officer?’
‘Not necessarily. Anyone could get a tin badge and be using his name.’
‘Why would—Who would have reason to ask after you?’
‘I don’t know. My first thought was someone at the studio doesn’t like me asking questions.’
She shot me a look, uncertain.
‘You think movie studios are above hiring private eyes?’ I said.
‘You’re suggesting the studio is somehow involved?’
‘No, I’m just trying to find a way to make sense of it. Who has means and motive.’
She stood up and flattened her skirt, then crossed the room and checked the bolt on the door, re-locking it. ‘Charlie, I have to tell you, traipsing around all day brought home the futility of what you’re trying to do. I don’t mean to criticise you or your dedication, but I lost count of how many people I showed that photograph to and I didn’t get a single hint that any of them was interested, let alone could help. This city’s too big.’ She paused, a loaded silence while she composed herself. ‘We need to decide, right now, what we do about Siegel. I can’t see a choice other than to take off again.’
‘You said to me, “What happens when we’ve got nowhere left to run to?” Those were your words on Pismo Beach.’
She pressed her lips together. ‘You needn’t throw them in my face. When I said that it was in the context of just being forced to flee my home for a second time. Now I don’t even have a home.’ She stared at me, not an accusation but letting the words hit their mark. ‘Tell me what you’d suggest instead.’
I turned around, feeling light-headed. ‘I’m going to talk to Siegel. Plead Bayless’ case. I don’t know, maybe I can work out a deal with him.’
She moved to stand in front of the door. ‘That’s crazy. My god, you said yourself—’
‘It’s worth a shot. If it does no good, we could still leave tomorrow.’
‘You’re still trying to buy time, aren’t you? To search for those girls.’
‘For them. For Bayless. For all of us.’
She shook her head and looked away and I saw her glance at our bags, still packed.
‘Will you be here when I come back?’ I said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go. I could follow—’
‘I won’t leave this city without you. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by and let you get yourself killed because you’re too stubborn for anything else.’ She walked over and picked up one of the bags, then unlocked the door. ‘I’ll wait in the car while you speak to him. If it goes wrong, we leave straightaway.’