Dick feels bad that Dee is upset because he invited Janelle to the fundraiser instead of her. She pouted as they got ready and made it clear how unfair it was. Dick promised to make it up to her. He chose Janelle because she’s less curious and observant, as well as less likely to care if he wanders off and leaves her alone.
Dick is grateful Janelle didn’t kiss and tell. He doesn’t know how Dee would feel about what happened between them and doesn’t know how to explain it, except to blame it on the moon and stars, that it was one of those mystical, magical moments that comes along incredibly rarely and entirely defies logic and reason. Janelle hasn’t brought it up, and neither has he, their relationship returned to its easy natural state of sweet platonic love.
“I feel like a princess,” she says as Dick drives through the iron gates. “I think I should have a fancier name, like Catherine or Elizabeth.”
“Your name is fine,” Dick says, not really listening.
For three months, he has waited for an opportunity to infiltrate Ingall’s life, and if he blows this, he doubts he’ll get another. Unlike Hamilton, Dick has no reservations when it comes to Ingall. All it took was for him to pull up an aerial view of Ingall’s property on Google Maps to see the evidence of his guilt. Red-flowered bushes surrounded the perimeter, walkways, and house.
“Fine,” Janelle says. “Janelle it is. But can I at least say I do something more interesting than working as an order clerk at the quarry?”
“What would you like to do?”
“I’m a singer.”
“And what if they ask you to sing?”
Her brow crinkles, but she has no time to come up with an alternative cover because a valet is opening her door. Another valet frowns as he takes the Volvo’s keys from Dick.
“Wow!” Janelle says, goggling Ingall’s home.
Dick agrees it’s impressive. The brick horseshoe driveway fronts a white-columned portico, and through a pair of grand doors, a marble-floored entry teaming with tuxedo-clad people is lit by a crystal chandelier the size of a Volkswagen.
Janelle stops in her tracks. “No way!” she says, yanking him back. “Do you know who that is?”
He follows her eyes to a tall, gaunt woman across the room with silky black hair chopped severely at her chin and a pop-your-eyes-out green dress. Dick has no idea who she is but knows she is important by the air she exudes that says “you will look at me while I refuse to look at you.”
“That’s Theresa Webb,” Janelle hisses. “The evil matriarch in Devastation.”
Dick looks at her blankly, and she rolls her eyes. “It’s only like the number one show on Netflix.”
Dick doesn’t have Netflix. He barely knows what Netflix is.
“I’m going to say hi,” Janelle squeals mischievously, like the idea is a dare both brilliant and scandalous. Dick thinks the woman might like if someone says hello. She looks a bit bored.
Janelle hurries off, and he scans the room. His greatest fear when he bought the outrageously expensive tickets was that it might tip Steve off. Though Dick hasn’t heard from him since their beer after Hamilton’s service, he knows he’s keeping tabs. He can feel it, a tingly sense, constant and certain.
Relieved to see that everyone is a stranger except Janelle, who is now laughing with Theresa Webb like they are old friends, Dick turns into a parlor on the right. In the center, a grand piano is being played by a brilliant pianist. Dick walks behind the guests gathered around it to a hall that leads to a back staircase. Earlier in the week, he spent several hours at the Anaheim Hills city hall, studying and memorizing the house’s building plans.
He takes the stairs two at a time, his heart pounding so loudly it drowns out the music. What he is about to do requires far more courage than what he did with Otis or Hamilton. At least two hundred people are only a floor below, and there would be no explaining his actions if he is caught.
A step from the landing, he stops and takes several deep breaths to calm his nerves, then pulls on a pair of white cotton gloves and continues quickly down the hall to Ingall’s private suite.
The room is the size of a small apartment, with a sitting area, desk, and four-poster king bed. On the nightstand closest to him, two thorny branches poke out from a small terracotta pot.
Dick’s blood grows hot knowing what the seedling symbolizes, and he continues to the fireplace to set to work. The plan is simple. Check that the damper is closed. Snuff out the pilot. Turn on the gas. Earlier this afternoon, he turned off the main at the street, and tomorrow night he will return to turn it back on.
He hit pay dirt when he was studying the plans and realized that, thanks to a remodel done ten years ago, the house has two gas lines, one that services the water heater, kitchen, and furnace, and a more recent one that services the pool and fireplaces.
Thanks, Dad, he thinks and smiles softly knowing it’s because of his dad, jack-of-all-trades at the hatchery, that he knows about gas lines and the danger of gas leaks and carbon monoxide poisoning.
He holds his lighter over the burners to confirm the gas is off. So long as Ingall doesn’t decide to enjoy a fire on this warm August night, he shouldn’t notice anything is amiss. The plan isn’t foolproof. Carbon monoxide poisoning takes hours, and there’s a chance Ingall could wake and save himself, but it’s the only idea Dick could come up with where the death would appear accidental.
He puts the lighter back in his pocket, pushes to his feet, and pans the room to be sure there’s nothing he’s missed. His eyes catch on a smoke and carbon monoxide detector on the ceiling, and his heart skips at least two beats as he realizes how close he came to missing it and blowing the whole thing.
Using a chair from the sitting area, he climbs up to remove the batteries, and it screeches in protest. His brain seizes as he yanks out the battery. It stops, and he slams the case shut, leaps to the floor, shoves the chair back in its place, and races from the room.
Halfway down the stairs, he stops and bends over his knees, his breath coming in gulps. He focuses on pulling air through his nose and counting until finally his heart resumes its rhythm.
Straightening, he pulls off the gloves and returns to the party.
“Where have you been?” Janelle says when he finds her. “You missed the magic show.”
“There was a magic show?” Dick says.
“You okay? You’re sweating.”
She hands him her cocktail napkin, and he blots his forehead.
“It was amazing. I got to pick a card, and I picked the four of spades, and then the magician touched my head, and wham, just like that, he totally read my mind and said, ‘four of spades,’ and there was no way he could have known.”
Dick smiles at her astonishment.
“We should go outside,” she says, her brow wrinkled with concern. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
He forces a reassuring smile. Theresa Webb toasts Janelle with her martini as they walk toward the open patio doors.
A waiter passes with a tray of wine, and Dick grabs a glass and gulps half of it down as he follows Janelle outside into a yard the size of a football field, with a glowing pool and so many rose bushes the entire landscape is bursting with ruptures of red.
“Wow. It’s like a fairytale,” Janelle says as Dick thinks the opposite.
A twelve-piece orchestra plays on a stage, and a million twinkling lights sparkle around them.
“Ooh, and there’s a band,” Janelle says.
“Maybe they’ll ask you to sing with them,” he says with a wink.
She lights up, and he can almost imagine her joining them just for the dare of it.
The cool air and wine are helping, and his pulse has begun to slow.
He lifts his glass to take another sip when Grayson Ingall appears. Flanked by two older bejeweled women, he walks kinglike through the doors. Over six feet tall, with silver-white hair and intense blue eyes, he is even more distinguished in person than in his photos.
Janelle prattles about another magic trick she saw, while Dick listens to another conversation altogether.
“I only grow Ora Kingsleys,” Ingall says.
He and the ladies stand a few feet away beside a hedge of roses.
“Why’s that?” one of the women asks as she bends to smell a bud.
“Because they’re always in bloom. I couldn’t bear to see my bushes dormant.”
“You have so many.”
“A hundred and twenty-three.”
Dick chokes on his wine, and Janelle stops what she is saying to pat his back.
When he recovers, she grabs his hand. “Let’s dance.”
She leads him to the dance floor, and as they sway to the music, he glances again at Grayson Ingall—dignified, handsome, charming—and Dick is reminded of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and of how difficult it was for the young prince to believe his uncle could be guilty of poisoning his father even though his father’s ghost told him it was so. One hundred and twenty-three rose bushes—it’s almost impossible to believe.