The day was hot, the sun so bright Nicole found herself digging in her purse for her sunglasses before she stepped out of the international terminal at LAX. Waiting in line for a cab, she got out her phone and tapped in a quick message to her sister. “Just landed. Trip a disaster. Talk later.”
She found a cab and got in. Consumed by her tangled thoughts, she was surprised when the cabbie stopped and asked for the fare. They were already in front of her office building, and she had no idea how they’d gotten there.
She was still wearing the clothes she’d chosen for the plane ride home: jeans, tennis shoes, and a pink cotton-knit hoodie. Not the way she normally dressed for an office where the attorneys still wore suits and ties. As she walked in, pulling her carry-on bag, she waved and smiled at the people who looked up. Then she dashed for her office, so no one had a chance to ask about her trip. Breanna, her assistant, got up from her own desk and trailed Nicole into her glass-partitioned office. Nicole set her purse down and flipped quickly through her messages. There was nothing urgent and, more importantly, nothing from Reinhardt. She turned her attention to Breanna and the firm’s missing investigator, Robert Blair.
Breanna was pale, her brow furrowed with worry. She was smart and eager to please, but not much of a self-starter. She was easily rattled, at a complete loss when things didn’t go according to plan. While Nicole was in London, she’d left Breanna in charge of the office with the proviso that she consult Robert if she ran into something she couldn’t handle.
But Robert hadn’t shown up at the law firm or answered his phone since the previous Wednesday; today was Monday. This was completely out of character for a man who was never late, rarely missed a day’s work, and never without calling. Even so, Breanna had waited until this morning to dispatch a message about Robert’s absence to Nicole. That message had sent Nicole straight to the office from the airport.
First, there was the matter of his work. Through the glass, she could see a stack of folders on his desk. As Bascomb, Rice, Smith & Di Angelo’s sole in-house investigator, Robert had a sizable caseload. Some he farmed out; occasionally he enlisted Nicole’s help if she wasn’t too busy.
“For now,” she said to Breanna, “why don’t you call Wessler. You know, the P.I. we use sometimes? You have his number. Get him and his crew working on Robert’s cases.” She gestured to the pile on his desk. “Oh, and first make sure there’s nothing we need to keep in-house. Ask Hopkins. He’ll know. I’ll go up to Robert’s place and see if he’s there. Maybe he had a heart attack or something. ”
“I’ll go,” Breanna said, although her expression said this was the last thing she wanted to do. “You must be completely jetlagged.”
“Actually, I’m fine,” Nicole said. “I slept on the plane. I’ll do it.”
As office manager, Nicole had a master key to the desks of the support staff. She unlocked Robert’s top drawer. There was his Swiss Army knife, a tool he swore by but rarely carried with him. The next compartment of the desk organizer held several sets of keys. One ring had three keys and a tiny round tag marked “house.” She picked it up. Two other key rings were similarly labeled “car” and “cabin” in Robert’s small, neat writing. Cabin? She didn’t know he had a cabin, although he did take time off sometimes. She always imagined it was for the cases he took on his own, independent of the firm. Maybe he went fishing or even bird watching. She almost smiled. It was impossible to picture him doing these things.
Nicole sent an email about Robert’s unexplained absence to Kevin Di Angelo, the senior partner she usually dealt with. Then she printed out Robert’s home address. She took one of the firm’s loaner cars from the garage and put her suitcase in the trunk. After typing the address into the GPS, she drove from Century City up into the Hollywood Hills. Robert’s address was on one of the winding roads several miles above Sunset Boulevard. Her mind was focused on Reinhardt, her missing lover, and the fact that Robert, who was sort of a work buddy of hers, was now missing, too. These distractions sent her sailing by Robert’s street twice. Each time, the GPS reset itself, turning her around, then sent her onto the dead end of a cul-de-sac. Exasperated, she stopped, reset the GPS, and at last it took her to the address. She parked at the curb and, after studying the house for a moment, wondered if she’d made a mistake. She looked at the printout she’d brought with her. Yes, this was the place.
The houses on the block were big and looked expensive—very expensive. The street was on the crest of a hill with a panoramic view of downtown, Century City and, if a house were angled just so, the ocean. Robert’s property was the largest, appearing to occupy two lots. The house was set back a distance from neighbors on either side. The house itself was screened from view by well-manicured shrubs and tropical, tree-sized plants, which were being whipped around by the wind. All she could see from the street was a long driveway in a diamond pattern of concrete and brick. At the top, Robert’s SUV, a shiny black Kia, was parked in a handsomely designed carport. She pulled into the driveway and up the fifty-foot stretch to the top, parking behind him. From this angle she still couldn’t see the house, just a gate next to the carport.
She got out of the car and was hit by the fierce, warm Santa Ana wind. It was November, for heaven’s sake, but this was L.A.; ninety degrees and windy was possible any time of the year.
As she approached the gate, she glanced up at the trees beating about in the wind. That was when she spotted the security camera. It had been fastened to the top of one of the posts that supported the carport. The camera was broken, dangling from a cord. Bits of broken glass glinted on the pavement below. She wondered what had happened. The tropical shrubs were tall, but their branches were hardly substantial enough to pack much of a wallop. Even in a strong wind, it was unlikely they could hit the camera hard enough to smash it and knock it from its mounting.
The gate to the front yard had a keypad but no visible knob or latch. She thought of the keys she’d brought along. They wouldn’t be much help with this setup. The keypad had an intercom speaker with a button next to it. She pressed the button, assuming it would ring a bell inside the house. At her touch, the gate silently swung open. It hadn’t been locked. She walked into the yard. She still couldn’t see the front door, so she turned left and followed a path of Spanish tiles around the house. This led to a tall, decorative wrought-iron fence that enclosed the backyard, which held a swimming pool and a deck. Beyond the pool was a magnificent view, from downtown to the ocean. The sky above was brilliant blue. Below, hanging over the city, was a pale haze of smog.
She tried the gate, but it was locked. Beyond it, she could see the back entrance to the house. She reversed course. There had to be a front door.
The more she looked at the house, the more questions it raised. How could Robert possibly afford a place like this? He’d been a cop for a number of years. That meant a pension. But it still didn’t add up. This house was worth at least three, maybe four, million dollars. House payments, not to mention property taxes, would be more than he earned, even with a pension and the work he did on the side.
Finally, she reached the front door. She rang the bell, but there was no answer. She knocked loudly, then shouted Robert’s name. Nothing. The door had three locks: one in the doorknob, a deadbolt just above it, and another deadbolt about a foot from the ground. Looking at the keys in her hand, she decided to try the lock in the doorknob first. The knob turned easily, and the door opened. None of the locks had been engaged. She pushed the door open a crack. The drapes were drawn, and the interior was almost dark. She gave another shout. “Robert? Are you there?” No answer.
She opened the door wider, pulled off her sunglasses, and took a step inside, about to call out again. But as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw him. He was less than a dozen feet away, across the octagonal entry hall. He was half sitting, half sagging against the wall, and there was a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. On the wall above, at eye level, was a Rorschach splotch of crimson so dark it was almost black, surrounded by a fine splatter of the same color. Below that was a dark smear where his head had rubbed against the wall on its way down. Flies were buzzing around Robert’s head as well as near the splotches on the wall. Only now did she notice the smell, a metallic stink mixed with the sweet undertone of decay. She held her breath and studied Robert’s face.
He was staring right at her with a deadpan expression, as if he’d just made one of his wry jokes and was waiting for her to laugh.
Nicole felt a wave of shock that almost knocked the breath out of her. During her misadventure in the U.K. the previous year, she’d been forced to kill two men in self-defense, one with a sledgehammer and the second with a flare gun. The sight of Robert’s body summoned flashbacks that made her legs go wobbly. She grabbed the doorframe to steady herself, took a step back, and turned to run.
Halfway to her car, Nicole stopped to consider what she’d just seen, or thought she’d seen. She’d taken an Ambien on the plane. It had given her six hours of sleep. Then, somewhere over Salt Lake City, her eyes had popped open, and she was wide-awake, feeling as if she’d had one too many cups of coffee. Ambien was known for its strange side effects. Was it possible she’d been hallucinating?
She forced herself to turn around, walk back to the front door and, after taking a deep gulp of fresh air, lean in for another look. He was still there, along with the flies, the smell, the bloody wall and that incongruous, half-amused expression on his face. It occurred to her that perhaps he’d killed himself, but there was no gun in sight. The entry hall had a wooden parquet floor and a thick, sapphire-blue rug near the door. A single piece of furniture stood against one wall, a handsome, modern console table with an art deco lamp. Both looked expensive. For the briefest second, a thought flickered. Robert shopping for furniture? She couldn’t imagine it. Had he hired a decorator? She couldn’t imagine that either.
She stepped back into the fresh air and focused on what she had to do next—get away from this place and call the police. A sudden burst of adrenalin, and she was in her car, backing down the driveway. She parked in front of the nearest house and, despite her badly shaking hands, managed to get out her phone and call 911.