I HAD TO see Peyton again. I wasn’t sure why I felt so compelled—only that sitting next to her bed was now familiar to me. I understood why I was doing this, following these clues to nowhere, a little bit better when I was staring at her rainbow tattoo. Not to say that I understood fully just yet.
Funny how attached I’d grown to someone who’d literally never spoken to me, except through photographs. But somehow I felt connected to Peyton, and it wasn’t just the Dru connection.
It was Saturday, so I didn’t have to deal with Luna at school, which was a good thing. But not being in school meant I had no idea where Luna was at any given moment, which was a bad thing. It was hard to protect yourself against someone when you didn’t know where in the city they were. I felt like I was on high alert every second.
I had the whole day, so I decided to stop at the dojang first thing. Gunner was standing at the front desk.
So was Chris Martinez.
Gunner took one look at my bruised face—the cut on the cheek from Stefan’s hit a week ago scabbed over and fading, and a fresh blackish splotch above one eyebrow from falling in my kitchen, along with a faint yellowing along my jawline where Luna had repeatedly hit me—and dropped the pencil he was holding.
“What the heck happened to you?” he asked, hurrying around the desk. He was in his dobok but was wearing flip-flops. A junior instructor was assisting the kids on the floor.
“I’m fine,” I said, but even I didn’t believe me. Detective Martinez didn’t react, but I could see him studying my face from where he was standing, too.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked, though at this point I wasn’t really all that surprised to see him pretty much anywhere in my life. That seemed to be his specialty—always being right in my way.
“Open gym today,” Gunner said. “He wants to work out. Why? Is there a problem?” He looked from my bruises to Detective Martinez, and back again.
It was only then that I noticed Detective Martinez was wearing a pair of navy sweatpants and a white tee so tight it showed off the shadow of a tattoo across the left side of his chest. I shook my head, resigned. “Of course not. It’s open gym. I didn’t know you were into martial arts, Detective,” I said.
“I’m into protecting myself,” he answered. “But yes, I do okay in the dojo, too.”
“Good,” I said, grinning. “I won’t have to worry about you getting in my way too much, then. But just in case, the junior instructors are over there.” I pointed to where the kids were practicing their moves.
I thought I heard a low chuckle come from Detective Martinez. He looked down at his shoes, and then back up at me, nodding. “I’ll keep that in mind. But just out of curiosity, where is the sparring mat?”
“Got to have a willing partner,” I said. “Sometimes hard to come by someone who can keep up on open gym day. But maybe one of the nine-year-olds will go easy on you.”
He stepped forward, folded his arms across his chest, and looked down at me. “Or maybe I’ll go easy on you.”
We locked eyes for so long, wordlessly challenging each other, I almost forgot Gunner was standing right there until he cleared his throat. “Nik? You sure you’re up for sparring today?” he asked. “You look like you’ve taken some shots already.”
I answered him but refused to take my eyes away from Detective Martinez’s. “Would love to spar the detective.”
Ten minutes later, we stood in the middle of the mat in our sparring gear—padded headgear, gloves, shoes, shin guards.
“Okay, you two, try to keep it civil,” Gunner said. We bowed to him, and then to each other, and then dropped to our fighting stances, hands up at the ready, as Gunner backed off the mat.
“Just so you know,” Detective Martinez said, “these marks on your face are not fine, Nikki. I thought we talked about you being safe.”
I shrugged, tried to make a lame attempt at lightness. “I can’t always promise safe. I can only promise trained.” I threw a high kick—a roundhouse, but he saw it coming and backed off.
“Who did it? Who hit you?”
“Which one?” I threw another high roundhouse, faster this time. He got his arm up just in time to block it. I sank back into my fighting stance, hopping on my toes, determined not to let him distract me.
“Jesus, you are stubborn,” he muttered under his breath. I threw another roundhouse. He ducked, blocked it with his arm, and shot out with a quick left jab, tagging me in the mouth. I felt the sting on my lip. “Does your dad know what’s going on?”
“Cute,” I said. “And no. He’s in San Diego.”
“So you’re alone. Don’t you have anyone you can stay with?”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, only more strongly this time. More believably, or at least I thought so. “I’ve got the house all locked up. Nobody can get in. Plus, I’m here, right? A little fight is nothing.” I chose to ignore the tiny detail about Luna getting in before, drugging me, and hauling my passed-out ass to her house so she could warn me off. Remembering my confrontation with Luna, combined with my stinging lip, irritated me. I swung my back leg high in an inside crescent. He ducked, just as he’d done before, but I was ready for it. I let my toe touch the mat, then, as if on a spring, arced my leg back around the other way. Outside crescent to the jaw. His hand went to his face, surprised, and then we both dropped back to our fighting stances.
“Not bad,” he said. “But you’re all up top. What happens if someone gets you on the ground?”
I jabbed at him with my left hand. He blocked it, so I jabbed again. And again. “I seem to do okay,” I said. One more jab, and then I spun around on my left heel—wicked fast—and hook kicked him right in the ribs.
Air escaped through his teeth with the impact, and for a second I thought I had him. But he was faster than I’d bargained for, and when I advanced on him with another inside crescent, he grabbed my leg and yanked it up against his hip, pulling me in. “What if ‘okay’ isn’t good enough?” he asked, his face inches from mine. He grabbed my lower back, stepped behind me, and leaned forward so that we both tumbled to the mat. He was on hands and knees on top of me, my leg hooked over his arm so that my calf was draped over his shoulder. He had a smug look on his face. “This is what I’m talking about, Nikki. You’re tough, but you’re not invincible.” He got a serious look on his face. “I wasn’t always a cop in Brentwood, you know. I grew up on the east side of South Central. I know what tough is. And I know there’s no such thing as invincible.”
For a moment, we just breathed, staring into each other’s eyes, the connection between us reminding me of spilled wine. Reminding me of when my mother curled me up tight, rocked me, and sang into my hair, still wet from the bath.
If crimson scared me, spilled wine terrified me.
I wriggled under his grasp, at first unsure what to do. He was right about me—I was trained to fight standing up, using my legs, my feet, and distance. This close, I was going to have to rely on gut instinct, or I was going to lose.
Damn it, I hated to lose.
I wrapped both of my arms around his neck, pulling his face in close. I could feel his sweat on my skin, but had no time to let it distract me. I wrapped my left leg around his back, pushed hard with my right leg—the one he was holding—and rolled with all my might. It worked—Detective Martinez flipped and suddenly I was the one on top—but I refused to show my surprise that I’d been successful. I held his wrists down on the floor, both of us panting. A drop of sweat fell from my nose onto his chest. We stayed that way for just a beat, and then I got up and held out my hand to help him up.
When he was standing, I bowed to him and left the floor.
My arms and legs still felt stiff and unusable this morning. My head still felt unclear. But at the moment I felt like I could conquer anything.
“I’m as close as you’re going to come to invincible, though,” I said over my shoulder. I tossed a wink at the detective as I sauntered away.
He shook his head. “You are definitely the hardest-headed woman I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
TWO HOURS LATER, my muscles were warm and taut from work, and I had a faster roundhouse than ever. Powerful. Aimed just right, I could knock someone out cold with that kick.
I’d come home to clean up, the exercise and the shower chasing away the last of the drugs and making my head crystal clear. I even wrote the word CRYSTAL in the fog on the bathroom mirror just to see what happened. Almost immediately, it blinked at me like a diamond hit with sunlight. I was back to normal.
I pulled on a pair of my most comfortable jeans, a worn black T-shirt, and my Chucks—the ones with the scrape on the toe from my fight with Gibson Talley—clothes I could move in. I felt stronger than ever. Let Luna come at me. She would be a challenge I would gladly accept.
I spent the afternoon Googling everything I could find about Bill and Vanessa Hollis. Vanessa, perhaps not surprisingly, turned up almost nothing. A couple of photos from a celebrity party, Vanessa on the dance floor, a drink in hand. A piece on interior decorating, where Hollis Mansion was featured. A photo accompanying the article showed the office Luna had dragged me into, and I was shocked at how many details I’d missed while I was in there. Pieces of furniture I hadn’t seen, art on the walls. In some ways, it looked like an entirely different room from the one I’d been in the day before.
But there was still something about it that bugged me. A familiar itch that tugged at the back of my memory.
On the other hand, there were more articles about Bill Hollis than I could even count. No way could I read them all, so I skimmed a few. For the most part, it seemed like the features about Bill could all be summarized like this: Bill Hollis, the most amazing movie exec to ever grace Hollywood, might actually be the second coming of Christ. He was to be loved—no, revered—and every move he ever made was either (1) groundbreaking, (2) genius, or (3) so astoundingly philanthropic it was a wonder that the Hollises weren’t living in a dirt hut so that others might live in the lap of luxury. And, speaking of the lap of luxury, Bill Hollis actually was the physical lap of luxury. Every suit he wore became the must-wear suit of the century, every cigar he smoked was notable to anyone who knew their ass from a cigar, and every bottle of wine he touched must be hundreds of years old. Maybe thousands. I rolled my eyes as I scrolled through the articles. Photos of him with his arms around Angelina and Scarlett, photos of him shaking hands with Bono and drinking scotch with Seth Rogen. A photo of him leaning against a Lamborghini, the license plate on that one screaming out at me in neon blue, HLYWD.
I sat back. So he had two cars, their vanity plates reading HLYWD and DREAMS. He was flaunting his dedication to an escort service to the whole world, and everyone was too busy kissing his boots to notice.
There was not one mention of him having a connection to an escort service. I even plugged in the search terms “Bill Hollis” and “scandal.” Nothing. He appeared untouchable.
Except for the most recent news entries, of course. The ones about him bailing his son out of jail. But all those articles spun Dru to be the unappreciative son of a devoted father. One headline even dared proclaim, “When Rotten Apples Fall Far from the Tree.”
Ugh. More like rotten tree.
The thought of how very untouchable this family was chilled me. Was there a prayer that I could come near someone like Bill Hollis, or would he crush me like a bug? There was something that Peyton knew—Luna had made that clear, and it wasn’t all about her—and look what happened to Peyton. I shuddered at the thought that Bill Hollis might have had something to do with his own daughter’s attack.
I shut my laptop, rubbing my face with my palms. I’d plugged in Peyton’s phone before falling down the rabbit hole of researching her parents. I was eager to find what clues it might hold.
I turned it on, unsure what to expect.
Peyton’s wallpaper was the SOS photo, which told me she’d meant for me to find her phone. She’d left it as a clue. But a quick look inside told me that it was not much of a clue to have. The phone was wiped totally clean.
There were no contacts in her list. No photos. No videos. Not a single app. Her call history had been deleted, as had her voice mails. Had she deleted everything, or had someone else done it when they cleaned out her apartment? It seemed unlikely that they’d found the phone at all, given that it was buried under all those childhood mementos.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the night of her attack, the phone call that I’d gotten, letting the color orange that I’d seen on the numbers lead me back there.
I remembered thinking it might be Jones calling. Being impatient when I answered. But then I remembered the impatience being whisked away when I heard shallow breathing on the other end. “Hey,” a voice said, childlike, frightened. Peyton. “Listen, I . . .”
But then there’d been something else. A voice in the background. I hadn’t been able to make out what it was saying.
“Nikki,” Peyton had said. Definitely calling me. Not just reaching out blindly in fear, but reaching out to me in particular.
The voice in the background spoke again, and this time I could make it out clearly. “Put the phone down,” it had said.
It was a man’s voice. The significance didn’t sink in until that moment. It was a man’s voice threatening Peyton, not Luna’s.
I looked again at the SOS in the background, but I was confused. How was this supposed to lead me to anything? There was nothing left on this phone.
I switched over to her texts. To my surprise, there was one, sent to a phone number I didn’t recognize.
I know everything. I need to see you.
There was no response. A few minutes later, she’d sent another to the same number.
Call me for time and place.
Still no response. Ten minutes later, she’d sent a third.
I wouldn’t chance it if I were you. Call me or I will take you all down.
Wait a minute. You all? I tapped the phone number at the top, and three other phone numbers dropped down. It was a group text. The numbers all shimmered in their individual colors, settling into disjointed patterns. All except one.
The one I recognized.
Dru Hollis’s phone number.