Authors: Alison Gaylin
Errol glanced down at the home page—Errol Ludlow Investigations in fire engine red
against a black background, followed by a list of endorsements. “Oh . . . you’ve seen
this.” His face flushed a little.
The first endorsement:
“Errol Ludlow was the best mentor a girl could have—and a truly great man!”—Brenna
Spector, HEAD-CASE HERO
“I never said that, Errol,” Brenna said. “I wouldn’t say that if you put a gun to
my irregularly shaped brain and threatened to pull the trigger.”
He cleared his throat. “Whether you said it or not,” he said, “it is true. You can’t
deny that I taught you the bravery and resourcefulness needed to be a private investigator.
I didn’t baby you. I helped you grow.”
“You put me in danger. You put all of us in danger. You sent young girls out there
to catch cheating men in the act, unarmed, and you never gave us backup.”
He sighed. “Now you sound like that ex-husband of yours.”
Brenna shut her eyes tight, a memory slithering into her brain—the ER at St. Vincent’s
on May 29, 1996,
her left eye throbbed shut, her head all pain, dry, cool sheets beneath her. Jim pushes
aside the curtain, baby Maya in his arms, her little mouth moving . . . like she’s
blowing kisses in her sleep. Brenna tries to smile at him. Her gums hurt. “I guess
some guys don’t like getting their picture taken.” She tastes copper in her mouth.
She isn’t sure whether it’s fresh blood or the memory of it.
Those eyes, those eyes of Jim’s, the hurt in them so big, she has to look away . . .
“I can’t take this, Brenna. If you work for him anymore . . . one more job . . . we’re
through.”
“Don’t be sad. Please don’t be sad. I promise. I . . .”
She snapped the hair ties, cleared her throat. “How long has that quote been on your
Web site, Errol?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Since the day of that
Post
headline? October 4. That sound about right?”
He shook his head. “I only put it up about a week ago,” he said. “Business wasn’t
good. I thought it might help.”
“And when did Lula Belle’s manager call you?”
“The day before yesterday?”
“How long has she been presumed missing?”
“Who?”
She looked at him. “Who do you think?”
“A couple of months. Why all these questions?”
“I need the manager’s name and number.”
“No can do.”
“Excuse me?”
“He prefers to remain anonymous.”
“I don’t give a damn what he prefers.”
“Those are the terms of the contract. And he is paying quite a bit of money to ensure
that I observe them.” He looked at her. “Between us, he is a very successful Hollywood
theatrical agent and does not want his reputation sullied.”
Brenna took a breath, so sharp it hurt a little
. Sully this
. “Listen,” she said. “I have reason to believe that Lula Belle knows things about
me—deeply personal things.”
“Really? What things?”
Brenna pressed on. “She’s been missing for months, yet this manager of hers calls
you up and hires you immediately after you put my name on your Web site.”
“I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.”
“Could be,” Brenna said. “But either way, you’ve got two choices.”
He stared at her. “I’m listening.”
“You can give me the name and number of that manager. Or I will take this printout,
sue you for libel, then hold a press conference and share the many glorious memories
I have of the years I spent working for you.”
Errol stared at Brenna.
“And as you well know, no one is gonna question my memory.”
The waitress returned to their table and set their cups in front of them. “Private
investigator, huh?” she said.
But Errol didn’t answer. His gaze never left Brenna’s face.
“Oookay.” The waitress left the table fast.
“If I give you the manager’s contact information,” Errol said, “can you please not
tell him where you got it?”
“My lips are sealed.”
Errol sighed heavily. “Give me your phone.”
Brenna handed it to him, watched him tap the name and number into her list of contacts.
Her face relaxed into a smile. “You know something, Errol? I take it back. You really
have changed.”
“I have?”
She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’ before.”
“S
ay Gryffindor, sweetums,” said Ira, the photographer.
“My name isn’t sweetums, it’s Chloe,” said Chloe Barton, age eight. “And I freakin’
hate Harry Potter.”
Gary Freeman sighed.
Another day. Another one of these never-ending days
. Gary turned to Chloe’s mother. “You know, Ruth,” he said, “it’s all well and good
to have a great commercial look, which believe me, Chloe does—”
“I know, Gary, I know.”
“—but the most important quality for a child actor to have—”
“Are you listening to the man, Chloe?”
“—is the ability to take direction.”
Chloe glared at him. “You’re not a director. You’re just a stupid agent.”
“That’s enough, Chloe,” Ruth Barton said. “I’m so sorry, Gary. Chloe didn’t get very
much sleep last night, and when she doesn’t get sleep, she gets cranky.”
“
I am not cranky!
”
Gary sighed again—more heavily this time. He released all the air in his body, then
inhaled, slowly through his nose.
Out with the stress, in with the positive energy
. . . A couple of weeks ago, he’d taken a breathing class with his wife, Jill. Jill
had dragged him to it.
A class in breathing
, he had complained.
What’s next—
a
pissing seminar?
It’s
pranayana
, Gar
, she’d replied.
Yogic breathing
, which had done nothing to inspire any confidence in Gary. But to his surprise, he’d
found the class helpful. Turned out, he’d been breathing wrong all this time, using
only the tops of his lungs. He’d spent his whole life—all fifty years of it—lacking
for air. Who knew?
You were right
, Gary had told Jill, just a few days ago.
Remind me never to doubt you or your crazy yoga classes again
.
More air. Who knew? Why couldn’t everything in Gary’s life be that easy to fix?
For a few seconds, she seeped into his thoughts—The Shadow. Lula Belle. Usually, he
made it a point not to think about her, especially by name. But he couldn’t help it.
She was everywhere and she was nowhere and she was ruining his life.
Lula Belle’s subscribers kept writing him
,
e-mails pouring into his Hotmail address, even though he’d taken down the site a month
ago. Every time he dared check [email protected] (and granted, that was rare),
he would find dozens of them.
Where is Lula Belle? What happened to the site? Did she die? Did you kill her? I want
my money back, asshole. Give me my money
.
It’s your fault she’s gone and you owe me. I trusted you. I’m going to get you. I’m
going to track you down and . . . You don’t know me but I know you. I know who you
. . . I’m going to get you back . . .
Sometimes he’d see those e-mails in his dreams. He’d be online, thinking he was alone,
and then the words would get bigger and bigger, until they shattered the computer
screen and scrolled up and down his bedroom walls and shrieked at him in The Shadow’s
voice.
Did you kill me, Gary?
And then, if Gary was lucky, he’d wake up.
Gary closed his eyes. He took another deep breath—a cleansing breath, that’s what
it was called, as if breathing could make you clean. As his lungs expanded, he felt
it at his chest—the cell phone he’d bought, just for the investigation. It was a TracPhone—no
GPS, no Internet. No apps like that fruit-throwing game that his daughters loved to
play. Just a number he could give to Ludlow. “Only call if it’s important,” he had
said. And so far, nothing . . . He’d kept it hidden at the back of his desk at night
and slipped it into his shirt pocket every day, and in five days, the thing hadn’t
budged. Not once. Ludlow was probably full of crap.
The photography studio smelled like baby powder. It was big and airy, with pale pink
walls that Ira claimed cast a flattering light on most people’s faces. But there was
something about the color—a nursery-sweetness he found hard to take. Ira was one of
the best in the business, and so Gary brought almost all his clients here for their
head shots. Yet sometimes—now for instance—he felt too dark for Ira’s studio, as if
his presence might corrupt it, the blackness floating off him, sticking to the baby
pink walls with those bright lights humming at him:
For shame, for shame, for shame . . .
Think it away
, Gary told himself. And he did. He always could. You close a door on something in
your mind—a person, a memory, a bad dream . . . You close that door and you lock it.
You throw away the key. And if you keep it locked, if you make yourself forget there
was ever a key to begin with, then eventually all of it will disappear. The door.
The memory. The way it makes you feel. The mind is a very powerful muscle.
Ira was trying his best to get good shots of Chloe Barton, but his best didn’t seem
to be good enough. She was standing on a little platform in the middle of the room
with a fan blowing her blonde curls, her doll-like features twisted in a way that
brought to mind a
Twilight Zone
episode that Gary used to have nightmares about, back when he was her age. Meanwhile,
Ira and his digital camera buzzed around the little girl in nervous circles. “Work
it, Miss Thing,” he was saying. “Work it like a rock star!”
“I’m not a rock star. I’m an actress,” said Chloe, who at eight was just a year older
than Gary’s youngest, Hannah. “An actress and a model. Rock stars are sleaze buckets.
And so are picture takers.”
Ira set his camera on the floor. “I can’t work with this kid, Gary.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Chloe’s mother, Ruth.
“Sorry for yourself is what you should be, lady.”
“You’re an ugly man,” Chloe told Ira. “And your pants are too tight.”
You tell yourself lies for long enough, you start to believe them. Once you believe
them in full, once you put your whole heart into it and believe in those lies the
way you believe in anything—your country, your family, your God —once you do that,
those lies become the truth.
Hadn’t she said that herself, in one of her videos?
Maybe Gary didn’t want to find Lula Belle. He could get by without the extra money
the Web site had been bringing in. He’d tell Jill a client had fired him and so they
needed to tighten their belts. She would understand. She would have to.
Powerful as it was, the memory of Lula Belle would fade, the subscribers would forget.
And Gary would, too. He would make himself forget. He would close down the Hotmail
address, and the subscribers would move on. The Shadow would stay behind her locked
door and the door would disappear, and she would, too. He would never hear from her
again. It would all be over, but for the dimming memory.
Will it ever dim, Lula Belle? Will I ever get over not knowing you?
“That’s it,” Ira said. “We’re done.”
Gary snapped out of it, looked at him. “Do you think any of the pictures are useable?”
“Only if someone is doing a remake of
The Bad Seed
.”
Ruth Barton gave Gary a pleading look. “One more chance?”
“Next week we’ll reconvene,” Gary started to say, but he didn’t get to the last word.
“Next week we’ll what?” said Ruth.
The phone in Gary’s shirt pocket was vibrating.
He held up a hand. “Back in just a few,” he said.
“But Gary . . .”
Deep intake of air, slow release, and then he was out the door, in Ira’s little courtyard
with the colorful tile and the blush-red hibiscus plants and the bubbling fountain
in the middle. He moved past the fountain and plucked the phone out of his pocket
and looked at the screen . . .
Ludlow.
“Yes?” Gary said.
“I have good news and bad news.”
Gary winced. It wasn’t just the words themselves that grated—no one ever really has
good news when they use that cliché—but the way Ludlow said them, so precise, hanging
on to each syllable like it was a goddamn life preserver. Why had he believed this
windbag? Gary said, “Yes.”
“Which would you like to hear first?”
Jesus
. “I don’t care. The good news, I guess.”
“I’ve spoken to Brenna Spector.”
Gary’s eyes widened. “You have?”
“Yep.” The P exploded out of Ludlow like cannon fire. Gary practically needed to wipe
the spit out of his ear. “And I hired her.”
“
What?
”
“You wanted her missing persons expertise—I got it for you. She’s on our team.”
“But—”
“You don’t have to worry about the cost—I’m cutting her in out of my very generous
paycheck.”
“I’m not concerned about the cost.” Gary closed his eyes. “You didn’t tell her anything,
did you?”
“Nope.”
“So,” he breathed, “what’s the bad news?”
“I had to give her your name and number.”
Gary’s mouth went dry. “You said you didn’t tell her anything.”
“Only your name and number,” he said.
As if that’s nothing, nothing at all . . .
Gary put the heel of his palm to his forehead and rubbed in slow, soothing circles.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can deal with this.” And he could, he knew. It was what
made him such a successful agent and manager, that flexibility. He could roll with
the punches, move past Plan A. It was a talent he’d acquired out of necessity.
Don’t fall down. Don’t freeze. Keep moving out of the room . . .
But that door was locked, the key long gone. And for now, Gary had his job to do.
“You’re fired, Errol.”
“What?”
“Keep the initial payment.”
“But . . . that isn’t . . . It’s not . . .”
“And I will give you the same amount in one month, provided you do not tell anyone
else that we have ever met or spoken. Consider it a severance package.”
“But . . .”
“Great. It’s been a pleasure.”
Gary hung up with Ludlow and headed back into Ira’s studio. Ruth rushed at him, still
apologizing. Gary smiled. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, Plan B already taking shape
in his mind.
B
renna had no intention of calling Gary Freeman—at least not anytime soon. No way was
she going to get any truthful information out of a man who’d worked so hard to mask
his identity that he didn’t even want Errol’s subcontractors to know his name. (Hell,
the number he’d given Errol himself had been a disposable phone, its minutes bought
in advance, virtually untraceable.)
No, Brenna had wanted Gary Freeman’s name and number so she could find out who exactly
she was dealing with. Who exactly Lula Belle had been dealing with. And once she found
that out—very quickly, it turned out, as
Gary Freeman, successful Hollywood theatrical agent
, was all over the Web—she’d be all the more able to understand Lula Belle.
Already, Brenna understood why Freeman had wanted to keep her on the down-low: His
life was about as far from that Coke bottle trick as you could possibly get.
An agent specializing in children and an adjunct professor “at several renowned arts
schools,” according to his website bio, Freeman had been married for twenty years
to the same lovely blonde woman, and had three lovely blonde daughters—aged fifteen,
twelve, and seven—all of whom seemed to accompany him to any event where he was photographed.
Turned out there were many of those. When he wasn’t doing paid engagements at high
schools and youth centers about navigating the treacherous world of Hollywood “with
your values intact,” Freeman was participating in walkathons, auctions, days at the
races, and fund-raising dinners for Wise Up—a literacy program for inner city kids
founded by his wife, Jill.
Scrolling through Google Images back at her office, Brenna found a picture of the
Freeman family, posing with a clown at a Wise Up circus event this past summer. She
blew it up so that it filled her screen, and then gazed at Freeman’s face—a nice face.
What’s a nice guy like you doing pimping out silhouettes?
He wasn’t a classically handsome man. He was stocky and ruddy and slightly shorter
than his wife, with a thick hank of graying hair and a nose that looked as if it had
been broken one too many times. But there was something about that face—a comfort
level in the set of the features, a warmth to the eyes. Brenna imagined he had a wide
circle of friends who thought they knew him a lot better than they actually did.
A voice behind Brenna said, “Looks like that dude on the cornflakes commercial.” Trent’s
voice. She recognized it immediately, but she jumped a little anyway. “You scared
me.”
“I usually have that effect on women. But in a good way.”
“There’s a good way to scare women?”
Trent started to answer, but Brenna held up a hand.
“The question was rhetorical,” she said.
“So who’s the cornflakes guy?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Potential client.” She minimized the screen.
“I thought you were meeting with Annette Shelby.”
“Uh . . . that was at one-thirty? There’s a little thing at the bottom right side
of your screen. It’s called a clock. Check it out sometime!”
Brenna glanced at the clock: three-thirty. “Oh no . . .” It was her day to have Maya—the
last day before Christmas break, and she had her for the rest of the week. Brenna
had been hoping to surprise her, meet her at school, take her out for cupcakes at
Molly’s, which Maya now liked much better than Magnolia Bakery. But it was too late
now. She would be home from school any minute, and Brenna had blown it as usual. She
sighed. “Where did the day go?”
Trent shrugged. “Same place it always goes.”
And yes, that was exactly where it had gone—the same place. After saying good-bye
to Ludlow, Brenna had returned to her office, checked her e-mails, dealt with a large
list of potential clients—business had actually picked up
too
much since the Neff case—while trying not to lapse into the past. And that, as ever,
had been easier said than done. A woman searching for a long-lost brother, for instance,
was named Rachel Fleischer, which had brought to mind Brenna’s eighth grade English
teacher, Rosemary Fleischer, which had whisked Brenna into third period English, February
11, 1983—the dry heat from the radiator, the smell of chalk dust, and Miss Fleischer
detailing the “lethal allure of Desdemona.”