A Hideous Beauty (6 page)

“I know,” she said, comforting me. “I can't bring myself to believe he's dead either.”

“No, you don't understand . . .”

My cell phone rang. It was Christina. I'd programmed the tone so that I'd know whenever she was calling. Instinctively, I reached to answer it, then stopped myself.

Looking up at me with wet eyes, Jana said, “Do you need to get that?”

I couldn't bring myself to answer the phone. You just don't take phone calls when you're holding a crying woman. But this wasn't an ordinary phone call.

The tone persisted.

I imagined Christina on the other end of the line getting angrier by the ring, wondering why I wasn't picking up after I had
dogged her all morning with messages about the urgency of reaching her.

Jana tried to pull away. “Answer your phone,” she said.

I couldn't. It felt wrong to let her go.

“They can leave a message,” I said, trying to sound gallant. I held her tight.

The tone played repeatedly.

Jana chuckled. “ ‘Hail to the Chief'?”

I forced a laugh. “A private joke.”

After six cycles of “Hail to the Chief” the phone fell silent.

Jana nestled against my chest.

My mind alternated between how I was going to explain this to Christina and scanning the area for signs of the elusive and mysterious Myles Shepherd.

The arrival of a tow truck and an ambulance forced us to relocate. We decided to go somewhere where we could talk. Jana told her news crew to return without her.

I couldn't help taking one last look at the scene, one last look around for Myles, and one last look at the car. The burned remains sat in the center of a charred starburst.

CHAPTER
4

I
t was Myles's body in the car. I'm certain of it.” Jana spoke with conviction. “He would sooner share his toothbrush with a stranger than let anyone drive his Lexus.”

I hadn't asked her if there was any chance Myles may not have been the driver. She offered the observation, her way of dealing with the unexpected loss.

Jana removed her sunglasses and placed them between us on the table. I hadn't told her I'd seen Myles standing beside the fire truck. I didn't know if I would.

It was Jana who suggested we go to Bruno's—a questionable little coffee shop we used to frequent on Friday nights after football games. The place was showing its age. The orange vinyl booths were patched. The tabletops worn. The clientele was mostly elderly men nursing cups of coffee and reading the newspaper.

While we waited for a waitress, Jana played absentmindedly with her sunglasses. The other patrons began to recognize her. They whispered and pointed.

Pulling a tissue from her purse, Jana dabbed red, swollen eyes.

The other patrons took note. From their expressions they seemed to conclude I was the cause of her tears.

“Grant, isn't that the same shirt and suit you were wearing yesterday?” Jana said.

Before I could answer, our waitress appeared holding a pot of coffee. She was a full-figured brunette with the face and body of a woman in her late forties wearing the clothing of a twenty-year-old—tight, black jeans with a clingy, white blouse—with mixed success. It did not flatter her bulging midriff. “What can I get you folks?” She set down the coffeepot and pulled out a pad. She looked to Jana first. “Hey! Aren't you that reporter? Yeah! The one on Channel 2. Umm . . . Torres!”

“Jana,” Jana said with her on-camera smile. She offered her hand. “And you are?”

“Alida,” the waitress said, flattered to be asked. “It's not often we get a real celebrity in this dump.”

“And this . . .” Jana said, motioning to me, “is a world-famous author.”

The waitress's brow furrowed as she looked at me, trying her best to recognize someone famous.

“Grant Austin just won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of the president.”

“The president? I didn't vote for him,” the waitress said. “Is the prize a big deal?”

“The biggest,” Jana said.

Waitress Alida offered me a half-smile and limp handshake. “Well then, congratulations.” Turning back to Jana, she said, “Tell me, is your weatherman as loony tunes as he looks on television? I mean, what's with that ‘Woooooeeeeeeeeeee!' he always does?”

The waitress noticed the tissue in Jana's hand and her swollen
eyes. The woman turned motherly. “Are you all right, dear?” she asked.

Like the others, the waitress acted as though I was the source of Jana's tears. Her attitude toward me went from indifferent to hostile. Jana assured her she was fine.

“What can I get you, dear?” she asked Jana.

“A cup of hot tea,” Jana replied. “With lemon.”

“Coming right up.” Reaching down, she patted Jana's hand, then snatched up the coffeepot and turned to leave.

“Um . . . Miss . . .” I called after her. “If I could have some coffee, please.”

The waitress swung around with tight lips forming the thinnest line I've ever seen on a face. I turned over a mug that was already on the table, making it impossible for her to ignore my request. She held a pot of coffee. I had the mug. We were in a restaurant. How could she say no?

She thought about it. Then, with a grunt, she returned to the table. I met her halfway by extending the mug.

The streaming coffee cascaded down one side, picked up momentum at the bottom, and slid easy as you please up the other side cresting like an ocean wave onto my hand. The waitress continued pouring. Luckily gravity came to my aid, turning the black wave around and into the mug. Swallowing the pain, I held it steady until it was full. The waitress stomped away without apologizing.

Jana didn't see the assault. She was staring absently out the window.

I looked for napkins. There were none. So I dried my hand with my handkerchief.

“Did you get to see Myles yesterday?” Jana asked.

The understatement of the century. “Jana, about yesterday,” I said. “I'm glad you brought it up. You see, I didn't know you were back in San Diego. Besides, the White House press corps
handles all access to media events, and you know how they can be. Believe me, had I known . . .”

Jana dismissed my apology with a flip of her hand. “No worries, Grant . . . it's all part of the job. You can make it up to me by giving me an exclusive interview before you head back for Washington.”

“That would be something, wouldn't it? I look forward to it.”

“Did you get to see Myles?”

“I went to his classroom following the assembly.”

Jana leaned across the table and took my hands. “How was he?”

There was a spark in her eyes that went beyond concern. My jaw tensed. She still had feelings for him. “He was . . . he was Myles,” I hedged. “Only more so.”

Still holding my hands, Jana looked away, lost for a moment in memories.

“This morning I went to see him again. That's when I learned of the accident.”

“So the two of you remained friends over the years? That's nice.”

Before I could correct her, the waitress arrived with Jana's tea. For self-protection I put my hands under the table.

Jana performed a tea ritual that had not changed since high school. Two packets of sugar in an empty cup. A long squeeze of lemon. Stir. Add the tea bag. Pour the water. Let it steep to the count of seven. Stir again. She'd told me once the origin of the ritual, but over the years I've forgotten it. I think it had something to do with her grandmother.

“How about you?” I asked. “When was the last time you saw Myles?”

She stirred her tea for a long moment before answering. Not part of the ritual. “Oh, I don't know . . . it's been so long . . . years, really . . . I guess, not since college.”

“That long?” Pleased to hear it, my reply came out more enthusiastic than I'd intended. “Did you keep in touch? Letters? Phone calls?”

“Not so much. Not until he e-mailed me about you coming back. He sent it to my station address. It was all business, you know? He wanted to know if I'd be covering your speech at the high school. Which reminds me . . .”

Reaching across the table, she squeezed my hands and smiled one of her patented Jana smiles—an array of white pearls set between a parentheses of adorable dimples. It was the kind of smile that could stop a battalion of marines.

“I haven't congratulated you properly for your achievement! I'm so proud of you, I could bust! I've told everyone I know that I went to school with a Pulitzer Prize–winning author!”

She was more gorgeous than I'd remembered. Had her praise been a drug, I'd be an addict. The only thing that could have possibly made the moment sweeter would be if Myles Shepherd had been here to hear it.

“Was Myles excited about your achievement?” she asked.

“You know Myles. He congratulated me in his own way.”

Jana laughed. “He was a man of few compliments, wasn't he? Sometimes you never knew if he was praising you or mocking you.”

“Yeah, Myles could be strange at times.” Here was the opening I'd been waiting for. “Speaking of which, when you were going out with him, did you notice anything . . . you know, out of the ordinary? Weird? Strange?”

Jana's smile melted faster than butter on a hot skillet. She pulled her hands away. “Please don't do that, Grant. Not now.” She sat back and stared sullenly at her tea, then took a long sip as though she could swallow the uncomfortable moment and it would be gone.

But I couldn't let it go that easily. I had to know what she
knew about Myles Shepherd after high school. “In college, did Myles ever do anything that was . . . well, off the deep end? Possibly involve himself with a radical fringe group? Did he experiment with drugs?”

Her teacup clanked angrily against the saucer. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“That thing you do with Myles. Everything has to be a competition between you.” Fresh tears filled her eyes. “Well, it can stop now, Grant. Myles is no longer a threat to you. He's dead.”

“No, Jana, it's not what you think.” I reached across the table with open hands. They remained empty. “Something happened yesterday with Myles that I can't explain. That's why I was going to see him this morning. I was hoping to clear it up. It's not personal . . . well, that's not exactly true . . . there is a personal element involved . . . but it's not what you think.”

My eloquent argument failed to convince her.

“Exactly what happened yesterday?” she asked.

Of all the words in the English language, why did she have to choose those four? What was I supposed to tell her? That Myles glued my feet to the floor? That I saw him magically strip colors and titles from things in his office? That he had malevolent gargoyles living on his ceiling?

A warning alarm sounded in my mind. Neither could I tell her about Myles's possible involvement in an assassination plot against the president. She might be a friend, but she was also a news reporter for a television station.

“Well? Are you going to tell me?”

My internal waffling had raised her suspicions. “I can't,” I said.

She took it personally. Gone were her happy-reunion eyes. She was hurt.

“Jana, I want to tell you,” I insisted. “It's just that . . .” My cell phone rang. “Hail to the Chief.”

My eyes on Jana, I made no move to answer it.

“Answer your phone,” she said angrily.

“Hail to the Chief” began attracting the attention of the other patrons.

“I've got to take this,” I said.

She turned her head, staring out the window at the parking lot so I wouldn't see how upset she was. She couldn't hide the reflection in the window.

I flipped open my cell phone. “Christina—” I said.

“Grant Austin, where have you been? First, you broadcast emergency messages all over Capitol Hill, then you go into hiding! What's going on?” She spoke in hushed tones, as though she was afraid someone might overhear her.

“Christina, we have to talk.”

Jana's eyebrows rose.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“All right. But make it quick.” I heard panic in her voice. Christina never panicked. I've seen her stand in front of a roomful of heads of state and show no fear.

“I can't talk now,” I said, glancing at Jana.

Jana's brow furrowed. She began gathering her things. “Don't let me get in your way,” she huffed.

She slid out of the booth.

“Who's there with you?”

“Jana . . . please don't go,” I begged. “This isn't what you think it is.”

“Who's Jana?”

I reached for Jana as she passed. She dodged my hand. “Jana, please! Christina, can you hold on just a second?”

Jana walked up to Alida, the waitress. “Can you help me out? I need a cab.”

“You got it, dear,” Alida said, diving beneath the counter and pulling out a phonebook like she was on some kind of mission for the holy sisterhood.

Jana continued toward the door, pulling her cell phone from her purse.

“Christina, I need to call you back,” I said, climbing out of the booth.

“Grant, no! You don't know what's going on here! Don't call me back. Do you understand? Under no circumstances are you to call me!”

I've never heard Christina so shaken. “What's going on there?” I asked.

Silence. The display on my cell indicated the call had ended. Shoving the phone into my pocket, I went after Jana.

“Hold on there, buddy,” Alida said, blocking my path. “Somebody's got to pay the tab.”

“I'll be right back. Just let me . . .” I pointed at the door.

I tried to step around her. She moved to block me, shouting toward the kitchen. “Jorge! We got a deadbeat out here trying to skip out on his bill!”