The Edge of Ruin (39 page)

“I know.”

“
You
got Angela killed!”

“Yes.”

“Goddamn it! Fight with me!” The words were a roar, and Pamela retreated. Richard and Weber were only inches apart, but Richard didn’t move. Slim, erect, unflinching, he faced the older, larger man.

“Why? There’s nothing you can do to me that would make me hurt any worse. I suspect it’s the same for you. But if it’ll make you feel any better, take your best shot. You get one for free.”

Weber’s hand closed into a fist. Pamela was fascinated with the way his knuckles looked like pale walnuts, and how the veins stood out like pale blue snakes. She hadn’t expected it, and she squeaked when Weber took the swing and hit Richard hard on the jaw. Richard staggered sideways, caught himself on the back of a sofa, and managed to stay upright.

Her brother touched his jaw gingerly, worked it a bit. “Okay.” He started toward one of the bedrooms, only to be halted when Weber said, “Maybe it’s time for somebody else to be in charge.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Richard said. “I’m the only—”

Weber let out a roar and charged. And Richard met him with murder in his blue eyes. Just as Weber was about to grab Richard in a bear hug, her brother stepped lightly aside and delivered a kick to the side of the big cop’s knee. The roar became a yell of pain, and Weber fell sideways against a chair. It seemed to topple in slow motion. Richard moved in and punched Weber in the ribs. After that any sense of order disappeared. It was a kaleidoscope of windmilling arms, fists, feet, knees. The torchère lamp went over with a crash.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Pamela realized she was the one yelling.

The commotion brought Joseph and Estevan. Estevan displayed the barely suppressed glee of the very young enjoying the excitement of catastrophe. Joseph looked disapproving, but resigned. Pamela rushed to him.

“Do something!”

“Let ’em have it out,” the security chief said.

Pamela let out a sound like an outraged cat. Her gaze fell on the enormous bouquet of flowers that the hotel management had sent up to welcome the CEO of Lumina Enterprises. Running over, she pulled out the flowers. It sloshed most satisfactorily when she picked up the vase.

She ran over to the grunting, fighting males and threw the water over both of them. They broke apart spluttering and cursing.

“Now
stop
it! Do something useful! That’s what Angela would say.”

The fight leached out of both of them. “And that we all need something to eat,” Richard added softly. Pamela couldn’t tell if the water on his face was from the vase or from tears. She decided it didn’t matter.

Weber leaned down with a grunt and rubbed at his knee. “You got a kick like a mule.” He held out his hand to Richard. Her brother didn’t take it.

“Not yet. It’s too soon. Don’t forgive me yet. Forgive me when I’ve earned it.” They all watched as Richard walked to the bedroom and closed the door.

Weber suddenly frowned and looked over at Pamela. “What the fuck do you think that meant?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “But it sounded ominous.”

R
ICHARD

T
he GPS system in my phone had taken me right to the house in Van Nuys. After the cold and sleet of Washington, the seventy-plus-degree weather in Southern California felt like a caress. I had the windows rolled down, and the scent of star jasmine was carried on a soft wind.

That hadn’t been the case overnight. A harsh Santa Ana wind had come roaring out of the east, vibrating the windows in the hotel and hissing through the pine trees that dotted the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel. I had taken one of the private cabanas and phoned room service for breakfast. The staff knew the CEO of Lumina Enterprises was in residence—I’d gotten great service.

The winds had ripped this neighborhood as well. Palm fronds lay scattered across the road and postage-stamp front yards. They looked like wings torn from the bodies of gigantic insects.

The Lumina jet had touched down in L.A. at 2:00
A.M
. I had checked into the hotel for a few hours of sleep, a shower, a shave, and a meal, and then I’d had a car delivered. Now I was here, and Rhiana was only a few hundred feet away.

Finding her hadn’t been that hard. My badge had enabled me to run the plates on her BMW convertible. To my surprise the car wasn’t stolen. Rhiana had bought and registered it, which gave me the address of her Georgetown house. I had searched it last night, and I hadn’t even had to pick the lock; I’d just climbed through the broken windows. Inside I’d picked my way through the welter of dead birds. I’d used the sword on every mirror and the chandelier. The teardrop crystals just hadn’t looked right to me.

Others had entered the house before me. Dangling cables showed me where a television had once stood; there were racks of CDs, but no player; and in the upstairs bedroom, which had been decorated like a scene out of the Arabian Nights, the tall jewelry case stood with its drawers hanging out like tongues. The thieves had missed one earring. The emerald lay sparkling, as green as Rhiana’s eyes, in the back of a drawer.

I’d been trained on how to make a search, so I went through the drawers, checked in the toilet tank, in the freezer, and in the canisters. I found sweaters and underwear and flour and sugar, and frozen food—most of it Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something to give me some idea where Rhiana might have gone. If she’d fled this multiverse I was screwed, and I couldn’t bear the idea that she’d get away with it.

But then on the bedside table I’d spotted a leather-bound scrapbook. I had sat down on the bed to look through it. As the mattress sank beneath me, the sheets released the smell of Rhiana’s perfume. There was a time when even the memory of her scent affected me. Not last night. I remembered only the wounds on Angela’s body.

The scrapbook was on the seat next to me. I parked the car a half block from the house and flipped it open. It contained photos of Rhiana, and press clippings from a small local Van Nuys newspaper as well as the
Los Angeles Times
. When I saw that, I knew where to find her.

It had been easy. I had her last name. I knew the city. The family was in the phone book. No detective work required. I had run my theory past Grenier while Brook prepped the plane. Grenier concurred with my analysis, which, of course, made him a genius.

“Of course she’s going to run home. She’s a kid. Think about it
,
if you’d done something terrible, wouldn’t you want to run home to Mommy and have her kiss it and make it all better? Tell you everything will be all right?”

He had then fallen suddenly very silent as he realized that he had manipulated my mother into committing suicide. But I let it go; he had given me what I needed.

I closed the scrapbook, checked again to make sure I had the sword, got out of the car, and walked down the street toward the house. The sword killed magical … alien creatures. Rhiana was only half human. Whatever happened, it was going to be profound.

The house was a small, boxy affair with white stucco stained from years of winter rains. Four hoary old palm trees swayed above the house. As I watched, another frond sailed down and landed with a crash on the roof. There were no cars in the oil-stained driveway. I reminded myself that that didn’t mean anything. Rhiana didn’t need a car.

As I approached the front door, a chorus of barking welled up from the backyard. I could discern three distinct voices—a deep throaty
woof
, a high-pitched hysterical yapping, and the bell-like bay of a basset hound. Well, the element of surprise was definitely gone. I stepped to the side of the peephole, drew the sword, and knocked.

She just answered. Probably because she was home. Probably because she felt safe. Emotions flickered across her face like slides in an old-style carousel—joy, fear, relief, surprise, confusion, terror, and it ended on guilt. I didn’t let it sway me. I forced her back into the house and shut the door behind me. She was staring at the sword. I cursed myself. I should have just used it. Touched her the instant the door opened, done the deed and gotten it over with. I guess her guilt had swayed me.

“Are you … are you … are you?” She sounded like a lawn mower engine trying to catch.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Now that I was inside I got a sense of the clutter. Piles of newspaper stood by the torn sofa. There was a giant fifty-two-inch TV on one wall. The picture had to be blurry in a room this small. There was the smell of toast and bacon grease and pet urine. There were large stains on the cheap green carpet.

She almost ran toward a wall. I bounded after her, thinking she was trying to escape, but she stopped and pointed at the frame hanging on the wall. On the floor beneath were the shards of a mirror. “Look, see, I broke them all. I’m done with them. They used me. They tricked me. I can help you.”

“Too little, and way, way too late.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It sounded faraway and very cold.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t think he’d …” She stopped and tried again. She shouldn’t have. “She was just always there! Getting between us!”

“There was no
us
, Rhiana. And you killed her.”

“No. No. Doug killed her. He was a killer. He killed this other girl. He killed lots of girls—”

“And
you
gave Angela to him.” Rage had a taste, like iron filings on the back of the tongue. It was becoming hard to breathe. I took a step toward her and lifted the sword.

She wrapped her arms protectively around herself and sank down on the floor. “No, Richard, please don’t.” The words echoed the whimpering of the dogs pressed up against the sliding glass patio doors. “Please don’t. Please don’t take my magic away. It’s all I’ve got. It made me special.”

And I realized she didn’t truly understand what was about to happen. I was suddenly back in the office on the Gulfstream V listening to Kenntnis saying,
“My guess is it would be similar to a lobotomy.”

And I remembered my response.
”I’ll be on Rhiana’s side. I won’t harm her … or allow anyone else to.”

Things change
, I thought.

You’re breaking your word.

Things change.

She seemed unaware of my turmoil. She looked up at me. Those amazing green eyes were filled with tears. They spilled over and ran down her face.

“You can’t have it both ways,” I said. “You can’t reject the Old Ones and still keep your magic. It ends here.”

I laid the sword on her shoulder.

And then I called 911 because it was the worst reaction I’d ever seen and I thought she might die. During that call the phone beeped, indicating another call. I took it after providing the address to the dispatcher. It was Joseph, and he sounded like a man who’d just run a marathon.

“Richard! Sir. It’s Kenntnis. He’s back. He’s here, but—”

“Tell him I can’t talk right now.” I had run into the kitchen for a butter knife to place between Rhiana’s teeth.

“Sir—” Joseph began, but I hung up. And then I turned off my phone because I didn’t want to hear from Kenntnis about how I’d
done the right thing.
I knew that, but I wasn’t sure I recognized or liked the person who had done the right thing.

Four minutes later the ambulance arrived. It was forty minutes until the last seizure shook her body. Her mother was called away from the school where she worked in the cafeteria. Her father was just up the Ventura Freeway overseeing the loading of his rig with cantaloupes bound for market. In the chaos that was traffic in Los Angeles, he arrived only a few minutes after his wife.

I waited in the visitors’ lounge. I wanted to leave, but I had to face her parents. I briefly wondered if Cross had sensed Rhiana’s half-death and reported it to Kenntnis. Kenntnis would understand why I needed time and space to deal with what I’d done. I couldn’t shake the memory of the blank-eyed creature that lay in the hospital bed and plucked mindlessly at the sheet. I had only been allowed to look through the window in the door. It had been more than enough. But Kenntnis was back. It was the right thing to do. For all of us, but most of all for Angela.

I heard them coming when I heard the neurologist, who’d met us in the emergency room, saying, “It appears to have been a stroke.”

They turned the corner, and I saw them for the first time. They might not have been related by blood to Rhiana, but there was no doubt they were her parents. Tears coursed down Lottie Davinovitch’s round face. In her haste to reach the hospital she was still wearing a hairnet and apron. Todd Davinovitch was a big man with a linebacker’s shoulders and neck, and the big belly bestowed by middle age. He had his arm around his wife. Behind his beard his face was set in a rictus of grief.

“But she was only eighteen,” Todd said. Unshed tears roughened his voice.

“It doesn’t matter the age if there’s a flaw in the brain,” the doctor said gently.

“If I’d just been there,” Rachel said. “She seemed so upset. I should have called in sick—”

“Even if you’d been there, there was nothing you could have done.” The doctor indicated me. “We’re just lucky this gentleman found her, or she might have died.”

I wondered if my guilt showed on my face. I stood up. “I’m Richard Oort,” I said. “Rhiana was working on a project for my company.”

“Physics?” Todd asked.

“Yes, my company specializes in high-tech projects. I was out here on business, and she’d told me she was coming home to see you. We met for an early breakfast, but she seemed disoriented and confused, so I stopped by your house to check on her.” The lies flowed so easily. “The front door was open. I knocked, but nobody answered, so finally I went inside. I found her and called 911.”

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done to stand there and accept their fervent thanks. Each word of gratitude struck like a blow. When they finally fell silent I said, “Since Rhiana was an employee, she’s fully covered under our health plan. All the bills will be paid by Lumina.”

I saw the wave of relief go across Lottie’s face, followed by immediate guilt that she had even been thinking about financial matters at a time like this.