My Lost Daughter (55 page)

“Home?”

“We're your family, darling. We had to leave San Francisco because of the police investigation at Whitehall, but that doesn't mean we don't love you and support you like we always have.”

“It's over,” he told her. “You said so yourself.”

“No, no,” Nadine protested. “We can rebuild. With your genius, we can do anything. I meant that woman in the hospital, the redhead you fixated on. I didn't want you to get involved with her for your own good. You know what happened in the past, but because of our precautions, no one else knows. Now that we've all moved again, no one will ever know. We're safe, son. You died, remember? We buried you. It was a brilliant plan and it worked perfectly.”

He opened the doors to the phone booth and stretched the phone cord so he could talk in the open air. “It's so beautiful here, Mother. It's so clean, so peaceful. It's almost like paradise. I wish you could see it.”

Her voice was urgent, compressed into tight hard sentences. “Listen to me. We may need you, but you need us as well. Don't think for a minute you don't. They'll catch you and put you in prison. They could execute you. Come home this minute.”

“I'm already dead.” He dropped the phone and the cord snapped it back, striking the glass in the booth.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26
VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

Once they had dropped the plastic makeup case, the calling card, and the sample of dried blood off at the FBI office, Lily gunned the Volvo and headed in the direction of their house. “I forgot to ask. Do you want to head home, or is there somewhere else you'd like to go?”

“Let's go for a walk on the beach. I prefer McGrath. The sand is nicer there.”

They parked and walked down the steep steps to the sand. The sun had gone behind a cloud and it was overcast and gray. Surfers waited for waves on their boards, and here and there, people were spread out on towels waiting for the sun to reappear. When the Santa Ana winds blew in, they could have ninety-degree weather in January, but today was chilly, so Lily suspected the sunbathers were out-of-towners who believed Southern California had warm weather all year long.

Shana walked near the water's edge and Lily trailed along behind her. “I know who you can call,” Lily said. “Greg Fowler. Do you remember him?”

“Of course, but I'm not interested in talking to him. I mean,
he's a nice guy but he's a stone-cold pothead. He starts smoking as soon as he wakes up and stays high all day. He also tries to force you to surf with him. I don't like to be pounded by waves. My balance isn't good enough to stand up on a moving board in the ocean.”

The damp air had caused their hair to fall limp around their faces and necks. Shana walked a few feet into the surf, oblivious to the fact that she was soaking her shoes and the bottom of her pants. Lily followed her and together they stood side by side in the shallow water. “You have to do something, Shana. My vacation is going to be over soon. I don't want you to be sitting around all day at the house.”

“Why can't I go back to Palo Alto and get a job until the summer sessions starts? Maybe I could even pay the rent on the apartment.”

“That's not necessary. I'll take care of your rent like I always have. I started saving for your education the day you were born.”

“No, Mother, it is necessary,” Shana told her. “I took your money and paid Brett's tuition with it. That's why I needed so much cash all the time.”

Lily's jaw dropped. “Why couldn't he pay for his own tuition? Weren't his parents wealthy?”

“They were until they lost everything in the stock market. Brett was a good student, Mother. I felt sorry for him and didn't want him to have to drop out of school. But I was wrong. Brett's a user. The only reason he moved in with that Berkeley girl is his parents told him he'd have to give up his room in the dorm and come home.”

“Why didn't he move in with you?”

“I had a roommate, remember? She didn't want to share her bathroom with a guy. Julie was a perfectionist and Brett was a pig. You saw how the place was trashed when you came. That was left over from Brett.” She stopped speaking and linked eyes with her mother. “I feel so bad for lying to you and taking your money. I know you're not rich. I can work as a waitress and tutor
undergraduates.” She reached over and pulled her mother into her arms, both of their eyes moist with tears. “You're a wonderful mother. You didn't deserve the things I did to you. I want to make it up to you.”

“If that's what you want, I'm all for it. All I've ever wanted is to make you happy.” Lily tenderly brushed Shana's hair off her forehead. “You've gone through too much, honey. You've always hidden your problems from me. Promise me you won't do that anymore. I'm the best friend you'll ever have. Next time you become overwhelmed or down, give me a chance to help you. I know I made a terrible mistake this time, but I promise I won't make that mistake again. Will you promise to stay in touch and let me know when you need help?”

“I promise,” Shana said, smiling. Her expression suddenly changed and she grabbed Lily's hand. “There's an enormous wave coming in. Don't look back, Mom, just run as fast as you can.”

They jogged through the water and kept on until they reached high ground. A moment later, they fell to the sand, both of them laughing.

“I needed a good laugh,” Lily said, trying to sit up and then collapsing back on the sand. “Is that little thing your humongous wave?”

“Okay,” Shana said, giggling even harder. “It looked scary from a distance. I guess it petered out on the way in. I told you I don't like to be pummeled by waves. Now you know.”

They got up and dusted themselves off, then walked hand in hand in the direction of the car. An older lady approached them. “You're such beautiful twins. I love the color of your hair.”

Lily waited for Shana to explode as she had in the past, but she just smiled at the woman and thanked her for the compliment. “You didn't mind that the woman thought we were twins?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You look great for your age. I hope I look that good when I get older. We need to get our pictures taken together like we used to. We haven't done that in a long time.”

For Lily, it was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Chris and Lily were in bed and the house was quiet. Shana tried to sleep but found it impossible. When she was at school and she couldn't sleep, she would go out in her car and drive around. She suspected it was the movement of the car that relaxed her.

She crept into the living room and started looking for her mother's car keys, then decided she must have left them in her purse. When she couldn't find Lily's purse, she decided she had taken it to her bedroom. She gave thought to taking Chris's Volkswagen but she couldn't find his keys, either. Then she remembered that she was at the beach, and decided a walk would be even more relaxing than a drive. She needed to exercise more, but school had left her with no time to do anything but study. Next year would be different. She would set aside time to exercise every day and stick to it.

Stopping on the way to the door, she thought of Alex and knew she should probably forget about going out. But even though she felt certain she'd seen Alex in the area, Karen was insistent that he was dead. Even if she was somehow mistaken and Alex had faked his own death, she doubted if he would consider roaming around at night on foot. For all she knew, Alex could have already moved on, or gone back into hiding with his crazy mother and the rest of the clan. If he had wanted to hurt her, he'd had every opportunity at Whitehall. She'd even slept with the guy.

“Fuck you, Alex,” Shana said under her breath. She refused to let another man ruin her life and turn her into a recluse.

Disengaging the alarm system, she slipped out of the house. She couldn't get to the beach from the balcony because it was elevated and if she jumped, she might break her leg. She went out the front of the house and decided it was fun walking around at night. She traveled down the sidewalks lined with blooming flowers and glanced in windows, thinking she might see someone having sex or walking around naked. But it was a quiet community with big houses built close together. Most of the homes were dark except for the outside lights.

She was plodding down the dirt ravine heading to the sand when she heard something behind her, a noise like someone stepping on an acorn. She turned around but no one was there. She decided it must be some kind of animal like a dog or a squirrel.

Off in the distance, she could see the water and hear the sound of the surf. The ocean was beautiful in the light from the moon, shimmering, expansive, and mysterious. She liked that type of thing. She was a romantic and a loner. No one ever saw that side of her. For years, she thought it was because she was an only child and her mother was gone all the time. Later she realized it was just her nature. People were disappointments. They lied to you, let you down, and said bad things behind your back. It was better to be alone sometimes than to get hurt. She had broken that rule with Brett, and look what had come of it.

Shana started down the long flight of stone steps that led to the sand, her eyes focused on the water as she breathed in the fresh, salty scent of the ocean. She relished the wind whipping across her face.

Her stomach started rumbling. Chris had treated them to Mexican food and it sometimes upset her stomach. She looked back up the stairs and saw the public restroom. There was a small light under the overhang and flies and mosquitoes were buzzing around it. The interior of the building was dark. She hesitated, but the rumbling was getting worse.

“Probably no toilet paper,” she said, taking the stairs two at a time, the urge overwhelming now. “Dark and spooky or not,” she said, wanting to hear the sound of her voice, “when you gotta go, you gotta go.” She looked around at the bushes and thought of squatting but then remembered the coyotes that roamed the beaches and decided the restroom was more appealing than having a coyote bite her ass. She stood at the door to the restroom, peering into the darkness. Hesitant but desperate, she finally took a giant step and was inside.

She made it to the toilet in the nick of time. Dropping her jeans she sat down in a stall, easily finding it by the stench. She had seen
these places during the day and they weren't even real toilets, even though they had a seat. They were just holes in the ground with sewage tanks underneath.

Shana kept hearing things, little things, but nonetheless unsettling. She strained, trying to go faster so she could get the hell out of there. She didn't even care if she walked on the beach now. She just wanted to get home safe. Something terrible could come crawling up from the hole in the ground.

“I've been looking for you, Shana,” a voice said from somewhere inside the room.

The voice sounded so loud. In the stillness, it sounded supernatural. It was magnified by the human electricity of fear, her fear, which was now raging. “What the fuck?” Shana bolted to her feet, grabbing at her pants, then tripping and falling against the door to the stall. She scrambled back to her feet and tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge. How could it be locked from the outside?

“Who's there?” she screamed. “Is that you, Chris? Stop it. Let me out, damn it. I'm not a kid you can punish for leaving the house without your permission.”

Shana charged the door with her shoulder. It moved half an inch but that was it. Then she heard someone breathing, a raspy sound. The person was leaning against the door, trapping her inside. She would fight to her death before she would let some man rape her again.

“Just relax, Shana,” a man's voice said, air whooshing in and out of his nostrils. “I'm going to open the door but you have to promise you won't scream. You must be perfectly silent. Those are the rules.”

Shana froze, unable to breathe, terrified beyond all reason. She knew Chris's voice and it wasn't him. It had to be Alex. She tried to scream but her vocal cords were paralyzed. Her heart was leaping, pounding. In seconds, she was drenched in sweat.

Slowly, the door opened. The figure standing there was illuminated from behind by the exterior light but his face was bathed in shadows. Shana backed up until she collided with the commode and stopped.

“Don't be afraid, Shana. It's me. You know me.”

“Alex?” Shana said, coughing up the word. “Alex?” Jesus, Alex had found her! Was it his ghost or was it really him? There was a fetid odor in the air, something terrible and sick. She started to move forward when an arm seized her and smashed her into the stall partition.

The building seemed to shake in an eruption of tremendous power and movement so fast it couldn't be detected. Doors rattled, walls popped and cracked as if they were being blown apart by an explosion. The man's fury almost leaped from his body and became an entity of its own.