Trouble Me (25 page)

There’s a knock at the door. It’s ten p.m. I look through the peephole. Mari.

I open the door, and she stands in front of me, her eyes red, her hair wild. It looks as though she’s worn the same clothes for several days straight. Her car’s not out front. I don’t know how she got here.

“Mari! You didn’t text me back. Are you all right?”

“I thought we were going to Oregon. I packed and everything.” She points to a duffel bag at her feet.

“Andrew wants us to wait for him. That’s why I texted.” I shift a little, feeling the hairs on my neck start to prickle.

She points to my car. “I’m going to put my bag in the back. I’ll wait while you go get your stuff.”

I shake my head. “No, Mari, we can’t go yet. Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll get you something to eat. We can rest up, and you can stay with us.”

She turns and carries her bag to the car, plunks it down next to the passenger door.

I start to tremble. I’ve never seen her like this. She’s a ghost, not really aware of me. “Mari.”

She comes around the car. For just one second, I see a glint of steel in her hand, but she slips whatever it is into her pocket.

She pushes the sleeves of her hoodie up a little. There are bandages around her wrists, and long, deep red streaks up her arms.

“Mari! What is going on? What did you do to yourself?” I step toward her.

She shakes her head. “Kelly, please. I’m really upset. It’d be so nice if we could just go. You know, leave? Like we planned it.” She pushes her sleeves back down.

“Fine. Let me call Andrew.” I pull my phone from my back pocket.

“No. Don’t call.” Her hand goes into her pocket, and she shakes her head again. No, no, back and forth as though she’s trying to get something out of her head. “Can we just go? I think we need to just go.” Her voice rises, tight and small. “When I think about staying here, it starts to hurt so bad…” She leaves off and both hands go into her pockets.

It’s a gun. She has a gun in her pocket. I can see the outline of it. I’m sure of it.

“Mari? Let’s get you some help. Please, let me help.” I try to smooth my voice out, soothe her.

“Let’s just go. Please? Please, I just want to go.”

I breathe in through my nose, try to slow my heart down. I still have my phone in my hand. “Mari, I can’t leave right now. The boys will wonder. I can’t leave without them. Andrew will worry.” I start to text him.

She snatches the phone out of my hand and backs up. “No. I can’t wait. I can’t stand it. I need for us to go.” She slips my phone into her pocket.

There is a gun in that pocket. She’s already tried to harm herself. I can’t call for help. I swallow hard. Things are unraveling.

I rush to pack something while Mari follows me around, her eyes wide and wild and watchful.

I keep praying that Andrew will come home from set, that Mom and Dad will cut the “nature sleepover” short and bring the boys back. But it’s after ten, and no one’s due home. I told Mari I had to pack. I try to buy time, stall, but she watches my every move.

I don’t have much of a plan if she forces me to leave. Get in the car and drive and keep driving through the night. She’ll fall asleep. She looks exhausted. Then I can call 9-1-1, get her help. Let Andrew or Tucker know where we are.

“Kelly, we need to go.” She ushers us back out the front door. I stand on the front step. “We’re going. Get in the car.”

“Mari.” I whisper. “Please.”

She looks me in the eyes. “We have to go. I can’t stay here another second. Please.” Tears stream down her cheeks.

I get in the car, and we drive.

She holds my phone in one hand, keeps the other hand deep in her pocket. We drive north. My phone beeps once before she turns it off.

“Was that Andrew? I should text him. He’ll be worried.”

“No. It was Tessa.”

“Let me tell Andrew where we’re going. He should know we’re going to the Oregon house. He’ll be so worried.”

“We just need to get there, and I’ll feel better. I know it.” She looks at me again, and I see that her pupils are wide with adrenaline.

I am in danger.

T
UCKER
C
ALLS
M
E
I
N
M
Y
T
RAILER
. I left yesterday at six a.m. to wrap up this shoot. We’ve got three days left. Last night we shot until midnight, and I collapsed here on the couch. Kelly knew not to expect me. My call was at four thirty this morning. It’s three p.m. now. There’s no point in even trying to go home when the hours are whacked out like this. We’ve been shooting for fourteen to sixteen hours straight most days/nights to push and finish on time.

I get up and pace while I talk. But there’s not much room. On this indie movie, my trailer really is a trailer. Someone lent the production company an old Airstream. It’s nice, but I’m used to multimillion dollar budgets, not shoestring. I’ve gotten spoiled. I hate to admit it, but it’s true.

“Andrew, I think your gut instinct might have been right all along.”

“What?”

“Amanda.”

“What about her?”

“After two days of investigation, nothing panned out on Devon. He was in NYC when you got pushed, but he was uptown tutoring a Broadway star’s little twins. He has an airtight alibi for the incident at The Ivy too. But guess who didn’t?” Tucker’s eyes are wide.

“Amanda? She was there, Tucker, because she was there with Jeremy.”

“The paparazzo just rolled. She paid him to slash your tires.”

Holy shit.
“You’re kidding.”

“Not a bit. Police questioned him again about the fire alarm pull and the tires. I guess he claims she pulled the alarm, and he did the tires. It’s looking good.”

“Unbelievable.” I shake my head.

“Totally believable. As you know, she’s been crazy since you started filming
The Bull, the Bear
.”

“So, what next?”

“Why don’t you go home early to that almost-wife of yours and let her know the case is close to wrapping? She’ll be thrilled, I bet.”

“The press will freak when they find out about this.”

“It’s not going to leak anytime soon. There’s a mountain of investigation still to do. They have to tie her to all of it, if they really want to throw the book at her. No way do they want all the media to muck it up while she’s still under investigation.”

I stand up. “I think they need to throw a very thick book at that woman. But right now, I need to go home to my woman.”

Tucker laughs. “I’m hanging up. I’ll call you later if I know more.”

When I open the door to the house, I can tell something’s not right. After so many years of living alone, with Kelly and the boys in my life, usually I can feel the extra bodies in the house. And I love it. I grew up with two sisters, and I liked a big crowd, so the cavernous LA houses I lived in after I found success sucked.

But the house is empty. I know the boys are with their grandparents. But where is she?

“Kelly?” I call up the curved staircase. No answer. I walk out the back, to the yard, thinking she’s out at the pool.

After a two-minute walk around the rest of the house, I dial Kelly’s number. None of this sits well. Something is wrong. Kelly can lay claim to women’s intuition all she wants, but this is my time to tell something’s bad. My heart pounds as her phone rings.

And it goes to voice mail. That’s not right. She answers. She always answers my calls.

I call Tucker. “Tuck, where’s Kelly?”

“What?” He sounds relaxed.

“She’s not here. Have you talked to Kelly?”

“Is her car in the garage? Maybe she took Ditto on a walk.”

“No, Kelly’s parents took the boys and the dog. Kelly should be home.” I jog to the garage. Her car is gone. “No car.”

“Andrew, there’s a million places she could be. Call her.”

“I did. She’s not answering. I have a bad feeling about this, Tuck.”

“Why?”

“Kelly told me night before last that she was worried about Mari. She got some texts from her.”

“About what?”

“She said she was dealing with very traumatic stuff. She hinted that Mari might hurt herself.”

“And what are you thinking?”

“What if we’re wrong about Amanda? What if it’s Mari? What if she wouldn’t hurt herself—but she might hurt someone else?”

“Andrew, where do you think they are?”

I run back up the stairs, into the bedroom, and pull open the closet door. Kelly’s closet is in disarray, clothes all over the floor. Her suitcase is gone. “She’s gone. Tucker, I think this is bad. Kelly and I talked about going to Oregon. She wanted to go alone, take Mari, maybe Tessa, but we decided to go when I was done shooting. She wouldn’t just up and leave after we decided. And she wouldn’t leave without the boys. No way.”

“I’ll be right there. Try calling Tessa.”

“Why?”

“If she had changed her mind, she would have told you, right? If she couldn’t tell you, maybe she talked with someone else before she was in a position not to talk.”

“How could this happen? She’d tell me if she’d changed her mind.”

“Which means something happened that kept her from doing that.”

“Jesus, Tucker, get over here. We’ve got to find them. She’s thirty-seven weeks pregnant!”

“I’m coming right now. I’ll get California Highway Patrol on board. We’ll find them, Andrew.”

“Hurry, Tucker. If anything happens to her, my God…”

I can’t even finish. I end the call and race from bedroom to bedroom, check the bathroom. Whatever happened, it was rushed. Her closet is a mess.

The coast. Up the coast to Oregon. Oh my God. Mari is fucking crazy, and my fiancée is headed up Highway 101 with her? Is Mari holding her hostage? What the hell?

I replay the conversation from night before last.
“I’m worried she might do something.”

Kelly offered up the house in Oregon as a place to gather Mari’s scattered self. A quiet place. But she wouldn’t leave by herself. We’d decided. We talked about Mari, talked about my worries specifically. I know Kelly. I know she wouldn’t leave while the boys were away, and I know she understood how I felt.

I try Kelly’s cell again. No luck. I text her again; no response.

I check the weather. It’s clear right now, but there’s a huge storm coming in. There are winter storm advisories all up and down the Pacific coastline.

Kelly is in danger, and a storm’s bearing down on her.

If anything happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I call Tessa. No answer.

Desperate, I look up the number for Joe, Tessa’s husband, at his practice in Boise. If Tessa’s not answering, maybe he knows where she is.

The receptionist answers and reluctantly patches me through when I lie and say Joe is waiting for me to consult on a patient of his.

“This is Dr. Ogata.”

“Joe, this is Andrew Pettigrew.”

“Well, hi, are you lonely already? I’ll probably start missing Tessa tonight when the bed is cold.” He chuckles.

“Where are they?” I sound crazy. Maybe I am.

“Is everything okay? Tessa left super early this morning. They were meeting at the house on Silver Point.”

“I don’t know, Joe. Who was going?”

“Tessa mentioned that Kelly’s friend Mari needed a change of scenery. Kelly texted Tessa, told her to meet her.”

Maybe Mari doesn’t know Tessa is coming too. This could be good.

“Andrew? Is everything okay?”

“I’m working on it. This friend, I don’t know how stable she is. I just have a bad feeling about it.”

“It
is
a little late for Kelly to be road tripping. You all have a baby coming, you know.”

“I know, Joe. Thanks for the help.” I end the call.

My mind’s spinning. I call Tucker again.

“Yes?” He answers with an urgency.

“They’re going to the coast. Tessa’s meeting them there today.”

“Andrew, I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Sergeant Ridley called. The super of your building in NYC called her an hour ago. Ridley contacted him when Devon looked good for it, left her card with him. He wanted to follow up with her. He said the mail was piling up for one of the units. Turns out it was the one where Mari had been staying, supposedly as a housesitter. It doesn’t look good. Her family’s been looking for her. She wasn’t supposed to leave New York—she had a psychiatrist, was on meds. Of course none of that would pop in a background check. That’s all confidential information. She’s gone off the grid. She hasn’t contacted her family since she left New York.”

I want to smash the phone into a million pieces on the tile in the foyer. “Fuck, Tucker. Fuck my life if anything happens to Kelly and the baby.”

“Nothing will, Andrew. You and I will make certain it doesn’t.”

Tucker’s in the driveway in ten minutes. I’ve called Kelly’s folks, and Tucker’s sent Janus and an Apotheosis security detail to wait with them and keep them informed. He’s already alerted CHP, and now we’ll meet a plane at LAX and fly to Portland, where a car is waiting to take us to the coast. We’d take a helicopter, but the weather’s already getting dicey, and just making it into Portland will take a miracle. Luckily Tucker has friends, and one of them happens to be a former Navy pilot. He’ll take us to Portland. We’ll take it from there.

Tucker hangs up the phone. “Her credit card was used for gas at six a.m. at the One Stop in Red Bluff.”

“Why didn’t she call me?”

“I’m sure because she couldn’t. When did she tell you about Mari?”

“Two nights ago. She knew I’d be working two, maybe three days straight.”

“We can get officers to the house and intercept them.”

“I hope so.”

Tucker’s phone buzzes, and he answers. “Caldwell.” He listens intently, and I watch as his frown deepens.

He pulls over to the side of the road. My heart’s in my throat. If he’s about to tell me the worst news of my life, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t live without her.

He doesn’t look at me. “Fine. I’m checking it now. That plane better be ready to taxi when we get there. Call Sloan. This is an interstate thing now. FBI needs to get on it. They swing the biggest stick; they need to be incident command on this one.”

He ends the call and swipes his cell. I can’t tell what he’s doing. Then he hands the phone to me. “The super went into the Chelsea condo and called NYPD.” He hands me the phone and pulls the car back onto the freeway, gunning it to get into traffic.

There are pictures. I swallow bile as it rises in my throat.

The living room walls in the condo are plastered in pictures. Pictures printed off, cut out of magazines, poster-sized pictures.

They are all of me.

“Tucker.”

“I know, I know. Don’t say anything. Just keep breathing.”

I swallow hard. I want to scream, to beg God and any other higher power that might be listening for this not to be happening, not to my Kelly, not to my baby.
Please God, please God, please God.

I’m about to start my bargaining, my pleading, my promises to never work again, to move the family to Canada, to give my life for theirs, when Tucker stops me cold.

“Andrew, I know how you feel right now, but I need you to help me. As much as you want to panic right now, you need to tell me everything and anything that Kelly might ever have told you about this Mari.”

It might be better to have something to do. To focus on. I shake my head, try to physically clear the ugly panic from my brain. Focus. I can do this. I can play this part, if only for a little while. Let me disappear into this job. Maybe if I do my part, it’ll save Kelly.

The lump in my throat won’t go anywhere, and my pulse still pounds at my neck, in my ears, but my brain clears a bit.

“She met her running. She went out one morning, and Mari left the building at about the same time. God, I actually suggested they be friends.”

Tucker nods. “That was her way in. She probably IDed her when you moved in.”

“How’d she get in the building? How’d she pull that?”

We drive around the main terminals now, headed to the terminal for private jets. Tucker’s all business. “Don’t know how she figured out the leasing agent you went through, but then she just watched and waited for a lease to pop close to when you were to start filming. She found an empty condo in the building and wheedled her way in, offering them a free housesitter—told them she was in fashion design school. She even had references.”

“She’s just one of my psycho fans? All of this is about me?”

“I don’t know, Andrew. FBI is on it. They’re looking for her family right now. She’s only twenty-two.”

The guard at the gate to the private hangars must be expecting us. He swings the gate wide as we approach, and we race through. On the open tarmac, Tucker floors it, and we race across the pavement to a sleek white jet waiting, door open, stairs down.

Two men who look like plainclothes cops meet us as we screech to a halt. One with a robust red beard and glasses jogs next to us, boards with us as we get on the jet.

“The storm’s screwing it all up, Tucker. We tracked them into Portland, got Oregon State Police on the trail of Kelly’s car.”

“And what?” Tucker’s been handed a file folder. I don’t know if I want to see what’s in it.

“And then the storm started in on the coast. At about milepost seventeen, the visibility’s down to half a mile, the roads are starting to accumulate an ice and snow mix, and I don’t know how many officers we can put on it. The road between Seaside and Cannon Beach is close to washed out right now. Local law enforcement consists of one county deputy in Cannon Beach, and the cell tower is down, so we haven’t made contact with him yet.”

“What are we flying into, then?” Tucker looks at him. The flight attendant has pulled up the stairs and closed the door, and we are taxiing.

“Frankly?” The man looks straight at Tucker.

“Yes.”

“A cluster. Honestly, if it were Portland, we’d be fine. They’re stranded on the coast. You’ll be lucky if you make it through.”

“We have to. I can’t leave her there alone.” I say this, and I sound frenzied. “I won’t leave her there. Something’s going to happen, and I need to get to them.”

Tucker raises a hand. “Get a truck. Talk to fire and get one of their wildland vehicles.” He looks at me. “We’ll do this.” He pulls out a yellow pad. “Andrew, remember. I need every detail you can remember. We need as much intel as we can get.”