City Of Mirrors: A Diana Poole Thriller Part 10

"Don't try to charm me. My mother and I used to eat up guys like you and spit them out."

"Vivid image. I'm not sure what to do with it."

"Do you really want me to tell you?" I dug around in my purse some more. "Where is it?"

"What?"

"My cell. I need to call a taxi." I tossed my hair out of my face.

"To take you back to Malibu?" His brow furrowed.

"There's no way I'm getting into a car with you. And I'm going to give the taxi bill to Zaitlin. Where's my cell!"

"It's probably in Gerald's jacket pocket. A precaution in case you grabbed your handbag from him and made a run for it. He must've forgotten to give it to you."

I started back toward the yacht. He grabbed my arm, stopping me. "The gates are locked. You can't get in, and I don't have a key. What's wrong with you? Do you always act like this?"

I shook my arm. "Let go."

He released me. "I'll see that your cell is returned to you."

I suddenly felt helpless. A feeling I try to avoid at all times. Trying to compose myself, I breathed in the smell of burgers and fish 'n' chips wafting through the salty air from the lunch shacks and restaurants. Fishing boats bobbed in their docks; metal rigging rattled and clinked against the masts. The ocean gleamed.

"Everything seems so d.a.m.n normal, so beautiful. And it isn't," I said.

He drew his hand through his hair. "Look, we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Of course you were frightened this morning, and I apologize for that. I told Parson and Zaitlin they should tell you where you were being taken. But Parson won out. Zaitlin went along with him."

"You were just following orders."

"If you want to put it that way. On the other hand, why are you constantly saying that I like to beat up women?"

"Don't you?"

He pushed his sungla.s.ses up to the top of his head and shoved his face close to mine, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. "No. I have never hit a woman." Then he added, "Except when I was forced to."

"You are so full of it." I turned away, but he pulled me back. "Get your hands off me." I jerked free.

"If you would just stand still and be quiet a moment, I can explain."

"All right, tell me about all the exceptions."

"One of my clients had a girlfriend who was stalking him. She came at me with a knife. I decked her." He rubbed the b.u.mp on his nose, staring out at the ocean.

"That's it? That's the exception?"

When he spoke next his expression was somber. "There was another time in Afghanistan." His gaze shifted back to me but it was distant. "The woman had a baby in one arm, a hand grenade in the other."

"And you decked her, too?"

"No. I shot her right between the eyes. Any other questions?" His face was as hard as stone.

"No."

He slipped his gla.s.ses back down over his eyes, and we started walking again. Heath's serious directness had hit a nerve, and I thought of Celia's sudden anger last night. She had asked me to leave her house as if she wanted to get rid of me, as if she was purposely pushing me out of her life for good. And all of that happened after I'd told her the man named Ward was really Heath, and that he worked for Zaitlin. Had I caught her in a lie? Did she choose to end our friendship so she wouldn't have to tell me the truth about who struck her? At the same time I couldn't shake the feeling I needed to protect her. I didn't want to tell Heath or anyone that it was Celia who accused him.

"What were you really doing at Bella Casa?" I asked.

"Would you believe I'm tired of renting? That I need a place to call my own?"

"A little big for one person, isn't it?"

"You and your mother lived there. There were only two of you."

"Movie stars always live in houses that are too big for them."

"What makes you think I'm not married with a couple of kids?"

"You're a loner through and through."

He adjusted his shoulders. "You're right, I am."

"And the a.s.sumed name?"

"Working on a case. That's all I can say."

"Did you know Celia Dario before she showed you the house?"

"No."

"With all the work you do for Zaitlin, you had to know she was his mistress."

"I did."

"Is that why you used the a.s.sumed name?"

"I can't tell you. Client privilege. Your turn. Tell me why you think I like to abuse women."

"I might have been acting under a misconception. I'm not sure."

"That's it? That's your only explanation?" His brows rose.

"Client privilege."

Shaking his head, we continued to the car park in a moody silence. Soon Heath took out his keys and beeped open the doors to a brand-new silver-gray Mercedes convertible.

"Expensive car."

"I have to blend in with my surroundings. Makes me look like an executive producer."

He got into the Mercedes. I didn't. In seconds the dark blue soft-top folded back into the rear of the car.

He looked up from behind the wheel, his head back, his black sungla.s.ses staring at me, an arm draped casually over the pa.s.senger-side bucket seat. "My company has a small fleet of autos, all different models and years. Makes it easier to tail people. I had one of my employees drive it up here this morning. She went home by Amtrak."

I looked down at him. "Parson and Zaitlin must pay you very well."

"I don't work for Parson. He's not the kind of man you want to do business with. Aren't you going to get in?"

"Put the top back up."

"You don't strike me as the kind of woman who's afraid to get some wind in her hair."

"I don't want the two of us driving in a Mercedes convertible along the happy freeway of life looking like the perfect narcissistic couple in a car commercial. Especially when I'm an actress and not getting paid for it."

He let out a deep warm laugh. The top curved up and into place.

I slipped into the pa.s.senger seat. "If you don't work for Parson why are you sharing information with him?"

He started the car. "Parson is a father whose daughter has been murdered. He may be an a.s.shole, but he has every right to try to find her killer. And Jenny, no matter what or who she may have been, has every right for her killer to be brought to justice." He threw the car into reverse, backed out of the parking s.p.a.ce, and drove toward the exit gate.

"You said, 'no matter what or who she may have been.' Did you know Jenny?"

"Never met her."

I leaned my head back against the seat. I thought of my husband attending a party on Parson's yacht. He'd never told me about it. Then there was Celia, who may have been lying to me. And finally there was Heath, who could be the greatest liar of them all.

I closed my eyes. "I don't know who to believe anymore."

"Welcome to my world," he said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Driving smoothly and confidently, Heath took us back along Cabrillo Boulevard. The tourists were still pedaling for all they were worth, and the boats were swaying on the glistening water. I thought of what Parson had said about not being able to mourn in the brilliant sunshine. It was true, the dazzling perfection of a beautiful California day was a fist-punch right into your wounded heart.

"What does Parson know about my husband?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Would you tell me if you did?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"On the information. Who it can hurt, and how important it is."

"Who are you to judge? Don't your clients pay you for all the information you discover?"

"You're not my client. They also pay me to keep their secrets. Think of me as a priest. One that doesn't like choirboys," he added.

He guided the car into a roundabout and followed it onto Coast Village Road in the wealthy enclave of Montecito. Expensive shops, galleries, and cafes lined the street. I looked up toward the Santa Ynez Mountains and wondered which mansion held Parson's sedated wife. The village ended at the 101 on-ramp. Heath sped onto the freeway, and I was finally headed back home.

Adjusting my sungla.s.ses, I studied his profile. With his graying dark hair, strong chin, and crooked nose he was more elegantly unhandsome than handsome. I've acted with many great-looking men, and I've learned it's the ones who aren't so good-looking that have a better sense of themselves, which made them more attractive.

"Like what you see?" He was staring straight ahead at the highway.

"I'm trying to see you as a priest. It's bad casting. What does Parson do exactly? Or do your vows not allow you to reveal that either?"

"He told you. He's an investor. He owns real estate, some islands, and people."

I thought of Ryan Johns owing him money. "How does he own people?"

"He collects information on them. You've already discovered he's not a nice man, Diana."

"So he does have something on my husband." I felt a small rip in the tether that kept me moored. The tether that kept me from being my mother, with a collection of unwanted and discarded men in her life. The tether that held me to the one person I had been certain loved me.

"I know you don't want my advice," he said, "but I'm going to give it to you anyway. Sometimes it's better to leave the dead alone. Let them have their secrets."

"I wish I had left Jenny Parson alone instead of talking my way into her condo. I wish my Jag worked and that my house didn't need a new roof and deck. And I especially wish Colin hadn't died."

"I had a girlfriend once that did nothing but wish for things. She used to cut out pictures of expensive handbags and shoes from fashion magazines and tape them on the refrigerator door. A sort of if-you-visualize-what-you-want-you'll-get-it bulls.h.i.t. In her case it worked. She married a wealthy man. But every time before I opened that d.a.m.n refrigerator for a beer I saw Prada, Fendi, and Channel."

"Doesn't sound like you and your girlfriend had a lot in common."

"We had mindless s.e.x. She liked wearing these Gucci stiletto heels she bought on sale ..."

"I can figure the rest of out for myself. Thank you." I peered out the window, watching drivers cutting each other off, and thought of Colin and me making love, our hot sweaty skin pasting our bodies together, and me hoping we would never be able to separate ourselves.

"What did you and Ben Zaitlin talk about at his birthday party?" Heath asked.

Heath's question jarred me back to reality. "You're a good interrogator. Chat about other things like your girlfriend and s.e.x and then zero in with the question."

"Practice. Ben kissed you."

"Did his mother tell you that?"

"No, I was watching. That's a big part of my job ... to watch."

"He's a lonely kid who discovered his stepfather has had a mistress for half his life. He wanted to kiss a woman that Zailin hadn't gone to bed with."

"And did he kiss a woman who hadn't gone to bed with his stepfather?"