“How'd she react?”

“She didn't, that's the point. Numb and compliant, a good little robot. No one except me seemed to notice, because everyone was focused on Dement, all the money he was raking in, the fat pig. That stupid hat, he had fishhooks in his hat. With a tux, no less. No one said a word.”

“A few hundred million'll do that,” said Aaron. “Were there any other-”

“But wait, folks, there's more!” Liana held up a finger. “A while later, I go to the ladies’ room-this mansion has a giant powder room-makeup area for guests-and Gemma's there and she's got her sweater off but when she sees me, she snaps it back on. But not quickly enough to hide the bruises all up and down her arm. I'm talking livid, Aaron, like she'd been put through a compressor. I pretend not to stare while she pretends to be apathetic, fixes her hair, lays on even more pancake. But I'm getting a close-up look and it's obvious why she's plastering the stuff on. She's got more bruises on her neck and shoulders. Plus a definite swelling behind her ear. This is a woman who gets used regularly as a punching bag.”

She clenched a fist. “Hypocritical asshole. Please tell me he's involved.”

Aaron said, “It might shake out that way, but all I've got right now is a real estate link.”

“To who?”

He told her about Rory Stoltz's early-morning adventure on the Strip, the gated estate on Swallowsong.

Liana said, “Sneaking a couple of celebs out the back way? No idea who?”

“Too dark, too quick, too far away,” said Aaron. “One guy was skinny, the other more of a football type. Neither of them was Dement. Younger, thinner.”

“Aaron, Dement beats his wife, who knows what he does to other women? Please please tell me you're going to follow up on him.”

“Of course.”

“How old were the two guys Stoltz drove home?”

“I can't be sure, Lee. Could be twenties, thirties.”

“Dement has a whole bunch of kids-six, seven. He's in his fifties, so he could easily have spawn in that range.”

“Junior living in a house Daddy owns? Maybe, but that still says nothing about Caitlin. The link I'm following is Rory.”

Liana grew silent.

Aaron said, “I'll follow up on Dement, Lee.”

“I know I'm being emotional. You can't imagine the hell my sister went through. And my parents. And the rest of us. We're a close-knit family, Gordon made all of us bleed.”

Aaron had never seen her like this. Family made things complicated. “I'll bloodhound Dement.”

“Maybe the police have something-domestic violence calls covered up.”

Aaron stood, walked from behind his desk, paced.

Liana said, “What's wrong?”

“Working with the police on this one. It's complicated.”

CHAPTER 15

Madeleine Fox Reed Guistone was a woman of serene temperament.

The shifting hues of her Tuscan-inspired house on half an acre of Beverly Hills POB hillside suggested otherwise.

Which just went to prove the classic detective caution, thought Moe: Assume means make an ass out of u and me.

As he pushed his unmarked up the juniper-shrouded lane that led to Mom's manse, his memory dredged up mocha to salmon to sage green to coral to the eye-searing sienna-orange mottle he'd seen eight weeks ago. But he might've missed a few stages.

He reached the top expecting something even more outrageous.

Nope, still “flame-rust villa de Borghese,” the pigment-infused plaster slapped on so thickly the house appeared lumpy. Random patches of phony exposed brick completed the picture: typical pathetic, totally L.A. grab for a reality that had never existed in the first place. First time he'd seen it, he'd muttered, “Disneyland,” but told Mom it was gorgeous. This evening, parking in the circular motor court next to his mother's red Mercedes convertible, the theme park crept back into his consciousness.

And that brought back memories.

Moe, plagued with ear infections and motion sickness as a young boy, had always despised the Anaheim ode to corny.

Heaving his cookies after a single spin on the teacups.

Meanwhile, Aaron's leaping into a Matterhorn car. Conquering the “Alps” over and over again. Maddy and Moe waiting until he finally got his fill. Moe clutching his stomach just thinking about the Matterhorn.

Contempt on Aaron's ten-year-old face as he points out a crumb of vomit on Moe's T-shirt…

A guy who called his office space Work Land; some people never got real.

Moe walked past the Florentine fountain, murky and leaf-strewn as usual, dribbling happily under a gently setting sun. That, Mom hadn't painted, maybe in deference to Dr. Stan Guistone's memory.

Stan had lived in the house on North Corsair for four decades before marrying Mom and until he'd died, she'd changed nothing, including the photos of his deceased first wife set up like icons on an altar table in the cavernous entry hall.

During her years with Stan, Mom had Windexed Miriam Guistone's portraits religiously, pooh-poohed his offer to redecorate, held on to every stick of Miriam's clumsy Victorian Revival furniture.

She'd put up with the original gray-beige exterior that even Stan thought was dreary.

Dr. Stan was a good man. He deserved that level of consideration.

One week after he was laid into emerald-green Forest Lawn turf, the painters showed up at the house, as did the trucks from Goodwill. Bye-bye Agatha Christie, hello Georgia O'Keeffe: delivery vans bearing rooms full of the blocky, serape-draped “Southwest Revival motif” Mom had come to love during her yearly “centering” trips to Santa Fe.

Moe crossed the courtyard to the house. The front door opened and Mom trotted out in ballet slippers.

Her painting smock was a rainbow riot. Paint-pollocked turquoise leggings.

Still channeling Georgia with carefully tinted and highlighted chrome-white hair worn waist-length and French-braided, makeup calculated to look invisible, chunky silver and turquoise glinting from fingers, wrists, neck, ears.

Wind-seamed and thirty soft pounds heavier than her prime, Maddy looked ten years younger than her sixty-three. Or so she said everyone said.

Her own mother had been hale at ninety-one when she'd died in a car crash.

Genetics and lifestyle. One out of two isn't bad, boys.

She ran up to Moe, threw her arms around his waist, and hugged him hard. Stood back and touched his face, as if appraising a sculpture.

“You look great, Mosey. Vital and fit and purposeful. Despite the stress.”

Moe kissed her cheek. “You can tell all that in two seconds.”

“A mother knows.” Taking his hand, she guided him through the manse's big, vaulted rooms, into the kitchen that looked out over sycamore-studded canyons and the roofs of those less fortunate in the real estate game. Moe noticed another redo since his last visit: some of the cabinetry had been painted turquoise and drawers bore cutouts of eagle heads.

“Like it, Mosey?”

“Very appropriate.”

“Use it or lose it,” said Maddy. “I'm referring to creativity and change-shaking up the vitals. Coffee, tea, Postum, vodka, or Red Bull?”

“You've got Red Bull?”

“No, but I can have Pink Dot deliver.” She laughed. “You still take me seriously, God bless you. So what'll it be?”

“How about some water?”

“Ice or room, bubbly or flat?”

“Ice flat is fine.”

“My health-conscious baby… here you go, a nice chilled bottle of Evian. Which is naïve spelled backward, in case you haven't noticed.”

Moe sat and drank. Maddy lingered near the eight-burner Wolf range where a single pot simmered. “What are you working on art-wise, Mom?”

“Coloring within the lines.” She lifted the lid, peered inside. “Rabbinic cuisine is nearly ready.”