“Okay,” he said. “Fair enough. I’ll call down for a cab for us.”

“No,” she said. “I have to go alone.”

“No chance.”

“Daniel, she’s freaked out. The only way she’ll help is if it’s just me.”

“So I won’t go in with you—”

“Yeah, because a strange man in a cab at the end of her driveway is going to be reassuring.”

“Laney—”

“I have to do this alone.”

He drummed his fingers together. He’d just found her again, and nothing in him wanted to be parted for even a minute. On the other hand, Laney wasn’t some useless woman in a horror film. She’d been alone for the last week. And let’s not forget that she’s not the one with a broken brain. “How long will it take?”

“An hour. Maybe two.”

“You’ll be really careful?”

“Of course.”

“If anything at all seems suspicious. If someone follows you, or the girl seems like maybe she’s hiding something.”

“Trust me. I’m not going to take any risks.”

Daniel set his sandwich down, grabbed his beer, walked to the window. Stared out at the city beyond.

“I think this is the right thing to do,” Laney said from behind him. “But if you really don’t want me to, I won’t.”

It’s a big city. Bennett can’t watch all of it. And she’s right—if you go to the police, there’s a good chance that she’ll be truly on her own. Not for an hour or two, but for days, maybe weeks.

None of it did much for the fear in his belly. He raised the bottle to his lips, realized it was empty.

“Take the gun,” he said.

5

Before she left, Laney called Robert. It took her two minutes to convince him it was really her, and another five to calm him down. Finally, she cut in. “Robert, I promise, I’ll tell you everything, everything, but later, okay? Right now I need your help.”

“Of course, sorry. I’m just so . . . god, I don’t even know what the word is. What can I do?”

“Lend me your car?” Neither she nor Daniel knew how long the police would be at the Farmers Market, but it hardly seemed worth the risk. And she trusted Robert to keep quiet.

“Sweetie, you can have my car.”

Laney smiled. “Can you do me a favor and bring it to me?” “Where are you?”

“The Beverly Wilshire.”

“Wonderful place to be dead. We’re between takes, but I’ll play

the diva card.”

“No, no need. Just bring it when you’re done.” She gave him their

room number. “Leave it with the valet?”

“Wait, what? I want to see you.”

“I know. Me too. But I can’t risk it.”

“Why not?”

“We have to stay out of sight—”

“We?”

“Daniel and I.”

“Daniel.” Robert might have been saying “hemorrhoids.” “Yes. My husband?” She knew that he and Daniel had some friction. Male territorialism, heightened by the fact that the three of

them worked together. “Listen, now’s not the time. I just need your

help. Will you help me?”

“Of course. But why the secrecy? Can you at least tell me that?” “I’m sorry. I can’t, not right now.”

There was a long pause. “Are you all right, Laney?” “No,” she said. “But we’re working on it.”

By the soft lighting of the bathroom, she reapplied her port wine

stain, steadily painting on a false face. Afterward, she showed Daniel the full charge on her cell phone, the almost-full magazine of

the Sig Sauer. She rose up on tiptoes to kiss her husband. Then she

walked out of the suite and down the hall and took the elevator to the lobby and stepped out into the cheery sunlight of another

perfect Los Angeles afternoon.

All without letting one hint of the lie show on her features. You’re no longer Laney Thayer. You’re Elaine Hayes. The first

name was your mother’s; the last is your husband’s. You’re the

private side of a public person, the one who would rather spend

Saturday night playing Scrabble and splitting a bottle of red than

playing starlet and strutting a red carpet. You stand straight and

look people in the eye, but you don’t pose or preen. Your sunglasses

are regular size.

She’d repeated it to herself as she walked the streets of Beverly

Hills, headed not for a taxi and an imaginary girl in West Hollywood, but here, this bland institution, this lobby with its fake plants

and fluorescent lights and insipid carpeting. What was it about a

bank that made everyone so quiet? Any other situation where people stood in line, they chatted and joked and answered cell phones.

But in the implied presence of money, everything went quiet, the

only sounds the shuffle of paper. An occasional cough, or the rustle

of a sleeve as someone glanced at a watch.

There are cameras and security guards and yours is a famous

face. If someone recognizes you . . .

“Can I help you?” The greeter looked fresh-scrubbed, his suit

nice but not stylish, his cheeks pink.

“Yes,” she said. “I have a safe deposit box?” Letting her voice go

higher at the end to emphasize that it didn’t hold false passports and

unregistered weapons, but the kind of documents regular people

might store there, and that thus it was something not often visited.

That this was a small novelty, but not worth noting.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “Come with me, Ms. . . .” “Hayes.”

“Ms. Hayes.” He led her to an empty desk—why were there always empty desks at banks?—and sliding behind it, “May I see

your driver’s license?”

She nodded, dug her wallet from her purse, slid out her ID. The