restaurants of the moment, clubs that didn’t have signs. But Daniel

had taken her to an East L.A. taco joint, the kind with laminated

menus and piñatas. He was the first guy she could remember who

didn’t flaunt or flex. Instead he asked about growing up in Chicago.

About her first kiss. Over margaritas he talked about coming from

Arkansas—something the others would never have admitted, not in this town where everyone pretended they’d sprung full-formed from the froth of the cold Pacific—and about his regrets over the relationship with his family. Then, just when things were getting a little serious, he told that stupid joke of his, about sex with twenty sevenyear-olds, and the way he said it was so gleeful and innocent that she couldn’t help laughing, and by the time he drove her home in his Sentra, she’d known that this was what it was supposed to be like, two people connecting, not shiny dangled bait, not motorcycle bad boys, not full-time glamour, but this, two people who talked and

listened and laughed.

Plus he was a really good kisser.

She looked at him now, at his earnest expression and goofy hair

and burning eyes, and she thought, So we’ll lose. Bennett will take

from you the only thing he hasn’t yet. At least your secret will stay

secret.

You’re an actress. Act.

“I committed all the way years ago.” She held his gaze, matched

it. “What do we do next?”

Something happened to his body, his affect—his shoulders

relaxed, his eyes warmed, his lips unclenched. It was as though

her support was the fuel he needed. “The necklace. I was thinking about it. Do we have a safe deposit box, a storage locker,

anything like that?”

Laney felt a tremor rise, killed it before it made it to her face.

“No.”

“Perfect. Then it has to be at the house.”

“Why?”

“It was there the day you died, right?”

“You think you hid it?”

“It was the worst day of my life. Would I have given a damn

about a necklace? I probably just threw it in a drawer.” He rubbed at his chin with a sandpaper sound. His eyes were red, and he badly

needed a shave. “Only thing I don’t get . . .”

“What?”

“Well, I knew about B ennet t, right? T hat he was blackmailing us.” “Yes.”

“And since I thought you were dead, I must have thought he was

responsible. If I believed that, why didn’t I grab a gun and go after

him? Maybe he’d have killed me, but I wanted to die anyway, and

better to do it trying to pay him back. But it doesn’t seem like I even

tried, and I don’t know why.”

Laney stared. Desperate to think of an improvisation that would

make sense to him. When nothing came, she just said, “I don’t

know, baby. Maybe you didn’t want that on your conscience.” “Come on. I’m sure it’s not easy to kill someone, but that fucker?”

Daniel scowled. “There had to be a reason. Either that, or I really

don’t like the guy I was very much.”

“I do,” she said, and put a hand on his cheek. She smiled, then

changed the subject. “So, the necklace.”

“First we have to figure something out. This all depends on the

location. I was thinking the airport, but it won’t work. We’d need

tickets to go through security, and we can’t show our ID. Can you

think of somewhere else that has metal detectors?”

Laney clicked her tongue against her lip. Metal detectors. Hospitals might have them, in the emergency room. Government buildings, but Bennett would never go for that. A school, but then, no way. She stared out the window at the low sprawl of Los Angeles. The

angle of the sun sharpened contrasts. The 405 crawled along.

The sky was crisscrossed with contrails. A billboard for Die Today

faced the window, Too G pointing a gun at them. A lot of people made fun of rappers who tried to become movie stars, but as

a model turned actress, her horse wasn’t any higher than theirs. And really, it was too bad that other than Will Smith and Mos Def and Queen Latifah, all they got were movies about urban gangsters and slums and drug dealers. In order to get a role, they had to

maintain all the trappings of ghetto toughness—

Laney laughed. “Want to go to a party?”

5

It was like fishing. Not that Bennett had ever been fishing, but he’d read Hemingway. He liked Ernest. The man would have been hard to beat. When it came to his sinning, he was up-front and unabashed. And he was a self-contained dude too. Hence all the wives.

Anyway, from what Ernest had to say about fishing, if you were fighting a big one, you had to let it out some before you pulled it in. You couldn’t just yank the whole time, or the line would break.

So he’d given them the night. Let them twist and run and flounder, wear themselves down trying to fight his hook. Let them run the options over and over and over trying to think of a way out.

When his phone rang, he was taking in the sun on Jerry D’Agostino’s pool deck, shirtless and pants rolled up so his feet could dangle in the water. He answered without looking at the display. “Morning. You sleep okay?”

“You win.” Daniel sounded ragged. “We’ll pay your blood money.

But there are conditions. First, you stay away from us. Forever.” “You got my word.”

“Second, we’re going to do it where we choose, not you.” “No.”

“Listen to me, you psychopath. You wanted to scare us? It

worked. We’re scared. And we’re not going to meet anywhere you can hurt us.”

“Sociopath.”

“Huh?”

“I’m really neither, but probably closer to a sociopath. A psychopath is in it for the fun. I don’t get off on hurting people. I’m just willing to do it for money.” He swung his legs, watching sunlight dance on the bottom of the pool. Were they recording this? It didn’t matter. All they’d end up with was a voice on a tape, and a phone number he would walk away from tomorrow. “Anyway, what do you have in mind? What will make you feel safe, brother?”