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2

Rick felt dread bloom in the pit of his stomach, cold and wet, like clammy flesh. He was only a few minutes from Ned’s place in Pacific Palisades, and Rick knew what he would find there, a crime scene in progress. He’d seen a million of them, but this wouldn’t look like anything he recognized. The corpse would not be a lifeless shell to be pitied, lamented and then analyzed down to the last gruesome detail. This was his friend, someone Rick knew only as warm, vital and human. Ned was a living, breathing part of him. And, worse, instead of wearing a badge that would give Rick jurisdiction over the nightmare, instead of taking charge and righting wrongs, he would be helpless to do anything.

His knuckles were blood-white against the steering wheel. He’d made the drive from the mountains to the beach in record time, despite having to ditch a cop in the foothills. The dread had been living inside him since he read the newspaper, but it hadn’t had a chance against his abject disbelief. Not Ned. No way. He couldn’t be dead. He was all that was left of their goofy boyhood dreams. He was supposed to carry the torch, be the man.

Rick had spaced out, driving without a thought to the consequences. But at some point, he’d noticed the vibration in his hands that had nothing to do with his grip on the steering wheel—and the explicable had dawned on him. His friend was dead, and Rick was probably to blame. If he’d listened last night instead of swimming in his own private pool of despair, he might have prevented this. He was guilty and friendless. He had nothing left and nowhere to go, yet his hands were vibrating, and he felt more alive than he had in weeks.

That wasn’t right. It was totally twisted. But there was no time to analyze it now. He’d been mired in self-analysis for days, weeks, and that wasn’t his style at all. Maybe anything that could drag him out of that muck would have sparked some life. But, God, why did it have to be this?

Ned Talbert’s turreted Moorish-style home was on a street that sloped toward the sea. It sat like a crown jewel in a neighborhood where selling prices ran into the millions, and the terraced bluffs below the house featured one palatial property after another.

Rick pulled in down the street from the house, giving himself time to scope things out. Yellow crime scene tape roped off the area, but other than that there was no sign of a CSI team or an active investigation. The deaths had occurred last night, according to the newspaper, some time before 11:00 p.m. Apparently Ned’s housekeeper had stopped by to drop off something she’d forgotten, found the bodies and called the police.

The way it looked now, the forensic guys must have done their work last night, packed up and gone. And so had the media, it seemed. Even a sports star’s lurid death couldn’t command attention for more than a few hours in celebrity-soaked L.A. There was money to be made on the living.

A lone police officer, young enough to be a rookie, sat in his car, clicking away on his cell, probably texting or playing games when he should have been standing guard at the door. Sloppy security, but not unusual with murder-suicides, where in theory the case was already solved before the cops got there. The victim and killer were all wrapped up in one neat bundle, a real timesaver. It was more than some overworked and underappreciated homicide investigators could resist, especially if all the evidence was there, including a suicide note.

But Ned would not have left a suicide note. Writing wasn’t his thing. He couldn’t even sign a birthday card without it sounding lame.

Rick could tell when a crime scene had been body-bagged and zipped up right along with the dead, and this one had, even before the lab results came in. Were the investigators already that certain about what had gone down, or were they more interested in getting rid of this case?

A cover-up? That was jumping the gun, but Rick’s mind was going there anyway. On the way down from the mountain, he had realized what the police could have found in Ned’s house. He was fairly certain the brass would want to keep it under wraps because of the scandal potential, even though the information was old news—very old—which was also why they wouldn’t connect it with the murder-suicide. But Rick could not get his mind around the idea that this was a murder-suicide, which only left one other possibility. Someone wanted Ned and his girlfriend dead.

Rick’s original plan had been to talk his way in. He’d worked with most of the guys at the West Side station at one point or another during his time at LAPD, and knew them well. Some of them had even gone to Ned’s games with him. Cops were a fraternity, as tightly bonded as the military, and they bent the rules for each other. All he wanted was to be escorted inside long enough to have a look around. Shouldn’t be a problem, except that he didn’t recognize the officer in the car, and his gut was telling him this wasn’t like every other crime scene.

Sweat dampened the close-cropped hair on Rick’s scalp. He needed to make his move now, while junior was still otherwise engaged. He slipped on his mirrored aviators, let himself out of the car and started for the house at a lope. With Ned’s front-door key clutched in his hand, he ducked down and swept past the black and white from behind and made it all the way to the porch before he heard the guy shout.

“Police! Stop where you are!”

Rick halted, but made no attempt to turn until he was told.

“Drop what you’re holding. Drop it!”

The house key clinked on the slate walk, dancing end over end until it hit the rise of the porch step.

“Put your hands up and turn around,” the officer barked. “Slowly.”

Rick turned, aware of the officer’s hand hovering over his hip holster. “The guy who lives here is my closest friend,” Rick said. “I just heard what happened. Please, I need to see him.”

The officer blinked, his sole expression of regret, if that’s what it was. “He’s not here. The bodies have been taken to the coroner’s office on Mission Boulevard. If a member of his family can’t be located, you may have to ID him.”

Rick wanted to slam the unfeeling words right down the guy’s throat. He would love to have decked him, but he understood that for some of these guys, lack of empathy was protection—if they bled over every victim, or even one, they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs—so Rick was going to give this SOB the benefit of the doubt.

Rick had never managed that kind of detachment on his watch. He’d been involved up to his neck, and look where that had landed him—on the sidewalk and looking for a job. He’d quit under fire, and probably just before they could fire him. He’d had the audacity to question policy decisions, but he didn’t regret any of it. Nor did he miss the politics and the red tape.

The officer peered at Rick, his brow furrowing. “You look familiar.”

Rick wondered if he’d made a mistake. He was pretty good when it came to names and faces, but he couldn’t place this guy. He just shrugged and left his glasses on. “I doubt it.”

The rookie should have asked to see ID and Rick’s car registration, but he let it go, maybe out of respect for the situation.

“Look, go over to the West L.A. station and tell them who you are. Maybe they’ll give you some information,” he suggested. “If you want, you can drop back tomorrow. The tape should be down by then.”

Rick pretended to be surprised. “They’ve already determined it was murder-suicide, like the newspaper said? What about burglary, a home invasion or some other kind of foul play? What if someone wanted it to look like murder-suicide? A jealous boyfriend? Or another ballplayer, trying to eliminate the competition? A rival team owner?”

The officer’s expression said Ned Talbert wasn’t that good an outfielder. “It was murder-suicide. Trust me, you don’t want to know what happened in there.”

The dread turned soft and queasy in Rick’s stomach. Something fetid coated the back of his throat. He would have said it was the tide, but the onshores rarely carried the sea smells this far. Most of the time, this area existed in a velvet-draped moneyed hush.

Rick didn’t want to know what had happened inside, but he had to find out. Ned wasn’t violent. He was a big chicken—not a coward, just a good-hearted, easygoing guy, who could leap like a ballet dancer to snag a fly and slam a ball into the next county. He would have made a terrible member of Delta Force. He didn’t like guns, and Rick had often kidded him about that, just the way Ned had dissed him about his fear of water. But even if Ned had that kind of violence in him, why kill himself and his girlfriend instead of the blackmailer?

Rick should have listened. He had nothing to go on, not even the most rudimentary details of the blackmail attempts. He didn’t know when, how often or why. But there was another reason Rick needed access to Ned’s house. Years ago, he’d given Ned a package for safekeeping. The police may have found the eight-by-eleven bubble pack in Ned’s safe, and Rick had to get it back, if it was still there. A part of him hoped this investigation was as cut-and-dried as the officer had suggested. It was why Rick hadn’t mentioned Ned’s concerns about blackmail, and wouldn’t.

3

Lane Chandler was doing four things at once, which was about two less than she normally did. She’d pulled up Gotcha.com, a tabloid Web site, on her computer screen, praying not to see any of her clients featured there. She was also mentally updating her to-do list, a never-ending task, and she was undressing…all while chatting with her favorite client on her cell-phone headset.

“She wants gangsta rappers for her sweet-sixteen party?” Lane draped her suit jacket over the back of her office chair and then perched on the edge of her desk, easing the pain of her obscenely overpriced new high heels. She turned enough to continue searching the Gotcha home page, but so far no clients in jail or rehab—and no mention of the one she was specifically looking for.

“Thank you, God,” she said, mouthing the words. She felt lighter, but it was too soon to relax. She had yet to check Jack the Giant Killer’s column.

“Jerry,” she implored her headset, “say no! Someday your daughter will thank you for refusing to book the Gutter Punk Bone Dawgs for her special day.”

“Say no to my Felicity? I’d stand a better chance against the Bone Dawgs.”

Jerry’s loud snort of laughter made Lane wince. She turned away from the computer screen to give her shoes a dark look. The way her day had gone, if her high-profile clients didn’t kill her the Manolo Blahniks would. Fortunately, she had Jerry on the phone rather than in her office, so he couldn’t see her torturing the side slit of her skirt as she bent over and pulled off the exotic footwear that was cutting her insteps to ribbons.

She sighed with relief as she sank her feet into the plush office carpet. Who invented these stilts, the Marquis de Sade? A woman in high heels was supposed to be a sexual thing, creating an inviting tilt to the pelvis and a sensual swivel when she walked. But only a guy into serious S&M could love the pain on this woman’s face.

“Lane, is that heavy breathing?”

“That’s me, in ecstasy. I took off my shoes, and I’m warning you, the Spanx are next.”

Silence. She couldn’t have shocked him. Not Jerry. He wasn’t shockable, and they often bantered. It was all in good fun. He was a big sweet bear of a man with a thick head of brown hair and a matching beard. He ran one of the largest discount chains in the country and he was among her top five clients, if you ranked by sheer business clout, but he was also her mentor and someone she could let down her hair with, which she was about to do right now, before the tightly embedded hair clip gave her a migraine.

She reached into the back of her upswept do and freed the claws that held the heavy mahogany waves off her neck.

“Spanx are panty hose, Jerry.”

“I know,” he chided. “I have a daughter. But you should know by now that I don’t have a thing for feet. Now, if you’d said earrings, that would be different. A woman’s naked lobes make the back of my neck sweat.”

“Earrings next, my love.”

“You tease.”

She laughed and was suddenly glad he’d called, even though she’d been trying desperately to close up shop and go home. She ran a private concierge service that had been growing like topsy up until very recently. But this had been another day from hell in a week of days from hell. She couldn’t believe anyone could make her laugh, but Jerry had. He always did, which was why she’d taken his call at this late hour instead of letting the service put him through to Zoe, his own private concierge.

Jerry was one of forty-five top-tier clients, who paid up to fifty thousand dollars a year for Lane’s Premiere Plan. They each had a private concierge devoted solely to their needs, who oversaw no less than six rotating concierges with different specialties, who were also at their beck and call around the clock. But Jerry wouldn’t necessarily be able to talk freely with Zoe about his very spoiled daughter—and Lane owed him so much anyway. He really was more than a mentor, much more, but not in a romantic way. They flirted a bit, but he’d never even come close to making a pass at her. Sometimes she wondered why not.

She slipped off her clip earrings and shook her head, aware of the caress of her hair, cool against her burning face. It had been a hard day, a terrible day, possibly the worst of her career. Normally she would have been frustrated at having to deal with a sweet-sixteen party when it felt as if everything she’d struggled and sacrificed for was imploding. She would have done it, though, because that was her job description. She took care of all her clients, and Jerry was a vital one.

But right now, maybe she needed one client she could actually help.

“Seriously, Jerry, you should consider saying no to Felicity.” She spoke softly, pleadingly, as she worked her kirt up, hooked her thumbs into the waistline of her ultra-stretchy Spanx and dragged them down. “I know how much you love her,” she went on, making her case as she peeled off the panty hose, “but the Bone Dawgs have a criminal record, and more important, if you don’t draw the line somewhere, Felicity will never learn to respect her limits—or others’.”

“Lane, when did you turn into Mother Superior?”

“Actually, I was trying for Dr. Phil.” So much for reasoning with Jerry. She stepped out of the Spanx and wanted to moan it felt so good. Her flesh was celebrating. Why was everything so tight? If stress caused water retention, then she was a dam about to burst. “How many are coming to this party?”

“Felicity hasn’t given me the final count, but I’m estimating half her class at St. Mary’s, which is a hundred, another twenty-five from her church group and that many again from company friends, my various clubs, colleagues and vendors.”

Lane began to calculate, adding up numbers and aware that the amounts her clients were willing to spend on lavish parties could still shock her, especially with the country’s struggling economy. Still, she had a job to do and a payroll to meet for her own employees, who now numbered several hundred around the country.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s say two hundred guests to allow for long-lost cousins, last-minute invites and party crashers. Kids love to crash these things. That’s half the fun. Does she still want the Avalon ballroom in Catalina? That means a charter cruise ship for transportation—and the talent will have to be flown in and flown out the same night, or put up at the island’s luxury condos. The guests are staying over, aren’t they?”

“Some will, I’m sure. As you said, whatever they prefer.”

She undid the button of her skirt and tugged at the silk camisole. “We’ll get a count when they RSVP. It’s good of you to be this involved, Jerry.” He could have had a personal assistant do it, or hired a party planner to work with his daughter. Most single dads with his bank account would have.

“It’s for Felicity.”

Anything less wasn’t an option. His voice said that, unequivocally. Lane could hear rap music playing on his end and smiled. At times like now, she worried how far he would go to make Felicity happy, and whether he was trying too hard to compensate for what had happened when Felicity was twelve. Her mother, Jerry’s ex-wife, had become despondent during their custody battle, knowing she was almost certain to lose custody of her child because of her drug use, and she had taken an overdose that proved fatal.

“This is going to be a great party, Jerry.” Lane walked across the carpet, bare of foot and shoulder, aware of her image flickering from the glass doors of her bookcases to the office’s wraparound windows. Her thoughts turned inward as the party unfolded in her mind. She could see revolving glitter balls, servers dressed like Bonnie and Clyde, drinks in crystal bathtub-shaped punch bowls, maybe even a fabulous antique car or two on display. It would be a twenties gangster theme, featuring a rapper band with no priors.

This was her forte, organizing and strategizing to create the client’s vision. She pulled gently on the tattered green rubber band she wore on her left wrist, calming as she took in her surroundings. She loved this office. Despite the frenetic activity during the day, at night it was an oasis of calm and monastic order. Her burlwood desk was so highly varnished the gloss could have been liquid, and the room’s muted lighting allowed her to see the bright twinkling lights of Century City, receding toward the Pacific coast.

“I’m thinking gangster theme, Jerry, but from the twenties.”

Reaching up to unbutton her blouse, she continued to ask questions and make mental notes of Jerry’s answers. It was oddly freeing walking around barefoot and taking off her clothes. She should do it more often…just strip down to nothing. She shivered as the silk blouse slid down her arms.

“Maybe a mix of past and present?” he suggested.

“Even better.”

“Lane, are you all right? You sound breathless.”

“Yes, fine. I’m changing clothes.”

“In that case, put on the videophone.”

“It’s not that exciting, Jerry, believe me. I’m changing into my sweats. I’m going to get one of my concierge staff to drive my car home, and I’m going to walk.”

“One of those days? Must have been a doozy if you’re walking home.”

“You have no idea. This day was spawned in the lowest level of hell and flung at me by the devil’s henchmen on thundering steeds.” She couldn’t give him the details. It would breach client confidentiality, but she needed to vent. She was gut-level terrified—and she rarely allowed herself to feel anything resembling fear. She controlled it with a game she’d played all her life, a silly game that worked.

“Lane, I know what’s happened to Simon Shan and Captain Crusader, if that’s what you’re talking about, and I don’t know what to say. It’s tragic. There’s been little else on the news the last couple of weeks. I have a call in to Burt, but he hasn’t returned it.”

Jerry also knew the two men were her clients because he’d referred them both, Burton Carr, the activist U.S. congressman, whom he’d affectionately referred to as Captain Crusader, and Shan more recently. Simon Shan was currently the hottest ticket in town, even considering the mess he was in. Everyone had expected the next Martha Stewart to be a woman, but Shan, a London-based fashion designer of Chinese descent, had stolen her spotlight while no one was looking. He did everything with a focus, precision and freshness that made all the other lifestyle gurus look like amateurs.

He’d gotten his start by designing and creating his own unique casual look for women. His first full line was a smash, and he’d gone from there into makeup and accessories. Eventually he’d partnered with an upscale discount chain, the Goldstar Collection, and branched into furniture, linens, decor, parties, gardening, everything. He was also tall, lean and singularly attractive, creating great speculation about his sexual preferences—and an instant mystique. No one had counted on the next lifestyle icon being male, Asian and very possibly straight.

His downfall was drugs, but not just any old drugs. Opium. He admitted to having tried it once as a boy in Taiwan, where he grew up an only child to a doting mother and an authoritarian father. The opium use was little more than teenage curiosity, but his father had been outraged. He’d sent Shan away to a boarding school in London, not realizing it would change the boy’s life forever.

Shan swore that was the extent of his own drug use. But several pounds of it were found in the trunk of his Bentley, and because he imported most of his furniture, textiles and other goods from Asia, he was also charged with smuggling the opium into the country. The charges had forced him to step back from his role as Goldstar’s spokesperson. But at least he’d had enough money to hire the best legal help, and he was out on bail, awaiting arraignment.

The congressman’s downfall had shocked Lane to her core. The feds had found child pornography on his computer in his D.C. office. Lane still couldn’t fathom it. Even if Burton Carr was a pedophile, which she didn’t believe for a second, why would he view child porn on his office computer? He’d always supported the fight for legislation to protect children, including the now-famous Amber Alert. He clearly cared deeply about people in general. On the national level, he’d worked doggedly to pass a bill compelling the large discount chains to offer benefits to workers, including heath care—and he’d cited Jerry Blair as one of the country’s most progressive CEOs, and his company, TopCo, as an example of how a discount chain could—and should—be run.

Carr was one of her heroes. Actually, both men were.

“Lane?”

“Jerry, can we shelve the party discussion for tonight? There’s plenty of time to iron out the details, and I’m really beat.”

“Sure, but do me a favor, don’t walk home. It’s not safe.”

“I’ve done it before, Jerry. The path I take is lit up like a movie premiere, and I don’t live that far—”

“Lane, humor me, okay?”

“Okay, no walking tonight.”

“I mean forever, Lane. Don’t walk home—not tonight, not ever again.”

“Well, geez, Jerry. I am thirty years old, and there are some decisions I feel qualified to make—”

“Yes, you are, but this is not a good one, Lane.”

She was nodding to herself as he spoke. This was why Jerry Blair was a good CEO. He took care of people. He was one of the few people who’d ever taken care of her, and she loved him for it. She stopped short of telling him that, but with the words balling up in her throat, she said, “Uncle.”

They said their goodbyes and as she hung up the phone, she felt the pain twist into sharpness. It nearly took her breath away, but she never had understood why her heart turned into a cutting tool at times. Loneliness, maybe. There wasn’t time to analyze it. There never was.

Ignoring the ache in her chest, she went back to the gossip site and clicked on Jack the Giant Killer’s byline. She had no choice. The paparazzo stalker was becoming famous for bringing down the infamous, especially since he limited his targets to those who abused their power and position. And he didn’t stick to celebs, either. Jack had outed Burton Carr—and listed Carr as one of The Private Concierge’s clients on the Gotcha site. And now Lane was terrified that Jack might have done it again with another client, someone she just signed yesterday.

Jerry Blair knew about the Carr and Shan scandals, but he didn’t know about Lane’s new client, and she hadn’t told him. She wasn’t sure she could—or should—tell anyone, including the police. Ned Talbert had signed his contract yesterday morning and late last night he’d killed his girlfriend, then killed himself. Lane had been struggling with disbelief all day.

She’d had three clients involved in felonies or capital crimes in just three weeks’ time. And then there was Judge Love earlier this year. Love had presided over a popular television-courtroom show and was known for her toughness until her lurid private life became public, all of this thanks to JGK, as the Giant Killer had become known. Lane had found herself right in the middle of that scandal because one of her key people had decided to confront the Gotcha people personally. The site’s owner swore that JGK operated under total anonymity, e-mailing or dropping his material at various specified locations. No one knew who JGK was, but Gotcha took pains to verify everything he gave them, including the raunchy Judge Love video.

Right now, Lane was terrified that her service would look like a hotbed of criminal activity. No one would come near her.

She clicked off the Web site and shut down her computer.

Everywhere she looked she could see herself, only she didn’t look liberated in her undone skirt and flimsy camisole top. She looked exposed. She was heartsick about what had happened to her clients, including Ned. She knew them all as good men who couldn’t have done what they were accused of, but sadly there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to protect them. The problems were escalating, and Lane had to think of herself, as well. A concierge service was its clients. If the clients went down, the service went down with them.

She opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out Ned’s application. She hadn’t given it to anyone yet to process, and she’d handled the credit-card transaction herself. Her receptionist and assistant, Mary, had been out on a break, and Lane had been watching the desk. So, no one knew about Ned Talbert but her. And no one could know.