“Pushed? She wasn’t pushed, ” Danny wailed. “We were sleeping. I woke up and she was gone. I went looking for her. She was supposed to be asleep…”
Barstow’s face showed shock. His voice was high, bordering on hysteria when he said to Danny, “I know, Danny, I know. Come back to the house with me. We’ll get some clothes on you. I’ve got Xanax. We’ll take care of this. Come on, Danny.”
Justine stood still, blinking in the dark, trying to absorb Rick’s terrible news.
Piper Winnick was dead in this remote place, and no one had been with her but Danny.
Justine didn’t know Piper, had never met her, but she’d met Danny. And she had contracted for Private to keep him at close range.
He’d ditched them. That was a deal breaker, and she thought that was defensible in court-but what was terrifying her now was the possibility that Danny was capable of violence, and she hadn’t seen that.
Had her ego gotten the best of her? Had she missed a signal that had cost a girl her life?
Schuster and Barstow were trying to move Danny back up the trail, but Danny was resisting, shouting at them that he didn’t want to leave Piper alone.
Koulos was back in Justine’s face. He raged, “And now, because he got away from you, Piper is dead. My movie is dead too. I’m ruined. Ruined.”
Justine was still holding her phone, but her hand was shaking.
“You making the call?” Rick asked her.
She nodded and dialed 911.
CHAPTER 80
Justine had just opened her front door when her phone rang. She hit the light switch in the foyer. Rocky barked, ran to her, and threw himself against her thighs.
She tousled his ears, tossed the car keys onto the console, and checked the caller ID on her phone. It was Danny’s manager, Larry Schuster.
What did he want now? Was this another threat to sue?
She was still shaking from the sickening events of the past few hours: the dead teenage movie star, the threats from Mervin Koulos, and the pitiful arrest of Danny Whitman, who’d kicked and screamed until three cops managed to stuff him into the cruiser.
Justine said hello into the phone.
“Do you still work for us?” Schuster asked.
“You’re kidding, Larry. Danny broke our contract when he drove away from the set-”
“He drove away from the set, but he’s innocent of everything else.”
“Larry, I’m sorry for Danny and sorry for you, but we’re out of this. It’s time you got lawyers involved.”
“Just talk to him. Let him tell you what’s going on.”
“Larry, he’s told me. He feels like someone else is running his life, but as I understand it, no one told him to run off with Piper Winnick this morning-and now she’s dead.”
“They’re seeing each other. They’re involved. They went to sleep and when he woke up, she was gone. He didn’t push her off that cliff. He went looking for her and he found her down there.”
“Maybe the studio’s lawyers are good enough to settle the rape case, Larry, but if Danny were my client, I’d get the best criminal-defense attorney in California. There should be a dozen five-star cannons who would love to defend Danny Whitman. Geragos, Tacopina-”
“I’m at the medical services building at Twin Towers,” Schuster said. “The police left Danny alone for a minute and he took a head-first run at the wall in the interrogation room.”
“Are you kidding? How badly is he hurt?”
“It’s a pretty good concussion. He’s depressed. He was in love with Piper. Do you understand?”
“I don’t understand, Larry. What do you want from me?”
“You’re a shrink. And Danny trusts you. He asked me to get you, and I said I would try.”
“I’m a shrink, but I’m not Danny’s shrink.”
“I told the cops that you are so that I could get you in to see him. Will you just talk to him? Maybe you can make some sense of this, Dr. Smith, because I know Danny very well. I’ve seen him every day for the last four years, and I’m telling you, Danny didn’t kill anybody.”
Justine was exhausted, stressed out, sleep deprived, and now she was conflicted too.
Should she go see Danny because he was still her client and he had asked for her?
Or should she wait until she’d spoken to Jack and Private’s lawyer, Eric Caine?
Nefertiti rubbed against her.
Justine bent to pet her cat.
Everything about Danny Whitman was bothering her. Was he a psychopath? Was that why neither she nor Larry Schuster had seen Danny’s potential for violence? Or was he a lamb, as innocent as Schuster said?
For her own peace of mind, she had to know.
“Dr. Smith?” Schuster said.
“I’m here.”
It was an hour’s drive to Twin Towers in traffic. Getting past the bureaucracy at TTCF could take all day, and she still might not get to see Danny.
“I’m being paged,” said Schuster. “I’ve left your name at the main gate.”
CHAPTER 81
In the four hours since Justine had last seen Danny Whitman, he’d been transferred from Lost Hills, the best jail in the state, to TTCF.
He was now in the Twin Towers medical services building, which was packed to the walls with prisoners, many of them mentally unbalanced.
She’d worked in places like this one. They were never good.
After being patted down again and sent through a metal detector again, Justine stood in the doorway and looked around.
The rectangular room had armed guards on both sides of the door, bars in the small high windows, fresh industrial-green paint on the walls, and a pervasive, almost punishing odor of disinfectant.
She located Danny in one of the hospital beds, two down from the glass-enclosed nursing station. He had two black eyes, wore a paper robe and a gauze turban, and he was handcuffed to the bed rails.
Justine had been told that she had fifteen minutes with Danny, no physical contact permitted, and that if she broke that rule, her meeting with Danny would be terminated immediately.
Danny looked up when she came toward him. He appeared happier to see her than she had expected. She hardly knew him. What did he think she could do for him?
Justine pulled a plastic chair up to the side of the bed. “We don’t have much time, Danny. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Piper and I were in love, but we couldn’t tell anyone because of her age, and listen, the paparazzi-”
“I’m sorry, Danny. The short version, okay?”
Justine was assessing him. Did he comprehend? Was he lucid? Was he truthful? Was he living in this time and place or in a world of his own creation?
“Yesterday morning when we were setting up in the Ferrari, Piper said to me, ‘Too bad we can’t just get out of here,’ and I was thinking with my heart. We’d never spent the night together…It was a great opportunity…I drove to the cabin I bought last year under a fake name. Oh, God. If I’d used my brain, she’d still be alive.”
He was crying again.
“Danny. In twelve minutes, I’ll be thrown out of here, so please talk to me. Did you have a fight with
