its eyes remained open), even as Lia slipped in behind the wheel of her Mazda.
Black Tom appeared in her passenger seat, nodded to his girl, and they drove off together.
Twenty minutes later they walked into Paty’s, a little coffee shop Lia favored, down near the film studios in Burbank. The restaurant was quiet now between the major mealtime rushes, an hour at which she might normally have come in to sit for a while and snack and read a book, especially on a rainy day. There was little she found cozier than lingering over a warm cup of tea on a gray morning. She wished she was here on that sort of pleasant errand right now.
But no. Business first.
Lia spotted her contact waiting in the furthest booth. Alone. Back-to. With a shawl over her blazing red hair. She went over and sat down across from the unmistakable woman, regretting for the first time that she’d chosen to meet at a place she wanted to come back to.
“Ms. Redstone,” she said, by way of greeting.
Ingrid looked up.
She was shockingly gorgeous, in Lia’s opinion, with gleaming copper hair, a porcelain complexion, and curves everywhere you looked. Although she appeared to be just a few years older than Lia herself, she affected a sort of old-Hollywood glamour in her stylistic choices. Retro all the way. It really did work for her, though. Ingrid Redstone was a hard one not to look at. She should’ve been a movie star.
Black Tom sat down right next to the radiant lady, who failed to acknowledge him. Making himself solid enough to be seen by ordinary folks depleted Tom’s energies fast, so he usually appeared only within the confines of Lia’s trained and receptive mind. She’d long ago taught herself not to focus on him when she was out in public.
Ingrid smiled through her aura of elegant sadness. She was actually wearing white satin gloves that went all the way up to her elbows. Lia had to imagine she’d also have an ivory cigarette holder secreted away inside her tiny purse.
“Lia,” Ingrid said. “It’s good to see you again. Please, don’t make me wait. Were you able to find anything?”
“I–I’m afraid not,” Lia said.
Ingrid stared at her. It was clearly not the answer she’d expected.
“
Lia looked down at her hands, which were folded on the tabletop. “I’m sorry, no,” she said. “The building was abandoned. Completely empty.”
“Yes, but-”
“Listen, Ms. Redstone,” Lia interrupted, before Ingrid could protest further. “I don’t think your brother was ever up there. I don’t think
“But… no,” Ingrid insisted. “I’m
Black Tom raised an eyebrow, but Lia shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she lied.
Ingrid hung her head, struggling not to cry. Black Tom mimed a clicky-clicky motion, in reference to the cigarette lighter they had indeed found the night before. Lia glared at him for a split second, though she was certain Ingrid couldn’t have seen it.
“But…” Ingrid’s voice quavered, on the verge of breaking. She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes downcast. “But I
“The lock I jimmied hadn’t been touched in twenty years, probably more,” Lia said, and Black Tom nodded his expert concurrence with that opinion. “And besides, I didn’t see any evidence of the sort of thing you thought your brother was involved in. Believe me, it leaves evidence. If what you’re worried about
Ingrid nodded, trying to pull herself together. “That’s about what the private investigator said, too. The regular one. I just thought maybe you… someone like you…”
“I thought so, too,” Lia said. “But there wasn’t anything to see.”
The disappointment visibly crushed Ingrid’s frail hopes. She choked on a sob before she buried her face in her gloved hands and moaned: “Then he’s just
The woman was desolated, her shoulders quaking as she hid her face and fought not to make a public scene. The manager and a busboy were both looking in their direction, aware of Ingrid’s distress though not yet concerned enough to intervene.
Lia felt sick, but she still had an uncomfortable agenda here. “It-it’s important…” she began carefully, looking at a large, wine-colored garnet that Ingrid wore on a silver chain around her neck, instead of up into her eyes. “I mean, it’s probably best that you don’t, you know… go back there. Or send anyone else.”
“Oh?” Ingrid said, a touch of suspicion drawing her sable brows together into the slightest hint of a frown.
“Yeah,” Lia said. Rather lamely, she thought. “It’s just… well, I know it’s hard, but sometimes, if people who get involved in these sorts of things need to disappear… it’s really better to let them.”
“I see,” Ingrid said, sitting back and dabbing at her eyes with a paper napkin. “Well. We never did properly discuss your, ah… compensation. For your efforts. Did we?”
Lia uncomfortably waved off the suggestion of money. “Just move on,” she said. “For your own sake. That’s all I ask.”
Ingrid seemed about to protest, but then she crumbled and nodded in miserable resignation.
Lia got up. “I wish there was more I could do,” she said.
“Thank you,” Ingrid replied. “Anyway.”
Lia nodded and hurried out of the restaurant.
Black Tom lingered on in the booth next to Ingrid, watching Lia go.
Ingrid sat there, quietly weeping, until Tom eventually got up and left her, too. If her tears were insincere, he thought, then she was one hell of an actress.
Around the next block, he walked up to Lia’s vehicle as she was unlocking it. She looked at him across the roof. He looked back benignly.
“Shut up,” she told him. Then she got into the car. Impassive, Black Tom did likewise (without going to the bother of opening a door).
Inside the Mazda, where people were less likely to notice her talking to herself (not that it made much of an impression anymore, since the advent of cellphones and Bluetooth earpieces), she turned to Black Tom and said: “What do you want me to do? Really?”
Black Tom, predictably, said nothing.
“The important thing is that nobody else goes up there, isn’t it?”
Black Tom shrugged and Lia grew quiet, thinking about it. “What’s up in that office is beyond us,” she murmured. “You know that better than anyone.”
Black Tom conceded the point with the barest of nods.
“And we need to look out for
Black Tom nodded again.
“Well, then? That’s what I’m doing.”
Tom nodded a third time, but with much less certainty. It was still affirmation enough for Lia. She started up the car.
When they drove past the restaurant, headed westbound down Riverside, Tom glimpsed Ingrid through the establishment’s big front windows. Just a flash of her, like a snapshot. The astonishing redhead was still sitting in their booth, dialing a cellphone and raising it to her ear.