“But you didn’t,” Boone said.
“Well, I haven’t,” she said.
Maybe she just got lazy, or complacent. Maybe it was all too difficult, too hard to understand. Maybe she just didn’t have the confidence to think she could actually pull it off. And maybe . . . maybe her feelings for Bill were . . . complicated.
Then the whole thing with Corey happened and she didn’t have the heart to “pile on,” and Bill hadn’t demanded anything of her lately, and she just kind of forgot about it. Then . . .
Paradise Homes collapsed.
Bill freaked out, just freaked out. He was on the phone to Phil all the time. He was calling lawyers, insurance people . . . it was horrible. Bill was a mess—first the thing with his kid, then this. He was sure he was going to lose everything. Especially if Phil got weak-kneed and couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Or if he sold himself to the higher bidder, Boone thought. And Blasingame was right—he could lose everything. If a criminal conspiracy were even alleged, a plaintiff could walk right through his corporation and sue him personally. Take his bank account, his investments, his real property . . . his house, his cars, his clothes.
And no wonder he’s in a hurry to get his son’s case out of the newspapers. The longer the spotlight stays on the Blasingame name, the more digging people do, the more likely someone is to connect him to Paradise Homes and the landslide disaster. He had all this shit going on. . . .
Then Schering was killed and Nicole got scared.
Bill said apparently it was some kind of jealousy thing—Phil was banging another guy’s wife, was the rumor —and that it had
“But you didn’t,” Boone said.
She didn’t.
She didn’t keep them all, but she kept the really tasty ones.
119
“It’s beautiful,” she says, watching the sun go down. “Just beautiful. I’m usually still at work . . .”
“It has a way of putting things in perspective,” Boone says. He lets a few seconds go by before he says, “I need those records, Nicole.”
“They’re my safety net.”
“Until he knows you have them. Then they’re a danger.” Rule of thumb: If you know where the bodies are buried, sooner or later you’re going to be one of them.
“You think he killed Schering?”
“You don’t?” Boone asks. “You of all people know what he’s capable of. Nicole, he might already be thinking about what he told you when he was drunk.”
“I know.”
“If I have the records, I can help you,” Boone says. “I’ll take you to a cop I know—”
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“You won’t,” Boone assures her. “Once your story is on the record, it’s done. You’re safe. There’s no point in anyone doing you harm. But the records prove your story. Without them . . .”
“. . . I’m just a bimbo secretary with a nose-candy problem.”
He doesn’t say anything. There’s no response to that—she’s dead on.
Nicole scans the view, the long, curving stretch of coastline from La Jolla Point to the south, all the way down past Scripps Pier toward Oceanside. Some of the most valuable real estate on earth, some of it built on land that never should have been built on. She says, “So I’m supposed to trust you.”
He gets it, totally. Why should she trust him? Or some cop she doesn’t know? Why should she trust any public official? She’s seen them bribed and bought—helped to do it herself.
A new idea, a fresh fear, hits her. “How do I know Bill didn’t send you? You work for him. How do I know he didn’t send you to find out what I know, get what I have?”
She’s on the edge of panic. Boone has seen it before, not just on cases but with inexperienced swimmers in the deep water. They feel overwhelmed, outmatched, exhausted—then they see the next wave coming and it’s too much, too frightening. They panic, and unless someone is there to pull them out, they drown.
“You don’t,” Boone says. “All I can tell you is, at the end of the day, you have to trust someone.”
Because the ocean is too big to cross alone.
120
Bill Blasingame gets on the horn to Nicole.
Calls her at home.
N.A.
Calls her on her cell.
N.A.—the bitch has it turned off.
He’s freaking. First Phil Schering gets shot, then Bill gets the phone call. He remembers what was said, pretty much word for word:
Bill understands. He knows the people he’s dealing with.
But I can contain it, he thought after the phone call. With Schering dead, the only other person who could really blow this open is Nicole. And she knows what side her bread is buttered on.
Except what if the stupid twat doesn’t? What if she panics? Or gets greedy?
And now she won’t answer her phone. She’s looking at caller ID and blowing me off. Where the fuck is she? he wonders. Okay, where is she usually at this time of the day? Out getting shit-faced with her buddies.
He leaves the building, crosses the street, and goes into the bar.
Sure enough, the nightly bitch session of the Aggrieved Secretaries’ Club is in full swing. They’re not all that happy to see him when he approaches the table. Fuck them, he thinks, and asks, “Have you seen Nicole?”
“She’s off the clock,” one of them answers.
Mouthy bitch.
“I know,” Bill says. “But have you seen her?”
The mouthy one giggles. “Have you looked between the sheets? There was this really cute guy giving her the eye and he followed her out of here, and I think girlfriend was open to a hookup.”
Bill goes back to his office building, looks in the parking lot, and doesn’t see Nicole’s car. Calls her cell again, then her home, but she doesn’t answer. Great, he thinks, I’m dying here, and the bitch is out getting laid.
121
Monkey hangs by his arms from chains thrown over the steam pipe.
The man gives him another gentle nudge in the chest, and Monkey swings back and forth. It’s hot down in the building’s boiler room, but the man wears a suit, button-down shirt, and tie, and doesn’t sweat at all.
Monkey does. He’s dripping all over the floor, and the man is careful not to let it get on his leather shoes as he steps close, shakes his head, and says, “Marvin, Marvin, Marvin. They call you ‘Monkey,’ don’t they?”
“How do you know that?”
