As he drove away, I ran down the path and up onto my deck. Stepping over the jagged pieces of gla.s.s, I stood in my living room. The cold ocean air rushed through my house as if it didn't exist. As if I didn't exist.

I left Ryan's Ugg on the coffee table and found a warm jacket in the hall closet and put it on. Then I grabbed my purse, making sure my cell phone was in it, and ran into the kitchen. Opening the booze cupboard, I uncorked the brandy, tipped the bottle, and tossed back two slugs.

As it burned through me, I wondered why Heath had given me the address of Parson's penthouse if he'd really wanted me to stay here and take care of the old homestead. He knew me well enough to know that I wasn't going to back off. Was he just hoping I would? Or was he using me in some way?

It didn't matter what he was up to. I needed to find Ryan, and the address was the only lead I had.

I went back into the living room and grabbed the Ugg. Praying that Ryan would still need it, I hurried out to the Jag, jumped in, and opened the glove compartment.

The Glock was still there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Taking the curves too fast, I sped east on Sunset, trying to plan what I was going to do when I got to Parson's building. How was I even going to get in? He had his bodyguards. I had a Glock. Somehow it didn't seem to even things out.

Someone once said there are only two seasons in Los Angeles-day and night. In a way it's true. There are no seasonal transitions here, we live in Technicolor, and then we fade to black. And for some reason it makes our nighttime feel more dangerous, more final. I wondered what kind of darkness Ryan was experiencing. I thought of the night blowing through my house. Had I left the TV on? Or was there only the sound of the wind?

I raced through the sedate darkness of Beverly Hills into the garish lights of the Sunset Strip and slowed down. The black gla.s.s high-rise at 9000 Sunset rose above the smaller buildings, restaurants, and clubs. It reminded me of the ebony gla.s.s tower that Lew Wa.s.serman had built on the Universal Studios lot in my mother's time. A dark reflection of cold power.

I turned down a side street and found a place to park. Opening the glove compartment, I reached for the Glock-then stopped. If I got into the building, Parson's bodyguards would search me and take it away. The gun would make them more suspicious, more watchful. Grabbing the Glock, I wedged it under my seat, thinking it would be easier to reach if I had to escape back to the car. Of course, in the meantime someone could steal the gun because I couldn't lock the d.a.m.n doors.

I left it and ran up the side street to Sunset.

Peering through the thick gla.s.s entrance door, I could see a security guard sitting at a desk that matched the black marbled floors and black marbled walls. The lobby looked like a place of interment. A lone light lit up a laptop, but the guard wasn't interested in it: his head had lolled down until his chin rested on his chest. His uniform was the kind that rented security guards wore. He wasn't dressed like one of Parson's men.

I pounded on the door. His head jerked up, he looked in my direction and waved me away with a dismissive hand. As he settled back into his comfort zone, I used both fists, banging harder. When he didn't react, I stomped my feet and shouted at the top of my voice, "Let me in! Let me in!"

People on the sidewalk hurried past me as if I were a crazy woman and they didn't want any part of me. "When acting the role of a mad woman, always keep a soupcon of reality to your performance," Mother had told me. "Otherwise you're just another ham."

I was all ham now. Pounding, screaming, stomping, and shaking my head so my hair flew wildly. My only fear was that he'd call the police, but if Parson was there I doubted they'd want the cops around.

Still indicating I should get lost, the guard climbed begrudgingly to his feet. From an alcove near the desk a man in a black suit appeared. My hands were beginning to hurt. The two men conversed, then both walked toward me. As they neared, I recognized Gerald, Parson's chauffeur. He knew me immediately and stopped, unsure.

"Open the door," I demanded. I was out of breath but easing back into being Diana Poole. "I have important information for Parson."

The guard looked at the chauffeur, waiting for instructions. Gerald seemed confused. He was a driver, a man used to taking orders not giving them.

"Parson will want to hear what I have to say," I yelled.

He didn't move.

Finally I used the one word I knew would force him into action. "It's about Jenny. His daughter!" I shouted.

Confused, he looked over his shoulder at a phone on the desk, then back at me. Finally he nodded to the guard, who took a bunch of keys from his belt, found the right one, and unlocked the door. But Gerald pushed in front of him, blocking my entrance.

"What about his daughter?" he asked.

"It's personal."

"Tell me. I'll pa.s.s it on."

"Really? You think that's what Parson would want?"

"He's not here."

I doubted that, since he was Parson's chauffeur. "Where is he?"

"Not here."

"What's Parson going to say to you when he finds out you wouldn't let me in, but instead asked me to give personal information about his daughter in front of this rent-a-cop?"

Glowering at me over the driver's shoulder, the security guard shifted his weight to let me know how big he was.

I continued my rant. "Parson knows I'm the one who cared about her so much that I went looking for her and found her dead body. Do you think I'd be pounding on this door if it wasn't an emergency?"

Gerald was paralyzed with indecision.

I should have brought the d.a.m.n Glock so I could shoot him. "How do you think I knew about his penthouse if Parson didn't give me the address?"

He blinked his dull penny-shaped eyes "All right," I said. "I won't be responsible for what Parson does to you when he finds out how you treated me. And I'm sure you know how he handles people who disobey his orders." I adjusted my purse on my shoulder, flipped my hair back and, taking a big chance, turned and walked away.

"Wait!" The word sounded as if it had fallen from his mouth like a rock. "Let her in."

He stepped back as the security guard opened the door all the way. I was in the lobby.

Now all I had to do was act my way up to the penthouse.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Parson's driver was wearing an earbud. After checking my purse and patting me down, he talked rapidly into his lapel mike. "I got Diana Poole here. She wants to see Parson about his daughter." He paused, listening. "I told her he wasn't here. I'm not going to take responsibility for this. You deal with her. She's f.u.c.king crazy." He angrily jerked the bud out of his ear, letting it dangle on its plastic wire. He nodded to the security guard. "Let her go on up."

The guard led me deeper into the lobby to a single glossy black elevator. He pressed the b.u.t.ton beside it. In seconds the doors slid open. I stepped inside. He leaned in, slid a small key into a slot, hit the b.u.t.ton marked "PH"-there were no other floor numbers-and stepped back out. The doors closed with a whisper, encasing me in what felt like a chic coffin. Fighting off creeping claustrophobia, I wondered what I could offer Parson to get Ryan back.

The elevator opened onto a long brightly lit hallway lined with closed office doors. At the end of it a man sat in a leather club chair, his feet resting on a small table alongside his vente-sized Starbucks. His huge thighs pressed against the sides of the chair, and his broad chest bulged under his dark jacket. He peered up from the magazine he was thumbing through and watched as I walked toward him. He wore an earbud like the chauffeur's.

"Turn around and go back. Mr. Parson's not here," he ordered.

"Then where is he?" Clenching my jaw, I kept walking toward him.

He didn't answer. Instead, he sighed heavily, heaved his feet up off the table, and stood. Rolling the magazine up, he pounded it against the palm of his hand. Slap. Slap. He looked like a man who was going to swat an irritating fly-and I was the fly.

Acting is all about focusing. If you lose focus, you lose believability with your audience. I had an audience of one, and I needed him to think I was a woman he had to deal with.

Now the table was between us. Never taking my eyes off him, I spoke in a firm voice, "Tell Parson that Diana Poole is here and I have important information about his daughter's death."

Slap. Slap. "Mr. Parson's not here. Give me your phone number. Someone will call you."

"You're going to write my number down with that?" I gestured at the magazine.

The slap, slap stopped, and his eyes narrowed menacingly.

I glared back, my heart throbbing. "Parson told me to get in touch as soon as I learned anything new about his daughter's death. He's going to be p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l if you don't let me see him."

"That still doesn't make him here."

As the slap, slap resumed, a door to my right flew open. A gaunt woman in her forties with a ma.s.s of uncombed auburn hair reached out.

She gripped my arm. "In here."

Surprised, the guard frowned and blurted at the woman, "That door's supposed to be locked from the outside."

Before he'd finished talking, she yanked on my arm and I let her pull me inside. She slammed the door behind us, threw the bolt, and locked it with a key.

The guard pounded on the door. "Open up! Open up, dammit!"

"We don't have much time." Hands twitching, she was terribly thin but had Jenny's sharp, intense animal-like eyes. "I stole the key from that b.a.s.t.a.r.d out there, Bruno. They'll have to find another one."

"Mrs. Parson?" I asked.

"Yes. And you're Diana Poole. I used to go to the movies and eat popcorn. That was when I was like other people. Sit down."

She pointed to a long black leather sofa. Behind it, primitive Peruvian statues were displayed in a perfect line on a steel console table. Looking at them, I felt the weight of even more ghosts. Only ancient ones. We sat on the sofa in a sleekly decorated living room with a 180-degree view of the city lights. Our reflections, two desperate women, were superimposed over this panorama.

Bruno had stopped his pounding. The silence felt more dangerous than the constant banging.

Her eyes nervously shifted to the door, then back to me. "I'm being treated like a prisoner. n.o.body tells me anything. I was listening at the door. You said you had information about my daughter. What is it?" Her face had been lifted but no burden had been eased. "The only thing I know is that she was murdered and left in the garbage." She shuddered and tears rolled down her sunken face. "Why? Who would do something so awful to Jenny?"

"Is your husband here?"

"No."

"But his driver ..."

"Sometimes he uses Luis instead of Gerald as his chauffeur."

I thought of the young manservant-Luis-who solicitously watched over Parson on the yacht. Then I said, "I know why Jenny was murdered. I'll tell you, but first I need you to help me. My friend Ryan Johns is missing. Your husband has him. Can you tell me where he is?"

Her body stiffened as she eyed me cynically. "There's always a deal involved."

"I'm trying to save my friend."

She stared at the stony distorted creatures on the table behind us, probably worth millions. "We collect from the dead." Her gaze shifted back to me. "Are you collecting from the dead, too?"

"I told you, I just want to help Ryan."

"I locked myself in here to keep them all away so I could ..." her voice faltered.

"You said yourself we don't have much time," I prompted.

"I'll tell you where he is, but first you tell me why Jenny was murdered."

I decided I had no other choice. "How strong are you?"

"A dead daughter has given me strength I never knew I had." She held up the stolen key to prove it.

I explained how I had discovered Jenny's body. When I described the s.e.x taping and the blackmail, her face went rigid and her lips drew into a sad bitter line. I didn't tell her about Ryan and Jenny.

She stood and walked to the wall of gla.s.s and stared out at the shadowy hills above Sunset Boulevard. Clinging to their steep lots, the houses glimmered with lights.

I rose to my feet. "Mrs. Parson, the guards will be back any moment. Please, I have to find your husband. He'll know about Ryan."

"I watched Jenny change. She stopped loving me."

Her back was to me, and her bony shoulder blades pushed at her white T-shirt. Her tight jeans seemed to be holding what was left of her skin and bones together.

"Now and then," she continued, "her sweet facade would slip, and in its place would be that heartless look of her father's. She admired him, wanted to be like him. I wish his mask had slipped before I married him. He knew he would've lost me if I'd seen who he truly was." She peered back at me. "He's the consummate actor. He makes the rest of you look like amateurs."

The sound of fists banging on the door started up again. This time two male voices demanded to be let in. A key rattled in the lock. But the bolt held.

"Where is Parson?" I prodded.

She stared at the front door as if she didn't know what it was. Now there was the loud thumping of men throwing their bodies against it. The door shuddered. It wouldn't hold for long.

I grabbed her shoulders, trying to force her attention back to me. "Tell me where he's gone!"

"The Rock," she spoke distractedly, as if she had something more important on her mind.

There was the noise of a huge thud against the door.

As it wobbled on its hinges, I said urgently, "I need the address."

"He never took me to The Rock. He took Jenny. When she came back, she wanted to be an actress. Anything he wanted, Jenny wanted."