life would be over if that was the case, people never got off heroin, but Lionel was quick to put her mind at rest.
“No, no, more like marijuana, and probably some LSD and other hallucinogens.” He was becoming very expert about all that, and Faye sighed.
“Are the police holding her?”
“No. I thought I'd take her back to our hotel, let her take a bath and unwind …” (i.e., come down …)
“I'll catch the next plane up.”
Lionel gritted his teeth. He wanted desperately to clean her up before Faye arrived, and the “next plane” didn't give him much time, also there was something else that Faye would have to know, and it was easy to see now. “Mom, there's something you ought to know….” She had known instinctively that there was something else he wasn't telling her. Anne had been hurt … something … “Mom?”
“What is it, Li?”
“She's pregnant, Mom.”
“Oh my God.” At that, Faye burst into tears. “She's fourteen years old.”
“I know that. I'm sorry, Mom …”
“Do they have the boy?”
He didn't have the heart to tell her that the child had probably been fathered, not by a “boy,” but by the thirty or so male members of the sect. Instead, he was vague and said they'd have to leave that to Anne, but it was difficult to regain her composure after that, and she made a hasty note on her office pad, “Call Dr. Smythe,” he would arrange an abortion for her. He had taken care of the star of one of her films the year before, and if he wouldn't do a child of Anne's age, she'd take her to London or Tokyo. She didn't have to go through with this. She'd probably been raped. Somehow, the idea that Anne was pregnant was more horrible than the rest of this whole grim affair and she had to remind herself to be grateful that the girl had been found at all. She was still crying when she hung up the phone, and buried her face in her hands for a moment before taking a deep breath, blowing her nose, and straightening her shoulders to go down the hall to see Ward. He had to be told. Anne was his child too, however little he and she had in common now. She wondered how they would handle the division of their business life. So far they had gone on as before, but that couldn't go on forever either. And now that Anne had been found, Lionel would be coming home. And she had no excuses left not to confront Ward. She stopped outside his office, and his secretary jumped nervously.
“Is Mr. Thayer in?” But she knew he was. She had seen him only moments before.
The secretary looked at her anxiously, dropped a pencil on the floor, and then tried to avoid Faye's gaze. “No … he's not …”
“That's a lie.” Faye wasn't in the mood to listen to garbage from anyone. “I happen to know he's in.” It was a guess, but it worked.
“He's not … well, he is … but he asked not to be disturbed.”
“Fucking on his office couch again?” Faye's eyes blazed. She knew exactly what was going on, and in their offices. He had one hell of a nerve. “I didn't think we used the casting couch here quite so much.” She advanced toward his office door and the secretary gasped as Faye turned toward her. “Don't worry. I'll tell him I overpowered you.” And with that, she opened the door and stepped in. And the scene which met her eyes was reasonably sedate. He and Carol Robbins, the star of Follow My World, the daytime soap, were both fully dressed and talking across the desk, but he was holding her hand, and everything about them suggested that they were deeply involved. She was a pretty blonde with long legs and enormous tits. She played a nurse on the show, and the men loved to watch her buttons strain. But Faye looked directly at Ward as he let go of the girl's hand, and looked at his wife nervously.
She never acknowledged the presence of the girl, and kept her eyes directly on his.
“They found Anne. I thought you'd want to know.”
His eyes grew wide, and it was obvious that he cared a great deal. For a moment, he completely forgot the girl in the room, and looked only at his wife. “Is she all right?”
“Yes.” She didn't tell him about the drugs or the pregnancy. She