You’re very fortunate, you know.”
I was incredulous. “Sure. Lollipops and roses, that’s me.”
“You’re lucky because you have the sort of heart that will always show you the way. If you only listen to it.”
“Right. My heart is what got me into this mess,” I complained.
She patted my arm. “So it did. Now finish your tea.”
* * *
I stood at the side of the road in Benedict Canyon and looked over the guardrail at the drop into a dry, brown gorge. The thought of Aaron driving his car over that edge was terrifying. But that’s what had happened. Right here. I was pretty sure this was the spot anyway.
Benedict Canyon in Bel Air was a two-hour drive from my dad’s house in Temecula. I’d flown in yesterday. My mom thought my coming here was a great idea—she probably figured a trip would ease my heartache. And my dad had been thrilled. We’d spent last night doing pizza and movies, enough though I’d been preoccupied.
The conversation with Mrs. Delphi had knocked me out of the black fog I’d been in. I’d been overwhelmed with anger and a bone-deep, soul-crushing hurt ever since Emmanuel and that policeman had knocked on my door. But she’d gotten me wondering again, what exactly had happened? Had it been Aaron’s idea or Emmanuel’s to cut me off? If Aaron’s, how had I not had even a tiny clue this was coming? No one was that good an actor. If Emmanuel’s, how had he gotten Aaron to agree to it?
Which begged the question—who was Emmanuel Clark, really? And what was his hold over Aaron?
I hadn’t liked him from the start, but I figured that was because he acted like a douche to me. His being protective of Aaron wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But maybe I should listen to my gut—or my heart, as Mrs. Delphi put it. Maybe he really was shady.
And she was right. Aaron had no family left. No one was there to protect him. And he was worth a lot of money. People did crazy things for money. What if Emmanuel was embezzling or something, and having Aaron depressed and disinterested suited Emmanuel’s purposes? Maybe he didn’t want Aaron to have a friend, to get better, to leave Malfleur.
I can’t leave Malfleur.
Aaron said that the day I suggested we go sailing. Was that what had set Emmanuel off? My getting Aaron to go on a sailing trip? Daring to leave his self-imposed exile?
I couldn’t ignore the idea once I’d had it. I realized that I couldn’t give up on this, not until I was sure Aaron was okay and that he, he, really wanted me gone. But I couldn’t fight without ammunition.
There had to be a way to learn more about the backstory here. If there was one thing I’d learned from monster movies, it was that every good villain has a plan.
Now I stood there as the sun came up and the occasional car whizzed by behind me.
The newspaper report said the accident had happened on Mulholland Drive, between Benedict Canyon Road and Beverly Ranch Road. There were a number of curves in that stretch, but I was pretty sure I’d found the right place. The guardrail was newer here. It had been replaced in the last few years. Looking down, I thought I could detect the path a car took in the scrubby canyon brush—scars in the dirt, broken branches, an absence of the omnipresent brittle bushes, and, most importantly, a small scorched area where there’d been a fire. A car-sized fire.
Aaron.
My stomach roiled and I got a bit of vertigo, as if the world were tilting me toward that abyss.
I turned away from the head-spinning view and examined the area. The winding road followed the contours of the brown hills. Expensive houses—almost compounds—were on the side of the road opposite the steep drop. They all had views that overlooked a sprawl of buildings below—Hollywood and Westwood. The terrain was dry with sage, scrubby brush, and short manzanita trees with red peeling bark. The hills were “golden” with dead, dry grass, a sharp contrast to the lush green palm trees and brilliant pink, red, and yellow flowers cultivated around the mansions. On another road below me, turquoise swimming pools winked in the morning light.
Standing there didn’t provide any answers, other than to see for myself that driving down this road in the dark, stoned, would be an exceedingly bad idea. But it did raise new questions.
Aaron said he drove through this area