to tell all. Nothing came to me. I could imagine getting him to meet with me, I could imagine him ambushing and shooting me, but I couldn’t think up a wedge that would induce him to talk. He was more likely to hire Rodney to kill me, Chad, and maybe even poor young Clara.
The Body Artist had her own story, her own loss, her own cons and frauds. She was the center of this particular web. Although I was pretty sure she was, well, not an innocent bystander but an unconnected bystander, I wanted to talk to her.
As I lay in the tub, I began to try out scenarios that would flush out the Artist, get her to appear for one last melodramatic performance. As the water grew cold, one idea occurred to me. I didn’t like it; it made my flesh crawl even in my tub. But it might work.
I dried off and climbed back into the sofa bed, swaddled in a soft robe that had been Jake’s Christmas present to me. This time, I fell instantly down a hole of dreamless sleep.
48
Gimme Shelter
If so many lives weren’t at risk, I might have slept the clock round. But as soon as I’d slept enough to take the mind-numbing edge off my fatigue, Clara’s future, Chad’s safety, my cousin Petra—all started tumbling through my dreams. Lives lost, lives at stake, pushed me awake. I needed to be in motion.
It was noon when I woke. I had a three-thirty meeting with Darraugh Graham. Not missable, not with my bread-and-butter client. So time to be up and doing, with a heart for any fate.
I went to check on Clara, who was still asleep, but poor Peppy was pacing around restlessly, desperate to get outside. I opened the door in my nightshirt and bare feet to let her run down the stairs.
While the dog relieved herself, I roused Clara. She woke in considerable bewilderment as well as a fair amount of pain. Lotty had left some prescription-strength ibuprofen for her, but I didn’t want to give it to her until she’d eaten something.
“I hurt too much to get up,” she moaned.
“Hard to believe,” I said, “but moving will make you feel better. And we need to get you someplace safer than my apartment. It’s going to be near the top of Rainier Cowles’s list of places to look if he finds out you’re missing.”
“Can’t Peppy look after me?”
“Peppy’s a lover, not a fighter. And don’t you have allergies? I thought that’s why your granny said Ernest couldn’t get a dog.”
Clara sat up. “I’m not really allergic, at least not very—it’s just that my abuela doesn’t want a dog. She thinks she’ll be stuck looking after it.”
Clara’s skin was puffy, and the broken nose was radiating bruises out under her eyes. Just as well Lotty had taken care of her at the clinic. Clara would have been whisked off by Child Protective Services faster than the speed of light if a hospital social worker had seen that face.
I dug out some clean jeans and a sweater that I thought would fit her. “You need to get dressed, and get some food. Then we’ll talk to your mom and your school and figure out how to navigate the next week or so until we get this nightmare all sorted out.”
“I can’t go home! Mom is so furious with me. And those people, they’ll be watching for me.”
“That’s why you need to move. Because as soon as I have you squared away, I’m going to call Prince Rainier to tell him I have the documents. That will bring him hotfoot to my side. Where you definitely don’t need to be.”
“But where can I go?”
“I have an idea on that, but I need to see your mom first. Meanwhile, time’s a-wasting. We have three hours to accomplish our whole agenda. You get dressed while I organize some food. Come on, up and at ’em. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog, and all that good stuff.”
Between a laugh and a snarl, Clara finally hoisted herself out of bed and shuffled off to the bathroom. I phoned down to Mr. Contreras, who was vociferous in relief at hearing from me—Didn’t want to call up in case you was sleeping in, but I been worrying about the kid. She okay? As I’d shamelessly assumed, he was glad to provide breakfast—French toast, his specialty—and the kid wasn’t one