than expected, set on a markedly more expansive property than was customary in crowded Laguna Beach, the Waxx residence suggested an owner who possessed wealth and power. Neither Penny nor I had the stomach to torture information out of Waxx. Here, more than anywhere else, we might find files and other records regarding his mission and the group symbolized by the triskelion.
At some point during the day, Waxx would surely have been missed and a search for him undertaken by his colleagues. But they would be expecting to find him somewhere in that northern county and would not imagine that he’d been kidnapped and taken home in a marathon twelve-hour drive.
Nevertheless, we cruised by the house a few times, looking for the trouble that might be looking for us. All seemed calm.
No lights shone at any of the windows.
Using the fob on his key ring, I opened one of the doors at the pair of double garages, and Penny drove the Hummer inside. I put the door down.
Having expected a security alarm to be triggered when we drove into the garage, I was ready to let myself quickly into the house with Waxx’s keys and enter the disarming code that we had found in his wallet. But no alarm sounded.
The three of us, with dog, stood in the garage for a minute, very still, listening, waiting for someone to appear. No one came.
Waxx remained unconscious in his chains, and we decided to leave him in the Hummer while we completed a tour of the house. Once we had found his files or evidence of a safe, we might need to scare a few answers out of him.
I unlocked the door between garage and house. Penny and I, guns drawn, shepherded Milo along a hallway into a kitchen. We turned on lights as we went.
Evidently designed for frequent use by caterers, the enormous kitchen was not just industrial but also off-putting. The appliances were all stainless steel, as were the counters and the backsplashes and the cabinets. The autopsy theater in a morgue was not as cold-looking as this kitchen.
In room after room, the furniture was stark, the upholstery all in shades of black and silver, the carpets gray, and the artwork so modern that it appeared to have been painted by machines.
We entered a large room that lacked furniture and art. The black-granite floor, gray walls, and indirect cove lighting most likely had been intended to convey a serene mood, but instead the decor made me feel empty. If you were disposed to despair, this place would induce it in but a minute.
As if meditating or in communion with the darkness until we turned on the lights, the woman in Shearman Waxx’s wallet photos stood in the center of the room.
She was older than in the latest photo, at least in her mid-seventies. She remained a handsome woman, although thinner than I had imagined, tall and storklike.
Wearing a well-tailored suit—long black skirt, gray jacket, gray blouse—and a simple but stunning diamond necklace, she took pride in her appearance.
If her eyes had not been open and so watchful, I would have thought she was a mummified corpse, preserved with painstaking care.
“What have you done with my Shearman?” she asked, and her voice was strong, commanding, her diction clipped.
“He’s sedated, chained in a Hummer in the garage,” I told her.
Looking from pistol to pistol, she said, “And have you come here to kill me?”
“We’ve come here for answers,” Penny said. “You’re Mrs. Waxx?”
“Waxx is a name I chose and made my own. It was not imposed on me. I never married. I didn’t need a husband to have a son.”
She began to walk toward us, and the nearer she came, the more that she unnerved me. She seemed to glide rather than take steps, as if she were a motorized automaton, not a real woman.
“When a thing wanes, it diminishes. When a thing waxes, it grows more intense, more powerful. Waxx is my work name, and I fulfill it.”
“You are one weird lady,” Milo said with childlike directness.
“What is that filthy animal doing in my house?”
Milo took offense: “Lassie isn’t filthy. She’s as clean as you are. And she can do things you could never do.”
Lassie did not lower herself to growl at this scarecrow, but regarded her with canine contempt.
“Bite your tongue, boy. You should know to whom you’re speaking. My maiden name is Zazu Wane. In Who’s Who, my long and enviable entry is rich with details of my compassion