She saw it clearly now. On learning the truth, he and Livia put their heads together and seized the moment. With Dusty in New York, far away from the daughter-wife, the stage had been perfectly, fatefully set.
So they flew in from L.A., the detective with his Enigma machine in carry-on. Its decoded message, like the face of God, was fatal to behold.
—
She thought she’d lose her mind — perhaps she already had.
In the days that followed, she was consumed with the idea that Allegra knew she was her mother all along, and their marriage had been a premeditated act — the capstone of an abandoned child’s unspeakable plot of bloodlust and revenge. She stubbornly promoted this theory in a series of crazed, jaggedly hysterical late-night phone calls to the detective, who, in turn, patiently attempted to defuse. He argued that Allegra could only have learned of her origins through her guardian, which was most unlikely; the street-smart woman would certainly have been aware of the legal consequences of her criminal act (the technical abduction of a child for financial gain). To bolster his rationale, he suggested that by the time they landed in the mountain commune, Claudia would presumably have been a fugitive from other crimes, and even more keenly motivated to retain old secrets.
Each time his deftness of logic delivered them to solid ground, Dusty lost her footing, and Snoop had to grab her by the wrists to keep the poor woman from being sucked into a vortex of insanity. He shot at clay pigeons and plugged leaks when they sprang, tap-danced and puddle-jumped from one muddy foothold to another, and chased runaway trains of thought — for example, derailing his client’s idea that the babysitter from hell had gotten in touch with her mother for additional funds. The “profile” of the sadistic matriarch that Dusty had provided led the detective to deduce that Reina was likely holding something over Ms. Zabert’s head that would have made contact disagreeable, if not outright dangerous to her health. Furthermore, he voiced strong doubts that Claudia knew of Dusty’s celebrity (which presumably would have been added incitement for a cash grab), not only because the actress changed her name early on — by the time she started getting noticed in movies, Allegra and her guardian had already left America — but from everything he’d gleaned of their impoverished, insulated life in a hermetic overseas cult, exposure to the movies and gossipy ephemera of Hollywood pop culture would have been effectively nil. There seemed little chance she would have had an awareness of Janine Whitmore’s cinematic transformation.
Dusty wasn’t going for it.
In fact, she thought it was lame — because all Claudia Zabert had to do (“Out of sheer curiosity!” she crowed contemptuously) was Google “Janine Whitmore” and voilà: mystery solved. She had a point, but Snoop stuck to his guns. He counterpunched by proposing that even if Claudia had been aware of her fame all along — if she’d improbably followed her rise to stardom and become Dusty Wilding’s biggest fan — why would she have shared her knowledge with Allegra, risking jail and/or the wrath of that gunslinger Reina Whitmore? Having spoken to certain individuals privy to Claudia’s history (Raskin’s resources were vast — just forty-eight hours before the Gansevoort summit, he had visited Ms. Zabert at a trailer park in Vallejo. She was “profoundly damaged”), he uncovered no evidence that she’d maintained any relations with Allegra after the girl returned to America. He convincingly theorized that no one knew of the orphan’s origins by reason of the simple fact that in close to forty years, the movie star hadn’t been contacted once in that regard, or in any other, not by Ms. Zabert or anyone else, for the most compelling, timeless motive of them alclass="underline" blackmail. Dusty fought him on that too. (The vortex was always near.) But what if Claudia was feeling guilt over what she’d done, she forcefully suggested. What if she just wanted me to reconnect with Allegra? (She couldn’t bring herself to say, let alone think “my daughter.” She couldn’t even bring herself to use Aurora yet, though why she couldn’t made no sense; it should have been so much easier than Allegra. Everything was a nauseating jumble.) Wouldn’t that be a reason for her to have told Allegra everything? She could have told Allegra, then kind of just faded out of the picture. His categorical response was, “Well, did she? Did she tell Allegra? Did you ever get that call?” Dusty shouted back, sardonic and crazed, “In a sense!” but Raskin talked emphatically over her. “No, you didn’t. Because Claudia never knew, and Allegra doesn’t either. I can assure you of that.”
—
Her therapist agreed with the detective. (When Dusty wasn’t talking to the one, she was talking to the other.) “Look,” said Ginevra. “The idea that Allegra knew, that Claudia told her — and I agree with Mr. Raskin, because who else could have told her — if Allegra did know, you have to ask yourself when, when would she have known? Claudia would have waited till she was older, to tell her. Hypothetically. Because why tell a six-year-old? Or an eight-year-old? That just complicates Claudia’s life. Telling Allegra — Aurora — at all would have complicated her life! And that woman’s life was already complicated enough. So let’s just say for the sake of argument that she waited until they were in Europe and told her then. Which she didn’t — but for argument’s sake, okay? Let’s just say that when Allegra ran away from England or wherever when she was fifteen and came back to the States, to New York — let’s say that by then she knew. She already knew. Let’s even say that’s why she came back, why she ran away. Because now she knew who her real mother was and she wanted to ‘come home.’ Okay? The idea, Dusty, that she’s back in America, that she’s a teenager, probably desperate and flat broke, scared — the kind of life she’s been living, so chaotic, like a gypsy — and now she’s back in the States, in New York, knowing that her mother’s a rich, famous movie star! Which gave her even more motivation to come back to the country… she’s here but she doesn’t get in touch with her mom? With you? Dusty, it doesn’t make any sense. Because a fifteen-year-old doesn’t operate that way! Twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds don’t operate that way either. No one says, ‘I’m going to get back at her for what she did by making her falling in love and marry me!’ No—as her mother, at the very least, you’d be her brass ring, her ticket out. She’d say, Help, Mom! Give me money! Give me love! I want to move to Hollywood! I want to be rich and famous too! That’s what a fifteen-year-old would do, but she didn’t. She didn’t, Dusty, because she did not know. This ‘possibility’”—the shrink wouldn’t give it more weight by calling it otherwise—“this possibility that you’ve been obsessing over… well, it isn’t. It’s a possibility that simply isn’t. That’s what I’m trying to say. Do you see?”