Lena sat back in the chair, her head spinning. She looked around the house. It was an open floor plan not much different than her own house in Hollywood Hills. And she was surprised by the art on the walls and the number of books in the living room.
“I’m sorry,” Bloom whispered. “The way I spoke to you out there. The way I treated you. I didn’t know what was going on. I had to make sure you were okay.”
Lena took a sip of coffee, trying to steady her hand. Then Bloom pulled out his cell phone and showed her a picture that he had taken of Lena digging her own grave. After a moment he clicked to another picture of her that had been sent to his phone by whomever ran the background check. For a split second, but only a split second, she thought about cell phones again and how Bloom’s had saved her life.
She looked back at the man, taking in his brown eyes and sunburned skin. The emotion on his face that she had misread as madness less than half an hour ago.
“The question is why,” she said. “Why did you do all this?”
Bloom thought it over. “If you’d ever had the chance to meet Jennifer, you’d know. But I guess the answer is that she used to be married. She loved the guy and I did, too. He was with me when I lost my leg. He lost more than that. And she did, too.”
A moment passed. Jennifer Bloom had lost her husband in the war.
“It tore her up pretty good,” Bloom said. “But she was a strong-willed woman. Lots of spirit. The kind that lights up a room. Somehow she got past it and moved on.”
“Then why did she need to steal McBride’s identity?”
“Follow me.”
Bloom crossed the living room, then led the way upstairs. Lena could tell that his leg was bothering him again as they walked down the hall. When they reached the room at the very end, Bloom stepped aside. It wasn’t a bedroom. It was a nursery.
“She got past her husband’s death,” Bloom said. “But she couldn’t get past this one. I’m not sure any mother who loses a child ever does.”
It felt like the floor was moving beneath her feet, the air charged with electricity. Lena looked at the crib. The changing table. A mobile hanging by the window. Her mind was suddenly razor sharp. Jennifer Bloom had gone to see Dr. Ryan because she had a thyroid problem. Ryan believed that her patient had been pregnant, but didn’t carry it through because she didn’t want to talk about her child.
“Is something wrong?” Bloom asked from the doorway.
Lena shook her head. “Tell me what happened.”
He entered the room and walked over to a chest of drawers. Lena’s eyes zeroed in on a framed picture of Jennifer with her husband and baby. It looked like the photograph had been taken in the backyard by the windmill. Three people with their futures ahead of them-a moment in time when everything was good.
“She had a son,” Bloom said. “A little boy just a year and a half old. He had health issues though. He was asthmatic. It wasn’t constant. The attacks seemed to come and go. But they were scary.”
Bloom was having trouble talking about it. Remembering it. He became silent for a while, then reached for a plastic bag on the chest and handed it to her.
“This was the medication the doctor prescribed. He died about twenty minutes after his mother gave it to him. One minute he was breathing. The next minute he wasn’t. I guess a lot of kids have had the same kind of luck. The drug got pulled off the market, but it took a while. The FDA’s still trying to sort it out.”
Lena noticed the nebulizer on the chest, the child’s face mask, then examined the medication that had been sealed in the plastic bag. As she read the label, it felt like she was still standing over her grave in the desert. Like Bloom still held the gun in his hand and had just pulled the trigger. The drug manufacturer was Anders Dahl Pharmaceuticals. Dean Tremell’s name was even listed in the fine print.
Jennifer Bloom had never been a whore. She had been a mom. Another fallen hero like her husband. And the case was radioactive now.
39
She could see her house on top of the hill as the jet eased over the Valley toward Burbank and glided with the wind. She could see it in the blue light. Her small house standing over a city that spanned as far as the eye could see. Her anchor. After the plane landed, she walked down the rear steps onto the tarmac and out the airport exit to the parking garage just across the street.
She had spent the last hour staring out the window and letting her mind wander. Being alone with herself and watching the loose ends drop away on their own. The same way her brother used to tell her he could feel the moment for what it really was and improvise on his guitar.
The smoke Dean Tremell had sent up about this case had been the best money could buy. The best Lena had ever known or read about or could even imagine. As she paid her parking ticket and exited the garage, she couldn’t help but find Tremell’s expertise and attention to detail something to behold. Every possibility had been accounted for. Everything rigged so well that Jennifer Bloom never stood a chance.
The fake ad in the L.A. Weekly and the messages on her answering machine that it harvested after her death. The bag of tricks left in her closet filled with lingerie and sex toys, scented oils, and plenty of prescription drugs. He even gave her a company line. The woman who cast spells.
Lena had seen the bait and snapped at the hook. She had bought it. All of the above.
And then there was the almost bought, but smelled bad. .
Justin Tremell’s heartfelt story about his friendship for the victim that turned into something else. Dean Tremell’s bullshit act as the concerned father. And what about the fifty thousand that wound up in the victim’s bank account?
The deception had been so complete, so thorough, so brilliant. A command performance by every participant on every front.
It worked, of course, because somehow Dean Tremell had uncovered Jennifer Bloom’s secret. At some point he found out about her stolen identity and would have understood that he was working with an empty canvas. After her murder, Tremell would have known that he could define Bloom any way he wanted and make the crime look the way it did.
She could see Tremell standing in his boardroom sipping bourbon from a crystal glass. She could see him working out the logic for his demented plan. Deciding what it should look like and who would take the fall. Jennifer McBride would no longer be a mother who had lost her son. Once the transformation was complete, all anyone would ever see was a greedy whore. A whore blackmailing one of her wealthy clients-or so the bullshit went.
The scope of the crime took Lena’s breath away. The brutality. The audacity. The sickness.
She flipped open her cell, found Denny Ramira’s number and hit ENTER. She thought she finally knew what the reporter’s book was about and why he had been so reluctant to talk about it. And she thought that she knew who his contact was. The one who wanted to remain anonymous. It had been sitting out there all along. The way the pieces fit. It had been hidden behind a veil of money and power and absolute barbarism. Hidden in a stolen identity. She saw it now.
Ramira wasn’t picking up his cell. Paging through recent calls, she found his house number from earlier in the day and clicked it. When she hit his message service, she began to get a bad feeling and pulled over to the side of the road. Her address book was in her briefcase. Lena punched in Ramira’s number at The Times. After nine rings, a woman finally answered but sounded rushed.
“I’m trying to reach Denny,” Lena said.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not in. Could you try back later? We’re busy.”
“It’s important,” she said. “I’ve tried the house and his cell. Where is he?”