City of Angels Page 15

  In my socks, I crept over to the coffin, wary. Everyone parted to let me closer. The coffin was lined with red satin and empty except for one thing—Rain’s granny glasses, the ones she never let out of her sight. The only noise was my heart thudding in my ears. My legs grew weak. Right before I collapsed, I felt arms around me. Not just one. Several. I was held up on all sides. Everyone spoke at once.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “They’re just trying to scare you.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I couldn’t distinguish who was saying what. My legs were Jell-O. But my friends were holding me up. I clutched the arms supporting me and closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath. It felt like my throat had closed. I gasped, my mouth open, but couldn’t get enough air in. My palms grew clammy and a wave of dizziness overcame me.

  I was having a full-fledged panic attack.

  Someone helped me into my room. I sat with my back against my wall and put my head between my legs, gasping for air. The sound of my heart pounding in my ears drowned out my friend’s voices. I panted, trying to get more air into my lungs, but it felt like I had a sheet of plastic across my mouth, blocking the air. My vision had narrowed to a pinprick of light at the end of a long black tunnel.

  I felt hands on my back, rubbing gently, and murmured voices. Finally, my heart slowed and breathing became easier. I kept my head down. After several deep breaths, I started to feel normal again. I peeked out through my hair at my friends. A circle of concerned faces surrounded me.

  Eve crouched down and lifted my chin, concern filling her kohl-rimmed eyes.

  “I’m okay. I get panic attacks,” I said, trying to smile, but feeling like my lips made a goofy grimace instead. “Worst one in years.” Since my mom died.

  Eve threw her arm around me and drew me into a hug.

  “It’s okay, baby. You’re with us. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  This time a real smile spread across my face. Eve knelt down beside me.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said. “You were right. Someone took Rain. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.”

  There were a lot of mumbled apologies. The sight of all the caring in the faces surrounding me made me feel happy, but guilty. I’d already wasted too much time. I was the one who needed to apologize. I needed the help of these friends even though the idea went against everything I had come to believe the past few years about taking care of myself. But after seeing that coffin, I couldn’t do it on my own. If I was going to have any chance of finding Rain, I needed to ask for help. It was also time to admit that I wanted these people in my life. I not only wanted them, I needed them. They were the closest thing I had to family and I didn’t want to let them go.

  “I’ve got something to say.” I took a big breath. “It won’t take long. I need to apologize. I’m sorry. I’ve been a jerk. I need your help. I think I might know what happened to Rain, but I need your help to find her.”

  “Bitch, all you had to do was ask,” Danny said in a super snotty girly voice. We all burst into laughter. He tackled me in a big hug and pretty soon we were all piled on one another laughing and hugging. When we finally disentangled ourselves, John cleared his throat.

  “First off, what are we going to do about that?” He gestured toward the coffin in the hall.

  Hearing him say “we” sent a surge of happiness and relief through me. I wasn’t going to have to tackle this on my own.

  “Why don’t we let Nikki fill us in on what she knows and we’ll make a plan,” Taj said.

  With everyone piled into my room, I told them everything I’d learned about The Church of the Evermore Enlightened, its founder, J.C. Hoffman, the Star Center, and especially the part about killing kids.

  While I talked, I realized something. Even though I was the youngest one, they thought of me as an equal, maybe even a leader. Nobody had ever turned to me for direction, but the way they were listening and nodding, they wanted me in charge.

  Seeing their faces raptly watching me, I felt like I didn’t need my leather jacket or my combat boots to be tough. I could reach down deep inside and find the strength I needed already there. And the best part of all was the realization that when I made myself vulnerable and turned to others for help, I was stronger and more powerful than I had ever been on my own.

  When I finished talking, Danny sprang up and punched the wall.

  “That is some fucked-up, shit. Vete a su chingada madre,” Danny said. “They come around here again, I’m gonna stuff all of them in this here coffin. In pieces.” His eyes glinted with danger. Danny was one of the sweetest and most easygoing guys I knew, but he’d also grown up in a rough part of East L.A. All his cousins were in prison.

  John put his arm tighter around Eve, who looked horrified, her eyes bright and her fist held to her mouth. He nuzzled his goatee into her neck, whispering to her in soothing tones for a few seconds. He lifted his head and turned to me.

  “I don’t know how the hell they got a coffin up four flights of stairs without anyone seeing them,” he said. “But I’m going to take a wild guess that they are serious about this warning for you. Which tells me you must be on to something or they wouldn’t have gone through this much effort to scare you off.”

  I nodded. He was right. I was close.

  But maybe it was too late.

  Eve had to leave to open up the café and Sadie and I had to work that night, so we agreed to all meet Saturday morning and come up with a plan to find Rain. One by one, everyone filtered out until it was just Taj and me. Alone.

  He leaned against one wall staring. I arched an eyebrow at him.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  The famous words for a break up, but we weren’t even together. I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Now it was his turn to lift an eyebrow.

  I sighed loudly. “So you guys didn’t believe me and now you do. I’m over it.”

  He didn’t owe me any special apology. I didn’t care. He made it clear he wasn’t interested in me the day I took his pictures and he practically ran out of my room.

  “I want to explain,” he said, standing up and swiping his hand through his hair as he headed toward the window.

  “About what?” I tried to sound nonchalant, like I didn’t give a shit what he had to say, but a tiny hint of curiosity had edged into my voice.

  “My tattoo.”

  Okay, now I was paying attention. My heart began zinging in my chest. Was this where he told me he couldn’t date me because he was hung up on his high school girlfriend or some shit like that?

  “It’s my sister,” he said, and turned back to me.

  I must have looked confused because he then said, “My tattoo. It’s of my sister. Her name was Angelina.”

  The relief at hearing the word sister was replaced by horror. My mind got stuck on the word was, and it echoed in my brain. Her name was.

  “She died when she was twelve.”

  The same age as Rain.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, moving toward him instinctively.

  “Rain reminds me too much of my sister. That’s why I can’t deal with her. It’s too much. My sister is dead and it’s my fault.” His voice caught.

  “It couldn’t have been your fault.” I walked over and hugged him. I refused to believe he could have done anything to hurt his own sister.

  He buried his face in my shoulder and hair for a second. He seemed to compose himself and drew back talking into my ear. “I wasn’t there to protect her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled away and paced as he told his story, thrust back into the past.

  His dad died when he was ten. His mother remarried when he was fifteen and his sister was eleven. One day his sister confessed their stepdad had tried to touch her where he shouldn’t. Taj attacked his stepdad, beating him so badly that the stepdad ended up in the hospital. Their mother didn’t believe her children. She testified agains
t Taj. He ended up in juvenile hall for a year. He was frantic, furious that he was locked up and unable to protect his sister. He was a few days from getting out of juvie when his sister killed herself, slitting her wrists as she lay in the upstairs bathtub.

  “I wasn’t there,” he said. I grabbed him and he buried his face in my shoulder, his words fierce. “I was supposed to protect her and I wasn’t there.”

  “Ssshhh,” I said, smoothing his hair back. “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done. It’s not your fault.”

  We lay on my futon and I held him close for a long time, until the shadows grew long and his breathing grew steady as he slept in my arms. I finally understood so many things. We both had dead sisters. Taj had been keeping Rain at arm’s length because of his, while I had been drawn to her because of mine.

  On Saturday morning, my friends and I sat on the floor in my room, poring over LA Weekly, People magazine, and several insider trade magazines.

  We had a plan—we were going after the three men in the magazine pictures on my wall.

  First stop. Rex Walker.

  In the magazine picture, Rex Walker, wearing dark sunglasses and a tuxedo, held his hand up to shield himself from the paparazzi as he ducked into a limousine. His black hair was perfectly cut to complement his sculptured cheekbones and Dudley Do-Right chin.

  The article, in an industry trade magazine I’d found at the gas station, said Walker had just started shooting an action flick this week at Paramount Studios. With Matt Macklin. My mouth dropped open. The picture showed the strawberry blond Irish actor with his hairless, ripped abdomen on display as he shook droplets of water out of his long hair, walking up from the beach with a surfboard tucked under his muscular arm.

  Two of the three actors I suspected in one place. Jackpot.

  If we visited the movie lot, we could spy on both actors at once. We could follow them home. Maybe Rain was at one of their houses. It was plausible. I just didn’t know if she would be in a guest bedroom or a locked room. I read as I walked to work. I flipped back to the article on Walker to see if I could find out more details and read on. I stopped walking. My hands shook, making the words in the magazine jump around.

  Dean Thomas Kozlak was directing the action movie. It was the blockbuster Chad was shooting.

  Taj offered to ride his motorcycle to the Paramount lot with Sadie on Monday morning. She had some connection that could gain them access to the studio lot. They would split up so Taj could follow Rex Walker home and Sadie would tail Matt Macklin.

  “But if Taj takes his bike, you won’t have a car to follow Macklin in…” I said.

  John put his arm around Sadie and said, “When you are Sadie O’Brien, you don’t need a car. All you need is a face like this.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, and grinned.

  That left Andy Martin

  According to the LA Weekly, the comedian was performing live Monday night. We decided John and Eve would attend the show, tailing Martin back to his place. They would be the perfect ones to attend his steamy, sex-filled comedy act.

  “What are we gonna do, home girl?” Danny said, turning to me.

  “We’re going to Dean Thomas Kozlak’s house in Malibu.”

  Even saying the words made my stomach twist.

  I filled them in, starting with that night at Kozlak’s house and ending with the surfers’ bodies being found. I didn’t say their deaths were my fault. It was obvious.

  Eve’s mouth dropped in horror. “You poor baby.” She came over and began rubbing my shoulders. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “So that’s how you two met?” Danny said.

  “That creep,” Sadie said.

  “Let Nikki continue,” Taj said, and everyone waited.

  “Now that we know there’s a connection between Rain’s guy and Kozlak with that movie being made, I can’t rule out that the director’s not involved in some way,” I said. “Rain got angry when I asked if the mystery guy was really the director so I don’t think it was Kozlak in that car. And I truly believe if the man in the car had been working with Kozlak, Rain and I would be dead by now. But think about it: even if Rain went willingly with the guy in the car, which I don’t believe, even if she did, what if Kozlak found out about it? The director works with two of the men who might be Rain’s mystery guy, so it could happen. We have to go to the Malibu house and make sure Rain’s not being held there again.”

  Also we still had to figure out how to get into the Star Center, I told my friends.

  “Somebody didn’t like me snooping around there. Enough to kill that homeless man.” Something told me the answer to many of my questions lay behind those gleaming walls.

  AFTER EVERYONE LEFT, Taj brought his ghetto blaster and about a dozen candles over from his room.

  “There’s a song I want to play for you.”

  “I think I’ve heard this line before,” I said, teasing.

  But when he hit play, I grabbed his face and kissed him long and hard. It was One by U2. He held me close and I listened to the song’s words—about dragging the past into the light and carrying each other. I rested my cheek against his chest, listening to the thud of his heartbeat.

  Nobody carried me. I took care of myself. I had to. I was so weary of taking care of myself, holding in my emotions. Opening up to these new friends had unleashed something in me I hadn’t realized was there. I felt overly sensitive, on the verge of tears all the time. It was a good feeling, but at the same time it scared the shit out of me. I’d never felt more vulnerable in my life.

  During the next song, Until the End of the World, Taj pulled me up and held my face a few inches away from his with a gaze so intense I didn’t think I could look away if I wanted to. He reached for me with a groan and pulled me tighter. But I pulled back and tugged his shirt over his head. I bent down to his tattoo and kissed the wings of the angel ever so gently before I came up and my lips met his urgent mouth.

  The next morning, I went into work early to ask for Monday off. I explained what was going on to Amir, telling him one of the church members might have Rain.

  His eyes behind his silver-framed glasses made me squirm. If I didn’t know him better, it would have frightened me. Even so, the look in his eyes was something I had never seen before and made him seem like a stranger. They held a glint of something dangerous. Maybe he was angry, like I was, at the thought of a powerful, oppressive group hurting an innocent young girl. Maybe to him this was a battle worth fighting. Amir had seen some horrific things back in his homeland. Things that might have made him a little bit on the edge of crazy. He could be a powerful ally. He dug around in a drawer without meeting my eyes and tossed me a car key on a ring.

  “Take the restaurant owner’s car. He won’t know. He’s in Cuba right now. You can keep it until you work again Tuesday.”

  I scrambled to retrieve it from the floor. “Uh…okay. Thanks.”

  I didn’t know what else to say so I started walking backward toward the door. Amir was already flipping through some papers on his desk. How would I know which car was the owner’s? I turned to ask him this, but he’d picked up the phone right before the door slammed shut.

  I needn’t have worried. There were two cars in the parking lot. I recognized one as Amir’s old Volvo. The other was a large—a huge, really—four-door sedan. The little metal plate on the rear end said Lincoln Town Car. I hadn’t driven a car since my driver’s ed class in Chicago during junior year. I was relieved it was an automatic. Even so, I accidentally peeled out of the parking lot on my way back to the American Hotel.

  All night long I had nightmares about returning to Kozlak’s beachfront home, chased down maze-like passageways that always ultimately dead-ended in thick brick walls, frantically trying to scale the walls or break through them, clawing at them until my nails were ragged and bloody. And the dreams ended the same way every time: with icy cold fingers digging into my shoulder and jerking me back.r />
  I let Danny drive us to Malibu, which meant a hair-raising, wild, zipping-in-and-out-of-traffic ride on the 101 Freeway. The Lincoln was so big it felt like we were floating down the freeway, bouncing gently at bumps in the road, ready for takeoff. At first I told Danny we shouldn’t smoke in the car, but Danny pointed to the ashtray full of cigarette butts, so before long we had both lit up.

  “Just don’t burn the seat by accident,” I cautioned.

  The nicotine helped smother the anxiety I felt rising whenever I thought about going back into that Malibu house. Every once in a while, images from my nightmares trickled through my mind, but I blotted them out. I also pushed back images of the surfers’ boyish grins.

  It was a perfect L.A. day. A breeze brought the salty ocean smell into our car, cooling the heat of the sun on our arms and legs. It felt good to be out of downtown. I smiled at Danny. He returned a blindingly white Cheshire cat grin as a reward. I had missed him. He had such a love of life and childlike wonder in the simplest things that he made something as boring as driving down the freeway fun. It made me feel bitter and jaded in comparison.

  “Whoa, man,” he said when we turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway, pointing out the window with his lit cigarette. “Look at those surfers ripping those waves.”

  From our perch high above the water on PCH, we could see giant waves flecked with seemingly tiny bodies on surfboards floating into shore. I didn’t want to think about surfers. I cranked up the radio to KROQ and sang loudly until a Concrete Blonde song came on. The lead singer, Johnette Napolitano, introduced the song on the live version, saying it was about AIDS.

  “This is for any of you who knows anyone who’s lost anyone. This is a song about a woman with AIDS, which someone in this room has, a few of these people in this room have, and you’ll go through it, and you’ll know it, and you should stop it. This is for Wendy.”

  I blinked hard to hold back hot tears, sneaking looks over at Danny, who had grown very still and was staring out at the black pavement of the road before us. I unsnapped my seatbelt and scooted right up against him on the bench seat, putting my head on his shoulder. He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. He grabbed my hand with one of his, holding it tight with his other hand loosely on the wheel. We sat there like that until the song ended.