You Can Trust Me, page 10
All right. I’ve had my fun. Now I need to focus.
“Excuse me one moment,” I whisper to Julie, and I slip between people toward Michael. I feel fluid in the crowd, like water flowing around stones, and with stolen diamonds in my pocket, I might just be invincible. When I reach him, I put a hand on his forearm. “Michael?” I murmur, just audible over the music.
He looks down at me for a startled moment. Then he blinks away his surprise and gives me a warm smile. “Oh, hello!” He leans in and does a friendly air-cheek kiss. “You’re Leo’s friend Summer, right?”
“Yes. So good to see you again.”
He looks puzzled. Up close, his blue eyes are beautiful, rimmed with long dark lashes. He says, “How did you—”
“I’m with Alan. We met at your party. He asked me to be his guest this weekend.”
“Ah. Well, welcome. I hope you enjoy.”
“I was thinking Leo would be here. Is she?”
Now he looks completely taken aback. “No. She didn’t—Why would you think—”
“I haven’t spoken to her since your party. I thought she might have come here with you.”
His brow furrows. “No, I’m sorry.” He clears his throat. “We went on a short ride on my boat, but we docked in Marina del Rey, and she said she was taking a cab home from there.”
I’m stunned. “When did you drop her off? That same night?”
“The next morning, around nine o’clock. I had to get her back early because I needed to get over here by noon.” He sees the concern on my face and says, “I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”
She’s been in L.A. this whole time?
One of the acrobats falls, spinning through the air. The crowd reverberates with gasps of horror, but it’s a trick. She jolts to a stop at the bottom of her silk, mere feet above one of the round tables set with crystal and china. The audience breaks into applause.
One of the suited workers approaches Michael and whispers something into his ear. She rushes off, and he tells me, “It’s my time to make a speech. Enjoy the show. I hope to see more of you this weekend.” He turns to follow the woman back toward one of the hallways. I watch her fiddle with his lapel, putting a microphone on him. The acrobats are wrapping it up, doing their last tricks, and the music is dying down.
Michael hops nimbly onto the fireplace hearth, and a spotlight hits him, obviously tucked up in the ceiling somewhere. He looks like he’s about to give a TED Talk.
“That was incredible, let’s give them a round of applause,” he cries. Everyone claps as the acrobats trot off into the darkness. The crowd falls silent, and Michael turns to us, hands clasped in front of him, shoulders square and relaxed. “Thank you so much for your presence here this weekend. We’re standing at a juncture. Everyone in this room is a mover and shaker, disrupting the status quo and standing in the gap for a world on the brink.”
Alan appears at my elbow and slips an arm around my waist. He shoots me a wink and returns his attention to Michael. We’re a crowd of uplifted faces, drinking from the fountain of his words.
My mind drifts as Michael drones on about clean energy. Leo isn’t here. She’s been in L.A. this entire time I’ve been searching for her? Why didn’t she call me?
It doesn’t make sense. She ditched me? Just like that, after five years of being what I had considered sisters?
Maybe she didn’t ditch me. Maybe she got lost, or maybe she got…
No. I’m not going to finish that sentence.
I turn, bumping into a gray-haired man who shoots me a sharp look, and slip through the crowd to the back, where Javier stands, hands in pockets, watching Michael’s speech with no expression on his face. He’s probably seen this a thousand times. I give him a little wave as I approach, and his eyes flick down my body as he greets me.
“May I help you?” He removes his hands from his pockets and clasps them in front of him.
“I hope so.” I beckon him into the hallway so we won’t be overheard. “I need to get back to L.A. Can someone take me in one of the boats?”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
I’m not used to hearing no, not from men in service positions who have previously been staring at my breasts. I feel my eyebrows lift. “Excuse me?”
He stammers. “I-I mean, not no as in, no, but no as in, we don’t have any boats to take you back in. It’s a closed weekend. The yachts are chartered from Marina del Rey and have already returned.”
I study his face for signs of deception. “When I arrived, there were two other boats docked at the marina. I assumed they belonged to the island.”
He shakes his head. “They’re docked on the mainland as well; they belong to the same company. As I said, it’s a closed weekend.”
A burst of applause from the great room almost makes me jump. “I don’t understand,” I reply. “You’re telling me that if one of these investors came to you with the same request, you’d tell him, sorry, it’s a closed weekend?”
He nods vigorously. “Yes, ma’am. We hold investors’ weekends quarterly, and they’re always closed. We’re demo’ing proprietary technology. It’s a high-security event. It’s for everyone’s safety, to protect investments. They’re all aware.”
I narrow my eyes and stare him down for five seconds. It’s a trick I learned. Most people are uncomfortable with prolonged eye contact. He’s no exception. He blinks in rapid succession, then begins explaining in a hurried string of words. “Of course, we maintain a relationship with a medevac in case of emergency. If we have a medical crisis, we have a doctor onsite, and we can have a helicopter or small plane here within the hour. All our guests over the age of fifty sign a waiver to—”
I hold a hand up. I’ve heard enough.
I’m tired of men. I wish they weren’t simultaneously so easy and the most difficult, dangerous thing in the world. His brown eyes are wide with feigned innocence, but I can see lies scrawled across his tanned face.
“Thank you so much. I’m sorry for taking your time.” I have to keep my voice low or I’ll scream.
I back away from Javier, tucking myself into the nearest group of people who are listening to Michael’s speech, mouths partway open like they’ve been hypnotized. I move to the back of the room and then the hallway that leads out into the next wing. Once the crowd is behind me, I find my shoulders relaxing, my steps widening. The click-clack of my heels on the bamboo floors comes faster, choppier.
I burst out into the night. The breeze tosses my hair around my face, and I kick my shoes off, dangling them in my hand, and jog across the lawn toward the glass elevator. Javier was lying, and I’m going to prove it before he has a chance to move the boats he swore aren’t at the dock.
I press the elevator call button. The doors open, and I step in. The ocean is a vast black vista glinting in the light of a new moon. I press a hand to the glass, reassuring myself that it’s real as the elevator descends smoothly, a rock falling from the sky. For one weightless moment, I let go of the glass, and I’m sure I’m dying, plummeting in a free fall—but then it slows, and the doors slide open, letting me out onto the wooden walkway.
Shoes in hand, I hurry along the path, boards creaking under my bare feet. It slopes down, makes a turn, and I jump down onto the sand, running toward the docks.
They’re empty.
I stop, feet buried in cool, sucking sand. It’s not quicksand, but only just.
There are no boats.
The docks rock slightly, or maybe it’s an optical illusion as the waves foam around them. Not a single boat. Not one.
I find myself sinking to my knees, staring out to sea.
Above the ambient ocean noise, a faint whirring catches my attention. I search for the source and almost miss a small, airborne object as it sails smoothly past, about twenty feet above my head. It’s gone so fast, I’m not sure I saw it at all.
A drone?
I guess they weren’t kidding about this weekend being high-security.
The waves are gentle, ebbing and flowing, licking at the sand, unconcerned. I’m reminded of all the things my mom said about the universe. What if she was right about everything? That stupid jar full of marbles. If you wait for the universe to give it another shake and land you next to someone you love, you’ll be waiting for an eternity.
I guess all I can do is get through the weekend, go back to L.A., and try to find Leo. Is this going to be my mother all over again? Mauricio searching through Jane Does, showing me photos of dead women?
If I never find her, I’ll have to assume…
What? That she left me? Or that she hitched a ride with a strange man and he decided to take her path in a new, darker direction?
There has to be something I can do. Leo has family in Fresno, a Social Security number, a last name. If I report her missing, the cops will be able to find her in their computers. I can’t just sit here. I have to do something.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LEO
THURSDAY, JUNE 8
We tumbled into the house from the beach, sandy and suntanned and exhilarated. It had been an incredible day—we had woken up late, and, after a long brunch, had taken the Jet Skis out and explored the coves. A blissful hour was spent driving Michael’s speedboat all around the coastline, past the research facility, which loomed like a nuclear power plant on the opposite side of the island. It was creepy out there, acres of windmills rising out of the water, their roots deep in the waves below.
Afterward, we snorkeled in pristine coves populated by colorful fish, watching sea lions sunbathe on a huge rock off the coast, where the horizon was the entire Pacific, stretching out to the vast expanses between California and Japan.
When we returned to the house, Javier was waiting in the front hall as though he’d had a psychic vision we would be arriving momentarily. Ever pleasant, he said, “Mr. Forrester, may I bring you some beverages once you’ve gotten cleaned up?”
Michael said, “Sure, and get dinner set up.”
“Yes, it’s all handled.”
To Javier, I said, “Can I just check on something? Did someone text my friend Summer?”
He nodded, almost a bow. “It’s been taken care of.”
“Did she reply?”
“She did, this morning at ten o’clock. She said, ‘Sounds good.’ ”
Relief. I’d been worrying about this all day in the back of my mind, thinking Summer may not have read the text from an unknown number. I followed Michael to his rooms, almost skipping with happiness.
“You hungry?” he asked, looping an arm around me.
“Starved.”
“Good. I have something special planned for dinner.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” He winked at me, a little secretive.
Outside the picture windows in his suite, the sun was setting, turning the ocean orange and purple. I stood there to witness it, thinking big thoughts about existence and impermanence, thoughts tainted by memories of my sister and all the distance between now and then. He came up behind me, and I said, “I don’t know how you ever go back to the mainland. I could stay here forever.”
He rested his cheek on my head. “This is where I go to be free. To be myself.”
I dressed for dinner in a black dress and heels retrieved from the rack of clothes Javier had brought in for me. The dress fit perfectly, just a simple, stretchy sheath that somehow still managed to look expensive. The heels were high enough to give me the long-legged look I leaned on heavily when buttering up men. I emerged from the bathroom, made-up and ready to go, and found Michael on the couch, typing fast into a laptop. He glanced up, did a double take, and snapped the laptop shut.
“Let’s stay here,” he said, eyes intense in the low lamplight.
I laughed. “You’re going to have to feed me first.”
He sighed, looking at my legs again. “Fine.” He was in another pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and he grabbed a blazer off the couch. Slipping it on, he said, “It would be a shame to waste the surprise, anyway.”
“Surprise?”
“I may have gone overboard.” He made a chivalrous, after-you gesture, and I headed for the door of his suite.
“What did you do?” I was dying of curiosity. I loved surprises. And this gave me hope; gifts were good.
“You’ll see,” he replied, a mysterious smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
We walked the mile of hallways to the great room, my heels loud on the bamboo flooring. I tried guess after guess. “You brought in a buffalo and we’re going spear hunting,” and “We’re going to be skydiving off your private rocket ship.”
When we arrived at last, I gasped. A fire was crackling in the massive fireplace, a cozy table for two set up in front of it. The walls were lit in pinks and purples by hidden spotlights. From the ceiling dangled long, silky sashes, an unusual touch.
“Please, sit,” Michael said, gesturing to the table.
The chair was soft and comfortable, big enough for me to sink into, and the fire turned Michael’s skin into warm honey. “This is heavenly,” I told him, hiding my disappointment and hoping for more tangible gifts after dinner.
Three staff members appeared out of the darkness. One wheeled a cart full of silver-covered plates and two positioned themselves on either side of the fireplace with hands crossed in front of themselves, as though their entire job was to stand there and be available in case we needed anything.
The woman wheeling the cart was a brunette in her thirties with a pretty, patient face. She said, “Good evening, Mr. Forrester.”
“Yes, thank you.”
She poured water like a fine-dining server, one hand behind her back. “I can offer you mocktails if you like, sir.”
He must have told them I didn’t drink. I realized now that he hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since we’d been together. “Go ahead and have a real drink if you want,” I told him. “It won’t bother me.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine.” To the woman, he said, “Sparkling water with lime for me, and whatever she’d like.”
“That’s perfect for me as well,” I told her.
The appetizers were fancy, finger-size bites of pastry that looked French. As I tried not to devour them ravenously, the lights dimmed. A quartet of musicians had appeared out of nowhere, tucked into a corner of the room. They lifted their instruments and began to play an interesting, haunting melody. I laughed in disbelief. “Do you have musicians onsite, or did you bring them in? Either way, that’s the most extra thing I’ve ever seen.”
He grinned at me. “I flew them in.”
“For tonight?”
“I’m trying to impress a much-younger woman.”
I started to make a joke, but then movement drew my attention upward. At the top of the sashes, bodies were unfurling. They had been up there this whole time, stationed at the ceiling, and now the pink and purple lights began to flash and flicker, a light show in time to the music. The bodies unfolded and whirled; they were acrobats, three of them, the central woman a platinum blonde with long, muscular legs.
“I was wrong,” I murmured. “This is the most extra thing I’ve ever seen.”
He chuckled. “Do you like?”
“It’s incredible. And truly a first.” The brunette had returned with her cart and was sliding plates onto the table. She named the dishes as she set them down, but I didn’t hear her words.
Michael was watching me. “Do you wish you could do what the acrobats are doing?”
I laughed. “You already know me.”
“I think so.” His eyes were doing the thing again, where their concentration on me was so hot, it burned. I couldn’t look away. Suddenly, I wanted his hands on me and wished we were in his room and not surrounded by all these servants and musicians and acrobats. I felt their eyes on me and wondered if I was imagining it. After all, I was sure Michael had done this sort of thing before. He could do it every weekend for all I knew.
Michael took my hand and grazed his lips across the inside of my wrist, up my forearm to my elbow. My breath caught in my throat, and the tingle of his lips on my skin went all the way to my core. “Let’s go to your room,” I said. “We’ll come back in a minute.”
“It’s far away,” he replied, and then he slipped out of his chair onto his knees. He turned my chair so I was facing him and kissed my knee. I was confused, full of music and pink light, the firelight flickering in time with the purple strobes, the ceiling stretching up into darkness.
“Michael, what—”
He pulled my legs apart and kissed the inside of my thigh. I gasped, eyes flying up to the acrobats, to the staff members standing in the shadows, hands clasped in front of them. “Michael—” I tried to protest, squirming back in my chair. He pulled me forward, his head under my skirt, and when I felt his mouth on my panties, I gasped again. I opened my mouth to protest, but it was too late, my body throbbing as he pushed my underwear aside and ran his tongue along the sensitive skin. I felt the presence of the staff, of the woman with her cart standing just out of sight, waiting for her cue—the musicians, who played on like nothing was happening—the acrobats. My eyes went up to them, their bodies twisting and hurtling through the air. Pleasure racked my nerves, but then the blonde’s eyes met mine, just for a moment as she spun through a series of somersaults, and I tried to pull Michael away by the hair. He drew back a few inches and frowned up at me. “What’s wrong?”
“These people are watching us,” I whispered.
“They don’t care,” he murmured, almost laughing. “We could do anything. Trust me.” Again, I thought about NDAs. All these workers must have signed them. Why hadn’t I?
