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“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I read your little memoir,” she said. “You’re an alcoholic, aren’t you?”

  He was stunned. “You read my book?”

  “I picked up a used copy on Amazon. It was even signed. I enjoyed it. Self-loathing is a good theme. But here’s the thing. I didn’t really buy that you hated yourself as much as you said you did for wanting to leave your fiancée after the accident. Sure, you felt bad. You struggled with it. You drank. Your grades fell off at law school. You knocked up a one-night stand. Whoops. But I wasn’t totally sold. There were times when I thought you were pretending to be someone who hated himself.”

  “That was the writing. You can’t pretend to be a good writer.”

  “No, the writing’s good. You know it is. Which is maybe why you hate yourself now.”

  He stared at her, transfixed. “Wow. If that’s your fastball I’d love to see your curve.”

  She smiled one more time, then put her sunglasses back on.

  “I’ll have a drink with you,” she said. “Tonight if you want. But get in the car. I’ve got things to do. And I know you do, too.”

  14/ Bang ‘n Bolt

  MADDEN WAS SWEATING. HE’D STRIPPED DOWN TO HIS WHITE V-NECK undershirt and was standing in a hole almost to his waist. He and J.J. had taken turns digging out a section about four feet wide and five feet long. They were down about three feet when the technician said they should be close and Madden told J.J. to get out of the hole so he could take over. A few minutes later he chopped into the hard ground with his shovel, took away a chunk of earth and spotted what looked like a lighter-colored rock.

  He put on a pair of blue latex gloves he’d stowed in his pocket, asked Dupuy to hand him the smaller hand shovel, then got on his knees and began to dig carefully around the object of interest, alternating between the shovel and his fingers.

  “Dude, that’s a bone,” J.J. declared, peering into the hole from his haunches.

  It was. It was long and thin. Possibly a rib, Madden thought, clearing more dirt along its contours.

  “You getting this, Carolyn?” he said, without looking at Dupuy, who was behind the camera.

  “Camera’s recording,” she said. “Time is eleven seventeen.”

  An inch to the right of the bone he caught the edge of another fragment and gingerly began to clear around it. Soon they were looking at a short row of thin curved bones, what appeared to be a rib cage.

  “This is freaking me out a little,” J.J. said. “I didn’t think it would. But I’m freakin’ a little here. What if it is her?”

  Madden wasn’t going to say anything but he was freaking a little, too. It can’t be this easy, he thought, momentarily seduced by a vision of yellow crime scene tape and television crews crowding the sidewalk opposite the house. He promised himself he’d be humble. This isn’t about me. I’m just finishing what the MPPD started. We said we’d find Stacey Walker and by God we have.

  “How far are you going?” Dupuy asked.

  “’Til I’m sure we’re looking at human remains,” he said.

  They both knew that meant finding the skull. But Dupuy was clearly becoming antsy. As a former prosecutor, she’d have preferred doing the handoff to law enforcement sooner rather than later. They’d have to get a forensic team in here and if they were looking at some sort of blunt-force trauma, Stacey’s skull might be in fragments. You didn’t want to be poking around with a shovel—even a mini one—with a situation like that.

  “I think he strangled her,” J.J. announced. “My money’s on that.”

  “The only way you’d know that is if he crushed her windpipe,” the ground-radar technician pointed out. He was standing behind J.J., sipping some sort of vitamin-water drink.

  “Well, if everything else got ruled out, you’d have to go with that,” J.J. said.

  Madden looked up from the hole and glared at them. “I’d like to remind you both that we’re filming here.”

  Just then he heard the faint ding-dong of what sounded like a doorbell. He couldn’t tell if it was coming from their house or the neighbor’s.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “What?” J.J. said.

  They waited a few seconds, listening. When the bell sounded a second time J.J. still didn’t hear it but everyone else did.

  “Doorbell,” Madden said, alarmed. They hadn’t brought a tarp to cover the hole, which was stupid.

  “Maybe it’s Shelby,” Dupuy said. “Who else knows we’re here?”

  “You want me to find out who it is?” the technician offered. “I’ll go look around the side. Where I brought my machine in.”

  Like a lot of homes in the area this one had a side gate that led to the backyard through a short, narrow fenced-in alleyway.

  “Yeah, go,” Madden said, laboring to get out of the hole. “Quickly, please.”

  By the time he’d put his dress shirt on and tucked it into his pants the doorbell had rung another two times and the technician had returned from his reconnaissance mission.

  “Cops,” he said in a low voice.

  And almost as soon as he said it they were pounding on the door, announcing themselves. “Palo Alto Police Department. Open the door, please.”

  “Let me handle this,” J.J. whispered. “You guys keep the baby quiet. Carolyn—that’s your name, right? Go inside and take your clothes off.”

  “Take my clothes off?”

  “Yeah, get naked. I’ll talk to them for a minute. And then you come to the door.”

  “Naked?”

  From the way his eyes moved up and down her body, he seemed ready to roger that, but then restrained himself. “Grab a sheet or towel or something,” he said. “You’re cheating on your fiancée. I Airbnb’d the place. That’s the backstory. Go.”

  “I take it you’ve done this before,” Madden heard her say as she headed toward the house.

  “Who do you think coined the term Air bang ‘n bolt?”

  “I didn’t know it was a term.”

  “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  They disappeared into the house, leaving Madden and the technician in the backyard.

  “Am I going to get in some sort of trouble for this?” the technician asked.

  Madden held a finger up in front of his mouth, shushing him. Muffled voices. J.J. speaking, the police responding. A minute later Dupuy’s voice joined the conversation. Some laughter, everything seemed to be going well, and then the sliding door opened and Dupuy came out dressed in nothing but a T-shirt that came down just below her panty line. Madden’s eyes opened wide, the technician’s jaw dropped a little.

  “They want to see an Airbnb receipt,” she whispered, going over to the stroller to check on the baby. “Any paperwork we can show them?”

  Madden had the lease agreement in his sport jacket draped around the patio chair. He went to the coat and fished it out of the inside pocket.

  “I’ve got a copy of the lease,” he said quietly, unfolding the sheets of paper. “But Shelby’s name is on it. What do you think?”

  “I think they know we’re looking for Stacey,” she said. He looked up from the lease and saw that she was now bending down to check on the baby, causing the T-shirt to hike up precariously on her body. “They say a neighbor called to report some suspicious activity. But I’m getting the vibe someone tipped them off.”

  “Well, we’re not letting them in,” Madden said. “They’ll have to get a warrant.”

  She took the lease agreement from him. “I’ll keep them out,” she said. “But call Shelby and tell him to get over here. We’re going to need him.”

  “Did they know who J.J. was?”

  “Not until he told them. They knew me, though. Apparently one of them was the arresting officer in that dog-napping case I worked on last year. Fancy that.”

  Madden winced a little. “Sorry.”

  “There is some good news, though,”
she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I get to regret having sex with J.J. Carradine without having had sex with him.”

  15/ The Agitator

  FREMMER STUDIED THE ENTRANCE TO THE LUCIDITY CENTER ON WEST 100th Street but wasn’t sure what to make of it. If not for a small brass plaque affixed to the right of the door underneath the intercom system, he would have thought he was looking at another residential brownstone on a block of residential brownstones. This particular building, however, in the well-gentrified neighborhood a little south of Columbia University didn’t have a set of stairs or stoop leading up to the front door, the trademark of the classic Manhattan brownstone. Instead, the immense money-green front door was just off the sidewalk.

  His beguiling escort pressed the buzzer on the intercom and addressed the ball-shaped camera integrated into the unit.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  A few seconds later a click and a short buzz indicated the lock had been released. They entered into a vestibule, a kind of mudroom with coat hooks and a bench on one wall. Fremmer relieved himself of his scooter but kept his backpack, preferring not to separate from his laptop and other gear.

  She led him up a short wheelchair accessible ramp to a second door, which swung open as they approached it. Fremmer expected to see someone standing on the other side of the threshold to greet them, but there was no one, just a large, neutral-colored room with high ceilings. A staircase on the opposite side spiraled gradually up to a second floor. On the wall just in front of the staircase was an impressive, square-shaped aquarium with rounded edges that was lit to impressive effect, probably six by six. The door automatically swung shut behind, closing with a barely audible thud.

  Aside from the aquarium, the room was sparsely decorated and lighted a little somberly. To his right was a long wood table and high back chairs waiting to seat a dozen people, maybe more, and to his left two couches in an L-shaped configuration around a wooden coffee table that matched the dining room table. A set of folding chairs, at least ten, were stacked up against the wall in the back corner. Fremmer guessed the room converted into a meeting space for larger gatherings.

  It had no windows but an opening next to the staircase brought in some natural light from what appeared to be a kitchen and, judging from the sound of the door sliding closed, some sort of outdoor space.

  Braden, looking fairly dapper in a blue sport jacket and jeans, came into the room.

  “Ah, Mr. Fremmer, I see Rochelle was able to persuade you to make a little time in your busy schedule for us.”

  It was the first time he heard her name. On the car ride over she’d agreed to meet him later in the bar of ‘Cesca, a restaurant on West 75th, but wouldn’t tell him her name. Maybe she’d been trying to maintain some distance, or a veil of mystery, but she didn’t seem too concerned that he now had something to call her.

  “Do you live here?” Fremmer asked, doing his best to avoid staring at Braden’s prosthesis.

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “So you run a business out of your home?”

  Braden took the question in stride but didn’t answer it directly. “We think of this as a center for enlightenment,” he said. “We run workshops and seminars here, even do some research, but some of our clients stay with us for up to a week, sometimes longer. We offer intensive training sessions for those who are looking to get to the next level so to speak. Our clients come from around the world.”

  “Do you have the required permits to run a hotel out of your home? The proper insurance, etc.”

  Fremmer didn’t care if the guy was missing part of his arm. He couldn’t resist needling him. In his days as a high school basketball player he didn’t start. While he had some skill, he earned his minutes for his hustle, and the coach would sub him in to raise his skilled players’ intensity levels. Invariably, he went in and committed a hard foul almost immediately, riling the other team and energizing his own.

  He became known as “The Agitator.” That was his role. He fell into it as a sophomore hustling to get minutes. And while he scored more as a senior, even hitting twenty a couple of times, he never really grew out of the role of team agitator. In some ways, he still hadn’t.

  “Everything’s in order,” Braden assured him.

  “Well, this all reeks of shadiness,” Fremmer declared, holding both his index fingers up and twirling them in a circular motion. “I’ve got a lot of experience in the field of suspect entrepreneurial endeavors and this one’s pretty damn suspect.”

  “Have you ever had a lucid dream?” Braden asked.

  “I’m familiar with the concept.”

  “By familiar you mean you’ve experienced it?”

  Fremmer nodded. “I have.”

  “How did it manifest itself?”

  “I don’t know. I was in a dream and I realized it and I said to myself I’m in a dream, I’ll do whatever I want.”

  “And what did you do?”

  Fremmer looked over at Rochelle, who had the faint glint of a smile in her eyes. She seemed to be enjoying herself, if only slightly.

  “You want the R version or the unrated version?” he asked.

  “However you’re comfortable expressing yourself is fine,” Braden replied. “We’re not here to judge.”

  “Thanks. But if it’s OK with you, how ’bout she goes first?” He nodded in Rochelle’s direction. “To show me how it’s done.”

  Braden motioned for her to go ahead.

  “I had one a few night ago where I was in a spinning class,” she began.

  “Oh, you spin,” Fremmer remarked. “You know I—”

  “I’m next to the instructor,” she went on in the present tense, ignoring him. “We’re facing the class. And I see the class is looking at me. And I’m not sure why they’re looking at me. And then I look down and I see that I’m in my underwear. I’m spinning in a thong and a regular bra.”

  Which isn’t much less than what some people spin in, Fremmer thought.

  “For a moment I’m really embarrassed. I can’t believe that I came to class dressed like that. What was I thinking? And then I look down at my underwear and I notice it’s a little translucent, I can see pubic hair.”

  Fremmer felt his Adam’s apple rise and fall.

  “When I see it,” she continued, “That’s my cue.”

  “Your cue?”

  “That’s my cue to know that I’m in a dream. You can train yourself to activate with certain visual cues that you’ve encountered in previous dreams. It doesn’t always work but in this case it does. I realize I’m dreaming. So I look out at the class and spot a guy I like.”

  “You know him?”

  “No, just a random, good-looking guy.”

  “Older, younger? What level of good-looking are we talking?”

  “I don’t know. Dark hair, pretty tall, smooth hard body, in his thirties.”

  “OK, generic good-looking guy. You aren’t that picky, but you don’t like chest hair. Go on. I’m fine with unrated by the way. Did I mention that?”

  “So I unclip from my bike and go up to him and tell him to get off his bike, I need his help. He asks me what for and I say, ‘You’ll see.’ And he gets off and follows me outside the spinning room. I lead him to the women’s locker room. He stops at the door for a second and asks whether it’s alright to go in. I say, sure, I got permission. And then I lead him into the steam room and we kiss a little and then I tell him to lie down on the bench and I pull off his biker shorts and get on top of him.”

  “Are there other women in the steam room?”

  “No, I’m not into other people watching.”

  “Good to know,” Fremmer said. “What happens after that?”

  “I come.”

  “Well, that’s a bit anticlimactic. How ’bout the guy?”

  “I don’t know. After I got off him, he was gone.”

  “Disappeared into the steam, eh? Vaporized?”

  “Puff,” she sai
d, her fingers springing open like a flower in high-speed bloom.

  “Rochelle has had documented orgasms in her sleep,” Braden announced rather clinically.

  Fremmer couldn’t resist asking how one went about documenting that.

  “There are sensors,” Braden explained. “The most common is a vaginal photoplethysmograph.”

  “Of course,” Fremmer said. “Pardon my ignorance. And I know Candace was fascinated by all this stuff. I saw some of it pop up in her fiction. But to be clear I’m not about to publish a nonfiction book on the subject. And I’ve never seen a manuscript of any sort. What was she writing for you anyway?”

  Braden offered a faint smile, then pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Fremmer. It didn’t take long for Fremmer to figure out that it was a simple one-page contract, not so different from the ones he’d drafted for his clients. It showed a short description of what she was supposed to write and when she was supposed to deliver the work.

  “She was writing a history of The Center wrapped around a history of lucid dreaming,” Braden said. “I was going to get someone else to write it, but she convinced me that she could do a better job for less.”

  Fremmer glanced over at Rochelle, standing poker-faced, the neutral bystander. He handed the paper back to Braden.

  “So was it supposed to be a promotional vehicle?”

  “Yes and no. We intended to sell it. As you can see, this wasn’t a handshake agreement. It’s fully documented. She’s already three months late. I intend to be reimbursed as the contract states. And it’s coming out of all the sales you’ve been making on her current titles.”

  Fremmer was stunned. He shouldn’t have been, because Rochelle had already told him that’s why Braden wanted to speak to him. But there was something about Braden’s resolute, detached tone that took him by surprise.

  “Are you crazy?” he said. “I’m trying to raise funds for her daughter. And it’s not as much as you think. After taxes, after all is said and done, she’s looking at fifty or sixty grand. Amazon’s making more than she is.”

  “Well, maybe they’ll forgo their cut for her sake.”