CITY OF SECRETS

Chapter One

WHEN BRUCE MESSANE’S PHONE WOKE HIM at half past midnight, he knew it couldn’t possibly be good news— good news never came this late. He tried to guess what calamity was waiting for him on the other end of the line. Best-case scenario was more supply chain issues and shipping delays, a constant scourge since COVID. Worst-case scenario was a bad quarterly projection that could blow up the deal with Wilder Foods. Please, God, not that. Not now. They were so close.

Or perhaps it wasn’t a company problem at all, but a death. The thought cheered him. Maybe Camille had fallen off a mountain in the Italian Alps, which would be a just and poetic end for a former Olympic skier and a former wife who’d absconded to Europe with her former trainer. She’d also absconded with his fourteen-year-old daughter and half of his wealth. Actually, it had been Trina’s choice to decamp to Livigno with her mother, but only because her mind had been poisoned against him.

As vindictive and rapacious as Camille was, he couldn’t really begrudge her choice— he’d been a miserable husband. He probably would have done the same thing in her position. But he still hated her. And paradoxically, still loved her. Or maybe he just loved the memory of the small-town Colorado girl he’d met in Aspen and married six months later. Money did strange things to people.

He fumbled for the bedside lamp in his Holmby Hills bedroom, tugged on the ridiculous tasseled pull, and illuminated a nauseatingly feminine space that raised his hackles and made his stomach burn. Too damn much brocade and gilt, too many stupid, pointless tassels, too many useless, overpriced tchotchkes that Camille referred to haughtily as decorative accents. And the hideous curtains—mustard-yellow silk trimmed with blue fringe. It was like Versailles had vomited here, and it haunted him. God, how he hated those curtains—window treatments—especially after he found out they’d cost him eighty thousand dollars.

He was going to gut this room—no, the whole house—and have a ceremonial bonfire in the desert somewhere as soon as the deal was inked. Replace the abominable French baroque with masculine, industrial-chic pieces in leather and steel. Erase her. He liked erasing extraneous people from his life.

Hi, Camille, thought you would enjoy this video of your shit burning. By the way, the deal just went through. A hundred million and change for a company I started with a five-thousand-dollar loan. Can you believe it? Too bad you missed the really big payday. Best wishes. Love, Bruce.

His incessantly bleating phone fragmented his revenge fantasy, and he squinted at the screen. Unknown number. He thought about muting it and going back to sleep, but the caprices of technology sometimes registered important calls as unknown numbers. And every call was important, especially now. “Bruce Messane.”

“Oh, dear, you sound groggy. Did I wake you?”

Mimi. What the hell did she want? He’d erased her from his life months ago, but she kept resurfacing like a stubborn stain. “It’s late.”

“Never too late to hear from an old friend, is it?” she purred.

Mimi either purred or rasped. There was no middle ground with her. The purr meant she wanted something; the rasp meant she was sharpening her claws. “I have a very important early meeting—”

“I need to see you.”

Bruce wiped the pearls of sweat that had erupted on his forehead. Mimi was an addiction; a flesh-and-blood manifestation of the very worst in him. She made him feel sick and weak, and she wielded her power with cunning alacrity. But that toxic part of his life was in the rearview mirror, and it had to stay there. He couldn’t go back, it would ruin him. “No. Our relationship is over. It never should have happened in the first place.”

Her voice transformed into that ugly, husky scraping, like bone against bone. “I gave you everything, Bruce. Everything you ever wanted, and you discarded me like a used condom when something better came along. You owe me this, so don’t keep me waiting. I’ll pick you up at the usual place.”

He listened to the dead air of an ended call and stared at the revolting mustard curtains as if they might inform him of the right decision. Maybe just this one last time. Predictably, his lack of resolve ignited self-loathing, but the transgression would be worth it. If you’d never enjoyed the danger of sex with a psychopath, you hadn’t lived.

Chapter Two

FOR THE FOURTH DAY IN A row, rain swept through downtown LA in silvery, oblique sheets, driven by a fierce wind. Overtaxed storm drains regurgitated gray water that pooled in the streets and on the sidewalks. The normally desiccated Los Angeles River—not a river at all, just a concrete flood channel cleaving the city—roiled and foamed as it raced to sea with a woeful collection of debris. It was an excellent time to dispose of a body there, Detective Margaret Nolan thought. Once it hit the Pacific, it would be gone for good.

She was mesmerized by nature’s fury as she watched the slashing, sideways rain out the window of the LAPD Administration Building, colloquially known as the Glass House. All morning, overcaffeinated meteorologists who usually had nothing to talk about in Southern California prattled on about apocalyptic weather. They spoke with deranged glee, the tacit message being the End of Days was near, time to gather flora and fauna and build an ark, time to kiss your ass and life as you knew it goodbye. The sure antidote to boredom and low ratings was hyperbole.

Admittedly, the weather was strange these days, but hadn’t weather always been strange? Antarctica and Death Valley had once been lush tropical forests; Europe had experienced a little ice age in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Maybe it was time for SoCal to become a rain forest once again. The city founders had been aiming for that since the first Los Angeles Aqueduct had been completed in 1913. That clever piece of engineering had drained the Owens River and the Owens Lake to supply water to a new paradise at the expense of a fertile, productive valley. The destruction they’d wrought over the years could easily be administered by Mother Nature in relative minutes.

But Nolan wasn’t interested in the politics of water or climate change at the moment; she was interested in her partner, Al Crawford, who was stuck between exits on the backside of a ten-car pileup on the 101. Why did people turn into abject idiots behind the wheel when it rained?

He answered before the phone rang on her end. The sound of rain pounding his car was thunderous, but it didn’t drown out the aggravation in his voice, which had escalated since the last time they’d spoken. “Where are you now?”

“I’m in exactly the same spot I was when I called you twenty minutes ago. I can’t even squeeze through with the gumball, it’s a freaking wall-to-wall disaster, and half the assholes around me are getting out of their cars in this monsoon, like that’s going to help . . .” He paused his rant to refill his lungs. “You’re calling with a body, aren’t you?”

“Culver City. Meet me there, I just texted you the address. Take deep breaths and don’t kill anybody. It would look bad on your performance review.”

He grunted. “I’ll try my best.”

“Try harder.”

“Yeah. See you sometime next year.” She pocketed her phone and watched a solitary figure on the plaza below fight the elements. The brave soul and his tattered blue umbrella were losing.

“Enjoying the scenery?”

Remy Beaudreau’s low, smooth voice behind her startled as much as it catalyzed a furious rush of endorphins. She loved the sizzling high, but hated that she was a feeble pawn to biology in even the most inappropriate circumstances. She came from a long line of control freaks, and had probably absorbed the trait in the womb. Hormonal autopilot contravened her most basic principles.

She turned and nodded curtly; professionally. Their relationship was nebulous at the moment, but whatever it was or might become, it simply couldn’t exist in the Glass House. If Captain Mendoza found out, one of them would have to leave the vaunted Homicide Special Section, and that would be sudden death. Any other position would be a significant demotion for the loser, and bitterness would ensue no matter how hard they tried to make it work.

“Good morning, Detective Beaudreau.”

“I do admire your formality and restraint, Maggie,” he whispered close to her ear. “I’m having some difficulty maintaining the same discipline.”

His words were silky and tinged with old-money New Orleans. It wasn’t fair that he could smile without smiling; that his dark, curly hair was damp and unkempt in the most alluring way; that his bespoke suit, dotted with dark water spots because he never carried an umbrella, was perfectly snug on his lean frame. Was he trying to torture her? “Behave yourself, Detective.”

“Prudent, but possibly futile. I believe we’re the worst-kept secret in HSS.”

That deflated her, and washed away all those excellent endorphins. “Mendoza doesn’t know, let’s keep it that way.”

“I think you might be underestimating him.”

Without the love buzz, she was able to get irritated with him, just like anybody else who endeavored to ruin her day. “All the more reason for absolute propriety.”

“You’re right.” Remy raised his hand in oath. “Absolute propriety from now on, Scout’s honor. Was this our first quarrel?”

She took a beat, then covered her mouth to hide a smile from anyone who might be watching. “Hardly. It was me being sensible in response to you being incorrigible. No way you were a Boy Scout.”

“No, but I’m always prepared.”

“For what?”

“Plagues, floods, scoundrels . . . even vexed sweethearts. I hope to restore your confidence in me with dinner tonight.”

Yes, please. “I’m not sure. We just got a call-out to Culver City. Body in a car.”

He scanned Homicide’s busy honeycomb of work cubicles. “Where’s Al?”

“Stuck behind the pileup on the 101. He’s meeting me there.” Tensions smoothed and forgotten, Nolan’s mind was free to focus on other things, like the body waiting for her. Yet it mulishly remained on Remy. They’d never spoken about what had to happen if . . . or when the captain found out. It was a pivotal aspect of their situation, their relationship, yet they were frolicking like spring lambs oblivious to impending slaughter. Well, maybe that was a little dramatic, but it had to be addressed at some point. Soon. Over several martinis.

“Why are you even here? I thought you’d be out all day with the Kang case.”

“I thought so, too, but the disgraced Dr. Kang solved it all on his own with a fentanyl overdose, so I can’t take credit for staggering virtuosity. We found over two hundred counterfeit oxys in a vitamin bottle. His patients weren’t the only ones with an opioid problem.”

“Sounds like he was dealing to support his habit.”

“Two hundred oxys aren’t for personal use,” he agreed. “Although I doubt he realized they were tainted. By all accounts, he wasn’t suicidal.”

“Ironic that a famous plastic surgeon who lost his license by overprescribing real opioids died from street trash.”

“Life is full of irony. And fortunes change. He went from a Beverly Hills mansion to a depressing studio in Chinatown.”

Fentanyl was public enemy number one; the biggest menace since meth, but far deadlier. “Kang’s death makes that over two thousand ODs this year.”

He grimaced. “More to come, unfortunately. There’s a lot of bad product on the street right now. I showed the pills to Justin in Gang-Narc, and they’re a perfect match with the four hundred thousand rainbows they just confiscated in Inglewood.”

“Rainbows?”

“Bright cheery colors to attract the tween crowd.”

Nolan’s stomach spasmed around the chalky lemon yogurt she’d had for breakfast. “That’s disgusting . . . worse than disgusting—its evil.”

“There’s a high percentage of sociopaths in the drug realm.”

“Do they know where it’s coming from?”

“They think it’s part of a cartel dump, meant to flood the market and drive down the price.”

“Why would they cut into their bottom line?” His unreadable onyx eyes were distracting her, so she turned back to the window.

“Power grab. Cull the weak and take over their share of the action without a turf war. Or force alliances.”

“That sounds awfully sophisticated for sociopathic thugs.”

“It’s a multibillion-dollar business, and the new generation is sophisticated. The drug lords probably all have MBAs now.”

She sighed dispiritedly. “Between the cartels, overseas suppliers, and dark web drug emporiums, it’s never going to end.”

Remy tapped the window. “I’m not sure this rain will, either. I hope your crime scene isn’t getting washed away.”

“I’m sure it’s too late to worry about that, but I have to go.” She turned, risked a glance at him, and maintained her self-possession.

Good job. “I’ll call you later.”

A discreet smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I have reservations for two at the Hotel Bel-Air at nine. If you’re free.”

“And if I don’t make it, who is my replacement?”

“You’re irreplaceable, of course, so I don’t have anyone else in mind. I imagine I’ll just eat at the bar and have a conversation with whoever is tending. Dr. Kang was a regular there, even after his fall from grace. Bartenders know more about their customers than they know about themselves.”

“I thought the case was closed.”

“Essentially, but where he acquired his stash is still a mystery I’d like to solve.”

“That’s Narc’s job, and I’m sure the Inglewood bust gave them plenty of intelligence.”

“There’s no such thing as too much intelligence. And I’d like to be an asset, small as my contribution may be.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“I might enjoy a change of scenery at some point, and Narc would be my first choice if I were to transfer to another division. Take care, Maggie. See you later, I hope.”

She watched him saunter away, stunned by his illusory bomb drop. Remy had been thinking about their situation, too, and he was way ahead of her, making plans. She didn’t know why it surprised her. Thrilled her. Terrified her.