Private L.A. (Private 6)

Townsend said, “I still can’t be part of this.” She headed toward the door.

“Don’t you want to know what we find?” I called after her.

“I didn’t say that,” the special agent replied, and went out the door.

Mo-bot called to me. “Where do you want me to start? This is a lot of ground to cover with a one-woman show.”

Before I could answer, my cell rang. A number I did not recognize, but given all that had been going on, I answered. “Jack Morgan.”

“It’s your favorite bail bondsman,” Carmine Noccia purred. “We should meet sooner rather than later.”

“Carmine, it is not a good time.”

“Wasn’t a good time for me last year when the DEA found that truck.”

So there it was. Carmine either knew or openly suspected me. “I suppose not,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with me?”

Carmine laughed. “Cool as ever, Jack. But again, we should meet sooner rather than later. The three of us.”

“Three?”

“Yeah. You. Me. Your brother. Tommy and I have a proposition for you.”

“An offer I can’t refuse?”

A pause, then a short laugh. “You’re a cool son of a bitch, Jack.”

“I try.”

“How about Tommy and I drop by your office?” Carmine said. “Haven’t seen the place in a while. Say, like, an hour?”

“Say, like, I’ll be waiting.”

Chapter 63

JUSTINE WANDERED INTO the Harlows’ bedroom, noticed the mirrors, six in total, none alike, two floor-lengths on either side wall, two smaller framed mirrors, one on the doors to the closets, and a long thin one on the interior wall up high, right below the ceiling. It seemed to reflect nothing but the Italian plaster.

She heard a grunt, noticed McCormick waving an ultraviolet wand over the sheets on the Harlows’ bed. Weren’t they fresh? The sheets? What did he expect to find on them?

Justine headed into Jennifer Harlow’s closet, finding the drawer of sex toys Mo-bot had first discovered, and then the Sybian machine sitting on the floor beneath a row of haute couture dresses.

Justine closed her eyes, tried to get inside Jennifer’s head. The woman was obviously highly sexed. The actress seemed to have one of the best of everything in the self-pleasure toy category. But what did that mean? A lot of highly creative people were also highly sexed, Picasso, for instance, and Anaïs Nin, and a dozen other actors she could name right off the top of her head. It certainly didn’t mean … or did it?

Was it possible that Jennifer used all these toys because her husband did not satisfy her often enough, or at all anymore? Justine flashed on an image of her entanglement with Paul earlier in the morning and felt faint. What in God’s name was I thinking? Was that how Jennifer Harlow was? Sexually impulsive?

Or maybe the toys were just that, toys, something to energize a marriage of twenty-plus years. She opened her eyes, looked down, thought, But how do you explain the Sybian? She got down on her knees, looked at it. According to Sci, the machine was the ultimate in erotic gizmos for women, a combination of the thundering power of riding a horse bareback coupled with …

Justine imagined herself on the thing and then shook her head violently. She was not going there. She was getting this all under control….

Her hand lashed out, sweeping aside several of the dresses. She saw something behind the Sybian machine, a crack in the closet wall she hadn’t noticed before. She pushed back the dresses, smelling faint perfume. Jennifer’s?

The crack was regular, rectangular, like the seam around a narrow panel or door, except she could see no handle. She knocked on it and was surprised to find it was made of some kind of metal. She felt along the seam counterclockwise, pressing, prodding. Nothing.

She was about to get up to see if McCormick might have better luck, when she noticed an aberration in the wood trim that ran along the carpet five inches below the bottom seam. It was a knot that had not been sanded smooth.

Justine pushed at it, felt no give. She got her finger alongside the knot and nudged it left. Nothing. She pushed right, felt it give and slide until she heard a hydraulic click and the metal pocket door slid back, revealing a steel ladder bolted into the wall two feet away.

Chapter 64