Private L.A. (Private 6)

She trudged into the box, glanced around, seeing most of the regulars, but no Paul. She tried to smile at the trainer, said, “Did your sister have the baby, Ronny?”

“Girl,” he said, grinning. “Elena. Six pounds eleven ounces. Thanks for taking care of the place for me, telling everyone there was no class that day.”

“Only a couple of people showed anyway,” she said.

“Yeah, Paul said you and he did a workout with a bunch of pull-ups and push-ups,” the trainer said. “Too many, he said. He strained his back.”

“Oh,” Justine said, feeling her head pounding again. “That’s too bad.”

“Ready for this?” Ronny asked.

Justine turned her head to look at the whiteboard, saw the workout of the day posted there, and shuddered at the simple name:

“Fran.”

Some Crossfit workouts had been given names, women’s names because they were like hurricanes. Of all the hurricanes, nothing was worse than Fran, which involved racing the clock to complete twenty-one thrusters, a move where you had to hold a sixty-five-pound barbell at your collarbone, squat, then explode the weight up overhead. Then you had to do twenty-one pull-ups, then fifteen thrusters, then fifteen pull-ups, then nine thrusters, then nine pull-ups.

Okay, little sister, Justine thought miserably. You’re about to suffer for your sins in a big, big way.

Chapter 85

JUSTINE FINISHED FRAN in nine minutes forty seconds, a time that included two trips to the washroom to hurl the poisons from her system. But as she lay on the floor of the box, sweating like a horse, incapable of moving, her abs, hams, and shoulders on fire, she felt better for having suffered.

She had deserved to suffer.

“Know what I like about you, Justine?” Ronny said.

“What’s that?” she croaked.

“You don’t give up,” the trainer said, grinning. “You come in hungover to the gills, visit with Mr. Pukey twice, and you still go the whole nine yards. I like that in a person. Call me crazy, but I like someone who finishes what they start, no matter what.”

She managed a soft grin. “Thanks, Ronny. I think. I’ll let you know when my body stops twitching.”

The sun was up by the time Justine walked stiffly from the box. Her brain felt slightly scalded, but her head no longer pounded. Her stomach was much better, and she’d sweated most of the booze out of her system. She sat in her car, drank another quart of water, tried to figure out what to do.

Sooner the better. Now, not later.

Those old maxims guided Justine more than her emotions as she put the car in gear and drove through the streets toward the Bonaventure Charter School in Clarkdale, about six miles away.

Bonaventure was housed in a retrofitted apartment building on Mentone Avenue that had been bequeathed to the school’s founder by a wealthy aunt. Mission style and stucco finished, the school sat back from the road, fronted by a beautifully tended flower garden crisscrossed by brick walkways. It was still early, only seven fifteen, and the schoolyard stood empty.

Justine parallel parked across and down the street where she could see the walkways. She rolled down her window to get some air, hoping to spot Paul coming in before his students, hoping to right the course of her life somehow, or at least to find out exactly where the harsh winds of fate had brought her.

The first student, eight or nine, an African-American girl dressed in a school uniform of gray plaid skirt and white collared shirt, came down the sidewalk with her mother ten minutes later. She gave her mother a hug before skipping toward the school.

The girl put Justine very much in mind of Malia, the Harlows’ oldest daughter, and then of Jin and Miguel, and how they might be feeling more than a week into the disappearance of their parents, and four days into life under the control of Dave Sanders. Orphans to begin with, they had to be shocked and upended by finding themselves in that same wretched state again, alone at such a young age, trying to find an anchor, trying to cope, trying to survive a nightmare ordeal.

Seeing the children’s faces in her mind, Justine couldn’t help feeling admiration for the Harlows. Yes, there were things about Thom and Jennifer that she found troubling: not helping the women who worked for them to obtain citizenship; and those camera brackets in the roof of the panic room, aiming into their bedroom. But at the same time, when they really didn’t have to, the Harlows had adopted three needy orphans and had started up a foundation for the benefit of parentless children the world over. Justine tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, wondering about the foundation, realizing it was the only aspect of Thom’s and Jennifer’s lives that they knew little about.

Justine had seen the commercials, and the pictures of one or both of the Harlows in some far-flung and impoverished land, invariably holding a malnourished but utterly adorable child. The Harlows built schools and dorms and improved water resources for—

Justine’s attention wrenched to the street. Paul’s blue Toyota Camry was pulling up to the curb in front of one of Bonaventure’s walkways. He climbed out of the passenger side, grinning, looking tousle-haired and handsome as usual.

But Justine barely gave him a second glance. She was staring horrified at the pretty blond woman behind the steering wheel and the two young children sitting in car seats behind her. The mom blew a kiss to Paul, who caught it and then walked toward the school, his right hand massaging his lower back.

The Toyota pulled away and drove past Justine. The woman’s window was down. She was looking in the rearview mirror at her children, a boy, a girl, neither more than three. They were all singing, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.”

“Oh, my God,” Justine whispered, her eyes brimming with bitter tears, her cheeks burning with utter shame. “What have I done?”