Anne exhaled. ‘Luis isn’t coming,’ she said, disappointment etched on her face. ‘Something came up, apparently, and he had to pull out.’
Nikki did her best to conceal her own disappointment. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d hoped to achieve by seeing Anne’s husband face to face, but his absence left her feeling cheated.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told Anne. ‘I know tonight meant a lot to you.’
Anne ran a hand through her hair in frustration. ‘Eugh, I don’t know. When I heard he wouldn’t be here, I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or disappointed. I mean, I want to see him, but at the same time I don’t. I hate that he still has this much power over me. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Sure I do,’ said Nikki truthfully. Doug still exerted enormous power over her emotions and actions, and he was dead. She could only imagine how hard it must be to break free from a complicated, controlling man like Luis Rodriguez, when he’d decided he didn’t want you to.
A bell rang, indicating it was time for guests to take their seats for dinner. Nikki glanced around again for Derek Williams, but couldn’t seem to see him anywhere. Meanwhile, Haddon was waving, beckoning her over to his table.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Anne, noticing Nikki doing a double take.
Behind Haddon, standing by the entrance like sentries, were Detectives Goodman and Johnson. Looking up, Goodman raised a hand in greeting to Nikki across the room. He looked preposterously handsome in his tuxedo jacket and bow tie, a taller version of a young Frank Sinatra. Flustered, Nikki nodded briefly in reply.
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said casually to Anne. ‘I just saw an old friend. Try to enjoy your evening, even without Luis. Maybe we can talk again later, after dinner?’
Something was up tonight. First Williams and now the cops?
The thought suddenly occurred to Nikki that perhaps she was that something. Were Goodman, Johnson and Williams all here because of her? Watching her? Protecting her? And if so, from what? Or from whom?
Or perhaps there was another reason, some other link between one of tonight’s guests and Lisa and Trey’s murders that she hadn’t yet grasped. Another strand in the web.
And could it really be a coincidence that the police were here but – at the very last minute – Luis Rodriguez, the man of the hour, was not?
Dinner was delicious.
After a first course of tuna tartare and smoked sweet potato chips, Nikki was presented with a mouthwatering platter of thinly sliced Kobe beef and freshly made spaghetti with shaved white truffles, all washed down with crisp, vintage Chablis. The combination of the food, the wine and the stimulating company helped Nikki start to relax. The man next to her was quite fascinating, a neuroscientist from Berkeley specializing in neuron pathway regeneration after drug-induced brain damage. By the time Haddon got up to speak, Nikki realized to her own surprise that she was actually enjoying herself. She’d forgotten all about Luis Rodriguez, and even about Anne, although she still had half an eye on Detective Goodman, not least because she was aware of his eyes on her.
‘I wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for an amazing man that many of you knew: the late, great Dr Douglas Roberts.’
Haddon’s voice washed over Nikki like warm water. Even as he told stories about Doug and the old days, something that a few weeks ago would have reduced her to tears, she found she felt oddly fine, cocooned in a sort of fuzzy numbness. Maybe I’m drunk? As Haddon’s speech drew to a close and the auction began, her attention wandered and her vision began to blur. Faces merged one into another, all bathed in a lovely, mellow light from the candles. She was supposed to be looking for someone. Who was that again? Someone …
Lou Goodman watched as Nikki Roberts leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She looked stunning tonight, sexier than ever in that clinging red dress. It was a struggle to take his eyes off her even for a second. But he knew he must.
Two tables across from Nikki, right up against the stage where the auctioneer was whipping the crowd into a money-spending frenzy, Nathan Grolsch sat holding court beside his hollow wreck of a wife. Merely looking at Old Man Grolsch’s wrinkled, spiteful, hypocritical face, yukking it up with his ‘friends’ was enough to turn Goodman’s stomach. Surrounded by some of LA’s best known super-rich – the Grolsches’ table included a Bel Air real estate mogul, a legendary Vegas casino boss and his wife, and the new Russian owner of LA Galaxy, among others – the old man was obviously enjoying playing the part of the generous philanthropist.
Goodman thought back to his brief interview with Brandon’s parents at their home. He would never forget Nathan Grolsch’s brutal lack of compassion for addicts, and how it even extended
to his own son.
‘Brandon was an addict. A useless, lying, no-good scumbag who threw his life away for drugs.’
Fran, Brandon’s mother, had had more empathy, perhaps because she evidently had some sort of tranquilizer problem herself. But her husband’s bullying had broken her down over the years, and she’d been no more use to poor Brandon when he was alive than his cold, self-righteous father. Yet now that he was dead, here they both were, at an End Addiction event, of all things, with Nathan throwing his money around as if he actually gave a shit.
‘Psst, Goodman,’ Johnson, back from the bar, whispered in his partner’s ear. ‘You wanna hear a good joke?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s a joke. That’s a joke,’ said Goodman, gesturing with distaste towards the very public bidding war between Nathan Grolsch and one of the men on Nikki Roberts’ table over a weekend on a super-yacht in Sardinia. The price had already passed the two hundred thousand dollar mark, and neither bidder seemed inclined to stop anytime soon. ‘Grolsch is such a showboat. He turned his back on his own son. If he really cared, he’d write an anonymous check and be done with it.’
‘Hmmm,’ grunted Johnson. He wasn’t inclined to shed too many crocodile tears for a rich, spoiled addict like Brandon Grolsch. So his dad was an asshole. Big deal. Whose wasn’t?
‘Look who’s back,’ he remarked, dragging a reluctant Goodman’s attention away from the bidding towards the less expensive tables to their right, farthest from the stage. Derek Williams, looking not unlike Tweedle-Dee, squeezed into a cheap dinner suit at least two sizes too small for him and with the buttons on his white shirt gaping in the middle, was mingling with diners, taking notes and handing people his business card like a pesky used-car salesman.
‘I’ll get rid of him,’ said Johnson, putting his beer down with a clatter.
‘No,’ said Goodman, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Let me do it. You keep an eye on the tables.’
Johnson opened his mouth to protest but Goodman had already gone.