Private L.A. Read online

  Blowing out a rueful breath, I wondered if I was ever going to get over a woman I still love but just can’t seem to be with, at least on her terms. And maybe mine. It’s complicated. Justine is a psychologist, a fine one. She also works for me, and—

  My cell phone rang so loudly I jerked the wheel and skidded before righting the Touareg. The touch screen was flashing caller ID. I stabbed the answer button, said, “David Sanders, how are you?”

  “Not good, Jack,” Sanders croaked. “Not fucking good at all.”

  Sanders was a powerful entertainment lawyer who’d been a discreet client of Private’s several times in the recent past. And every time Sanders had called, it had been like this, in the middle of the night, with some mess to be cleaned up.

  “You ever sleep, Dave?” I asked.

  “Not when I’m dealing with a shitfest of potentially titanic proportions,” Sanders growled. “I want to hire Private. You personally. I’d like you leading.”

  “I’m …”

  “Hired,” Sanders insisted. “Be at LAX at seven thirty. The heliport. Bring a forensics team with you and someone who knows kids.”

  “Kids? Where are we going?”

  “Ojai,” Sanders said. “Thom and Jennifer Harlow’s place.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “A very scary uh-oh,” Sanders said before hanging up.

  Chapter 6

  THE STREETS IN Santa Monica were still slick and blustery around five fifteen that morning as Justine Smith climbed out of her car in shorts and a sweatshirt, drinking water and groaning. Her muscles hurt in places she hadn’t known she had muscles. And yet here she was, back for more punishment.

  Am I a masochist at some level? Is that why I work too much, my love life is a zero, and my body feels like someone whacked it with two-by-fours?

  Unable to formulate a coherent answer, Justine stiffly crossed the street toward a light-industrial building with a garage door that bore a sign reading “Pacific Crossfit.” Justine had a hate-love relationship with Crossfit, which was tougher than any other exercise program she’d ever followed. No high-tech machines. No mirrors. No fashion statements. Just Olympic free weights, gymnastics equipment, and the guts to perform brief, insanely intense workouts that often left her soaking wet, gasping on the floor, and sore for days.

  Justine came from academics, not law enforcement, but her current job at Private required her to be kick-ass strong. So when she’d discovered that many US Special Forces operators, firefighters, and cops were switching to Crossfit for their physical training, she’d signed up at the gym, or “box,” closest to her.

  The first few weeks she honestly thought she was going to die during the workouts. Rather than let the new regime defeat her, however, she had embraced it with her typical zeal. No matter what, she’d been first at the door on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, even before the ex-SEALs and LAPD SWAT team cops who usually showed up for this early class.

  Six months, she thought, then admitted that she still feared Crossfit. But she absolutely loved the fact that she could now do twenty dead-hang pull-ups, deadlift two hundred and twenty-five pounds. And her abs were ripped. There was no other way to describe them.

  The coach opened the door to the box from inside. A blue Toyota Camry rolled up to the curb and a guy Justine had never seen before climbed out stiffly.

  She crossed through a small lobby, past a changing room, and out into the box itself. She glanced at the whiteboard on the wall before starting her warm-up. When she saw the workout of the day written there, her stomach fluttered with anxiety.

  “ ‘Grace: thirty clean and jerks for time’?” a man’s voice groaned behind her. “That’s crazy. I can’t move from the box jumps yesterday.”

  Justine looked over her shoulder and saw the new guy, midthirties, curly brown hair, trimmed beard and really, really nice hazel eyes.

  “Soreness is a way of life here,” Justine said.

  He smiled at her. A really nice smile. “Paul,” he said, holding out his hand. “It’s my fifth class.”

  She smiled back, shook his hand, and said, “Justine. A little over six months.”

  “Does it get better?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Not one bit.”

  Chapter 7

  IT ONLY GETS WORSE, Justine thought, fighting the queasy feeling building in her stomach as people all around her grunted, moaned, and dropped bars loaded with rubberized weights that boomed and bounced off the rubber floor.

  Justine was twenty clean and jerks into the workout, with the prescribed ninety-five pounds on her bar. The big timing clock on the wall was running. Four minutes had passed since she’d started. Impossibly, one of the ex-SEALs had called, “Time,” at one minute forty seconds before collapsing to the floor.

  A big part of Justine wanted to lie down there with him and beg for mercy. But a better part of her got angry. She was not giving up. This was a fight to the finish. And she was finishing.

  Ten more, little sister, Justine thought before leaning over to grab the bar with both hands. She gripped it, squeezed her core tight, and rose slowly, keeping the weight snug to her legs until the bar crossed her knees. Then she exploded upward, shrugging her shoulders, raising her elbows, creating a moment of inertia when the bar felt weightless. Quick as she could, she dropped beneath the weight, caught it in a racked position, and then exploded again, driving the bar overhead, where she balanced it a second before letting the weight crash to the floor with all sorts of satisfying fury.

  Sweat gushed off Justine’s forehead. Almost every muscle in her body burned, but she was grinning. She liked the grunting, the weights crashing, the feeling like you were in a race against time. It was primal, physical in a way she’d never known before.

  Nine more, little sister.

  “You, lady, are an animal,” Paul gasped minutes later as Justine struggled to get off the floor and to her feet. She’d finished “Grace” in personal record time.

  “Thanks,” she panted. “I think.”

  “No, seriously,” Paul said. “You just kicked my ass with a heavier weight.”

  Justine smiled. “Welcome to Crossfit, where strong is the new thin.”

  Paul laughed. “I guess I need to learn to check my ego at the door.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  Still smiling, she turned away and headed toward the locker room and the showers, thinking how funny it was that she was able to go from Justine the warrior goddess to Justine a little boy crazy in a matter of moments. But he was nice, and self-deprecating. And did you notice? No wedding ring?

  “Justine?”

  She startled, looked into the lobby. The giddiness faded, replaced by a vague sense of loss. Jack was standing there, looking like he hadn’t slept.

  “Jack?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “We caught a case that feels epic. And I need you with me on it. Now.”

  Paul passed by. Justine’s eyes flickered to him and then back to Jack. She shook her head. “I’m already swamped. It’s not fair to our other clients, expecting me to—”

  Jack took a step closer, murmured, “Thom and Jennifer Harlow.”

  Justine blinked. “Give me ten minutes.”

  Chapter 8

  FORTY MINUTES LATER we were harnessed into jump seats bolted to the interior walls of a helicopter that Dave Sanders had chartered for some ungodly sum of money. The lawyer, a bear of a man in a linen blazer, an orange Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and sandals, sat beside me.

  Next to Sanders was Dr. Seymour Kloppenberg, or Sci, the hip polymath criminologist who runs Private’s lab in Los Angeles, and Maureen Roth, also known as Mo-bot. Roth works with Sci as a technical jack of all trades, is even quirkier than he is, and at fifty retains one of the sharpest and best-educated minds I know. Opposite us were Justine and Rick Del Rio, my oldest friend, a fellow ex-marine with a pit bull’s heart. Next to Del Rio were two people I’d heard of but never met before. Camill
a Bronson, a very put-together blonde in her forties, was the Harlows’ full-time publicist. Originally from Georgia, she spoke with a soft, genial twang. The tall, ripped, and red-haired man in his midforties beside her was Terry Graves, the president of Harlow-Quinn Productions.

  “What we’re about to tell you goes nowhere without our permission,” Sanders announced as we lifted off and he handed me a folder. “I expect all of your people to sign these nondisclosure forms before we get to the ranch, Jack.”

  “Not necessary, Dave, you’re covered under client privilege,” I said, fighting off a general unease that had been growing since we’d boarded the helicopter.

  I flew choppers in Afghanistan. I got shot down in a Chinook and a lot of men died. I’ve never been truly comfortable in a helicopter since. I glanced at Justine, who was watching me. Dealing with the memories of the crash was how I’d come to meet Justine, one of the few people I’ve ever let get a glimpse of what goes on inside my head. I glanced at Del Rio, who’d been on the bird with me when it went down, the only other survivor of the crash. I guess I expected him to be agitated, or at least tense, but true to form, Del Rio was stone cold.

  “Just the same, we’d like them signed,” sniffed Camilla Bronson.

  “A lot at stake here,” Terry Graves agreed, removing sunglasses to reveal bloodshot eyes.

  “Suit yourself,” I said, taking the folder. “Tell us what’s going on.”

  Sanders hesitated, said, “Thom and Jennifer, and their three kids, disappeared from their ranch in Ojai. They’ve vanished.”

  “What?” Justine said. “How’s that possible?”

  Del Rio snorted, said, “Yeah, people like that can’t just disappear.”

  Mo-bot and Sci were nodding too.

  I understood and shared their skepticism. Thom and Jennifer Harlow were arguably the most powerful and glamorous couple in Hollywood these days, megacelebrities who had won multiple Academy Awards, written bestselling books, and given their time and names to causes worldwide, including a foundation they’d set up themselves called Sharing Hands that raised millions for orphanages across the Third World.

  During the twenty minutes it took us to fly north to the rolling hills of Ojai, Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Terry Graves laid out what they thought we should know.

  For the past nine months, the Harlow family had been living in Vietnam, where they had been making a film, Saigon Falls, an epic and tragic story of love and intrigue that unfolds in the last doomed years of the American war. Thom Harlow was writer, director, and lead actor. Jennifer Quinn Harlow was starring opposite her husband. Through their company—Harlow-Quinn—they were also producing the film.

  “It’s the project of their lives,” Sanders said.

  “The one that will immortalize them,” Camilla Bronson agreed.

  “You should see the rushes,” said Terry Graves. “Just brilliant stuff.”

  The Harlows had come back from Vietnam on their private jet four days before. To avoid the paparazzi, they’d kept the details of their return secret and landed at Burbank. The lawyer, the publicist, and their head producer were there to greet them. The Harlows were blitzed from the long flight and the longer shoot on location. But they were also determined to complete the principal filming on a soundstage on the Warner lot starting the following month.

  “So Saigon Falls is a Warner project?” Justine asked.

  Terry Graves shook his head. “They’re a minor player. No other studio in town wanted to touch the project. They all thought it was too risky, more art than commerce. Warner is involved in a nominal way, kind of a nod to Thom and Jennifer for how much money they’ve made for that studio over the years.”

  Camilla Bronson said, “Thom and Jennifer raised money for the film privately to supplement what they decided to fund themselves.”

  “Which was how much?” Mo-bot asked.

  The publicist and the producer looked at Sanders. The attorney shifted in his seat, glanced at Justine, who was signing the nondisclosure form, said, “Sixty of the ninety-three total at last count.”

  “Personally?” Dr. Sci said, as shocked as I was.

  “The vast majority of their fortune,” Sanders affirmed.

  “But they were passionate about Saigon Falls, zealots, in fact,” Terry Graves explained.

  Camilla Bronson nodded, said, “Thom and Jennifer were either going to make a masterpiece and a bigger fortune, or they were going to lose everything they had.”

  Sanders said, “In all honesty, I met them at the airport because I desperately needed to explain that costs associated with Saigon Falls had overwhelmed their ability to maintain their current lifestyle.”

  “You mean they were broke?” I asked.

  “Not quite. But they were teetering right on the razor’s edge of it.”

  Chapter 9

  AS THE SOUTHERN California landscape blurred below us, Sanders went on: “At the airport, I explained their dire financial situation, held nothing back, told Thom and Jennifer they were going to have to take draconian measures or face bankruptcy.”

  “What did they say to that?” Justine asked.

  Terry Graves said, “Thom acted unconcerned and said he had it covered, that a new investor had appeared who was underwriting the completion of Saigon Falls.”

  “He say who that investor was?” I asked.

  The producer shook his head, looking highly irritated. “Thom is like that. Likes being mysterious for no reason at all.”

  “Creative tension,” Camilla Bronson explained. “Thom—and this is off the record—believes in withholding information. He does it with everyone. So does Jen, for that matter. They believe it keeps people on their toes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So then what happens?”

  Sanders replied, “They pleaded exhaustion and left along with Cynthia Maines, their personal assistant, in two rented Suburbans, bound for the ranch for six days of R&R.”

  Terry Graves looked like he’d bitten into something sour. “Typical of them. They knew we had a week of endless meetings set up—they’d been out of the country nine months, for God’s sake—but they just announced that it would all have to wait, and away they drove, leaving us in the lurch.”

  “Jen thought the kids deserved it,” said Camilla Bronson. “Six days to help them reacclimate.”

  “Anyway, that’s the last we’ve heard of any of them,” Sanders said.

  “So how do you know they’ve disappeared?” Justine asked. “They’ve got two days left, right?”

  The Harlows’ publicist said, “True, but they just stopped answering their phones, texts, and e-mails.”

  “When?”

  “Night before last,” the producer said. “I called all day yesterday on their private cell numbers, and Cynthia’s cell, and got no response from any of them.”

  The Harlows’ attorney said, “Finally, around midnight last night, the housekeeper at the ranch, Anita, answered the house phone.”

  The housekeeper claimed to have just returned to the ranch with two other members of the staff. The Harlows had given them all nine months off with partial pay while a caretaker maintained the place in their absence.

  “Anita said the ranch was empty,” Sanders said. “She said there were signs that the Harlows had been there, but that there was no one there now. No one. I told her not to touch anything, that she and the others were to go to their quarters and wait for me. Then I hung up and called you, Jack.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, trying to wrap my head around the situation, looking for fact, not conjecture. “Not only are the Harlows and their children missing, but the Harlows’ assistant—”

  “Cynthia Maines,” said Camilla Bronson. “Yes, she’s missing too.”

  “And the caretaker?”

  “As I understand it,” the attorney said.

  “No one else?” Justine asked.

  Sanders hesitated, replied, “Not that we know of.”

  “How do you k
now they haven’t just gone off somewhere on vacation?” Mo-bot asked.

  “Because TMZ or one of the other gossip sites would have found them,” Terry Graves said.

  “Okay,” I said, skeptical. “Ransom notes?”

  The attorney said, “Maybe there’s one at the ranch. We don’t know yet.”

  “I’m not questioning your judgment here, Dave,” I replied. “But why not call the FBI in? They’re the missing persons experts.”

  “We can’t do that,” Camilla Bronson said. “At least not until we find out what’s going on.”

  Sanders nodded. “We don’t know what’s happened, and until we do, we’re not going anywhere near law enforcement.”

  I said, “It’s also a question of business, isn’t it? If the people already invested in Saigon Falls were to find out the Harlows were missing, all hell would break loose.”

  Terry Graves stiffened but said, “Understandably, we don’t want that.”

  I wondered how far we could push a missing persons investigation before the Feds found out, took over, and tried to hit us with obstruction charges. That likelihood would be amped by the celebrity factor. The FBI loves celeb cases.

  “Fair enough,” I said at last. “But any evidence of violence and we’re notifying the cops and the Feds.”

  Before any of them could respond, the helicopter swung on the wind and dropped suddenly. I had a moment of flashback to the Chinook, right after we were hit by ground fire and the rotor disintegrated above us. I glanced quickly to Del Rio, who looked unaffected as he said, “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe the Harlows did take off to some unlikely place, wore disguises, managed to avoid the paparazzi.”

  “Not a chance,” Sanders replied. “I checked the Harlows’ Visa and AmEx records. They haven’t spent a dime since they bought gas down in Ojai the night they arrived.”

  “Which is an absolute impossibility,” added Camilla Bronson.