Born To Be Wild

TWENTY

Early the next morning Mary Lisa took one last run before she had to pack and drive to the airport for her ll:05 fight back to L.A.

She hoped she would see John Goddard one last time. She had to see him, really, this morning or soon. She had set herself straight last night. Now she had to set him straight as well.

I am not a small person, she thought as she took off down the long beach, through the long tongue of gray fog that rolled over the valley nearly to the line of low coastal hills a mile inland. I was bordering on being small last night, but not now. She’d made up her mind before she went to sleep, and she’d slept soundly until near morning, when Jack Wolf had poked his head into her dreams. Suddenly he’d been standing in front of her, towering over her, telling her she was a spoiled brat and a juvenile delinquent-and, at all of twenty-five, a little old to be acting like a half-brained teenager.

She could smile about it now. Sort of. It was something like what Jack had said to her three years ago when he’d hauled her off to jail.

She picked up her pace, but didn’t see John. He didn’t seem to be running this morning. She’d have to write him, which she hated to have to do. Well, it was Sunday and maybe he was at church. She decided to run all out, letting the sweat run down her face and the lipstick she’d applied fend for itself. She had just started to slow again when he suddenly burst out of the fog, looking fine indeed, his sleeveless T-shirt sweated to his chest, his face stubbled with his morning beard.

“I am not a small person,” she said aloud without thinking.

“What? Oh. No, you’re not. What are you, five foot ten? In those stilts you were wearing last night, we were eye to eye.”

She wiped her forehead on the bottom of her sweatshirt, smiled at him. “Nah, I think I was up to your eyebrows. I wanted to speak to you before I left to go back south.”

“That makes two of us. That’s why I’m running on a Sunday morning instead of sleeping in. I wanted to speak to you too. What time are you taking off?”

“Not for a while yet. Oh yes, please thank your sister for the loan of her beautiful dress. My mom will have the cleaners deliver it to her.”

“No problem. Let’s run for a while.” She nodded. They ran side by side for ten minutes, and walked back to her car. Mary Lisa leaned over and waited for her breathing to ease and her heart to slow. Oddly, she didn’t want to come right out with it. What she said was, “You seem to have this unusual relationship with Pat Bigelow. She keeps talking about Jack Wolf harassing the Hildebrands, not looking at other suspects, like in the O.J. case.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, but said easily enough, “Unusual is one way of putting it. The truth is that in the O.J. case, there was so much evidence against him so quickly, there wasn’t any reason to search elsewhere. Besides, can you begin to imagine any shop run by Jack Wolf doing anything but a solid investigation?”

“I don’t know. Chief Wolf doesn’t confide in me.”

“Trust me on this. Jack Wolf knows his job, and he does it well. But enough about Pat Bigelow. I enjoyed watching you center stage at Monica’s last night. You handled yourself very well.”

“Like I told my dad last night, the whole Hollywood thing fascinates people. They think, wow, she’s on TV and conjure up this naturally skinny woman who parties with Russell Crowe every day and drinks espresso at the Ivy.”

He stared at her a moment, raised his towel and wiped the sweat from her left temple. “I don’t understand. It isn’t true?”

“Maybe on Thursdays.” She laughed, and cleared her throat. It was time to get it all out, but he beat her to it. He said, “I watched you and your family last night at Monica’s party. Let me be honest here, Mary Lisa. Your mother and your sisters-I couldn’t see much affection or gentleness between them-hell, it isn’t any of my business if your family doesn’t get along. Well, except for your father. I know he visits you often down in L.A., but you’ve never come up here, not for three years. I couldn’t help but wonder why you came back here now if things are unpleasant for you with your family.”

“I love my father dearly.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

She hadn’t expected to talk about that. She’d elected not to tell anyone here about what had happened in Malibu because she didn’t want to have to deal with her father wanting to come down and move in with her to protect her. They would probably find out soon enough.

“A short vacation, nothing more.”

She looked up at his face. His expression turned from concern to a rueful look that she imagined he’d perfected in the courtroom. She grinned and folded. “All right, I’ll tell you why I came back here after three years. But I want you to keep it quiet, all right?”

When he nodded, she said slowly, “Fact is, my friend Lou Lou suggested it because she was afraid for me.”

She’d caught him by surprise. “Afraid? Of what? What’s going on with you?”

“You remember the incident I mentioned to you Friday morning? Well, it was more like a hit and run. What happened is-well, some guy may have been trying to kill me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. What happened?”

“Well, I’d just bought some T-shirts in an army surplus shop. I’d ducked in there because I was trying to get away from Puker Hodges, a paparazzo who’s decided I’m his ticket to fame, when a car tried to run me down.”

That stopped him cold. “That’s how you got hurt? Did he actually hit you?”

“I got banged up a little bit, but I’m okay now. The bruises are nearly gone. No major injuries to brag about. The cops are looking into it. I suppose it’s possible it was an accident. You know, someone who was high or not paying attention hit me, and was so freaked out he drove off.”

He waved that away. “L.A. is quite a place, isn’t it? What’s the name of the detective looking into this? What does he think?”

“Detective Daniel Vasquez is in charge. He’s with the Lost Hills Station. They take care of Malibu. He seems sharp and thorough. Don’t worry. Whoever did it-well, it seems to me now that I overreacted. I shouldn’t have come up here. And I’m sorry I even mentioned it. I would appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”

“No, I promised I would. Maybe you should stay here for a while, Mary Lisa.”

“Can’t. I’m in three scenes on Monday.”

He cupped her shoulders with his hands. “When will you come back?”

She looked out over the ocean. The fog hadn’t lifted. If anything it lay more heavily, the air cold and wet. “I don’t know. I need to speak to you, John.”

An eyebrow went up. “Am I not going to like this?”

“I really don’t know, I haven’t known you long enough to know whether or not you feel-well, the thing is when I met you here on Friday morning, I liked you immediately. You seem like a great guy.”

“That’s a kiss-off line if I ever heard it.”

“Yeah, I guess it is, but not for the reasons you’d think.” She drew a deep breath. “I didn’t realize until last night that Kelly still has feelings for you.” She looked at him dead on now. “You know what happened three years ago, everyone in this town knows-Mark Bridges and I were to get married and I found him and my sister Monica together in bed. No, please don’t interrupt. The thing is once I realized Kelly still cares about you, I knew I couldn’t let this go any further, whatever this is, and it might be nothing, it might all be on my side.”

He said quietly, “No, it’s not all on your side.”

“I’m sorry about that. The thing is, John, she’s my sister, and I won’t have any part of doing any such thing to my sister.”

“I’m not all that sure Kelly cares about me anymore. Well, other than wanting to castrate me or something-”

“She cares. She was playing up to Jack Wolf last night, trying to make you jealous. The thing about feelings, John-she can’t simply turn them on and off, even if she wanted to.” She touched her fingertips to his forearm. He felt warm to the touch. “Please understand. I don’t want to alienate Kelly any more than she already is. I don’t want to hurt her.”

John turned away, streaked his fingers through his hair. “Dammit, what Kelly needs is a job. She needs to focus on something outside herself. As for her playing up to Jack-well, she’ll find Jack isn’t seeing any women, not since Rikki left him torn and bleeding.”

“She told me he’d been married.”

“Yeah, for three years.”

“What happened?”

John shrugged. “Who knows? Most of the relationships-and believe me, just saying the word raises the hair on the back of my neck-I’ve ever had have ended with someone’s fur flying, sometimes mine, sometimes hers.”

Mary Lisa said, “My longest relationship ended with finding my fiancé in bed with my sister. But there wasn’t any fur flying. I just slinked out.”

“I do wish Kelly would do something with that communications degree of hers. She’ll forget about me soon enough.”

“I guess we’ll see. The first thing she needs to do is to move out of our folks’house, get back to her own apartment.”

“Mary Lisa.”

“Yes?”

“I know you don’t want me to, but I’d like to tell Jack about what’s happening down in Malibu.”

“Oh no, please don’t, John. Jack doesn’t like me, he really doesn’t. He thinks I’m a-”

“A what?”

“Never mind. It isn’t important. Detective Vasquez is handling everything.” She stuck out her hand. “I really liked meeting you, John. Good luck with the murder case.”

He shook her hand, brushed her cheek with his fingers, and turned away.