Seconds Away (15 page)

Then again, why was I thinking about it now?

At first, I expected that Ema would eventually arrive at some kind of rusted sheet-metal shack hidden deep in this brush, but now I realized that probably didn’t add up. Yes, I had never seen these woods patrolled, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t. This was a reservoir area. There was no way you could really build a house in here, even a dilapidated one. You’d have to move around. You’d have to maybe live in tents and keep a lookout or something.

None of this made any sense.

The sky began to darken. I thought again about not having a compass. We were getting deeper into the woods and while I could probably retrace my steps, I wasn’t sure that I could do so by the light of my mobile phone. Thinking I better not lose her, I hurried my step.

Ema turned to the left and started up a steeper hill. I stopped and watched. If I started up the hill too, she would spot me for sure. I waited until she was pretty much out of sight before I followed. Now, of course, I was getting nervous again about losing her. I scampered up the hill, keeping low.

A twang of guilt strummed through my chest. I was secretly tailing my best friend. That didn’t feel right, even if it was for her own good. For her own good. How often had that been used to justify dumb actions? Like this one.

I should stop and go home.

I debated that for a moment. I was seconds away from reconsidering my actions and turning around when I reached the top of the hill. There, blocking my way, was a chain-link fence.

No sign of Ema.

I looked right and then I looked left. The fence seemed to run as far as the eye could see. Every ten yards or so, there was a
NO TRESPASSING
sign, warning traveling woodsmen, I guessed, that they’d be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if they entered.

Where had Ema gone?

I moved right up against the chain-link fence and looked through it. There were more woods, but up ahead, maybe twenty or thirty yards, I thought I saw a clearing. Still I wasn’t sure how that helped. There was no gate or door in the fence. Could Ema have doubled back around as I climbed up? I guessed it was possible, but it seemed doubtful. Maybe she had spotted me. Maybe Ema was hiding behind a tree.

Frustrated, I reached out and grabbed the chain-link fence. I gave it a shake . . . and the fence gave way.

What the . . . ?

I looked closer. Someone had cut the wires where this part of the fence met up with the metal stake. You wouldn’t notice it by just looking, but if you leaned against the chain link, the fence swung in almost like a door. I did that now. I pushed against it. A second later, ignoring the warning signs, I was on the other side of the fence.

Well, I had already been thrown off the basketball team for a host of indiscretions. I might as well add trespassing to the list.

Now what?

I kept moving forward until, finally, I could see a clearing. For a moment I slowed my step. Once I was out of the trees, I’d be exposed. I had no idea what would be in front of me, but it wouldn’t be wise to just blunder forward. At the same time, Ema probably had a pretty good lead on me by now, so I couldn’t dawdle either.

I got to the end of the tree line. When I looked into the clearing, I gasped.

The first thing I saw was a huge garden of some sort. There wasn’t much in bloom, but there were bushes carved in the shapes of animals. Topiaries. That was what they were called. There was a swan, a lion, a giraffe, an elephant—all life-size, made from green bushes. There were also white statues that looked like something from ancient Rome or Greece. I spotted a swimming pool and a gazebo, but what stunned me was the house that stood behind all this.

The house, even from the back, still looked like a dark castle out of a Disney nightmare. I had just been here, though I had come up the long front drive rather than from the back.

Uncle Myron had brought me here to meet Angelica Wyatt.

Huh?

I stood there for a moment or two, completely dumbfounded. The most obvious answer was that Ema used this stretch as a cut through. Maybe there was another opening in a fence on another part of the estate and that would lead to the dingy shack I kept picturing in my head. But that answer suddenly wasn’t fully computing.

I moved forward, closer to the house. It was so wide-open that the only way to do this and keep somewhat hidden was to sprint from hiding place to hiding place. So first I sprinted for the elephant topiary and stayed low behind its thick legs. Then I ran across the helipad and ducked behind a white statue of a woman wearing what looked like a toga and carrying a spear in one hand and a platter in the other. From there I made the big sprint to the side of the house.

I pressed my back against it and slowly slid forward. Mickey Bolitar, Super Spy. I wasn’t sure where I was going anymore or even what I was doing. I thought about texting Ema and simply asking where she was at this moment, but I had gone this far. I couldn’t go back.

When I made the turn around the corner, I stopped short. Ema stood in the middle of the courtyard. She frowned at me, her arms crossed.

“Uh, hi,” I said.

Once again, my quick-witted tongue gets me out of trouble.

“We have cameras all over this place, hotshot,” Ema said. “You’re lucky security didn’t shoot you.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I went with, “Sorry. I was just worried about you.”

She turned and started for the door. I didn’t move.

“Come on inside,” Ema said. “You might as well learn the truth.”

CHAPTER 32

Still reeling, I
followed Ema into the dark mansion and then down to a finished basement. There was a sleek theater room with big comfortable chairs and a giant screen. A popcorn machine, like the kind you see at a theater, sat in one corner. On the walls were movie posters featuring Angelica Wyatt.

I looked at the posters and then at Ema. She lowered her head and took a step back, wringing her hands. I looked again at the posters. I looked again at Ema. “I should have seen it,” I said.

“What?”

“The eyes.”

Ema said nothing.

“When I met Angelica Wyatt, I kept thinking how warm and comforting her eyes were. Like I could just talk to her forever. I couldn’t figure out why I felt that way, but now I know.”

Ema looked up at me.

“Is Angelica Wyatt your mother?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. All those rumors . . .”

“About my living in a shack and my father being a dangerous man who beat me or whatever?”

I nodded.

“I started them,” Ema said. “It was a way to throw people off the scent.”

I waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, I said, “But why?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“Do you hear the way the boys in school talk about how hot Angelica Wyatt is? Imagine if they found out she was my mother.”

“I guess that could be weird.”

“Could be?”

“Okay, I guess it would be.”

“And now imagine those mean girls who won’t give me the time of day—imagine how they’d treat me if they knew my mother was a world-famous movie star.”

“They’d probably treat you like gold,” I said.

“And you think I want that—those horrible phonies inviting me to their parties and having to sit with them at lunch? How could I ever trust anyone, if they knew? How could I ever think anyone would like me for me?” Ema turned away. Her shoulders slumped.

“What?” I said.

“When I first heard that your uncle was watching my mother, do you know what I thought?”

“No,” I said.

“I thought that maybe you knew the truth. That you knew all along I was Angelica Wyatt’s daughter and that’s why you started being nice to me.”

“I didn’t know,” I said.

She kept her back to me.

“Ema, look at me.”

She turned back toward me slowly.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Okay,” she said softly. “So why did we become friends?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m drawn to total pains in the butt.”

Ema let herself smile. “Me too. But do you see what I mean?”

“Yes,” I said, my head still spinning. “But it seems a little extreme. And how do you get away with it? How does the school not know?”

“My official name now is Emma Beaumont, not Emma Wyatt. The house is in my grandmother’s maiden name. My mother sort of leads a secret double life. One, the glamorous movie star. Two, the normal mom. We are very careful about how we meet up. This house is secluded. She can come by car or directly by helicopter.”

I said nothing, but something must have shown on my face.

Ema moved closer to me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

I sort of shrugged, stopped, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, I get the Troy and Buck argument. But I trust you with everything. After all we’ve been through, everything I’ve told you . . .”

“It feels as if I betrayed you,” Ema said.

“Yes.”

“Would it help if I told you that I was going to?”

I didn’t reply.

“Or that I was trying to find the right time? Would it help if I told you how hard it is for me to trust anyone?”

“I understand all that,” I said.

“But not fully,” Ema said.

“It’s okay.”

Ema looked away. I saw tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said again.

“I want to show you something . . . maybe that will help explain it.” Ema opened up a closet. She looked back at me. “You’re a lot taller than me. Do you mind getting that shoe box down? The one on the far left.”

“This isn’t necessary,” I said.

“Please just do it, Mickey, before I lose my nerve.”

I walked over to the closet, plucked down the shoe box from the top shelf, and handed it to her. In the center of the room was a couch. She sat on it and invited me to join her.

Ema opened the box and pulled out a clipping. It was from a tabloid and read: ANGELICA WYATT’S SECRET BABY SHOCKER.

She pulled out another: WHO’S ANGELICA’S REAL BABY DADDY? Then another: ANGELICA’S SECRET LOVE NEST IN FRANCE. Another: EXCLUSIVE! FIRST PICS OF ANGELICA’S BABY! One said that Ema’s father was Angelica’s costar in her current movie. Another claimed it was the British prime minister.

“This is hard to talk about,” Ema said.

“Then don’t.”

“No, I want to tell you. I want you to understand why Mom and I did what we did.”

“Okay,” I said.

She held the clippings in her hands. “They never left us alone. My whole life, the tabloids followed us around. We’d go to the park, the paparazzi would be with us. I’d go with my mom on set, even closed ones, and then someone with a high-powered lens would snap my picture. It was . . . suffocating, to say the least. I started having nightmares. I saw a shrink. My mom even quit the business for a little while. She retired to watch me, but that just led to more rumors about her. And the truth is, she loves being an actress. Even as a kid I got that. I didn’t want to take that away from her, you know what I mean?”

“Sure,” I said.

“It was a hard decision, but eventually we decided to live, well, like this. Mom started a rumor that I was living at a boarding school overseas.”

“So who lives with you here?”

“My grandparents. And, uh . . .” She looked a little embarrassed.

“Uh what?”

“I guess he’s an assistant of sorts. He helps out too. His name is Niles.”

I remembered him from my previous visit—Niles the butler. We fell into silence. I was thumbing through the articles, not sure how to raise the next question. “Should I ask you the obvious?”

There was a hint of a smile on Ema’s face. “You’re wondering about my father.”

“If it isn’t my business . . .”

“I don’t know who my father is. My mom hasn’t told me.”

Again with nothing to say, I went with, “Oh.”

“I know. She said she’ll tell me one day—when it’s right. But not now. We’ve had plenty of battles about it, believe me. I want to know, but Mom freaks out when I ask her. Like she’s really scared for me to know.”

“What would she be scared of?”

“I don’t know,” Ema said, as if considering it for the first time. “But for now, well, I’ve let it go. I mean, what can I do?”

“Right. I understand.” Another thought occurred to me. “When you found out that information about the San Diego paramedics, you didn’t want to tell me your source. Was it . . . ?”

Ema nodded. “Yup. When you use Angelica Wyatt’s name, it is amazing what doors open.”

It made sense, I guess. I was still looking through the articles, especially the ones that featured pictures of young Ema. “I can definitely see you in these pictures,” I said.

“But I look different, right?”

“I guess.”

“You can say it, Mickey.”

“Say what?”

“I looked thinner,” Ema said. “I looked more . . . normal.”

I didn’t reply.

“That was part of all this for me,” she said.

“What was?”

“Dressing all in black. Dyeing my hair black. The jewelry, the tattoos. Maybe even putting on weight. I didn’t want to be that kid who got ambushed. I wanted to be someone different. So maybe it started as a disguise, but I like the way I look now. It’s somehow more me, you know? So now I don’t know if I do it as a disguise or maybe I just dress like I always wanted to.”

I held up one of the old clippings. “You haven’t changed that much,” I said. “And you’re leaving something out.”

“What?”

“The tattoos. That was the first real clue something was weird. I thought I saw a bruise on your arm. But it was a smudge. I couldn’t figure out what about you was different, but then it came to me. Your tattoos. They changed. And your mom—she wouldn’t let you mark up your body with a bunch of tattoos. Not at your age. So they’re temporary, right?”

Ema looked almost pleased. “Wow, I can’t believe you noticed.”

“You know what’s weird?” I said.

“Uh, everything about this?”

“Well, yeah, I know, but one other thing: Our mothers knew each other when they were teenagers.”

“Right, when they were, like, our age. That is weird. Oh, and why is your uncle suddenly bodyguarding my mom?”

“I don’t get that either. He said a close friend asked him to do it. I know Uncle Myron is more than just an agent or manager or whatever. I think he’s, like, a secret private eye or security guy or something.”

“So he’s helping guard Mom while she’s in the area?”

“I guess. Why don’t you ask your mom?”

“I did. She just said she needed extra security, and Myron was an old friend.”

“So maybe that’s it then,” I said.

“Maybe.”

Neither one of us bought it.

“Bat Lady said I shouldn’t tell Myron about Abeona,” I said. “Not ever. And my father never told him either.”

“I haven’t told my mom. I mean, it just feels like something we should keep to ourselves, you know?”

I did.

“There’s one other thing I need to tell you,” Ema said.

“What?”

“You’re right about the tattoos. Agent at Tattoos While U Wait . . . he puts them on for me. They’re all temporary. Except, well . . .” She slid her shirt off her shoulder. For a moment, my eyes just popped open, like maybe this was a prelude to a striptease or something. Ema must have seen the look on my face, because she rolled her eyes and said, “Cut it out.”

“What?”

“Just . . . never mind.” Ema turned around and showed me her back. “Here, take a look. Agent says he doesn’t know how this happened, but somehow, this tattoo never comes off.”

I didn’t even have to look because I knew which tattoo she meant. The image never quite escapes me. Or, I guess, us.

It was a tattoo of a butterfly with animal eyes on the wings.