Chapter 29

“No run today?” asks Nurse Marley, who’s sitting at the kitchen island, feeding a bottle to a ravenous Isa.

Our nanny is dressed in her crisp white nurse’s uniform, me dressed in my best custom-made suit, shirt, and tie. I help myself to some coffee and join her.

“Nah, it looked like it was going to rain, plus I had a lot to wrap my head around. I rode my Peloton for a half hour instead.”

“What’s going on?” She adjusts the baby in her arms and looks me up and down, her eyes glinting with approval. “By the way, you look nice.”

“Thanks.” I take a sip of my coffee. “I have an important meeting with our potential Japanese investors this morning at the Polo Lounge.” The Polo Lounge is the legendary restaurant inside the famed Beverly Hills Hotel, where the consortium is staying.

“Isa, my sweetie, wish Daddy good luck.” She mimes a baby voice and says, “Good luck, Dada!” I crack a smile as she sets down the nearly depleted bottle on the counter and glances out the glass doors that lead to the backyard. The sky, pool, and deck area are all shrouded in a gray misty fog.

Marley swings her long platinum ponytail off her shoulder to burp Isa. “The weather does look ominous. I’m going to take Isa out for a short walk before it rains.” She looks up at me, her gaze imploring. “Don’t you want to kiss Isa goodbye in case you’re not here when we come back?”

“Yeah, sure.” I place a light kiss on her scalp. As I do, I inhale the scent of Nurse Marley. I swear she uses the same perfume as Maman. Eau de Lilac, a rare floral cologne my mother had custom-made by an apothecary in Paris. On Maman, it exuded maternal goodness. On Marley, it’s intoxicating. After kissing my kid, I gulp my coffee and force myself to swallow back my heady desire. I’m allowed to fantasize, I tell myself. Right?

I look up and she eyes me as if she’s been reading my mind. “Ned, good luck today. I’m sure you’ll knock them dead.”

“Thanks.”

With a wink, she leaves with the baby, and I hear the front door open and close.

I drain my coffee and glance down at my watch, the waterproof gold Rolex I always wear. Today, I should wear my special watch. My lucky one…

My father’s retro rose-gold-and-diamond Hamilton—a rare model dating to 1942—that belonged to his dad. My paternal grandfather, a man I never met. He died young. Congenital heart failure. He, too, had arrhythmia, but it was a defective gene—pulmonary valve stenosis—that did him in.

After loading my empty coffee mug in the dishwasher, I head back to the bedroom. Ava is still in bed, sound asleep. Making no effort to be quiet, I amble over to my walk-in closet with its racks of color-coded suits, shirts, and ties, and shelves of custom-made Italian shoes, all in their original boxes. There must be over a hundred; I guess you could call me a shoe whore. I keep my treasured heirloom watch in an Amedeo Testoni shoebox located in the back corner, tucked inside the left alligator loafer. I extend an arm and retrieve the box.

I pop off the lid, but when I slide my hand inside the shoe, no metal object makes contact with my fingers.

Panic seizes me. Frantically, I turn the shoe upside down and shake it, then repeat my actions with the other one.

Still nothing. No watch.

I know I put it inside this box. Inside one of the shoes. I could tear the entire closet apart, but I’m positive. One hundred percent positive.

My heart palpitating, I storm out of the closet. I think I’m going to have a coronary. Die young like my grandfather. Maybe I should call my cardiologist.

“AAAAAVA!!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “WAKE UP!” My wife stirs under the thick duvet, but her eyes stay glued shut. Is she taking sleeping pills? I scream her name again and this time give her a nudge. More than a gentle one. I shake her.

Her eyes flutter open. “Ned, why did you wake me up?”

Her voice groggy, she rubs the sleep out of the corners of her eyes while mine blaze into hers.

“Did you touch my grandfather’s gold watch? Put it somewhere?”

Fully awake, she sits up. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s gone! G-O-N-E gone!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Fury flares inside me. My tone is razor-edge challenging. “Ava, are you positive you didn’t touch anything in my closet?”

“What exactly do you mean?”

“I mean like opened one of my shoeboxes. The Amedeo Testoni.”

Perplexed, she looks at me like I’ve spoken to her in a foreign language. “Ned, I never go into your closet.”

My heart beats so fast and hard it may beat out of my chest.

Call an ambulance. Ava holds me in her gaze. “Ned, what’s going on?”

“My grandfather’s Hamilton is missing. I think someone stole it.”

Ava’s face pales. Her lips quiver.

“Ned, I have a confession to make.”

She stole it?

My diamond ring and wedding band are missing too.”

“What?! When did you discover this?”

“Yesterday afternoon when I went to look for them…to put them back on my finger.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I bark.

She responds, her voice small. “I was afraid to. First, I thought I’d misplaced them and you’d be mad at me, but now I think we’ve been robbed. Maybe by that gang that’s been terrorizing the Hills.”

Slapping my forehead, I pace the room, then pull out my phone.

“What are you doing?” asks Ava.

I pull out my phone and punch 911 on my keypad.

“Duh! What does it look like? I’m calling the police.”

I hold the phone to my ear. To my utter frustration, I get a recorded message: “Thank you for your patience. Please hold and the next available operator will be with you shortly.”

I have no patience. I want to kill someone.

Another voice penetrates my ears.

“Excuse me.”

Putting the phone on speaker, I spin around.

Ava’s mother, Rena. She’s dressed in a flimsy light-blue sleeveless nightgown and a matching sleeping mask that rests on her forehead. A crown of pink rollers grips her hair and an unlit cigarette dangles from her mouth.

Her eyes shoot darts at me. “What’s going on in here? All your shouting woke me up!”

“Mother—”

I cut Ava off. A sudden thought rushes into my brain. Of course! Her mother needs money. The old harpy forced me to write that check and now wants more. “Rena, you stole my grandfather’s gold watch…and your daughter’s diamond wedding rings.”

She yanks the cigarette out of her mouth and plants her two bony hands on her sharp, jutting hips. Her hawk-like eyes narrow at me. “I did no such thing!”

“You’re lying!”

Ava butts in. “Ned, please…my mother is the one who told me to put my rings back on. Why would she tell me to do that if she was the one who stole them? It makes no sense.”

I try to wrap my head around what she’s saying. I’m so incensed I’m not thinking straight.

Rena smirks. “I’m going back to sleep. Can you please keep it down in here?”

Clad in a pair of quilted satin slippers, she stalks out of the room.

As she disappears, a dispatcher finally comes on the line. The phone still on speaker, a nasal female voice filters into my ears.

“Nine-one-one. Can I help you?”

Like, why else would I be calling 911? To hear about the weather?

Breathing in and out of my nose like a fire-breathing dragon, I bite out, “I’d like to report a robbery.”

My blood simmering, I explain to her that three very valuable pieces of jewelry were stolen from our house and that I want someone from the LAPD to come to our residence immediately.

“Was anyone harmed?” she asks.

Nodding like one of those bobblehead dolls, an all-ears Ava mouths the word “yes.”

I tell the woman no. A big mistake. The dispatcher explains that it’s not possible. The LAPD can only respond to dire, life-threatening emergencies and that I should file a police report and call my insurance company. She gives me the number of the Hollywood precinct before I end the call with an angry jab of the red button.

I glance at the time. 7:30. The breakfast with the Japanese starts at eight. I can’t be late. I don’t have time for this shitstorm.

“Can I do anything?” asks Ava.

Ignoring my wife, I curse under my breath and dash out of the house.

The breakfast with the Japanese investors goes exceedingly well. Despite the rage consuming every atom of my being from the jewelry heist, I manage to be all smiles, ears, and nods.

Gabe and I assure them IMAGE has a glowing future ahead, with its mega slate of movies in development and new talent signed. We give them all a copy of the company’s prospectus, each beautifully sealed in a jewel-colored plastic folder. Then, we invite all eight of them to the upcoming $5,000-dollar-a-seat gala in honor of IMAGE being named Agency of the Year. Twelve hundred dollars later, the ten-person breakfast is over, and we’re one step closer to making the deal. A 45% stake in the agency.

The rest of the day at my office is a day I want to forget. I spend the better part of the morning filing a police report. I ask the officer in charge, Detective Hernandez, if the burglary could be related to the wave of robberies that have been plaguing the Hills. He tells me from what I’ve told him, it’s unlikely. It’s not their style. The police suspect those thieves are a bunch of teenage looters who are pranking the rich and famous. Breaking into their houses when they’re away and stealing truckloads of stuff, mostly pricey electronics, before tagging the residence with their signature graffiti. Our robbery doesn’t fit the pattern.

“What about that other guy…the home invader who holds up couples at gunpoint in broad daylight?”

Again, he says it’s unlikely. This perp only preys on the elderly and always makes his way into his targets’ houses by forced entry.

Since there have been no signs of forced entry into our house since the last time I wore the watch, which I distinctly recall was back in March—three months ago—at a tribute for my late parents at the Academy Museum, Hernandez tells me it’s likely an inside job. He asks if I have any security cameras around the house.

I tell him I do. I’m a believer that you can’t have enough security. In addition to a Ring, a doorbell camera that stores all activity in a cloud for perpetuity, I have surveillance cameras installed all over my house and property as well as at the gate. The problem with the latter is that they only hold footage for up to a month, when it erases and is replaced by new footage. So, I spend the rest of the day on my laptop, reviewing the footage captured by the Ring, eating lunch at my desk, and looking for anything incriminating.

I find nothing, and by dusk, I have a headache the size of Texas. I’m too worn out to call my insurance agent, and besides, he’s likely gone for the day. Pinching my temples, I look up when a familiar voice enters my office.

Gabe.

After the meeting with the Japanese, he told me I seemed on edge. I told him about the theft. Like the police, he thought it sounded fishy. Still rubbing my temples, I tell him how I’ve spent the rest of the day reviewing surveillance footage from the last few weeks.

“Man, you look beat. Did you find anything?”

I shake my head. “Zippo. Just the usual crew of people entering and leaving our house. Our mail person, the Amazon delivery guys, the gardeners, the pool dudes, the garbage collectors, the electrician, our housekeeper, and recently Nurse Marley and Ava’s mother.”

“Do you think it could be any of them?”

“I don’t know. Ava’s been cooped up in our bedroom more or less for the past three months, so she would know if one of our workers entered the room to steal something. Then again, she could have been sound asleep and not heard a thing. The only one I thought it could be is Ava’s mother.” I don’t mention the grifter extorted me. “But what doesn’t make sense and throws me off is that she’s the one who told Ava to put her rings back on. Why would she do that if she stole them?”

As much as I despise the witch, she’s not a suspect.

“Well, the pieces of jewelry just didn’t walk out of the house.” Gabe rubs his stubbled chin with his thumb. “Are the police going to investigate?”

I let out a sigh, half fatigue, half frustration. “They’re short-staffed, under-budgeted, and have bigger fish to fry in this crime-ridden city.” Over the past three years, crime in LA has risen almost 25%. Following Detroit and Chicago, it’s perceived as the third most dangerous city in the US, according to a recent Gallup poll.

“Did you try your ‘Do you know who I am?’ line?”

“Yeah, I did. They didn’t care. Maybe if my wife or baby were kidnapped, I’d get some respect.”

Gabe looks at me harshly. “C’mon, Ned. You don’t really mean that.” He tries to console me. “The rings, the watch…they’re just things. My mom always said not to love things that can’t love you back.”

But truth is, I do love my things. They give me power. Happiness. Security. Instead of arguing, I let out a yawn. Gabe gives me a sympathetic look.

“Bro, you should call it a day. Let it go. It’s late. Tomorrow’s another day. Go home to that beautiful wife and baby of yours.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

We walk out of my office together, the robbery still weighing on my chest.

I’m going to find whoever did this, and when I do, they better watch out.