“You don’t know what you’re saying. What will happen to you.”
I swallowed. Maybe Hearst would pin Roy’s murder on me. Maybe prison—and not just for me, though I’d never tell Max about the baby. Heaven knows, he’d try something stupidly heroic, like ask me to marry him again.
“We don’t even know what game Hearst is playing, why he wants you to take the rap for the murder. Who even did kill Roy. That person is still out there.”
He was right. But it was a chance I had to take. “You can help me, or I’ll do it myself.” I knew I sounded like the Mina he knew. Determined. Stubborn. That Mina was gone forever, but he didn’t have to know it yet. “Hearst offered the reward and he’ll pay it to you.” Maybe if I said it, it would be true.
“Mina, why are you doing this? Why now?” His eyes, full of regret and sadness, were almost my undoing. But I hardened my heart.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” And I was ready—more than ready—to do the right thing, no matter what it cost me.
But I didn’t have a chance to tell him any of that. Instead, I about jumped out of my skin when the front door burst open. Max moved quick, stepping between me and the hallway as if he was ready to protect me. But it was Oscar, stumbling in soaking wet and panting like he’d run all the way from thecolonia.
“Gracias a Dios,”he said in a whisper, then switched into English. “You found her.”
Max relaxed, but he kept me behind him still. “She found me. And you’re not taking her.”
“Don’t worry—I got something.” Oscar shut the door behind him and twisted the lock, then brushed by Max and me into the kitchen, shutting the window and pulling the curtain closed. He pulled a blue book from his breast pocket and shoved it at Max like a hot potato. “You look. You tell me.”
Max took the book and glanced at the inside cover. He flipped it open and his eyes scanned a page. “What—? Where—?”
Oscar paced back to him. “Is that it? What they are looking for?”
Max flipped through the book, then froze, reading a dog-eared page. He dropped into the kitchen chair, his breath leaving him like he’d been punched in the gut. He read some more, turning the pages quick.
“What is it?” I asked. It was an ordinary diary. The kind that you can buy at any stationery store to remind yourself of your daily appointments. Or record your secrets.
Max didn’t answer.
I peered over his shoulder and read just enough to make my blood run like ice water in my veins.Hearst ... Thomas Ince... Louella Parsons. “It’s not... It can’t be.”
“It is,” Max finally said. “Oscar, where did you get this?” Max held the book gingerly, as if it might burst into flames.
Oscar paced between the window and the icebox and told us. About working with Brody. About Feng, the Chinese doorman from Lester’s, who was dead, then something about a priest and confession and secrets, and I was lost. I did catch the part about Alonso, Lupita’s brother.
Max looked shell-shocked. “You’re working with Brody?”
Oscar bypassed the question. “Am I right?” He nodded to the book in Max’s hands. “Some kind of blackmail Señor Lester was using on Hearst?”
“This—” Max hefted the book—“any of it, would have got Lester that gold-plated contract.” He pointed to the marked page. “But this part would put Hearst—and Louella Parsons—in a real jam.”
I was catching up and Max was right. The investigation into the death of Thomas Ince seven years ago had been national news for months. Speculation still put the finger on Hearst, and Louella had been a part of it too. But nobody had ever managed to figure out the real story. If what Roy Lester wrote in his diary was what it looked like, both Hearst and Louella Parsons must be desperate—frantic—to get their hands on it.
Max rubbed a hand over his face, working it out. “So let me get this straight. Feng was working for Hearst? Hired to get the diary?”
“Sí. And Alonso also wanted it,” Oscar answered. “He’d heard Señor Lester and his wife talk about it—arguing. Thought it wasworth something and decided he’d use it against them. He took it from the bedroom during the party. You saw him upstairs, but he swears that’s all he did.”
“You believe him?”
Oscar nodded. “He’s stupid, but not a killer, Max.”
Max clenched his teeth and said some words in Spanish about Alonso. “So... then who? Feng?”
Oscar rubbed his face and glanced at me. “That’s what I think. Hearst sends Feng up to look for it, and he tears the bedroom apart. By then, it’s late and Lester goes upstairs with Minerva. He surprised Feng, who panicked...” he let his words trail off as we all imagined the scene: Lester carrying me in—passed out by then—putting me on his bed, finding Feng in the room.
“And Feng—what?—killed him in self-defense?” I asked. That was hard to believe, knowing how unsteady Lester had been that night.
“Maybe he was supposed to kill Lester all along,” Max said. “That would take care of that pesky contract.”
