Page 123 of Mazywood

She held out her arms, encouraging Ricky to come closer for a rare hug. She wrapped one arm around her son and the other around her daughter, vowing to be a better mother.

As they hugged like a family portrait, her telephone rang.

It was Jerry Lorenzo.

Mazelle stood in the lodge’s living room window as fixed as a store dress dummy.

Her bones would not move despite the squirming inside her body, from twitching joints to a churning stomach to a warlike throbbing at her temple that might be a migraine. Her insides were rioting. Three cars had passed her lodge in the past hour, visible in gaps in the tree line, and each one made her stomach clench as if she would vomit. The sun was shining brightly, so her shoulders hunched when melting clumps of snow thumped across the rooftop, or when the wind chimes near her bedroom tinkled faintly, even when it wasn’t Scout’s more intentional ring.

Time had stopped. Each time she glanced at the grandfather clock near her, the hands were either stubbornly fixed in place or, impossibly, seemed to have moved backward. The grim reality of the clock deepened her nausea—because time, however slowly, was passing.

And at any moment, Grady would drive the red Caddy into her driveway with Lorenzo.

She could not do this. Her body’s rebellion made her feel physically incapable of movement or speech. Although she had sprayed herself with Chanel and was wearing her favorite fur-lined robe, which was semi-sheer, she doubted she could fake a seductive smile.

Lorenzo would know as soon as he saw her. He would see it in her face.

And she would lose her resolve as soon as she saw him. She would think of the days when he had been “Uncle Jerry” and given her treats and lifted her family out of Gracetown. Even now, remembering him with his full head of hair and boyish grin made her swallow back thick bile trying to climb higher in her throat.

For the first time, Mazelle wished she had not ripped her telephone out of her lodge’s kitchen wall in September, when Dottie would not stop calling to pester her about when she was coming home to take charge of her children. Now she had the silence she’d craved at her lodge, but no way to call Grady to tell him to forget about their plan.

And how would she have reached him with a telephone anyway? Her only hope would have been to call the Redding airport and ask for a public announcement, as dramatic as a climax in a movie. She might have invented a medical emergency and paged Lorenzo, or paged Grady. Her inability to try even this unlikely intervention made her breath heavy in her chest, as if her lungs had forgotten their function.

Aren’t you glad to know you can’t do this? Aren’t you glad to be better than this? Was she still trying to please God the way she had when she was a child? As soon as Mazelle realized she was congratulating herself, her laugh broke through her tension. She wasn’t better than this. If she were, then she would only have to make her will known to Scout—and he would not go anywhere near Lorenzo.

Once Lorenzo arrived, Scout would know her heart and follow her true wishes. The hard part wouldn’t be facing Lorenzo—it was facing herself. This was the hard part.

Mazelle took a deep breath. Get it together, Mazelle, she told herself. Remember the plan.

She and Grady had laid out the plan together, since there were no more secrets between them. Grady kept a wary distance from Scout and had no interest in seeing the face of what he carelessly called “the Beast,” but she had convinced him that Scout was real and was never far from the lodge. In turn, Mazelle had learned that Grady had a shadier life before he’d met her—he was no stranger to violence as an enforcer for a numbers runner, and her demands of him had reawakened the part of him he had tried to put to sleep. But that was the part of him she needed. Maybe she had always sensed his huntsman’s heart beneath his facade of discipline.

More important, he worshipped her. Grady had met Mazelle with sweaty palms at the height of her fame, and fame dazzled almost everyone. But his adoration also was fueled by something deeper—his desire for purpose and redemption, even. And he had decided long ago that his mission on this earth was to serve her.

Mazelle had long believed that Grady would be willing to die for her like the Secret Service agents that guarded President Eisenhower. Not only would he step in front of a bullet for her, but he would help her fire the gun. That was how she’d known she could tell him her secret about Scout, including how Scout had disposed of Jeff Meek and how she was glad he was gone.

For this reason, Mazelle had been careful never to sleep with Grady, even when she was tempted by his easy company and a pocked face she considered handsome in its ruggedness, so unlike an actor or entertainer. Sometimes she held hands with him in front of the fireplace when they were alone here, which was more intimacy than she had ever experienced with Richard. A fifteen-year age difference wouldn’t have mattered to her, but she and Grady could never share a bathroom where he might see her dirty drawers on the floor. Grady needed to worship her, and she needed his worship.

Especially today.

They must be in the car by now, Mazelle thought. Lorenzo’s flight should have arrived more than an hour ago. Mazelle had instructed Grady to drive him straight to Bear Creek Lodge without any stops, so no one in McCloud would see him. Lorenzo was an ostentatious dresser and loud talker, so locals would notice a quick encounter with him and remember him later, when he went missing. And Lorenzo could not be tied to her driver on the day he vanished.

His disappearance would make national news, not just in The Hollywood Reporter. But police probably would think the mob had finally gotten to him. Grady thought so too. They were betting everything on the hope that Lorenzo had lied about where he was going, the way he had promised when he called. Believe me, I don’t want anyone to know more than you don’t, he said.

When the time came, would she taunt Lorenzo? Give him a speech? Or would she turn to walk away as soon as Scout was upon him? (Or would she say nothing and just watch?)

Through the window, the long nose of a red car appeared on the road. It was the Caddy! Mazelle bounced on her toes, excitement flaring. So much for her worry about losing her resolve.

Grady dutifully turned on his slow-flashing blinker, although he was probably alone on the two-lane road, then he drove up the driveway to the courtyard, tires squelching through the melting snow. As the car got closer to the lodge, Mazelle saw Lorenzo sitting in the back.

This was too easy. Like giving candy to a baby.

He saw her too. He had been gesticulating, talking on and on as usual, but when he stared at her through his car window, he raised his hand in a tentative wave. She raised her hand back. His grin filled up his window. After all these years, he thought he had her.

Laughter rang from the porch. Mazelle had expected to open the door, but she watched their approach for so long that Grady beat her to it and let them both in. Lorenzo was red in the face from laughter, and Grady was smiling too.

“You gotta be kidding me!” Lorenzo said to Grady. “I get it, you’re a Giants fan, but sudden-death overtime doesn’t lie, my friend. You can’t take that away from Baltimore.”

Their jovial entrance threw Mazelle off for a few frantic blinks of her eyes. Lorenzo and Grady sounded like fast friends. But then Grady gave her the same look he’d given her when he returned from disposing of Jeff Meek’s car: The job is done. He was smiling, but not in his eyes. Grady was a cold piece of work.