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Masha headed out of the neighborhood, too, and Sophie rode along in the Chevy.
They sat in silence for different reasons, lost in thought, numb from the shock, imagining the future, and deeply awed.
Sophie wouldn’t live in the Bel Air house. That she knew. She could barely afford the utility bills, much less a yearly property tax.
She stared out the window, and Masha, at the wheel, forgot about Glendale. She forgot about Gor. She forgot about Ellen Sumner’s diamond, sitting snug in her apron pocket.
Instead, she drove to Pasadena, so they’d be on time for their afternoon cleaning. They were usually late, but today, Masha thought, they’d even be early. They would be good. Respectful. She’d steal nothing.
Sophie said a silent prayer for Dr. Parks, and for Josh. She thought of Nikolai and what he would say when she told him the news.
They wove through downtown, and Masha merged onto the twisting Arroyo Parkway, heading north.
They’d spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning. They’d dust chandeliers, polish silver, scrub bathtubs, and mop the floors of a hundred-year-old French-style château, built in the 1920s by an infamous American bootlegger, a dear close friend of Joseph Stalin’s (which they couldn’t know). The central AC in the house was broken. The women would switch rooms around the electricians, and sweat as they scrubbed until nine o’clock.
Off of the Arroyo, Masha pulled onto the ramp of Orange Grove Boulevard. She broke Sophie’s reverie and muttered in Russian. At first, she was incomprehensible.
“He must’ve freaked out,” she mumbled in her native tongue.
“Who?” said Sophie, and turned her head and looked at her cousin.
“He must’ve been frozen.”
“Who? The attorney?”
“The boy.”
“Josh?”
Masha nodded. Sophie was lost.
“Frozen? No. The lawyer said he lost control,” Sophie recalled from the conversation. “He went to the garage and drove away in Dr. Parks’s car. He lost control and went over a cliff. You know Mulholland. He was on drugs. I saw him that night.”
“But it’s not like the movies,” Masha said.
“What movie?”
“If you’re in your car—”
“I don’t own a car.”
“Now you will.”
This was true. Now Sophie would buy her van and drive away. The rich kind. A Sprinter with a Mercedes chassis.
Masha continued. “If you suddenly see your brakes are cut loose. That someone, you know, cut the lines. As a trick. You find yourself pumping, but they don’t work. Rear or front, or maybe both…”
“My brake lines? Why?”
“If your brake lines are cut, pull up the parking brake, on the side. Shift from Drive to Park. It stops the car. I mean, use your head!”
Sophie stared at her cousin. She studied her face. Was Masha crying? Were those tears streaming down her face?
“Did you cut the brakes in Dr. Parks’s car?” Sophie asked. Masha had helped her clean the garage the day of the break-in. They’d spent the whole day in there, cleaning around the doctor’s Audi.
Masha glanced into the rearview and turned on the blinker. She changed lanes toward the coming exit. Then she mumbled guiltily: “Dr. Parks sent me away. Accused me of crimes I’d never do. I’d never steal drugs. I hate drugs. I’d never kill an old man. In his home, in his bed!”
Sophie stared in disbelief. She was totally bewildered. She shook her head, looked away out the window, and whispered a prayer.
