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  And now she’d stabbed a man.

  Hardie struggled up off the floor, fully expecting to pass out at any second. Before that happened, the dirty psycho chick had to go. To the hospital, to the LAPD, whatever. He supposed he should involve the LAPD because—well, she’d impaled him. And broken into the house. Those still counted as crimes, even in L.A.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, hand out, as if to help him up. She took great care not to actually touch him, though. She gestured as if Hardie had an invisible force field around his body.

  Hardie shot her a look.

  “Hey,” she said. “I said I was sorry.”

  Hardie said, “Pretty sure I missed that.”

  “Well, I’m saying it now.”

  “Whatever. Does your cell phone work?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’d like to call nine one one, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble. Maybe we can call someone for you, too. Like your mom or dad, maybe?”

  The girl’s jaw dropped. “My mom?”

  “You look pretty banged up. Maybe you should go to the hospital, too. Maybe they can give us adjoining rooms, just in case you feel like ramming something sharp through my body again.”

  “You just want me to go outside.”

  “Unless there’s an emergency room in the basement, yeah.”

  This was getting them nowhere. What was he doing, anyway? Why did he give a shit about this girl, or even this house? Hello, Earth to Charlie: You have been impaled by a steel tube. You belong in a hospital.

  She was looking at him. “You say you’re the house sitter.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Charlie. And yours?”

  “Last name.” This was a command, not a question.

  “Hardie.”

  “I’m supposed to just, what?… Believe you?”

  Hardie thought about taking a better look at his wound but then changed his mind when his chest started throbbing. He took a semideep breath, wondering if he’d feel his lung collapse suddenly. It made him angry. She did this to him, and now she was giving him shit?

  “You want to go upstairs and trade driver’s licenses? Because that’s all I’ve got. I seem to have left my birth certificate and Social Security card at home. Sorry.”

  “That’s just what you’d want, isn’t it? Me to follow you upstairs.”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  The girl’s eyes darted around wildly as she processed his words. Then her brain seemed to slip back into gear.

  “Okay, let’s say you’re not one of Them.”

  “Let’s do more than say it. Let’s believe it, because I’m fucking not.”

  “If you’re not one of Them, how did you get into the house? I have the keys.”

  “Ah, from the mailbox, right?”

  So Andrew Lowenbruck had left the keys after all. Sorry, good sir, that I ever doubted you. Seems like this skinny, spoiled party girl went helping herself. Hardie smiled, but that just seemed to piss her off.

  “I asked you,” she repeated, making sure he understood every syllable, even though her voice was trembling. “How. Did. You. Get. In?”

  “Yeah. I heard. And thanks to you, I had to walk across the roof and use the sliding doors on the deck.”

  “Shit—did anybody see you?”

  “See me what?”

  “When you walked into the house, did anybody see you? Was anybody watching?”

  Hardie thought about his walk across the tile roof and almost said, Well, yeah, there was this woman with amazing tits who caught me breaking into the house, but that didn’t seem like a good way to put this girl at ease.

  Before Hardie had a chance to answer, the girl pushed herself back a few inches, creeping away from him, shaking her head back and forth, pure panic on her face.

  “No… oh God, what if they saw you? Shit, if they saw you…”

  Back to them again.

  “Nobody’s outside. It’s just you and me, honey.”

  Well, and the sunbathing babe.

  This was getting old fast. Hardie was wondering what he was going to say to Lowenbruck about all of this. Because after he got this girl calmed and into his rental car, he would have to call the police—and then Virgil. But there wasn’t any way around that. Lowenbruck would need a report for his insurance. Especially if she broke anything. God knows what she did to this place since helping herself to the keys. Goldilocks only ate porridge and smashed chairs and fell asleep in beds. And Goldilocks wasn’t a teenaged junkie.

  Wait.

  The girl had obviously helped herself to the keys, but how did she manage to deactivate the alarm? It had been set when Hardie had opened the sliding doors.

  The story in his head changed.

  Maybe this wasn’t a college girl. Maybe this was one of Lowenbruck’s barely legal exes. She didn’t have keys, but she knew the security code because he never bothered to change it. She runs into trouble, goes to the first place that comes to mind.

  Either way, Hardie had to get her out of here and the police thing over with. He was exhausted. Being stabbed in the chest didn’t help his mood either. He hoped it was a few stitches and a couple of Vikes kind of situation… not a go-to-a-hospital-for-major-surgery-because,-oh,-your-lung-is-collapsing kind of situation. He still didn’t want to look down at the wound.

  Hardie took a step forward, held out his hand. “C’mon.”

  The girl seemed outraged by the suggestion.

  “Don’t you come anywhere near me.”

  “We both need a trip to the hospital. We can sort this all out in the waiting room.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m not leaving this house. I don’t care what you say or what you do, but I’m not leaving.”

  No, Hardie didn’t understand, but add it to the long, long list of things he didn’t understand.

  And then the world around them fell silent.

  5

  Arnold Schwarzenegger: Where did you learn how to do that?

  Rae Dawn Chong: I read the instructions.

  —Commando

  HE FOUND the transformer, traced the power lines to the underside of the house. Slashing the wires was foolish; you wanted to be able to resume power quickly if need be, or cover your tracks. So he used a putty knife to strip away the layer of gray utility clay bunched around the cable, carefully placing the chunks in his jacket pocket. Soon the copper cables, insulated in layers of lead and rubber, were revealed, and he carefully disconnected them from the digital meter.

  A few feet away, the HVAC unit, resting on a pad of concrete, shut down and spun out to a total stop.

  “Power’s out. Hooking up the governor now.”

  “Good.”

  He screwed the loose wires into a small hard-plastic box that could be controlled by remote. Power was gone, but it could be back on line if needed.

  Next up: security system, satellite dish, gas lines, water. All the things you took for granted until you pushed a button, flipped a switch, or turned a knob and nothing happened. And the security system? That was a joke because it depended on a battery, as well as a landline to notify the company. Disable both and they’d have no idea. Nope, nothing wrong here.

  Hardie looked around the recording studio. It was hard to tell at first what was wrong—just that something suddenly felt wrong. He stood up, glanced down briefly, then up again. Maybe it was him. Maybe his brain was shutting down, his soul preparing to depart his body and simply shutting off all of his senses before it left.

  No… the girl seemed to hear it, too. Her head snapped to the left, then the right. She touched her lips.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hardie said. “Stay here.”

  “Where the fuck are you going?”

  Hardie ignored her, then started climbing the stairs, keenly aware of his heart pumping the blood that enabled his limbs to move. In his mind’s eye, he saw his heart working o
kay, just hanging in there… until a fat artery suddenly popped out of his heart, twisting and leaking like a severed garden hose, whipping around his chest and spraying his lungs with dark blood.

  Knock that off, Hardie told himself. You’re going to think yourself into the grave.

  As he wound his way back to the first floor, the cardboard action heroes seemed to raise a collective eyebrow.

  Buddy, you have no idea what you’re getting into.

  “Shut up,” Hardie muttered.

  This house-sitter guy could still be one of Them.

  Easy.

  He didn’t act like it. But that would be just like them, wouldn’t it? All jokes and smiles and friendliness, all meant to put you at ease, help you relax, then, wham! You were done.

  Just like her Good Samaritan on the 101. Walking up to her car, needle in hand, jabbing it into her arm when she was at her weakest—

  Now “Charlie” here was turning his back on her. Probably on his way to the front door to let his buddies inside. The bastards had needles on the highway. What would it be this time?

  Sorry, Chuck, she thought to herself. You may be telling the truth. You may be one of Them. Either way, I’m going to have to stop you.

  Lane pulled herself up, using the edge of the kitchen counter. She had to move quickly. He was already halfway across the dining room.

  The alarm had clued her in—snapped her out of a half sleep, actually. She’d set the alarm system for that very reason. While the intruder walked around, Lane got herself together. Listened. Waited. The intruder’s steps were methodical. Whoever was inside was clearly searching. She heard the faint creak and hum of the refrigerator door opening. The rattle of a doorknob. The opening of cabinet doors. Slowly. Carefully. Searching. Searching for her.

  So when he made it to the second floor, the choice was simple. Him or me.

  Now Lane limped up the staircase behind him. Damn it—he was almost at the front door. She hurled herself up after him, speed-hopping, resting her injured foot for a fraction of a microsecond before using her good foot to vault herself forward. If he opened that door, it was all over.

  Hardie stepped into the vestibule, looking around for something out of place. All at once the silence was overwhelming. He was tempted to open the door to see if something had happened outside, like maybe the Rapture or Armageddon, but then a thought occurred to him. Hardie moved into the media room, then saw his reflection in the darkened flat-screen. After a few seconds he figured out what was missing: No digital time readouts on the components.

  The girl appeared in the room, bloodied mic stand still in her hand. The fact that it was his blood vaguely bothered Hardie.

  She leaned forward and whisper-yelled: “What are you doing?”

  “The power’s out,” Hardie said.

  “Oh God. So they know I’m in here. They saw you walk in, and they think I’m in here…”

  “Uh, you are in here.”

  “They didn’t know that before you showed the fuck up!”

  “Please, for the love of God… who is they?”

  But the girl was already starting to panic, looking around at the windows and doorways, as if expecting a heavily armed unit of commandos to come storming into the house, spraying mace grenades and bullets.

  Hardie had to admit, it was all starting to feel seriously strange to him, too. The power just so happens to go out just after he got his dumb ass stabbed in the chest? None of the previous explanations his lizard brain had come up with seemed to fit now. If it was just the girl, that would be one thing. People on drugs cooked up some truly weird shit in their fevered brains. But this was no simple cocaine-fueled delusion. Hardie was living in it, too.

  He went to the front door, and, as predicted, the digital security panel was still lit. These systems always run by backup battery. That way, if home invaders cut the power, you can still call for help.

  The girl appeared behind him and took him by the wrist. Hardie flinched at her touch.

  “Come back downstairs with me,” she said. “Please. I don’t want them seeing us through the windows.”

  “Hold on. The security’s still working. There’s got to be a panic button or something on here.”

  “No! Don’t you dare touch that!”

  “Why not?”

  “They could be anybody. What if they just put on a bunch of fake security team uniforms and come knocking? How would you be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what they want you to see?”

  “Just curious—do you realize how little sense you’re making right now? Or is this the drugs talking?”

  BEEP.

  Hardie’s eyes flicked to the right.

  The security display panel?

  Dead.

  “Security’s out, power’s out, everything.”

  “Okay. O’Neal—the wasp nest on the door?”

  “Mounted, loaded, and ready.”

  “Okay, let’s get bags ready, A.D.”

  “On it. How is your eye, by the way?”

  “Focus on the task at hand.”

  “Sorry—just asking.”

  “Ask me when the production is over. Now go.”

  By the time Hardie put it fully together—that, yeah, someone on the outside was fucking with them—the girl had already taken up a position in front of the heavy oak door, mic stand in hand. Her whole body trembled. She was wild-eyed. She pressed her free hand against the door, as if trying to sense what was on the other side through the power of touch.

  Hardie took a step forward. “You need to let me through.”

  She whisper-yelled at him: “No, I will not fucking let you through. Don’t you understand? That’s what they want! You open this door, and we’re both dead.”

  “If you don’t let me through so I can get to a hospital, then I might be dead, and you might be going to jail. Is that any better?”

  This was wonderful. Already this gig had earned its place in the House Sitter Hall of Fame.

  Hardie took a step forward. The girl raised her weapon—the bloodied mic stand—and pointed it at him.

  “Want me to go now?”

  “No. Wait to see if he comes out on his own. He might think the whole area is out and step outside to check.”

  “How about I get into position, anyway, and wait for your signal?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Hardie didn’t know if he should swat the mic stand to the side, try to snatch it out of her hands, or give up.

  “Are you really threatening to stab me with that thing?”

  “I won’t let you open this door.”

  “Look. I believe you. There is some kind of They out there. They are most definitely fucking with us. But I don’t want to sit here and wait for them to make a move. I used to be with the police. I think I can handle myself.”

  Even Hardie knew that last line sounded full of shit. Yes, he sort of used to be something like a cop. But that had been three long years ago. A lot of drinking and poor eating and general sloth had atrophied his muscles. He was slower, larger. His liver wasn’t talking to him anymore, and his heart gave him little friendly reminders every so often that he might want to get his ass up and move around a little. The mornings he felt good simply meant that he’d passed out before he could have any more to drink.

  So… I can handle myself ?

  Sure, Unkillable Chuck. Whatever you say.

  The fact remained—he wanted to look outside and see what the hell was going on. Maybe it wasn’t just this house but the whole block. Maybe World War III had kicked off, and he’d be able to see downtown L.A. go up in a flash of blinding light.

  But the girl was still stubbornly blocking his way.

  “You can’t handle these people. Believe me.”

  “Still nothing.”

  “Playing it safe, I guess. Okay, go head. Take it.”

  “On it.”

  Hardie heard a car engine rev, though at first he thought it was the power kicking back on. T
hen came the screech of tires, which quickly receded into the distance. Wait a second now…

  He went for the door handle. The girl held up the edge of the mic stand so that it pointed at his throat.

  “Don’t. I’m warning you.”

  Hardie said, “Let me look.”

  “Use a window.”

  Hardie didn’t want to get into another wrestling match with this psycho chick. She might end up stabbing that damned mic stand in another part of his body. His luck, his goddamned eye. So, fine, he’d open the front door later. Hardie sidestepped away from the girl and made his way to the wide-screen windows in the living room. He pulled aside the dusty curtains, then looked outside, and then immediately muttered,

  “Fuck me.”

  Hardie had pulled up what… thirty minutes ago?

  His Honda Whatever was gone.

  6

  A far-fetched story must be plausibly told,

  so your nonsense isn’t showing.

  —Alfred Hitchcock

  THE LANE Madden production was supposed to be the easy one.

  After Mann received the green light, O’Neal observed the actress for a few days. He reported back, which only confirmed that Mann’s original idea was best: a “Sleeping Beauty”—late-night OD after a party. The narrative in Mann’s head went something like:

  After a career slump and well-publicized descent into booze and drugs, and eventually a court-ordered alcohol-monitoring anklet, a B-list starlet is given a second chance with a part in a new indie prestige film. Feeling good, she decides to celebrate. She can’t handle it; she relapses hard. She ODs in her Venice Beach apartment.

  If all went well, Mann thought, the actress wouldn’t even wake up for her own death. She might feel a slight pinch somewhere in her dreams, and then she’d feel wonderful, and then she’d feel nothing at all.