Security(34)

What most would guess to be part greenhouse and part rock formation—a mound of rough boulders and smooth glass, the limestone winking in the dregs of gone sunlight—stands short and stunted and lovely in the most natural of ways. Tessa is saying something, probably telling Brian about how she scouted locations for Manderley, about this cave and how shore accretion as a result of elsewhere’s erosion had exposed it, about how she took one look at it and knew.

Only the sound of the ocean can be heard. It’s a beautiful sound. It’s the sound of life. The sun has set, and the waves are red. It is nine twenty--five p.m.

Tessa holds the pool entrance open for Brian. He walks in.

“My God,” Brian says.

Outer Santa Barbara has suffered terribly from the accretion and erosion of its shore. This limestone cave may have once been the habitat of sharks, orcas, rays. It was dry when Tessa scouted it. It now glows green from moss that is nurtured by the hot humidity in the greenhouse. The mosses eat bacteria. Water tumbles down striations of rock through a pump system that pulls water straight from the Pacific. The pool is self--sustaining, self--cleaning, mostly self--lighting. Exactly one thousand round ten--watt bulbs are strung above the pool, woven into a net beneath the glass ceiling, like tiny moons. The pool is roughly fifty yards by ten, sparsely surrounded by comfortable chairs and a few granite tables with benches, but Tessa bends and unzips her boots, steps out of them, and sits at the edge of the deep end, dangling her feet in the water. The deep end is very deep. Twenty feet.

Brian sits beside her. He leaves his boots on, his feet out of the water. “It’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it?” he says, looking at the daggers of rock.

The answer is: Yes. Yes, it is dangerous.

Tessa says, watching her bare feet glow green, “Talk, Brian.”

The Killer is spooning ice cream onto the peaches. It’s dark in Room 1408. He doesn’t turn on any lights. He shuts off the oven instead and crosses the hall to Room 1409. The Thinker told him to, by text message. Room 1409 has a north--facing window. Looking up from, say, the pool, one would not see a light on the fourteenth floor if the light was in Room 1409.

The Killer props pillows against the headboard and loses patience with using a spoon to slice the peaches. He retrieves his knife from the end of the bed and slices his dessert with it instead. He looks like a child trying to transcribe an addition problem with an enormous novelty crayon.

Jules and Justin are still changing place settings; only now they’re on opposite sides of the ballroom.

Delores is—where is Delores?

Brian has been staring at the water. At Tessa’s feet, like soft green animals in the water. One of Brian’s knees is flat to the limestone floor. His other knee is bent, a notch for his elbow. He’s angled toward Tessa. He is, it looks like, sitting comfortably. But his demeanor makes one wonder if there has ever been a man more acutely uncomfortable in the history of time.

“You remember—,” Brian says. It comes out craggy, and he clears his throat. “You remember when Mitch broke his leg?”

“Which time?” says Tessa.

“Oh yeah.” Brian laughs, airily. “No, the second time. While we were on the road.”

Tessa nods.

Brian puts his head to his upright knee. “Tess, look. Tess, it’s something I really can’t explain. I can explain part of it. I can explain what happened. But—I’ve never tried telling somebody what it’s like, being twins. It’s not like you’re a twin. It’s like you’re both. You’re never alone. It’s impossible to really be alone. And that’s so great, but sometimes, you just want to be you. You want to want what you want.” He laughs again. “I knew I’d cock this up.”

Tessa says, “I do get it.” She’s looking at him like he’s certifiable. “As close as anybody can, I get it. When Mitch broke his leg the second time . . .”

Brian’s mouth assumes the shape of an awful taste. “The doc prescribed him painkillers. It was a bad break. He was in pain, and he ran out of painkillers. He refilled the scrip.” Brian peeks at Tessa out of the corner of his eye. “How many blanks are you filling in?”

Tessa’s pale.

Brian takes her hand, and she lets him. “Mitch wanted to stay on the circuit, even injured. He was riding injured. It was aggravating the leg, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He wasn’t feeling the pain, see. He figured he was fine.”

“He seemed fine. Whenever I saw him—”

“Whenever you saw him, he’d cut his doses. He got good at it really fast. I’ve learned since that it’s pretty easy with pills—to figure out how much you need to be normal, how much you need to fly, how much isn’t near enough anymore.” Brian lets go of Tessa’s hand. His teeth are bared, as if he’s under the ministrations of an invisible torturer.

Tessa takes her feet out of the water, making a woosh--patter sound. She moves closer to Brian and cups his jaw. “Say the rest.”

Brian’s voice is steady, but it’s too hard, brittle. It wants to break. “It’s pretty easy with pills. It’s a lot tougher with heroin.”

Tessa’s hand drops from Brian’s face.

“There’s every kind of drug you can think of on the circuit. Plus about fifty you can’t. You know—you knew Mitch, how he was. He found something he loved, and he wouldn’t give it up. He couldn’t. I’d talk to him about rehab, and he’d laugh at me—not in a dickish way, in a sad way. He’d say he had it under control, but he knew he was lying. He knew what he really meant was more like, ‘There’s no point, Bri.’ ” Brian’s throat squeaks on his own name. His head falls forward to Tessa’s shoulder. Before Tessa can reach out, he’s sitting straight again, straighter. Speaking more quickly. “When he announced he was doing the triple, I tried to talk him out of it, Tess. I tried. You have to believe me. I even went over his head, I went to Troy. I told Troy about the drugs, but he brushed it off. Said Mitch was gonna make history. The promoters said the same thing.” Brian looks nauseated.