“Yeah, probably.”

  “Not probably. Absolutely. I can guarantee you that I’m at the top of her to-do list. She has some form of revenge in mind for me, and probably also for Neera, even though the kid hasn’t done anything to her. Killing Neera and then letting me live with that knowledge would be another way to get back at me. Let me live for a while, that is. She’s gonna want to see me dead in the end, too. I’m too much of a threat to her.”

  “I definitely agree with that last part. How’s the kid doing?”

  “Okay. Rachel took her to see the police psychiatrist a while ago. Neera insisted that Rachel come with her, not me. You know how stubborn she can be.”

  “I do know that.”

  “Yeah, so I just said fine and let them go. They should be back in an hour or so.”

  “You worried?”

  I exhaled a breath as I considered the question. “Yeah. I could use another drink, man...”

  “When was your last one?”

  “At the funeral reception, so, four days ago.” That was a lie. I had been drinking every day since the funeral in an attempt to drown out all the guilt inside me, but I wasn’t about to let Steve know that. He already knew too much about me.

  “Then have one,” he suggested. “You deserve it.”

  “Yeah, maybe. So, anyway, let’s talk about how to make Mom come out of hiding.”

  “Right. How could we make that happen?”

  “Well, I was thinking that now that I have access to so much cash, I could use it to produce Born Evil. Or pretend to produce the movie, rather.”

  “Really? Why would you want to do that? Besides, isn’t it still under option?”

  “Yeah, it is. I think the option expires in a few months.”

  “So you’re saying you wanna try to get the rights after it expires then? Who’ll get the rights anyway?”

  “From what I understand, the government will seize the rights to her screenplay when the option expires. Even if the government was selling, which I doubt they are, I wouldn’t try to buy the rights. It’d be too suspicious. She’ll probably figure I’m behind it even if I set up a shell company as a front. I would be very surprised if she hasn’t caught wind of the fact that Ariel has died. His passing and the funeral were pretty well-covered in the media. It’s not like she doesn’t know that I’m his adoptive son now. In other words, I can afford to produce her movie now.”

  “Right. I remember you saying that you told her.” Steve coughed a couple of times.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure why I felt she deserved to know, only that I did.” I pictured the day I had told Mom that Ariel was making me his legally adopted son. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just silently took me in. I wished I could tell what was going on behind those cool green eyes right then, but I couldn’t. She could be thinking anything. But given that history is usually the best predictor of future behavior, I steeled myself for a sarcastic comment or two along the lines of: “Good job, Shane! Pray do tell, how the hell did you get him to do that?”

  But the sarcasm never came. Instead, she just smiled benevolently and told me she was happy for me, that I deserved to have a father in my life.

  Making her go away, I cleared my throat. “Yeah, so it’s much better if I can convince the current production company to do the movie before their rights expire. Do it with some big rewrites, that is. They can pretend like they changed their minds. Makes more sense.”

  “It does. You mean you would pay the producer to do it your way then?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay, but I still don’t get why you producing the movie would make your mom come out of hiding?”

  “Remember how vain she is?”

  A dry chuckle floated over the phone line. “Yeah. I still have nightmares about her finding out I was the one who schemed her.”

  Steve once had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Mom while dressed as a woman, pretending to want to produce her movie. The slender thirty-eight-year-old man had revealed to me that he enjoyed cross-dressing. Once or twice a month, he went to parties and events with other cross-dressers. We quickly decided that him going as a woman was the perfect disguise and could be used to approach Mom. It was so weird, too weird to be a setup. As long as he could convince her he was seriously interested in producing her movie, she’d just write him off as an eccentric Hollywood type or, more likely, as a transgender woman. And she hadn’t questioned his appearance until the end of their meeting when she, somehow, found out Steve was not who he claimed he was and he was busted.

  “That screenplay was her pet project,” I told him. “I honestly thought she was gonna kill herself when they pulled the plug on the production. She found out during one of her visits to me in juvie. She almost lost it completely. I learned all kinds of useful stuff about Born Evil and the option as she was raging. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so upset.”

  When I was sent to juvie almost six years ago, Mom had done the talk-show circuit and become something of a celebrity, a hero for the country’s millions of moms for how she had fought to cure my psychopathic tendencies. Her story eventually became so hot there had been a bidding war in Hollywood to obtain the rights to the screenplay she’d written named Born Evil, detailing the tragic events in a feature-length movie.

  Unfortunately, Bold Moves, the movie company that had optioned it for a cool million bucks, decided they didn’t want to produce the movie after all, at least not right then, and the option lasted five years. Unless Mom was willing to return the million dollars, she would have to wait until the option expired. It was around that time that she met Ariel. I’m pretty sure her plan was to make the movie herself once the rights reverted back to her and she got her hands on all of Ariel’s cash. It would be the only way she had full control, which I knew she craved. But then I got out, squashing her agenda.

  “So you think she’s gonna want to be involved in the making of the movie?” Steve asked.

  “Absolutely. All we need to do to make her come out of the woodwork is to make sure she finds out about Bold Moves’ plans to rewrite the movie. Her ego is too big to let anyone else do the rewrites. She won’t be able to resist, no matter how risky it is for her. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you on that one. She’s an egomaniac all right. Good thinking, kid.”

  I smiled. “I have my moments.”

  9

  Larry Levy looked like your typical film producer: about fifty with brown hair cut short and shaped in a supposedly careless manner, a week’s worth of trimmed beard stubble, a light tan, and trendy green-rimmed round glasses that sat on his curved nose to add an intellectual touch. He was not very tall, but he made up his lack of height with a wide frame that was dressed in a crisp, white, collared shirt and rust-colored jeans that fit him just right. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he had presence and enough pep in his step that it didn’t matter. The fact that he had produced two Oscar-winning pictures over the last seven years only added to his appeal.

  He revealed a set of teeth so flawless they had to be veneers as he approached the tall corner table in the obscure coffee shop where we had decided to meet up. I wondered if he actually recognized me from pics in the media over the years, or if the fact that there was hardly anyone else around in the coffee shop was why he walked up to me so confidently.

  “Shane?” he asked in an undertone when he was just a few steps away.

  “That’s me,” I said and slipped off the stool I had been sitting on for almost an hour. Extending my hand in Larry’s direction, we greeted each other and had a seat again at the table. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Levy.”

  “Please, call me Larry.”

  “OK. Larry. Was it hard to find The Ground?” I tossed out a hand to indicate the almost empty coffee shop. Having passed by the quaint little place once when I was out on the town recently, I had noticed it by accident where it sat squeezed in by two buildings. In order to easily see it, you had to know it was there already. It was the perfect place for a clandestine encounter such as this one. Even though I doubted Mom had the resources to keep me under surveillance these days, I didn’t want to risk anyone spotting Larry walking into Ariel’s penthouse or me into Larry’s office who could inform her. Better to meet here and not arrive at the same time.

  “Not too bad,” Larry said and then eyed me for a brief moment. “You don’t look much like your mom.”

  “Yeah, I know. I take after my dad mostly. But I did get her chin.” I tapped my slightly cleft chin and grinned.

  He peered at it through those trendy glasses. “Oh. Right.” He glanced at the coffee cup and the plate before me that only contained the crumbs of a muffin now. “Can I get you something else?”

  “Sure. A latte would be good.”

  He nodded and walked over to the counter behind which a bored girl with purple hair leaned against the wall, reading a book. A minute later, he returned with my latte and a double espresso for himself as well as a scone.

  “Thanks,” I said and took the cup he extended me.

  “So,” he said after taking a seat and steepling his hands over the tabletop. “You wanted to discuss Jennifer’s screenplay?”

  “Yes. As I mentioned over the phone, I’ll pay you a million bucks if you agree to pretend you’ll produce the movie with some major rewrites. You don’t need to actually produce it, just act like you are for a while.” I figured I might as well get straight to the point. I had discussed my proposal with Rachel before contacting Larry, and she had agreed that offering a large sum of money would be most effective. Make the guy an offer too good to refuse, she’d told me. Without her cooperation, it would be much harder for me to go through with this operation despite being Ariel’s lawful son and in his will. I might be rich now but getting access to my 47 million bucks would take a while. At first, Rachel hadn’t understood why I was doing this, but when I pointed out that neither she nor I would be able to relax until Mom was caught, the situation became a lot clearer for her. It had become especially clear when I mentioned that Neera was in grave danger as long as Mom was on the lam. Neera’s safety was vital.

  “Okay,” Larry said and poured four packs’ worth of brown sugar into his espresso. “And you’ll also need me to talk to your mother?”

  “Yes. She’ll be contacting you for sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she’s gonna find out about you guys changing your mind about the movie. I’ll be using a PR firm to get it all over the news. They promised me they can get it onto the front pages of at least the New York tabloids, which is all that’s needed apparently, as it’s the kind of story the media will love. It’ll spread quickly. Mom is bound to find out even if she’s in Europe.”

  “All right. And what am I supposed to tell her?”

  I had a sip of my latte. “Depends on how she approaches you. She’ll be pissed that you’re gonna rewrite the movie without her permission. Or were rewrites part of the option?”

  “No. If we wanted to rewrite something, we had to discuss it with her first. She had to approve it.”

  I gave a pleased nod. “Like I thought then. She’ll be so pissed that you’ve decided to just go ahead and change the movie that she won’t be able to resist contacting you and demanding that she’ll have to approve the rewrites first. Actually, I’m pretty sure she’ll demand to do the rewrites herself.”

  Larry ran a thumb along his jawline and gave a lopsided little smile. “Well, it’s not like she’s in a position to demand anything at the moment. The woman is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.”

  “Yeah, I know, but she won’t care. Trust me, her ego’s too big. She won’t be able to handle the thought of someone messing with her baby. You must’ve noticed how much her writing means to her.”

  “Yes, it was clear that she takes it very seriously.” He chugged his double espresso, then wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

  I smiled. “That’s an understatement. Nothing is as important to her as her art. Not even getting revenge on people, and that’s saying a lot. It’s gotta be her way.”

  A shiver seemed to go through the filmmaker and he no longer smiled. “I guess you should know.”

  I smirked. “I do. Unfortunately.”

  “Okay. When do you expect to get this in the news? It would have to happen fast. The option expires in less than two months.”

  “That’s not a problem. Paige told me they should be able to get it in by the end of the week.”

  Larry lit up. “Paige? Paige Lipton?”

  “Yes. She’s the woman I’m working with at Stellar Public Relations.”

  “Got it. That’s a good company. Paige knows her stuff. So what do you want me to say when your mother contacts me? What medium do you think she’ll use?”

  “She’ll probably send you an email from a fake account first. Or maybe text you from a computer with an untraceable IP address. She knows all the ways and doesn’t make it easy to find her. The only time she’s bound to make a mistake is if we can get her to lower her guard. She’ll do that if we piss her off. It’s the only way I can get to her.”

  He stuck a piece of the scone into his mouth and chewed carefully. Then, “Did you consult with the authorities about this? What do they think about you trying to smoke her out?”

  “I don’t want to get the authorities involved in this. The more people who’re involved, the bigger the chance she’ll find out it’s all a ploy. Someone will leak the truth. That always happens. Just look at what’s been going on lately in the world. People leak left and right. I have reason to believe that she has at least one contact inside the FBI, probably more. That’s how she’s been able to stay under the radar for so many years while killing all those people with my dad. At the moment, it’s only you and me and my closest allies who know what we’re up to.” I was lying my ass off; I didn’t have a clue if Mom had any moles planted in the FBI or anywhere else, but I thought it sounded plausible given her ability to evade the law for so long. The only part that was true about my bold statement was that I didn’t want to get the authorities involved. I wanted to do this my way. I wanted to make sure Mom was stopped once and for all, and I didn’t trust that anyone else would be able to do it but me. I didn’t trust the authorities not to screw up again. They had their chance when they put her behind bars, but they hadn’t managed to keep her there. Even with Jordan helping her, it shouldn’t have been so easy for her to escape and be so completely MIA.

  “Okay, I’m with you so far,” Larry said. “I still don’t see how she can think she’ll have any say regarding the rewrites being a fugitive. It’s not like she has any legal recourse. We’re basically free to do whatever we want with her script until the option expires.”

  I placed my elbows on the table and leaned toward Larry. “That’s because you don’t know my mom the way I know her. She’s a very creative, very evil person. She’ll find a way to make you have her approve the rewrites. She might even demand that you have her do the rewrites.” I glanced out a side window and pursed my lips. “Yeah, I think she’ll go as far as demanding that she does the rewrites…”

  10

  When my meeting with Larry Levy was over, I headed back home on foot. It was chilly outside and the dark, cloudy sky was leaking water, but I didn’t care that I didn’t have an umbrella; I needed to clear my mind. Think about what had been said. All in all, the meeting had gone as we had expected except for one small, but very crucial detail—Larry wanted two million bucks in order for his team to do what was needed for this little charade to work out. After he’d made me explain exactly what I’d meant by Mom being so creative and always getting her way no matter what the consequences—exactly what kind of freak accidents I was talking about might happen if she didn’t—he’d reconsidered the proposal, claiming it was too risky. By agreeing to help me, he would risk not only his own life but his family’s lives and those of his employees and their families, too. He had three young daughters to worry about. One million, including all expenses, was not enough.

  It didn’t help that I assured him that as long as he went along with all of Mom’s demands in regard to the movie, she would not bother doing anything to anyone. There would be no strange deaths happening, everyone was safe. She was already taking a huge risk by contacting him. All she cared about was that the movie was done to her liking. I even told him that, in the end, we would pay for a second PR release that informed the media that Born Evil wasn’t going to be produced after all. Whether or not we lured Mom out of the woodwork by reporting about her movie, we would have to do that. It was the least we could do to ensure everyone’s safety after the operation was over.

  Well, I thought as I strode down the street, zigzagging between all the other pedestrians that consisted primarily of slow-walking tourists—midtown Manhattan was always full of them—if Larry wanted two million bucks, that’s what we would have to pay him. We wouldn’t get another opportunity like this to get our hands on Mom. She had to be stopped. I’d pay those two million on my own if Rachel objected. It wasn’t like I would end up broke by doing so.

  An icy raindrop splashed my nose and I picked up my pace. I had a weird sensation in my stomach that told me something bad was up, and I worried it had to do with Neera. The little girl had played a game yesterday in which she had pretended her dolls were her children that she had washed in the bathtub. I entered the bathroom when she was about to attend to the third doll and I had asked her what she was doing.

  “I’m cleaning my dolls,” she answered in a chipper voice.

  I stopped in my tracks and watched her keep the doll with the blond curls under all the water in the bathtub. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she rubbed the naked doll’s back with a cloth.

  “Why are you cleaning the doll, Neera?” I asked her, confused at the same time as I wondered where Karen, the nanny, was. How had Neera managed to fill up the bathtub on her own?