“This is it.” If I hadn’t been parked in front of it and looking hard, I’d never have seen it.
I pointed out a discreet black metal box mounted on an arm in the brick wall, and Bailey pushed the button. A voice that sounded like a British butler’s said, “Yes?” Bailey identified us, and he told us to hold out our badges. I couldn’t see any cameras, but I didn’t imagine he’d have asked us to do that just for giggles, so I held them outside the window, not sure where to aim them. After a couple of seconds the gates swung open, and Bailey steered up the brick lined road.
Los Angeles has some of the most outrageously opulent manses in the country and Bailey and I had seen our share over the years, but nothing compared to this. The road opened to a bricked-in area that was the size of half a football field, in the middle of which was a massive Italian Renaissance-style fountain, complete with cherubs’ and lions’ heads that spewed water. Towering over the grounds was a palatial two-story Tudor-style house all in that same matching brick. It was tastefully covered in ivy that obediently climbed where it best accented the archways and latticed windows and formed a large L around the perimeter of the front area. Judging just by what I could see from the outside, that “house” was at least thirty-five thousand square feet if it was an inch.
Bailey parked and we both stepped out of the car and took in the view.
“Damn,” said Bailey under her breath.
“A quaint little ‘starter.’”
By the time we’d made it up to the arched brick entry, the door was open and a slender man in his fifties, with thinning hair combed neatly back and dressed in a cardigan and dark slacks, beckoned us in.
“Right this way, please.”
We were eventually ushered into a room that was sectioned off by furniture groupings of leather couches, ottomans, and cherrywood tables. Large wall-mounted flat screens hung on opposite walls. The room was big enough that both could be watched at the same time without anyone suffering noise interference. I supposed it was what the Realtors called a “great” room. Cozy.
Several people had gathered and the room buzzed with tension, though no one was moving. It was an odd sensation, as if everyone were vibrating in place. A tall wire whip of a man approached me with a smooth, athletic stride. Something about him looked familiar. I studied the brows that arched expressively over green eyes, the full lips, the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the dampish, freshly showered-looking dark red hair that curled down the sides of his neck. When recognition hit, shock made the name spring from my mouth. “Mattie!”
