Read Private L.A. for Free Online
Authors: James Patterson, Mark Sullivan
Terry Graves said, openly worried now. “Thom told me he was looking forward to driving the ’Vette.”
There were pictures of the celebrity couple all over the house. Most of them were what I call power shots, photographs with politicians, say, or with various Hollywood moguls, at awards ceremonies and the like, images designed to boost an insecure creative soul.
A few candid photos showed the couple with their three children: Malia, thirteen, adopted in Ethiopia; Jin, eleven, adopted in China; and Miguel, eight, adopted in Honduras, and born with a severe cleft palate. More images depicted Thom or Jennifer or both in some far-flung and impoverished land, posing with gangs of smiling children, or holding a withered infant in their arms.
Camilla Bronson’s lower lip trembled as she saw the photos, and she said, “Oh, God, what’s happened to them? They’re such good people.”
I left her and went to the west wing of the ranch house, which held guest quarters, a state-of-the-art gym, an indoor pool, and a twenty-seat screening room. The pool was empty. The gym and the screening room appeared unused.
Lights burned in the hallway that led to the east wing and five bedrooms laid out like a dormitory, with two bedrooms on either side of the hall and the Harlows’ master suite at the far end. The bedroom on the right-hand side, closest to the living area, was Malia’s. Her suitcases were half empty on the floor. An iPhone 4S with a dead battery lay hidden between the bed and the end table. The sheets were rumpled and cast lazily aside, as if the teen had gotten up for a drink of water, or to go pee, or maybe had just left the bed unmade for the day.
Jin’s room across the hall was more chaotic, with clothes in piles on the carpet and strewn on the furniture, a canopy bed covered in stuffed animals, and another menagerie on the dresser.
The bedroom of the boy, Miguel, however, was different, neat-freak different, the bed made with almost military precision. But when I walked past the bed I smelled something acrid in the air. Sniffing around, I soon found its source. Someone had wet the bed.
The room across the hall from Miguel’s was empty, the mattress stripped, the blankets folded and put into clear plastic protectors. I wondered if it had been set aside for some future fourth orphan the Harlows planned to adopt.
I reached the master suite, a simple yet elegant space with a Steinway grand in the corner, shelves bulging with books, and a huge teak bed, crisply made with fresh white sheets and a folded duvet. A bay window overlooked the orchards. Paintings and several mirrors, including one narrow mirror six or seven feet long, hung horizontally, high on the interior wall of the bedroom, all feng shui remedies, no doubt.
“Found the Oscars,” Mo-bot called to me as she exited a massive walk-in closet to my right, hands behind her back. “They were all wrapped in newspaper and stuck at the bottom of one of Jennifer’s drawers. Can you imagine doing that to an Academy Award, Jack?”
“The Harlows are unimpressed with themselves,” Sanders said, coming in behind us with Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.
“They don’t judge themselves on the basis of public accolades,” Terry Graves said. “Deep down it’s always about the work.”
“If you say so,” Mo-bot replied with little conviction. “Know what else I found piled on top of the Oscars?”
“I couldn’t imagine,” the publicist sniffed. “As I said, Jennifer has one of everything.”
Mo-bot smirked as she brought out from behind her back a rather large and anatomically realistic dildo with a suction cup jutting out the back end.
Chapter 12
“YOU KNOW WHY they’ll go for it?” Cobb asked Nickerson as he steeled a knife with a short, wicked-looking obsidian blade. “They’ll go for it because big-city hot shots or not, deep down they’re just like some limp-dick chieftain in the Old Country: small-minded, predictable, and therefore
There were pictures of the celebrity couple all over the house. Most of them were what I call power shots, photographs with politicians, say, or with various Hollywood moguls, at awards ceremonies and the like, images designed to boost an insecure creative soul.
A few candid photos showed the couple with their three children: Malia, thirteen, adopted in Ethiopia; Jin, eleven, adopted in China; and Miguel, eight, adopted in Honduras, and born with a severe cleft palate. More images depicted Thom or Jennifer or both in some far-flung and impoverished land, posing with gangs of smiling children, or holding a withered infant in their arms.
Camilla Bronson’s lower lip trembled as she saw the photos, and she said, “Oh, God, what’s happened to them? They’re such good people.”
I left her and went to the west wing of the ranch house, which held guest quarters, a state-of-the-art gym, an indoor pool, and a twenty-seat screening room. The pool was empty. The gym and the screening room appeared unused.
Lights burned in the hallway that led to the east wing and five bedrooms laid out like a dormitory, with two bedrooms on either side of the hall and the Harlows’ master suite at the far end. The bedroom on the right-hand side, closest to the living area, was Malia’s. Her suitcases were half empty on the floor. An iPhone 4S with a dead battery lay hidden between the bed and the end table. The sheets were rumpled and cast lazily aside, as if the teen had gotten up for a drink of water, or to go pee, or maybe had just left the bed unmade for the day.
Jin’s room across the hall was more chaotic, with clothes in piles on the carpet and strewn on the furniture, a canopy bed covered in stuffed animals, and another menagerie on the dresser.
The bedroom of the boy, Miguel, however, was different, neat-freak different, the bed made with almost military precision. But when I walked past the bed I smelled something acrid in the air. Sniffing around, I soon found its source. Someone had wet the bed.
The room across the hall from Miguel’s was empty, the mattress stripped, the blankets folded and put into clear plastic protectors. I wondered if it had been set aside for some future fourth orphan the Harlows planned to adopt.
I reached the master suite, a simple yet elegant space with a Steinway grand in the corner, shelves bulging with books, and a huge teak bed, crisply made with fresh white sheets and a folded duvet. A bay window overlooked the orchards. Paintings and several mirrors, including one narrow mirror six or seven feet long, hung horizontally, high on the interior wall of the bedroom, all feng shui remedies, no doubt.
“Found the Oscars,” Mo-bot called to me as she exited a massive walk-in closet to my right, hands behind her back. “They were all wrapped in newspaper and stuck at the bottom of one of Jennifer’s drawers. Can you imagine doing that to an Academy Award, Jack?”
“The Harlows are unimpressed with themselves,” Sanders said, coming in behind us with Camilla Bronson and Terry Graves.
“They don’t judge themselves on the basis of public accolades,” Terry Graves said. “Deep down it’s always about the work.”
“If you say so,” Mo-bot replied with little conviction. “Know what else I found piled on top of the Oscars?”
“I couldn’t imagine,” the publicist sniffed. “As I said, Jennifer has one of everything.”
Mo-bot smirked as she brought out from behind her back a rather large and anatomically realistic dildo with a suction cup jutting out the back end.
Chapter 12
“YOU KNOW WHY they’ll go for it?” Cobb asked Nickerson as he steeled a knife with a short, wicked-looking obsidian blade. “They’ll go for it because big-city hot shots or not, deep down they’re just like some limp-dick chieftain in the Old Country: small-minded, predictable, and therefore