The Podcast

Chapter 21

Monday early evening

He found her home address from the restraining order against her stalker, Nicholas Chen. Then he called the private security guard at her Hidden Hills community estate an hour before he left the downtown office, warning of a reported suspicious vehicle in the area that needed checking up on. It's hardly the first time Detective Lucas Saba has questionably wielded the power of his California State issue badge. But never without good reason.

Sumner's first podcast episode—My Best Friend, Chloe—loops through his head in bits and pieces as he drives up into The Hills, his windows down against the backdrop of rolling, sinfully over-watered green peaks and valleys. Cliffs slip sensually into the Los Angeles smog, harsh edges blurring into the terrain like an oil painting.

Mansion after mansion he drives, never envying a single one. His profession has solidified just how fucked-up everyone is, wealthy or not. Some of the homes appear to be a series of never-ending arches, hooked together arm and arm, their white stucco and terracotta tiles egg-washed by the late afternoon sun. Others risk starkly against the lush backdrop, severe edges slicing their way into the earth, cutting harshly into Nature's curves like a white flag stuck ignorantly into rich, foreign land.

8517 Franklin Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Lucas turns his SUV past a row of well-groomed bushes and onto a steep, glassy driveway. On his left, the edge of an infinity pool rises upward like a concrete waterfall. A set of three interlocking gray boxes are wedged into the earth above him, their lines harsh but the color like clay, an expensive nod to the hybrid of nature and man-made. Large thickly framed black windows stretch across the stucco, the glass reflecting only the sky, making the home appear open but revealing nothing within. Lucas puts on his emergency parking brake, the slope of the driveway a remnant from a past Hollywood Hills mudslide. It's a fortress fit for a podcasting ice queen. An ice queen who's lying. About exactly what and why, he's not sure. But he's here to find out.

Lucas hears the doorbell ring from within the house, a camera lens the diameter of a barrel aimed ominously at his temple. He takes a step back and lets out a breath, glancing down at his black boots before looking back up at the sound of the door opening. Standing barefoot on light-washed oak floors, Sumner stares at Lucas, her large eyes wide and her lips parted with thinly veiled surprise. She looks beside him and then behind him, peering down the treacherous slope of her own driveway like even she's afraid to lean too far over the edge.

As Sumner tries to gather herself, reassembling her painstaking veneer of self-control, Lucas' gaze trails over the the loose, pleasantly haphazard way her thick wavy hair curls past her shoulders, still air-drying from a shower. She's wearing an off-white cotton sundress dotted with small red flowers, the hem barely reaching mid-thigh. Lucas was prepared for hard, impenetrable ice. The challenge of coaxing his way in. But the woman in front of him looks young and warm, her cheeks flush, her eyes bright with a natural pale lavender on the skin of her lids. Somehow it doesn't feel fair, their dynamic, but it's not clear who has the upper hand. An unguarded Sumner West feels more dangerous for a man like Lucas than the ivory-tower ice queen.

"Hello." Sumner reaches up and grips the edge of the doorway, her body stiffening.

"Hi."

"Are you, um—"

"Alone? Yes." Lucas takes a step toward her and sees a flinch snap between Sumner's slender shoulders. She's not just surprised, she's nervous.

"Okay." Sumner lifts the end of the word like it might be a question.

"Are you?" Lucas nods past Sumner's head, a floating dark black staircase winding its way upward, the railing made of all glass.

"Am I?"