The House of Secrets Read online

  Claire’s been gone ten years now. How Jack wishes she were here. She’s somewhere. Jack knows this. He found her in the first place, he’ll find her again. He thinks maybe he’s closer to her now than ever, particularly with how every day he feels a little shorter of breath, how there are days when he can’t feel his fingertips. His doctor told him it was a blood flow problem.

  He needed to take his meds.

  Eat right.

  Get exercise.

  Slow down. He got a second opinion, a third; they all told him the same thing. Can’t feel your fingertips? Take a nitro. The nitro doesn’t work, call 911. Can’t get to a phone? Get right with your soul.

  He was trying by practicing his third rule: Honor the people who love you.

  Jack realized early on that rules one and three didn’t quite work together. Sometimes the rub is that the people who love you wouldn’t recognize your logic, not when it comes to matters of business. So maybe they aren’t rules, Jack considers today, all these years later. Maybe they are truths.

  And the thing about truth, well, it doesn’t always need to be fact based.

  Indeed, when Jack picked his son up in Las Vegas, where Skip had been signing autographs at a convention, and where he’d been living—“for tax purposes,” Skip told him—and when Hazel flew in from some anthropology conference, Jack wasn’t even sure if he could go through with his plan to lay it all out. It was an anniversary trip, he’d told them, for Claire, which got both of the kids to grudgingly agree to check out of their own lives for a week. But the fact was, he wanted to put a bow on another part of their lives too.

  “I’m done,” Jack says. “I’m ending the TV show.”

  “What? Why?” Skip asks.

  “Time to live like a normal person.”

  “Isn’t it a little late for that?” Hazel says.

  Probably, Jack thinks. “Maybe I have fifteen years left,” he says. “I’d like to enjoy them.”

  “Don’t say that,” Skip says. “Soon as you put a number on things, you start counting toward it. That’s bad juju.”

  Now Jack was the one rolling his eyes. Skip. A childhood nickname that stuck. No man should enter his fifth decade still saddled with a nickname, Jack thinks, unless it’s something like Alexander the Great, except even Alexander the Great was dead at thirty-two. Skip’s real name was Nicholas, but it was Jack’s own father who’d crowned him years before. As in, Maybe it will skip a generation.

  “You’re finally being smart. You should’ve done it years ago,” Hazel says. “You outlasted Jacques Cousteau. Go ahead—pull the plug and enjoy.”

  Hazel. She’d taken after her mother in so many ways that it was often hard for Jack to be around her anymore. Her face, her voice, even her hand gestures, reminded him of Claire so much that it hurt to be near her. They also had the same temper—and the same reckless attraction to destruction.

  How many times had Jack been woken by the police, Hazel in the back of a squad car? How many phone calls had he made, even in the last year, to keep charges from being filed against her for assault…or mayhem…or whatever charge the police wanted to hang on her? Jack tried to harness it—in his line of work, especially the parts of his life he hid from everyone else, fearlessness was what kept him alive. But then Claire saw what he was doing, and that was the end. I will not let you put her in that business. Over the years, Hazel had found her own business. She was a pilgrim, a professor, and never exactly risk-averse.

  “But the fans…” Skip said.

  “Don’t,” Hazel warned, her temper already showing. “When was the last time the fans were ever happy?”

  She was right about that too.

  For the first few seasons, it was enough to find some old NASA employees who swore the moon landing was fake…or the woman who woke up one day and suddenly could speak Latin. All Jack had to do was nod and show that perfect amount of empathy. Just because something seemed implausible didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  But then people started to need more, something a bit less static. And that meant Jack had to go into the field, begin actually investigating the mysteries of the world, even solving them when he could. That was the thing about the mystery business: Every now and then, you had to unravel one, or else the viewers would begin to think everything was fake, or, alternatively, that the world really was a series of vast, unending conspiracies meant to keep them from knowing the truth.

  That’s what it always boiled down to. People weren’t happy unless they believed at least part of the world was some grand hoax. It’s what had made Watergate so compelling. Everything everyone suspected was true: Government was corrupt, the world was being manipulated, nothing was on the level…and it took a couple of guys named Bob and Carl to figure it all out. But as Jack knew, most times, mysteries didn’t have satisfying endings. Like the death of JFK. No one wanted to believe Oswald acted alone, because then that story was done.

  The world was so different now. Anyone could see anything. And the government? Between the robots, drones, and Navy SEALS, they had more people working for them than against them. Whatever Jack Nash could find hardly mattered. He was a cog. The machine was so big now, it could withstand a few loose screws.

  “Can you even be happy?” Skip asks. “Away from it?”

  As soon as he found the book. No, not just a book. A bible. The bible. It was so close to him now. If he closed his eyes, he could see it, right in front of him, there in the desert, swirling in the wind.

  “That’s the last mystery,” Jack says, his words slurring.

  “Dad, you all right?” Hazel asks quietly. She’s looking at him strangely, he thinks. Like she’s studying him, cataloguing him, breaking him into parts, like she does. She puts her hand on his elbow. “You look flushed.”

  “Never better,” Jack says. Outside, the desert suddenly blooms white, the sand so luminous that it reminds Jack of the Sahara. “There’s something else I want to tell you.”

  “We know, Dad,” Skip says. “Honor the people who love you. You’ve told us a million times.”

  “Your color isn’t good,” Hazel says. “Your face is red. Why don’t you pull over? Let me drive.”

  “Everything is red here,” Jack says, but no, no, it’s white now. Everything awash in light. Is he on a beach? He thinks he might be. The salt on his lips. The waves in his ears. Yes. He’s not driving a car. He’s asleep on some further shore. Wasn’t he about to say something?

  “Dad!” Hazel shouts, grabbing the wheel. “Dad, can you hear me!?”

  He feels the waves settling in his chest, not a bad feeling, no. The light has turned from red to white to a brilliant yellow, the desert transforming right before his eyes. Do the kids see it? They must. They must see it.

  He hopes they finally do.

  2

  Los Angeles

  Eight days later

  “—azel-Ann? Hazel-Ann, can you hear me?”

  Hazel-Ann Nash blinked through the darkness, squinting at the blinding light.

  “She’s alert!” a man called out. White coat. Doctor. Hospital.

  The doctor was shouting questions in her face, but as she anxiously glanced around, her eyes…Why weren’t her eyes working? It was like they focused only for a second, pinging from the bed she was in, to the dead TV, to the hand sanitizer on the wall, to the whiteboard with the handwritten words:

  I am Hazel-Ann Nash and I am feeling _______.

  Was that really her name? Hazel-Ann? Something was wrong. How could she not know her name?

  Her heartbeat pulsed in her tongue, her gums, her ears. Her instinct was to run, though that didn’t make sense. Why would you run from a hospital?

  “Can you feel this, Hazel-Ann?” the doctor asked, stabbing parts of her body.

  The problem was she could feel everything. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was in a hospital, though judging from the way every part of her felt as if it had been set on fire and then extinguished using a brick, she guessed she’d be
en in some kind of accident.

  “Can you feel this, Hazel-Ann?” the doctor asked. He poked the bottom of her foot.

  “Hazel,” she blurted, suddenly sure of only one thing. She didn’t like being called Hazel-Ann. She ran her tongue over her top teeth. They were all there. A couple of jagged edges. That wasn’t good.

  The doctor was about her age, thirty-five, maybe a few years older. As he leaned over her bed, Hazel could see that he’d missed a spot while shaving that morning. Right above his Adam’s apple was a clump of long hairs. She wanted to reach up and yank them out, show him how it felt to be yelled at and stabbed, but her arms were immobilized, hooked to a latticework of IVs. And besides, the doctor had kind eyes, deep blue.

  “Hazel,” he said, “do you know where you are?”

  Did she? Where had she been that day? Utah. Yes. Monument Valley. With her brother…Skip, his name was Skip—and her father, Jack.

  She could remember eating fry bread at a highway stop. A Navajo man dusted it with cinnamon and slipped them a few extra pieces when he recognized her father—the famous Jack Nash—from his forever-running TV show, The House of Secrets. As they ate, her mother was in the dirt parking lot, banging the horn from the passenger seat—

  No.

  Wait.

  Her mother was dead. Ten years now. Brain cancer. She could remember her mom in the casket, could remember the sun so hot that day that everyone at the graveside was sipping ice water from red Solo cups.

  But that wasn’t today, couldn’t have been today. It was as if there were two memories occupying the same space.

  “Moab?” Hazel said.

  The doctor turned toward a nurse Hazel hadn’t noticed before, or maybe the nurse had just walked in. Nothing was firing right. The nurse wore a blue V-neck smock and had a clipboard in her hands, but she was just staring at Hazel with honest concern. Hazel’s father once told her that if she was ever scared on a plane, all she had to do was look to see if the flight attendants seemed worried. If they did, buckle up.

  “I need a seat belt,” Hazel blurted, though she hadn’t meant to speak. Her voice sounded all wrong.

  “Hazel, you’ve been in a car accident,” the doctor said as Hazel noticed he had a bit of pepper stuck above one of his incisors. It was all she could focus on, that lack of attention to detail, the failure to realize that he’d left a mess in his own mouth. “Do you remember anything about an accident?”

  She could see her father’s hands on the steering wheel of his Cadillac, Skip reaching for her from the backseat, the smell of her father’s ever-present mint gum.

  “What hospital is this?” she asked, hearing her voice shake.

  “UCLA Medical Center. In Los Angeles. I’m Dr. Morrison. I’m taking care of you. Everything is going to be just fine.”

  Los Angeles was where she’d grown up. She knew that.

  “What else do you remember?” Dr. Morrison asked. His tone made Hazel feel there was something bad in the answer.

  “I need to see Skip,” she said.

  “We’ll let him know you’re awake again.”

  Again.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Intermittently,” he said, “for eight days.”

  Her heartbeat pulsed faster than ever. Nothing made sense. Maybe she should run. But she could hear her dad’s voice. Nothing good comes from panic. Old instincts kicked in. Look around. Examine. Assess. She turned to the nurse, trying to gauge her reaction.

  “I need to see my father,” Hazel demanded.

  “Everything is going to be fine,” Dr. Morrison said for the second time. “Can you tell me what you do for a living, Hazel?”

  “Anthropology professor. At San Francisco State,” she said. Yes. That’s right. That’s where she honed her skills. Examine. Assess. “I study death. All its rituals.”

  “That’s good,” Dr. Morrison said. “Can you tell me your parents’ names?”

  “Jack and Claire.”

  “What about your grandparents?”

  “Cyrus and…and Patricia,” Hazel said, naming her dad’s parents. As for her mother’s parents, their names were lost in her brain. “I can’t remember my mother’s parents.”

  “That’s okay,” Dr. Morrison said, shining a light in her eye. “I should tell you,” he added, an odd tic Hazel noticed, that he seemed to be forewarning, subtly preparing her for whatever he was going to say next, “these next few days will be hard.”

  “I need to see my father,” Hazel said, gripping the sheets because she had to grip something. Find calm. Observe. Assess. I am Hazel-Ann Nash and I am feeling _______.

  “Janice is going to take care of you,” he explained, motioning to the nurse.

  As the doctor stepped out into the hallway, he was approached quickly by another man, this one in a black suit, white shirt, maroon tie, who stepped beside the doctor and examined the chart too. They both had their backs to her, but she saw the way the doctor shook his head. His hand went absently to his throat, his fingers lingering on those missed whiskers.

  The man in the suit put his hands on his hips and pushed his jacket away from his body, which is when Hazel saw his holster. And gun.

  A SIG Sauer, Hazel thought, though she had no idea where the hell that thought came from.

  “Where’s my dad?” Hazel repeated.

  The nurse bit down on her lip and Hazel saw tears well up in her eyes. “People…” Janice said. “People loved your father.”

  3

  Shanghai, China

  The Bear gets the call. He’s at a French café on Yongkang Road, eating his pain au chocolat. He lets himself have one a week, after he does his roadwork. No sense running ten miles without a tangible reward at the end.

  “She’ll live,” he’s told through his cell phone.

  The Bear considers this, trying to figure out if it’s his problem yet. “She’s in the hospital?” he asks.

  “Yes. Los Angeles.”

  “What’s her present condition?” He never says the name Hazel. Or Skip. That way, if some idiot happens to be eavesdropping, they won’t hear anything remotely compelling, or, better, they’ll think he’s a doctor.

  Today, the only other person in the café is a young woman hunched over a laptop. She has giant headphones over her ears, and The Bear thinks how funny it is that for a while everyone wanted headphones to be small and inconspicuous and then, suddenly, they wanted them to be huge, so that everyone could tell you wanted your privacy.

  “Stabilized.”

  The Bear isn’t surprised. Brawlers like Hazel don’t go down easy.

  He gets the full list: broken rib, a bruised sternum, deep lacerations to her face and hands—all standard, the sort of injuries caused by seat belts as much as by the accident itself—and then the one that’s had her out for so long: her brain’s been scrambled, something with her amygdala. Her wiring crossed. Not amnesia, of course, because no one actually gets amnesia, The Bear knows. It’s like all of the myths of childhood that have turned out to be complete bunk. It’s too bad. If he could give himself a tap on the forehead to selectively erase a few things, well, he’d pick up the nicest hammer on the market.

  “When will she be released?”

  “Unclear. We’re trying to figure out what she remembers.” A pause. “There are additional problems.”

  The Bear listens intently for another few minutes. “I will take care of these issues,” he says, “and then our association is complete, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  The Bear swipes his phone off, which is always so unsatisfying. In the old days, he’d have yanked a cord from the wall, wrapped it around his fist, and watched his hand turn purple, a good way to harness and control anger. But now he was just staring at a bucolic photo of a pink rose in bloom. He needed to figure out how to change that. The photo and his anger management.

  He pulls up his email, reading the newest file. It’s a scan of a typed letter on government stationery, filled with t
errible misspellings, a total disregard for the difference between your and you’re. It’s also filled with classified information. From the FBI.

  The Bear wolfs down the rest of his pain au chocolat, savors the buttery aftertaste on his tongue. The Bear thinks he will run an additional mile or two. Thinks it would be good to get his endurance up. He can’t be groggy; his body isn’t so finely tuned anymore. Age. A real sonofabitch, indiscriminate in its application.

  His phone buzzes. More emails. A plane ticket. Directions. Orders.

  There’s also a photo. From New Brunswick, Canada. Of course. The onetime home of Benedict Arnold.

  The Bear steps outside, finds the sun.

  He loves Canada in the early summer. But not as much as Los Angeles.

  Lovely. Perfect.

  He’s been in hibernation for too long. Time to sharpen the claws.

  4

  UCLA Medical Center

  Two days later

  What’s your favorite color?”

  “Red?” Hazel said from her hospital bed. That’s the color she saw when she closed her eyes. She could imagine a little red dress, her shoulders bare. She was walking into a room as people turned to look at her. A dance? No. A cocktail party. Italy? Yes. Italy. That’s what it was.

  “You hate red,” Skip said, blowing steam off his coffee.

  “How can I hate a color?” Hazel asked.

  “You can learn to hate anything,” Skip said. “Believe me.” His face was still a bit black and blue from the accident—he’d broken his nose and had an orbital fracture, minor injuries compared to Hazel’s—and it looked like maybe he was wearing concealer under his eyes. He’d been on TV since he was seven years old. Hazel guessed that made him an expert on more things than she could imagine.

  “How come I can’t remember you, though?”

  “You know I’m your brother.”