Page 59 of The Perfect Poise

TheThe rest of the night was exhausting, but everything she did seemed to make sense. That included throwing on jeans and a hoodie and going to the nearby big box hardware store, which was open all night. She bought a hacksaw, rubber gloves, a drop cloth, several small towels, bleach, and a box of heavy-duty trash bags. It was self-checkout, so no one batted an eye.

She spent hours cutting Donald Fitzgerald into manageable pieces and stuffing him into trash bags. She did the same with the shower curtain, which was beyond salvaging, and the drop cloth. After that, she wiped down the tub with the bleach until it was immaculate and tossed the towels into a bag with most of Donald's arms.

Then, while it was still dark out, she hauled it all out to the trunk of the crappy old beater she’d bought earlier in the week after her parents had her Porsche repossessed. She left without checking out of the motel.

She drove around in the wee hours until she found an empty lot that had a rusted oil drum. She folded down the backseat, shoved it in and drove out to Pyramid Lake, in the Angeles National Forest, up near Castaic, a good fifty-five miles north of the city. She remembered visiting the lake when she was a kid and learning to jet ski there. She also remembered that the lake’s beach was rocky in places and that there was a fishing pier that extended unusually far out into the water.

When she arrived, it was just as it had been in her memory. She didn’t waste time on nostalgia. Instead, she loaded up the oil drum with big rocks, along with trash bags full of Donald’s body parts. Then she put the top back on the drum and smashed it down with a rock so that it was snug.

After that, she rolled it down the pier and into the water. The sun was just starting to rise over a mountain to the east as the oil drum plopped into the lake. In the dim light, she watched it bob on top of the water. For an endless moment, she feared it would stay that way.

But then water slowly started to seep in through the myriad rusted holes in the drum. After what felt like an eternity but was probably less than two minutes, the drum began to sink. Soon it was completely below the surface, and then, too deep to see at all.

Over the next few weeks, Paulina had much work to do, but that didn’t stop her from keeping half an eye on the news, which detailed the missing father and daughter, Donald and Paulina Fitzgerald. There were lots of theories but not much evidence.

And with Paulina now in Mexico, using a false name, the trail ran dry. She saw fewer and fewer stories over the next few months, which she spent laying low as she used what remained of her nominal funds to get plastic surgery and pay for forged documents that gave her a new identity, education, and work history.

Unfortunately, there were cost overruns that her nest egg couldn't cover. In order to pay for everything, she had to do some escort work at a few high-end hotels in Mazatlán. Nothing she experienced there was worse than what her stepfather had done to her. Eventually, after nearly a year, she had replenished her nest egg enough to feel comfortable returning to L.A.

With her new face, her blonde hair now dyed black, brown contact lenses to hide her naturally blue eyes, and a breast reduction, she was virtually unrecognizable as the same person. In fact, she wasn’t. Now her identity was Adrienne Shaw, an in-demand financial advisor to multiple ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Conveniently, she couldn’t name any of them to potential new employers during job interviews because of nondisclosure agreements.

She got an internship at Wealth Consultants West and quickly moved up the career ladder, in large part because of her past experience in the field, which far exceeded the other interns. It didn’t hurt that at 28 (though her faked birth certificate said she was 25), she was older and more erudite than her peers.

Within a year, she had her own accounts, Within three more she was juggling several of the most prominent clients in the firm’s portfolio, among them the Baptistes and the Warwick family, along with their daughter, Lila. At one point she had also worked with the Moreno family, including their daughter Isabella, before eventually handing off that account to a colleague.

Adrienne was raking it in. Admittedly not anywhere close to her clients or her stepfather, but still pulling in a solid seven figures. Considering that less than five years prior, she was selling her body in Mexican hotels, she’d come a long way. No one questioned her identity or her bona fides. Everything was going wonderfully, until she made one mistake.

In a meeting with Chloe Baptiste last week, she had unthinkingly mentioned that the art dealer had overpaid for a piece she bought. Adrienne knew that because her stepfather had bought it eleven years ago for $6.9 million. In an unfortunate coincidence, Chloe ended up buying it from Paulina’s mother, who apparently wasn’t as liquid as she liked, for $11.1 million.

Chloe became immediately suspicious of her young financial advisor’s unexpected knowledge of the high-end art world and had some research done by an off-the-books investigator. Pretty quickly, he unraveled some of her background, including her surgeries and her time working the Mazatlán hotel scene.

Chloe asked for an unscheduled lunch meeting in a café yesterday, where she revealed to Adrienne what she knew, including sharing some grainy photos of her getting extra handsy with potential clients in hotel bars before heading back to their rooms.

She didn’t seem to have made the connection between Adrienne and her past life as Paulina Fitzgerald, but that loomed as a possibility, maybe even a certainty, if she kept digging. Luckily that wasn’t her focus. Instead Chloe revealed that in addition to being an art dealer, she ran a top flight escort agency on the side, and she thought that Adrienne could fill a gap in her services.

She said that she had several pretty young things in her stable. But she didn’t have a girl who met the needs of men looking for a little more maturity. They wanted adult women who gave off an air of elegant professionalism rather than mere nubile enthusiasm. Adrienne could meet that need.

“I promise that it will be our little secret,” Chloe said over a Cobb salad. “Your employers need never know. It’s time to get back into the business.”

“I’m happy with the work I’m doing now,” Adrienne had told her.

“Maybe re-think that,” Chloe warned. “This could be a boon for you, or it could destroy you.”

“What about you?” Adrienne had challenged. “A mega-art dealer married to a big-time film executive. Yor reputation is at risk here too.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet, trying to threaten me,” Chloe said, after sipping a glass of Chablis. “That kind of allegation wouldn’t affect me. I’m richer than God. Besides, I would just deny everything. Those accounts are well-hidden. And let’s be frank, at the end of the day, who would believe you over me?’

Those were almost exactly the same words that Adrienne's stepfather had said to her as he climbed into bed with her in that ratty motel room all those years ago. And when she heard them again, something in her snapped. But outwardly, she just smiled.

“Can I have a little time to think about it?” she asked.

“Of course,” Chloe had said. “Not that there’s much to think about. It’s 1 p.m. now. I’ll give you twenty-four hours, until exactly this time tomorrow. If I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll assume we have a deal. If you do call, then we may have a problem.”

After lunch, Adrienne changed into sweat pants and a hoodie, then went to a local army supply store where she bought an all-black outfit and a ski mask. After that, she went home and collected the hunting knife that she’d kept under her pillow at night ever since her stepfather snuck into that motel room.

That night she drove to the art gallery where, at lunch, Chloe had mentioned that she’d be tonight for an auction. She parked a block away and walked to the alley behind the gallery, hiding in the bushes until she saw the woman emerge. The rest was shockingly easy. And liberating.

It was as if each plunge of the knife into Chloe’s body broke a shackle that had had been binding Adrienne, until by the final blow, she was free. After the deed was done and she rushed back to her car, she luxuriated in the rage. She’d never felt so powerful. It was as if she was finally, after two decades of subjugation, in control of her own destiny.

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