Page 5 of Crossing the Line
He’d had no idea that his wife was hiring security for their daughter and wasn’t overly concerned with the why. He smiled affably, his tanned hands resting on his wife’s thin shoulders.“Whatever you think, darling,”Robert had told his wife vaguely. With parents like that, Xavier didn’t have high hopes for the daughter.
Feet bare, his evening run in the books, and his hair still damp from a shower, he cracked open a beer and settled in behind his home workstation. He used the term “home” loosely. Since leaving the DCS, the two-bedroom condo with its bland beige everything had been a place to lay his head and hang his clothes. The workstation in the spare room was the only place he’d bothered to put any personal mementos. Pictures of his parents and his sisters smiled back at him next to his widescreen monitors.
He was getting a picture of Waverly Sinner now, too.
Young. Beautiful. Talented. She was a purebred Hollywood princess. At twenty, Waverly Sinner appeared to have it all. The California beauty had looks that could stop traffic. Her bank account was big enough to buy just about anything a girl could want, which made him curious why she still lived at home. In a city where wealthy teenagers snapped up multi-million dollar mansions like they were candy bars in the grocery store checkout line, Waverly was closeted away in her parents’ pool house.
There were plenty of red carpet glam shots and magazine pictorials that promised tell-alls that amounted to next to nothing.Favorite food: sushi. Favorite band: The Killers. How she got those abs for her role in Bleed Out? A personal trainer, a chef, and an assistant that slapped donuts out of her hand.Many of her answers showed a tongue-in-cheek humor that seemed to go over the interviewers’ heads. There were a handful of the requisite party girl club pictures but not enough to make him worry.
Xavier clicked on the YouTube results while the background check printed. One nice thing about guarding the rich and famous was the diamond mine of data available to him at his fingertips. The first video that caught his eye was almost sixteen years old. It was a clip from an entertainment news show and featured a young and striking Sylvia Sinner outside a trendy L.A. boutique, her entourage lugging a dozen shopping bags. Sylvia wore a form-fitting tank dress in siren red and stilettos with straps that wrapped halfway up her shins.
She was blowing kisses to the crowd of photographers and fans that had congregated at the store’s entrance. Just behind her, in a matching dress, her silvery blond hair pulled back into a high ponytail, was five-year-old Waverly. The little girl was missing her front tooth and had plugged her fingers in her ears.
Her little diva sunglasses were a tiny replica of the ones Sylvia wore. An exact copy of her mother with the exception that Sylvia devoured the attention, reveled in it, while Waverly looked terrified.
“Come on, darling. Show the nice men how pretty you are,” Sylvia coaxed. She lifted her daughter into her arms like a prize-winning pumpkin at the state fair. “Smile for the cameras, Waverly.”
But the little girl’s face was set in fearful lines. When Waverly buried her face in her mother’s neck, Sylvia gave one last wave to the crowd. “I think someone is ready for her beauty sleep,” she trilled. She set Waverly down, and Xavier wondered if it was because she didn’t want a child ruining her exit or if she just couldn’t bear the weight of the little girl with her bird-like arms.
Sylvia signaled her entourage. The photographers swarmed closer, and Xavier watched as Sylvia strutted off toward her next fabulous destination while her entourage—a team of beasts of burdens—hurried to follow.
In the chaos, Waverly was separated from them. He watched in disgust as the paparazzi swarmed like sharks scenting fresh blood. Flashes exploded in her face and loud men and women shouted questions at her.
“Are you going to be a movie star like your mommy?”
“Who’s a better actor? Your mommy or your daddy?”
A photographer bumped her and Waverly took a tumble, landing hard on her knees on the sidewalk. Her mini movie star sunglasses were crushed underfoot. Xavier saw twin tears slide down her sweet, round cheeks and wanted to shoot every single one of the fuckers.
Finally, a hero appeared. A Middle Eastern guy wearing a ball cap and an apron elbowed his way through the crowd. He snatched Waverly up and pressed her face to his shoulder. Her little hands gripped his shoulders.
“Vultures!” he shouted. “She’s just a little girl, not a carcass to feed on.”
Xavier felt an echo of the man’s rage inside him. A swift rush of adrenaline coursed through his veins as the spray tanned entertainment hosts with bleached teeth made jokes about Waverly’s first paparazzi experience.
Poor kid never had a chance,Xavier thought as he took a deep pull of his beer.
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Waverly had been summoned to the big house.Lecture time again, she sighed to herself, her bare feet padding over the sun warmed marble of the patio. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and braced herself for passive aggressive manipulations or a diva-worthy meltdown. It all depended on her mother’s unpredictable mood.
She could envision the stack of scripts at her mother’s elbow, the look of motherly concern. Everything her mother did was playing a part. The woman had never had an authentic reaction to anything in her life.
Waverly let herself in through the TV room off the kitchen and ignored the giant bouquet of fussy white peonies. It was the twin of the one shoved in a corner of her living space. It was her father’s showy apology for banging someone who wasn’t his wife on his daughter’s couch.
“I’m sorry Waverly. I’m under so much pressure these days. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please don’t discuss this with your mother,”his card had said.
She had discussed it with her mother. Once, long ago.
Sylvia had shared neither Waverly’s surprise nor devastation. Her mother was already used to it by the time Waverly caught on to the family dynamics. The next morning, her mother had cheerfully shown off a spectacular, new tennis bracelet and all returned to normal.
From that point on, Waverly had made it a point to keep her nose out of her parents’ business. And she wished that they would return the favor. She hadn’t mentioned her father’s latest indiscretion to her mother, but her father had taken to covering all his bases. Every time an apology was owed to one of them, they both got one. Waverly had a drawer full of “I’m sorry” jewelry she’d never worn.
She turned her back on the peonies and what they represented and made her way into the kitchen. It was a space designed for magazine spreads with its wall of windows overlooking the gardens and thick timber beams that created a cathedral-like ceiling. The gleam of stainless steel and granite echoed everywhere.
Louie, her mother’s personal chef, was running his knife through a small mound of radishes. His chevron mustache perched above lips that were set in a near constant frown.
“Good morning, Louie,” Waverly greeted him with a peck on one of his perpetually ruddy cheeks.
