Page 1 of Hellbound

PROLOGUE

There’s barely a foot of distance separating Marian from her mother tonight. It may as well be an ocean.

“Your car is disgusting,” was the first thing Deborah Eaves said to her when Marian arrived to pick up her mother at the airport late that night. They don’t do “Hi, I missed you,” and never have; they’d both be lying. It’s worse when she says nothing at all. Silence leaves too much room for thought.

Marian cruises east on the 105 in her Camry. It’s so late, there’s hardly any traffic. They still have miles to go. Her mother wouldn’t take a cab or ride share; she insists this is what family is for, though Marian has spent years trying to divest herself of this role because it only means anything when her mother needs something from her. But Marian keeps taking her calls.

Marian tries to stop for coffee; she stayed up too late poring over tax returns for her next article. She doesn’t speak financial reporting—her beat is A&E—but she’s learning. She’s staking her career on this story.

But Deborah wants to go straight home. It’s a forty-five-minute drive from Marian’s apartment to the airport, and another forty-five from LAX to Pasadena where her mother lives with her stepfather. So Marian pushes the speed limit and tries not to fall asleep at the wheel. She turns on the radio to help keep her awake, but her mother doesn’t like any of the stations. Complaints fill the air. Marian begs her to pick something else, anything.

“Should I bother asking how your trip went?” Marian asks. She doesn’t really want to have this conversation right now, but she needs to stave off the exhaustion somehow. If that means starting an argument, then so be it.

Her mother sniffles and fluffs her loose brown curls. She always dresses up when she flies. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re angry with me when I’ve done nothing wrong.” Her mother looks out the window at the glowing signs they zoom past. “I’ll tell you about my trip so long as you keep your attitude in check.”

Marian grips the steering wheel tighter as she considers the proposal. At least they’re talking.

“Tell me, then,” Marian says as she reminds herself this woman is the only blood Marian has.

Her mother settles deeper into her seat as she looks out the window. Never at Marian.

“Your father booked the most beautiful hotel. We’re going to donate three nights to the church auction. If I hadn’t committed to making an appearance at the yacht club tomorrow, I’d have stayed the extra night with him.”

Church. Daniel’s stained-glass, gold-plated Presbyterian hive in Beverly Hills. The same church Marian is days away from exposing for tax fraud.

Marian’s nostrils flare. “I don’t want to hear about Daniel. And he’s not my father; I have asked you a thousand times to stop calling him that.”

Her biological father is long gone. An addict, her mother told her once. And very dead. Though he must have taken out a decent life insurance policy given how well Deborah Eaves lived when he passed.

Whatever rapport they had in that small moment is gone. Her mother throws her hands up in exasperation.

“Daniel is my husband and a good man. You make him out to be the devil, as if he wasn’t the one who put a roof over both our heads when we had nothing.”

Red bleeds into the edges of Marian’s vision. “Nothing” to Deborah meant fast casual meals instead of fine dining. Department stores instead of personal shoppers.

Marian’s knuckles turn white on the wheel that will shatter if she squeezes any harder. “When I was in high school, Daniel put a gun to my head because I lost the remote to the downstairs TV. Do I get to talk about that?”

“Oh, come on,” Her mother waves a dismissive hand and looks away from Marian. “You are such a little fibber. That never happened.”

Marian is wide awake now, and the only thing she sees is the underside of Daniel Eaves’s Smith and Wesson as he pressed the barrel to her forehead while her mother was out to lunch one weekend. Daniel’s business struggled that year; he’d eventually get a bailout, but for those few months, while the fate of his money seemed precarious, the gloves came off, and Marian took every blow.

But the gun was the last straw, she’d decided. The police didn’t believe her and neither did her mother when no one could produce the gun. So she found a closet of a bedroom in an overcrowded rental that permitted a teen her age and worked herself to the bone to earn her keep.

It doesn’t matter now. She’s going to ruin Daniel with her article about the corruption in his church. She’s spent a year sharpening this blade, consulting experts, interviewing sources and protecting their anonymity. Her stepfather has no idea what’s coming. Justice.

Her mother sighs. “I pray for you every Sunday, you know. Daniel’s right; you’ve been on this awful path for so long. I’d hate to see you burn in Hell.”

Echoes of endless fire and brimstone sermons ring in her ears. Marian drowns them out with her own voice, a touch louder than is necessary. “Did you know there’s a forum of people who think they’ve been to Hell?”

Deborah has nothing to say to that.

“They say it’s empty,” Marian continues as if they’re discussing a newly discovered species of butterfly. “Turns out the demons are all here. One of them owns a restaurant in Santa Monica. It won the James Beard award last year.”

Deborah turns to her with an expression Marian’s seen a thousand times: a longing for a world where her daughter had never been born.