“No. Just spaced out. And she's living in a pretty strange place. It's some kind of Eastern sect.”

“Oh Christ …” Maybe she had shaved her head. Faye couldn't imagine it. The whole place had been beyond her when she had gone up to meet Lionel and John to look for her before. She had actually been relieved when they had sent her away. But now she wanted to go back. She suddenly sensed that it could be Anne this time, and she wanted to be there too. She could still envision her as she had been the day she was born. It was hard to believe it was so long ago.

“Well call you tomorrow, Mom. As soon as we know something.”

“I'll be in the office all day.” And then, “Should I make a reservation on an afternoon flight, just in case?”

He smiled into the phone. “Just hang in. I'll call you either way, whether it's Anne or not.”

'Thank you, sweetheart.” He was the dearest son a woman could want, and so what if he was gay. He was a better son to her than Greg had ever been, although she loved them both. But Greg lacked his sensitivity. He would never have dropped out of school for three months to look for Anne. In fact, when he had come home at Easter, he had said that he thought Lionel was nuts. But Ward had glared at him instantly for speaking the forbidden name, and she had to control herself not to lash out at him in front of Greg. She had had all she could take, and maybe it would be a relief to get a divorce from him. But she couldn't think of that now. All she could think about was Anne.

She lay awake long after Lionel and she hung up, thinking of Anne when she had been a little girl, the things she had done, the funny things she'd said, the way she'd hidden so much of the time, the way she'd clung to Lionel. The timing of her birth had been unfortunate, Faye realized now, but that was no one's fault. Disaster had struck only weeks after she'd been born, and Faye had had her hands full selling the house, their antiques, her jewelry, moving them all into the hideous little house in Monterey Park, and then Ward leaving them, and her trying to support them all herself. Anne had sort of gotten lost in the shuffle of it all. The others had been just old enough to not need her quite as much, and she had given all her time to them before that. But not to Anne … never to Anne … she had worked ever since then, and Anne had kind of gotten tossed in with the pack. Faye could remember moments now when the nurse had come to her, months after Anne had been born, asking her if she wanted to hold the child, or give her her next bottle, and Faye had told her, “Not now … I don't have time.” She had brushed her off again and again, and Anne had paid the price for it. How could you tell a child like that that you did care, that you always had, but that you just hadn't had the time … what right did one have to have the child if one had no time for it? And yet, when she had been conceived, their life had been so easy, and she had had all the time in the world. Bad timing, bad luck … bad mother, she told herself again and again as she lay in the big empty bed, thinking about Anne, and wondering if it was too late, if Anne would hate her for the rest of her life. It was possible, she recognized that now. Some things could never be mended again, like her relationship with Ward … and with this child … and his with Lionel … the fabric of their family seemed to have been irreparably rent in the past few months, and it weighed on her like a rock as she got up at six o'clock, having slept not a wink all night. But she couldn't sleep now, wondering if the girl Lionel had seen was Anne.

She got up, showered, and dressed, waited for the twins to leave for school, and then went to her office at MGM. It amazed her that Ward was making no pretense at all. He didn't even call her, or try to explain where he had spent the night. Once in a while he came home, and she asked no questions of him. And now, when he did show up, she slept in Greg's room, and they spoke not at all.

She caught a glimpse of him as she walked down the hall later that morning, but she said nothing to him. She didn't want to say anything about Anne yet. There was no point until she was sure she had been found, and it wasn't sure at all. Not until she got the call just after noon and her heart almost stopped. Her secretary told her Lionel was on the line, and she hit the button hurriedly on her phone.

“Li?”

“It's okay, Mom, relax.” He was shaking from head to foot, but he didn't want her to know that. It had been hairy getting her out of there, but the police had handled everything, and no one was hurt, not even Anne. She was a little dazed. But she didn't even seem upset to have been removed, although the old guy had been. He had waved a staff at them and said the gods would punish them for stealing his child. But she had just let them carry her away, and she had smiled at Lionel, and now she seemed to know who he was. But she was also very high on dope, and it was possible that when she came down, she would be mad as hell. They were prepared for that. The cops were used to it and there was a doctor standing by.

Faye held her breath, and then her words exploded into the phone. “Is it Anne?” She closed her eyes.

“Yes, Mom, it is. And she's all right. More or less …” but they had found her at last. He looked at John again. The last months had formed a bond between them that they both knew would last for the rest of their lives. It was as though they were married to each other by now. But Lionel forced his mind back to his mother at the other end of the line. “She's fine, Mom. We're at Bryant Street, with the police, and they'll remand her into my custody, if you want. I'll bring her home in a day or two when she's had a chance to adjust.”

“Adjust to what?” He had a lot to tell her, which he couldn't tell her yet. Not over the phone at least. She was going to have to get prepared.

“She's been away from us for a long time, Mom. It takes a little adjustment to get used to the real world again. She's led a very different life for the last few months.” He was looking for a tactful way to say it to her, but he hoped she never heard the tales the police had told him. They knew the sect well, and their rituals. She would have died if she knew what Anne had been through, although Anne looked none the worse for wear. In fact, Lionel thought she looked happier than she had in years, except that most of that was probably the drugs, and she was probably not going to be nearly as happy when she came down from them. The police had discussed the possibility of bringing charges for being under the influence, but since she was fourteen years old, and had probably been coerced, they had decided not to press any charges at all. They wanted to know if the Thayers wanted to press any charges against the members of the sect for abducting or seducing her, and Lionel knew his parents would have to decide that. Faye was still trying to decipher what Lionel was telling her.

“Is she on drugs?”

He hesitated, but the truth had to be told. “I'd say so, yes.”

“Hard drugs? like heroin …” Faye's face went pale at her end. Her life would be over if that was the case, people never got off heroin, but Lionel was quick to put her mind at rest.

“No, no, more like marijuana, and probably some LSD and other hallucinogens.” He was becoming very expert about all that, and Faye sighed.

“Are the police holding her?”

“No. I thought I'd take her back to our hotel, let her take a bath and unwind …” (i.e., come down …)

“I'll catch the next plane up.”

Lionel gritted his teeth. He wanted desperately to clean her up before Faye arrived, and the “next plane” didn't give him much time, also there was something else that Faye would have to know, and it was easy to see now. “Mom, there's something you ought to know….” She had known instinctively that there was something else he wasn't telling her. Anne had been hurt … something … “Mom?”

“What is it, Li?”

“She's pregnant, Mom.”

“Oh my God.” At that, Faye burst into tears. “She's fourteen years old.”

“I know that. I'm sorry, Mom …”

“Do they have the boy?”

He didn't have the heart to tell her that the child had probably been fathered, not by a “boy,” but by the thirty or so male members of the sect. Instead, he was vague and said they'd have to leave that to Anne, but it was difficult to regain her composure after that, and she made a hasty note on her office pad, “Call Dr. Smythe,” he would arrange an abortion for her. He had taken care of the star of one of her films the year before, and if he wouldn't do a child of Anne's age, she'd take her to London or Tokyo. She didn't have to go through with this. She'd probably been raped. Somehow, the idea that Anne was pregnant was more horrible than the rest of this whole grim affair and she had to remind herself to be grateful that the girl had been found at all. She was still crying when she hung up the phone, and buried her face in her hands for a moment before taking a deep breath, blowing her nose, and straightening her shoulders to go down the hall to see Ward. He had to be told. Anne was his child too, however little he and she had in common now. She wondered how they would handle the division of their business life. So far they had gone on as before, but that couldn't go on forever either. And now that Anne had been found, Lionel would be coming home. And she had no excuses left not to confront Ward. She stopped outside his office, and his secretary jumped nervously.

“Is Mr. Thayer in?” But she knew he was. She had seen him only moments before.

The secretary looked at her anxiously, dropped a pencil on the floor, and then tried to avoid Faye's gaze. “No … he's not …”

“That's a lie.” Faye wasn't in the mood to listen to garbage from anyone. “I happen to know he's in.” It was a guess, but it worked.

“He's not … well, he is … but he asked not to be disturbed.”

“Fucking on his office couch again?” Faye's eyes blazed. She knew exactly what was going on, and in their offices. He had one hell of a nerve. “I didn't think we used the casting couch here quite so much.” She advanced toward his office door and the secretary gasped as Faye turned toward her. “Don't worry. I'll tell him I overpowered you.” And with that, she opened the door and stepped in. And the scene which met her eyes was reasonably sedate. He and Carol Robbins, the star of Follow My World, the daytime soap, were both fully dressed and talking across the desk, but he was holding her hand, and everything about them suggested that they were deeply involved. She was a pretty blonde with long legs and enormous tits. She played a nurse on the show, and the men loved to watch her buttons strain. But Faye looked directly at Ward as he let go of the girl's hand, and looked at his wife nervously.

She never acknowledged the presence of the girl, and kept her eyes directly on his.

“They found Anne. I thought you'd want to know.”

His eyes grew wide, and it was obvious that he cared a great deal. For a moment, he completely forgot the girl in the room, and looked only at his wife. “Is she all right?”

“Yes.” She didn't tell him about the drugs or the pregnancy. She didn't want the girl to know. It would have been all over Hollywood by dinnertime. “She's fine.”

“Who found her? The police?”

Faye shook her head. “Lionel.” There was a look of victory in her eyes as she watched his face go taut. “I'm going up there in two hours. If I can, I';ll bring her home tonight. You can stop by and see her tomorrow when she's had some sleep.”

He looked surprised at what she said. “Is there any reason why I can't come home tonight?”

Faye smiled a small bitter smile at that, and finally allowed her gaze to drift to the full-breasted girl sitting across from him.

“That's up to you. Tomorrow seems plenty of time to me.” She looked back at him then and he blushed beneath his white mane, and as she looked at him, she saw how much he had aged in the past six months. He was going to be fifty years old, but he looked older than that. He had been carousing with this girl, and drinking heavily for the last five months, and before that he had had two severe shocks. It had all taken a toll, but she didn't feel sorry for him. She had aged too, and he had done nothing for her. He had deserted her, and sought solace with this girl. She was almost sorry she hadn't done something like it herself, but she had been too worried about Lionel and Anne. She would have enjoyed an affair just then. But she'd have plenty of time for one now, and at forty-six she wasn't completely over the hill. She looked at him now with utter contempt. “I'll have Anne call you when we get back, if she wants to talk to you.” He looked horrified at the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, and he glanced nervously at the buxom blonde, as Faye walked out of his office and closed the door. Outside his secretary was shredding a Kleenex waiting for him to come out and murder her, but Faye looked perfectly calm as she walked out and nodded to her and hurried down the hall. She had to be at the airport in an hour, and she was just throwing a toothbrush she kept in her desk into her handbag when Ward stormed in.