Chapter Thirty-Six
Lance had offered to send a car to bring them to the game but Isobel preferred to take Maria on the short ferry ride across the bay. They stood on the upper deck, the wind flowing through their hair as the great bow of the iconic aircraft carrier USS Midway thrust out into the water only a mile ahead.
“You shouldn’t have read it. Tell me you won’t let it spoil the evening,” said Maria.
“I had to read it, I had to know.”
“He doesn’t need to know that you know. You don’t ever have to confront him. You’ll only be taking your anger out on him without benefit to yourself. You can still have him, enjoy him, as you wanted to today. And if you want to you can still accept him as he is. Or take him to your bed even if you cannot now take him to your heart. And when you’re done with him, walk away and never look back. Like he would do to you.”
“I’m sorry, Maria, that’s just not me. But I promise you I won’t spoil this evening, not for you, okay?”
“That’s the spirit. That way he doesn’t win.” Isobel turned away and looked back at Ferry Landing, fading in the distance along with all her hopes and dreams. Maria looped her arm through her own and her words pulled Isobel from her reverie.
“About today… Now that you know he’s not the man you hoped he might be. Do you regret that you didn’t go through with it?”
“In all honesty, I don’t know. But what I’m certain of is that if I ever did what you just suggested, and gave myself in spite of everything, then it would never be like it would have been this morning. That feeling will never come my way again.”
“You mustn’t say that. You don’t know what the future holds. There will be other men, someone else, and you will find happiness.”
The boat docked at the terminal next to the Convention Center, now emptied of the thousands of expense account carrying suits from all over America that sustained the downtown area year round. In their place arrived the ticket carrying Padre fans from all corners of San Diego County, there to cheer on the boys in grey and enjoy the theatre of major league baseball. Isobel and Maria made their way past the historic Gaslamp area where pavement bars and restaurants lined every inch of Fifth Avenue, still busy with drinkers and diners squeezing the last out of happy hour before bolting to the stadium. The banks of large screen TVs that no downtown bar seemed complete without were all tuned to the Padres channel, as pundits and ex-players worked their talking heads and manic hand movements, setting out where the night’s game would be won and lost. Maria gave every sign of wanting to enter the spirit of things, clapping and shouting along with the good-humoured crowd, as Isobel trailed along less enthusiastically behind.
“Given that neither of us knows the first thing about baseball, this is feeling like it’s going to be great fun,” said Maria.
“How difficult can it be to understand? If we think testosterone fuelled schoolgirls playing rounders then we must have the basic idea,” said Isobel, as if determined to keep Maria’s mood in check.
They messaged Lance as they got close to the park and he met them at the players’ entrance wearing a Padres cap.
“I thought you’d want to avoid the queues.”
A steward let them in without asking for tickets or ID or checking their bags. Lance nodded and recognition played across both men’s faces.
Lance acted the perfect host, presenting them both with a goody bag of Padres merchandise. Isobel now stepped up too, going with the flow and giving no sign of her inner distress. She went as far as donning a Padres tunic and cap that she plucked out of the bag.
Lance had organised a behind-the-scenes private tour. He had arranged privileged access to normally off-limit areas including the police operations room, the press gallery, and even the players’ locker room. “They’re much bigger when you see them this close up,” said Maria, as Isobel tugged away her flirting friend. Afterwards they re-joined him in a hospitality unit high in the stadium to watch the game. Lance played the master of ceremonies at the party and they were the only women amongst twelve baseball fanatics. He stayed close to Isobel, leaving Maria in her element as the centre of pumped-up male attention.
“Bees around honey,” said Lance, “but she seems to be coping.”
“Do any of them sting?” asked Isobel, her mind flicking back to the abortive night with Greg and Rudy.
“No, they’re all good guys, else they wouldn’t be here. She’s got nothing to worry about on that score.”
Maria and Isobel clapped and yelled on cue and generally played their part as baseball groupies. The men delighted in their ignorance of the basic rules and answered their every question, as Isobel smiled and Maria looked up in doe-eyed adoration. The result remained in doubt till the last play, which contributed to the excitement, and the match ended, they all agreed, in a deserved Padres win. Boisterous voices declared that the party should relocate to the Gaslamp, and continue the celebrations.
“Count me out,” said Lance, “I need to be up with the crows in the morning.”
Maria looked at Isobel, her eyes imploring her to join them.
“You go ahead, Maria, I’m ready to head back.”
Maria embraced her, her lips at her ear. “Let it go, it’s not worth it.”
Isobel returned her kiss. “You’re on holiday, go and enjoy yourself, I’ll be fine.”
Lance grabbed two beers and tipped the hospitality staff. “I guess we’re all done, you’re good to clear away,” he said. He re-joined Isobel and passed her a beer, tapping the neck of his bottle against hers.
“It’s been a lovely evening, as always.”
She looked out into the empty stadium, its lights now illuminating an army of drably dressed worker bees frantically returning Petco Park to how it looked before forty thousand beer drinkers descended upon it. As he touched her lightly on the shoulder she knew he had detected something different in her mood.
“What’s the matter, Isobel?”
“I guess two weeks of hosting Maria is taking its toll.”
“She’s a great girl. You’re lucky to have her as a friend.”
Isobel nodded, her eyes still staring out into the ball of halogen lighting. She turned to look at him. “What made you change your name?”
“That’s a rather random question, if I may say so.”
The angst she had bottled within herself all evening burst out. “Can you, for once, stop ducking and diving and answer the question?”
He did not respond in kind, and she wondered if her disposition that evening had led him to anticipate her displeasure.
“It’s a long, boring story.”
“I can do patience. Who are you, Lance?”
“So you think I’m someone other than I claim to be? Someone other than Lance Denning? That’s rather fanciful, don’t you think?”
“I’m not saying you aren’t who you claim to be. I’m saying you aren’t who you appear to be. The person you have presented is an illusion. Almost everything you’ve told me about yourself is a half-truth, an evasion. You have been deceiving me from the first day I met you.”
“I’m sorry I bought the painting without telling you, if that’s offended you. But if it’s something else, perhaps you had better explain yourself.”
“You’re the one who needs to explain yourself. I have been doing some research on Mr. Lance Denning.”
“I’m intrigued. It’s always fascinating to know what others say about me. It appeals to my vanity, I suppose.”
“You really are quite the smug one, aren’t you?”
“I’m teasing you, that is all.”
“You’re doing everything other than answer my question! Your whole back story; the college dropout who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, the humble hotel worker who made good, the guy who rents cars and planes because he can’t afford to own them, the family man deserted by an unstable wife—it’s all a smokescreen. It’s all a pack of lies. The way you saw off that guy with the baseball bat, the way you pulled that gun, that didn’t strike me like a regular Joe standing his ground, more like the work of a trained killer. God knows what would have happened to Pablo if you’d been given free rein.”
“I think now you’re letting your imagination run wild,” he said firmly, “but if it’s all a pack of lies, then what’s the truth? What has your time playing Poirot dug up about me?”
She took a deep breath before answering. “That you come from a long line of money and were born with a platinum spoon in your mouth. That you’re an acquisitive and ruthless wheeler–dealer who hides behind aliases and front companies. That you don’t ‘dabble’ in property—you own half of Coronado and plenty more beyond.” He stood impassive as she levelled out the case against him. “That you’re a notorious womaniser who spent his youth like God had gifted you your own personal playground. And as for renting planes and taking early flights, I bet you’ve never flown commercial in your life.”
“Anything else?” he said, like a defiant defendant about to plead the Fifth.
“That will do for a start,” she replied with satisfaction, planting her hands on her hips, and determined not to unload all her ammunition in the first salvo.
“And quite a start. Do you believe what your research has told you, the picture that it’s painting of me, of the fraud who can’t be trusted?” He turned away from her and looked out over the stadium, a new bitterness entering his voice. “A faded playboy who hides behind a corporate shield and is neurotic about his privacy. A kind of modern day Howard Hughes?”
“A good summary. It’s not what I hoped. I so wanted to believe you, I really did. And I was coming to believe you, starting to get past my fears and doubts.”
“So what prompted you to embrace your doubts and engage into digging into my past?”
“That doesn’t matter now, what matters is the truth.”
“The truth?” he snorted. “That’s a fine word. There is no truth in life, Isobel, only narrative. Narrative that is spun and twisted by sharks and shysters to fit their own agenda. And that is why I’m the man I am, why I’m not always who I appear to be. To protect myself from those sharks and shysters.”
“Why do you need to protect yourself from anyone? And why from me? I certainly didn’t come to Coronado to take anything from you.”
“And that, Isobel, is part of your uniqueness. It is why I am drawn to you like a moth to a flame. And before you say that’s more smoke and mirrors, let me answer your question as to who I am or at least how I came to be the way I am. There is some truth in everything you say. But none of it is the whole truth.”
“Then why don’t you give me the whole truth, beginning with your family history.”
“Of course, I’m rarely so indulged.” The hard edge to his voice had gone, his easygoing demeanour returning, perhaps sensing new hope. “My great grandmother was the granddaughter of Cornelius Grant, one of the founding fathers of San Diego. But she lived her life as a free spirit, shamed the family, had a child out of wedlock, and Cornelius eventually disowned her.”
“But did not disinherit her?”
He took a sip of beer before continuing, pensive looking, as if wanting to be careful in his response. “You have been thorough with your detective work. If only the sources you have drawn on were always equally thorough. My great-grandmother retained her father’s name, perhaps with an eye on inheritance, and her children bore the name Denning-Grant.”
She studied him closely, searching for any nuance that might betray spin, or his narrative as he called it, but saw only sincerity. But she knew only too well that sincerity, like passion, could be faked.
“What wealth my great-grandmother inherited she spent her later life trying to give away to good causes, setting up charitable foundations and so forth. Perhaps she wanted to repent for her sins, who knows.” He paused, his eyes studying her, no doubt gauging her response. “My parents christened me Landon Denning-Grant but, mercifully, at school they registered me as simply Landon Denning.” He smiled almost apologetically. “Lance is an affectation of my own choosing when I first became aware of girls. So there is no mystery.” He shrugged. “At times it has suited me to use the Denning name, and at other times Grant.” He leant back on his seat, as if his case had been made, as if nothing more needed to be said.
Isobel by contrast drew herself up in her seat, still not satisfied that all rang true. “I’m sorry, that’s not stacking up. What you’re describing is what others would see as self-serving deception.”
“So I believe, but you must retain your patience, Isobel, and allow me to finish my story, or are you bored already?”
She leant back and folded her arms. “Go on.”
“I grew up in some comfort and privilege but not into great personal wealth. As I told you when we first met, I had to make my own way in life. I learnt the advantages of the Grant name, the weight it carried, and for the next ten years I adopted it.
“At twenty-one I had inherited some money, and became trustee to my great-grandmother’s legacy, responsible for dispensing whatever wealth the foundation still controlled. It has been my misfortune that inherited wealth, like chewing gum on your foot, has a way of sticking to you.” His hands were open now, with subtle gesticulations of his fingers. Isobel had read how politicians and others in the persuasion game were trained in such subliminal body language. “Inherited wealth can accumulate despite your best efforts to offload it. But despite how it might have seemed to others, my philanthropy only ever amounted to dispensing the assets of the trust. Whatever wealth I have in my own name today, I’ve earned through my own enterprise.”
Isobel struggled to square what she had read earlier that day with what she now heard, the sinner now presenting himself as the saint. “But none of this makes any sense,” she said, her brow furrowed in puzzlement, “it doesn’t explain the secrecy. And it doesn’t explain how Landon Grant became plain old Lance Denning again.”
“Then let me enlighten you. As a boy I couldn’t handle the nest egg I had inherited. I dropped out of college, got a job at the Del to keep me out of the bars all day, and, as the local press liked to paint me at the time, became something of a man around town.”
“A playboy?”
“If you like. A supposedly spoilt rich kid who would inherit the non-existent Cornelius Grant fortune. And, sure, I played to that image, and had my fun around town. As my businesses picked up my mug shot moved from the local gossip columns to the business columns, but hacks love labels, they never missed a chance to throw in the Cornelius Grant association.”
“Some might say you deserved that, after clinging to it to make money,” she said, but quietly, as understanding began to displace doubt.
“I suppose. But the fact is, by the time I reached thirty I was a married, hard-working businessman, with a young daughter I adored. I lived quietly in Coronado just getting on with my life like everyone else. My freewheeling days were well behind me, which is one reason you won’t find much about me online. Then everything fell apart.”
Isobel knew all about things falling apart, and what could cause it. “The divorce?”
“My wife worked long hours as a busy lawyer at the beck and call of clients. My day started and finished when I chose. I would drop our daughter off at school and pick her up, something I loved doing. One day I arrived late for the pickup and when I did arrive Jessica wasn’t waiting at the gate. You can imagine the rest, every parent’s worst nightmare. My wife opened the ransom note. The bastards had stapled it to Jessica’s ear.”
Isobel put her hands to her face in shock. With this pivotal explanation, full realisation began to dawn. And with it a dreadful feeling of angst that she had made him talk about it, had dragged it out of him. He would have had to tell her sometime, and she had denied him the opportunity to do it at a time of his choosing.
“Like many kidnappings, it never went public. You give them what they want, you get your child back and you move on. My wife never forgave me, blamed me, took Jessica off to New York for reconstruction surgery, and never came back. Since then she’s spent some time in and out of psychiatric care, but she’s through that now.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Isobel, knowing the story too horrific for anyone to make up.
“And my wife had every right, in a way, to blame me. The reason I showed up late for the school pickup is that I had been fool enough to fall for a honey trap; the gang paid a hooker to delay me in the Del hotel and she did a good job of it too. I’m not proud of it and you’re the first person I’ve ever told.”
“I’m sorry Lance, if I had known that anything like—“
He held up a palm. “Now we’ve come this far, maybe I should finish?”
She nodded, knowing words of empathy might now sound weak and hollow.
“As you’ve probably figured out, courting attention, playing on the Cornelius Grant myth, is what made my family a target. The Grant name became a magnet for freeloaders, gold-diggers, and crooks. It’s why I dropped it and why today I’m obsessive about privacy and security. And if I have played that game with you it has only been because I’m guarded when I first meet people. And, maybe because you're so different; you’ve kept yourself from me like a caged bird. You’ve been immune to my seductions and that has made me desire you like no other. ”
Isobel’s emotions whirled inside her. She wanted to reach out to him, to apologise for what she had assumed, to finally let him have her. But lingering doubts held her back. “But the fight in El Cajon,” she asked tentatively, “where did you learn to do that?”
“A Navy SEAL taught me. After what happened to Jessica I bought my first gun. I decided if anyone ever tried to mess with me or my family again, they’d get more than they bargained for. I got into shape and the SEAL did the rest. I’d never needed to draw on those skills until that day in El Cajon, and I hope I never have to use them again.” He touched her hand, pushing his fingers under the cuffs of her Padre top, stroking the back of her wrist. “Is it all too much baggage for you, Isobel?”
She lowered her gaze and stayed silent for a while, shamed by her distrust and conscious of her own failings. She spoke in a low voice. “We all come with baggage, Lance. Why have you never quizzed me on mine?”
“Perhaps because your hurt is more recent and raw than mine.”
A tear ran down her cheek and he brushed it away. She hadn’t intended to mention Ryan, but the intimacy of the moment seemed to demand disclosure.
“I split up with my boyfriend.”
She had expected him to show some emotion, to console her or to congratulate her, but the news failed to ruffle his poise.
“The boy racer?” he said, wiping the condensation away on his beer bottle.
“You don’t seem that surprised?”
“I expected it, sooner or later.”
“Because you don’t like him?”
“No, because he’s mixed up with the wrong people.”
The revelation startled her. “And how would you know that?”
“Jed checked him out, that’s part of his job, just standard procedure in security. They call it risk assessment. The day on your porch, he noted the licence plate, and a couple of phone calls did the rest.”
Momentary embarrassment took hold, the thought that he had pried into her life, that he would somehow think less of her. But she knew she had no basis to be offended; he had done no more than she had done to him, the only difference, he had done it first.
“And what else did the risk assessment throw up?”
“Nothing to worry Jed. The profile Jed put together had Ryan as a nice guy in danger of losing his way, that’s the summary.”
“You must think me naïve to have not seen any of that.”
“You’re not a professional, like Jed. But seems like you figured it out for yourself anyway.” He ran his fingers through her hair, seeming to ponder whether to go further. “It’s not easy for guys like Ryan, not in Hollywood. You get to where he’s at and you feel like you’re being left behind; younger guys with less talent doing better, guys with no talent getting the breaks. You should get out, but instead you look for a silver bullet, and that’s when it’s easy to start making the wrong decisions.”
He’d given her a cryptic synopsis, but one she could not argue with, other than perhaps he had been overly generous, the noble victor in a battle for her heart.
“You might have saved us both some trouble if you’d let me in on some of this earlier,” she said, but without reproach.
“And have you shoot the messenger?”
His dry humour washed away the last of the tension, and she laughed. It had grown late and the outside lights were beginning to switch off, the neon signs of downtown flickering in their place. She looked around the empty room. “We’re going to get locked in.”
“I’ve got the keys.”
He kissed her hand. “Would this be a foolish time to tell you I’m in love with you?”
“Do you say that to all the girls,” she said softly, brushing his lips with her fingers, “or is it that you’ve had too much wine?”
“In vino veritas, as they say.”
She turned his hands and kissed them in return. She leant across to kiss his lips but the brim of her cap butted into his forehead. He turned her cap round and put his lips to hers as she fought to hold back her tears.
“Can you take me home now, please?”
“Will Maria still be up?”
She held his look. “I don’t want to risk disturbing Maria.”