Prologue
Malibu, April 14, 1966
The view from the car window is both calming and startling.
New eucalyptus, queen palms, and jacaranda trees stand on what had been charred earth. Bird-of-paradise and sea lavender hug the footprint where a house once stood. A rose garden at the back of the lot pulls the gaze of the woman inside the vehicle like a magnet. It is much bigger than the one the fire nearly crispened into nothingness. Roses of every shade beckon, and this makes her smile. So does the park bench that offers a wispy glimpse of the cobalt sea a half mile down the hill.
The bench is also new.
She reaches for the garden shears at her feet, freshly purchased from the Nurseryland on Sepulveda Boulevard, and frees them from their packaging.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she says to her husband, sitting in the driver’s seat.
The man nods and kills the engine anyway so that she won’t feel rushed.
She approaches the garden tentatively, as an intruder might, suddenly second-guessing herself. But when she reaches the multihued blooms in all stages of opening, the roses seem to welcome her forward, lifting on the breeze as if to bare their necks to the blades.
Minutes later the woman is walking back to the car with enough flowers for two bouquets, their petals releasing a honey-sweet fragrance. She left the snipped thorns to decompose where they’d fallen.
The woman turns before opening the car door to gaze upon the Eden-like setting, knowing she might not see these rosebushes again. But she also knows she cannot linger here at the top of Paradise Circle. Traffic into Los Angeles is always difficult at this time of day.
December 11, 1956
Ten YearsEarlier
1
The last thing Eva Kruse wanted to do was risk drawing attention to herself, and yet she’d done it anyway.
She’d stayed overnight at Melanie Cole’s house. Spent hour upon hour there instead of leaving at three in the afternoon as she usually did. Slept in the guest room bed as if an actual guest and not a paid-by-the-hour housekeeper who’d vowed to spend zero extra time at the actress’s house.
Zero.
Yet there she stood, at daybreak in a borrowed nightgown.
When Melanie had told Eva she needed her to arrive that morning at six a.m. instead of nine, Eva had explained the best she could manage was a few minutes before eight. The two-bus commute from Los Angeles to Malibu was well over an hour. There was only one bus earlier than the one she picked up in Santa Monica, which still wouldn’t get her there in time.
“It’s just this once,” Melanie had pleaded, as though Eva had said instead that she didn’t want to start her workday when it was still dark. “I’ve an important call from the East Coast at seven thirty. Ineed my breakfast and a good pot of coffee and my dress ironed—even if no one is going to see me. I need to look and feel confident and poised, Eva. It’s an extremely important call. I need you to come at six. Please. Just this one time.”
“I am sorry, Miss Cole. The other bus does not come to my second stop until after seven.” Eva had enunciated each word carefully so that her accented English couldn’t be misunderstood.
She’d hoped the actress would call Marvelous Maids and at last,at last, ask for a different housekeeper—one who had a car or a husband who could drive or who lived closer or who had access to better bus routes. She was being paid at the top level for this posting—the most she’d been paid for any housekeeping job since arriving in America four years earlier. No one quits a plum posting without it raising questions. But if Melanie had asked for another maid, it would’ve solved all Eva’s problems.
The most pressing one, anyway. The one that often kept her up at night.
“Then just stay over tonight,” Melanie had said. “You’ll already be here when my alarm goes off in the morning, so you can make sure I get up. It’s a very important call.”
“I don’t know…” Eva’s mind had spun with possible excuses. Staying over was a bad idea if Melanie was being watched. It was probably a bad idea even if she wasn’t being watched. Sometimes Eva cried out in her sleep. And not in Polish.
“What don’t you know?” Melanie had asked, brows knitted. “Is it the money? I’ll pay you for the extra hours, even though you’re not going to be doing anything while you’re sleeping.”
“No, it is…” Eva’s voice had fallen away as words for the reason for her hesitancy fought to take shape in her mouth; a reason she had no intention of giving.
She shouldn’t be working for Melanie Cole, plain and simple.The Hollywood starlet had been suspected of communist ties six months earlier and been blacklisted. No studio, big or little, would hire her now. Melanie Cole didn’t need anyone in her orbit who might reinforce the idea that she wasn’t a patriot. The actress hadn’t been singled out; Eva knew that. There were plenty of other Hollywood people caught up in the long and ongoing hunt to rout out socialist sympathizers, including that famous actor Melanie had starred alongside and who was paying the rent on this house.
And who slept over when he was in town.
That film with heartthrob Carson Edwards had apparently been Melanie’s first big role, and audiences had adored her. This Eva had learned from her landlady, Yvonne. Eva herself hadn’t seen the movie. Fans and the tabloids had loved even more that Melanie and Carson were “an item,” but when he’d been named a suspected communist and summarily blacklisted, Melanie had been, too. Guilt by association. The adoration of the public had evaporated as quickly as morning dew. Yvonne had told her all of this, too.
