Chapter 11: The Best Intentions

San Fernando Valley
July 1, 2004

“Approach checklist,” Jake said, his voice smooth and focused as the Avanti descended over the Valley, the midday haze casting everything in a dull, washed-out shimmer.

“Let’s do it,” Caydee replied, her voice clear through the intercom.

Jake kept his eyes on the instrument panel. “Flaps to five.”

Caydee reached for the small lever above the throttles and pulled it to the first setting without hesitation. There was a brief whine of machinery from behind them and the plane shuddered a bit, slowing at the induced drag.

In the seat behind Caydee, Laura sat up straight and looked around. She saw the buildings and cars and freeways below. “We’re almost here?” she asked, giving her signature statement when the deployment of aircraft flaps woke her from slumber.

“We were almost here when we left John Wayne,” Jake said without glancing back at her. He had just finished the last turn and was lined up on the runway. “I can’t believe you slept on a ten minute flight.”

“Believe it, sweetie,” she said, reaching over and giving his shoulder a little rub of affection.

“Runway in sight, Daddy,” said Caydee, who was watching the approaching landscape carefully, her face scrunched in concentration. She took her copilot duties very seriously.

Jake looked forward and saw she was correct. Directly ahead on this heading was the runway, about three miles distant now. He could not yet see the big 12 at the head of the runway, but he knew it was there. He pushed the nose down a bit and dialed the speed back to 120 knots.

“Gear down, copilot.”

“Gear down,” Caydee said, reaching for the lever. She pulled it gently, as she had been taught. The machinery noise was louder this time, of longer duration. The in-transit lights went out and the down and locked lights came on. “Three green on the gear, Daddy,” she said.

“Three green on the gear,” Jake repeated, eyeballing it himself just to be sure. He pushed the transmit button on his yoke and told Whiteman tower that he had the runway in sight. They acknowledged and told him he was clear to land. He dialed his autothrottle back to the final landing speed of 95 knots indicated. “Flaps to fifteen,” he told his copilot.

“Flaps to fifteen,” she said, pulling the lever to the second setting.

Ahead, the runway grew closer. When Caydee told him he was at five hundred feet (along with the robotic voice from the flight computer) he took control of speed from the autopilot and brought them in the rest of the way. They touched down smoothly.

“Good flight, Daddy,” Caydee told him after they finished the touchdown checklist.

“Of course it was,” he said, holding up his right palm to her.

She slapped him a high five and they smiled at each other.

“All righty then,” Laura said as they rumbled along the taxiway toward the transient parking area. “Let’s see if we can get our brains unripped now.”

The heat was already oppressive by late morning, the kind of bone-dry San Fernando Valley heat that made the pavement shimmer and every breath feel like a concession. Elizabeth Cartwright (formerly Best) stood next to her mother at the edge of the tarmac, arms crossed, purse strap snug over one shoulder, watching the strange white aircraft roll toward them with insect-like precision.

She squinted slightly behind her prescription sunglasses. “Is that it?” she asked.

Robin didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were locked on the plane, jaw tight. “Little Bit said it was a strange looking plane,” she said after a moment. “That the propellors are in the back and it has shark wings on the front.”

“That must be them then,” Elizabeth said. She shook her head a little. “That thing looks like a bug. A rich person bug.”

She was dressed in a crisp, navy blue blouse and a beige ankle-length skirt—light enough for the heat but properly modest. Her hair was up in a sensible twist, and her flats were practical. If she looked like a woman on her way to a church committee meeting, that was intentional. She wanted to project stability. Boundaries. Control.

Because frankly, she had no idea what they were walking into.

She knew the broad strokes. Everyone did. Laura, her wayward sibling, estranged from the family for so long, was romantically involved with that man again—Jake Kingsley, the rock music star, the one with the history of domestic abuse, drug addiction, and anti-American views against the great crusade going on in Iraq. And those were only the things she knew about.

Of course, Little Bit—which was how the family had referred to her in earlier, simpler times—denied all the accusations. But that was what women trapped in abusive situations always did. And true, she had seemed quite happy when the long estrangement ended after their father’s death, but Elizabeth chalked that up to the fact that she was no longer officially married to the man. She was still living with him, of course—still under his spell, even if the paperwork said otherwise. And then there was their daughter, Cadence, who had been a strange, aloof little thing when first introduced to her real family.

The plane came closer, pulling into the parking area she and her mother were standing near. The engines made a garbled, unpleasant sound. She had seen articles in the LA Times about the noise of the plane. It was said that the FAA had investigated many noise complaints about it, both here in the surrounding neighborhoods and in San Luis Obispo, where the Kingsley mansion was located. The word was that Kingsley fame and money had led the investigators to rule that the aircraft was within defined noise levels. What a bunch of bull pucky that had to be, she thought now as she heard the obnoxious sound. Unfortunately, it was the way the world worked.

Robin was shaking her head as the aircraft came to a stop and the engines shut down.

“All this because we let her play that saxophone,” she said. “Father always told me that her playing that thing would lead to no good. I guess he was right.”

Elizabeth did not believe that music was inherently evil or wrong. She did, in fact, secretly love most of Celia Valdez’s work and hid the CDs from her husband and children the way teenage boys hid pornographic magazines. She did have to agree, however, that letting Little Bit feed her obsession with jazz music and playing the saxophone had led her down the wrong path. If she hadn’t played the instrument she might not have gone to that college where she had been taught to go against the church. And she certainly would not have met Jake Kingsley and Celia Valdez. It had been the playing of her instrument that had introduced them to her.

The main door of the aircraft opened and a set of stairs unfolded. Little Bit, her youngest sibling, stepped out. She was wearing a yellow summer dress that showed her bare shoulders and armpits. The hem fell to just above her knees. It was a dress that Elizabeth considered inappropriate for an almost forty year old woman to be wearing in public. It wasn’t obscene—exactly—but it showed an awful lot of forbidden flesh.

She could not help but notice, however, how good her sister looked. It was not just that she was beautiful. Yes, she had a trim body, not chubby, not emaciated like someone with an eating disorder, and she had that amazing copper-colored hair and green eyes. It was that Little Bit looked happy and healthy. She honestly looked like a woman at the top of her game in life, a woman who was bright eyed, alert, and responsive, not a woman who was being held hostage in some strange cult-like environment.

Is it just brainwashing? Elizabeth wondered. Perhaps.

A moment later, the child appeared behind her—Cadence Kingsley, Laura’s daughter. They didn’t call her Cadence though. They called her Caydee.

She stepped lightly down the stairs, one hand on the rail, her movements practiced. Not tentative, not curious—just ... competent. Which, in Elizabeth’s mind, was a little creepy.

She was wearing simple jeans and a T-shirt, the kind of outfit Elizabeth’s own daughter might wear to school on a casual Friday. But there was something too composed about her, too observant. She stood with her hands folded in front of her, watching silently as if she were the one sizing them up.

Elizabeth couldn’t help thinking that the girl looked like she had been trained—polished, even. It made her uneasy.

Then he came out.

Jake Kingsley stepped into view, ducking slightly to clear the frame of the cabin door, and Elizabeth felt her stomach twist—part disapproval, part something else, something unexpected.

He wore faded jeans and a beige short-sleeved button-up shirt that looked tailored despite its casual cut. His posture was relaxed, but not slouched. He walked like a man used to moving with purpose.

His hair was long, down to his shoulders. Not shaggy, not unkempt—just ... long. And infuriatingly good-looking. It brushed just past his collar and caught the sun as he stepped down after Caydee.

Elizabeth tried not to notice the way it framed his face, the way his forearms looked carved, the way the fabric of his shirt hinted at muscle underneath. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He looked like someone who trained for something—like an athlete, or a soldier. Not at all like the washed-up, morally bankrupt addict she’d expected to see in person. All the pictures she’d ever seen of him in the papers and checkout stands showed a man bloated, hunched, half-lit in harsh angles. A cautionary tale, not a human being. But the man in front of her now ... wasn’t that. It was like they only published the worst possible images—never the real ones. But that couldn’t be on purpose ... could it?

He’s actually the very epitome of the attractive bad boy, she thought in near awe. This guy dings all the checkboxes for dangerous, rebellious, protective!

That thought refused to go away: if she’d seen him without knowing who he was, without knowing what he was, she might have looked twice. She might have looked more than twice.

And she hated that.

The three of them stood there now at the base of the stairs—Laura in her sunny, inappropriate dress, the unnerving child, and the man Elizabeth had come here prepared to hate.

They looked ... settled. Coordinated. Like people who lived together comfortably. And somehow that was more disturbing than any chaos she’d prepared herself to witness.

They walked over, Laura leading the pack, Cadence keeping to the rear, almost hiding behind her father (assuming he really was the child’s father—there were many reports suggesting he was not).

“Hey, Liz,” greeted Laura. “Hey, Mom. It’s good to see you both.”

Laura hugged both of them. Genuine familial hugs. Warm, affectionate. A little bit guarded underneath however. Laura seemed nervous. Was it because she was afraid of the charade she lived in finally being revealed?

“You both remember Caydee, right?” Laura asked them.

“Of course,” Robin said. “Hello, Caydee. Do you remember me?”

“Yes,” Cadence said softly, warily. “You’re Mom’s mom. My maternal grandmother. And you’re Elizabeth, Mom’s sister, my Aunt.”

“You’ve grown since we saw you last,” Robin said.

Caydee shrugged. “Only a half an inch or so,” she said. “Daddy says I’m gearing up for the next growth spurt.”

“You certainly have the appetite for a growth spurt,” Laura said. She then put her hand on Jake Kingsley’s shoulder. “Mom, Liz, this is Jake.”

He stepped forward, almost into their personal space. Elizabeth felt suddenly nervous. Nervous and ... and something else. She could see the bottoms of tattoos peeking out from his shirt sleeves. He had a tattoo on each arm. And his hair ... It was so ... so ... gorgeous. She wondered what it would be like to run her hands through it and then mentally slapped herself. What was she thinking?

She felt herself flush a little as she held her right hand out to shake with him. “It’s nice to ... uh ... to meet you, Jake,” she said, fighting to keep her eyes on his. It helped that they were brown eyes that were positively dreamy to look at.

I think I see how he reeled Little Bit in, she thought, flustered.

He then shook hands with Robin, who was appraising him like a poker player sizing up the competition. “Mr. Kingsley,” she said demurely.

“Mrs. Best,” he returned. “You can call me Jake. Mr. Kingsley is my father.”

“As you wish,” Robin said. She did not offer to let him call her ‘Robin’.

They began walking toward the plane, Laura in the lead, Jake and the girl just behind her.

Elizabeth held back slightly, her steps measured, each one drawing her closer to something she still wasn’t sure she could face.

This would only be her second time flying.

The first had been nearly twenty years earlier, when she and her husband—newly married, both of them barely out of their teens—had scraped together enough money to fly Southwest to Salt Lake City. It had been a short flight, cheap and noisy, and she’d been terrified the whole way there and back, but it had been worth it. They had been sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, just like her parents, and her grandparents before that. The same place where generations of her family had made sacred covenants, under the eye of God, in the most hallowed place on Earth. It was a place Little Bit and her ... whatever he was ... would not ever be admitted.

This thought made her feel a little better.

But here she was now, about to climb into a plane flown by that man, owned by that man, a plane paid for with the wages of sin, accompanied by her aging mother, to spend several days inside whatever the Kingsley home actually was. She hadn’t agreed to this lightly. But she needed to see the situation for herself, needed to see how deeply indoctrinated her little sister actually was.

The inside of the plane was not what Elizabeth expected. She stepped into the cabin and froze for just a second, taking it all in. It was unbelievably luxurious. The seats were cream-colored leather—real leather, not the fake kind that peeled after a year in the sun. They were wide, deeply cushioned, and arranged in an intimate yet spacious manner around the cabin, with polished wood trim at the armrests. There was a minibar built discreetly into the sidewall, fully stocked.

Of course he has a bar in his plane, she thought, her mouth pressing into a thin line.

Across from the seating area, a narrow door with a gleaming chrome handle led to a tiny lavatory. A bathroom. On a private plane. That wasn’t normal, was it?

The air smelled faintly like citrus and leather. Not even a hint of jet fuel or stale air. The kind of clean you only got from money.

The cabin lights were off, save for a few dim orange LEDs along the floor striping. The engines were quiet now—fully powered down—and the whole space felt almost like a luxury waiting room that just happened to have wings.