The beauty of the place put all thoughts of jeopardy out of Tammy’s head, at least for a few moments. She made her way through the bushes to what had once been an enormous lawn — though there were so many wild flowers in the tall grass, and so much grass sprouting in the border, that lawn and border had become virtually indistinguishable — and looked back up at the house, her gaze going from window to window, balcony to balcony, to see if there was anybody watching her. She saw nobody, so she grew a little more confident and strode out into the middle of the lawn so that she could get herself a good look at the house. It was much larger than she’d assumed from the front, and even in its dilapidated state it was an, elegant place, the curves of its balconies echoing one another, the ironwork of its railings delicate.
That said, it was a strange house for Todd to be living in. She knew how hard he’d worked to perfect his residence in Bel Air (four architects; two interior designers; millions of dollars spent): so why was he here? There could only be one explanation. He was in hiding. He didn’t want anyone to see him in his wounded state. She understood the logic of that. There were some people — some of his fans — who wanted to think he was perfect. Luckily she wasn’t one of those people. Far from it. The fact that he was here, all locked away, hurting and angry, made her feel all the more love for him. If she got a chance, she’d tell him so. If he’d let her, she’d peel those stifling bandages off his face. She didn’t care what he looked like underneath; it was still her Todd, wasn’t it? Still the man she idolized. For once the fact that her breasts were too big would be a Godsend. They’d be a comfortable place for him to lay his hurt head. She could rock him and keep him there, safe and sound.
From the corner of her eye, she saw something move in the foliage. The blissful imaginings fled. Very slowly, she looked towards the shrubs where she’d seen the motion. The sun was bright, the shadows dark and solid. The leaves shook in the light breeze. Was that what she’d seen? The leaves shaking? Apparently so, for there was nothing else visible.
She returned her gaze to the house, looking for the best way for her to get in. There were no open windows on the garden level — at least none that she could see — and the doors all looked to be securely locked. She pushed her way through a line of shrubs so as to see if the house was any more vulnerable elsewhere, but the foliage grew thicker around her as she proceeded, and then she somehow managed to become disorientated, because when she turned back to try another way she found that she’d lost sight of both the lawn and the house. She felt like Alice, suddenly shrinking away; the flowers around her were huge, like sunflowers, only purple and scarlet, and the scent they gave off was achingly sweet. They grew so tall, however, and in such preternatural numbers, that she could not see the house at all — not a chimney pot, not a balcony. Her only hope was to make a guess at the direction in which the house lay, which she did, plunging on through the enormous blooms. But her guesswork was hopelessly amiss. The shrubbery simply thickened, the sunflowers giving way to bushes whose branches carried bell-shaped yellow blossoms, almost the size of her head. She couldn’t yell for help, of course; that would bring Caputo running. She had no choice but to head on in the same hopeless fashion, until at last the thicket cleared somewhat, and she had sight of the sky again.
Emerging from the shrubbery she was instantly on her guard, in case she’d come to a place where she could be spotted. But she needn’t have worried. Her travels had brought her down the hill, and put a line of cypress trees (which she could not remember moving through) between herself and the house. Only one reasonably sensible option presented itself. Directly ahead of her was a narrow pathway — as overgrown as the one that had brought her down the side of the house. She had no idea where it led, but it was a pathway; it implied that others had been here before her, perhaps in the same predicament, and this trail of trodden ground marked their exit. If it had worked for them, why not for her? Pulling pieces of twig and blossom from her hair and blouse as she went, she followed the path.