Chapter 22
Michael headed towards downtown. It was more crowded than ever, and the traffic crawled. The first time he saw L.A., he was a child. His parents owned a beach house near Santa Barbara—the one that was now his. They would spend a month there every July when he was a boy, and they’d often head south to Los Angeles and Disneyland. Adventureland was Michael’s favorite.
Now, William Claude Rempart rarely left Wintersgate, his estate overlooking Cape Cod. Even before his wife died, he was a strange man. After her death, he became even more reclusive.
Michael’s mother had died at age forty-four, only three years older than he was now. She was only eighteen when she married William Claude. He was thirty, and already a wealthy recluse. Their first child, a girl, was born a little ove
