Soft Focus

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  She glanced at her watch. When she looked back at the dark hallway again, she caught a glimpse of blond hair piled high on a gracefully held head. Vicky Bellamy was heading toward the women’s room.

  On impulse, Elizabeth got to her feet. She slung her small evening bag over her shoulder and made her way through the shadows toward the purple neon sign. She tried to think of a clever way to engage Vicky in a conversation in the ladies’ room. Loved your comments on the Femme Fatale panel. By the way, did you seduce Tyler Page to get him to steal a secret research specimen of a high-tech material for your husband? Not exactly subtle. On the other hand, the approach had the virtue of being direct and to the point.

  The walls of the hallway had been painted a very dark shade of purple. In the dim light they appeared almost black. Beneath the neon sign, the corridor branched off in opposite directions. A plaque on the wall informed her that the men’s room was to the left. She glanced in that direction. The door was firmly closed. Jack was apparently still engaged in his business conference. The women’s room was to the right.

  She went down the short hall and opened the door. There were three stalls inside, all painted purple. There were no feet showing beneath any of the stall doors. The rest room was empty.

  She backed out of the small room and rechecked the configuration of the hallway. There was one other way out that did not lead back into the main room of the club. She went to the third door and twisted the knob.

  She found herself standing on a small loading dock.

  A draft of cold night air hit her in the face. There was a single, bare bulb glowing weakly overhead. She peered into the shadows and saw a service road and a small employee parking lot. A large metal garbage bin loomed to her right. The odor of rotting garbage and stale booze was faint but detectable.

  There was no sign of Vicky Bellamy, but she caught the sound of muted voices nearby in the darkness.

  She closed the door behind her, wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the crisp mountain chill, and went down the loading-dock steps. Should have brought her coat, she thought. It was freezing out here. Then again, who could have guessed that Vicky Bellamy would sneak out of the club via the rear entrance?

  A sudden, jolting possibility occurred to her. What if Vicky Bellamy really was involved in the theft of Soft Focus? What if she had chosen tonight to run off with Tyler Page and the crystal while Jack was doing his deal in the men’s room?

  No, that made no sense, Elizabeth thought. There was supposed to be an auction. If Vicky was mixed up in this mess, she was unlikely to leave until she got her hands on the money.

  She couldn’t just stand here and do nothing, Elizabeth decided. Slowly, she began to prowl along the line of dark vehicles. If someone asked her what she was doing, she could always say she had just stepped outside for a breath of fresh air.

  She tried to appear casual as she moved from car to car, peering into the front seats. There was enough reflected moonlight to allow her to see large, bulky shapes. If Vicky was sitting in one of the vehicles, she would be able to see the outline of her body.

  The body was not behind the wheel of one of the vehicles. It was lying on the ground near the rear tire of an aging Ford.

  Elizabeth stared at the outflung arms, so pale in the moonlight. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She took an instinctive step back toward the safety of the nightclub’s rear door.

  Then she made herself move forward again. With a sense of great dread she crouched down and started to check for a pulse.

  “Are you—?” Stupid question. Of course the woman was not all right. She looked very dead.

  A brilliant light flashed on, blinding her, just as she reached out to check for a pulse.

  “Don’t touch her,” a man yelled furiously out of the shadows. “It took me half an hour to set up this scene.”

  Elizabeth’s nerves were already strained to the limit. The man’s irate shout was too much. She shrieked in startled outrage and leaped back, fetching up hard against the fender of the car.

  “What . . . what . . . ” She had to force herself to take a deep breath. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Making a movie.” Vicky Bellamy sounded dryly amused.

  Elizabeth whirled around. She still had spots in front of her eyes from the effects of the sudden bright light, but she could make out Vicky’s figure. The actress stood in the darkened space between two parked cars. The moonlight turned her hair to silver.

  “Sorry about that.” The man who had yelled at her did not sound sorry. He sounded annoyed. He moved into the light, displaying a sophisticated handheld camera. “Didn’t mean to scare you. But you almost screwed up the scene.”

  The body on the ground stirred. “Can we finish this? It’s getting damned cold down here.”

  “Yeah, sure. Just don’t move, okay?” The man with the camera hurried back to his post behind the lights.

  Someone else adjusted the long arm of a microphone.

  Vicky chuckled. “They’re participating in the contest.”

  “What contest?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The Noir on the Fly contest,” Vicky explained. “It’s an annual tradition at the festival. Participants get some film stock and equipment and are challenged to script, shoot, and edit a short film during the week of the festival.”

  “I see.” Elizabeth was relieved to note that her breathing was returning to normal. “The body on the ground was awfully realistic.”

  “Nothing is ever what it seems in the movies,” Vicky said very softly. “Or in real life. It might be a good idea if you remembered that.”

  Elizabeth stilled. Surely she had not imagined the note of warning embedded in the words. “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “It’s a little chilly out here, isn’t it?” Vicky turned and started back toward the loading dock. “You should have brought your coat.”

  Determined not to be left behind, Elizabeth hurried to catch up. “I wasn’t planning to stay outside very long.”

  “What were you planning to do?” Vicky asked.

  “I just wanted to get a breath of fresh air.” Elizabeth groped for some plausible details to flesh out her thin story. “We’re sitting in the nonsmoking section, but you know how it is. The air is never really great when there’s a smoking section nearby.”

  “Yes,” Vicky said. “I know how it is. But if I were you, I wouldn’t stay out here too long. Normally, the crime rate in Mirror Springs is almost nonexistent. But this week there are a lot of strangers in town. You never know what might happen.”

  A shiver that had nothing to do with the chilled night air sent a trickle of alarm down Elizabeth’s spine. She kept her smile in place with willpower alone. “You’re certainly full of good advice tonight, Ms. Bellamy.”

  “I hope you’ll pay attention. I don’t usually waste my breath on advice, but I thought I’d make an exception in your case.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.” Vicky’s smile was enigmatic. “Maybe it’s the way you look at your friend, Jack Fairfax.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “It’s not important. Not really. It’s just that once, a long time ago, I wanted to look at a man like that.”

  “What way is that?”

  “As if you’re wondering if you should let yourself fall in love with him.” Vicky gave another throaty laugh. “My advice on that point, by the way, is don’t.”

  Elizabeth stumbled against a small stone she had not noticed on the pavement. She sucked in a sharp, painful breath and quickly caught her balance.

  “Are you by any chance trying to warn me off?” she asked bluntly.

  Vicky gave her a long, considering glance. “A lady with a past has nothing to lose. But a woman with a future can’t be too careful.”

  Elizabeth came to a halt and said nothing. Vicky went up the three steps to the back door, opened it, and disappeared inside the club without looking
back again.

  Now what the heck was that all about? Elizabeth wondered. She stared at the closed door of the club for a while longer and then the cold began to penetrate. She jerked herself out of her reverie and started toward the steps. So much for her big plan to pin Vicky down on the subject of Tyler Page.

  The back door of the club opened without warning.

  “Elizabeth?” Jack’s voice sliced through the shadows. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  “Don’t snap at me like that. I’ve already had a major scare tonight.”

  “What’s going on?” Jack came swiftly forward and took her arm. He glanced at the filmmaking going on in the parking lot. “What the hell are those people doing out there?”

  “Making a film. Some sort of festival contest.” She glanced at him. “How did you find me?”

  “Vicky Bellamy stopped me in the hallway and told me that she’d seen you step outside. Something about getting some fresh air.”

  “That’s not quite how it happened. She came out here first. I followed her.”

  “Followed her?” Jack swept the dark landscape with a quick, assessing gaze. “Why?”

  “Well, I did have a clever little plan in mind. I was going to see if I could trick her into admitting that she was involved with Tyler Page. But things didn’t quite work out.”

  “What happened?”

  “Vicky gave me lots of sound advice instead,” Elizabeth said dryly.

  Jack looked blank. “Advice?”

  “Yep. And then she said something really, really interesting.”

  “What was that?”

  “ ‘A lady with a past has nothing to lose. But a woman with a future can’t be too careful.’ ”

  “What’s so interesting about that?”

  “For starters,” Elizabeth said, “it’s a direct quote from the script for Fast Company.”

  “So?”

  “So Vicky is one of a very small number of people who could possibly know that I had a copy of the script and might recognize the quote. She was the one who suggested I read it, in fact.”

  Jack eyed her curiously. “What’s your point?”

  Elizabeth turned around to watch the filmmaking in the distance. “I think she was trying to give me a warning.”

  Jack was silent for a long moment.

  “Now why in hell would she do that?” he asked very quietly.

  Maybe it’s the way you look at your friend, Jack Fairfax. . . . Once, a long time ago, I wanted to look at a man like that.

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, damn. Maybe you were right about her being Tyler Page’s femme fatale. If she was trying to warn you off, then we have to assume that she’s in this up to her phony blond hair.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why give herself away? And why try to get rid of you? If she knows anything about this deal, she knows you hold the purse strings for Excalibur.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. So many questions.

  “And why would she think that some bad dialogue from Fast Company would be an effective warning?” Jack asked.

  “Maybe because of what happens to the naive, not-so-bright female character who falls for the guy the femme fatale wants.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Jack said. “What happens to her?”

  “She gets killed.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  * * *

  “STOP IT.” ELIZABETH THREW HER HANDS UP. “Not another word. I’ve had all the arguing I can take for one night. I am not going back to Seattle, and that’s final.”

  Jack stood motionless in the center of the rug, the very spot where he had made love to her last night, and watched her sweep recklessly around the room. Her anger created a palpable if invisible wake.

  When the argument had exploded into full flame a few minutes ago, she had had her arms locked tightly beneath her breasts. But now, as the momentum gathered, her hands were sometimes in the air, sometimes stuffed into the back pockets of her snug velvet jeans. Never still.

  He tried for a semblance of calm, soothing logic. It was only a facade, and he knew it. Underneath he could feel an unholy mix of rage and tension and something that was uncomfortably close to fear simmering. If anything happens to her. . .

  He paused midway through that thought, unwilling to complete it. The truth was, he did not know how he would react if anything happened to Elizabeth. He might go a little crazy—make that a whole lot crazy.

  He pulled himself up short with an effort of will. He would not go down that road. There was no point. It would be a clear case of overreaction. This was not some film noir script come to life. This was high-tech theft. White-collar crime. People didn’t get hurt in this kind of thing. Not usually, at any rate.

  But that did not mean it could not get nasty.

  “She threatened you,” he said for what must have been the thirtieth time. “We have to take it seriously.”

  “She did not threaten me.” Elizabeth gave him a fulminating look. “Not exactly. She tried to warn me off. I think.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. If she’s in this, she knows who you are. She knows you’ve got the Aurora Fund checkbook and she knows that you can shell out big bucks for Soft Focus on behalf of your client. Why try to scare you off before the auction? Unless—” He broke off abruptly, thinking it through.

  “Yes?” Elizabeth looked at him from the other side of the room. “Unless what?”

  “If Vicky is involved in this, then it’s probably safe to assume that Dawson Holland is also involved.”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say that assumption is true. It still leaves us with at least two possibilities. Number one: Vicky and Dawson were the strategists behind the theft of Soft Focus.”

  “Which fits in very nicely with my Vicky-as-Tyler-Page’s-femme-fatale theory.”

  “Or,” he continued deliberately, “possibility number two: They’re here in Mirror Springs for the same reason we are. The same reason Hayden is, for that matter.”

  “Because they’ve been invited to attend the auction?”

  “Right. Think about it. There aren’t a lot of folks Page can risk inviting to his auction. He’s a lab man, a loner. He doesn’t move in the kind of circles where he’d be likely to meet high-rolling investors who would wink at the idea of bidding on a stolen item that can only be safely resold overseas. That crowd is definitely on the sophisticated side. If there’s one thing Page is not, it’s sophisticated.”

  “I take your point.” She pursed her lips, eyes intent. “He would know about you and me, of course.”

  “Worldly sophisticates that we are,” Jack muttered.

  She ignored him. “He probably also knew about your long-standing rivalry with Hayden and could have guessed that your brother would be eager to bid up the price of Soft Focus.”

  “Right. And the one other person we know for sure he’s come in contact with lately who might have enough money and few enough scruples to take part in this kind of deal is Dawson Holland.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “That would give us a motive for Vicky trying to warn me off tonight. She might be attempting to help Dawson by scaring off some of the competition.”

  “Yeah.” He thought about it. “That does make some sense. I like it better than your femme fatale theory.”

  “That’s because there is no romance in your soul.” She shot him a withering glare. “You just can’t envision a man taking the sort of risks Tyler Page is taking for love, can you?”

  He was startled by the accusation in her voice. “I’m just trying to be realistic.”

  “Yeah, right.” She halted abruptly. “You know what our real problem is?”

  He raised his brows. “You want an annotated list?”

  “I’m serious. Our problem is that we don’t have enough information.”

  He raised his eyes to the high, vaulted ceiling and asked for patience. �
�No shit.”

  “We need to know more about Vicky Bellamy and Dawson Holland.”

  “I told you, I’m having Larry check out Holland.”

  She started toward the phone on the end table. “You asked your brother to check out Holland from a financial angle, right?”

  “Far as I can see, that’s the only angle that matters here.”

  “Maybe.” She picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. “Maybe not.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s after midnight. Who are you calling?”

  “My assistant, Louise. She spent twenty years working for the tabloids. She has all kinds of contacts in the entertainment industry. She might know someone who—” She stopped, listening to whoever had answered the phone. Surprise flashed across her face. “I’m sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number. I’m calling for Louise Luttrell.”

  Jack walked to the window and looked out at the twinkling lights of Mirror Springs.

  “Yes, I’ll hold on a minute,” Elizabeth said in muffled tones. “Louise? Who in the world was that? What do you mean, an old editor from out of town called? How old?”

  Jack glanced over his shoulder, amused by the disconcerted look on Elizabeth’s face.

  “No, of course I didn’t think you lived in a convent. I just wasn’t expecting a man to answer your phone, that’s all. Not at this hour, at any rate.” Elizabeth glanced at Jack, saw that he was watching her, and turned her shoulder to him. “Uh, well, no, I’m not, actually. There was a slight problem with Jack’s reservations at the resort, so he had to stay here and—”

  She stopped speaking again and started to turn pink. Jack could hear the cackle of hysterical laughter on the other end of the line clear across the room. He smiled to himself.

  Elizabeth cleared her throat and started to speak very quickly. “If you don’t mind, Louise, I’m calling on a business matter. I want you to see what you can dig up on a small-time actress named Victoria Bellamy and her husband, Dawson Holland. I think they’ve both hung around the fringes of the film business for years and they’re major figures here at this little festival.”