by Nancy Bush
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” she stammered.
“At my office we’re going to talk about Thomas Daniels, Hayley, Dinah, and high school.” His voice was ice. “That’s all I want to talk about.”
She nodded, knowing this was not the time to argue. Then his gaze slipped to her mouth. Aha! she thought. He does notice. Her lips parted expectantly, hopefully, but he left without another word.
Denise sank against the wall and clutched her chest, fighting down her hammering heart. She closed her eyes. What could she do to make him realize she really cared? What?
Maybe, if she were really, really lucky, she could get him to care. Care in a way she needed and craved. Care for her and her alone.
Her senses swam, the thought so heady, she felt scared.
Clench your fist. Push the poisons out . . .
Except she wanted to feel this. She wanted to feel this burgeoning sensation. Love? No. She loved John.
“The hell you do,” she said, her mouth twisting in irony. “You don’t know a thing about it.”
Yes, I do. I love Dr. Stone . . .
“Bullshit,” she answered herself, but deep inside she thought it might be true.
A hiatus. Two days of down time while the location crew returned and his production team filmed the final scenes in the studio. A good thing, too, because his new star looked wrung out, as if she were shriveling in on herself a bit more each day.
Twisting the Land Rover’s steering wheel as he negotiated a traffic light, John viciously punched the power button on his radio, thoroughly annoyed with Blake Shelton, though normally he was one of his favorite artists.
He felt as if he’d walked through hell without being cleansed.
It was incredible how quickly one’s life changed. In the space of an hour, a second, the blink of an eye.
The night he’d learned of Dinah.
His teeth clenched. He couldn’t think of her without primal anger.
And then the mess of Lambert Wallace. He’d been revolted in so many ways, but the funny thing was he’d been almost proud of Denise. Instead of hovering behind sharp words and orchestrated scenes, she’d actually broken free and bashed the bastard. Good for her. If anyone needed to set her inner self free it was Denise, and there was certainly no better target than Wallace.
John couldn’t work up regret over the man’s death. He’d done it to himself. Set it up. Hurt people. Used and abused needy souls, then taken the dirty way out when the going got tough.
His mouth tightened grimly. Unfortunately, Denise hadn’t survived the experience without a few more wounds to her psyche. She was better. He could see that, though he tried to spend as little time as possible with her. It bothered him to see her; he could admit that. It bothered him that she looked so much like Dinah, and that his feelings were raw and untethered and therefore unpredictable.
But he’d asked Denise to take Melissa Birker’s place in Blackbird. The part was nothing Denise had ever done. It was subtlety layered and softly written. Anyone playing Jennifer would have to walk on cat’s feet or it wouldn’t work. Melissa had charged through like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and Frankie, or no, John had walked up to her the last time she’d blown the scene and said, “Good-bye.” Of course it had pissed her off. And, sure, there were contracts that needed to be fulfilled. And Frankie had screamed and gesticulated and generally made a noisy, time-wasting scene, then walked himself.
So . . . back to the drawing board.
And then he’d thought of Denise. He’d refused to have her as his star. He’d been on that ride before and no amount of coercion by Walburn or that whiney agent of hers would make him change his mind. But for Jennifer . . . the idea jolted him. He felt that buzz of electricity, a sort of sixth sense when he knew he was on the right track.
In an excited frame of mind, he’d driven straight to the Malibu house and interrupted a session between Denise and her shrink. Fleetingly, he’d wondered if she was sleeping with Dr. Stone, but just as fleetingly, he’d dismissed the thought because it truly didn’t matter to him.
“Wanna be in my movie?” he’d drawled. All acrimony and fury and hate had left him, transfused with a sense of calm and acceptance he found slightly startling. This was Denise, after all. The woman he hated. Yet, it was simply over now, and because she had extraordinary radar where he was concerned, she sensed it immediately—and also accepted.
He told her about firing Melissa. She chortled at the story, and though Dr. Stone frowned, Denise jumped to her feet like a schoolgirl and hugged John spontaneously.
Incredible. And so welcome. But he still couldn’t be around her at length, so he stayed at his apartment and slowly came to the conclusion that she should have the Malibu house. It was only fair.
But what about Dinah?
With a slam of brakes, he pulled into his spot at his office, glancing around for Hayley’s new Audi. For someone so determined and dedicated, she was a mystery. You woulda thought she’d bitten into this role like a tiger into raw meat, but no, she was tentative and distracted. If he hadn’t seen her audition video for himself, and met her personally and therefore witnessed her aggressiveness, he wouldn’t believe it possible. Something had happened. Some epiphany.
Whatever the case, she was not the same, and this meeting was because it was time to have it out with her and figure out what the hell had gone wrong.
He strode into his production offices and the receptionist leaped to her feet, white-faced. “Rodney Walburn was just rushed to UCLA Hospital with a heart attack.”
John digested this bit of startling news. “Is he going to be all right?”
She shook her head and turned up her palms. “Titan wants to talk to you,” she added.
He knew what that was about. He owned a percentage of the studio, courtesy of Sampson. Rodney’s underlings were probably already scrambling for position, hoping to be the next studio head appointee.
“Hayley Scott’s waiting in your office,” the receptionist called as an afterthought as he strode down the hall.
Which reminded him of all the problems with Blackbird.
“You look like death warmed over,” Hayley said to herself and the empty room at large.
She’d caught her reflection in the base of the chrome lamp on the credenza behind Callahan’s desk. It was enough to give her the heebie-jeebies. Worse, she looked better than she felt.
For a year she told herself it was because of Lambert Wallace. God, that had been awful. It had haunted her all through these heady days of unrelenting success. Stuck to her conscience like a leech throughout location filming in Colorado, for the scenes of Isabella’s youth, and yes, Hollywood Boulevard, for the misery of Isabella’s present. Hayley told herself the reason she was so upset was because she expected to run into some of her old pals like Gloria Carver, but in truth, she knew she could brazen her way through anything. Hell, if worse came to worst, she’d just tell the damn truth. She was no hooker; she’d just been “soaking up the local color.”
It would make great copy after the film was released.
But that wasn’t what troubled her. Nor was it the memory of Lambert Wallace’s blood-soaked, unconscious form, or Denise’s palsied response to beating him senseless.
It was the truth that bothered her. The truth about the past. And the fact that Connor Jackley knew she’d remembered.
She remembered Denise screaming, spattered with blood, the chunk of granite beside her smeared brick red and stuck with bits of hair. And she remembered the “O” of Thomas Daniels’s mouth as his dead eyes stared up at Denise in disbelief—which hadn’t slowed the battering one iota, by the look of things.
She remembered the murder.
Now, flinging herself in one of the black leather and chrome chairs surrounding Callahan’s desk, Hayley covered her eyes with one hand and fought back fear. She was derailed, her soul destroyed. There was no going back. No way to concentrate on a career she’d felt was the one—the only—
goal in her life.
And Connor . . .
He was to her what Dr. Stone was to Denise. Savior, confidante, friend. Except Hayley could tell him nothing without incriminating her sister. But the truth was eating away at her like acid, and Connor Jackley was watching. Watching and waiting and pretending he wasn’t following through with the investigation.
He was talking about moving to Wagon Wheel. He’d grown up in Bend and had family in Wagon Wheel. He wanted her to visit the area with him. Wanted to share with her his plans for the future.
But it was all a lie. A trap. A way to entice and lure her into his dreams. Never once had he said he cared about her. Never once had she intimated that he was rapidly becoming her whole life. Gone was the smart-ass, would-be superstar actress who used people to get what she wanted. Gone was the waitress whom Jason had dubbed, “The worst employee on earth.”
Gone was everything. And in its place was everything she’d ever wanted—careerwise.
Why don’t you want it anymore?
Turmoil inside, like a whirlpool swirling and swishing and rushing and gurgling until she thought she’d lose her mind. Dragging in a half breath, she fought for control. The film was almost finished. She’d done well, but it had taken every bit of wisdom and patience on John Callahan’s part to achieve the result she should have been able to produce effortlessly.
And now they had to do the scenes over with Jennifer because Melissa had plowed through the part as if it were a caricature rather than a serious character.
And John had hired Denise.
More turmoil. War of the senses. A loss of reality and focus.
Maybe I’m nuts like Denise. Maybe I’m crazier.
Why couldn’t she forget? Thomas Daniels had deserved his death as much as Lambert Wallace had. But it was the way Denise had done it. The bashing, bashing, bashing, and the hysterical screaming that was one part fear and two parts glee.
The door banged open and Callahan appeared in a rush, shooting her a hard look from head to toe that only made Hayley more cognizant of her drawn face and pale color.
“You must have lost ten pounds when you couldn’t afford an ounce,” he stated shortly. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Pregnant?”
“No.” She half laughed.
“Drugs?”
“Give me a break.”
“Has someone been harassing you? Someone involved with the film?”
“No.”
“Has some tragedy occurred that I know nothing about? Something that’s sent you into a depression?”
Hunching her shoulders, she shook her head.
“Don’t tell me it’s Lambert Wallace, because I won’t believe it.”
“No.” Hayley felt like screaming at the top of her lungs but couldn’t muster the effort. “Are you unhappy with my performance? Do you want me to do something over?”
“I want you to gain weight. You don’t even look like the same person I hired to play Isabella. I want you to resolve whatever’s bothering you, because, damn it, Hayley, I’ve got a lot riding on Blackbird and I don’t want you to screw it up!”
Harsh words. She flinched, yet she couldn’t blame him. He’d taken a chance on her, and she’d let him down in a way neither of them could have anticipated.
“We’re going to take a break,” he decided suddenly. “A week, maybe two. We’ll film the scenes with Denise that don’t require you, but there aren’t that many of them. I need you, Hayley. Back the way you were. Whatever it takes, fix this problem, and come back to production whole.”
She left his office in a daze. If she told on Denise, the film would be over anyway, wouldn’t it?
She drove directly to Connor’s apartment. She’d spent a lot of hours here. He’d become a fixture in her life; the first man to breach her defenses and earn the label “friend.” Not lover. She couldn’t face that. Nor had he shown any inclination that way. But then to him she was a source, his best way to learn the truth, because Dinah didn’t seem to know it, and Denise, well, she’d either buried it so deep she couldn’t remember, or else her conscience—unlike Hayley’s—allowed her to keep it secret.
Maybe that’s why Denise was so screwed up.
When she got to the apartment, he wasn’t home.
Vaguely, she remembered talk of him taking another trip back to Oregon. Had he already left?
She was still sitting in her car, completely lost as to what to do next, when Connor’s black Jeep turned into the apartment parking lot, pulling into the spot next to hers. He smiled at her and Hayley’s heart felt like breaking.
Sliding down his window, he waited for her to do the same. It was an effort even to push the button.
“Hey,” he said softly, his gray eyes searching hers.
“I was afraid you’d already left.”
“I’m leaving tonight.”
“Oh.”
He flicked a glance at his dashboard clock. “You want to come?”
“To Oregon? I’m—I’m working.”
“I talked to Callahan, Hayley. He said he forced you to take some time off.”
“You were asking about me?” she asked faintly.
“Come with me,” he ordered with more urgency.
“You think I’ll crack, don’t you?” she said, with a resurgence of her old spunk. “Don’t bet on it.”
He was deliberately blunt. “It’s killing you. It’s not a game anymore.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Then come with me and find out.”
He knew she was lying. He’d known forever. Hayley felt herself being sucked deep into some thick muck, which pulled her inexorably downward. Soon she’d suffocate. He was right. It was killing her.
“All right,” she said wearily. “I’ll go . . .”
Chapter Seventeen
“Start over,” Stone said in his annoyingly shrink way. Denise threw him a look and slouched in the chair. Did he purposely make his office chairs uncomfortable? Did he expect her to blurt out all the little nasties of her past just so she could get the hell out of here?
“We moved to Wagon Wheel when I was sixteen,” she said on a deep sigh. “I don’t remember my real dad. He left before I was six.”
“Where did you live first?”
“Portland . . . Medford . . . Bend. We moved a lot because my mother was always looking for work as a waitress, and we had trouble paying our bills.” Denise gave him a look. “We ditched on the rent a lot.”
“So your mother was having trouble making ends meet, and then . . . ?”
“She met dear old Stepdaddy Tom, and we moved from Bend to Wagon Wheel.”
“What did you think of him?”
Stone didn’t actually steeple his fingers under his chin, but he sure as heck gave the impression. She’d revised her opinion of him. Not only was he fixated on sex, he was fixated on the past. “You’re not one of those weirdos who believes in that delayed memory stuff, are you? I mean, if I start remembering that my stepfather forced me into a satanic cult, and I watched him and his beer-drinking buddies sacrifice a one-month-old baby, I’ll have to give you up as my therapist and sue you for False Memory Syndrome.”
“I don’t think either of us has to worry about that,” he said patiently. His patience would drive her crazy if she wasn’t already there.
She lifted a brow in disbelief.
“You’re fighting your memories back. But they’re right there, in your throat, choking you.”
The words hung in the air. Choking you. An ominous frisson of fear rippled down her spine. Sometimes he scraped unbearably close.
“Tell me,” he urged softly, watching her.
Denise grasped the wooden arms of the chair, her hands slick with sweat. They’d danced and danced about this. Every shrink she’d ever seen had performed this same two-step.
“What did you think of your stepfather?” he asked again.
Guilt beat inside Denise’s head. Swallowing, she sa
id, “You’re not going to like it.”
“Go ahead.” He was implacable.
“I was attracted to him, okay? I liked him.”
Silence. Not the answer he’d expected? No . . . not the answer she’d expected to give. He’d been loathsome and crude and dirty, and she’d hated him. Hated him with such passion it had seemed surreal.
Stone stared at her, gauging the truth of her words, she supposed. “You liked him?” he repeated carefully.
“He was . . .” She couldn’t say it. Just couldn’t say it.
But Stone was waiting. His dark eyes saw everything. For a moment she thought he’d whispered her thoughts. It seemed like he spoke.
“Sexy,” she muttered, turning away, lips quivering.
There. She’d said it. Admitted her shame. Yes, she’d flirted with him. She’d done it knowingly. Until he responded, and then it had been too late. Much too late.
“Did your mother have any previous boyfriends?”
“Lovers, you mean?” She heard the snarl in her voice but couldn’t prevent it. “None that mattered. Thomas Daniels swept her off her feet, and I wanted him.” She folded her arms around herself. “For God’s sake, Stoner, it’s freezing in here. Can’t you afford to turn up the heat?”
“It’s on an automatic timer. Maybe I could find you a sweater.”
“Forget it.” She got up from the chair and walked to the windows, staring at the well-tended bougainvillea and succulents scattered outside.
“So you found him attractive.”
“Only at first,” she answered quickly. “And yeah, I led him on, but then I really didn’t want to do anything. But he wouldn’t get the message. He kept coming after me. If Dinah hadn’t been there, he would have gotten me.”
“She saved you?”
“She always saved us. Without Dinah, Hayley and I would have been sunk. She nailed him with a bowling trophy and a high heel and some other things. He hit her a time or two, but she was quick. Dinah knows what to do.”
“So Thomas Daniels never forced you into sexual relations.”