Then again, how would she know? She’d never been put to the test. Never loved that hard, never let it mean that much. That kind of love wasn’t in the cards. Not for her. She wasn’t planning on living long enough.
26
Morning came faster than Gillian expected. She woke on the couch, exactly where she’d fallen asleep the night before. Only someone had slipped a blanket over her. It was warm under the blanket, and soft. She didn’t have to strain too much to figure out who’d covered her.
She sat up slowly, her neck stiff from the headrest. Ray was asleep in a chair at the door, his hands wrapped around his gun. Her steadfast sentry, making sure she couldn’t escape. She stretched, watched him sleep for a few minutes. The picture made her smile a little. And yearn. What would it have been like to be with him last night? To feel that hard, muscled body wrapped around hers? Would she have felt safe? Protected? Was that even possible?
Of course, he’d been right. She would have been using him. And guys like Ray, the nice ones, the decent ones, they deserved more.
He looked peaceful in sleep. Peaceful but strong. A rock of a man, like a sculpture. She tiptoed off the couch and found her camera. The lighting sucked, but that might be a good thing. If she could manipulate the shadows, she could sculpt his face even more.
But she hadn’t clicked off many shots when he suddenly spoke, his eyes still closed. “That better not be you trying to sneak around me.” His voice was deep and firm, and it sank into her like the sun after a cold night.
She kept the camera focused, watched him through the lens. “And if it is?”
He cracked open one eye. “I’ll have to shoot you.”
“With a camera?”
He straightened. “I make no promises.”
She lowered the camera, and they faced each other. She found herself grinning. “Morning.”
“Back at you.” He stood, holstered the weapon, and opened the suite door. “Problems?” he said to Mallory, who was still outside.
“All clear,” the guard said. “Got a replacement coming? I’m off in fifteen.”
“He’ll be here. Tell him to check in; then you can go.”
Gillian called for coffee, and ten minutes after the changing of the guard, it arrived, and she was drowning herself in caffeine and sugar.
Ray came out of his room, fresh from a shower wearing khakis and a long-sleeved white shirt, both of which he filled out nicely. Too nicely. She dipped her gaze away from his long, muscular legs and focused on her coffee. Felt Ray’s eyes on her as she doctored her cup.
“What?”
He shrugged and wandered over. “Nothing.”
“Come on. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Not at you, short stack, at your coffee.” He poured himself a cup and took a sip.
“What’s wrong with my coffee?”
“Nothing if you’re five and like milk shakes.”
She scoffed at his own cup. “Oh, let me guess, big strong man likes it black?”
“And tough little cookie likes it all sugared up.”
Well, hell, who was he calling little?
“Better than the pencil shavings you drink.”
He tried to look insulted. “Pencil shavings?”
“You heard me. Like someone steeped the dregs of a pencil sharpener in hot water.”
Now he did look insulted. “This is pure ambrosia. The way God meant coffee to be drunk.”
She grunted. “Well, then, maybe me and God have a little talking to do.”
He laughed, and it nearly stopped her breath the way the smile lit up his face. “Now that’s an argument I’d like to hear,” he said.
She grinned back at him. “Don’t think I’d win?”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t take any bets.”
She gulped the coffee, letting the hot, sweet drink warm her whole body. Or maybe it wasn’t the coffee.
He poured himself another cup, gazed at her with a soft light in his eyes. “So . . . we should go over your schedule. Your plans for today.”
“Plans?”
“Yeah. Plans. The show at the museum opens to the public today. You planning on being there?”
Oh, poor guy. Just when she thought he got her, inside and out. “I never plan,” she told him. He looked at her, and she tossed off his skepticism. “I don’t.”
He sat back in his chair, examining her. “You’re a big important artist. People like you always have a schedule to keep.”
“People like me?”
“Celebrities.”
“Oh, them.”
“So . . . the museum. You going today?”
“I think I’ve had enough red guck thrown at me. So, no, probably not. But who knows? I don’t have a calendar or one of those berry things. Like I said, I don’t plan. I don’t look ahead.”
She waited for him to ask why, was already parsing out the required explanation, the “live in the moment” crap she pawned off on most people. But he didn’t ask.
Didn’t need to know? Didn’t want to know? Either way, it irritated her.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“I already know why,” he said quietly, his look deep, his face sober with wisdom.
She stared at him, suddenly spooked by his silent insight. No one knew that much about her.
“Short-term memory loss,” he said after a long moment, then lost the battle to keep his face straight.
She threw a pack of sugar at him.
“Because you’re weird, that’s why,” he said, fending off the packet. “What about meetings, gallery openings, stuff like that?”
“Maddie handles it.”
“Maddie.”
“Yeah, Maddie. Remember her?”
“Fine. I’ll talk to Maddie.” He rose and walked toward her door.
“She won’t be there,” Gillian sang out.
“Why not?”
“She just won’t.”
He paused, turned to her. “How do you know?”
She didn’t want to get into this with him. Some instinct told her this was something he definitely wouldn’t understand. Especially after their . . . disagreement . . . the night before. “I just do.”
He leaned against the wall beside Maddie’s door. “What’s the big mystery?”
“No mystery.”
“So . . .”
She sighed. He wanted it, she’d give it to him. “I told you, I never sleep alone after Harley.”
Understanding dawned on his face. And it wasn’t pretty. “So she, what, she stays away? Facilitates your evening?” He crossed his arms, narrowed his eyes. “Does she line the men up, too?”
“Jesus, did it look like I needed help lining them up? No, I do the choosing. And last night, stupid me, I chose you.”
“Well, you weren’t alone. Not for a minute.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said dryly. “Me and my blankie. Maddie understands, okay? Something you don’t.”
“Oh, I understand just fine,” he snapped, and plunged into Maddie’s room. “She keep an appointment book?”
She heard him crashing around. “I don’t think she’s going to appreciate you mucking around in her things,” she called from where she was sitting.
He didn’t answer. She listened, and suddenly only stillness came back at her. “Ray?” She frowned down at her milky coffee, waiting for him to say something or come back to the living room. Neither happened.
Curious, she left her coffee and went into Maddie’s room. Ray was standing over Maddie’s open suitcase on the bed. A bunch of papers were clenched in his fists, and he was scowling at them.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
He tore through the pages. “I knew she was hiding something.”
“For God’s sake, what?”
She ripped a sheaf of paper out of his hand, and the block letters screamed up at her:
YOU WON’T FORGET ME.
I WON’T LET YOU.
FREAK.
>
YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD.
She looked through the others. There were five, no, six of them, all with similar threatening themes. A bolt of something—half fear, half excitement—stabbed her. “Where did you find these?”
“Maddie’s suitcase. A little hate mail from your socalled friend.” “Don’t be ridiculous. Maddie would never—” “Never what?” They whirled in time to find Maddie in the doorway.
27
Maddie gave Ray an aloof stare. “Never come into your room when you’re not there and snoop through your personal things?”
He watched her slink in. She looked like she’d had a hard night, her normally immaculate black hair now mussed and a little knotted on one side, her makeup smeared. Seemed Gillian wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep alone.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Maddie said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Did you write these?” Ray demanded.
She looked from him to Gillian and back again. “What do you think?” Something indefinable crossed her face. Indecision? Guilt? Ray was taking no chances.
“I think it’s possible.”
She snorted and came farther into the room. “You would.”
Gillian looked down at the pages she was holding. “Maddie, what are these?”
“Nothing. They’re nothing.”
“The hell they are,” Ray said. “Those are threats. Did you send them?”
Gillian said, “Shut up, Ray. Of course she didn’t.
They’re from him, aren’t they?” Her voice was low and keyed up.
“Him?” Ray asked. “Who is ‘him’?”
“The big bad bogeyman,” Maddie said, and snatched the papers out of Gillian’s hand.
“Wait—let me see that!”
Maddie started to rip up the messages. Both Ray and Gillian jumped at her.
“Don’t!”
Ray got there first. “This is evidence. It could lead us to the killer.”
Maddie laughed. “I don’t think so.”
Ray peered at her closely. “You’re pretty certain. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” she said calmly, and when Ray continued gazing at her, “All right. I confess. I did it.” She held out her hands to be cuffed. “Arrest me, Officer.”
“Why didn’t you show these to me?” Gillian asked.
“Why?” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Take a look at yourself. You’re practically strapping on your six-gun.”
“That’s not your call,” Gillian said. “You don’t make decisions for me.”
Maddie shrugged. “Why not? I’m the one picking up the pieces.”
Gillian opened her mouth to respond, then didn’t. There was a pinprick of hurt in her eyes, and an equal measure in Maddie’s. She softened, reached out.
“Gillian—”
“You should have let me see them.”
Maddie’s face hardened, and she threw up her hands. Busied herself slamming the suitcase shut and flinging it in a corner.
Ray waved the paper in the air. “These are Internet messages.”
“From my Web site,” Gillian said.
“You have a Web site?”
“Deadshots.com,” Gillian said, pointing to the Web site address at the bottom. “Maddie runs it for me.”
Maddie. It always came back to Maddie. She ran Gillian’s career, her schedule. What else did she run?
“Don’t look at me like that, watcher boy.”
“You could have manufactured this.”
“I could have, but I didn’t.”
“Stop it.” Gillian got between them, turned to Ray. “Why would Maddie do something like that?”
“Keep you scared. Give you a reason to let her keep hanging on.”
“She’s my friend. I don’t need a reason,” Gillian said.
“Her position would be a hell of a lot more secure if you had one.”
“They’re not from Maddie,” Gillian said emphatically. “Don’t you see? They’re from the killer.” Excitement made her voice breathy. “My mother’s killer.”
That was a leap Ray wasn’t ready to take. “We don’t know that.”
“I do. Who else would send them?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what Maddie thinks. She seems to run everything around here.” Ray swung his head to look at Maddie. Her face was stony, her lips pressed into a grim line. “Who else, Maddie? If not you, or Holland Gray’s killer, who else is there?”
Maddie looked from him to Gillian, struggling with some decision. Then her mouth softened and she gazed down at her hands. “We’ve been getting them . . .” She paused, then looked back up at Gillian, almost pleading for understanding. “We’ve been getting them on and off for the last six months.”
Gillian gasped. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“There are others like this?” Ray asked.
She breathed out the admission. “Yes.”
“All in the last six months?”
Maddie nodded and avoided Gillian’s eyes. Gillian sank onto the bed, refusal to believe in every line of her body.
Ray looked between the two of them. “What happened six months ago?” No one answered, and he repeated the question, a little louder and more insistent. “What hap-pened six months ago?”
But Gillian only looked at Maddie and said, “You think it’s Kenny?”
Maddie said nothing, but knowledge was there in her eyes.
“He’s vicious enough,” Gillian muttered.
“Who the hell is Kenny?” Ray asked.
“And jealous,” she added.
“Who the hell is Kenny?”
The two women looked at him. “Kenny Post, rock-and- roll star,” Gillian said. “Well, no, hardly a star, is he, Mad-die? You ever hear of Black Roach?” she asked Ray.
“No.”
“Yeah, most people haven’t. Which is why Kenny is also a drunk, cheat, and all-around scumbag,” Gillian said.
“Her ex-boyfriend,” Maddie clarified.
“Violent and jealous ex-boyfriend,” Gillian said.
Ray stared. No one had mentioned an ex-boyfriend during the threat assessment.
“Where’s your computer? I want to check this out.”
Maddie picked up a briefcase and hauled out a laptop. “So, you believe me now?”
“I didn’t say that. But I want to see the messages for myself.”
She stopped in midgesture, the machine half in and half out of the case. “You can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
Maddie flushed. “I deleted them.”
“You what?” Ray roared. “Why?”
“Maddie!” Gillian groaned.
A pause, a beat, in which Maddie lost her infamous composure. She stuttered. Seemed to search desperately for an explanation.
“Why, Maddie?” Ray persisted.
“I didn’t want Gillian to see them!” she burst out at last. “Okay?”
“Or they were never there in the first place, and you created them yourself,” Ray said.
“So we’re back to that?”
“Stop it,” Gillian said to Ray.
Maddie turned a hot gaze on Gillian. “I don’t need you to defend me.” And to Ray, “Yeah, you’re right. I wrote them, then hid them for six months.”
“Not very well, since I found them,” Ray said.
“You didn’t ‘find’ them; you hunted them down. And you had to go in my room and through my suitcase to do it. Find anything else you like, Ray? Silk undies?” She waved a pair under his nose, which he grabbed and threw back on the bed.
“And, remember, we only have your word on the six months.”
“Back off, Ray,” Gillian said.
“And what the hell is wrong with my word? It’s been good enough—”
“Not for me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Back off!” In the wake of Gillian’s raised voice, silence descended. “She didn’t do this,” Gillian said at last. “Maybe it’s Kenny; maybe it�
�s someone else. But it isn’t Maddie.”
“Friendship and love are the easiest things to manipulate,” said Ray.
“What is that,” said Gillian, “Confucius? We’re not talking about you, here, Ray. Or Nancy, or whatever sad misery you made of your life.”
That hit like a missile, straight to his heart. But he shook it off, taking refuge in frigid calm. “That’s right, Gillian, we’re talking about you. You and your witch.”
“You know what?” Maddie jerked open a drawer, grabbed some clothes, and banged it shut. “I need a shower. And so do you,” she said to Gillian. “You’re scheduled for the Art House this morning.” The Art House was the biggest visual arts educator in Nashville, with classes for kindergartners up through adults in every media.
“Shit,” said Gillian, “I forgot.”
“If you’d check the schedule every once in a while—”
“I know, I know.” Gillian sent Maddie an unrepentant grin. “Life in the fast lane.”
“And wear something outrageous. You have dinner with Grandmaw and Pappy this evening.”
A shadow passed over Gillian’s face. She looked decidedly unhappy about that.
No more than him. He hated surprises, especially piled on. “You’re supposed to tell me if you’ve got something scheduled.”
“I did tell you,” Maddie said coolly.
“In time to check out the sites.”
“Look, I always do a gig at the Art House when I’m in town,” Gillian said. “I sponsor a photography scholarship.”
Ray didn’t like the sound of that. Anything routine was public knowledge and could be tracked. “What do you mean, always?”
“Just what it sounds like,” Maddie said, and gestured to the bedroom door. “Now—do you mind?”
Ray clamped down on his jaw and gestured to her computer. “Do you?”
She gave him a cheerless laugh. “Be my guest.” And swept into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Ray grabbed Gillian’s arm and led her out of Maddie’s room. “I want her gone,” he said to Gillian.
“Go to hell.”
Dead Shot Page 13