A First Date with Death

by Diana Orgain

  • • • • • • • • •

  I took my place where Cheryl had instructed me to stand and waited for Scott. He appeared dressed in a wool crewneck sweater and long pants. He looked warm and comfortable and happy.

  “Hey, there, sexy,” he said, closing in on me to give me a kiss on the lips, but getting my cheek instead.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said coolly.

  He squinted at me, trying to figure out my mood, but I avoided his gaze by walking across the grassy square in front of the mission. The sky was beginning to darken and it emphasized the radiance of the row of white adobe arches. The mission was made famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. There was a three-bell wall alongside the church. It was a beautiful campanario, high and majestic, and it loomed in our background.

  “This looks different than I thought,” I said.

  “That’s because there’s no tower,” Scott said.

  I recalled the tower in Vertigo.

  “How can there be no tower? It’s where the girl fell from—”

  Scott smiled. “Trick photography. Hitchcock did it in a studio in Hollywood.”

  I stopped walking, suddenly feeling as if I were the one with vertigo. Everything in my world was upside down, inside out.

  Fake.

  “You should know by now the tricks Hollywood plays,” Scott said.

  I searched his face. What was I looking for?

  “Were you inspired by Hitchcock?” I asked.

  “Of course. He was a master. I’d have to say most of today’s thriller writers were inspired by him.”

  “The girl in the Hitchcock movie committed suicide,” I said.

  Scott shrugged. “I suppose she did. Remember her falling from the tower?” He gave a fake scream and windmilled his arms around as if he were falling off a forty-foot tower, one leg suspended in the air in a warrior pose.

  A chill crept up my spine.

  “It’s sort of like what happened to Aaron,” I said, trying to calm the alarms flashing through my body.

  Scott straightened and put his foot back on the ground. He said nothing, but gave me a strange look.

  “And Pietro killed himself, supposedly. Did you know that the note found by Pietro’s body was like—”

  “Cut,” Cheryl yelled.

  Ignoring her, I said to Scott, “A character in one of your books committed suicide, too.”

  He frowned. “What are you getting at?”

  “Cut! Cut!” Cheryl screamed. “What are you doing? You two are supposed to be falling in love here!”

  “Well, I’m not falling in love with this man. He’s a liar, or worse,” I spat out.

  “What?” Scott asked, taking a small step away from me as if he feared I’d physically lash out at him.

  “You were never married,” I said. “Your sob story about your wife, Jean, dying of cancer. That was a complete fabrication!”

  Scott looked like I’d just punched him in the chest. He stumbled backward in disbelief.

  Probably couldn’t believe I was onto his game.

  “What do you mean, I was never married?” he asked. “Why would you say that?”

  It was time for me to fess up about Martinez and the dossier.

  “Someone researched it for me,” I said. “You’re not the only one who likes to play research games, you know.”

  “Someone who?” Cheryl demanded, her eyes blazing like flamethrowers right through me. She was thinking of Becca, of course. I had to come clean. I couldn’t get Becca into trouble, but then again, I couldn’t throw Martinez under the bus, either.

  “LAPD,” I lied.

  “Everyone take five,” Cheryl yelled. She shooed the cameramen away and approached me. “What are you doing here? We’ve got a scene to film here and we need to get on to the finale today. I can’t afford another day at La Playa Carmel!”

  “Hold up,” Scott said. “Obviously she’s got a few things to say to me. We need to clear the air. Can you give us a minute?”

  Cheryl literally looked like her head might pop off, but some part of her must have recognized that the sooner Scott and I talked, the sooner she’d get her scene.

  She held out her palm, fingers fanned out under Scott’s nose, and said between gritted teeth, “Five minutes!” She turned on a heel and walked toward the mission.

  Scott turned toward me and I realized I was shaking.

  “What’s going on? Evidently someone’s told you something that wasn’t true—”

  “Save it,” I said, furious now. “When Pietro was found in my dressing room they gave me some information about his body.”

  “What’s that got to do with me? With my being married? Why did you say you thought I’d never been married?”

  “People talk. I know that you were lying about her,” I said.

  “But I wasn’t!” he said. “I’m not. Why would I lie about something like that?”

  “To get my affection or to win the stupid show. I have no idea!”

  He shook his head. “No. No. I would never lie about something like that. Actually, I just don’t lie. Lies are for people scared of the truth.”

  He reached out for me. I pulled away from him.

  “Georgia! Please,” he said. “I don’t know who told you all this or why you believe it, but—”

  “There’s another reason to lie.”

  He cocked his head toward me. “What’s that?”

  “To hide something bigger.”

  He squinted at me. “Like what?”

  “You killed Aaron and Pietro.”

  • • • • • • • • •

  Scott’s jaw dropped open, his eyes wide. “What?” he sputtered. “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. You’re joking, right?”

  “The note in my dressing room—”

  “What note?”

  Anger welled up inside me. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! Pietro’s suicide note was straight out of your book Death Thief!”

  Scott frowned. “Are you saying that the—”

  I jammed a finger into his chest. “The note in my dressing room was the same as the note in your book!” I repeated.

  He recoiled from me. “Well, that’s weird.”

  I leaned into him, my face close to his. “Weird? Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  His shoulders hunched up to his ears and he stepped back. “You think if I were going to kill someone I’d be stupid enough to plagiarize my own stuff? Leave a note that would directly point the finger at me?”

  I stepped away from him, a nagging sensation making its way through my bones.

  He did have a point.

  “Anyway, the idea of murder is ludicrous,” Scott said. “It was a crowded set with witnesses all around—”

  “That didn’t stop someone from killing Aaron! You couldn’t have more witnesses than we did that day . . .”

  I turned away from him, suddenly feeling defeated and confused.

  “What?” he prodded.

  When I remained silent he said, “Come on. Don’t hold back on me now. You’ve already accused me of—”

  “Pietro was killed because he knew something about that day on the bridge. I’m sure of it. He wanted to talk to me. Someone killed him to silence him.” I turned back to Scott and studied his face.

  His jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed in thought. He rubbed at the stubble on his head. “Hmm. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “What? Do you know something you want to tell me?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. That day on the bridge. It was me, you, Pietro, the doc, and the cowboy.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “The day at the studio, it was the same people,” he said.

  “Plus the crew,” I said.

  He nodded. “Right, but . . .”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The night we drove back from San Francisco . . . Ty was asking a lot of questions . . . ask
ing me about the tapes that I got to watch . . .”

  A jolt of adrenaline blasted through me. “He knew about the note! You didn’t know about the note. The police didn’t say anything to anyone but Paul and me, but Ty knew about the note. He mentioned it to me in Solvang!”

  Suddenly the world seemed to tilt and I lost my balance.

  Scott grabbed my shoulders and righted me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Last night . . . Becca was going to go out with him!”

  • • • • • • • • •

  Scott and I raced toward the chapel. Cheryl was chatting with a tall, lean cameraman and eating a vegan wrap that the craft services had provided.

  “Cheryl!” I screamed. “Call the police!”

  She whirled around, a look of surprise on her face. “What’s happened?” she asked, a piece of lettuce peeking out from between her front teeth.

  “It’s Ty! He’s with Becca. She’s in danger. Where are they?” I yelled.

  The cameraman came to the rescue. “I can get her right here,” he said as he pulled out an iPhone from his pocket.

  “Call her, call her!” I screamed. “We have to warn her.”

  “I can do better than that,” he said. “I have her on my GPS phone locator.”

  I didn’t want to ask. I was just happy that we’d be able to track her down quickly. He pushed a few buttons on the iPhone. We waited, the intensity mounting, until he said, “She’s inside the chapel.”

  We ran toward the chapel together. Scott was the first to reach the heavy door. He pulled on the handle.

  The door didn’t budge.

  “It’s locked!” he said.

  “There’s another entrance around the side,” the cameraman said.

  We sprinted down the courtyard toward the three-bell wall. I swore under my breath about the stupid stilettos.

  An image of Becca falling from the tower, like the woman in Vertigo, propelled my legs to move faster than I’d have thought possible, although logically I knew that there wasn’t really a tower.

  Part of me finally felt relieved that Hollywood did fabricate things.

  The side door creaked open, revealing the inside of the chapel. The church smelled of incense and had three wide naves and a pulpit that jutted out from the wall. The ceiling and wall frescoes were repainted in native-influenced style with deep earthy tones that matched the reredos behind the main altar. In the reredos were six niches holding six statues. In the center bottom niche was the statue of the mission’s patron saint, John the Baptist, that I found myself praying to intensely.

  Please let us find Becca!

  My stilettos clicked on the tile floor as we canvassed the church. Scott and Cheryl seemed to follow my lead and looked in the same areas as me, but it was the cameraman who said, “What’s that?”

  A flash of red on one of the pews in the front row caught my eye. I raced toward it, feeling sick to my stomach. The red thing was a lady’s handbag, but I didn’t recognize it as Becca’s. I felt a mixture of frustration and hope. I grabbed at the bag and tore into it.

  Becca’s phone was inside the bag.

  Cheryl let out a string of profanity that would’ve made a sailor blush, and then said, “Where, in the name of John the Baptist, is she?”

  When no one answered Cheryl’s rhetorical question, she said, “Why do you think it’s Ty?”

  “We don’t have time to explain right now.” I turned to Scott. “Did Ty say where they were going?”

  Scott said, “I haven’t talked to him since he was eliminated.” He rubbed at his head a moment, closing his eyes. “Let’s see. If I were him, where would I go?”

  We all stared at him.

  He made a face and shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea. What does he want from her?”

  “He must think she knows something,” Cheryl said, turning to me. “What does he think she knows?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she put a few things together like we just did.” I pulled out Becca’s phone and looked at the last missed and dialed calls. Cheryl squinted over my shoulder at the phone.

  “Those top three calls were for the show. Reservations and such, but what is this?” She pointed at a call and pulled up the information on it.

  “Car rental,” the cameraman behind me said.

  An awful feeling was building in my gut. They’d rented a car. Where had they gone and what was Ty going to do with my best friend?

  Thirty

  We all agreed that calling the Carmel police was our only option. Unfortunately they weren’t exactly fast acting, and the fact that they had to coordinate with SFPD and LAPD made it all the more excruciating.

  Paul had been brought in and I finally got to hear from his mouth that he hadn’t been on official business during the show. Cheryl for her part looked completely perplexed that Paul was a cop.

  “I wished I’d known that,” she said.

  I glanced at her. “Why, you wouldn’t have put him on the show?”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “We could have used it. Imagine a real-life whodunit on TV. In fact, we could even have the viewers vote on who they think the bad guy is.”

  She had a faraway, pensive look on her face and I suddenly got the idea that she was plotting an entirely new show.

  I buried my face in my hands, but wasn’t able to hide my frustration. “Becca is missing, right now! Do you understand that we need to get to her before anything happens?” I screamed.

  Cheryl looked shocked. “Of course I understand that. I was only saying—”

  Scott put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re going to find her.”

  Paul stepped up and said, “What do you mean, we’re going to find her? The police will find her. You need to butt out.”

  Scott and Paul stood facing each other. It looked like a fight was about to break out. I stepped between them. “Hey, hold up. No fighting. We all have to work together.”

  “This is official business,” Paul yelled.

  “You’re not on official business,” I said. “You’re on paid leave or whatever.”

  “Well, you’re not official at all!” He sneered in my face.

  I wanted to rip his throat out, right there and then, but the thought of Becca being God knows where with Ty snapped me back to reality. Anxiety grabbed at my chest and I feared I’d hyperventilate.

  Scott placed a hand on the small of my back. “We need to collect ourselves. Focus and think. That’s the only way we’ll get your friend out of trouble.”

  I pressed my forehead into his chest and breathed in his scent. I could hear Paul grumble something, obviously angry that I’d decided to seek comfort in Scott rather than him.

  The Carmel police officer who was helping us came into the room with a folder in his hand. “Well, we’ve been able to track down Ty’s record.” He placed it on the table in front of us. We all eagerly snapped for it, three pairs of hands working frantically to pull at the folder.

  I noticed that Cheryl was busy tapping away at her iPhone and taking notes on a yellow pad.

  I glanced at the sheet that Paul had scored on Ty. “Guy had problems,” Paul said. “It look likes Ty had invested money with Aaron and Aaron lost it all.”

  “There’s motive for you,” I said.

  “What’s that got to do with Becca?” Scott asked.

  In an unrehearsed dance, we all traded sheets of paper from the file and studied them.

  “He lives in Texas,” Scott observed.

  “Check the flights in and out of Dallas and Austin,” Paul said to the officer.

  Cheryl looked up from her iPhone. “I can do that!” she said, swishing a finger across the screen on her phone.

  Oh! She’s going to help us now?

  “Next flight out is in an hour,” she said.

  We all looked at each other and leapt up from the table.

  The cop waved his hands around. “Wait, wait. I’ll radio!”

  “Do that,” Paul sa
id, leading the charge for us as he ran outside and looked for a vehicle. There was a crew van parked on the corner.

  Cheryl called to a runner nearby. “Who has the keys to the van?”

  The runner looked alarmed and confused. It was probably the first conversation he’d ever had with the boss. “I do, but why? It’s parked legally . . .”

  Cheryl waved a hand to quiet him. “Drive us to the airport, now!”

  Scott, Paul, Cheryl, and I tumbled into the van.

  My stomach was doing circles. If Ty was off to the airport, then there was a good chance he’d already gotten rid of Becca. There was no way she’d leave and not tell me.

  “We need to find her,” I said. “I’m sure she’s not at the airport.”

  Scott put a hand on my knee. “We have to find him first. Maybe we can figure out where she is from there.”

  Paul glared at us as he watched Scott’s hand on my knee.

  The nearest airport was in San Jose. Traffic was backed up on the 101. I felt like I would come out of my skin.

  “It’s not right,” I said. “It’s not right. I don’t think he’s there.”

  “Why don’t we let Paul and the police try and track Ty down at the airport,” Scott suggested. “And you and I can work on finding Becca. Divide and conquer.”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved. Finally I felt like someone understood me. “Pull over, please,” I said to the driver.

  “Oh, stop it,” Paul said. “You don’t need to prove anything. You think you’re going to find her any faster than we are? You have to let the professionals do their work.” He leveled his gaze at me. “You’ve never been any good at investigations, Georgia. Face it. You thought Teresa Valens was the bad guy.”

  I felt rage building inside of me and fought the urge to lash out at him. Part of me wanted to bash his head in and make him pay for the hurt he’d caused me. But it didn’t seem important right now. It was more important to find Becca and I wasn’t going to argue with this man about my supposed incompetence.

  “Pull over. Let me out,” I said to the driver.

  The driver glanced in his rearview mirror at me. “Uh, I’d have to take the next exit and I have a mile of traffic ahead of me. Is that really what you want me to do?” He glanced at Cheryl for an answer.