Killing Lucas

by Dominique Eastwick

  “What?” Kiloran screeched, Lucas’s ears rung from the shrill pitch.

  “Hear me out. What if you two pretended to be back together—”

  “What?” Lucas and Kiloran said in unison.

  “—that way, when the stalker attacked, you would at least have the upper hand. It’s not likely whoever it is will stop with blowing up a house. This wasn’t a warning, Lucas. You were supposed to be home.”

  “You’re overreacting, Tony.”

  Detective Henry grumbled something then said, “I hate to agree with Tony, really I do. But he may be right.”

  “What?” Again in unison.

  Tony put up his hands, soothing everyone in the room. “Here’s what I’m thinking: If you’re the ones waiting for the stalker this time, then maybe you’ll see him coming.”

  “This is the stupidest thing you have ever thought up.”

  “No, there have been far stupider.” Tony actually laughed.

  “Not that I can remember.” Lucas got up and started pacing. If he didn’t let out some of this frustrated energy, he was going to strangle his brother with his bare hands.

  “I can ask the arson investigator to let it leak that the explosion is being ruled an accident due to a faulty gas-line hook up. That will get the focus off the stalker. Or so they’ll think.”

  “Then if you two act like you are a couple again, it’ll force his hand.”

  “Are you trying to get him killed?” Kiloran demanded. “And how are we going to convince anyone we’re an item? He can’t stand to even look at me.”

  Tony just smiled and shook his head. “Both of you take a deep breath and leave that to me.”

  Storming out the door, Lucas didn’t even look at his brother muttering as he left. “Why did I know you were going to say that?”

  Chapter Three

  “Damn it, Tony, what the fuck did you tell them?”—Lucas to Tony

  Lucas was no closer to not strangling his brother than he had been two hours ago when Tony had come up with his cockamamy plan. There was already no avoiding seeing Kiloran on TV or at the movies the few times a year he went—since their break up, she seemed to be in every tenth film trailer he saw. And now the one woman he never thought he would ever have to see again in person was sitting next to him in the back of Tony’s gas-guzzling SUV.

  In the last hour, he had done things that yesterday he never would have considered. He’d held her hand as they’d walked through the front doors of the Boston police headquarters to the car waiting for them and, as they’d approached the media that had secretly been tipped off by Tony, had wrapped his arm around Kiloran and pulled her into the protection of his much larger frame. Tony had stayed back briefly to answer a few questions while the police officer had pulled them away to a safe place to switch into Tony’s car.

  To Lucas’s surprise once they were behind the tinted windows, Kiloran had moved over, giving him the room he so desperately needed. Casting a direct look at Tony’s reflection in the mirror, Lucas asked, “So what did you tell them?”

  “No comment.”

  “Damn it, Tony, what the fuck did you tell them?”

  “Calm down, Luc. I told them ‘no comment’ to every one of their questions.” Tony looked through the rearview mirror at him with one eyebrow raised.

  Lucas sat back. He would be damned if he’d apologize for a situation Tony had put him in. Looking behind them, he saw nothing but empty streets. If they were being followed, it wasn’t by car. But then it had only been twenty minutes since their escape through the paparazzi, so even that news had to take a few minutes.

  Tony turned on the radio to catch the last part of the DJ saying, “—the couple, who reportedly split years ago for unknown reasons, seems to have reconnected and were seen—” Silence returned as Tony pressed the Off button. News traveled fast and furious. With any luck they would draw out the madman in a manner of days, not weeks. And Lucas could go back to his quiet world. A world he was, if not happy, content in.

  “Haven is packing you a bag, so when we get there you can leave as soon you want.”

  “What bag? I don’t have anything other than what you loaned me last night.”

  “Yes, well, about that. Mom stopped by with some clothes for you. A new wardrobe, in fact. Luckily, J.C. went with her and helped.”

  Leaning forward, Lucas nearly jumped in the front seat. “Please tell me they aren’t there waiting for us.”

  “No. Haven told them she wasn’t sure how long it would take, and then J.C. said she wasn’t feeling well and asked Mom to come and watch Zoe while she got some rest.”

  “So only your wife will be there when we arrive?” Kiloran spoke for the first time since entering the car.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God.” Had Lucas not seen the look of relief on Kiloran’s face he would have believed the words were only in his thoughts. Turning, he took a second to observe her as she looked out the window. And for a moment he allowed himself to think about what this must be like for her. Walking into a room with him and his—justified—hatred would have been bad enough, but into the lion’s den with Lucas’s mother and sister would have been even worse for Kiloran.

  Not that she didn’t deserve to be thrown to the lions. After all it had been she who had slept with another man not twenty-four hours after putting Lucas’s ring on her finger. Staring out the window, he let the memory he had tried so hard to let go of wash over him.

  Opening the door to the house they shared in Hollywood Hills, he came home like a romantic schmuck, bottle of her favorite wine, a bouquet of wildflowers—her favorite—and smile as wide as the canyon below them. He had come home early to surprise her. He was anxious to tell the family her answer; they knew he was proposing but didn’t know when. And Kiloran wanted to tell both families together via video conference.

  But when he walked into the bedroom, he found Kiloran in bed, wrapped in the arms one of her costars. She looked surprised—one of those expressions that he had once found endearing. Surprised she might be, but she didn’t even bother to act remorseful or beg him for forgiveness.

  “We’re just rehearsing,” Kiloran claimed. The smell of booze coming from their direction was enough to fell a horse. “Getting to know one another better before our big love scene in the morning.”

  “In our fucking bed?” Lucas had managed to come to terms with the love scenes she had to shoot; he just didn’t watch them if possible. But this one he couldn’t avoid by going into the lobby for a few minutes. He looked at the weak man lying next to his would-be bride, shooting all the venom he felt in Mel’s direction with a single look. Mel literally looked like he was about to piss himself with fear. “Get out.”

  “You don’t have to leave, darling.” Kiloran’s Irish lilt grated Lucas to the bone.

  “Oh, he needs to leave. Now.” Anger like never before rushed through him as Lucas threw the bottle of wine through the bedroom window overlooking LA, shattering it.

  As Lucas turned to leave, a giggle erupted from Kiloran. How could she laugh as his life fell apart? “You didn’t think I would be content with just you for the rest of my life, did you?”

  He’d stopped only long enough to grab his laptop before he left the house, never looking back. Four hours later he’d been on a plane for Bangor, Maine, to lick his wounds in private at the family summerhouse off the coast. No one, not even the staff, was there at that time of year, meaning no one to see his complete collapse. For two weeks he’d hid, and when he’d emerged he wasn’t the same man he had been before.

  “Luc, we’re here.” Kiloran’s hand on his arm jolted him back to the present and only by sheer will did he prevent himself from slapping away her hand. She must have sensed his hostility; how could she not? She removed her hand and a strange sadness came into her voice. “Sorry.”
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  “Are you? I wonder do you ever wish you hadn’t thrown everything away on one simple lay?” Before she could answer, he jumped out of the car parked in the privacy of the garage. He came face to face with Haven. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  “Oh, Lucas.” He wasn’t sure if it was pity or disappointment, and it didn’t matter. Neither felt good. But Haven loved him and he was grateful for her hug as she squeezed him tight. “Come on in the house. A good meal, then off you go. Hello, Kiloran. You probably don’t remember—”

  “You were the one in Tony’s office when I came to visit at the beginning of the year.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “When were you at Tony’s office?”

  “She was there as a client, Luc. Calm down, it was business for God’s sake.”

  Kiloran followed Haven into the house and looked up at Lucas as she passed. “Believe me, he didn’t want me there any more than you want me here now. I know my place in the Sherman fold. I don’t have one.”

  “You could have.”

  “No I couldn’t. But I wanted it. God knows I wanted it.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  “Enough,” Haven snapped. “You two are going to convince no one, least of all a crazed lunatic, that you’re together if you keep acting like this. Now come on, let’s eat and you two can hash this out elsewhere. Kiloran looks ready to drop from exhaustion. Tony, fix her a glass of wine and get something from the fridge for her to eat. I bet she’s had nothing all day. And you”— she turned back on Lucas— “you have a puppy in need of your attention and a freaking name.”

  Lucas smiled. She had done it again. Haven had managed to put him right in his place and with perfect timing too. Walking up the wooden stairs, he heard the sounds of soft scratching as he came to the room he had been staying in. “Oh come on, fella, you’re going to get us kicked out if Auntie Haven finds out you’re tearing up her new home.”

  “Mom already knows,” Jocé said coming out of her room. “But you’re safe because Mom said something about it’s all per—perpeptive?”

  “Perspective?”

  “That’s what she said. She said since you don’t have a house she shouldn’t complain about a door. But when I tried to say the same thing about cleaning my room, she yelled at me and yelled about how Dad doesn’t pick up his socks.”

  Hearing Jocé refer to Tony as Dad always made him smile. Having been married only a couple months, Tony had already adopted Haven’s daughter and now, unless you knew, you would never believe Jocé wasn’t his daughter by birth. Tony, like everything else, had taken to fatherhood like he was born to it, shedding his image of a womanizing playboy as if it were the pair of socks left on the floor. “He doesn’t, does he? I suppose she would yell about that.” It warmed him just a bit to know Tony wasn’t all that perfect after all.

  Jocé shrugged, biting her lip much in the same manner her mother did when she wanted to ask a question but didn’t know how to ask. “Mom said you have a new girlfriend and you were bringing her over. Can I meet her? Is she here?”

  “She is, and I am sure you will, but I’m guessing since you’re upstairs and the puppy is in another room you’re supposed to be cleaning your room?”

  “I am. And I can’t come down till it’s clean.” She moped back into her room.

  Lucas stuck his head into her room to assess the damage. “Hide it under your bed. That’s what I used to do.”

  “She checks there.”

  “Closet?”

  “There too.”

  “What about your dresser drawers?”

  “This is Mom we’re talking about.”

  “Hmmm…how about my closet?”

  “Oh, she never goes in that room excerpt to change the sheets, good idea.” Jocé clapped and grabbed an armful of clothes. She moved into Lucas’s bedroom and threw it all into the walk-in closet.

  Puppy in arm, Lucas headed back downstairs and through the family room to the door leading out back. He was hiding, and he admitted it. He didn’t want to deal with Kiloran. He wanted to delay the moment where he was forced to be alone with her as long as possible. The puppy romped in grass in need of cutting, chasing a passing dragonfly. Haven was right; the dog really needed a name. Kiloran’s voice cut through the silence. “Haven asked me to tell you dinner is ready.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Oh my, he’s a cute one isn’t he?” Kiloran came down the stairs toward the puppy, which stopped for a second before running and tumbling at her feet. The puppy licked her chin in excitement as she giggled.

  “Traitor,” Lucas muttered, mounting the steps back into the house, leaving Kiloran with the puppy. The damned dog should have hated her. That would have at least given him some enjoyment.

  As he went in he heard her say in a soft voice, “You know that master of yours doesn’t like me too much, so you just remember to show me loving when he isn’t around, okay?”

  That same man once loved you so much it nearly destroyed him, Kiloran. Lucas moved, took a steadying breath, and faced dinner like he did everything—head-on.

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t have to convince anyone that I love you.”—Lucas to Kiloran

  Kiloran looked over the grounds outside her bedroom window, the lights from the house illuminating the yard just enough for her to make out Lucas and the puppy running around in the predawn. They had arrived last night, and this was the first she’d seen Lucas since. Not that the house was big, but he had done a great job of making himself scarce.

  Other than telling her she had a “nice place” when they’d arrived, he hadn’t spoken to her since dinner at Tony and Haven’s the evening before, and even then it had been only enough to keep from sounding rude. Otherwise, he’d remained silent and hostile, though she wasn’t sure anyone else could see it. It was such a marked difference between this stranger and the man she had once known and loved.

  She longed to talk to him to find out what was going on in that head of his. Too many years had passed since they had broken up, since Kiloran had done the only thing she knew would push him away. She had done it for his own good, done it to save him, but in the end what did it matter? This wasn’t the man she had known; this was an angry shell of a man and she helped to create him. No good deed goes unpunished kept playing through her head, but truthfully she had been selfish. She hadn’t been honest with him. She’d been scared and acted in such a way that he would run and never look back.

  All in the name of keeping him alive.

  But looking down at the man below, playing but showed no joy in it, Kiloran wondered if he was he really living or just trying to get through life? The Lucas she remembered had laughed at the little things. He had helped people and asked for nothing in return. But at dinner the night before, he’d clearly fought to stay pleasant. She assumed it had more to do with Haven and Tony’s daughter than anything else. Knowing he would otherwise have been rude and hateful made her ask the little girl to stay when her parents would have let her leave the table. She answered every starry-eyed question and promised to get autographs of Jocé’s favorite stars.

  Without the tension between them, the evening would have been one out of a ’50s television show. A meal with family and friends around the dinner table. Only they didn’t leave as a loving couple, but hostile strangers. Lucas had spoken not one word on the ride home. Once he’d punched in the address into the GPS, he’d driven them back to her rental house at the other end of the state in silence.

  Kiloran turned from the window and put a few items into her bag for the day. She was needed on the set early this morning. Tony had somehow convinced Lucas to accompany her, that the best thing for this was to make everyone believe tragedy had thrown them back together. That was Tony’s spin anyway. When the condo had blown sky high, the
y’d realized just how short life was, blah, blah, blah—Tony’s exact words.

  “Are you almost ready?”

  She screamed, dropping the shoes in her hands as she jumped. “I thought you were outside!”

  “Obviously. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Lucas came into the room and picked up the shoes handing them to her. “I’ll take your bag.”

  “You really don’t have to go with me, you know. No one would think anything about you not coming to the set all day. It’ll likely be boring as hell.”

  “I have my laptop, and I have paperwork to catch up on. And Tony’s right; if we want to draw this asshole out, I need to be visible. And I would like to get this over with as soon as possible.” Throwing her bag over his shoulder, he walked out of the room.

  Translation: He would like to get away from her as soon as possible. What had she thought would happen? Kiloran grabbed her script off the nightstand before following him down to his car. She could hear the puppy crying through the door of the bathroom Where Lucas had left him and threw caution to the wind.

  When she got into the car, Lucas looked at her, dumbfounded. “Why did you bring the dog?”

  “You said yourself the puppy needs a new crate. We can go get one on my lunch break. In the meanwhile, he can stay in my trailer with you all day. Keep you out of trouble.”

  “Oh, because I’m known for getting in trouble?” And for the first time he smiled at her.

  Don’t make a big deal of it, it’s just a smile. But in truth it was more than that. It was a starting point. It was something. And that led to a feeling she hadn’t had in years. Hope.

  Damn it. She still, even after everything, had a way of making him forget anything but her. He was quite happy with his barriers just where he built them. With her on the outside. But if Lucas wasn’t careful, Kiloran would chisel away at the wall he was so proud of. But he was rather pleased that she brought the puppy with her, he figured the last thing she would want was the little guy under foot.