“I know.”
“I’m not sure what he’ll say. If he’ll agree, you understand.”
“Yes.”
“But you do want to see him?”
Cammie inhaled carefully. Her pulse beat light and fast at the realization that she was nearer her goal than she’d ever expected to be. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“And if he says no?” she suggested softly.
Suddenly, Cammie saw a yawning chasm, a pitfall, a terrible trap. Tyler could never know she wanted to see him! It would give him too much power. She had to surprise him, if she wanted to see him. She couldn’t have Nanette test the waters if there was any chance Tyler would say no.
And he would say no; she was certain of that. Urgently, she reached for Nanette’s hand. “Don’t tell him I was here. I couldn’t bear to have it be that—that—things went from bad to worse, you know what I mean?” she pleaded. “Let him have his privacy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“He could say yes,” Nanette pointed out, but her voice lacked the conviction Cammie needed to hear.
Snatching up her purse, she leapt to her feet. “Please, no. I’ve got some issues to work out. I’d love to talk to him, but no, no…” She shook her head. “Just—no, okay?”
Nanette’s understanding smile nearly broke Cammie’s control, but at least she stopped trying to change Cammie’s mind. “Sit down a minute,” she said, and while Cammie perched anxiously on the edge of the sofa, she steered the conversation away from the tricky subject of her son and talked instead about how she’d enjoyed living on the ranch with her horses, dogs, and small herd of cattle, letting the moment slip by. Cammie sent up a silent prayer of thanks for her understanding, and as she hugged Nanette good-bye, promising to keep in closer contact, she also sent a prayer to Tyler:
I hope these last years have been good to you. I hope that, unlike me, you’ve found some peace and happiness in the interval that we’ve been apart. And wherever you are, I hope you think kindly of me. As ridiculous as it sounds, I can’t help still loving you and I don’t expect to get over you. If I’m going to find you, it’ll be on my own because that’s just the way it has to be. I love you, Tyler, and someday I’ll find the courage to tell you as much.
As she drove back toward Los Angeles and her own environs, she noticed a pale, flesh-colored sedan in her side mirror. Adjusting the rearview, she idly wondered if the driver of the vehicle could be going to the same area of town she was. Subliminally, she’d noticed him behind her for quite a long spell.
Moments later, she forgot that as the Chevy sedan slipped off the next freeway exit and disappeared from view. Tired, but feeling more settled and focused than she had in weeks, Cammie drove back to her apartment to make plans for her next move. There were other members of Ty’s family who might know where he lived. Or maybe some cast mate from his last film, Escape From Eden, had been privy to that information.
Somewhere, somehow, someday…Cammie was certain to succeed.
Standing on the main street that ran through Bayrock, British Columbia, Tyler rubbed his bearded jaw and squinted through the curl of smoke from the older man’s cigarette. The hazy, nicotine-lousy stuff stung Ty’s eyes, flung as it was straight at him by the errant breeze.
“Ya got a nice piece of property over there,” the man told him, gesturing in the general direction of east where some of Ty’s real estate holdings lay. “How much ya want fer it?”
Too much, Tyler almost told him, certain he was about to blast the elderly farmer’s suspenders right off his dungarees. The property was waterfront, valuable, and better suited to the tourist trade than for anything it might grow. Tyler hated to sell it, but it was time to move on. He’d been here far too long already.
“Check with my realtor,” Tyler said, as a means to duck out of this dilemma gracefully. “She’s got the figures.”
“You must have some idea.” He threw down his cigarette and squished it onto the sidewalk.
“You might not like what I’d tell you,” he admitted. He’d learned from his years in this no-nonsense town to speak the truth, a quality he’d never really treasured during his years in Hollywood, but one he demanded of himself and others now.
He glanced down the street and toward that section that still lay as farmland, but would, with the inexorable passage of time, become more of the rustic tourist village that Bayrock was surely changing to. He’d bought the ten acres when he’d first arrived; his cabin and other pieces of property had come later, when he’d determined he would settle here.
At first he’d been afraid to be seen around Bayrock; his face was too well known, in Canada as well as the U.S., and a huge chunk of the rest of the world, too. So, he’d lived in the old farmhouse on the far edge of the property, fighting iffy electricity and poorly insulated walls for years before he’d dared to buy the cabin right on the edge of town. Of course, Bayrock wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. Perched on the southern corner of British Columbia, its view of Washington State across the bay was almost a mirror of itself: a smattering of small resorts, local shops and restaurants, twinkling lights, and lots of sky. He’d landed here by chance, having fled the confines of Los Angeles in fury and disgust. No more fame. No more “yes men” with their hands out and their whining demands. No more nothing.
Of course there were other reasons he’d left—reasons he still didn’t want to think about. Mostly he’d gone to save his soul. He’d been too young for that kind of notoriety, and though, at the time, he’d thought himself tough and capable, he now realized with the benefit of hindsight that he’d been naive and uncertain and just plain lucky. And having a famous father hadn’t helped his maturity.
Not that Samuel was any model of maturity himself, Ty reminded himself with an angry sting of remembrance. But he shut his mind to those memories. He’d also learned to live in the here and now and forget the past.
Well, most of the time, he thought, recalling with a grimace his uncharacteristic wallowing the other night. But he was okay now. Back on track.
And it was just as well that he was away from Samuel for good. Dear old dad had been the root cause of much of Tyler’s pain, and only now, after ten years of exile, was Tyler willing to even refer to him as “my father” without adding the requisite “the bastard” he normally tacked on.
“How much?” the farmer insisted, his chin jutting.
“Five hundred thousand,” Tyler told him.
“Geez—oh, God—wha’d’ya take me fer? I ain’t no rube!” the man sputtered in pure disbelief.
Tyler nodded kindly. “I know it sounds steep. Talk to my realtor,” he suggested again.
“Not on your life, sonny!” He stalked away in a huff, leaving Ty to regard him with a certain amount of amusement.
The man had accosted him as soon as he’d stepped outside the cabin. Tyler had tried to avoid him; a part of him still worried that every stranger was some sort of autograph hound or celebrity seeker. But it had turned out he’d only been a potential buyer. Someone who knew Tyler by sight only because of the property he owned. There was irony in there somewhere, he supposed. But then this old guy looked as if he might find television a new-fangled contraption.
As the farmer moved off, shaking his head and muttering, he threw back one last baleful glance in Tyler’s direction, as if he’d just met up with the biggest fool on the planet. Maybe he had, Tyler thought with a sigh. He doubted anyone around these parts would buy his property for its listed price.
Maybe that’s why you’ve got it so high. You just can’t bear to leave.
With a self-deprecating snort, Tyler traipsed back inside the two-bedroom cabin whose floors and walls were built entirely of fir. Thick beams spanned the ceiling, and area rugs in Native American prints skimmed the floor. It was rustic and comfortable and its view was of rippled water and shivering aspens. The loft was his office. A computer desk he’d had specially built was curved beneath a round window which looked across the water. Some days he just sat and stared
through that oversize porthole at the edge of the United States. He felt dislocated sometimes. It still was a pang that caught him unawares at the strangest times. Loneliness could steal over you without warning, and in those times, sometimes, he reached for the nearest bottle of scotch and let it burn into his unhappy soul.
But those were the rare moments—even rarer with each passing year. He did not miss all the hoopla surrounding his acting career, though he did miss acting itself. He’d been naturally good; even he could admit that paradoxical truth. It was just too bad he hadn’t been able to just be an actor. An idol, a role model, a “pretty” cover boy. Good God. It had been enough to make his stomach turn. One day he’d actually seen his face smiling from the cover of some teen magazine with the caption: Tyler Stovall’s Thirteen Tips for Great Kissing!
What the hell was that all about? he’d wondered when he’d gotten over the first blush of humiliation. He’d called his publicist and demanded to know how the magazine had gotten his picture and okay to do the story. The picture was paparazzi produced, of course; the article written by one of the magazine’s editors with allusions to some of Tyler’s kissing scenes in various movies.
The whole thing had needled him. And when he’d wrapped that final movie, prophetically titled Escape From Eden, he’d gotten served that suit from Gayle and that had been the final straw. Well, at least he’d thought it had been. It was tragic how wrong he’d been, especially when he believed her death could have been avoided…
But that, as it turned out, hadn’t been his issue at all. Still, with hardly a look back, he’d packed a small overnight case and simply disappeared.
No one had noticed at first. Why should they? He hadn’t had anyone in particular to report to, and only after three weeks of complete and utter silence from him did his manager, agent, and publicist break into his apartment to find out if he was still alive. The news broke while he was in the Chicago airport. By that time he’d dyed his hair gray and grown a mustache, also streaked with silver, and, equipped with a pair of sunglasses and a slight hunch, no one had paid a whole lot of attention to him. He bought a three-hundred-dollar car from a kid off the street—probably hot as lava—and drove to Canada, eventually landing in Bayrock. In those days, the only person he contacted at all was his stockbroker, a personal friend from high school who understood Tyler’s need for privacy and kept an oath of loyalty they’d sworn together as boys. Bruce handled all of Tyler’s investments and, through some smart maneuvers and lucky breaks, had managed to give his reclusive client a healthy income so that Tyler, who’d made a ton of money before his disappearance, would never have to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to. Of course, Bruce worked for a company who listed Samuel Tyler Stovall (his real name) as one of their clients, and once in a while some new, eager-beaver employee thought about asking questions. But the only address available at the office was Bruce’s own. Without Bruce, there was no link to Tyler, and Bruce, being a bachelor, was in no danger of having another member of his family rat out his buddy. Bruce got a kick out of all the machinations to keep Tyler’s whereabouts secret. Every so often he would visit Tyler in Bayrock and they would spend a weekend sailing, drinking, fishing, and generally catching up.
Those weekends were tough for Ty. It was after them that his loneliness and longing arose like a beast attempting to overtake him. He wanted a normal life. He wanted a woman. And although he did not want children—Gayle’s selfish heartlessness and greed had cured him of that!—the thought of a wife whom he could love and hold and trust was an impossible dream that he cherished in his deepest heart of hearts. Of course, it would never happen. No woman who knew his true identity looked at him as Tyler Stovall, the person. He was TYLER STOVALL, THE ACTOR for now and always. And though he’d brushed through a couple of relationships in Bayrock, the last being Missy Grant, he’d never been able to tell his “dates” that he wasn’t really just a Tyler Stovall look-alike, and that had bothered him even more. His fake ID read Jerry Mercer, the name of the character he’d played in his first film, a bit of trivia known to only the most avid Tyler Stovall fan. No one in Bayrock had ever made the connection.
Tyler did call his mother now and again. Nanette was a voice of reason. She didn’t understand his antipathy toward Samuel, but she was glad for it all the same. This they shared in common.
Thinking about his father depressed Ty, so he headed back inside to the computer and the half-printed hard copy of his screenplay. Not surprisingly, his story had turned out to be a semiautobiographical account of a child whose famous, successful, and somewhat tyrannical screen-legend father influenced his life more through his personal indiscretions and multitude of marriages than his acting prowess. Ty hadn’t planned for it to turn out that way, but every time he read it over he had to admit it rang with truth and pain. He didn’t expect to ever sell it; the story was too personal. Yet, it was good. He knew it would be snatched up if he ever chose to put it on the market because, he could admit, his screenwriting skill was top drawer. Add that to the subject of his story—yours truly—and the property was golden.
But he could never sell it. Never. It was just another of those paradoxes of life he seemed to find every time he turned around.
Suddenly, he wanted to talk to his mother. Urgently. Reaching for the phone, he was surprised when it rang beneath his hand.
“Hello?”
“Check your e-mail,” a fuzzy male voice told him, before hanging up.
Bruce. Calling from his car phone. Ty had to smile. His stockbroker pal really got off on this cloak-and-dagger stuff.
Forgoing his call to Nanette, Ty sat down at the computer, signed onto his internet carrier and waited to be connected. His thoughts were random. Bruce seldom called him because he didn’t trust anyone. Ty thought he was overreacting. It had been ten years, for pete’s sake, and his whereabouts hadn’t been discovered yet. Sure, there was always the chance, and even Ty himself felt the pressure to move on, but it didn’t seem feasible that there was a serious threat out there. If anyone were to find him, he believed it would be just dumb luck. Some tourist stumbling across him in Bayrock and blabbing to the world, but luckily that hadn’t happened, and with each passing day it was even less likely.
Still…
Bruce’s missive popped up on the screen:
Bad news. Someone broke into my house. Nothing taken, but papers strewn all over the place. Your address was right there. Anyone could have written it down. It was under your name without the Samuel part. Sorry.
Ty stared at the words, absorbing them. A fluke. Not real. Any normal correspondence would have come to him under Tyler Stovall because he’d dropped his first name years earlier. For protection, Bruce kept most of Ty’s financial records under Samuel T. Stovall, so even the most prying eyes would naturally assume it was Tyler’s father, but at his home he’d had the address listed under Tyler Stovall.
Would any garden-variety burglar pay any attention? Not a chance.
Still…
Ty sent an e-mail back as fast as his fingers could fly across the keyboard:
Looks like it’s time to move. Send nothing more. I’ll let you know where I land. It could be awhile.
With a feeling of unreality, Ty scratched at his beard again. He wanted to shave the damn thing off, but now was not the time. Weariness invaded every pore and he flopped down on the couch, his mind traveling at the speed of light.
Why do you care? he asked himself. Why don’t you just let the world find you?
He couldn’t answer himself and eventually exhaustion took over and he fell into a troubled sleep.
Cammie poured herself a cup of decaffeinated coffee and tried to keep her eyes open. She’d interviewed several of Tyler’s other half-brothers and -sisters to no avail. No one knew, or really cared, what had happened to him. They were all involved in their own lives, and she was left feeling like a complete failure as an investigator.
Though Nanette had never actually told Cam
mie where Ty lived, there was the understanding between them that she might eventually reveal his whereabouts. Cammie wasn’t certain she could wait until Nanette had a change of heart, and she refused to let Tyler’s mother tip her hand, so to speak. That would ruin everything.
Nanette had called and chatted with Cammie a few times since their meeting. She truly believed there was some unrequited love between Cammie and Ty that just needed to be addressed. Hah! Cammie might feel that way, but Tyler surely didn’t. But Nanette would have none of it. She was certain—and there was no way Cammie could convince her otherwise—that Tyler held some deep, abiding love for her and that he was just waiting for her to reach out to him.
Cammie knew she was wrong, but there seemed no way to convince Nanette of that truth, no matter how hard she tried. In fact, the more she protested, the more entrenched Nanette became in her belief. It made Cammie shudder inside to think what she might actually say to Ty if and when she got hold of him.
But she had to put those uneasy thoughts out of her head for the time being. Tomorrow she planned to approach several of the cast and crew who’d worked on Escape From Eden. Though it was a long shot, she figured maybe one of them had some insight to where he’d gone. If that didn’t pan out, she would have to wait and hope that Nanette would help her.
The phone rang as Cammie was watching the sunset from her back deck and perusing the paper. Reluctantly she got up to answer it.
“Camilla, the producers want you back on the set tomorrow to redo some of the scenes for the final episode next month,” Paul jumped right in without preamble. “They’re changing the ending again. Had any luck with finding Tyler Stovall?” he asked in the next breath.
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I haven’t had any luck finding Ty. And I’ll be there tomorrow bright and early to finish off Donna Jenkins,” she related. She was pleased to be able to send the character she’d played the last three years off. She missed working on the show. “How’s she going to die anyway?”
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