But if Max had won, he didn’t know exactly what the prize was. But he was improving. The doctor told him he would suffer no permanent ill effects from the gunshot wound.
“Hey.” Dave was standing over him. “You got a vase, so I can put these in water?”
“Just leave them on the counter over there.”
Dave laid them down and stared out the window. “Hey, man, I’m sorry about what happened. That was some really bad stuff.”
Max said nothing.
Dave came over to the bed and stared down at Max. “It’s unbelievable, what that woman—”
“Dave, don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I know.”
Dave stiffened. A muscle in his jaw moved.
Max felt some satisfaction at Dave’s discomfort. Although, of course, it was nowhere near the discomfort he felt all the time now.
Dave said, “You know what, man? I had nothing to do with what happened on the soundstage. I was gone. You can ask anybody.”
“You set me up.”
Dave’s eyes got hard, bright. His face turned red. “What did you expect? You say ‘you know.’ Well, I know too. I know about you and Karen. I saw you—you and my wife screwing your brains out! You think I didn’t have a right?”
Max said nothing.
“Look, I wanted to get back at you, I’ll admit that. But I didn’t expect for them to try and kill you! No way would I be a part of something like that. Sure, I’d hurt you. I’d screw you up if I could. After what you did? You bet I would. They used me. And if you think about it, all I did was drive out and pretend I was you. We used to do that all the time.”
“You knew what they were going to do.”
“No, bud. I swear. I swear to God. I thought they were gonna screw you over, maybe. Get you beat up or something. But I never thought they’d kill the golden—”
“Goose,” Max finished for him.
“I swear. I’m looking you in the eye. I swear.”
Max sighed. He didn’t have the energy. And Dave could see it, because he came forward, up close to the bed, and peered down at him. “You’re my best friend,” he said. “I admit I hated you for what you did. Hated you. I’ve resented you ever since it happened. But I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Let it go, Max thought. It doesn’t matter anyway. “I’m sorry about Karen. She and I both are. She loves you—it was just something that happened. It doesn’t mean anything.”
It doesn’t mean anything. In his world, the person he used to be, it didn’t mean anything. But now he knew what pain he’d caused. Dave hated him. He hated Max so much he’d conspired with Jerry Gold and Gordon White Eagle and Talia L’Apel to kill him.
When Dave walked out, he nearly ran into Tess McCrae, who was coming in with flowers of her own.
From where Max was sitting, the view had just gotten a whole hell of a lot better.
February—Los Angeles, California
JUDITH GOLDMAN WAS touching up her makeup in the bathroom of Shabu Shabu when the door opened. For one moment, Judith thought it was a man behind her, dressed to the nines in a black tux. But no, it was a woman. Maybe one of the actresses who would be at the Oscars tonight—there were always one or two who liked to dress up like men. This one wore the tux like a second skin. Her hair was cut close to her skull, and she wore no makeup at all. Judith dabbed at her eyelashes with mascara, trying to scrutinize the woman without appearing to look at her.
The woman was fooling with her cummerbund. It had come undone, and although the woman appeared to be lean and athletic, there was a bulge there. A pregnant actress, maybe, Judith thought. Hollywood.
She glanced in the mirror and saw the woman in the tux looking directly into her eyes.
A goose walked over her grave.
As the woman stared into the mirror at her, Judith first felt uncomfortable, then nervous, then downright spooked. The woman held her eyes until Judith looked away.
For a moment, Judith caught a whiff of something rank, as if a wild animal had somehow gotten in here. Her imagination, of course. But the fear she felt when those feral eyes caught hers in the mirror—that was the word: feral. Judith started putting her makeup back into her cosmetic case, throwing the stuff in, her hands fumbling with the zipper, until she gave up and jammed the whole thing into her Fendi bag.
She mumbled an excuse for taking up room in front of the mirror, just aiming for the door to get out. The woman in the tux shot her cuffs and just looked at her, and suddenly Judith felt ridiculous.
It was only a woman in a tux, for God’s sake.
MAX AND TESS walked on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. It was just before dusk, and the sun looked like a blood orange melding with the water. Max was having a hard time regaining the weight he’d lost from his time in the hospital—he knew he looked like a skinny beach bum. He’d grown his hair long. Tess told him she liked his beard.
He’d just met her at the airport.
This was their first date. Neither of them knew where this was going.
It was still hard for Max to believe that Gordon White Eagle had committed suicide. The story had been fodder for the news outlets and celebrity sites. Psychiatrists and psychologists were interviewed ad nauseam, explaining that there was a grandiose type of personality that, when faced with the hard cold reality of prison or an end to fame or fortune, chose suicide. Apparently, it was a common solution for egomaniacal sociopaths.
And there was Gordon White Eagle’s life, neatly tied up in a bow.
Talia had sued him for divorce. Since the moment she’d been picked up by the DPS outside the Sonic Drive-In across the freeway from the outlet mall—she’d been waiting for a taxi to come get her—Talia had been uncooperative with the police. She’d canceled the baby from Africa, moved in with Jerry briefly, then moved back out the following week. Jerry had retained one of the best defense lawyers in LA—which was saying something. He was charged with several counts, running the gamut from embezzlement, to conspiracy to commit murder, to accessory to murder. Jerry swore he had been framed, and his lawyer had asserted to Max that Jerry would not spend one day in prison. Max believed him.
It looked like Talia would soon be charged with conspiracy to commit murder as well. Her lawyer was not as good as Jerry’s, but they played golf together.
Since Talia and Jerry wouldn’t be getting their hands on Max’s estate, Max had enough money to buy the one thing he desired most, the best divorce lawyer in LA. Scratch that: the best divorce lawyer in the world.
Max had been let out of his contract for the three remaining V.A.M.Pyre films. The young up-and-coming heartthrob, Dylan Harris, had been signed in Max’s place.
He hadn’t fought the studio. The only thing he really felt was relief. If he was going to continue on as an actor, he didn’t want to be hamstrung by a part like Starker in V.A.M.Pyre.
Max had talked about his career with his psychotherapist, though. The psychotherapist, like his lawyer, was the best money could buy, and Max needed the best to untangle the snarl of strange thoughts, hallucinations, and night terrors Gordon White Eagle had planted in his mind.
“Look,” Tess said. “The Oscars.” She led him to an open beach bar and they took a couple of stools where they could see the television set.
Max glanced at the television set, but he felt like a bystander. At one time in his life, acting had been challenging and enjoyable. He had eaten, drank, and slept acting. And then it had morphed into celebrity, which had siphoned off the good parts of being an actor and left only the bad.
He’d loved acting.
Screenplays still managed to make their way to his door. Recently, Max had found himself thinking how he would play a certain scene, how he would develop a character that interested him. He was through with vampires. But there were some roles he found himself excited to contemplate. The kinds of roles that could get him nominated for an Oscar.
Max ignored the drinks, the beer, the parasols a
nd olives, the smell of alcohol on the patrons’ breaths.
If he even considered drinking alcohol, if he considered taking the meds he used to take, he would feel the ripping inside his gut.
It was the one positive thing Gordon White Eagle had ever done for him. The sensory deprivation therapy had indeed worked.
Gordon White Eagle would have reminded him of that, had he been alive.
May he rest in peace.
A blonde from Entertainment Tonight was color commenting on the red carpet, buttonholing actors male and female and asking, “Who are you wearing?” The Hollywood stars made small talk with the interviewers, posed for the cameras, and moved on.
“Maybe we’ll see Dave,” Max said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. He asked if he could give it a shot, and I said sure.”
“But that’s—”
“What? Fraud?”
“I don’t know what it is,” said Tess. “You’re not up for anything this year?”
“The crap I’ve been in? No. Vampire epics don’t get you Oscar nominations.”
“So it’s no big deal? He just does a quick interview on the red carpet and sits in the audience.”
“Listen.”
The young blonde interviewer cried out, “It’s Max Conroy! Max, you’re looking great.”
“Thanks. I’m feeling great.” Dave had his chin tucked into his neck and was careful not to look head-on into the cameras. But Max thought that unnecessary. He really did look like Max Conroy.
More than I do.
“I bet you’re happy to be back here, after everything that happened. Even if you weren’t nominated this year.”
“It’s good to be alive,” Dave quipped.
“Well, enjoy the show!”
“I will.”
He walked farther up the red carpet, then out of the shot.
“I still don’t know why you let him do that,” Tess said. “What a glory hound.”
“He thought he could pull it off. It’s kind of a high-wire act, but I think he did.”
Suddenly, there was a loud bang. It came from inside the television, from offscreen, but dust and debris filtered back, and the video went haywire.
There were screams.
Fractured video. Blackness.
Then. . .
The feed was restored. Dust everywhere. People and debris scattered. The blonde who had interviewed the actors on the red carpet cried out, “Who was it? Who was it?”
Max and Tess stayed in the bar.
The bartender turned to cable news.
It took them twenty minutes to play the tape in full. But Max was patient.
It showed Dave Finley as Max Conroy walking up the red carpet. Suddenly, a woman wearing a tuxedo darted onto the carpet and grabbed Conroy, hugging him to her chest. There was something—a bubble of some sort—strapped tightly to her body.
It would turn out to be a suicide bomb.
They fell to the carpet—pressed into the carpet. Some people ran toward them, some pulled back, some stayed where they were, shocked.
Fortunately, most of the concussion from the explosion discharged into the red carpet—into the floor.
Two people in the crowd were killed instantly. Many others were injured, mostly by flying body parts and shrapnel from the bomb.
It was amazing that so few were seriously injured.
The man known as Max Conroy, and his attacker, were killed instantly.
TESS WAS QUIET. Max felt sick inside. They left the bar and walked on the beach, this time with the full moon over their shoulders. Warm down here in the subtropics, even in February. The waves came in. Endless waves, washing onto this beach, and onto the beach far north of here—in LA.
Max had suspected that Shaun wouldn’t give up. He’d suspected she was going to try again. He’d gone as far as to hire a security firm.
But you didn’t hire one for Dave.
How could he have known what would happen?
He didn’t.
That could have been me, Max thought.
Instead, it was Dave Finley.
“You knew,” Tess said.
“No. I didn’t.”
Tess stared at him.
“I thought at some point she would get to me. I never imagined she’d do it on the red carpet at the Oscars.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
She held his gaze. There was still a question in her eyes. He didn’t blame her. It looked bad.
Either she would believe he was the kind of man who would set his best friend up to be killed in his place, or she would not. He knew he couldn’t sway her—she was too smart for that.
Abruptly, he thought of their motorcycle shop, and the realization finally came home. His best friend of almost twenty years was dead. He thought of all the adventures they’d had, how they’d grown up together. The many times Dave had had his back.
Now Dave was dead in his place. And he was culpable.
Tess said, “That woman. She was like a mother bear. You killed her cub. You never get between a bear and her cub.”
“Wish I’d known that.”
“She would never have given up until she got you.”
“She got me.”
“No. She got Dave.” Tess crossed her arms and stared out at the ocean. “You realize what this means?”
“What this means?” Max asked.
“Yes, what this means.”
Tess was beautiful. He didn’t know where this would go, but he hoped, whatever happened going forward, his life would include her. The breeze lifted a strand of her hair (at least here, she didn’t wear it in a neat bun) and he reached over and pushed it away from her face. She stared into his eyes, defiant. “You’ll have to go back. There’ll be an investigation and the police will want to talk to you.”
He knew she was right—there were plenty of loose ends. But he would no longer have to look over his shoulder, thinking that at any time Shaun would jump out of the shadows, intent on killing him.
Dave took care of that, didn’t he? The voice inside his head told him—the voice he knew he would be living with for the rest of his life.
Tess said, “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know.” But that wasn’t entirely true. He wanted to continue his acting career. He’d lost track of that over the past few years, drowning his troubles in drink and drugs, but he was stronger now. It was as if he’d been given a second chance.
The strand of Tess’s hair came loose again. He reached over and pushed it behind her ear once more.
She said, “You know this—”
“Shhh.” He touched a finger to her lips. But he knew what she’d been about to say, that it wouldn’t work. He would go back to his old life, and Tess McCrae would stay a cop. They belonged to different worlds.
“We can still see each other,” he said. Painfully aware of the urgency in his voice.
She looked away.
Max said, “Long-distance relationships do work. We could try it out and see—”
“I guess we could try,” she said. But there was enough doubt in her voice to sink a battleship.
He pulled her in to him. As they kissed, he could feel the beating of her heart.
Max closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment. Yes, he thought. They could try.
THE END
About the Author
Photograph by Ian Galley, 2011
J. CARSON BLACK IS the best-selling, critically acclaimed author of eight books, including the Laura Cardinal crime fiction series. Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Black has found inspiration for her writing in everything from real-life horrors to the headlines screaming today’s news. She is currently working on her next thriller.
ALSO BY J. CARSON BLACK
The Shop
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Dark Side of the Moon
The Devil's Hour
Dark Horse
Darkscope
The Desert Waits
The Tombstone Rose
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright ©2012 by Margaret Falk
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612182704
ISBN-10: 1612182704
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