by JoAnn Ross
“Walter?” She stared in disbelief at the man she’d mistaken for a mugger.
“Hello, Blythe.” His smile was the same insincere flash of capped teeth she was accustomed to seeing, but there was stress in his eyes. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”
What was he doing here? Surely he hadn’t dropped by to discuss the weather? And how did he even know to find her here at Bachelor Arms, anyway?
“Actually, it looks as if we’re in for a thunderstorm.”
“Really?” Seeming surprised by that, he glanced up at the threatening sky. “Why, you’re right. It is getting a bit overcast.”
Having never been overly fond of Walter Stern when she was forced to do business with him, Blythe was not particularly anxious to spend time chatting with him now.
“What are you doing here, Walter?”
Irritation flared; Blythe watched him struggle to tamp it back down. “I need to talk with you.”
“Is it really that important? I’ve had a very long day, and—”
“This won’t take long. And yes, it’s more than important. In fact, you could say it’s vital. To both our futures.”
Well, she couldn’t deny that he’d gotten her attention with that one. “All right,” she said with an uncharacteristic lack of graciousness. “Come on in. But I’d appreciate it if you could keep it short. I really am exhausted.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he agreed, with another one of those smiles that didn’t reach his eyes. “Even a workaholic like you must succumb to a twinge of jet lag.”
Since his tone wasn’t the faintest bit complimentary, Blythe didn’t answer. Neither one spoke until they’d reached Gage’s apartment.
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“I passed you as you were leaving the Chateau Marmont and I was arriving.”
“Are you saying you actually followed me here?”
“I suppose you could say that. But it wasn’t as if I were stalking you, Blythe. I just needed to speak with you. Alone.”
She gave him a long look, then decided she had nothing to be concerned about. Until recently, Walter Stern had been one of the most powerful men in town. And although he might temporarily be out of a job, knowing that he was not the kind of man to stay down for long, she doubted he’d do anything to risk his reputation.
Of course there was that time Cait had busted him during a prostitution sting, Blythe considered. But, if all the stories regarding a famous Hollywood madam were true, he certainly wasn’t the only wealthy, powerful man in Hollywood willing to pay for sex.
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “You may as well come in.”
“I said alone. What I have to discuss with you can’t be said in front of that detective you’ve hired.”
“Gage isn’t here.”
“He isn’t?”
“No.” Deciding there was no point in keeping Gage’s mission a secret, she said, “Here’s in Oregon tracking down a lead on the investigating detective who was first at the scene.”
He didn’t respond to that remark as she’d expected. “So he gives you the key while he’s gone?”
“Actually, I’m moving in.” She lifted the overnight case she was carrying.
Surprise moved across his still handsome face. “That must have been some successful trip to Greece.”
“It was enjoyable,” she responded as she passed through the entrance to the hallway and approached the apartment door.
“And informative?”
“Actually, it was. Natasha Kuryan proved quite helpful.”
“I told you she’s a liar.”
“So you did. You also told me she was crazy.” Blythe unlocked the door. “But although she’s admittedly a bit eccentric, she certainly seemed rational to me.”
“I assume you’ve heard about what happened at the studio,” he said, abruptly changing the subject.
Obviously, Blythe considered, this was the reason he’d tracked her down tonight. She hoped he wasn’t going to ask her to plead for his job back.
“About your decision to retire?”
“We both know I didn’t leave willingly, Blythe. I was forced out. By your new friend.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that, Walter,” she said calmly as she went around the living room, turning on lights. In the distance, thunder rumbled ominously.
“But you weren’t surprised.”
“No.” There was nothing to be gained by lying. “I’ll have to admit that when I first learned Connor was the man who’d purchased Xanadu, I couldn’t picture the two of you working very well together.”
“You’ve never liked me, have you?”
She could be equally direct. “Not really. For some strange reason, I’ve always found the idea of a grown man pawing a young girl offensive.”
“That’s not the signals you were giving off at the time.”
“For heaven’s sake, Walter,” Blythe flared, “I was fifteen years old. Even if I’d known how to give off signals, which I didn’t, you should have kept your damn hands off me!”
A muscle jerked along his jaw; a vein pulsed at his temple. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” he said in a low, threatening tone that reminded her of a hungry timber wolf. “You’re using your friend’s lover to get back at me after all these years.”
As angry and tired as she was, Blythe couldn’t help laughing at that. “That, more than anything proves my point about you and Connor not being able to work together.
“If you had the faintest idea what made Connor Mackay tick, you would realize that he would never—under any circumstances—misuse his wealth and power. The idea that he’d force you out of the studio that has been in your family for three generations as some personal vendetta for me, is ludicrous.”
“That’s what you say.”
The air thickened as the walls seemed to crowd in on her. Blythe blamed the strange sensation on the storm. “It’s the truth.”
They were at an impasse. Silence settled over them. Disbelief was written all over his handsome face as he glanced dismissively around the room. His gaze stopped on the mirror. “That’s the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”
Momentarily distracted, Blythe felt an odd compulsion to defend the overly ornate mirror, even though it always made her a little uneasy. “It happens to be a very valuable antique.”
“I don’t care if it was owned by Marie freaking Antoinette. It’s still ugly as sin.”
Blythe didn’t want to talk about the mirror. Actually, she didn’t want to talk to Walter Stern about anything. She just wanted him gone. Out of the apartment and out of her life.
“Well, now that I’ve assured you I’m not behind any conspiracy to get you out of Xanadu, I think it’s time for you to leave, Walter.”
“I suppose you’ve also sweet-talked Mackay into backing your latest project,” he said, ignoring her request.
“I didn’t have to sweet-talk anyone into anything. My contract with Xanadu allows my production company to make one film of my choice for every two films I star in for the studio. I believe the definitive words are my choice.”
“But Mackay’s behind the film.”
“Yes. He thinks it has Oscar potential.”
Walter Stern’s answer to that was somewhere between a curse and a laugh. “That just goes to show how much the guy knows about the business. The Academy won’t vote for a film that doesn’t have mass audience appeal. And trust me, sweetheart, your little melodrama will die on opening weekend.
“People go to the movies for adventure, to watch things get blown up. They don’t lay out money in order to waste two hours watching the rehash of some ancient murder of a actress everyone’s forgotten by a one-book hack writer.”
“Actually, Patrick wrote several books. But the others were pulp westerns written under various pseudonyms.”
“I suppose that’s something else your detective discovered.”
“No.” Blythe paused for a moment, a bit p
uzzled by her knowledge herself. “I must have read it somewhere.”
“Whatever, the movie’s going to be another Heaven’s Gate. Or Ishtar.”
“You’re welcome to your opinion.” She left unstated the reality that his opinion no longer mattered. At least not at Xanadu Studios.
“You’ll be sorry,” he warned in a low, threatening tone she’d never heard from him before. “You’ll all be sorry.”
Unwilling to dignify the threat, Blythe was about to insist he leave, when the phone rang.
Thinking the call might be from Gage, she made a dash for the desk across the room. “Hello? Oh, hi, Lily. No, you weren’t disturbing a thing.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Don’t let me keep you, Walter.”
She heard the door open and shut as she chatted with Lily. Yes, she’d moved out of the hotel and no, she hadn’t heard from Gage as she’d hoped.
When she hung up after the brief conversation, Blythe was relieved that Walter had, indeed, gone.
Her mind drifted, as it so often seemed to these days, to Gage. As she crossed the room to lock the door, Blythe caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. The unconscious smile reflected in the glass was definitely that of a woman in love.
Was this how Alexandra had felt about Patrick? she wondered. Had her thoughts constantly turned to him, even when she was supposed to be thinking about her work?
“Yes.” Blythe’s smile widened. “Yes, this is exactly how Alexandra felt.” As an actress, she was grateful for the insight. As a woman, for not the first time since she began researching the glamorous star, Blythe felt a definite kinship.
Intending to retrieve the rest of her belongings from her car, Blythe was almost out the door when she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She spun around.
“I don’t believe it,” she murmured, staring at the shimmering image in the mirror. The ebony-haired woman, dressed in a long pale gown, was standing very still, gazing unblinkingly out at Blythe. “I know Cait and Connor both were supposed to have seen you. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t really believe you existed.”
As a crack of thunder rocked the apartment, Blythe tried to tell herself that the woman was merely a product of an overly active imagination, exhaustion, and jet lag.
But she knew, deep in her heart, that the image was all too real.
The room brightened in the glow of a phosphorescent lightning flash. “According to the Bachelor Arms legend, my favorite wish is supposed to be granted. Or my greatest fear realized.”
That possibility sent a frisson of fear skimming up her spine. Gage was scheduled to return home tomorrow. What if his plane crashed? What if she lost him? Blythe resolutely blocked off that unpalatable thought. “So, which is it?”
The woman in the mirror did not respond. But her slow, odd smile seemed to be an answer in itself. There was another burst of thunder and right on top of it, a flash of lightning.
The lights flickered, then went off, throwing the apartment into darkness.
* * *
GAGE HAD NEARLY reached his motel when he slammed on his brakes, nearly throwing the car into a skid on the wet road. After correcting, he made a U-turn, headed back to The Sportsman’s Saloon.
Fortunately, Connelly was right where he’d left him, perched on the wooden stool, engaged in a fly versus bait argument with the bartender.
“Forget something?” he asked when looked up and saw Gage standing beside him.
“That cigarette in the ashtray,” he said, “what made you think it belonged to Reardon?”
“It was in Alexandra’s bedroom. If it wasn’t his, then the lady was obviously entertaining intimate visitors.”
“Reardon didn’t smoke.”
Connelly looked at Gage with reluctant interest. “How the hell do you know that?”
It was a question Gage couldn’t answer. “I just know,” he said doggedly.
The former cop shrugged. “Doesn’t mean anything. In fact, if he came home and found evidence of some other man boinking his wife, it makes sense he’d be more likely to kill her.”
“I thought you didn’t believe Reardon committed the murder.”
Another shrug. Connelly took a long drink of his beer, then wiped the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Got a point there.”
“Another thing. That mirror in the dressing room. Can you remember what, exactly, it looked like?”
“I’m not likely to forget it,” Connelly said with a grimace. “It was huge—four feet by five, probably. It was made out of some kinda metal—you know, that heavy silver stuff?”
“Pewter?”
“That’s it.” He nodded. “It was also ugly as sin, with all sorts of scrolls and rosebuds all over it.”
Apprehension rose. Thunder rumbled ominously in Gage’s head. “Do you happen to remember where, exactly, this house was?” he asked with a calm he was a very long way from feeling.
“Sure.” Gage was forced to tamp down impatience as Connelly polished off the beer. “It was in the Wilshire district.” The address he rattled off from memory turned out to be the same as the one for Bachelor Arms.
“That can’t be right.” But somehow he knew it was. “The records show the murder scene to be three blocks away.” Gage and Blythe had both visited the scene, discouraged to find it had been razed during the 1960s in order to build a strip center minimall.
“The records are wrong.” Connelly lit yet another cigarette. “The first person to call the crime scene in was a cop who’d had his cruiser pulled over by the Reardon’s hysterical housekeeper. The cop got pretty flustered as well and called in the wrong address to headquarters. The papers picked it up from the initial police report, and since no one ever thought to change it, that’s what it stayed.”
“How the hell could the wrong address get into the trial records?”
“Things happen.”
Especially in a situation where no one with ties to Xanadu—including undoubtedly Patrick’s defense attorney—were interested in determining the truth.
“Besides,” Connelly said with a shrug, “the mistake worked out well for the cops because it kept all the lookey-loos away from the crime scene.”
Not that there was any real investigating going on, Gage thought furiously.
“What about the other house? Surely the people who lived there complained about all the sudden attention?”
“It was vacant. It belonged to a producer who’d lost his shirt in the stock market and ended up taking a triple gainer off the top of the Hollywood sign. The place had gone into foreclosure six weeks before the murder.”
“But surely there were people who knew where Alexandra and Patrick lived,” Gage pressed on doggedly.
“Not that many. They’d just moved from her place that Christmas.”
Gage decided that explained why Natasha hadn’t mentioned anything about living in Alexandra’s former home. Obviously the former makeup artist had no idea her apartment was located at the scene of Hollywood’s most infamous murder.
And Blythe... She was moving in tonight. Into the very room where Alexandra had been strangled. Gage’s blood turned to ice.
12
THE PRIEST WAS YOUNG, with a thin pale face and the sorrowful eyes of a depressed bloodhound. “It won’t be long now,” he said for the umpteenth time that night.
In no mood for conversation, Patrick didn’t answer.
Although his mission was to soothe the prisoner’s last hours, it was obvious that the priest, fresh out of the seminary, didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.
“Would you like to pray?” he asked.
Patrick shook his head.
“How about something to eat?” the young man tried again. “You didn’t touch your dinner. You must be hungry.”
Although there was absolutely nothing humorous about his situation, Patrick almost laughed at the suggestion. “That’s a little irrelevant, right now, wouldn’t you say?”
A dark pink rose from the stiff white collar. “I’m sorry.” Long slender fingers combed through carrot red hair. “I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of this.”
Patrick sighed, taking pity on the young man who was so obviously in over his head. “You’re doing fine, Father.”
“Really?” A spark of hope appeared in those bleak eyes.
“Absolutely.” Patrick figured, since he was about to be executed for murder, a lie wouldn’t mean much in the general scheme of things.
“They say it won’t take long.”
The priest’s musical brogue conjured up scenes of emerald green fields, thatch-roofed stone houses and rugged rocky coastlines. Gage thought about the trip he and Alexandra had planned to the land from which his grandparents had emigrated.
They’d been scheduled to sail the day after the premiere of Fool’s Gold. And although Alexandra, accustomed to sunshine and warmth from her years in Cuba and Los Angeles, had fretted about taking the trip in winter, he’d promised to do his husbandly duty and keep her from getting chilled. A promise they both knew he was more than capable of keeping.
After four weeks touring the country, including visits to relatives in his ancestral counties of Antrim and Wexford, they’d return to the States, and to his ranch in Wyoming, where they—along with the half-dozen children Alexandra insisted she wanted—would live happily ever after.
That had been the plan. Unfortunately, experience had taught Patrick that the best laid plans usually went astray.
“You know, my son,” the young man, who was a decade younger than Patrick, offered hesitantly, “it’s my duty to advise you to make a good Act of Contrition. So God will absolve you of your sins before...”
“I’ll be meeting my Maker soon enough, Father,” Patrick cut him off mildly. “I can’t see how one prayer’s going to make that much of a difference when compared to a lifetime of misdeeds.”
“The church teaches absolution for our sins. Surely you wouldn’t be thinking of turning your back on a sacrament?”
“I appreciate the offer.” Gage’s tone was polite but firm. “But I think I’ll take my chances.”
Seeds of worry appeared in eyes the crystal blue of a Kilkenny lake. “‘Tis a dangerous madness you’re talking.”