Secrets

by Jude Deveraux

  The only troubling part of the instructions was that she was to sneak into Charles Faulkener’s bedroom and steal some letters from inside a clock. Cassie thought back to the last time she’d gone sneaking and she dreaded trying to get the letters.

  Also in the box was a packet of glossy colored photos and instructions printed by the Charles Faulkener Foundation. Cassie read through them in disbelief. The man’s breezy style made the murder of a 1940s starlet sound like a nightclub act. He talked of past re-creations and spoke of the “fun” they’d had. One photo showed the victim’s character taking a bow while wearing her bloodstained dress.

  There were pages of instructions, such as manners and slang, and what were the hottest crazes of the moment.

  “Preparing for a world war,” Cassie said under her breath. “That’s what took up people’s minds in 1941.” She was disgusted by the tone of the pages.

  She read every word sent to her, and tried to memorize her part.

  She’d spent all day Thursday at a vintage dress shop in Fort Lauderdale. Althea had sent detailed instructions to the owner of the store, and she’d even had someone in Hollywood send some period clothes that would fit Cassie.

  Whereas Cassie didn’t like the premise of re-creating a ghastly murder, she loved the clothes. Althea hadn’t just had any old, worn-out vintage items sent to her, but there were gowns by Adrian in Cassie’s matching period luggage. There was something about bias-cut silk sliding across a woman’s skin that could change her mind about almost anything.

  In between reading about the murder, and reading Althea’s notes about secrets in the Faulkener mansion, she rented movies from 1941. She was astonished at how many fabulous movies had come out that year: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , The Lady Eve , the original Mr. & Mrs. Smith , and Here Comes Mr. Jordan . And of course Althea’s movie The Best of Tomorrow , which many people believed was her best.

  Now Cassie had on a form-fitting, lightweight wool suit with a matching hat that tipped down over her left eye. Her shoes had thick soles and a strap around her ankle. Now that she was leaner and more fit, the clothes looked better on her than they would have before, and she loved wearing them. Tonight she was to dress in a clingy pink silk gown with earrings that looked like real diamonds.

  “You must be Althea,” said a man from behind her.

  Cassie turned to see a man who was probably over eighty years old, but the skin on his face was stretched so tight there wasn’t a wrinkle in it. His eyebrows were “enhanced” with too much dark powder, and they were so high on his face from the skin having been pulled upward so many times, that he had a constant look of being surprised. His nose was tiny, his lips were slightly pouty, and his teeth were so white the sun caught on them and flashed.

  He had on a burgundy velvet jacket and a silk cravat. He was quite overweight, but she felt sure he had on a corset to hold in his big stomach. His skin was as white as porcelain.

  It was all Cassie could do to keep from laughing, but she just smiled graciously and held out her hand to him. “That I am,” she said and did her best to hold herself upright in the way Althea did. Even when she was in bed with no makeup on, Althea’s posture was perfect. Of course it didn’t hurt that for the last six months Cassie had done several thousand lat pulldowns with ever-increasing weight. Her back was now so tight that her muscles hurt if she slumped.

  “I’m Charles Faulkener,” he said, “and do call me Charles.”

  Cassie laughed in a way she’d heard Althea laugh. It was sexy, provocative, and humble at the same time. “How modest you are,” she said. “As if the world hasn’t seen you in The Last Man. ”

  “Well,” Charles said, lowering his eyes to the floor for a few seconds, “not many people your age have seen such an old, worthless movie.”

  “Not many people my age have seen Citizen Kane , but that doesn’t stop it from being great, does it?” Cassie wanted to kick herself even as she said it, but Charles didn’t protest her comparing his worthless cowboy picture to one of the greats. What an ego! she thought. He was just as Althea had described him. She’d said that Cassie could tell Charles he was the best actor ever to have lived and the man would agree.

  “You aren’t like Althea at all,” Charles said, taking her arm in his. “She had such a sharp tongue on her. Always ready to say the nastiest thing possible to everyone. I could never keep employees when Althea lived with me. You did know, didn’t you, that she and I were lovers?”

  “Of course I did,” Cassie said, smiling as though to say she understood why. But inside she was thinking that she was going to ask Althea how she could abide this awful man. Cassie managed to keep her smile plastered on as they started up the wide marble stairs. Behind them two young men in uniform carried Cassie’s four matching suitcases.

  “You’ll have to tell me everything,” Cassie said, leaning against the man in a familiar way.

  “There’s so much to tell! Althea loves to tell people that I asked her to marry me and live in this…” He swept his arm out to indicate the magnificence of the house.

  Cassie glanced about her. The house was like a time warp. Movies from the 1930s could be shot in the house and no set dressing would have to be done. There were several huge palms in big Chinese pots, and Art Deco ornaments graced the gilded tables. She wanted to ask him if he’d bought anything in the last fifty years. “I can see why anyone would want to be mistress of this house. It must be one of the last great centers of true taste and refinement.”

  “Oh, my goodness, you are a dear, aren’t you?” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Maybe you and I could have a drink together later. Just the two of us. You and me. Alone.”

  Cassie swallowed. His fat white hands were moving up her arm, feeling her, moving closer to her breast. Again she had to work to keep from squirming.

  “Ah! Hinton! Here you are,” Charles said. “I don’t think the two of you have met.”

  “Yes, we have,” said a voice that made Cassie’s heart nearly stop.

  She stopped trying to get away from Charles’s grasp and looked up into Jeff’s eyes. He had on a suit from the 1940s, the wide lapels and the wide tie suiting him well.

  “You forget that Althea and I have been in three movies together,” Jeff said calmly.

  “Oh, yes, of course you have. But then Althea does so much with so many men that it’s difficult for me to keep all of them straight. Did you and your wife find your room all right?”

  “Yes, thank you. Ruth is quite happy with the room, but she asks if she might have a few more towels.”

  “Of course,” Charles said, and his voice oozed sympathy. He knew that within twenty-four hours this man was going to be arrested for murder.

  All Cassie could do was stare at Jeff, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes no matter how hard she glared at him. Whose trick was this? Cassie wondered. Was it Althea’s or Jeff’s? Which of them had set it up?

  “There you are, darling,” came another voice that Cassie knew well. She looked up at Skylar, wearing a bright blue dress that clung to her tiny waist and skimmed over the rest of her body in a flattering way. She slipped her arm through Jeff’s possessively.

  “So who’s this?” Skylar asked, holding on tightly to Jeff.

  “What a funny creature you are,” Charles said. “As if you didn’t know this was Althea Fairmont.” Charles’s voice told that he wasn’t displeased by Skylar’s dismissal of Althea.

  “Of course. She was in one of your movies, wasn’t she, darling?” she said to Jeff.

  Jeff finally looked into Cassie’s eyes. “Yes. She was in my movies. She was in my life,” he said softly.

  “Yes, I was,” Cassie said as breezily as she could manage. “I was in your life for a very long time. Oh, how you must have been amused by me! I hate to think of all the laughter I caused you.” She looked at Charles and squeezed his arm. “Show me to my room, darling. I’m dying to freshen up…for you,” she added.

  Charles patted her hand a
nd they turned down the hall to the right. He opened the door to a lovely room that was straight out of a 1930s movie. It was all champagne satin, with blond cabinets with gold handles—just as Althea had described it.

  “Charles, darling,” Cassie said. “It hasn’t changed a bit since I last saw it. You are a dear for keeping it for me.”

  For a moment Charles frowned, then gave a false smile. “I stand corrected. You are very like her,” he said quietly. “And you’re making me remember things too well.”

  Cassie stepped back from him. “Oh, dear, but that sounds ominous.”

  “I apologize,” he said, smiling genuinely. “It’s just that these weekends are cathartic for me, but they are difficult as well. There’s something about you that takes me back in time. I could swear that I once saw Althea in that very same suit. You don’t, by chance, know the woman, do you?”

  “Me?” Cassie asked, her hand to her throat as she tried to look innocent. “I’m just a struggling actress like everyone else here is. I thought I was to be in character so I’ve spent weeks studying Miss Fairmont’s movies. And I bought the clothes in a vintage shop. Maybe I’m too good of an actress.”

  “No, you did right,” Charles said, then brightened. “I do believe that I am in the company of a great actress. Perhaps when you receive an Academy Award you’ll thank me for giving you your first serious role.”

  “Of course I will,” Cassie said. “So you won’t mind if I’m quite like Althea?”

  “No, of course not. That’s the whole idea.”

  Cassie looked about her. “Was I right and this is the room where Althea stayed? I can almost see her in here.”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “She always stayed in this room. She wanted to be near her lover.”

  There was an underlying anger in his tone that made her want to step away from him, but she held her ground. “But I thought you and she…”

  “Althea was an adulteress,” he said.

  Cassie gave him a weak smile. Obviously, time had not made him forgive her, but how could it be adultery? Althea was never married to Charles. Cassie cleared her throat.

  Charles reached out to pat Cassie’s hand. “Now don’t you worry your pretty little self about that. At the time, no one outside my intimate circle knew that Althea and Hinton were lovers, but here in this house we play that weekend the way it really happened.”

  “What does that mean?” Cassie asked quietly.

  “You must sit and moon over Hinton, of course. Flirt with him. Make a fool of yourself over him, just as Althea did that weekend. Then when he is arrested for murder, you must abandon him completely, just as she did.” He gave her a little smile. “Now I must see to my other guests. Florence will be here shortly.”

  “Florence?” Cassie asked. “Florence Myers? The…”

  “Yes, the…” He smiled at her, then turned to the door. “We have tea in the conservatory at four, then dinner at eight. I do hope you can join us for both. Unless you’re too busy with Hinton, that is.” With that, he left the room.

  Cassie sat down on the foot of the bed and took a few deep breaths. She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. What the hell was Althea up to? she thought. This slimy, awful man gave her the creeps. But that was nothing compared to seeing Jeff in the hallway. With Skylar.

  Her first thoughts were to take her bags and leave the house. She had been played for a fool by both Jeff and Althea, and probably Thomas. They all thought that if Cassie and Jeff would just get together…

  Her thoughts trailed off. No, she wasn’t going to leave. She wasn’t going to make them all think she was a coward. She was going to stay and play out this awful drama, get the letters from the clock for Althea, then go back to her own life. Maybe she’d take her mother up on opening a nursery in Seattle.

  She couldn’t help a snort of derision. Jeff was here with Skylar. She hadn’t heard any news from them for months, so maybe Jeff was now a married man.

  “So much for his great love for me ,” Cassie muttered as she began to unpack her bags. Every article of clothing had a label on it telling her what she was to wear when. When she’d first seen the clothes, she’d thought it was kind of Althea to do that, but now she had an idea that these clothes were replicas—if not the originals—of the garments Althea had worn the weekend of the murder. Was this for the sake of authenticity? Or was Althea’s little game meant to drive poor old Charles over the edge?

  There was a knock on her door and Cassie opened it without thought. When she saw Jeff, she tried to close it, but he put his foot inside.

  “All right,” she said as he entered and she closed the door behind him. “What do you want?”

  “Who told you to come here?”

  Cassie went back to her suitcase and continued hanging her clothes up in the wardrobe. “I did,” she said. “I begged Althea to get me back with you, so she set this whole thing up.”

  “Funny,” Jeff said as he moved farther into the room. “I see you have nothing but old clothes too.”

  “If you can call Adrian gowns ‘old,’ yes I do.”

  “Adrian?”

  “In his day, he was Balenciaga, de la Renta, and Tom Ford rolled into one.”

  “I guess those are designers.” When Cassie didn’t reply, he stepped toward her. “Cassie, I’ve been through a lot since you walked out on us. I—”

  She turned toward him with a coat hanger padded in baby blue satin held in front of her like a weapon. “So help me, if you twist everything around so I look like I abandoned a five-year-old child and a man with heart disease, I’ll make sure you never sleep quietly again. Do you understand me?”

  Jeff stepped back from her. “Yeah, I understand, but—”

  “There’re no buts in this! I walked away from you , only you and no one else. Is that clear?”

  “Very,” Jeff said, backing up more.

  “I don’t know what Althea and probably your father are playing at this weekend, but I can guess. I owe Althea a lot, so I’m going to continue this charade even if it means dealing with that slimy man, but you… youI don’t have to put up with. I’m going to do what I have on my list and that’s it. Then I’m going back to my life, which doesn’t include washing your socks. Have you got that?”

  “Completely,” Jeff said, his eyes wide. “Have you done something to your hair? You look different.”

  Cassie went to the door, opened it, and pointed to the hall. “Out. Get out now and don’t come back.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jeff said and put his hands in his pockets as he went past her. He grinned when the door slammed behind him. He grinned all the way down the hall to his room. He opened his bedside table drawer and pulled out his cell phone. He called his father’s number and wasn’t surprised when he got voice mail. “You’re a coward for not answering,” Jeff said cheerfully, “but, Dad, I love you.” He closed the phone and kept grinning.

  17

  “ SKYLAR, I’VE BEEN THROUGH THISa dozen times and I’m not going through it again,” Jeff said. They were alone in the room they’d been assigned and getting dressed to go down to tea.

  “I’m Ruth, remember? Not Skylar. All I said was that your little Miss Cassandra has certainly gone to a lot of trouble to get you back with her.”

  “She knows nothing about this,” Jeff said, taking a clean shirt out of the wardrobe.

  “Yeah, and I’m a virgin.”

  Jeff gave her a look that made her stop talking. In the months since Cassie had walked out of his life and disappeared completely, he’d had little to do with Skylar. He’d told his office that he was through using his personal life for work. If they wanted to get an escort for Ms. Skylar Beaumont while her father fed them information, they could find someone else. Jeff was ready to resign and get a job in a burger joint rather than continue as he was.

  That day when Cassie left the cabin in his car, he’d wanted to go after her, but sheer force of will had stopped him. He told himself it was better that she le
ft, that she would be safer away from him.

  But by the next morning he’d begun to realize what it would mean to him to not see Cassie every day. He’d ridden with Brent and Skylar back to Williamsburg, and all the way there, he’d hoped Cassie would be at his house. If she was, he planned to go on his knees and beg her forgiveness. He should have told her everything, he’d say. And he’d defend himself by saying she should have been honest with him too.

  But Cassie wasn’t in his house. In fact, she was nowhere to be found. His office saw that she’d flown to New York, then had taken a plane to Miami, but there the trail grew cold. She was paying all her living expenses with cash, so there was no paper trail for her. Obviously, someone was helping her disappear. Althea? His own father?

  For months he lived his life in silence, talking only when he had to. He was angry at himself for being such a fool for the entire year she’d lived with him. He’d taken her for granted, assumed that she’d always be there.

  The only good that had come of Cassie’s disappearance had been that Skylar had been removed from his life. For a brief time she and Brent were an item, but they called it off after just a few weeks, and Brent had gone back to overseeing Althea’s house and life. He reported that Cassie had not been near Althea since the cabin.

  It was Thomas who reminded him of the “mystery weekend” Jeff had committed to over a year before. He handed Jeff a thick envelope. “Get someone else to do it,” Jeff had mumbled, but his father had persisted.

  “You’ll find what you want here,” Thomas said, his eyes boring into Jeff’s.

  “The only thing I want,” Jeff began, “is—” He broke off as he looked into his father’s eyes. As Jeff looked at his father, a lifetime of communication passed between them. He wasn’t sure, but he had an idea that his father and Althea had somehow managed to get Cassie to that weekend. Jeff wouldn’t ask his father if this was true for fear he’d say no.

  For weeks, Jeff did little but read about Hinton Landau and the murder that ruined his career—even though he was innocent, Althea said. Jeff memorized the timeline of the second day of the weekend, and he opened the sealed envelope that contained a paper with some facts that were known only to Althea.