Fade to Black

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  And the phone call she hadn’t dared to answer.

  But that could have been a wrong number, or a telemarketer....

  She shouldn’t, couldn’t, jump to conclusions.

  Because if she does, she will become so frightened that she won’t be able to stay in Windmere Cove another day. She’ll have to flee, once again, taking nothing but the bundle of money in her safe deposit box down at the local bank.

  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash she’d hidden from the tax man back when she was a big Hollywood star, on the advice of her business manager.

  “You’ll never get caught. Everyone does it,” he had told her, puffing glibly on a fat, illegal Cuban cigar.

  And Mallory Eden had been around that town long enough to believe him. That didn’t mean she had to do it too, but she had, recklessly, giddy with her incredible financial success.

  Again Gran’s voice comes echoing back to her over the years....

  “I don’t care what everyone else is doing. If everyone decided to jump off a bridge, would you do it too, Cindy?”

  The irony in that oft-repeated grandmotherly pearl strikes her now, and she has to smile.

  No, Gran, she thinks, I wouldn’t jump off a bridge.

  And I didn’t jump off a bridge.

  The world just thinks I did.

  Well …

  Not the whole world.

  Apparently, there are people who believe that Mallory Eden, like Elvis, is alive and well.

  One person in particular.

  And he has found her again …

  Or has he?

  What else could that eerie greeting card mean?

  I know who you are.

  Don’t start thinking about it, she commands herself once more. If you think about it, you’ll want to get out as fast as you can....

  And Manny needs you here, to make his costume.

  But the card …

  And the phone call …

  Think about something else....

  Anything else.

  Think about eating your soup and sandwich, and about Gran....

  She picks up her spoon again and forces herself to eat, to remember how she and Gran would chat about movie stars and TV shows as they ate their supper—at least, in the early days.

  Gran always knew who all of the big stars were, and she gossiped about them like they were neighbors right there down Orchard Lane.

  “Did you hear about Farrah and Lee? She left him for another man,” Gran would report, shaking her gray head.

  Or, “I don’t know why that nice Rock Hudson doesn’t get married again. He’s such a good catch, don’t you think?”

  Later, when things had grown strained between them and Gran went around with perpetually pursed lips over Cindy’s wild ways, the channel six newsanchor in the next room would be the only one talking at suppertime.

  And, typically, Gran would be the only one eating, especially when the meal consisted of grilled cheese and tomato soup.

  “Do you know how fattening that is?” the teenage Cindy would ask, poking at the buttery golden sandwich oozing gooey cheese on her plate.

  “Well, you could use a little meat on your bones,” Gran would invariably retort.

  She had always thought Cindy was too thin, God bless her.

  But Cindy had known, even then, that you couldn’t be too thin if you planned to be an actress.

  And Lord, how she had wanted to be an actress.

  She had dreamed of it ever since her first ballet recital, when she was five and gawky and dressed, like the other little ballerinas, in a pink leotard and white apron, clutching a wooden spoon as a prop for the big finale, ‘If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’a Baked a Cake.”

  The audience had applauded like crazy, and, of course, there was Gran in the front row, jumping up and down and yelling her name.

  Afterward, Gran had taken her, still in her costume with rouge on her cheeks, to Friendly’s for an ice cream sundae. The waitress and all the other customers there had noticed her, making a big fuss over her. She had lapped up all that attention and praise right along with the sumptuous chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream, feeling special for the first time in her short life.

  “If only your mama could have seen you tonight,” Gran had whispered as she tucked Cindy into bed after they got home.

  Those words would haunt Cindy long afterward, as she had often wondered what her grandmother had meant by that.

  If only your mama could have seen you … what?

  She would be so proud?

  She would wish she had never taken off without a backward glance?

  She would change her mind and come back to raise you, the way a mama should?

  Elizabeth will never know what Gran had meant by that cryptic statement, and it doesn’t matter anymore anyway.

  Last she knew, her mama was an alcoholic junkie living on the streets in Chicago.

  She sighs and picks up her grilled cheese sandwich. The toasted bread has grown cold and leaves a grease mark on the paper plate, but is still, somehow, appetizing. She made it with a smear of full-fat Hellman’s mayonnaise, and she buttered each slice of bread on both sides, just the way Gran used to.

  She takes a big bite and thinks of all the grilled cheese sandwiches she could have eaten with Gran back in Nebraska but didn’t because she was watching her weight.

  And of the times, when she was living on the ubiquitous Beverly Hills diet of salad greens and sushi, when she would have killed for a crusty, gooey sandwich to dunk into a big bowl of tangy, rich tomato soup.

  But Mallory Eden was a goddess, and everyone knows goddesses come in a size three.

  It’s been a relief, these past five years, to let her body fill out to its natural shape....

  To stop counting fat grams and not stress about finding time for the gym …

  Funny—now she has all the time in the worldto work out if she wants to. But she never, ever wanted to do it. It was simply an occupational hazard, just like having her teeth capped and constantly visiting tanning salons against her better judgment.

  How she used to hate all those hours spent sculpting her body on the treadmill and Stairmaster and stationery bike as her personal trainer, Jack, hollered commands and advice and encouragement. He was almost more famous than she was, and has recently been making the talk show rounds, having just come out with his own line of exercise clothes, workout equipment, and fat-free frozen desserts.

  Good for him.

  Elizabeth dunks the last bite of her sandwich into her bowl of soup and pops it into her mouth.

  Delicious.

  What a pleasure it has been to rediscover sinful treats—barbecue potato chips and cream-filled chocolate cupcakes and lasagna.

  She had always assumed that if she stopped her stringent dieting and ate whatever she wanted to, she would blow up to two hundred pounds, the way Gran had.

  Luckily, that hasn’t happened. She isn’t bone thin, but she’s not overweight either—unless you’re talking Hollywood standards.

  She’s a perfect size nine.

  A perfect size nine with brown hair—her natural color, which she had started bleaching in junior high—and brown eyes—sans the blue contacts she had constantly worn as Mallory Eden. She never needed the contacts for vision purposes, just as she doesn’t need the nonprescription glasses she wears in public these days, whenever she can’t hide behind a pair of sunglasses

  She’s hardly movie goddess material now, she thinks ruefully. Elizabeth Baxter bears very little resemblance to the woman whose face had graced dozens of magazine covers all over the world.

  Still, he has managed to find her.

  How?

  Though she had never stopped looking over her shoulder, she hadn’t ever really expected him to track her down after she left Montana without a trace on that stormy summer night five years ago.

  Her plan had been simple, but foolproof.

  Step one had been slipping past the reporters campe
d outside her gate to get to the Beverly Hills bank where she had stashed enough hundred-dollar bills in her safe deposit box to last her a lifetime—if she was frugal.

  How thankful she had been, then, that she had gone against her own conscience and cheated the government out of all that tax money. All that cash was ultimately her salvation.

  She had left her home by the back gate in the middle of a steamy August night, letting the black Lexus roll down the short, hilly drive in neutral, not wanting to risk starting the engine until she was safely down the street.

  Before getting into the car, she had sheared off her long blond hair with a pair of kitchen scissors, then dyed it a mousy brown with one of those cheap over-the-counter box kits. Her Beverly Hills stylist, Arnaud, would have gone ballistic had he seen the result. For some reason, that knowledge had filled her with a prickle of grim satisfaction as she looked in the mirror.

  She carefully swept the hair into a plastic bag, along with the hair dye box, and brought it with her when she left. She didn’t want the household staff, or Rae, who was staying with her, to suspect that she had changed her appearance.

  She even left a note for Rae, saying she had to get away for a few days and was going up to Big Sur. They had often done that together, the two of them, staying at a windswept resort high in the mountains, overlooking the ocean.

  And she had gone there alone too, so it wouldn’t have been that unusual. There had been times when she needed to escape the chaos of her life in L.A., to be alone with her thoughts and the soothing rhythm of the waves.

  She had, of course, felt terrible about lying to Rae, her closest friend. But she had made up her mind to tell no one of her plan, not just for her own protection, but for the protection of her friends. The last thing she wanted was for the stalker to turn his attention to Rae, suspecting that she knew something.

  She had seen her friend’s tear-ravaged face on television in the days after Mallory Eden’s suicide. The world could see that her grief was real—and that was what Elizabeth had been counting on. Rae was a decent actress—no matter what the critics said—but she certainly couldn’t be counted on to play the part of the grieving friend for the rest of her life.

  What if she slipped to someone, someday?

  Or what if she insisted on keeping in touch?

  Or coming along?

  That was a distinct possibility, knowing Rae, whose loyal friendship had sustained Mallory through the breakup with Brawley, the pressures of superstardom, and the terrors of stalking. She had always insisted on taking care of Mallory, on being at her side even when Mallory insisted she would be better off alone.

  “Being alone isn’t healthy,” Rae would say in her blunt upbeat manner. “I’m coming over.”

  Mallory had fought the impulse to look in on her friend, sleeping in the guest room, that August night before she left. She was afraid that if she saw Rae one last time, she would be tempted to wake her.

  No, there had been no question about telling her the truth.

  The only way Mallory could save her own life was to cut every tie to the past.

  And she had done it.

  She had driven from L.A. to Helena, with her shorn brown hair and her newly brown-again eyes, wearing no makeup, an old T-shirt and jeans, and a pair of clear, horn-rimmed glasses that had been a prop for a long-ago movie role.

  No one had recognized her in the few stops she had made to get gas and food, and twice to sleep in cheap motel rooms when she grew so bleary-eyed she could go no farther. She had reveled in the sudden anonymity—the ability to come and go like a normal person, without strangers’ eyes trailing every move she made.

  Still, she had been edgy the whole trip, keeping a constant eye on the rearview mirror, expecting to see a car tailing her.

  Just outside Boise, as her plan took solid shape, she bought a bicycle and camping gear as well as protective clothing.

  By the time she had crossed into Montana, she knew exactly what she would do.

  She’d had the Rock River Falls Bridge in mind all along, remembering it from a vacation she and Brawley had taken years before, when she was poised on the threshold of fame—and going it solo. He must have sensed that their relationship was in serious trouble when he suggested that they go away for a week, just the two of them, to his friend’s cabin in that remote corner of northwestern Montana.

  Rather than bringing them closer together, the trip had only made it clear to Mallory that what she and Brawley had once had was over. It had long been over, in fact, but she had been afraid to officially end it for a number of reasons.

  She felt sorry for him in a way.

  And she was partly afraid of how he would react when she broke it off.

  And then there was her deep, dark secret … the one that only he knew.

  She had spent a lot of time alone during that week in the wilderness, garnering her thoughts and her courage as she hiked the rough terrain while Brawley moodily fished and whittled back at the cabin. She had come upon the bridge one misty, gray afternoon, finding the scenic gorge deserted except for a lone fisherman who was about to make his way down to the water.

  It was he who had told her about the three Canadians who had drowned in the river the summer before, two of their bodies swept miles downstream and battered beyond recognition against the jagged rocks and boulders, the third swallowed forever by the foaming white water.

  At the time she had shuddered at the very idea, thinking that it was a shame that the third man’s family would have no one to bury.

  In the years that followed, Mallory had done her best to try to forget that difficult week in Montana, when she had struggled to end that spent relationship as Brawley tried desperately to salvage it.

  It wasn’t until years later, when she realized she had to fake her death in order to save her life, that the bridge came back to haunt her.

  It had looked the same as she remembered it, as daunting and remote in reality as it had seemed in her memory.

  There had been a moment, that rainy August night, as she stood at that rickety railing high above the rushing river, when she had actually considered jumping for real, ending it all right there.

  But only for a harsh, fleeting moment or two.

  Then she realized that her life was worth living, even if she had to permanently abandon everyone she cared about, and the career she had worked so damned hard to build.

  It still hurts, she thinks as she stares vacantly at the television, where Andy Rooney is commenting on some inane topic. She desperately misses acting, if not the media circus that surrounds a successful performer’s career. She always relished stepping into character, savoring the challenge of transforming herself into somebody else, somebody whose mannerisms and speech and body language were utterly different from her own.

  Well, the challenge is still on, she tells herself with an inner sigh. You get to be somebody else for the rest of your life.

  And hopefully, it will be a long performance.

  It’s steamy out here tonight, especially for New England in late August.

  Yet despite the unusually sultry night, her house is sealed as tightly as leftover fish under Saran Wrap. Every window on the small Cape Cod house is tightly closed.

  And she definitely doesn’t have central air-conditioning.

  She being Elizabeth Baxter …

  Who’s so sure that nobody knows her true identity.

  Well, she’s wrong.

  It’s time to circle the house again, cautiously, sticking to the shadows amid the foundation shrubbery. Maybe this time something will have changed....

  But no.

  The blinds are drawn in every window, leaving not even the slightest crack that someone might peer through.

  She’s a clever, cautious woman, this so-called Elizabeth Baxter. She’s not taking any chances, is she?

  Doesn’t want anyone to figure out who she really is.

  A car door slams in the distance, somewhere down Green Garden
Way, and an engine starts.

  There’s little chance that it’s going to head in this direction, toward the end of the cul-de-sac.

  Still, it’s not a bad idea to crouch low behind a rhododendron bush until the sound of the car has faded in the opposite direction—and for a while after that, just for good measure.

  Finally, it’s safe to stand again and look up at the darkened window above.

  What is she doing in there, beyond the closed blinds and locked doors?

  Imagining the possibilities is almost as interesting as actually spying on her would be.

  Almost.

  There’s no need to stay out here sweating in the mosquito-infested, overgrown grass on the off chance that she’ll slip up on her security measures. It’s getting late.

  She might even be asleep already, her dark hair tousled on the pillow, her breathing deep and even.

  Wouldn’t it be something to see her that way? To tiptoe up to the bed, to reach out and touch that famous flesh, to …

  No.

  Not tonight.

  But soon …

  Chapter

  4

  “Wow, traffic jam,” Elizabeth murmurs, braking for the light at a North Main Street intersection. Several cars are in front of her, which is unusual.

  The small town is certainly teeming with activity for high noon on a Monday. Most restaurants aren’t even open on Mondays in Rhode Island. Maybe the bustle is due to tourists spilling over from the Newport Jazz Festival this past weekend—although Windmere Cove isn’t usually a tourist destination. It’s generally a quiet, sleepy place where people keep to themselves in typical Yankee fashion.

  Which, of course, is precisely why Elizabeth chose to live there.

  That, and its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.

  She had so loved living by the beach in California.

  The coast is rockier; the water far colder here. But there’s still that salty-fresh smell in the air, the distant sound of waves crashing, and the cry of gulls overhead. And sometimes, if she closes her eyes on a warm summer day as she sits by the bay, it’s almost like being back in Malibu.

  But you’ll never see Malibu or the Pacific again, she reminds herself. She’ll never be able to go back to the West Coast … or to travel anywhere beyond this relatively isolated strip of eastern Rhode Island. She hasn’t dared to venture beyond the ten-mile radius surrounding Windmere Cove since she arrived in the East Bay nearly five years before.