She’ll get him out of debt.
Hadn’t she always been happy to throw him a few hundred, even a few thousand here and there?
Well, maybe not happy.
But she had done it, if only to keep him quiet and out of her hair.
Now, after living alone for five years, she might be glad to see him …
To let bygones be bygones.
To pick up where they’d left off, back when she was a nobody.
Then again, she might not.
And if she doesn’t …
“Can I get you something to drink?” asks a pretty flight attendant, stopping in the aisle beside his seat.
She’s smiling at him, not in the way first-class flight attendants smile at all their passengers, but in the way a woman smiles at a man she wants.
Brawley smiles back even as he notices a slight space between her front teeth. And her eyes, while they’re a nice shade of blue, are set a little too close together.
“I’ll have a sparkling water,” he tells her, keeping his voice pleasant.
“No cocktails for you this afternoon?”
“No, thanks.”
He needs to keep his mind clear for what lies ahead.
Becky leaves the bathroom and hurries back down the hallway of the rooming house, moving with unseeing eyes past the jagged holes in the pea-green plaster and the water stains on the wall outside her room.
The door is ajar, just as she left it, and Gerry from down the hall is sitting dutifully on her bed.
“Did she call?”
Gerry shakes her head.
“You were here the whole time, waiting by the phone?”
“Ain’t that what you tol’ me to do? An’ you owe me another buck fifty for doin’ it.”
Becky sighs and dutifully digs into the pocket of her worn jeans to produce three quarters, five dimes, and five nickels. She thrusts the change into Gerry’s outstretched hand.
“Next time you need me to come down here to listen for your phone, you’re gonna give me five bucks,” Gerry says after shrewdly counting the coins twice. She walks out the door. “I ain’t no answering service, you know.”
“I know. Thanks for helping me out.”
She closes her door and looks at the phone sitting silently on the dilapidated table by the lone window.
“Ring,” Becky commands. “Ring. Now.”
Nothing but silence.
She scowls.
She doesn’t know why she’s expecting Mallory to return her phone call now.
She hadn’t done it years ago, when Becky had tried to reach her through the office of that fancy Hollywood agent of hers.
“Whom may I tell Ms. Eden is trying to reach her?” the agent’s snooty secretary had asked.
“This is her mother. Becky Baxter,” she had said.
Then, realizing her daughter wouldn’t recognize the last name she had taken from the long-dead junkie who had briefly been her husband, she had amended, “Becky O’Neal. Tell her it’s Becky O’Neal.”
“And where can you be reached?” the dubious-sounding woman had asked.
She’d had no number to leave.
She had been living on the streets of Chicago.
So she had hung up.
And, falling back into a drug-induced haze, she had forgotten about Mallory Eden.
At least, for a while.
Until Elizabeth had gotten herself into trouble.
Elizabeth …
Becky Baxter’s second-born daughter.
Two daughters, two chances.
The first child, she had quickly given up on, handing her over to her mother, Vera, to raise.
But the second…
She hadn’t wanted to make the same mistakes with the second child.
The second child she had raised herself. First, with very little assistance from the father, a no-good husband who finally got himself killed on the streets when Elizabeth was still in diapers. And after that she’d gone it alone, taking handouts where she could find them, turning tricks to support her child—and her own drug habit.
In the end, what she thought had been a mistake had turned out to be the best thing she could have done—giving her firstborn to Vera.
And what she had thought had been a responsible decision—to keep her second born with her—had turned out to be a serious error.
The child her mother had raised had grown up to be a modern-day princess.
And the child Becky herself had raised had grown up to be a lying, scheming junkie.
Just like me.
It isn’t a new thought, but it disturbs Becky now as deeply as it always has.
She isn’t proud of who she is or what she’s done.
Still, it’s too late to change some things....
But not others.
Becky O’Neal Baxter, old before her time, will never erase her past, and she will never make amends with her mother.
Vera—who, Becky is certain, went to her grave despising her only child—isn’t coming back.
Elizabeth, poor Elizabeth, who had OD’d at seventeen, isn’t coming back either.
But …
Becky thinks of her other daughter, who has been in hiding for the past five years …
And calling herself by her dead sister’s name.
Maybe it’s not too late with Cindy.
Mallory.
Whoever she is.
she’s still your daughter.
You’re still her mother.
She might need you now, with everything that’s going on …
And she might not.
But you sure as hell need her, especially now that You’re clean and ready to live a normal life. She owes you. If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have even been born. It’s time for payback.
Will she agree?
Her gut twists as she stares again at the phone that refuses to ring.
Mallory picks up the phone when it rings, even though it’s almost midnight and she had almost fallen asleep.
“It’s me,” Harper’s voice says quietly in her ear, intimate as a lover’s whisper.
It’s me.
Casual words that are used by people who have been together a long time, people who expect each other to call, to be there.
Not by two people who barely know each other.
And yet …
“Hi.” Mallory’s own voice sounds strangely breathless. She props herself on her pillows.
“Were you asleep?”
“Are you kidding?” She stifles a yawn.
“Are the reporters still stalking you?”
“The last time I peeked out the front window, there was an army of them in front of the house.”
“What about the police?”
“They’re still here too, keeping an eye on things.”
“Keeping an eye on you.”
“I guess. Not because I’m in any danger …”
She has to say it, has to hear the words so that maybe she’ll actually start believing that they’re true.
“But because of the press. I know.” Harper sighs. “They’re swarming around me too. I’m keeping my phone off the hook—do you still have my pager number?”
“I think so,” she says vaguely.
She doesn’t want to tell him that she tucked the scrap of paper into her wallet for safekeeping. Just in case she needed something…
Him.
“Good. If you have to reach me, use that,” he says. “Anyway, I was offered half a million to tell a tabloid what you’re like in bed.”
She sucks in her breath. “Oh, no …”
“I told them that if I knew, they’d be the last ones I’d tell.”
“Thank you.” She shakes her head ruefully, adding, “I’m sure half a million dollars would come in handy for you.”
“Nah,” he says, and she smiles.
“What are you going to do, Mallory?”
His question catches her off guard.
“What do you mean?” she asks.<
br />
“About this. Everything that’s happened. Are you really going back to L.A.?”
“Who said that?”
“Some reporter on television.”
“I haven’t given a statement to anyone. I haven’t talked to anyone about my plans,” she says, her temper flaring.
Then she catches herself, sighs. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I guess I’d forgotten what it’s like to live like this. You have no idea what Hollywood is like—what my life was like before I came here.”
He’s silent for just a moment too long before saying, “No, I guess I don’t.”
She contemplates that.
Then she says carefully, “You know, Harper, it isn’t fair. I just realized that you probably do know. Because every detail of my whole life is being aired on every television network. By now you must know my grandmother’s maiden name and that I once fainted at junior high cheerleading practice because I’d been on a liquid diet for a week.” She takes a deep breath. “But I don’t know anything about you.”
He doesn’t answer right away.
And when he does, it’s with a question.
“What is it that you want to know?”
The smile is gone from his voice.
“Just the basics,” she says, frowning.
Wondering what he has to hide.
Wondering if she was wrong when she decided—well, almost decided—to trust him.
“The basics? I was born in Oregon; my parents’ names are Terry and Joe; I have an older sister.”
“Are you close to her?”
“Not anymore.”
“What about your parents?”
“I haven’t seen them in a long time.”
“Oh. So you lived in Oregon before you moved here last year?”
“No.”
“Where did you live?”
“Why does it matter?”
Taken aback at the ire in his tone, she retorts, “Because I’m curious. You know everything about me. Hell, everyone knows everything about me, and—”
“That has nothing to do with me though,” Harper cuts in.
“And before you were splashed all over the six o’clock news, you didn’t tell me anything about yourself.”
“But you know why I didn’t! Because I feared for my life!”
“I know. And did you fear me?”
The question catches her off guard. She hesitates.
She hasn’t told him that she had suspected him of being the stalker. She had told the police, but not Harper, what Frank had said about him resembling a wanted fugitive from California.
Now that it’s all over, she doesn’t want to admit to the man who risked his life to save her that she had thought he was the one who was trying to kill her.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Harper says abruptly. “You don’t need to. You obviously were afraid of me.”
“I was afraid of everyone. Can you blame me?”
“No,” he says simply.
“Well, then …”
“Look, I was wrong to try to force you to open up to me,” he tells her. “I don’t even know why I tried.”
“Why did you?”
“Maybe because … when I met you, something just … clicked.”
He’s silent for a long time.
And so is she, thinking about what he’s said.
She decides to take a chance for a change. To open up just a little. To tell him what she’s feeling.
“I know what you mean,” she says softly. “It clicked with me too.”
“I haven’t been with a woman in a long, long time,” he says in a muted voice, almost as though he hasn’t heard her. “And when I saw you, I just … there was something there. Something I knew I should ignore. But I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.”
But why? she wants to ask. Why did you want to ignore it? I had a good reason not to want to get involved.
But what was your reason?
Mallory wishes that he were there in front of her instead of on the phone. That she could see his face, look into his eyes, know whether she should ask those questions, because she would be able to tell exactly how he feels about her…
How she feels about him.
Right now she’s confused. Torn between wanting to reach out to him, to trust him …
And wanting to shut him out, leave him behind.
Along with everything else that’s connected to her existence in Windmere Cove.
“What are you going to do now?” he asks abruptly, as though he’s read her mind.
“I don’t know. I guess … I guess I’ll go back to L.A.,” she tells him softly, wanting him to make her take it back, to stop her from talking, stop her from going.
He is silent.
She goes on, feeling her way blindly, recklessly making plans, because she has to do something, say something.
“I’ll get in touch with my agent and see about getting back to work. And I’ll stay with my friend, Rae … she’ll help me until I can get settled again.”
Still, he’s silent.
“I guess I should go as soon as possible, to get away from the press,” she fumbles on. “I mean, I know they’ll be pestering me wherever I am, but at least in L.A., everyone’s used to it. There, you can hide. Here, the police seem kind of befuddled by what’s going on.”
“What about security?” he asks abruptly.
“What about it?”
“Are you planning to hire bodyguards?”
“No,” she says quickly without pausing to consider it. “I’m through with that. I’ve spent too much time being afraid. First I had bodyguards watching over me every second, and then I spent five years hiding in this tiny house, terrified to set foot outside. I’m through with that,” she says again more forcefully.
And she realizes she means it.
No more bodyguards.
No more fear.
“So,” he says slowly, “you’re going back.”
“I’m going back.”
She tells herself that she can’t wait to be back in sunny L.A., back in Malibu, where she’ll find another house nestled in the cliffs, where she’ll once again be able to walk on the beach and feel the salty wind in her hair, feel free, feel …
Safe.
“When are you going?” Harper asks.
She hesitates, just for a moment, hoping he’ll utter something, anything to change what she’s about to say. What she has to say.
He’s silent.
Waiting.
“As soon as possible, like I said. Probably tomorrow, if I can get a flight,” she tells him, trying to sound breezy, even eager to move on.
Trying to sound as though some part of her hasn’t just inexplicably died.
“After all,” she hears herself add in one last attempt to get him to stop her, “there’s nothing to keep me here in Windmere Cove.”
“No,” he agrees, his tone flat. “I guess there isn’t.”
Chapter
12
Manny happens to look up, out the front window, just in time to see the long black stretch limousine pull up at the curb. In front of it and behind it are two police cars with their lights flashing.
It can mean only one thing.
His heart starts pounding as he stares at it, watching as the uniformed driver steps out and goes around to the door facing the house.
He opens it.
Manny holds his breath.
A pair of bare legs appears.
Then a hand, reaching up to take the outstretched hand of the driver.
Then, at last, a woman emerges from the dark interior of the limousine.
Manny slowly releases his breath at the sight of a real live movie star.
This isn’t Elizabeth, this beautiful woman moving slowly toward the house, her long legs carrying her in a casual, almost lazy manner.
So different from the way Elizabeth had moved—always quickly, as if she were in a hurry to get someplace—or get away.
&nbs
p; This woman is wearing Elizabeth’s clothes—Manny remembers those wide-legged black shorts that almost look like a skirt, and that white sleeveless blouse. But before, she had never worn the blouse tucked into her waistband, with the top two buttons undone. And she had always worn the shorts with sneakers, never with a pair of strappy black sandals that show her bare toes, painted with red nail polish.
And her hair …
It’s …
Well, it’s big. All high on her head and loose around her face and flowing down over her shoulders. He never knew she had so much hair.
She’s wearing makeup too. And earrings.
And a pair of black sunglasses—but then, Elizabeth had always worn sunglasses.
But that’s the only thing that’s familiar about the woman who is walking up to the front porch, carefully sidestepping the rotting boards that Manny tried, but failed, to fix.
She rings the doorbell.
Manny is unable to move, but the sound brings his grandmother from the kitchen, where she has been making egg salad sandwiches for lunch.
She opens the door, makes an exclamation.
Still, Manny is frozen.
He just sits on the couch, suddenly feeling miserable.
He listens as Elizabeth says, sounding just like her old self, “Hello, Mrs. Souza. Is Manny home?”
“He’s in the living room, watching television. Manny! Manny! Get in here!”
Manny forces his legs to the floor, to carry him into the front hall, where the beautiful woman is waiting, not seeming to notice that his grandmother is just standing there, gaping at her with her mouth hanging open.
“Manny! Come here!” Elizabeth kneels on the worn linoleum floor and holds her arms out to him.
Finding himself forcing back a sob that has come out of nowhere, he goes in to them, allows himself to be enveloped in her fierce embrace.
“You even smell like a movie star,” he says when she finally releases him.
She makes a sound that’s either a laugh or a choked sob; he can’t tell which.
“So you know,” she says, “about me.”
And he nods.
“I saw you on TV all day yesterday,” he tells her. “I’m really sorry about what that bad man tried to do to you. But he’s in jail now, isn’t he?”
She nods, reaching out to brush some hair out of his eyes.
Then she turns to his grandmother, who looks flustered.
“Do you want egg salad?” Grammy asks in her thick Portuguese accent.
Fade to Black Page 25