The Admirer's Secret

by Crane, Pamela

  Back home, leaning into the soft couch cushions probably for the last time, Haley began to analyze her relationship with Marc. Finding someone else who understood her like Marc did was, well, impossible. He was perfect for her in every way, from their similar interests to his nurturing nature. She could see herself growing old with him, and she quite often let her imagination carry her away with that very image. Their kids would have his gorgeous eyes and her imagination. He’d teach them sports and she’d read them stories. It was picture-perfect. In her imagination.

  The debate of whether or not she should go to Los Angeles still ransacked her nerves. She was tempted to call Marc this morning before departure, but she hadn’t planned out what she would say just yet. There was too much to say, and not enough guts to say it. And besides, he had made his decision pretty clear yesterday evening by his lack of response. When Haley had confronted the two, she had given him a chance to explain, to tell her how sorry he was, yet he stood there gawking with mouth gaping wide but nothing coming out. It was evident that he didn’t care about Haley. He wanted to protect his secret at the expense of Haley’s heart.

  Typical guy.

  Jerk.

  The plane ticket beckoned her from the coffee table, as if challenging her to make a move. Her hands trembled as she reached for it, then held the top of the paper with both hands, as if preparing to tear it in two. Fleeting memories of Marc’s letters and sweet gestures from all their times together pressed in on her. She knew his feelings for her were strong—or at least used to be—but the obstacles were wide and deep. They could always work it out if he could assure her that he’d be faithful. She’d forgive him in a heartbeat if he could do that. She needed to think, but there was no time; the flight would leave in a few hours. The dilemma bounced between a flicker of hope that Marc would want to start over and the guarantee that she could find success in L.A. with Allen. She slowly perched herself on the edge of the sofa, unable to tear the paper that held her dreams of prosperity and fame into shreds.

  She took a long look around her. The house was in perfect order, as it always was under her meticulous reign. Haley felt it complemented Marc’s messier lifestyle, as the cliché confirmed to her that opposites do in fact attract. It dawned on her that she might never see her home again—her first, and only, home away from home. Though it was only a few minutes’ drive from her mother, renting this house was her first step at independence, and she would certainly miss the place. If she ended up making it on her own out in California, she’d most likely be too busy to come home and pack her things. Haley would probably have to send for them; her mom could handle clearing out the house and taking care of the moving details, and Haley could always call her landlord to tell him to cancel her lease. All the ifs clouded her mind; for some reason it didn’t feel right to just up and go without notice. She hadn’t even properly said her good-byes to everyone. Not that there were many worth saying good-bye to.

  Part of her felt like this was a short-lived vacation, but the other half told her this could be it—the big break she’d been hoping for, the answer to her problems. It was a chance of a lifetime, and her nerves wouldn’t let her forget that. It was a big step, much more than most could brag about. If she refused this opportunity, it might never come up again. But the same applied to true love. If she passed Marc up, would anyone ever take his place in her heart?

  A horn honked outside her house. It must be the cab she scheduled to take her to the airport, exactly on time. She had hoped it would be late for some reason, maybe to give her that extra moment alone to dwell on the choices before her. A second honk hurriedly followed the first and Haley realized it was time to make a decision. Probably the toughest decision of her life.

  She reached into her pocket where she carried Marc’s first letter of affection to her. There, on the easily recognizable tablet paper, was his profession of love. Proof that he had loved her at one point. She held it up and read it once more, than tore it in half. It fluttered to the ground as she released her grip on him. She was going to go make something of herself, without Marc Vincetti.

  **

  Haley arrived at the airport lugging her entire future behind her in a pair of worn suitcases. It had been a long time, too long, she supposed, since she set foot in an airport. She pushed her way through the mass of people and into the monstrous lobby area. Overhead signs seemed to point in a hundred different directions, intercom announcements adding to the chaos.

  She had no idea what to expect. Crowds shuffled around her, jostling one another like bumper cars intent to win. Apparently Sunday mornings weren’t the best time to travel if one was rushed.

  Haley looked for was a sign leading her to the luggage check-in. By the time she checked her suitcases and proceeded through security, she only had ten minutes until her flight’s departure time. Yet Haley didn’t even know her gate number. Someone had written it on her ticket, but it was a bunch of unintelligible chicken-scratch, and she couldn’t tell if it was the letter C or a G. Relieved to come across a flight itinerary screen listing her flight number and respective gate, she had eight minutes until departure. She was going to miss Flight 0417.

  The sign directly above her head confirmed otherwise, for she was standing at her gate and had passed by it half a dozen times, she realized. Just as a monotone female voice announced the last call for all passengers for Flight 0417, she joined the single file line of passengers heading into the terminal. She searched for the blond balding head of Allen, who confirmed his safe arrival at the airport with her cell phone voice mail an hour earlier. Spotting him near the front of the line, he apparently hadn’t seen her arrive. She considered greeting him, then refrained; she needed a breather first.

  Sweaty from her jog, Haley wiped her brow with the back of her coat sleeve. So this was what her new life would be like. Allen had told her that this job would require extensive travel—some for story ideas, some for business-related meetings—and at first it had sounded thrilling. The hustle and bustle of flying all over the world would definitely be a change from the slow-paced life she was accustomed to. She had second thoughts about all this running around; it wasn’t anything like she had imagined, all exciting and adventurous. Instead it was grueling and stressful. Ignorance is bliss, she thought to herself.

  The line moved up as passengers began boarding, and Allen was slowly heading down the terminal.

  “Good morning,” a lady in a navy blue blazer greeted her.

  “Good morning,” Haley replied, her gaze still on Allen.

  As she stood at the front of the line and handed her ticket to the attendant, Haley realized this wasn’t at all what she wanted anymore. If she never had to deal with another luggage check-in, security check, or an airport ever again, she wouldn’t mind one bit. With no one to share it all with, what was the point? All morning her thoughts were on Marc. If she were going to travel somewhere, she wanted it to be with him. If she were going to write about anything, she wanted to write about her love for him. If she were going to spend her time anywhere, she wanted it to be at his side. Right now, standing in line to board a plane taking her even farther from her heart’s desire, she knew what she wanted for her life. And Los Angeles wasn’t it.

  At the junction between following a certain future or an uncertain love, Haley couldn’t move. Without giving Allen, Los Angeles, or her checked luggage another thought, Haley left the flustered attendant still holding the ticket and stepped out of the line with brisk strides. Her high-heeled boots clicked loudly against the tile floor as she quickened her pace to the exit

  “Haley!”

  She instinctively turned around at the sound of her name. Allen waved, frantically signaling her to return.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled.

  How could she answer—following true love? Her green eyes blankly stared into Allen’s steely blue eyes. She hated to throw away dreams she worked so hard to make a reality, but she worked harder for Marc, if truth be told. She woul
d win back his heart, if she indeed ever lost it, and there was no option for defeat. But Allen wouldn’t understand that. He understood money and fame, two things Haley discovered she could live without. He didn’t understand love.

  “I’m going back for Marc,” she finally said.

  “Don’t, Haley. He’s not right for you. We’re right for each other. You and I. Imagine it: creating a life together built on our dreams and imaginings. Marc doesn’t deserve you after what he did.”

  “It’s called love, Allen. You don’t understand.”

  “Then you leave me no choice.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “If you won’t protect yourself, then—”

  “Don’t.” She’d heard enough. “I have to go. I made a promise, and I’m following it.” She shook her head. There was no time for further explanation. She apologetically shrugged her shoulders, palms out in surrender, and made a mad dash down the long corridor, losing herself in the crowds. The screenplays, the premier, the fame and fortune—none of it fit who she was. Marc, she knew deep in her heart, fit her perfectly. And she planned to tell him that in the only way she knew how.

  Chapter 34

  By the fourth call, Haley asked the cabbie to turn down the volume of the radio and picked up her cell phone.

  “Hello?” She didn’t bother to cover the agitation in her voice.

  “Did you see the news today?” The beat of Gabrielle’s hysterical words resembled a drum roll.

  “No, Mom, I’m on my way home from the airport right now. I haven’t had time to watch TV.”

  An audible exhale reached Haley’s ears. “So you’re not on the plane then?”

  “No, I’m not going,” Haley answered with intentional defeat. She really needed some sympathy, though her woeful tone went unnoticed.

  “You’re not with that teacher of yours?”

  “No, I’m by myself right now.”

  “Thank God you’re not on that plane, Haley! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day. I was watching the news and you wouldn’t believe what I saw. They’ve been covering this story for the past couple days.”

  Haley groaned. Nearly every night her mom spent half of their suppertime reciting all the day’s news, so this stampede of information was nothing unusual. Though, this time it sounded a bit more urgent than usual.

  “Go ahead. Tell me, Mom.” Her mom would tell her one way or the other, so she figured she’d go without a fight.

  “Allen Michaels is all over the news. Well, apparently his wife, ex-wife or whatever she is, went missing, and they found her body last night.”

  It took a minute for Haley to find her voice. “What? Are you serious?”

  “I wish I wasn’t. She had several stab wounds in her abdomen and he must have dumped her in the woods and tried to cover her body up with brush. Apparently she’s been missing for weeks. Some hiker found a partially decomposed body and it’s her.”

  “Do you think he did it…?”

  “Evidence points to him. They can’t find the weapon, though. The police are looking for him now. He disappeared from his Los Angeles home a few weeks ago, but they weren’t able to trace him. They had questioned him when she first went missing, but there was nothing to imply foul play. And up until they found her body, they couldn’t do anything, but the media’s saying they had a pretty ugly separation and she filed for divorce, giving him motive to kill her. He’s worth a fortune and her demands would have left him pretty bad off after the divorce.”

  “Have you been reading the tabloids again, Mom?”

  “This is for real, Haley.”

  “I know… I just can’t believe this. He seemed so… normal, y’know? Well, as normal as an eccentric Hollywood person can be.”

  “People aren’t always what they seem, I guess. You should know that more than anybody.” A truth that Haley still couldn’t stomach. “He’s a murderer, Haley. Just stay away from that man.”

  “I will. He left this morning.”

  “So you saw him get on that plane?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “What? So he could still be around?” she shouted.

  “No, no, Mom. I’m sure he’s gone. He was boarding when I got there.” Haley didn’t want to tell her that he ran after her to stop her from leaving. There was no sense worrying her when there was nothing anyone could do.

  “You should alert the police anyways. They should know to expect him at the Los Angeles airport.”

  “I will.”

  “I just want him out of our town. Oh, and the police might want to question you about him and his whereabouts, so be prepared.”

  “Why me?”

  “Well, you were the last one to see him. And you know where he’s heading. So make sure you call them, okay?”

  “Okay, I’ll take care of it.” Could she pile anything more onto her already burdened shoulders?

  “Call me if you need anything, honey. I’m just glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would have done if…”

  “Mom, it’s okay now,” Haley said with a touch of irritation.

  “I know, but I just couldn’t bear to lose…”

  “Mom.” Haley couldn’t listen to another pleading word. Though she knew her mother was just looking out for her, it was too much too quickly—first Marc’s cheating, then this whole thing. “It’s okay. I will call you later. But right now I need to take care of something. I’ll talk to you later.”

  A rushed apology later, Haley hung up knowing she was about to embark on the longest day of her life.

  Chapter 35

  It wasn’t a body part. With the cardboard lid opened, the surprise package revealed a pile of papers. Marc pulled out the thick stack. The curvy writing on a note strategically placed on the top faced him dead on. The calligraphy was so perfectly aligned, it was apparent the author had spent innumerable hours perfecting his craft. Marc’s stomach felt like it was wriggling to digest rocks as he read the flawlessly scripted cursive:

  Marc,

  Stay away from her. If you don’t, I hope you’re ready to die for her, because you’ll be next.

  He fought the instinct to crumple up the letter as he stared at it. His fingers, like the rest of him, were in shock. But anger soon replaced the shock. Slamming the note on the table, he pulled the box toward him, ready to shred the whole batch of letters. He wondered how many more threats waited for his wrath, but then he thought better of it. This was evidence. At least fifty pieces of evidence, he guessed as he gauged the thickness of the stack.

  As he reached to return the original letter back to the box, he discovered an image on the back. A picture. The threat had been written on the back of a photograph. It was a candid of him and Sheba sitting on his back porch. A black marker had scratched out Sheba’s face. So he was right. Sheba’s death was not an accident.

  And he was next.

  This was it. This was his life—a series of meaningless moments that had amounted to nothing. While on some level everyone knows their time will be up one day, no one ever expects it when it actually happens. Marc, now acutely aware of his mortality, had done nothing of consequence with his life. His days were numbered, and yet as he faced the very real possibility of its end, his personal accounting revealed little. He’d helped out a person or two, but what did that matter in the grander scheme? He’d die and the world would go on just as it had been, missing not even a beat without him. The sad reality of his existence felt worse than the fear of dying.

  And now his life was threatened without a chance to rectify his transgressions or lack of accomplishments. A psycho planned to end it and he didn’t even know why. He spent so much time obsessed with his own life that somewhere in the middle of wooing a girl and filling his work schedule he’d managed to make someone angry enough to kill him.

  Wooing a girl.

  Stay away from her, the note said.

  Either his aggressor was a jealous ex-boyfriend or someone who simply wanted to make his lif
e a living hell. But without more information, there was no way to stop this. Was there?

  He couldn’t be next. Death couldn’t win. Though he could never know for certain if today or tomorrow would be his last day on earth, he knew that he had someone greater to take care of him, to protect him. If he was going to die, it wouldn’t be because of a deranged person. It would be because it was his time to go, period. But a small still voice told him it wasn’t his time, and he believed the voice.

  “Not yet,” he said aloud, and with conviction, too.

  As determination settled in, his fear made way for regimented resolve. He would stop whomever it was. He would hunt him down and… he hadn’t gotten much further than that, but he certainly wasn’t giving in without a fight.

  It was easier to imagine the police kicking in some stranger’s door, bringing justice full circle as the creep was put behind bars. But there was one problem with that hopeful visage: How could he stop someone whose identity was a mystery? He had two clues to work with: the letters and the phone messages.

  Out of the corner of his eye, the answering machine blinked the messages he never got around to listening to earlier that morning. He forced himself back to the answering machine. Maybe if he listened closely, he could figure out if the caller was male or female. He hit play.

  The breathing was soft but forced; it didn’t sound natural. More like puffs of air. The caller definitely forced the sound. But there was no way to determine the gender. He backtracked through a list of anyone and everyone whom he had ever wronged, taking a mental inventory of anyone who’d want him dead and why. There was really no one that came to mind. Things were going well. He had no known enemies that he knew of.