by Nora Roberts
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“No.”
“Kansas—” But when he looked at her he saw more than the shock and fear. He saw what was missing on so many of the other faces that crowded the room: grief.
“Whatever her motives,” Deanna said quietly, “she helped me once. And whoever did this to her used me.” Her voice broke. “I can’t forget that.”
Neither could he. That was what terrified him. “It would be better if Dan Gardner doesn’t spot either one of us.”
Deanna nodded, spotting him at the front of the room, accepting condolences. “He’s using her too, even though she’s dead. It’s horrible.”
“He’ll ride her press for a while. She’d have understood that.”
“I suppose.”
“An interesting scene, isn’t it?” Loren commented when he joined them. He gave Deanna a hard, searching look, then nodded. “You’re looking well.”
“No I’m not.” Grateful for the lie, she kissed his cheek. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I could say the same.” He warmed her chilled hands between his. “It seemed necessary somehow, but I’m already regretting it.” His expression changed to one of disgust as he looked over his shoulder at Dan Gardner. “Rumor is he plans to air clips from this viewing along with the special Angela taped for next May. And he’s demanding another five thousand a minute from sponsors. The son of a bitch will get it, too.”
“Bad taste often costs more than good,” Deanna murmured. “There must be five hundred people in here.”
“Easily. A handful are even sorry she’s dead.”
“Oh, Loren.” Deanna’s stomach clenched like a fist.
“I hate to admit I’m one of them.” Then he sighed and shrugged off the mood. “She’d have gotten an ego boost out of that piece of news.” To clear the emotion from his voice, Loren coughed gently into his hand. “You know, I can’t decide if Angela deserved Dan Gardner or not. It’s a tough call.”
“I’m sure she didn’t deserve you.” The tears burning in her eyes made Deanna feel like a hypocrite since they weren’t for Angela. “We’re not staying, Loren. Why don’t you come with us?”
“No, I’m going to see this through. But I think you should avoid any publicity here tonight. Slip out quietly.”
When they were back in the alcove, Deanna turned into Finn’s arms. “I had no idea he still loved her.”
“I don’t think he did, either.” He tipped her face up until their eyes were level. “Are you all right?”
“Actually, I’m better.” She turned her head until her cheek rested on his shoulder. Most of the fear had ebbed, she realized. That jittering panic she’d nearly grown accustomed to feeling in her stomach had quieted. “I’m glad we came.”
“Excuse me.” Kate Lowell’s sultry voice had Deanna turning her head. She stood in the doorway, sleek and somber in black silk, her hair waves of flame over her shoulders. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“You haven’t,” Deanna responded. “We were just leaving.”
“So am I.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the sounds of voices and music. “It’s not my kind of party.” She smiled slightly. “She was a bitch,” Kate said. “And I hated her guts. But I’m not sure even Angela deserved to be used quite so blatantly.” She sighed once, moving her shoulders as if to shrug it all away. “I’d like a drink. And I need to talk to you.” She looked at Finn and frowned. “I suppose it’ll have to be both of you, and it hardly matters at this point.” She watched Finn’s brow rise, and smiled again, with more feeling. “Really gracious, aren’t I? Listen, why don’t you find us a bar? I’ll buy us all a drink and tell you a little story you might find interesting.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“To Hollywood,” Kate said as she raised her glass of scotch. “Land of illusions.”
Puzzled, Deanna nursed her wine while Finn stuck with coffee.
It wasn’t the sort of bar where one would expect to find one of Hollywood’s major stars. The piano player was glumly noodling out the blues so that the notes rose sluggishly on air thick with smoke. Their corner was dim, as Kate had requested. On the table scarred with nicks their drinks rested near a chipped amber glass ashtray.
“You came a long way for the funeral of someone you didn’t like.” Deanna watched Kate’s elegant nails tap the table in time with the piano.
“I was in town. But if I hadn’t been, I’d have made the trip. For the pleasure of making sure she was dead.” Kate sipped her scotch again, then set the glass aside. “I don’t imagine you cared for her any more than I did, but this might be rougher on you, since you found her.” Kate’s eyes softened as she stared into Deanna’s. “As the story goes, it wasn’t a pretty sight.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I wish it had been me,” Kate said under her breath. “You’re a softer touch, always were. Even after everything she did, and tried to do, to you. I know a lot more about that than you might imagine,” she added when Deanna studied her. “Things that didn’t make it into the press. Angela liked to brag. She hated you.” She inclined the glass toward Finn. “Because you didn’t come to heel when she snapped her fingers. And she wanted you for exactly the same reason. She figured Deanna was in her way, from all manner of angles. She’d have done anything to remove you.”
“This isn’t news.” Noting that Kate’s glass was dry, Finn signaled for another. The lady, he concluded, was stalling.
“No, it’s just my little prelude.” She stretched back, but the sinuous gesture was all nerves. “I don’t suppose you’d be surprised to know that Angela went to some trouble and expense to dig up that business from your past, Deanna. The date rape. It backfired, of course.” Her lips curved into a lovely smile. “Some of her projects did. That’s what she called them. Not blackmail.” She sulked a moment, fingers tapping, tapping, tapping. “Rob Winters was one of her projects. So was Marshall Pike.” She didn’t glance at the waitress, but nudged the glass aside even as it was set in front of her. “There are plenty more. Names that would astonish you. She used a P.I. named Beeker. He’s in Chicago. Angela kept him very busy documenting data for her projects. It cost me five thousand dollars to shoehorn his name out of Angela’s secretary. But then, everybody has a price. I had mine,” she added quietly.
“You’re saying Angela blackmailed people?” Deanna leaned forward. “She traded secrets for money?”
“Occasionally. She preferred trading secrets for favors. Her terms again.” Absently, she reached into the plastic bowl of mixed nuts. “ ‘Do me a little favor, darling, and I’ll keep this tidbit of information all to myself’ ‘Your wife has a drug problem, Senator. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word if you just do me a favor.’ What multi-Grammy winner was a victim of incest? What popular television star has ties to the KKK? Ask Angela. She made it her business to know what skeleton was in what closet. And if she was confident she had her hooks in you deeply enough, she might tell you what closet. It was a way of flexing her power. She was confident she had her hooks in me.”
“And now she’s dead.”
Kate acknowledged Finn’s comment with a nod. “Funny, now that she’s no longer a threat to me, I feel compelled to do what she always threatened to do. I’m going public. Actually, I’d decided to do so on the very night she was murdered. The police might find that convenient, don’t you think? Like a bad script. I saw her that night.” She read the horror in Deanna’s eyes. “Not at the studio. At her hotel. We argued. Since there was a maid in the next room, I imagine the police already know about it.”
She lifted a brow at Finn. “Yes, I can see at least you knew about it. Well then. I’m going to go in and make a statement before they come to me. I believe I even threatened to kill her.” Kate closed her eyes. “There’s that bad script again. I didn’t kill her, but you’ll have to decide whether to believe me when I’m finished.”
“Why are you telling us?” Deanna demanded. “Wh
y don’t you go directly to the police?”
“I’m an actress. I like the chance to choose my audience. You were always a good one, Dee.” She reached out then in a quick, fleeting gesture of friendship. “And, in any case, I think you’re entitled to know the whole story. Didn’t you ever wonder why I backed out of coming on your show? Why I’ve never been available to appear on it?”
“Yes. But I think you’ve answered that. Angela was blackmailing you. And the favor was for you to boycott my program.”
“That was one of them. I was in a precarious and fascinating position a couple of years ago, when you approached me. I had two whopping box-office successes. And the critics loved me. The wholesomely sexy girl-next-door. Don’t believe that hype about stars not reading their reviews. I pored over mine. Every word,” she said with a long, dreamy smile. “I could probably still quote a few of the best ones. All I ever wanted was to be an actor. A star,” she corrected with an easy shrug. “And that’s what they called me. The first movie star of the new generation. A throwback to Bacall and Bergman and Davis. And it didn’t take me years. One supporting role in a film that took off like a rocket, and an Academy nomination. Then I costarred with Rob and we burned up the screen, we broke hearts. The next movie, my name was over the title. My image was locked in. A woman who charms with a smile.” She laughed at that, drank again. “The good girl, the heroine, the woman you’d like your son to bring home for dinner. That’s the image. That’s what Hollywood wants from me, that’s what the public expects. And that’s what I’ve delivered. They’ve given me plenty of credit for talent, but the image is every bit as important.”
Her eyes slitted. “Do you think the top producers and directors, the players, the men who decide what project flies and what project gets buried would flood my agent with offers if they knew their perfect heroine, the woman who won an Oscar for playing the desperately devoted mother, had gotten pregnant at seventeen, and had given up the child without a second thought?”
She laughed when Deanna’s mouth opened. But it wasn’t a merry sound. “Doesn’t fit, does it? Even in these enlightened times, how many of those ticket buyers would shell out seven bucks to watch me play the long-suffering or feisty heroine?”
“I don’t . . .” Deanna stopped, waiting for her thoughts to settle. “I don’t see why it should matter. You made a choice, one I’m sure was anything but easy for you. And you were a child yourself.”
Amused, Kate glanced at Finn. “Is she really that naive?”
“About some things.” He was, despite his pride in being a sharp judge of character, doing some rapid mental shuffling. “I can see why an announcement like that would have shaken things up. You’d have taken some knocks in the press. But you’d have pulled out of it.”
“Maybe. I was afraid. Angela knew that. And I was ashamed. She knew that, too. She was very sympathetic at first. ‘How hard it must have been on you, dear. A young girl, with her whole life in flux because of one tiny mistake. How difficult it must have been for you to do what you thought was best for the child.’ ”
Annoyed with herself, Kate flicked a tear away. “And you see, since it had been difficult, even horrible, and because she was sympathetic, I broke down. Then she had me. She reminded me that it wouldn’t do for certain Hollywood brass to discover that I’d made this tiny mistake. Oh, she understood, she sympathized completely. But would they? Would the ticket-buying public who’d crowned me their valiant princess understand?”
“Kate, you were seventeen.”
Very slowly, Kate lifted her gaze to Deanna’s. “I was old enough to make a child, old enough to give her away. Old enough to pay for it. I hope I’m strong enough now to face the consequences.” She frowned at her glass. If she didn’t survive, if she crashed and burned, it would kill her. Angela had known that. “A few years ago, I wasn’t. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think I could have survived the hate mail then, or the tabloids, or the bad jokes.” She smiled again, but Deanna saw her pain. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it now. But the simple fact is, the cops are bound to track me down. Sooner or later they’ll dig up Beeker and all of Angela’s nasty files. I’m going to choose my own time and place for my public announcement. I’d like to do it on your show.”
Deanna blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said I’d like to do it on your show.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. First, for me it would be the ultimate payback to Angela. You don’t like that one,” she murmured, seeing the disapproval in Deanna’s eyes. “You’ll like this better. I trust you. You’ve got class, and compassion. This isn’t going to be easy for me, and I’m going to need both. I’m scared.” She set her drink down. “I hate that reason, but I might as well admit it. I lost the child through my ambition,” she said quietly. “That’s gone,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want to lose what I’ve got, Deanna. What I’ve worked for. Angela’s just as dangerous to me dead as she was alive. At least I can pick my time and place this way. I’ve got a lot of respect for you. I always have. I’m going to have to talk about my private life, my personal griefs. I’d like to start off talking with someone I respect.”
“We’ll juggle the schedule,” Deanna said simply. “And do it Monday morning.”
Kate closed her eyes a moment, gathered what resources she had left. “Thanks.”
The sleet had stopped by the time they arrived home, leaving the air chill and damp and gloomy. Clouds hovered, thick and black. There was a light on in one of the front windows, streaming gold through the glass in cozy welcome. The dog began to bark the moment Finn slipped the key into the lock.
It should have been a homecoming. But there was the ever-present smell of paint reminding them their home had been violated. Drop cloths were spread in the hallway, and the dog’s barking echoed emptily. So many of the rooms had been cleared out of broken crockery, damaged furniture. It was like being greeted by a mortally ill friend.
“We can still go to a hotel.”
Deanna shook her head. “No, that’s only another way of hiding. I can’t help feeling responsible for this.”
“Then work on it.”
She recognized the impatience in his voice. She stooped to pet the dog as Finn peeled off his coat. “They were your things, Finn.”
“Things.” He shoved his coat on the hall rack. In the mirrored surface he saw her head bent over the dog’s. “Just things, Deanna. Insured, replaceable.”
She stayed where she was but lifted her head. Her eyes were wide and weary. “I love you so much. I hate knowing he was here, that he touched anything that was yours.”
He crouched beside her, causing the dog to roll belly up in anticipation. But Finn took Deanna by the shoulders, his eyes suddenly fierce. “You are the only thing I have that’s irreplaceable. The first time I met you, the first time, I knew that nothing that had happened to me before, or that would happen after, would mean as much. Can you understand that?” His hand moved roughly into her hair. “It’s overwhelming what I feel for you. It’s terrifying. And it’s everything.”
“Yes.” She brought her hands to his face, guided his mouth to hers. “I can understand that.” Emotions welled up, pouring into the kiss so that her lips were urgent and edgy. Even as Finn tugged at her coat, the dog wriggled between them, whining.
“We’re embarrassing Cronkite,” he murmured, drawing Deanna to her feet.
“We should find him a wife.”
“You just want to go to the pound again and liberate another mutt.”
“Now that you mention it . . .” But her smile faded quickly. “Finn, I have to talk to you about something.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Can we go upstairs?”
She wanted the bedroom, since it was almost fully restored. He’d seen that the work there had been completed first. The things that hadn’t been destroyed had been placed there. Above the bed, where she knew a desperate message had been scrawled, the paint was fresh
and clean. He’d hung the painting there—the one he had bought out from under her in the gallery so long ago.
Awakenings. All those vivid splashes of color. That energy and verve. He’d known she’d needed it there, a reminder of life. And so the room had become a haven.
“Are you upset about Kate?”
“Yes.” She kept her hand in his as they climbed the stairs. “But this is about something else.” She walked into the bedroom, moved to the fireplace, the window, then back. “I love you, Finn.”
The tone put him on guard. “We’ve established that.”
“Loving you doesn’t mean I have the right to intrude in every area of your life.”
Curious, he tilted his head. He could read her like a book. She was worried. “Which areas do you consider off limits?”
“You’re annoyed.” Baffled, she tossed up her hands. “I can never quite understand how easily I can set you off, especially when I’m trying to be reasonable.”
“I hate it when you think you’re being reasonable. Just spill it, Deanna.”
“Fine. What did Angela have on you?”
His expression altered subtly, from impatience to utter confusion. “Huh?”
“Don’t do that.” She ripped off her coat and tossed it aside. In her tasteful black suit and damp shoes, she paced the room. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so. I’ll agree that anything you’ve done in the past isn’t necessarily connected to our relationship.”
“Slow down, and stop stalking around the room. What do you think I’ve done?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded shrill to herself. “I don’t know,” she said more calmly. “And if you think I don’t need to know, I’ll try to accept it. But once the police question this Beeker character, your secret is bound to come out anyway.”