“I knew her enough to know that she … she was a horrible person.”
Serena walked over to where Melinda was standing and forced her sister to look at her. Melinda did so at last, her blue-green eyes, so much like Serena’s own, glittering with tears.
“Melinda, did she do something to you?” Serena asked, baffled. Here was Melinda, close to shedding tears, while basically saying that she had despised Jane.
“No, but I … Serena, I did! I hated her. I only saw her a few times, at Joe’s ‘get acquainted’ parties, but she was rude and obnoxious. To me, at least. It’s just that she’s dead! I’m all right, really.”
“Hey, Melinda,” Serena said softly. “It’s tragic, but you didn’t have anything to do with it. A lot of people—” She hesitated, then spoke the truth. “Apparently, a lot of people hated her. Your hating her isn’t the reason that she died.”
“I hope not.”
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. Oh, Serena!” Melinda threw her arms around her, hugging her tightly again. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Those words were heartfelt, and again Serena was grateful. They were close, as close as it was possible for sisters to be when they were so unlike each other. Melinda had spent years sniffing at her acting career, merely tolerating what she considered to be a life with no true vocation. When Serena had been younger, acting in plays, Melinda would shake her head, but she would also be in the audience for any show Serena ever did.
“I’m okay. I’m really just fine.”
Melinda drew away, smiling, “I’m sorry. I’m being an idiot, huh?”
“Melinda, I’d worry about you if you weren’t upset about a woman dying!”
“Oh, Serena, now I feel really terrible. It’s more man that. I’m worried because of Jeff. And he wasn’t home … and he’d been to the studio …”
“Melinda, you have no reason to worry about Jeff. He left the studio early—before this happened. And he’s a consultant, not a stagehand, and certainly not with the lighting crew.”
“I know, it’s just that …”
“Melinda, it’s just what?”
Melinda inhaled, looking at her as if she was ready to burst into tears again.
“Melinda?”
“I don’t know … I’m not really sure. She was so mean to me every time we met. Well, maybe not mean— she just ignored me, totally, as if I were dust to be shuffled under the carpet. She was rude to Jeff … but then there was something else there …”
“She was a flirt, Melinda. A high-powered flirt.”
“She was more than that. She used men. She drew them in … like a spider drawing victims into a web to be consumed when the time was right. But I am sorry she’s dead. Do you believe that, Serena?”
“Of course, I do.”
“And Jeff … he has his faults, but … it had to have been an accident. Serena, maybe you should leave the show. Maybe they’re too careless.”
Serena sighed, rubbing her temples. Her sister sounded almost hopeful. “No, Melinda. I’ve worked with all the people at Valentine Valley for years. And I’m under contract anyway. I can’t just quit.”
“Your life is more important than a contract.”
“Yes, I believe that wholeheartedly. But I don’t believe that I was an intended victim, or that lightning—or stage lights—strikes twice in the same place.”
Melinda walked away from her. “So you really think it was an accident?” she asked, pausing by the small bar setup mat could be opened to accommodate the patio as well. To Serena’s surprise, her sister, who never drank, poured herself a scotch.
“Melinda, I don’t know,” Serena said slowly, thinking about the saucer ashtray that had disappeared but determined not to say anything about it to Melinda, partly because she’d been told not to mention it and partly because her sister was so upset.
The doorbell rang, causing them both to jump. The glass of scotch jiggled dangerously in Melinda’s hand.
“It’s the doorbell. Just the doorbell,” Serena said.
She walked back through the foyer to the door. It was her brother-in-law. Tall and very thin, he had fine features, as lean as his wiry frame. Now his sandy blond hair with its distinguished touch of gray was all but standing on end, as if he’d threaded his fingers through it a hundred times. Serena and Jeff had always gotten along—except that he, like her sister, seemed to feel that she had wasted her life in frivolous pursuits.
“Jeff,” she said. “Come in.”
“Melinda is here?”
It was obvious, Serena thought. Her sister’s minivan was in the driveway.
“Yes.”
He entered the foyer. Melinda had turned. They seemed to stare at each other for a long moment, then Melinda cried out and rushed to him. It was like a scene out of a movie.
“Jeff …” Melinda said, looking up at him.
“Let’s go home. Together.”
Melinda nodded, eyeing her husband of so many years as if she didn’t want to let him go. “You heard?” she said.
“Of course. I’ve been down to the station.”
“The police station?”
“Of course.”
“Jeff—”
“Melinda, I’m really tired. Let’s get home.”
“Jeff, she was a horrible person. Horrible.”
“She didn’t deserve to die that way,” Jeff said.
Melinda appeared to be relieved at his words. “My car—” she began awkwardly.
“If you want,” Serena suggested, “come pick it up on Sunday. We’ll all have dinner together here, and you can drive both cars home then.”
Melinda stiffened. “You’re going to invite all the soap people?”
“No, just us. How’s that?”
“Sure, that sounds good,” Jeff said. “Thanks, short stuff.” He sounded gruff. The “short stuff’ was a joke. She had been in high school when he started dating her sister. She had since shot up to be an inch taller than Melinda. “You sure you don’t have plans?”
“Yes, I have plans for you two to come over on Sunday.”
“Great.” Jeff looked at Melinda again, took her hand, and started out the door. At the last minute, Melinda turned and gave Serena a fierce hug once again.
“I love you,” Melinda told her sister.
“I love you, too,” Serena said.
“I’m always here, if you need me.”
“Hey, I’m here, too. You know that. If you’re upset, alone, if you just want to talk—”
“We’re going to be back on Sunday!” Jeff said. “No one is leaving town or anything.”
“Or dying,” Melinda murmured. Again she hugged her sister, then the two were gone.
Chapter 4
THAT NIGHT SERENA FOUND herself double-checking her already locked door.
She’d spent some time with a script and some time picking up around the house. At last she realized that she had just been trying to find things to do. She was definitely on edge.
In the refrigerator, she found a bottle of Chablis. She poured a large glass, though not getting quite as carried away as Melinda had earlier. She went and stood by the windows that looked onto the patio. Images from the day kept sweeping through her mind. An awful day. And then … her sister.
Had Melinda behaved strangely, or was it just that everything seemed strange today?
She shivered, looking out, and stepped back from the windows. She loved her pool and patio area, and it was surrounded by a high privacy fence. She suddenly felt uneasy, though, as if standing in the light, she might be seen by anyone.
She pulled the heavy drapes and realized that she was feeling … scared.
Silly! The house is all locked up.
She remembered the way Melinda had greeted Jeff, running into his arms. Together, they had seemed so much stronger.
She was envious. She wished that …
No, don’t think about him. He was an ass …
But still, col
or flooded her cheeks, and she couldn’t help but remember how great it had been to be with him. Go ahead—be angry and righteous, you’re entitled! And yet she remembered the way he had taken her home that first time, and how he had come in, and how, suddenly, clothes had been strewn everywhere and she had felt the heat of his flesh.
She had known almost nothing about him at the time; nothing about his family, if he had a family, what he did in his spare time, how he liked his coffee. The living room drapes had even been wide open. He had looked through her house because she’d been nervous about the Hitchcock killings, and he’d said that the house was secure and she shouldn’t be worried, and the next thing she knew, he touched her, and she had been on fire … and then his hands … and his lips moving over her flesh, and then his question: Hey, are you … all right with this? And her answer, oh, my God, yes … and men feeling him, the extent of his arousal, pressing intimately against her bare flesh. All right? Yes, she was about to die …
She had never done anything like that before. Never. Her natural inclination was to refrain from sex unless a relationship was entirely right. That was probably why she had married Andy. But Liam wouldn’t know that, or believe that, because the magazines had a tendency to make a handshake with any man in Hollywood or beyond into a tempestuous affair.
He was the best sex you ever had! an unwanted voice told her.
Not that much to compare to, no matter what the rags say! she protested. Andy didn’t really count. He was really always making love to himself.
“More wine!” she murmured aloud and headed back to the kitchen.
“Lots more wine,” she said.
Then, after still another glass, she told the refrigerator, “He was an ass!”
A damned good-looking ass, with his dark eyes and hair, built like a brick wall, tight and tan and rugged. And convinced he was right, and patronizing, and annoying, and …
He had walked out.
Because of her schedule. When he was a cop, being called in continually. Being a cop mattered, he said. His emergencies were always crucial. She was just an actress. It was all pretense.
She lifted her glass to the refrigerator. “To put it crudely, fuck him! And if he were ever to walk back into my life, I’d tell him exactly that!”
Still, the whole thing today had been more than sad and horrible and a tragic loss of life. It had been … bizarre.
She was never afraid at home alone. Her neighbors were private people, but great folks. There was little crime here. Now she could hear every rustle of a branch or tree outside. Or at least she thought she could. There was a breeze tonight. A light breeze. Yet to her, the night suddenly seemed to be moaning. And each rustle outside sounded like footsteps …
“No!” she declared out loud.
She switched the TV on. Loud. So much for sounds beyond. The doors were locked, the windows all had alarm wires. No one could get in.
But despite the charming sitcom on the television and the wine she was drinking—and all the logic she forced through her mind—she found herself returning to the front of the house and peeking out the drapes. Nothing. A car rode by.
It was a black-and-white police cruiser. See? Relax. It’s a great neighborhood, she told herself.
But that night, she had an awful nightmare. She was looking down at Jane Dunne. Jane’s eyes were still open. Jane was dead, but she spoke to Serena. It should have been you! Jane’s gaze stayed fixed on her. The red rose slipped through her fingers.
On the ride to her pleasant ranch house not more than a mile from Serena’s home, Melinda Guelph was quiet, sitting close to Jeff, holding his hand as he drove his crimson Volvo, staring straight ahead at the road.
When they reached their house, the home where they’d lived for twenty-some years together, where they had raised their two boys, shared interests, been a family, they held each other close inside the foyer for a very long time.
She offered to cook. Neither of them was hungry.
He wanted a long shower. She took a hot bath.
And so it wasn’t until late that Melinda brought up the issue of what had happened.
“Frankly, I’m worried. I still don’t understand. The police called you in to the station?” she queried.
“Yep. Caught me on the cell phone, right when I was buying some new tools.”
“Why did they call you?”
“I was on the set before it happened,” Jeff explained. He sounded very casual. “They wanted to know if I had seen anything strange, if I had been around the lighting or the set for any reason, or her dressing room.”
“And?” she asked softly.
He stared at her in the darkened shadows of their bedroom, frowning. “And what?”
“Were you near any of those places?”
He looked at the ceiling. “I was with the writers. I barely passed through the set—and no, I was nowhere near any of the dressing rooms.”
“And did you see anything—strange?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I told you, I was nowhere near any of the dressing rooms.”
“Why—why did you come for me at Serena’s?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“You weren’t home,” he said flatly, “and I was sure that you’d heard about what had happened by now. I knew you’d be upset.”
She was silent.
“Dammit, I love you, Melinda,” he said, and despite the words he spoke, his voice was angry.
“Yes, of course. I love you, too,” she said. But she made no move to touch him. She didn’t even look his way.
He reached out to touch her. She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and turned her back on him.
“Melinda—”
“I’m tired, Jeff. Really, really tired.”
She felt him draw away. She didn’t know when he finally slept. She only knew that she lay awake hour after hour after hour.
It was late when Liam got down to the station. He stopped to say hello to Morna Daily, the duty officer manning the front desk. Before he could exchange more than a few pleasantries, Olsen appeared and led him past a habitual prostitute who waved a friendly greeting and a drugged-out teen throwing a tantrum about who his daddy was and what was going to happen to the cops. It was prime time—for television and for the crazies at a metro police station.
Joe Penny was already seated in a chair in front of Olsen’s desk. Liam shook hands with Joe, who looked exhausted. Olsen shut the door and began a quick briefing on what had happened. When he was done, Liam stared at his old friend. “Let me get this straight—a spotlight fell, in full view of at least a dozen people?”
“Yeah. In full view of a lot of people,” George said.
“Why are you so convinced that it might be something other than an accident?”
Olsen hesitated, then shook his head with a rueful smile. He inclined his head toward Joe Penny.
“I want to be cautious,” Joe said. “In all my years in television, I’ve never seen a light fall on a set like that.”
Olsen riffled through his notes. “The two fellows responsible for lighting are Emilio Garcia and Dayton Riley. They’re both union, and both have been with the show since it began. Between them, they have thirty-five years of experience. Both of them swear that every light is checked and double-checked when it’s mounted. The lighting cords are also tied in a safety knot.”
Liam admitted it did sound suspicious.
“Both Emilio and Dayton swear that their routine never changes,” Joe Penny said. “Although, frankly, it’s hard to believe that this is anything other than a bizarre accident.”
Joe sounded sincere. He was a man Liam had come to know during the investigation into the Hitchcock killings, which had taken place more than a year ago now. Joe had been among the suspects, so Liam had done some serious looking into the man’s life. He was a womanizer, beyond a doubt. He was fifty-something with ash-blond—almost platinum—hair, a tightly muscled body, and a dignified look. He was doing his best to age gracefully
, but Hollywood was a young town. Joe meant to survive. He had definitely been somewhat touched up. His surgeon had done an excellent job.
“There’s something else that’s bothering you,” Liam said, eyeing the lieutenant, with whom he’d worked closely for years. No matter how far police science progressed, the old adage still applied: Sometimes a cop’s best tool is his gut feeling. Liam realized there was also something that George hadn’t yet told him.
“Serena McCormack reported seeing an ashtray in the dressing room—no, a saucer used as an ashtray. She thought that she saw a half-burned piece of paper in the saucer. We’d looked in the dressing room before we interviewed her, and I sent Bill Hutchens back to look again after she made the statement. No such saucer or piece of burned paper was there, and no one else saw it, or mentioned it.”
Liam set his hands on the desk. “Maybe someone hid it, knowing that Jennifer would be upset about people smoking in her dressing room.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s nothing. I just don’t like a dangling thread like that.” He cast a sidelong glance at Joe Penny. “In any case, Joe here is convinced that he should err on the side of caution. Serena McCormack is important to Valentine Valley. Hell, the whole soap-following, magazine-buying, television-watching population of America loves that evil woman.”
“You’ll take the job?” Joe asked.
“You know what I’ve asked for, right?” Liam said.
“Yeah, highway robbery. They should lock you up,” Joe said.
Liam grinned. ‘Take it or leave it.”
“If you’ll do it, you’re hired.”
Olsen cleared his throat. “Hutchens seems to think that you and Serena had some kind of a volatile past. I know the kind of work you do. You’re professional to a fault. But if you think that a disagreement between you two is going to hamper your work in any way—”
“It won’t,” Liam said flatly. “I have one question, though.”
“Shoot.”
“What if Serena says no way to a bodyguard?”
“We won’t let her,” Joe told him.
“Last I heard, it’s a free country.”
“It’s an expensive free country, especially in California,” Joe said gruffly. “Andy and I are convinced that we’ve a lot more at stake than what we’re paying you. And hell, we both know you, like you, the cast knows you … you won’t have much of a problem from that end.”