As she walked onto the set of Beekman Place, Toni had a strong sense of déjà vu. She’d experienced this reaction before: the curious stares of the cast and crew, the sympathetic expression in others’ eyes that said, “How could you have come into contact with such horror, not just once, but twice?”
The same people who’d avoided her after Craig’s murder kept an even greater distance, now that his wife had met the same fate. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine what they were thinking: spend an hour with Toni Abbott and end up dead.
That attitude, however, didn’t apply to Heather. She joined Toni, and together they walked toward their dressing room.
“I watched the news the other night,” Heather said. “I almost called you, but thought it best not to create any more negative vibes. You’ve been through enough.”
“You’re very considerate, and I appreciate it. I haven’t turned the TV on. How bad was it?”
“The reporters swarmed all over the cab driver who took you to Suzanne’s house. Thank God you asked him to wait while you went inside.”
As if on cue, surreal images, one more terrible than the next, flashed before Toni’s eyes. Once again she saw Suzanne’s body lying on the floor, frozen in death. The vivid picture of that blood-stained knife, protruding from the woman’s back, would be with her forever.
“It must have been horrible for you.” Heather’s face bore a look of concern.
“I never want to become involved with the police again. Not even for a parking ticket.”
“All kinds of rumors are flying around the set.”
A wave of alarm passed through Toni. “Do people think I killed her? And Craig?”
“Nothing like that. Except from Leo.”
No surprise there, given his vendetta against her. They continued on their way to the dressing room area in silence, Toni having no desire to recount the latest catastrophe in her life. Heather apparently sensed her need for privacy.
Once inside the cramped room, with its dingy beige walls, Toni snapped on the lights, dropped her shoulder bag on the dressing table, and settled into the straight-back chair facing the mirror. One look told the story of her recent ordeal. For once, Emma’s assignment to make her look battered and bruised should be easy. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her usually glowing skin had turned pallid.
“Have you spoken to Leo yet?” Heather asked.
“I wasn’t sure he was here. I didn’t see him when I came in.”
“Earlier, he was barking orders and rushing around the set like a coyote on the trail of a rabbit.” Heather opened her shooting script and showed Toni one stage direction on the fourth page. Alexandra Bradshaw returns to the Winston mansion. “Apparently, you’re to continue convalescing there. The rumor is you’re going to have some lines by tomorrow. That’s really encouraging.”
Was that the reason Toni had not seen Leo when she arrived? His battle with the writers lost, was he avoiding her until they shot the scene?
“Good news at last. Hopefully.” With Leo, it never paid to count your chickens too soon.
She picked up her copy of the day’s script and quickly thumbed through it. Finally, a positive note. Alexandra was indeed alive and getting stronger. Leo, she knew, had nothing to do with that turn of events.
“How’s Janet taking the news?”
“For once, she’s speechless. There’s more pent-up destruction in her today than there is on an atomic testing range. Her face looks like she’s been mummified.”
“Leo must be furious with the writers.”
“He’ll get over it.”
Would he? Toni stood and pulled off her street clothes. It reminded her that on another occasion Craig might have photographed her as she undressed. Yet, no such photos had surfaced, and she hoped it was nothing more than a rumor. Still, she checked to make sure the dressing room door was fully closed.
The hospital gown, which she’d left hanging from the metal rack, was nowhere in sight. In its place she found a pink silk nightgown and matching peignoir, the latter appliquéd with lace and trimmed with marabou feathers. She checked the script to make certain the glamorous costume was meant for her. It was.
The fabric of the garments was luxurious and sensual—a change she enjoyed, since her own clothes leaned toward the conservative side. On her way to makeup, she found herself sliding easily into the character of Alexandra again.
“You look like a million,” Emma said, “and I don’t have to apply so many bandages on you this time.”
“What a relief.” Toni made herself comfortable in one of the barbershop-type chairs used in the makeup department, and Emma draped a voluminous cape over her upper body.
Emma consulted a script. “My instructions are that you’re out of the coma but still very weak. So I’m to continue to downplay the glamour.”
“I’ve come back from the dead.” Two weeks ago, Toni would have tossed those words off as a joke. Now, they seemed more than ironic.
Emma pinned a towel around Toni’s neck. “You look a little pale, kiddo. Of course, I would too if I was in your shoes.” She creamed Toni’s face and tissued off the excess. “You going to be okay?”
“Yes.”
“Strange how both you and Alexandra have had some pretty nasty experiences lately.” She applied a pale foundation to Toni’s face. “That klieg light, for instance.”
Toni said quickly, “It was just an accident.”
“And I thought Alexandra was going to be killed in that explosion. What a big mistake.” She applied slate blue shadow to Toni’s eyelids, then outlined them with a dark pencil. “I don’t say that just because I like you personally, which I do.” She smiled. “But everyone knows the show ratings went up when you came on. People love to watch someone who has the guts to do what they wouldn’t dream of doing. Alexandra says and does whatever she wants to. The biggest bitch since Alexis Carrington, and she gets away with it.”
That’s life, she thought. Some people could even get away with murder.
After applying a pair of false eyelashes over Toni’s own and brushing them with dark mascara so they blended naturally, Emma removed the towel and cape from Toni’s shoulders. “You need a small bandage around your wrist,” she reached for a roll of gauze, “and maybe just the smallest plaster here on the side of your forehead. Nothing much, but enough to remind the viewers that you’ve had a close call.”
Just as she finished, the door opened, and Pete, one of the stage hands, poked his head in. “Leo wants you on the set.”
“I’m coming.” She had mixed emotions—enthusiasm for her work, but apprehension about seeing Leo.
She thanked Emma for her best work yet, leaving some necessary signs of trauma on her face, and followed Pete across the studio. He waited until she climbed into the king-size, satin-sheeted bed—another of Alexandra’s hallmarks—and adjusted the covers neatly over her legs. Next, he checked the crystal water decanter and glass on the nightstand, glanced at the pair of Louis XV chairs, and left the set.
Only then did Toni look above her head. No klieg lights hung there. Instead, a battery of smaller lights ranged at each side of the set, bathing her in a pink glow that would dispel some of Alexandra’s death-like pallor.
Within minutes, Leo came on the set, followed by Veronica and a taciturn Janet, whose face was a mask of hatred. Two cameras rolled up, and Leo gave the crew his instructions.
He looked squarely at Toni. “You’re sleeping all day. People come in and look at you. That’s it.”
No dialog, and the scene required her to keep her eyes closed. Yet nothing was going to happen to her. Cameramen and other actors occupied the set.
Also Leo. His attitude didn’t approach civility. Did the man possess any sensitivity at all? Apparently, he had no intention of deviating from his desire to have her out of the show. It had become a crusade. Why?
Her thoughts kept her from concentrating on the scene that was being played out around her. Adhering to the requirement of the script, Toni closed her eyes, yet she found herself able to distinguish between different sounds. She was certain Veronica entered first. Although she could see nothing, she imagined the studied look on her face, concentrating on the macabre reason for her visit to the sickroom.
Then Toni heard another set of footsteps approach the bed. Janet’s. Who else? The waves of malice she gave off were almost palpable. After a full half-minute of silence, she and Veronica held a whispered conversation explaining why each had intruded into Alexandra’s room.
Their voices low and intense, the two actresses began to argue. According to the plot, Veronica’s character Charlotte, a sixteen-year-old snoop, often heard and saw things that the others hoped to keep secret. She hated Alexandra and decided to leave a token of her feelings by way of a large black tarantula, albeit a very good fake, on top of the bed. The rationale of Janet’s character, Isabelle Winston, Alexandra’s half-sister, was to follow the girl and intervene, although she, too, bore no love for Alexandra.
While Toni lay in the bed that swallowed her like a silken cocoon, she listened to the lines each actress spoke. The scene called for an argument, and the two went at it with skill. It was apparent to Toni that Veronica had made great strides as an actress. That, at least, should please Leo.
The conversation ended, and Leo called, “Cut.” Toni, whose eyes opened immediately, watched Janet and Veronica leave the set.
After the cameras swiveled silently out of position, Leo turned back to her. “You can take a lunch break, but be back by two o’clock. We’ve got Luke and Lane Winston coming to the bedroom later.”
Two o’clock came and went. No Luke. Nor did the actor arrive by three. Impatient with the delay, Toni found it almost impossible to lie still in the bed. Normally, she would have left the set and chatted with other actors or read a book. However, with Leo on a rampage, the last thing she wanted was for him to come in to direct the scene and not find her ready. He might explode, and she’d do almost anything to forestall another unpleasant scene. She’d had more than enough of those over the past two weeks. Finally Heather, who played Lane, came in to reassure her the scene would definitely be shot within the next few minutes.
Things could be worse, of course. She could be half-submerged in fake quicksand, as she had in a television commercial once. Yet, in spite of the comfortable bed, she found it impossible to relax. She wished she had a pleasant image to reflect on, one that would erase, if only for a short while, the awful memories she carried with her of Craig and Suzanne. As an actress, she used the technique often, and almost immediately she found herself picturing the meandering brook and peaceful countryside she usually chose to clear her mind before working on a character study.
Without having to close her eyes, the image came to her, soothing and familiar, an image identical to the crystalline brook and meadow she had seen on that billboard ad during the taxi ride. It even came complete with two people kneeling beside the waterfall.
No. It shouldn’t be only two. Where was the third person?
The idea hit her with such force she sat up instantly in the bed. There was a third person in the ad she’d seen on the billboard the night Craig was killed. Not two people. Three. Where was the third one?
Excitement flooded her mind and body, making it almost impossible for her to remain still. She tried to breathe slowly, deeply, think rationally. She’d seen the billboard just that morning and made the cab driver go back so she could study it again. There were two people in the ad. The night before, examining Craig’s photographs with Michael, she’d seen only two people. How could it be otherwise? It made no sense for the advertising agency to devise one ad with two people in the picture and an identical ad with three.
But she had seen a third person. She knew it! She let her mind return to the last photographs Craig took that night, the ones where she stood by the antique filing cabinet near the open windows. She could even hear Craig’s voice.
“Toni, put your hand on your hip and turn toward the window.”
She had done so, looked out vacantly toward the billboard across the street.
“Hold it, Toni, while I change film.”
She stared out at the bucolic scene in the ad, saw the people. Three people.
And now that elusive piece to the puzzle that her subconscious mind had hidden from her since Craig’s murder revealed itself. Now she knew why she was in danger, why she’d been stalked in her own apartment. There had been no third person in the advertisement. The third person was the murderer, standing in front of the billboard. She wasn’t sure how she could have assumed the person was part of the scene, except that the figures of the couple were quite small—probably so as not to distract from the product name prominently displayed in the ad.
She must have caught sight of the figure just as it rose up from the catwalk underneath, a dark shape illuminated by the lights shining on the ad. Clearly now, she saw the arm extend, heard the gunshot that killed Craig. She screamed. Craig fell, scattering equipment, pulling the light cord out of the wall, and plunging the room into near darkness. Darkness from which only now she’d been released.