CHAPTER 9

“I’ve had a job offer,” Casey told him as they slipped into bed one night about two weeks after Boggs’s visit, and R.J. knew by the casual, lighthearted, why-should-you-care way she said it, he wasn’t going to like this much.

“What kind of a job?” he asked her, shifting his weight up onto one elbow and pulling the covers around him a little tighter.

“Associate producer,” she said. She slid one hand along his chest in an absentminded way that made his heart pound.

“But you’re already a full producer,” R.J. said. “Why would you take a step down?”

Her hand slid lower. “It’s not a step down. It’s not TV.”

“Oh,” he said, already pretty distracted. “It’s not TV.”

“No.”

“I thought you did TV.”

She brushed her fingertips lightly down his stomach. “I did. But this is too good to let it go.”

R.J.’s mouth was dry. “So what is it?”

“A movie.” Her hand circled his hips, around back, and then softly coasted to the front again. “In Los Angeles,” she said.

R.J. fell off his elbow. “What?”

“Associate producer on a feature is a step up from what I’m doing,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “A big step up.”

“But it’s in Los Angeles,” he said, knowing how stupid that sounded.

Casey knew it, too. “That’s where they make movies, R.J.,” she said.

“But, but—It’s three thousand miles away.”

“I know,” she said. “I saw a map once.”

R.J. took a deep breath and pushed her hand away. “Tell me about this job.”

She gave a half shrug, all she could manage lying down on her side like that. Her breasts shimmered and R.J. had trouble concentrating. “It’s a major feature at a major studio. What’s to tell? Professionally, it could really make me. It’s what I’ve been wanting for ten years. I’d be a giant step closer to the top. Also, it’s the only first-class production facility in the world where a woman can get a top job based on ability.”

R.J.’s stomach had been slowly sinking. Now it lurched straight up in the air, did a double somersault, and smacked at his heart before flopping down like a soggy pancake. “What picture, Casey?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. “What studio?”

“Andromeda Studios,” she said. “The remake.”

All the breath left him. He felt like he might never breathe again. “Jesus Christ, Casey.”

“It’s my career, R.J. It has nothing to do with you.”

“It damned well does have to do with me.”

“R.J., it’s my life. If I have a shot at improving it a friend won’t stand in my way.”

“But you know how I feel about that movie.”

Now she came up on one elbow. “No, I don’t. You haven’t said a word to me. About that or anything else.”

It was true. He had been churning the whole thing around in his guts, but he hadn’t talked to her about how much it was bothering him. But still—

“Casey, wait a minute—”

“No, damn it, you wait. This isn’t about you, it’s about my career. This is what I’ve always wanted, R.J. If you had said anything to me about how much it bothered you it might have been different—”

“Casey, you were there. You heard what I said.”

“To me, R.J. You never said anything to me.”

“I’m saying it now, Casey.”

“Now is a little late, R.J.”

He looked into her eyes. They were the same beautiful eyes they had always been, the ones he found it so easy to get lost in, but there was something new going on in there, something she wasn’t saying because he was supposed to get it, and he didn’t get it. He didn’t get it at all.

“From what I said to the reporters you might have guessed what I thought about that goddamned remake, Casey.”

“Maybe I thought I shouldn’t have to guess,” she said.

R.J. felt the whole thing slipping away from him—as if he’d ever had a handle on it at all. “Listen,” he said, “the only reason that goddamned harpy offered you a job is to get at me. You—”

“Really,” said Casey, suddenly very cold. “So besides sleeping with you I’m just no damn good for anything, is that it?”

“Casey, goddammit—”

“Because I know it will surprise you, but there are plenty of people who think I’m pretty good at what I do.”

R.J. took a deep breath and counted to ten. “Casey, I don’t want to have this argument.”

“Well then,” she said.

“You are very goddamned good at what you do. I know that, everybody knows that. But there’s two things going on here. First, the timing on this job offer is kind of suspicious, don’t you think? And second, there’s the way I feel about this picture.”

“The job offer was for me, R.J. I’m sorry about your feelings, I really am. I didn’t think they were that overwhelming—”

“They’re not over—”

“—and if I’d known, if you’d only told me, I would have considered that when I made my decision,” she said.

“For Christ’s sake, you sound like Rupert Murdoch making a hostile takeover bid.”

“It doesn’t have to be hostile, R.J. But this is a career decision that’s about me.”

“Isn’t it a little bit about me, too, Casey?”

“Is it?” she asked, and they were both quiet for a minute. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but he was damned if he could think of what.

“R.J.,” she said finally, “this was a very tough decision for me. You have to understand, I had to make it by myself, thinking about what was right for me.” She reached a hand out again, touching him. “But I did think about you. I thought that if I was there, working on this picture, I could help make sure it was done right. Because it’s going to get done one way or another, you have to know that.”

“I know that.”

“That may be lying to myself,” she admitted. “So I just had to make myself think career. And this is absolutely the best move I can make right now. Of course it might be a different story if—” She stopped suddenly, almost as if somebody had slapped a hand over her mouth.

“If what?” R.J. asked.

“Nothing,” she said. And when he didn’t say anything either, Casey slumped off to one side and R.J. stared at the ceiling for a while.

And they drifted off to uneasy sleep without making love.

In the week that followed, Casey seemed to be too busy getting ready for the coast to have much time for R.J. They got together twice, but it wasn’t much more than a quick bite to eat and a few words on things that didn’t matter.

And Thursday came, the day before Casey was supposed to leave, and R.J. had still had no chance to get things straight between them. And he hadn’t really gotten anything straight in himself, either. All he knew was that he didn’t want her to go, and he didn’t want this awful goddamned travesty of a movie to happen, and now not only were they both happening, they were happening together, three thousand miles away, all wrapped up in one awful package.

So as R.J. sat in his office that Thursday morning he was feeling about as low and mean as a guy can feel. At least, that’s what he thought until he decided to do something about it. And then he very quickly felt worse.

“Goddammit,” R.J. said aloud.

Wanda stuck her head in. “I’ve been keeping track,” she said. “I make a little mark on my scratch pad every time you say goddammit.” She held up a piece of paper. “You’re up to forty-nine.”

“Wanda, goddammit—”

“Fifty,” she said. “Do you want to look at the mail?”

“No,” he said.

“Good. Because Reverend Lake has apparently made up with his wife and their lawyer wants to sue you.”

“Sue me for what?”

Wanda gave him her best mean little smile. “Invasion of privacy.”

“Put me down for fifty-one,” R.J. told her. “Then just throw away the mail.”

“You’re the boss,” she said.

“It’s nice to think so.”

Wanda swished out, leaving R.J. a lingering trace of perfume and a slightly better mood. Here he was, sitting here stewing instead of doing something. He was supposed to be a tough, active guy, and he was letting this damned L.A. Medusa and her dead lawyer ruin his life. “Like hell I will,” he said aloud and, as he reached for the telephone, he added, “Goddammit.”

“Fifty-two,” said Wanda from the next room.

He had just made up his mind to do a little digging around into Janine Wright’s background when the door swung open and Janine Wright’s daughter came in.

For a long moment she just stood in the doorway, looking like she wasn’t sure if gravity would work here. Then she finally took a hesitant step in. “Um,” she said. “Mr., uh, Brooks?”

“Sure,” R.J. said, glad to have a target for his bad mood. “And you must be, er, Miss, um, Wright.”

The girl bit her lip but didn’t say anything. For a moment R.J. felt bad about ribbing her. Then he remembered who she was. “What can I do for you, Miss Wright? Did you come to repossess my furniture? Steal my mail? Maybe just put red ants in the seat cushions? Or maybe sell me some poison?”

The kid bit her lip. “I don’t think you should joke about that. It—Murray was a jerk, but nobody should have to die like that. All the twitching and throwing up and—It really isn’t funny.”

“Okay,” R.J. said. “It wasn’t funny. And neither is trying to pin it on me. Which your old lady is definitely trying.”

She still didn’t make any move to come in and sit down. Instead she stood up straight in the doorway. “I’m not my mother, Mr. Brooks. I don’t like her any more than you do. Maybe even less.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” R.J. said. “I don’t like her at all.”

“You’ve only met her once,” the girl said, and her face was twisted into a mask of bitterness. “Imagine what it would be like to see her every day, your whole life, and know that there’s no way to escape, ever. And that…that there’s maybe some of that awful woman in you. That someday you might end up—like that.”

R.J. studied the girl. She seemed to be for real. She was upset, bitter. There was none of the brazen punk in her that she’d shown at the hotel. For no real reason R.J. found himself liking her a little bit. “Sit down, Miss Wright,” he said. “How can I help you?”

She slid uncertainly into a chair. “Thank you. It’s—I, um, actually. It’s Kelley? Mary Kelley. Mother doesn’t use Daddy’s name, but I—would like to.”

“All right. Miss Kelley. What’s on your mind?”

She was having some trouble looking him in the eye. She looked at her hands as she talked, moving them around nervously. “First, um, I wanted to tell you?”

“Yes?”

“Ah, that Mother. You know. She’s, um, I don’t know. Been checking into you or—and now she’s, um. Doing something? That would, you know. Really bother you?”

“Thanks for the warning,” R.J. said, thinking about Casey. “She’s already done it.”

“Oh,” said Mary.

“Was there something else?”

She looked up at him suddenly, and even though she almost immediately began to blush bright red, she held the look. “Yes,” she said, and looked away.

“You want to tell me what it is?”

Mary looked out the window, still blushing. Okay, R.J. thought, give the kid a hand.

“How long are you going to be in town?” he asked her.

She answered without looking. “I—I’m not sure. Mother’s already gone back to L.A. I told her—I said I was staying here for a while.”

“Did you tell her why?”

Mary shook her head.

“Why not?”

A shrug.

“You doing anything she wouldn’t want you to do, Miss Kelley?”

A nod this time.

“What is it?”

She finally looked at him. Her face was pinched, as if she had taken a bite of something that cut the inside of her mouth. “Can you find my father, Mr. Brooks?”

R.J. gave her a small smile. Points for effort. “I don’t know. Is he lost, Miss Kelley?”

She looked away, then looked back. “Could we stop this, you know, Mr. Brooks, Miss Kelley stuff? It’s really, you know. Like in one of those old movies?”

R.J. laughed. He was really starting to like this kid. She was showing spunk. She would have needed that to survive life with a mother like Janine Wright, but it was nice to see it out in the open. “Sure, Mary. Call me R.J. Tell me about your father.”

She looked away again. “I haven’t seen him since I was little. He was, um. In jail. Prison.”

“What did he do?”

Her eyes snapped back to his. “Nothing. He was innocent. I mean, I don’t think he did anything. I think Mother framed him. For drugs.” She looked away. “I can’t prove that. I just—She’s so awful. She really would do anything if it, you know. Helped her in some way. Helped her get ahead.”

“Where was your father last time you heard from him?”

“I haven’t really heard from him. Mother got total custody, of course. Not that she gives a shit about me, but Daddy does, and she knew it would hurt him even more if he couldn’t even send me a birthday card. So that’s the way she had her lawyers set it up. So he can’t even write to me.” She looked at her hands again. “They sent him to the penitentiary. The one in Connecticut.”

“Somers Penitentiary?”

“Yes, I think that’s it.”

“But he’s out now.”

“Yes. On parole.”

“So he’s still in Connecticut?”

She chewed on her lip. “I—think so. I mean, he likes it there and all, and…I mean where else would he go?”

“If he’s still on parole, he probably has to stay in Connecticut. And you would like to find him?”

“Yes. I would.”

He gave her a hard look. “Why haven’t you tried to see him before this?”

She looked away. A tear glittered in the corner of her eye. “I know,” she said. “I feel like a total—” She shrugged, letting him fill in the blank. “But I was just a kid, and I was in L.A. He was three thousand miles away, and in prison. You don’t know what Mother can be like.”

“Yes, I do,” R.J. said with a snort.

“I couldn’t even leave the house. Let alone come all the way across the country, and—” She shook her head and kept looking away.

“All right, I get the picture.” R.J. sighed. He was actually thinking about it, actually considering helping this kid. But hell, why not? If it had half a chance of infuriating Janine Wright, he’d pay for the privilege.

He gave the kid a grin. “All right, Mary. I’ll take a look.”