Martin de Lisser’s Napa Valley home is modest by industry standards. It’s nice, but not the spectacular digs one would expect from a director of his ranking.
This’ll be on the market soon was Rae’s first thought upon seeing it; he would trade it for an estate on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air, a penthouse on Central Park South in Manhattan, a mansion on Miami’s Star Island—the customary real estate for a man of his stature.
Though she’s fully aware that a year ago no one had ever heard of him, Rae had found herself disappointed—by both the setting and the director himself.
She had been expecting evidence of vast power, yet the man mirrors his unassuming home.
Martin de Lisser’s current residence, a two-story wood-frame house at the end of a meandering, oak-shaded drive, is simple and rustic, adorned with window boxes and white-railed porches. It sits on a dozen scenic acres dotted with redwood and eucalyptus groves and bordered by vineyards, with the Vaca Mountains looming in the distance.
Meanwhile, the bespectacled, somewhat paunchy de Lisser is shorter and balder than he appears in photographs she’s seen, and he has a slight, but disconcerting, speech impediment.
He speaks as though he’s slurping through a mouthful of saliva, and after their short, introductory conversation, Rae had found herself wanting to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and shout, “Swallow, why don’t you?”
Now, as she finishes her reading from the script, with de Lisser’s girlfriend, a model named Lita, woodenly playing the other role, Rae glances at the famed director to gauge his reaction.
He’s sitting sprawled on the burgundy leather couch, his legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and his hand rubbing his goatee thoughtfully.
Beside him on the couch is an impeccably dressed studio executive who happened to be in town for a meeting and came by to hear her read.
In a matching wing chair off to the side sits Flynn, and he nods encouragingly at Rae when she catches his eye.
She’s careful to maintain her Mallory-sparkle, to give a flippant little curtsy the way Mallory might, to casually toss her hair—worn in Mallory’s signature style, blown straight and swept back from her face with a side part.
“Thank you,” de Lisser says at last, rising, along with the studio exec, whose name escapes her.
Bob, or Tom, or Jim—something like that.
She knows she should have been more careful to make note of it; it’s just that she had been so nervous when she was introduced earlier.
It hadn’t helped that they’d been forced to fly up here on a tiny twin-engine plane that kept shuddering and lurching, or that the landing at the Sonoma County Airport had been a perilously bumpy one, thanks to the wind.
Rae has never been crazy about flying; she avoids it whenever possible.
But damn, she would have personally taken the controls of Wilbur and Orville’s original glider in a hurricane if that were her only means of getting here for this audition.
She can hardly believe de Lisser agreed to see her, or that the studio exec—what the hell was his name anyway?—happened to be in town.
“It was a pleasure—the script is very amusing,” Rae tells them, her voice a perfect echo of Mallory’s distinct cadence and accent She has worked painstakingly on it over the past twenty-four hours, reconstructing it not just from memory, but from videos of her late friend’s movies.
She had a French manicure, Mallory’s signature style. And she doused herself in Mallory’s favorite perfume, a buoyant floral fragrance that’s much lighter than Rae’s usual scent.
She’s even wearing Mallory’s clothing—a navy linen shift and matching pumps that her friend had lent her for an audition just a few weeks before her death. It’s been hanging in the back of Rae’s closet ever since, neatly pressed, its classic style pleasingly current.
“Would you mind stepping outside for a few moments?” de Lisser is asking Rae.
“No problem.”
“Lita will show you the way to the sunroom. It was nice meeting you.”
“You too, Mr. de Lisser.” The words are more casual than any Rae would have spoken; this is Mallory’s breezy, chummy style.
She goes over, shakes his hand, again in a laid-back, easy manner. She moves next to the executive whose name she has forgotten, shaking his hand and saying warmly, “I’m so glad you happened to be in town.”
“I am too,” he says, casting a glance at de Lisser, a glance that sends a chill of apprehension down Rae’s spine.
Are they interested?
She’ll know soon enough, she thinks as she follows the bony, black-clad Lita from the room, leaving Flynn Soderland alone with the director and studio suit.
They head down a long hall that runs the length of the house, lined with rooms that appear, from the glances Rae sneaks, to be impeccably furnished and decorated in California modern.
“You can wait here,” Lita says as they reach the end of the hall. She opens a pair of French doors, and Rae sees that they lead to a glassed-in room at the back of the house.
It’s large, airy, and sun-splashed, with a white and dark blue ceramic tile floor and white wicker furniture mat’s pleasantly accented by plump cushions in navy and white ticking fabric. There are lush tropical plants everywhere. The cheerful chirping from several caged tropical birds and the steady trickling of water from a stone fountain in one corner adds to the illusion of being outside.
“Have a seat,” Lita offers in her vague monotone.
“Thanks.”
Rae perches stiffly on the edge of an armchair.
Then, belatedly remembering that she’s still Mallory, she crosses one bare, tanned leg over the other and leans back, as though she hasn’t a care in the world.
“So … good luck.” Lita’s voice is detached.
“Thanks.”
The model nods, drifting out of the room with a gesture that’s really more of a shrug than a wave.
Bitch, Rae thinks. You don’t wish me luck. You couldn’t care less whether I get this role. You probably want it for yourself.
She lets out a nervous, quiet sigh and checks her watch, wondering whether she’s in for a long wait.
Manny looks around the Providence bus terminal, trying to appear to anyone who might be watching as though he hasn’t a care in the world.
Everyone seems to be minding their own business, reading the Journal News or chatting with a companion—except for an elderly lady who’s seated against the wall, sipping coffee in a paper Dunkin’ Donuts cup and munching on a muffin. She looks right at Manny when he glances at her, and she frowns slightly, as though wondering what a boy his age is doing alone in a big, busy bus terminal.
He’s wondering the same thing himself.
Running away might not have been such a good idea, he now realizes. For one thing, the local bus he’d ridden just to get this far had eaten most of the money he’d had with him—which, actually, was the few dollars’ worth of change he’d found when he opened his piggy bank that morning. He’d been stuffing spare dimes and nickels into it for so long that he’d been certain he’d find a fortune, but when he’d added it all up, he was sick.
How far is he going to get?
He’s decided to go to California, because it’s as far away as you can get from Rhode Island and still be in the same country. He figures that he’ll go to Hollywood and become a big movie star. They’re always looking for talented kids now that Macauley Culkin’s voice has changed, and besides, Rhonda said Manny is one of the best actors she’s ever seen.
He feels a pang at the thought of the play he’ll never get to star in. He had been looking forward to getting up there onstage; he’d even dared to imagine that Grammy and Grampa might be in the audience. He had told them about it, and Grammy had said they’d try to come.
There’s only one person he’d been certain would attend his big night. Elizabeth. He knew he could count on her to be there; she had said she was looking forward to it.
As soon as he gets to where he’s going, he’ll call her and let her know he’s all right. He has her phone number in his pocket.
Maybe she’ll even come out and visit him. If he gets a big movie right away, he’ll even buy her plane ticket, to pay her back for all the stuff she’s done for him.
Manny glances out the big plate-glass window at the Bonanza bus pulling into the spot marked Lane Two.
An announcement over the loudspeaker tells him that it will be boarding in five minutes, and it’s headed for New York City via Hartford and White Plains.
New York City.
There are a lot of movie stars there too—aren’t there?
Besides, New York is a lot closer to Rhode Island than Hollywood is. Maybe he should …
He hurries up to the ticket counter and waits impatiently while the man behind the desk tries to explain to some old guy who doesn’t speak English that he just missed the bus to Logan Airport and the next one doesn’t leave for almost two hours.
Finally, it’s Manny’s turn to step up.
“How much is a ticket to New York City?” he asks.
The man looks him over, opens his mouth like he’s going to ask Manny if he’s traveling alone.
“My grandma can’t remember how much the fare was, and I think she dropped her ticket somewhere,” Manny says quickly, motioning behind him in the general direction of the waiting area, where there are at least five vaguely confused-looking old ladies who might be mistaken for his grandmother.
“It’s twenty-nine ninety-five one way,” the man says, still appearing doubtful.
“Dollars?”
The man narrows his eyes, says, “Yes, dollars.”
“Okay, thank you,” Manny tells him, trying to hide his dismay.
Conscious of the guy’s eyes following him, he walks across the terminal and sits next to the muffin-eating, nosy old lady.
He decides he’d better talk to her, in case the counter guy is still watching.
“Are you going to New York City?” he asks her.
She tightens her grip on her handbag in her lap. “Yes,” she says, not unfriendly, but not grandmotherly warm either.
“So am I,” Manny tells her in a conversational tone.
“Alone?” She frowns.
“Yeah. I have to go visit my … sister. My mother’s dead.” Those last words, an afterthought, give him a great deal of satisfaction.
“That’s too bad,” the woman says.
“Yeah.” He shrugs.
The loudspeaker clicks on and a voice announces that the bus for New York City is now boarding in Lane Two.
The old woman stands, brushes the crumbs off her double-knit pink pants suit.
“Do you want some help carrying your bags?” Manny asks, an idea forming in his mind.
“No, I—”
“I can help you. I’m going on the same bus.”
All he has to do is walk next to this lady, and sneak past the guy standing in front of the open luggage bins in the side of the bus, collecting the tickets.
But that’s against the law!
So? You can’t afford a ticket. Someday, when you’re a rich, famous movie star, you can pay the bus company back.
Besides, if you go back home now, you’ll get beat by Grampa for running away, and your mother will come after you.
“All right, you can carry that suitcase,” the old lady has decided.
He obediently picks it up, finding it impossibly heavy. What does she have in there, giant rocks?
He starts lugging it toward the door, noticing that there’s a good long line waiting to board the bus.
He’s just a short little kid in the crowd. They’ll never notice him.
He and the lady wait in line.
“You go ahead of me. Ladies first,” he says as they get closer to the driver collecting the tickets.
The old woman actually cracks a smile and steps in front of Manny.
Finally, they reach the head of the line.
“Ticket, please?” the man says to the old woman.
She fumbles for it in the pocket of her jacket.
That’s Manny’s cue.
Still lugging her suitcase, he sidesteps her, then scoots around the ticket collector, who doesn’t seem to notice.
Home free, Manny thinks, putting one foot on the step.
Then he feels a hand clamp down on his shoulder, and a stern voice says, “Where do you think you’re going, son?”
Rae doesn’t ask Flynn for the news until they’re in the limo, heading down the long, winding drive away from Martin de Lisser’s house.
She tries not to give away her anxiety, but realizes that her perfect French manicure is tapping a furious staccato against the tinted window of the car.
“Well?” she demands, turning to her new agent. “What did they say?”
“First of all,” he says, turning to her, “can I tell you that you were fabulous?”
She smiles.
“You are Mallory Eden,” he informs her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d be spooked by you. You look like her, you sound like her, you even have her walk—that slow, nonchalant way she used to move around. How did you do it, and overnight, Rae?”
She doesn’t tell him about the tacks she placed inside the toes of the linen pumps, that every time she sets her feet down, she must do so gingerly, thus naturally slowing her gait and refraining from her usual, more purposeful stride.
“I’m an actress, remember?” is her slightly haughty reply to Flynn, who raises an appraising eyebrow.
“You certainly are,” he agrees mildly. “And your performance absolutely grabbed Martin’s attention. He’s interested, Rae. He and John are going to discuss it …”
Oh, John. That was the studio executive’s name.
“… and he’ll get back to us later on today, or tomorrow. But I really think that it’s possible that you might be cast. De Lisser commented on your reading. He said that it was like watching Mallory Eden’s ghost.”
Mallory Eden’s ghost.
A shiver runs down Rae’s spine, once again, at the persistent image.
Mallory’s dead, she reminds herself.
And she isn’t coming back....
No matter what she promised that long-ago day in Big Sur.
Rae smiles at Flynn, and she gestures at the stocked limousine bar opposite her. “Why don’t you open that bottle of champagne, Flynn, and we’ll celebrate?”
He hesitates.
“Or are you on the wagon again?” she asks, remembering his three-martini lunch just yesterday.
“It’s not … it’s just … I’m trying not to—oh, what the hell. You’re right. We should celebrate. I’ll open the champagne,” he says with a careless laugh.
Elizabeth freezes with her hand on the back doorknob.
The phone.
It’s ringing.
Now.
She was just about to leave.
She falters, turning back to look at it.
What if it’s Manny?
Or …
What if it’s Harper Smith?
Either way, she should answer it.
She’s longing to put her mind at ease about Manny before she leaves; it was an agonizing decision, choosing to go without knowing whether he’s all right.
And if it’s Harper—
She has to act as though nothing’s wrong. As though she’s still planning on meeting him at Momma Mangia’s restaurant at eight o’clock.
She has to thank him for the flowers, even, so he won’t be suspicious.
She can’t make him suspicious.
She needs a few hours to make a head start, to get far enough away from Windmere Cove so that he won’t be able to trace her.
She moves quickly through the kitchen, through the house she just bade farewell.
Grabbing the receiver, she lifts it and says breathlessly, “Hello?”
“Elizabeth?”
“Manny!”
“Elizabeth, I need you. I’m in trouble....”
“What is it? Where are you? Are you with your mother?”
“No.”
He’s sobbing, she realizes, and her heart constricts.
Elizabeth, I need you.
“Where are you, Manny?” she repeats, clenching the receiver in one hand, and in the other, her heavy canvas bank bag, the bag filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in escape money.
“I’m at the bus station in Providence … in the security office … I need you to come and get me.”
“I’ll be right there, Manny. Just hang on, okay? I’ll be right there,” she promises.
And she never, ever breaks a promise.
Harper picks up the telephone, listening to the ringing on the other end of the fine.
He’s about to conclude that no one’s going to answer, when he hears a click, and a voice.
“Momma Mangia’s, can I help you?”
“Yes, please, I need a reservation for this evening.”
“What time, sir?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“How many?”
“Two,” he says, then adds, “and can we have one of the booths, please? Preferably toward the back of the dining room?”
It’s darker there. More private.
“A booth toward the back? I think we can arrange that for you, sir.”
Harper thanks him and hangs up, a smile playing over his lips.
He glances at the clock.
Just a few more hours to kill.
Pamela can tell by looking at the big two-story brick house from the driveway that her parents aren’t home.
Still, she gets out of the car, then opens the back door and unstraps first Hannah, then Jason from their car seats. Holding Hannah’s hand and balancing the baby on her hip, she makes her way slowly up the drive, noting that the garage is closed and neither the Honda nor the Pathfinder is parked in the driveway. Since her parents rarely go out separately, that means one of their vehicles is in the garage.
And that most likely means they’ve gone up to Maine for the weekend.
Pamela has never been to the vacation home they purchased almost a year ago, when her father retired. She doesn’t even know what town it’s in, only that it’s someplace near Camden. She has the address and phone number written down back at home.
She also knows that the place needs a lot of work. Her parents have spent nearly every weekend this summer up there, painting, shingling, and refinishing the hardwood floors.
“You’ll have to come up,” they’ve been saying since they bought the place. But it was out of the question during the rugged winter; it was too far for her to travel in her pregnancy; and when she brought it up to Frank in late July, he had said he couldn’t get the time off.
“Why don’t you and the kids go up?” he had suggested amiably. “Hannah would love the beach, and your parents keep complaining to you about how they’ve seen Jason only a couple of times since he was born.”
Now she realizes he was obviously trying to get rid of them for a long weekend, so he could have his fun with the tramp next door.
“Where’s Nana?” Hannah asks as they stand helplessly in front of the back door, which is locked up tight, the blinds on the window drawn. “Where’s Papa?”
“I think they’re up at their new house in Maine,” Pamela tells her daughter.
Now she wishes she had taken Frank up on his suggestion and visited them there with the kids over the summer. If she had, she would at least know where the house is, and she could drive up and stay with them there.
As it is, she has no place to go.
No place but home to Windmere Cove, and Frank.
“Are you sure I need to go back home?” Manny asks Elizabeth as she pulls over to the curb a short distance down the street from his house.
“I’m positive,” she tells him, glancing nervously at the digital clock on the dashboard.
It’s seven-thirty.
She has just enough time to dash back home, find Frank Minelli and tell him about Manny’s situation, then grab her bag of money and get out of town.
She still doesn’t know where she’s going. It doesn’t matter. She just has to get away, to start driving anywhere. She’ll figure out her destination along the way.
Manny is looking doubtful, shaking his head. “But I don’t want to go home, Elizabeth. What if my grandfather—”
“He promised when you called him that he won’t hurt you, Manny. Remember?”
The boy nods; his eyes aren’t convinced.
“We’re going to do just what we discussed, okay?” Elizabeth takes a deep breath, struggling not to look again at the clock as she says patiently, “You’re going to go back home to your grandparents’ house, and I’m going home to talk this over with my policeman friend next door. He’ll contact your grandparents, and they’ll do something about your mother’s threats.”
“Grammy sounded angry at me when I talked to her.”
I know, Elizabeth thinks. She sounded angry at me too.
She tells herself that the woman had simply been worried about her missing grandson, trying to dismiss the thought that the grandparents should have called the police when they first realized Manny hadn’t arrived at his rehearsal. The grandmother said she figured he was off playing hooky somewhere and that he’d show up sooner or later.
These people shouldn’t have custody of a child.
They simply aren’t equipped, emotionally or financially, to deal with Manny, or with the threats their daughter has made.
It isn’t that they don’t care, Elizabeth thinks.
The grandmother had sounded relieved when Elizabeth had called them from the pay phone at the bus station, telling them that she was a friend of Manny’s and that he had called her to pick him up there after deciding not to run away.
She didn’t mention the threats his mother had made—that would be up to the police to discuss with them.
Nor did she get into the run-in Manny had had with station security. There was no reason to tell them that. The officer in charge had grudgingly released the boy to Elizabeth after lecturing him about the seriousness of his infraction.
“Providence? How did he get to Providence?” his grandmother had asked Elizabeth in her broken English.
She hadn’t been very happy to hear that he’d taken the local bus alone, transferring at busy Kennedy Square in the heart of the city.
That was when the grandfather got on the phone.
“Put Manny on,” he curtly instructed Elizabeth after she had briefly explained the story again—that the child had run away because he was afraid his mother was going to kidnap him.
And so Manny got on the phone, and started crying, and told the man that he wouldn’t come home until his grandfather promised not to beat him.
He had promised.
Elizabeth prays to God that he meant it.
She reaches out and pulls the little boy into her arms, squeezing him tightly, a painful lump strangling her efforts to speak.
“Will you come back with the police later?” Manny asks, clinging to her blue denim shirt.
She shakes her head, then finds her voice and says truthfully, “I can’t, Manny.”
“But why not? I need you …”
There it is again.
I need you.
“I would if I could. But I have something that I have to do,” she tells him, swallowing hard around the lump. It refuses to subside. “You just make sure you tell the police officers everything, okay?”
“Is it your friend who’s going to come and talk to me?”
“I’m not sure,” she says, thinking that Frank had said he’d be off duty tonight.
“I want it to be your friend, Elizabeth. Okay? I’ll talk to your friend, but not to anyone else.”
“I’ll try and make sure he’s the one who comes,” she tells him, “but I can’t guarantee it, Manny. You have to cooperate though. Will you promise me that? No more running away.”
He nods, lowers his gaze.
She studies his precious face, longing to reach out and run a fingertip down that tear-streaked brown cheek.
This is the last time she’ll ever see this child who has grown to mean so much to her.
“Be good, Manny,” she says, fighting not to blink and release the tears that are blurring her vision.
He looks up at her, and she sees that his own eyes are filled with tears. He nods.
And it’s almost like he knows, she thinks, her arms still tight around his shoulders.
But he can’t know she’s leaving.
And he can’t know what he has meant to her.
That he’s been the child she has never had …
Will never have.
“Okay,” she says, ruffling his dark hair and giving him one last, fierce hug, “you have to go inside now. Remember what I told you.”
“I will,” he tells her. “And I’ll call you if I need you.”
She doesn’t reply, just watches as he gets out of the car and walks away, shuffling his worn-out shoes on the broken concrete sidewalk.
Flynn Soderland’s car phone rings as he’s turning his Mercedes onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, having dropped Rae off at her Burbank apartment five minutes earlier. She’d been in a hurry to get inside, but before she went he told her again how pleased he had been with her performance.
To say that she had surprised him would have been an understatement. She had shocked him, not just with the way she had nailed the character during the reading, but with her apt impersonation of Mallory Eden.
It had been eerie, almost, the way Rae had captured her dead friend.
If he hadn’t known better, he would have believed that Mallory Eden had come back to life, that the suicide really had been a fake. Rae had it all down pat—the sexy saunter, the animated speech, the wholesome sensuality that had sent Mallory from unknown to A-list practically overnight.
Star quality.
It’s that simple.
Rae Hamilton had suddenly displayed the star quality he had failed to see in her back when she first approached him to represent her.
Flynn knows de Lisser had been impressed with her, and so had that studio exec.
Now his phone is ringing, and enough time has passed since they left Napa that he can dare to hope it’s de Lisser calling with a response.
The flight back to the Hollywood-Burbank airport had been delayed by wind, and when they’d finally taken off, it hadn’t exactly been a pleasant trip. Rae had been pale, her eyes wide with terror.
Even Flynn, who has always enjoyed flying, had found it necessary to keep guzzling champagne to numb the fear that the tiny plane was going to be struck by wind shear and go down in the Sierra Madres.
It hadn’t, of course.
As he reaches for the phone in the console, setting his burning cigarette carefully in the ashtray before picking it up, he hopes that the rough ride hadn’t been an omen.
He keeps his eyes on the road as he flips it open.
“Flynn Soderland,” he says efficiently, still feeling giddy with the exhilaration of survival, and being back in the business—or, maybe, simply from all the champagne.
“Please hold for Martin de Lisser,” says a crisp, businesslike voice.
He smiles.
Christ, it’s like he never left.
Please hold for Martin de Lisser.
He’s back in the business he loves, wheeling and dealing with the best of them.
Why had he ever retired?
Oh.
Right.
He’d retired because he lost his star client.
Mallory Eden had ruined both their careers by jumping off that freaking bridge in Montana.
“Soderland?”
“I’m here.”
“This is unofficial, got that?”
“Got it.”
“We’ll take her.”
Sheer, positive energy surges through Flynn; he victoriously smacks the steering wheel with his palm and grins, tilting his head back and mouthing the word yesss.
Then he pulls himself together.
“I’m glad” is his cool, professional response to de Lisser. “What’s the deal going to be?”
“We’ll get back to you in a day or so with our offer. But remember, this is between you, me, the studio, and Hamilton. We’re still holding that open casting call.”
“Of course,” Flynn says quickly, familiar with the intricacies of the business.
“The studio will be in touch with the particulars.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” he says, knowing there will be very little negotiation involved.
Not like with Mallory, when everybody wanted a piece of her, when offers were coming in faster than the waves at Surfrider Beach in Malibu. With Mallory he had mastered the art of the multimillion-dollar deal; with Mallory he was able to bleed them all dry to make it worth her while. She had died at the height of her career, and no matter what threats she made about firing Flynn because of his drinking, the truth remains that he had done right by her.
Rae isn’t going to command anywhere near the kind of money or perks that Mallory had.
Not yet.
But soon …
Elizabeth sees that the house next door is dark when she pulls into her driveway, and her heart sinks.
Where’s Frank?
He had said he’d be there all night.
And she had promised Manny she’d talk to him.
She supposes she could call the police, but that would mean complications that might delay her exit.
With Frank she can simply explain the situation and ask him to handle it from there. Manny will be safe in his hands. He’s a law officer, and a father himself. She trusts him.
Not enough to tell him that she’s leaving town, of course.
She’ll just go.
She has to go, she thinks, her nerves on edge as she shifts her car into park and glances first at the Minellis’ darkened home, then at her own.
It’s almost eight o’clock.
There’s no time to lose.
She gets out of the car and goes to the house, vaguely noticing that raindrops have started to fall …
And belatedly remembering that she’d left the zippered canvas bag right out on the counter.
Panic seizes her as she fits her key into first one, then the second dead bolt.
How could she have been so careless?
What if there’s been another break-in?
What if her money, her ticket out of here, is gone?
She’ll be trapped, like a helpless animal in a hunter’s snare, waiting to become prey.
She throws open the door and heaves a sigh of relief.
It’s there, right where she had left it.
She hurries over, grabs it, unzips it, and checks the contents just to be sure.
It’s there, dozens of packets of big bills, enough to build a new life someplace.
She glances at the clock on the wall, which is edging perilously closer to eight.
What should she do?
You have to get the hell out of there, before he realizes you’ve stood him up.
Before he comes after you....
But what about Manny?
She had promised him she’d talk to Frank.
A noise outside startles her.
Her heart racing, she turns toward the window, then breathes a sigh of relief.
It’s Frank, having stepped out his back door to put something into the garbage can.
Thank God.
Thank God.
Never has she seen a more welcome sight.
She hurriedly shoves the pouch of money into a cupboard, then goes back to the door. It’s raining more heavily now, with the familiar swishing sound a summer rain makes as it plops onto thankful foliage and grass.
“Frank,” she calls across the dusky yard.
He looks startled, glances up. “Hey there.”
“I didn’t realize you were home.”
“Oh … I was watching television in the dark. I like to do that sometimes, when Pam isn’t around.” He wipes raindrops from his face and continues. “She always has the house lit up like Sakonnet Lighthouse. You should see our electric bill. It’s—”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Elizabeth interrupts, glancing again at the clock behind her, on the wall.
“Sure you can talk to me. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine with me, but … it’s about a friend.”
“Okay … I’ll be right there. Let me just run in and turn off the oven. I had put a pizza in, and the buzzer’s about to go off, so—”
“You don’t have to do that. It’ll take only a minute,” Elizabeth says, fighting to keep the desperation out of her voice. “I won’t keep you from your pizza—”
“It’s no big deal,” Frank tells her. “I’ll be right there.”
He disappears into his house.
Shaking, she returns to her kitchen and the ticking clock.
Outside, the rain falls steadily on the roof, gaining in intensity. There’s a far-off roll of thunder, signifying that the promised storm is on its way, that they’re in for a good soaking.
She paces across the floor, returns to the door to look for Frank, and sees that he’s not yet on his way over.
“Damn,” she whispers, pacing again.
She’s got to get out of there.
Before it’s too late …
“No, it’s all right,” Harper Smith tells the owner of Momma Mangia, a dapper man with slicked-back hair and a thick dark mustache. “I’ll wait for her right here. I’m sure she’ll be along any minute.”
The man nods and turns to a young couple who’s just arrived, shaking raindrops from their hair. They are without reservations. He tells them that he has nothing available, and they’ll have to wait.
“How long?” the guy asks, glancing anxiously at his date.
They can’t be out of college yet, Harper notes absently. The girl, a pretty blonde clad in a white summer dress and sandals, looks innocent and nervous. The boy, in his Polo shirt and carefully pressed chinos with perfect creases down the front, is obviously eager to impress her.
“It could be an hour, maybe more. On weekend nights we’re very busy. We strongly recommend making dinner reservations,” the owner tells the young couple.
“Sorry about this. I didn’t know,” the boy says to the girl, and then to the owner, “We’ll wait, I guess.”
The man nods.
Harper checks his watch.
Eight-oh-five.
Where is she?
He remembers how reluctant she’d been to agree to have dinner with him.
What if she’s changed her mind?
What if she isn’t coming?
Why had he agreed to let her meet him here, to let her drive to the restaurant herself?
He should have insisted that he pick her up, that it be like a regular date.
That’s all I wanted, he thinks, irritated, glancing again at his watch, and then at the door. Just a regular date.
Was that too much to ask?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It would all depend on Elizabeth.
He folds his arms grimly and leans back against the wall to wait, keeping a watchful eye outside, where the wind has picked up and the rain is falling harder.
The wipers are making a rhythmic squeaking against the windshield as Pamela wearily steers the Toyota off the exit ramp leading from 195 to 114 south, the divided highway that runs through the East Bay.
“The speedway” Frank calls it because of the winding curves and other drivers’ tendency to fly along the road at seventy and eighty miles an hour.
Make sure you never go over the speed limit on 114, Pamela. Especially with the kids in the car.
How many times has she heard that from Frank, who as a police officer has seen countless fatal wrecks on the road?
How many times has she resented him for uttering that last part?
Especially with the kids in the car.
As though she would ever take a chance with her children.
As though he doesn’t care how fast she drives when she’s alone.
“Just a few more minutes, and we’ll be home,” she announces to Hannah, who’s been whining ever since they left Boston an hour and a half ago.
The traffic hasn’t been as bad on the journey home as it had been going in, but the roads around Boston and Providence were still congested enough to make it a stressful trip, especially with the rain and the cranky kids in the backseat.
“Hannah? We’re almost there,” Pamela says again.
There’s no reply, and she glances briefly over her shoulder to see that her daughter’s pale blond head is slumped to the side.
She, like Jason, is sound asleep.
It’s about time, Pamela thinks, shaking her head as she accelerates onto the wet highway, eager to put an end to this trip from hell.
What had she been thinking, just taking off like that?
Why hadn’t she waited to make sure her parents were going to be home, or at least thought to bring the telephone number and address of their summer home?
Because you were too angry at Frank to think straight, she reminds herself.
All you wanted to do was get out of there, to make him worry about you and the kids.
So.
Is he worried?
Or is he glad they’re gone, eager to seize the opportunity to dash next door and into the willing arms of their single and available neighbor?
We’ll soon find out, won’t we? Pamela thinks as she presses down on the accelerator, Frank be damned, and steers out into the left lane to bypass the traffic that’s sticking to the fifty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit.
“I’m really glad that you came to me with this problem, Elizabeth,” Frank is saying.
He’s seated next to her on the couch, the picture of a casual conversationalist with his arm stretched along the back and one ankle crossed over the opposite knee.
Outside, the storm has intensified, with booms of thunder occasionally punctuating the patter of drops on the roof. The lights keep flickering; it’s only a matter of time before the power goes out. It happens often in electric storms like this.
“I figured you would know what to do about Manny’s situation without his automatically being sent to foster care,” Elizabeth tells Frank, doing her best to keep a hysterical edge from creeping into her voice.
The digital clock on the VCR across the room says that it’s 8:22.
Her mind is whirling.
Any second now, Harper Smith is going to show up here, looking for her. He’ll be in a rage that she never showed up at the restaurant.
She has to get out of there....
But Frank isn’t showing any signs of imminent departure, probably because he isn’t eager to go out into the nasty weather. Why, of all times, does it have to be stormy now?
“The situation is very serious,” he’s saying. “That poor kid must be going through hell, with a mother like that. I mean, I never had a mother—she died giving birth to me—but my situation was better than having some drug-addict mother coming around threatening to kidnap me,” he concludes, shaking his head in an isn’t-that-a-shame gesture.
Elizabeth shifts nervously on the couch cushion, looking again at the clock: 8:23.
“I agree with you that this situation will have to be handled very delicately,” Frank goes on, rubbing his chin with his palm, as though in deep thought.
Please, just go.
Please … I have to get out of here.
But even as she wishes she’d never asked to talk to Frank Minelli, she’s certain it was the right thing to do. She had promised Manny, and now he’ll get the help he needs.
“Are you all right, Elizabeth?” Frank interrupts himself to ask, and she realizes that while she’s been staring at the clock, he’s been looking intently at her.
“I’m … fine. It’s just that … I have to be someplace.”
“In this weather?”
“I had … plans.”
He raises an eyebrow, then slaps his cheek as though the light has just dawned.
“Your date,” he says, “with Harper Smith.”
“That’s right.” Does she sound as desperate as she feels? Can he hear her heart pounding, see her entire body trembling?
“I guess I thought you’d changed your mind about going out with him.”
“I was going to back out of it,” she says, “but then I realized it would be best not to jump to conclusions. To, you know … give him a chance, I guess …”
Frank nods, watching her, wearing an expression she can’t quite decipher.
He doesn’t believe me, she realizes. He knows I’m lying.
Again, she looks at the VCR clock: 8:25.
Oh, Christ.
Maybe she should just tell Frank the truth at this point. He’s a cop, and Smith must already be on his way over here. Maybe Frank can get his gun and hide in the next room. That way, when Smith tries something, Frank can—
“Are you sure that’s a wise decision, baby?”
She opens her mouth automatically, to reply to Frank’s question, then blinks.
What did he just say?
Did he just call her …
Baby?
She frowns slightly.
But what …?
Suddenly Pamela’s voice echoes in her muddled mind.
Babe has always been Frank’s nickname for me.
Hadn’t she said that not too long ago, in one of those intimate confidences Elizabeth could have done without hearing, but must have filed away in her subconscious?
Frank must have slipped, Elizabeth realizes, glancing at his casual expression. He must have said babe out of habit …
Except that she could have sworn he’d said baby.
Not babe.
She forces her attention back to whatever it is that he’s saying.
The lights flicker.
Thunder crashes.
“… because it’s not that I’m so sure that Smith is that fugitive we’re looking for. But I didn’t really think he was your type.”
Again she’s startled.
So startled that she forgets to check the clock again.
“What … what do you mean?” she asks Frank Minelli slowly, knitting her brows and trying to ignore the warning signals going off in her mind.
“I mean, I thought I knew your type, baby.”
Baby?
She’s unable to speak, just watches him, her mind racing, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.
“I thought that I was your type.”
Her jaw drops.
This can’t be happening.
Not now.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, her voice a ragged whisper.
“Remember? ‘Married men with children really, really turn me on.’ Isn’t that what you said?”
She backs away, starts to rise. “Frank, I don’t know what you’re—”
A steely grip on her forearm forces her back down, and he pushes her backward on the couch, then leans over her.
“Isn’t that what you said?” he asks again, his brown eyes boring into hers, suddenly gleaming with an expression she never in a million years expected to see there. “And then you took off your clothes, remember, baby? You took off your clothes, and you danced. Take off your clothes for me. Dance for me, baby …”
Baby.
Babie.
Babie Love.
It hits her all at once, with stunning clarity.
He’s talking about that film, that horrible porn film she made back in the eighties, at Brawley’s insistence.
He’s the one, she realizes. He knows who you are.
Oh, Christ.
He’s been right under her nose.
It was Frank all along.
“When did you figure it out?” she asks him weakly, feeling his breath hot against her face as he looms over her, pressing the hard length of his aroused body into her.
“Figure what out?” he asks, breathing hard.
“That I’m …” She trails off, feeling his hand moving over her belly, up to grope at her breasts.
“Say it,” he murmurs, his eyes closing as if in ecstasy. “Say it. Say your name.”
She can’t speak. Sirens are screeching in her brain. She has to get away.
“Say it,” he barks, his eyelids jerking open, his menacing gaze burning into her face. His hand lifts from her breasts, comes down to painfully seize her arm. “Tell me who you are. You aren’t Elizabeth Baxter. Say your name.”
“Mallory,” she says in a whisper, struggling not to give in to the utter panic that threatens to overtake her.
“What? I can’t hear you.” He glares at her, shakes her impatiently, painfully. “Say it again. Say it louder.”
She summons every bit of willpower not to struggle against him, every bit of strength to project her voice as he’s commanding her to.
“I’m Mallory … Mallory Eden,” she tells him.
As she speaks over the clamor of the storm outside, the lights give a final flicker and go out …
Just as she hears a faint footstep in the next room.
Rae Hamilton sits on the small, bare stone terrace of her apartment, a glass of Chablis in one hand, a framed photograph in the other. The one from her dresser.
In the distance she can hear the rush hour traffic on the Ventura Freeway and, close by, through an open window, the sound of her upstairs neighbor laughing on the telephone.
The blue linen shift is in the basket to go to the dry cleaner’s; the matching pumps are back in her closet; the carefully applied makeup has been scrubbed from her face. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her feet are bare, and she wears her black workout leotard.
She had been on her way down to the gym when Flynn called a few minutes ago with the news.
Are you sitting down, Rae? Well, then sit …
You did it! You’re going to be the new Mallory Eden.
The new Mallory Eden.
She wipes absently at the sudden moisture in her eyes as she gazes at the woman in the photograph.
It isn’t one of those posed head shots, but a regular snapshot Rae had taken during one of their long-ago trips up the coast to Big Sur.
It shows a beautiful blonde with dazzling light-blue eyes, eyes that laugh up at Rae as though they haven’t a care in the world.
But Rae was Mallory’s closest friend. Rae knows what her short life was really like, especially toward the end.
You did it, Rae!
You’re going to be the new Mallory Eden....
“I’m sorry, Mallory,” Rae whispers softly, shaking her head and swallowing hard over the lump in her throat. “I really am so sorry. But … I need this. God, I need this so badly.”
Then she puts the photo aside and raises the glass of wine to her mouth as tears trickle down her cheeks.
“Help! Please help me!” Elizabeth screams shrilly, frantically praying that she isn’t in more danger from whoever is lurking in her kitchen than she is from Frank Minelli.
The only reply is a deafening clap of thunder outside, and the steady whoosh of blowing rain.
“Shut up,” Frank says above her in the dark, clamping a rough hand over her mouth.
She lets out another muffled scream.
“Shut up! No one’s going to hear you, so you might as well—”
He’s cut off, then, by the figure that rushes into the room, leaping on him and tackling him to the floor before Elizabeth realizes what’s happening.
She huddles on the couch, violently trembling, for only a moment before coming to her senses and focusing on the two shadowy silhouettes wrestling on the floor.
They crash into furniture and tip over a lamp, grunting and cursing.
Frank rolls over, landing on top. “You son of a bitch,” he bites out, panting.
The thought seizes Elizabeth that he might have his gun with him, that he might use it, not just on his attacker, but on her.
She glances wildly about the darkened room, then leaps to her feet and gropes blindly in the shadows for the first possible weapon that’s within reach.
Her fingers close over the heavy metal andiron sitting on the hearth.
She doesn’t stop to think before rushing toward the struggling pair, triggered by adrenaline—and stark fear.
She brings the heavy andiron down on Frank Minelli’s skull, becoming aware only in the moment after he crumples to the floor that she had used enough force to have killed him.
For a moment, the sole sound in the room is that of heavy breathing—her own, and Harper Smith’s.
She can barely see the murky outline of the man lying on the floor, the man who has made her life a living hell.
“Is he dead?” she asks Harper.
She hears him move, dimly makes out his silhouette as he reaches down to feel for a pulse at Frank’s neck.
He’s silent for a moment, and when he speaks, his tone is matter-of-fact.
“No, he’s alive. And apparently, so are you … Mallory Eden.”