Death On the Dlist (2010) (14 page)

HAILEY, I KNOW YOU’RE FIGHTING VIOLENT CRIME. I UNDERSTAND, I
really do. But the way Harry Todd spoke to you, well it was just rude . . .
rude.
” Her mother was referring to Hailey’s appearance a few days before on
The
Harry Todd Show
about the murder of Prentiss Love.

“I know, Mother, but I feel it’s what I have to do. I’ve been given this opportunity. You know I’ve had a lot of angst about leaving the courtroom . . . no longer fighting violent crime. That door was shut, but maybe God opened a window for me through this platform. I just couldn’t say no. Does that make any sense?”

“I do see it, I do. But it seemed to me that Todd gangs up with that . . . what’s his name? That . . .
ambulance chaser
?
”

“Derek Jacobs.” Hailey answered without much emotion. Derek Jacobs had been arrogant, rude, combative, and, frankly, wrong about the law on several points during the show. She’d taken great delight in correcting him on every turn.

“Yes. That’s it. Derek Jacobs. He’s awful. Everybody at church just thought he was horrible, and that Harry Todd seemed to
agree
with everything he said. I even caught them shaking hands at the end of the show.”

“Yeah . . . I saw that, too, even though I was several floors above them in some little studio. It was really like a dark little closet with a camera in it. But it was better than being on the set with Todd. And that idiot Jacobs.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, they both looked like jackasses. And you looked completely prepared and completely poised. I was proud of you. But I just don’t see why you would torture yourself and do that show ever again.”

“I don’t know that they’ll invite me back. But if they do, and it’s a chance to expose violent crime defendants and their sleazy lawyers, lawyers like Jacobs, for what they are, I don’t see how I can say no.”

“But
why? Why
for Pete’s sake? Why does it have to be
you
on the firing line? I had hoped and prayed that when you left the courtroom, your troubles would be over . . . You’d be out of danger . . . but now . . .”

“Because of Will, Mother.”

Hailey’s mom went silent. After all these years, she knew it was best not to argue about anything even remotely connected to Hailey’s fiancé.

“I understand, sweetheart. I just love you so much, I want you to be safe and happy.”

“I know. It’s just what I have to do.”

“Well, it seemed to me that Todd just sat back and let Derek Jacobs grandstand, but every time they came to you, you shot them down.”

“It was like shooting two fish in a barrel.”

“It showed.”

“Mother, I think you’re biased!” Hailey started laughing out loud.

At that point, her father picked up the receiver somewhere in the back of their home in Georgia. “I just wanted to punch that Harry Todd in the face! The way he talked to you! And that lawyer . . . What’s his name, Hailey?”

“Derek Jacobs,” Hailey answered.

“Where did they dig him up? Is he some famous defense attorney? I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he represented Hit Man Number One—you know, the rap star that shot his business partner . . .”

“What happened to him?”

“Hit Man got life in prison. Let’s see . . . Then he represented that actress, you know the one charged with DUI.”

“Oh,
that
was famous . . . I remember that,” her mother chimed in from the kitchen phone.

“Well, that was what it was all about, really. I think Jacobs just wanted to get famous and have his face plastered all over TV walking her in and out of the courthouse. I’ve never seen a lawyer so disappointed as when the trial judge refused to let
Court TV
cover the trial live.”

“Oh yeah, I’m starting to remember him now. Always out in front of courthouses giving press conferences. Right?”

“Right.”

“But why’d they put him on? Seems like he loses all his cases.” Her dad was pretty observant.

“I know, Daddy. He’s some close friend of the executive producer, Sookie Downs, I think. I really don’t know why they’d use him. I guess he got famous and the show wanted a celebrity lawyer for the ratings. Makes me wonder why they picked me. I guess either because of Will’s murder or because of the press after I killed Leonard.”

“No! No, baby! It’s because of your perfect record in court!”

“Mother, I wish that were so, but TV’s not like that. Anyway, somebody’s beeping in and I have a patient in a few minutes.”

“Did you put that extra bolt on your office door?”

“I sure did. And I got those thick drapes for the windows like you wanted for when I’m working here alone, Mother.”

“I know I don’t need to remind you, Clint Burrell Cruise is still out there.” Cruise was the serial killer Hailey had prosecuted in her last jury trial. He’d gotten a conviction at trial, but the Georgia Supreme Court had engineered a reversal. Cruise jumped parole and hadn’t been seen since Hailey stabbed his lawyer.

“Í know, believe me, I want him found and monitored, too. But I can’t hide in my apartment under my bed just because Pardons and Paroles can’t find Cruise. If he wants to stay out of trouble, he’s probably gotten as far away from me as he can!”

Hailey laughed into the receiver, acting for all she was worth as if she wasn’t worried at all about the released killer who’d come looking for her.

“Let me see who this call is. I love you!”

“Bye, honey.”

“Bye, Mother. Bye-Bye, Daddy. Talk to you later.”

“Promise?” her mom asked as if she really wanted an answer.

“Promise.”

Hailey clicked off and considered Cruise . . . still on the run.

FALLON MALONE DIDN’T THINK SHE COULD LIFT HER LEG ONE MORE TIME
. This damn elliptical. She hated it. But what else could she do? She had to feel the burn. Or else.

Or else go down the path of all the other aging stars. Flabby, jowly, and unemployed. They either became bag ladies, accepted scraps in movies for parts as grandmothers, witches, or otherwise . . .
crones
. . . or they got elected to some position at the Screen Actors Guild.

Not for Fallon Malone. She loved the attention her body got her. She only felt alive when she was admired, loved, desired. Which is exactly why she’d already scheduled her third lesson with the golf pro . . . What was his name?

His name didn’t matter. Nor did golf. She just needed a few lessons to convince some eccentric producer she was good for a part in yet another big-screen production centering around the game. The adoration of the golf pro just made it all that much easier.

Fallon understood her assets and what they could do for her. She’d have never gotten her breakthrough role if it weren’t for her body. Those who mocked her for it were simply jealous.

But there was so much more to Fallon Malone than her physique. She needed the idiots in Hollywood and the tight little clique that ran Broadway, so damn pleased with themselves and looking down their noses at her, to see that.

But in addition to the compliments and the adoration, Fallon loved the high life. Without a rich husband anymore, she actually had to pay for it herself. She’d downsized as much as was presentable. She got rid of two of her cars and moved from a five- to a three-bedroom apartment here in Manhattan, and to top it all off, leased her penthouse in Beverly Hills.

She even did a commercial. A TV commercial, at that. In Japan. She prayed like hell nobody in the States saw the thing. It would ruin her reputation as a serious screen actress.

W
hat more could she do?

Obviously, her agent wasn’t doing her justice. Stu had so many clients in his stable, she should really think of dumping him, but every time she called him, he acted like he was on the verge of securing a part for her.

They just had a way of falling through.

Her legs were feeling the burn, all right. At least having the elliptical here in her apartment, she didn’t have to go to some horrible gym where she’d definitely be spotted. And photographed.

Fallon switched channels to QVC. She adored the shopping network and had memorized her American Express card number by heart, expiration date and secret code number included. That way she could order straight from the elliptical, speaking into her BlackBerry, which she of course had on speaker phone setting so as to have her hands free. Her arms must also be in continuous pumping motion along with her legs. It wasn’t just butt and legs and boobs anymore.

Triceps mattered.
No one wanted to look at flabby arms. And she certainly didn’t want to end up in one of those horrible
Snoop
 exposés with a shot of her coming out of a plastic surgeon’s office following a brachioplasty. She’d never heard that word . . .
brachioplasty
. . . until her plastic surgeon put it in her head. Translation . . . an arm lift.

It was the industry’s dirty little secret. Face-lifts, nose-jobs, and of course, boob-jobs, were all givens. But arm lifts were still considered a little taboo.

As if Fallon cared.

If she’d just go ahead, bite the bullet, and get the arm lift, she could drag this damn elliptical onto the elevator and dump it out on the street. In New York City, it would be gone in three minutes. Some Dumpster-diver would take it away and put in his own cramped little apartment. Speaking of New York, Fallon couldn’t wait to get back to Beverly Hills, it was so dark and cold here. If it weren’t for work, she wouldn’t even visit, much less keep this dreary little
downsized
apartment.

But back to the elliptical: If she got the arm lift, the torture of two-hour workouts every other day would be over. But there was always her butt. What about
it
?
Wait . . . maybe she could get those butt-enhancement things, like the silicone balloons they insert in your rear end . . .

Fallon heard the maid coming in the side door to the apartment, through the kitchen. She turned her head and yelled out, “Don’t forget to clean
between
the tiles in the sauna this time! Use something . . . a toothbrush . . . I don’t care what! That’s not my job! But I do not want to sit my bare butt down on mold! That’s why I pay
you . . . So I don’t have to sit on mold!
”

These people. They come to America. Then they don’t clean your sauna. Ridiculous.

Her BlackBerry tinkled. One glance and she exhaled, even more irritated. It was that horrible, horrible high school boy again. Jonathon. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? He’d mentioned he wrote for his school paper and wanted more facts about her for a profile on her he was doing. When would he finish? He’d been writing about her for six months, it seemed.
Ugh!

The questions never ended with this kid. It wasn’t a newspaper profile . . . It was a
book
. What’s your favorite color? Do you like animals? What does your bedroom look like? And why did some kid want to know what her bedroom looked like, anyway? Little perv.

Fallon pointed the remote toward one of the two flat-screen TVs positioned on the wall at angles so she could watch both at the same time without turning her head. She hated it though, because by flicking one remote, more often than not she’d change channels on both screens.

So irritating.

Juggling one remote in the left hand, another in the right, and both feet pumping up and down on the machine, she was trying to get Lifetime on one screen and QVC on the other. If she was correct, it was Beauty and Age Prevention hour. Not that she needed any more such lotions and potions; her bathroom shelves, counters, and drawers were packed full of them, as were her bedside tables, but you never knew what you might need until you saw it on QVC or the Home Shopping Network.

Ah, she finally got both screens to her two choice channels. First, she focused on QVC. She’d been right. It
was
beauty treatment hour. She’d apparently just missed two hours of linens. The screen flashed up a grouping of facial creams, all different sizes and shapes, but all the slender bottles and tiny round pots were in the same pastel pink. A gorgeous set of hands, beautifully manicured with mother-of-pearl-tinted fake nails.

Hmm. Age-defying lotions. She already had plenty of those. Wonder if there was anything to that pure oxygen treatment to the face? Fallon had heard about it recently; it was the next, new thing.

Of course she’d done time in one of those hyperbaric oxygen chambers, just like everybody else. Hers was at a spa in Arizona. It worked wonders. She woke up feeling years younger.

It was a simple concept, really. A Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Chamber, a cylindrical tube in which the patient sleeps, delivers 100 percent oxygen at a pressure greater than that at sea-level atmospheric pressure. In essence, the patient breathes 100 percent oxygen while covered under a hood, or wearing a mask. Athletes used them all the time; then the skin industry got wind of them and now they were the rage.

But other than going to a spa and being caught on camera doing it, her only other choice was to buy one of the huge, coffinlike things to sleep in at night. Now if that didn’t hit the gossip pages, nothing would.

She could see the headline now . . . F
ALLON
M
ALONE’S
D
ESPERATE
B
ID TO
S
TAY
Y
OUNG
. Or worse yet, she could be associated with some type of illness, which was generally the kiss of death in the business.

There were now allegedly oxygen treatments applied directly to the skin at a doctor’s office. And she certainly wouldn’t be driving to the doctor’s office and traipsing through a parking lot. He’d come to her.

With both hands free again, Fallon scrolled to the voice note recorder feature on her BlackBerry and spoke into it. “Note to self. Home oxygenation treatments. What are they? Do they work? Where can I get them? And how much do they cost?”

The bullet tore from its chamber a few feet behind Fallon just as she was about to lower the BlackBerry from grazing her lips.

The device ricocheted out of her right hand upon bullet impact, and the bullet, taking two of her long, fake nails with it, burst the PDA into a hundred shards of black plastic and bits of metal, some slicing the delicate skin of her face, tiny bits of it lodging around her mouth and nose.

The bullet tore through the skull, upward through the mouth cavity and out the front of her face, just below the bridge of her nose, glancing off the BlackBerry, and finally slamming into the wall a few feet in front of the elliptical.

The bullet took several of her teeth with it, three of them hurtling out of her mouth to the floor, landing underneath the TV screen. The hostess on the screen smiled lovingly out at all the millions of purchasers of age-defying moisturizers at that precise moment, and then moved on to exfoliators.