Fade to Black (16 page)

“You want to become an actress? Well, I got you an audition,” he had announced one night when he got home, his hands black with grease from the gas station.

“An audition?” She looked up from her copy of
Premiere
magazine. “For what?”

“A movie,” Brawley told her truthfully, adding that he had met the director, Jazz Taylor, just that afternoon at the service station. They got to talking as Brawley filled the gas tank of his Range Rover.

“Jazz Taylor—that sounds like it should be the name of a director. But I’ve never heard of him,” she said, not suspicious, just intrigued.

“Oh, he’s terrific. It would be a big honor to work with someone like him.”

What Brawley didn’t tell her was that it was the director’s first film—and it was porn.

She didn’t find that out even when she got the part, following a brief audition during which she was asked to dance seductively, wearing a skimpy bathing suit.

Brawley had insisted on being present at the audition.

It was he who convinced her to take off her clothes when Jazz Taylor asked her to.

“This is Hollywood—the big league,” he told her, pulling her aside for a pep talk. “You’ve got to be realistic. Every actress does nude scenes.”

So she took off the skimpy bathing suit for the director, whose careful, semileering appraisal of her nude body made even Brawley a little uncomfortable.

But when she landed the role, he took her out to dinner to celebrate.

And he was there with her, at her insistence, while she filmed it, helping to coach her performance until Taylor told him to shut up or get out.

She had ultimately acted the part like the pro that she later became—unaware, still, that the film was pornography. She didn’t realize it until months later, when she saw the finished product.

In retrospect, he is astonished at her naïveté—even considering her age at the time, and the fact that she was fresh from Nebraska.

When she discovered the truth, she was horrified, of course.

Brawley had feigned shock, telling her that no, of course he hadn’t realized what kind of production it was.

“But look at it this way,” he told her. “You didn’t do anything but dance around naked. And you made a hell of a lot of money … and there’s a lot more where that came from. Taylor’s loaded.”

“I’m never doing that again, Brawley! What’s going to happen when everyone back home sees it?”

“Don’t worry. They don’t show X-rated stuff at the Custer Creek Cinema, remember?”

“Well, what if someone—”

“Don’t worry! Even if somebody sees it, they won’t know who you are. You look completely different now.”

The red wig had been her idea—she had been experimenting with different looks back then. And on Brawley’s advice, she hadn’t used her real name on the contract or in her billing.

And the director, a shady character who wasn’t big on legal details and whose own real name wasn’t even Jazz Taylor, knew her only as Babie Love.

He hadn’t asked or seemed to care about her real name.

Cindy O’Neal.

The future Mallory Eden.

To Mallory’s dismay, the film had been released on video in the late eighties, along with dozens of other relatively obscure porn movies. But apparently no one had ever picked up on her presence. Presumably, only she and Brawley were aware that she was Babie Love.

And Jazz Taylor, wherever he is, is obviously still unaware that he’s sitting on a potential gold mine.

If the world ever discovers that Hollywood’s long-dead girl-next-door had appeared, nude and provocative, in a porn movie…

But that will remain Brawley’s little secret.

For now.

E
lizabeth hesitates on the sidewalk in front of the post office. She should go in and check her mail; she hasn’t since Friday.

Friday, when the card came.

I
know who you are
.

Earlier, filled with trepidation, she had checked her mailbox back at home—a mailbox that is always empty except for the occasional flyer or junk mail addressed to “resident.” But she was almost startled to see that there was nothing in it today.

After all, somebody broke into the house. If it had been the stalker, then he knows where she lives. If he wants to frighten her again, to make his presence known, then he could do it by sending another card or a letter right to her home.

But …

If he knows where she lives, why would he have bothered sending something to her at the post office address in the first place?

The card had been sent from Windmere Cove sometime last week.

Is he in town now, watching her every move?

Or was the break-in a fluke, totally unrelated?

Just kids, me way Frank had said …

Someone jostles her.

She gasps, looks up to see two pudgy middle-aged women, both clad in nylon jogging suits and sneakers.

“Sorry,” one of them calls over her shoulder as they continue to race-walk by her.

Her heart is pounding and her feet seem rooted to the ground.

She can’t just stand mere in the middle of the sidewalk, scared out of her wits, obstructing pedestrian traffic all day.

Go
, she tells herself.
Go get the mail. It’s just mail; it can’t hurt you
.

She tries not to remember the flower arrangement that hadexploded and maimed her assistant, Gretchen.

That hadn’t come through the mail, of course. The police hadn’t even been able to trace it to a florist. Nobody had a clue where it had come from or how it had arrived; mere had been so much confusion back then, so many gifts and flowers and cards from well-wishers.

Don’t think about that
, Elizabeth tells herself again, but it’s all there in her mind, the sound of Gretchen’s scream intermingling with the thunderous blast; the sight of blood spattered everywhere....

Get the mail
, she commands herself,
before you have a nervous breakdown here on the street
.

But what if …?

Well, if there’s a package waiting in her box, she won’t open it. She won’t even accept it.

If there’s a package, she’ll leave town immediately.

What about Manny’s costume?

If there’s a package, she’ll leave town immediately,
but
she’ll bring the fabric and sequins with her, and she’ll finish the costume on the road, and she’ll mail it to Manny with an explanation.

Except …

What explanation does one give to an eight-year-old boy upon deserting him?

“Elizabeth?”

She jumps at the sound of her name, turning to see a man standing behind her.

He’s big and tall enough to easily overpower her, and his face is partly hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

Her impulse is to scream, to run from the stranger …

But then she realizes that it isn’t a stranger after all.

It’s Harper Smith.

Harper Smith, whose sex appeal was partly responsible for her sleepless night.

“Hi,” he says, grinning so that those familiar dimples appear on either side of his generous mouth.

And all she can think about, suddenly, is what it would be like to feel those lips on hers.

Then she manages to say “Hi,” trying to sound casual.

As though she isn’t consumed by lust.

And fear.

As though she isn’t a fugitive movie star being stalked by the psycho who forced her to fake her death five years ago.

“How did those locks work out for you?”

“Locks …? Oh, um, they … you know … they’re fine.”

“How did those locks work out. God, that was a stupid question,” he says with a slightly sheepish grin.

“Not for a locksmith.” She can’t help grinning back.

She finds herself wishing she weren’t wearing this worn pair of jeans and a simple white Gap T-shirt, and that her hair wasn’t pulled back in a casual ponytail fastened with a plain old elastic band.

“On your way to the post office?” he asks.

She nods.

“I’m just coming from there. Actually, I just sent you your bill.”

“You could have saved yourself a stamp if we’d run into each other two minutes earlier,” she tells him.

“Oh, well. It won’t break me.” He shrugs good-naturedly, then adds, “and neither will two cups of coffee at the Sailboat Cafe. What do you say?”

It takes her a moment to realize he’s asking her out, more or less.

She’s so taken aback that she can’t think of a single thing to say but “Okay.”

“I’ll wait here while you go into the post office, if you want.”

“Urn … no. No, that’s all right. I can come back later.”

She doesn’t want anything to delay this … this … whatever it is that’s happening between her and this man.

And she doesn’t want to risk letting anything ruin it. If there’s another sinister greeting card in her post office box, or a package without a return address …

Well, she doesn’t need to know about it until after.

She will allow herself this one stolen interlude with Harper Smith. A cup of coffee in the Sailboat Cafe. And that’s it.

After that he’ll be out of her life, and she’ll be leaving town....

She finds herself walking beside him along North Main Street, laughing as he jokes about the eager, bargain-hunting crowds at the sidewalk sale down the block.

How long has it been since she laughed out loud?

Years?

God, it feels good to walk down a sun-splashed street with a good-looking man at her side and the salt breeze in her hair.

She can almost forget that she’s there on borrowed time....

That someone wants her dead.

Dark thoughts keep trying to shove their way back into her mind, but for once she won’t let them intrude.

She sits at a small, round table and watches Harper go up to the counter for two coffees. He returns with a couple of shortbread cut-out cookies.

“Mmm, you have to try this,” he says after taking a big bite of one.

“No, thanks, I’m really not hun—”

“No, I mean you
have
to taste it.” He offers it to her, holding it right in front of her mouth, and she bites into the crumbly, butter-rich cookie before stopping to think.

About the wisdom of accepting food from a man who, though she’s instinctively all but ruled him out, could be the person who tried to kill her five years ago …

Or about the intimacy in the gesture—that he, a virtual stranger, is sharing his cookie with her, as though they’ve known each other forever, as though they’re …

Lovers.

“What do you think?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that a great cookie, or what?”

“It is,” she says belatedly, chewing, swallowing. “It’s delicious.”

“I’ve been hooked on them ever since I moved to Windmere Cove. I come in here every day and buy a couple. Nellie won’t give me her recipe.”

“Nellie?”

“The owner—see the lady wearing the glasses and the red T-shirt, back behind the counter? That’s Nellie. I’m surprised you haven’t met her. She’s the kind of person who knows every customer by name. How long have you lived here again?”

Has she told him? She doesn’t remember.

Her guard goes up.

“A few years,” she says cautiously, “but I hardly ever come in here.”

“Well, I bet you’ll start, now that you’ve tasted that cookie. Here, take the rest of it.”

She smiles stiffly and accepts it, taking another small bite.

She has left her sunglasses on though they’re inside; if he thinks anything odd of that, he doesn’t say it.

His own sunglasses are off, and she notices that his green eyes are the color of the ocean on an overcast day. They’re honest eyes … aren’t they? Kind eyes.

Not the eyes of a murderer.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, and she realizes he’s caught her staring at him.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “I was just thinking …”

“That I look familiar? Because I keep thinking the same thing, ever since I saw you last night. And I still can’t figure out where we’ve seen each other before.”

“Probably on the street. It’s a small town.”

“I guess,” he muses in a tone that makes it clear he isn’t quite convinced that’s the case.

And she’s reassured by that, because if he were the one who has been stalking her, he wouldn’t sit there telling her she looks familiar. He wouldn’t want her to suspect that he knows her true identity.

She realizes he’s asking her something.

“Pardon?” she says stupidly, then says, “I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m deliberately not paying attention, it’s just that I’m … I guess I’m really tired.”

“Didn’t sleep well last night?”