Fade to Black (37 page)

The phone that hasn’t rung.

Somebody grabs her arm and says in a low voice that’s somehow easier to hear than all the shouting, “Mrs. Baxter, I’d like to talk to you privately.”

She turns to see a very pretty female reporter standing there.

“If you’ll talk to me,” the reporter says, “I’ll see that you’re reimbursed for your time.”

“Reimbursed … how?”

“Why don’t you let me come inside with you, and we’ll talk about it?”

Becky O’Neal thinks it over.

And as she does, she notices the woman’s big diamond ring and her fancy shoes and expensive-looking suit.

“Okay,” she says, and holds the door open to let the reporter inside.

H
arper blinks as he steps out of the white clapboard congregational church and into the bright morning sunshine on Pine Street.

All around him, people of all ages, dressed in their Sunday best, are chatting and calling greetings with the easy familiarity of small-town folks who have known one another forever.

He’s an outsider here, the only outsider, it seems, in this tiny New England town …

Now that Mallory is gone.

Maybe that’s what had drawn him to her, he thinks as he walks down the wide wooden steps and turns right, heading down the sidewalk toward Center Street.

Maybe he sensed that she, like he, didn’t belong here, that she wasn’t a part of the Yankee network of families that stretches back generations. That she had come from a far-off place, forced to forget her past, to start over …

Just as he had been forced to do, after—

Out of habit, his thoughts skitter away, some built-in defense mechanism keeping him from remembering the details of what had happened back in Los Angeles.

Instead, he thinks of how drawn he’d been to Mallory, of how certain he’d been that he’d seen her someplace before.

Now, of course, he knows where it was—he had realized the moment he discovered her true identity.

Not that he’s told her why she looked so familiar.

Telling her would force him to reveal too many details of his past in L.A.

The shade-dappled, tree-lined street is quiet now that he’s left behind the social hubbub of the church. He walks past the big, old white houses with their white-spindled porches and gables and fluttering flags. In the distance he can hear lawn mowers and children playing and, as always, the lapping waves of the bay.

The ocean, of course, is what drew him to this coastal town. He has always loved to watch the churning sea, to contemplate its vast expanse, to breathe its briny scent, to feel its salt spray and brisk wind on his face.

He had grown up in a fishing town on Oregon’s craggy coast, a town hauntingly similar to this one, a town where majestic old sea captain’s mansions and lighthouses perched on misty headlands, overlooking the vast, cold sea.

And though he had willingly left it behind long ago, he had missed it.

He just hadn’t realized it until the cold gray day late last summer when, driving up the New England coast in search of a place he could call home, he had happened upon Windmere Cove.

He had known instantly that he would stay, even before he checked further and found that it met the requirements he had set. Rentals were plentiful and cheap, and there weren’t very many locksmiths in the area.

Harper’s father had been a locksmith by trade, though he’d always said he was a fisherman first, where it counted—in his heart. He had built a decent local business in that small Oregon town, generating enough income to feed his family and enough freedom to allow him to take to the sea every now and then, to sail out over the waves, cast a line, and wait for a catch.

Harper had never liked fishing.

Had always been too restless to simply sit and wait for something to happen. Even though that was what his life was about, in that tiny Oregon town. Waiting.

When he graduated from high school at last, his father, who had taught him the locksmith trade over the years, had expected him to take over the business.

But Harper, in the tradition of all rebellious firstborn sons, had had other ideas.

His father hadn’t said much when Harper had told him he was leaving. But his mother had cried, begged him to stay. Told him how proud his father would be if he would just stay for a while, just give the business a try. Even his sister had tried to talk him into it, had threatened never to talk to him again if he left.

He had left for Los Angeles that June, and his sister had kept her promise.

But Harper had never looked back. Never allowed himself to feel guilty that his father couldn’t add “and Son” to the sign hanging over his shop.

It wasn’t until last year, when Harper suddenly found himself in trouble, adrift, that he had realized he needed to fall back on the trade he had reluctantly learned so many years before.

The double irony: that he would never be able to tell his father how grateful he was.

His father had been dead for five years by then, killed in a fishing accident during a coastal storm.

And yet despite—or maybe because of—that, Harper had continually been drawn to the sea.

He had lived in Venice Beach when he first arrived in L.A., and then later, as he moved up in the world, in the once-again-fashionable Santa Monica. Always, he had needed to be near the pounding surf, needed the familiar, constant presence of the sea.

When he moved here, alone and troubled and trying to forget, he had thought that was all he needed to make it into home. Just to be near the water, as he always had been.

But he had discovered he needed something more.

That’s why he had started going to church again. He hadn’t attended since he was a boy. Back then he had complained every Sunday morning when his mother dragged him out of bed and made him slick back his hair and put on ironed clothes.

He had fidgeted through services as he imagined all the things he’d rather be doing.

But lately he has found himself drawn to the familiar rituals of organized religion, has found himself searching.

Maybe searching for comfort, and maybe for some meaning to what happened in Los Angeles.

Then he met Elizabeth—Mallory.

And something about her touched some innate part of his soul.

Made him want to reach out.

Made him realize that he may need in his life something more meaningful, more comforting than the sea, and the church.

Something he had already found …

And lost …

Once before.

He doesn’t want to take a chance again.

Doesn’t want to care about a world-renowned celebrity whose life is filled with complications he doesn’t need.

And yet …

He does care.

And he’s worried about her.

He needs to protect her …

Although, from what, he hasn’t a clue.

Her stalker is behind bars.

And anyway, she’s gone, off on her own, back to L.A.

She has told him, in no uncertain terms, that she doesn’t want to be coddled. That she can take care of herself. That she isn’t afraid anymore. That she doesn’t need him.

But what if I need you?
he wonders, kicking a pebble in his path, watching as it skips across the cracked concrete and disappears over the edge, into the grass.

“M
ommy?”

Pamela stirs, feeling something wet jabbing into her face.

She opens her eyes and sees that it’s the corner of Hannah’s blankie, which has most likely been in her mouth or in the toilet.

“Wake up, Mommy.”

Pamela rubs her eyes, sees that she’s on the couch.

Her parents slept in the master bedroom, she remembers.

And Frank…

Frank’s in jail.

“Where Daddy is?” Hannah asks in a small voice.

“Daddy’s … at work,” Pamela tells her. Her voice comes out raspy.

She glances at the clock, exhausted. And no wonder. She just fell asleep an hour ago. She was up all night with the baby, who was running a temperature. Must be that summer cold that’s going around.

Pamela wouldn’t have slept even if Jason had though. How could she sleep after what had happened with Frank?

“Hannah eat now,” her daughter says, tugging on her arm.

Pamela sighs wearily, closing her eyes. “Hannah, please. Not yet. Just give Mommy a minute to—”

“Hannah eat now!”

A flash fire zaps through Pamela’s veins. “You little brat!”

She hollers, grabbing her daughter’s arm and shaking her. “Don’t you dare act like this now! Don’t you dare!”

“Pamela!”

She turns to see her mother in the doorway, wearing a robe and a disapproving expression.

“Is that any way to talk to a two-year-old?”

Pamela sighs, wanting her mother to go away, wanting Hannah to go away, wanting everyone and everything to just go away and leave her alone.

She gets up off the couch, stalks away, down the hall.

“Where are you going?” her mother calls after her, above Hannah’s wails.

Where are you going?

Back in time
, Pamela thinks wistfully.
If only I could go back in time. Back to when Frank and I first met. Back to sunny California, and walking on the beach, and wearing a bikini…

“Pamela?” Her mother raises her voice. “I asked you a question.”

Where are you going?

“I have to get out of here for a day or so, Mother. Maybe longer.”

“You can’t just leave! Where would you go?”

“I don’t know,” Pamela snaps. “Someplace. Anyplace but off the deep end. And that’s where I’m headed if I stay.”

“P
lease hold for Martin de Lisser.”

Flynn inhales sharply, clutching the phone against his ear. When it rang so early on a Sunday morning, waking him from a deep and dreamless sleep, he had expected to pick it up and hear Mallory’s voice.

Now, as he holds for the famed director, he sits up in bed and struggles to organize his booze-scrambled thoughts.

At least he’s alone, he realizes, after glancing, with some trepidation, at either side of the rumpled king-sized bed.

Last night is an unpleasant blur of smoky nightspots in West Hollywood, of throwing cash around and flirting wildly with alluring young men. Of trying to forget that he’s come to a crossroads in his life, now that Mallory Eden has resurfaced and changed everything.

Everything
.

His head is pounding and his mouth dryer than the miles of desert between here and Vegas.

Vegas … he had toyed with the idea of taking off and driving to Vegas at some point last night. He even remembered getting on the freeway, heading east toward Interstate 15.

Luckily, he had realized that he was too drunk to drive all the way to Vegas.

He fumbles on the nightstand for the glass of water he always takes to bed with him; it isn’t there.

He can’t even remember driving home last night, much less getting ready for bed. He must have—

“Flynn?”

“Hello, Martin.”

“I heard the news.”

Of course he’s heard the news. Flynn has known this call would be inevitable, wonders why it hasn’t come sooner.

De Lisser tells him in the next breath.

“I was hiking up north all day yesterday, out of contact with civilization.”

Flynn frowns, wondering why a high-powered player like de Lisser hadn’t brought a cellular phone along.

Again, his question is promptly answered, almost as though de Lisser is reading his mind, a disconcerting notion.

“I like to be out of contact with civilization every now and then,” the director confides, “because I need to clear my head. Especially at the beginning of a new project. Especially at this point in my career.”

“I know what you mean,” Flynn says, wondering, as he rubs his throbbing temples, whether his own head will ever be clear again.

“So,” de Lisser says, “Mallory Eden.”

“Yes,” Flynn acknowledges.

And then, because the director seems to be waiting for him to add something more, he says, “I’m very shocked and excited about the fact that she’s alive.”

“You and the rest of the world,” de Lisser says dryly. “Have you spoken to her?”

Flynn absently folds the edge of the satin bedsheet back and forth in his fingers, wondering whether he should lie.

“Actually, not yet, but I was … out of contact myself for most of yesterday and last night.”

“I see.”

If the director is wondering why a big star like Mallory Eden wouldn’t promptly call her agent under circumstances like these, he doesn’t say it.

Nor does Flynn dare to betray his own uncertainty.