Fade to Black (42 page)

“Uh, I can’t tell you what it was, Mr. Soderland.” Gretchen stands and paces the narrow aisle between the hotel room’s two double beds, eager to get off the phone.

“You don’t know?” Flynn asks, sounding disappointed.

Of course I know. But, like I said, I can’t tell you
.

“I’m afraid not,” she says aloud.

“Well, if you think of the place, would you give me a call back?”

“Sure I will. And if you see Mallory … tell her I’m looking forward to connecting with her again.”

“I will.... What was your name again?”

A prickle of anger darts through her. He doesn’t even remember her name, and she had practically talked to him daily when she worked for Mallory.

“It’s Gretchen,” she says curtly.

Gretchen Dodd … you old drunk
.

“That’s right. I don’t know why I can’t remember anything today.”

Probably because You’re wasted
.

“Hey,” he says abruptly, as if he’s just remembered something. “You’re the one who got hurt. Didn’t you? When that flower arrangement blew up in your face?”

“Yes” is her terse reply.

“I forgot all about that. How are you? You got pretty banged up. It was your legs, right?”

“My face.”

“Are you okay now?”

“I’m fine now,” she says crisply, careful not to walk all the way to the end of the aisle between the beds, where she might catch a glimpse of her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

She bids a quick, terse farewell to Flynn Soderland and hangs up the phone.

So Flynn suspects that Mallory and her friend Rae are headed toward Big Sur.

And Gretchen knows how to find out for sure.

Her
memory is sharper than ever.

All she has to do is flip through her Filofax to the T’s.

She starts dialing.

“Good evening, Treetop Inn,” a voice greets her a moment later. “How may I help you?”

“I’d like to confirm a reservation,” Gretchen says, the years falling away so that her voice is an echo of her long-ago efficiency.

“Certainly. May I have the name, please?”

“It’s Abernathy. Amy Abernathy.”

“One moment while I check, please.”

Gretchen clutches the phone to her ear, her vacant gaze darting around the silent, impersonal hotel room.

If this isn’t it, she’ll have to go back to the phone book and start calling other contacts. The trouble is, if Mallory’s with Rae, she probably hasn’t called anyone else. The two of them pretty much kept to themselves when they were together.

And if they aren’t at the Treetop, then Gretchen has no idea where—

“Hello? Yes, your reservation is confirmed, Ms. Abernathy. And I do have your credit card approval for late arrival this evening, so you’re all set.”

“Thank you very much,” Gretchen says, smiling as she hangs up the phone and picks up the keys to the rental car.

H
arper is stuck in traffic on the San Diego Freeway.

Not that it matters.

He has no idea where he’s going.

No idea how to begin looking for Mallory.

He figures he’ll find a hotel somewhere by the beach, settle in, and wait for her to surface.

It shouldn’t take long.

He isn’t the only one looking for her.

The press has apparently worked itself into a frenzy. He saw reporters and camera crews all over the airport when he landed, and as soon as he turned on the radio in the rental car, he heard a deejay offering free tickets to a Nine Inch Nails concert to the first listener who calls in an accurate Mallory sighting.

In the meantime, Harper is sitting in traffic, wondering why he had ever thought living in Los Angeles was a good idea.

Sure, the beach is great …

But there’s a beach in Windmere Cove too. And no traffic.

No smog either, he thinks, glancing out the window at the indistinct night sky.

He thinks about all the other negative aspects of living here.

The high rent.

The earthquakes.

The crime.

The—

He jumps in his seat, startled by a faint tone coming from the vicinity of his waist.

His pager.

Somebody is paging him.

Can it possibly be …

He pulls it from his belt loop and glances at the number displayed.

It’s an unfamiliar number; the area code is 408.

Where …?

It’s in California, he realizes
.

The area code for Carolyn’s family’s compound up in Carmel.

They wouldn’t be calling him, of course—for all they know, he’s fallen off the face of the earth, and none too soon for them.

Harper knows nobody else living in that area code.

Can it possibly be Mallory, trying to reach him?

Is she somewhere up the coast, in trouble, waiting desperately for him to call this number?

He glances out the windshield at the cars in front of him. He glances in the rearview mirror and sees nothing but a sea of traffic behind him too. He’s boxed in. At a standstill.

Without a phone.

M
allory checks her watch one more time.

It’s been a half hour since she had impulsively tried to page Harper, and he still hasn’t called her back.

Maybe he doesn’t want anything to do with you now that You’re gone
, she thinks wistfully as she flashes one last glance at the pay telephone before turning away.

The only phone for guest use at the inn is tucked away in a dark nook of the rustic lobby, around the corner from the registration desk and the comfortable seating area by the stone fireplace.

The place is fairly deserted at this hour on a Sunday evening. As she passes through the lobby, Mallory spies a lone man sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, a sketch pad on his lap.

She frowns.

What can he be sketching at this hour?

There’s nothing to see out the window but velvet, starlit sky.

Yet in the morning, Mallory knows, the view will be dazzling.

She walks slowly back along the corridor, shadowy with its dark, rough-hewn cedar walls, toward the second-floor suite she and Rae are sharing. It, too, has a spectacular vista of the ocean, as do most rooms in the inn.

The Treetop sits on two hundred secluded acres atop a sheer cliff that rises more than a thousand feet above the foaming white surf. There are several sun decks, lush flower gardens, and a series of trails through deep thickets of redwood and pine that emerge periodically at majestic clearings high above the sea.

Mallory tells herself, as she mounts the staircase at the end of the hall, that she has to relax. She’s been on edge all day.

Hell, you’ve been on edge for over five years
, she reminds herself.

Being there at Big Sur with Rae is the soul-cleansing she so sorely needs. She can finally forget about the nightmare of the past, the …

But what about the stalker?

What if it wasn’t Frank?

She had called the Windmere Cove police station before trying Harper just now. They reported that Frank is still in custody, and hasn’t confessed to stalking her in California.

That was what had triggered her to call Harper’s pager.

For some reason, she had thought that if she could just hear his voice, she might be able to put to rest the nagging sense of uneasiness that has dogged her ever since she touched down in L.A.

What if it wasn’t Frank?

What if whoever was after me five years ago is still out there someplace?

What if he’s been watching, and waiting to strike, and …

She shudders and picks up her pace, arriving at the top of the stairs and turning the corner. She hurries past the row of closed doors until she reaches the end of the hall.

Two quick knocks, and the door is promptly thrown open by Rae, who’s wearing a pair of light blue silk pajamas. She looks cool, comfortable, and stylish, as always. But her eyes are troubled.

“My God, you don’t know how worried I’ve been,” she says, stepping aside to let Mallory into the suite. “Where have you been? I thought you were just going to call the police back in Rhode Island and come right back.”

“I was, but … I decided to take a short walk around.”

She isn’t ready to share her thoughts about Harper yet—not even with Rae. Nor does she want to tell Rae about Manny, whom she had also intended to reach—until she realized it’s well past midnight on the East Coast She’ll call him tomorrow.

“You were walking alone, in the dark?” Rae looks dismayed.

“I just strolled out to see the calla lilies in the garden. It’s been so long since I’ve been here. I just couldn’t wait to look around a little bit. It hasn’t changed.”

“Well, don’t forget we’re going hiking on the trails first thing in the morning. You’ll be able to see everything better then.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Did you get ahold of the police?”

Mallory nods. “They said he still hasn’t confessed.”

“To stalking you five years ago?”

“Right.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“They’ll try to prove it was him. He was in Los Angeles at the time.” She shrugs.

Rae is watching her. “Do
you
think it was him?”

Mallory hesitates, then nods. “After the way he attacked me the other night, yes. He’s sick. I just hope he doesn’t somehow get away with all of this.”

“Don’t worry, Mallory. They’ll get him to confess. Or they’ll find the evidence to convict him. And then this whole nightmare will be over.”

But will I ever feel truly safe again?

“Just try and put the whole thing out of your head if you can,” Rae suggests.

“Good idea.” Mallory yawns and starts toward the sleeping area off the rectangular sitting room with its homey couch and chairs. “I think I’ll go right to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“Are you sure?”

She turns at the unexpected sound of disappointment in Rae’s voice.

That’s when she notices the two glasses of red wine on the low oak coffee table, and the sea breeze wafting through the open door leading to the secluded balcony.

She realizes that Rae had planned on the two of them sitting out there, drinking wine until the wee hours, the way they always had when they came up here.

“I thought … I mean, we have so much catching up to do,” Rae says, sounding hesitant. “I guess I’m just eager to hear about everything, not just what you’ve been doing alone in Rhode Island for all this time, but about your plans for the future. I mean … I don’t even know whether you’ve decided to go back to acting.”

Mallory hesitates in the doorway, looking from the waiting wine to Rae’s face, which looks slightly wistful.

For a moment she considers sitting down for a nice rambling conversation, unwinding over a glass of wine, reestablishing the old intimacy with her dearest friend.

But then she realizes that she’s simply too bone tired to think straight. All she wants to do is fall into bed and sleep for hours, without intrusive thoughts of the past—or the future.

“I’m sorry, Rae,” she says reluctantly. “I’m exhausted. I’ll be more in the mood to chat tomorrow. But thank you for all you’ve done. You … you’ve saved me.”

“It’s no big deal,” Rae tells her, flashing a brief smile. “I’m really tired too. Let’s just go to sleep. But I’m going to wake you up at dawn for that hike.”

“You do that,” Mallory tells her with a grin before going into her room and closing the door.

She changes into one of the nightgowns she had purchased that afternoon when she had Rae stop at a shopping mall along the way. She needed everything—pajamas and clothes and undergarments and shoes and jackets, even toiletries.

In the adjoining bathroom she swiftly brushes her teeth, washes her face, and runs a brush through her hair. Her face in the mirror is lined with shadows, testimony to what she’s been through these past few days.

Hell.

You just need to sleep
, she tells herself.
Everything will be better in the morning
.

She climbs into the mission-style bed and sinks gratefully into the downy feather bed cushioning the mattress.

But she doesn’t fall asleep right away, despite her fatigue.

For a long time after she hears Rae’s bedroom door close next door, she lies awake in the unfamiliar bed, listening to the distant crashing of the waves....

And telling herself that there’s nothing to fear.

Frank Minelli is a continent away.

But what if it wasn’t him?

What if it was someone else?

Someone who knows where I am?