Freefall (16 page)

He reversed down the track from Okelani’s cottage to the road, spun, and started for the hospital in Lihue. Traffic after dark on the Kuhio Highway would be minimal. Except for the handful he’d outmaneuvered at Nica’s, the press were probably at the hospital, knowing that sooner or later she would show up.

Her uncle’s rescue would have been news, but Gentry made it big news. The numbers of reporters would be greater and the boundaries lower for the mob awaiting them. Celebs were fair game and couldn’t expect the privacy of a tourist or local. She must know that. But he couldn’t shake the look on her face or the tone in her voice when she’d described the scene they were going into. And that was why she was in his truck and no one else’s.

He glanced over. “You okay?”

She nodded and turned back toward the window.

On the mountain they’d experienced cooperation, companionship. More than that if he was honest. They’d formed a bond of hardship and endeavor. Then he’d offended her. He swallowed. “Gentry.” The name felt wrong. He wanted to backtrack to Jade, to the forest, the cave. He wanted to take back what he’d said. “I made an assumption.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

True enough, but he couldn’t leave it at that. “I shouldn’t have said it. Even if—It wasn’t my business.”

She turned. “Are you apologizing?”

“Pretty poorly.”

“I forgive you.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Dat one, da kine, chilly pardon.”

She leaned her shoulder to the door and eyed him. “I thought you’d stopped.”

“Stopped what?”

“Suspecting me.”

Had his assumption been rooted in doubt and distrust? “Well, suspecting … it’s what I do.” Their gazes locked long enough for her to transmit disappointment, and for a moment he shared it. He had his reasons, but that wasn’t something he intended to discuss.

Turning in at the hospital, he viewed her nightmare. Cars and vans choked the lot, reporters standing ready, cameras on shoulders, lights and microphones, the press en masse with eager fans intermixed. A handicapped spot was all he could find.

Gentry brought her hand up to the side of her face and said, “You can go.”

“Not likely.”

“I appreciate what you’ve done, Cameron, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this, and it’s not going to help that I spent the night in the jungle with a married man.”

He jerked. “Married?”

“Okelani told me.” She frowned. “It wouldn’t be any big deal; nothing happened. But things get twisted.”

His throat felt like paste. Okelani had no business bringing that up. It had no bearing on this or any other situation. “You can cross that off your list of concerns. I’m not married.” With a bitter taste in his mouth, he got out of his truck. She’d given him the chance to walk away. Why hadn’t he taken it? Because she had gotten under his skin, and he wasn’t finished, even if he wanted to be.

He could blame it on Nica’s phone call, dragging him into the mix. But everything since then had been his choice. Or had it? Maybe they were all molecules on a crash course, bouncing against each other with no pattern and no control, every choice a random act of futility.

He would get her inside, then make his escape. Someone else could pick up the slack. He didn’t have to be the one. Who was she anyway?

He rounded the hood as Gentry Fox emerged. Transformed from the woman in Nica’s kitchen to a magnetic presence that drew every eye, she stepped out. She had not even run a comb through her hair, yet the strength and courage she’d pored into her performance as Rachel Bach, the vulnerable but indomitable spirit, could not be mistaken. Every stupid thought he’d just had coalesced into a fist that caught him low and hard.

People started squealing. The reporters pushed in close, shooting questions from all sides. “Look here, Gentry. Over here.” A flash and more flashes.

“How did you lose your memory? Do you know who you are? What happened? Tell us what happened.”

“I don’t remember.” She moved toward the entrance.

“Is it a closed-head injury? Is it permanent?”

“The doctor says I’ll recover.” She could barely move. “I’m sorry but I need to get in to my uncle.”

“Why did you leave him out there?” From a woman on her right. Gentry turned. “I didn’t remember.”

Someone else jumped on. “How long have you known? Why didn’t you get help?”

“I tried, but…” None of them had seen how hard she’d tried once she knew.

He’d intended to stay out of it, but now clamped his arm around her shoulders and moved her through the microphones and flashing cameras. People shouted questions, but she followed his lead and kept walking.

A short man with a rash of moles darted in front of them and flashed his camera. “New lover, Gentry? One past puberty this time?”

She stopped. “What?”

Cameron shouldered the man aside as his own recall kicked in. Accusations of Gentry’s affair with a minor. All the tabloids had carried a version, complete with photos and the young man’s claims. No wonder she’d avoided publicity.

“What did he—”

“Keep walking.” Cameron pushed her along. If she didn’t remember, the parking lot was not the place to explain. He thought the claims had been discredited, but obviously the scandal lingered.

Questions shouted at them blurred. The reporters merged into a human jungle, a force to engage and defeat. He had vowed to avoid personal involvement, but he ignored that to aid Gentry once more. He didn’t ask himself why.

She was shaking by the time they got through the police stationed at the doors into the relative quiet of the lobby. He sensed her confusion. That last question had thrown her. But why?

An attractive Asian woman followed by a chunky security guard approached and offered to escort her. Again Cameron ignored the chance to escape. Gentry might not even know he was there, so tight was her focus. She had closed up like a Japanese puzzle box after the jerk accosted them, and he wasn’t sure how to unlock that rigid control. But she needed an ally, and he was in position.

He’d seen her determination. He’d also seen her shaking from the centipede, sobbing at her uncle’s side, stinging from his assumptions. He’d seen her unguarded—or had he?

She was Gentry Fox. Professional pretender. His doubts kicked in big time. Who was he fooling? She didn’t need him. And yet …

They entered a tiny room where her escort indicated they could wait. “We’ll try to keep them away, Ms. Fox. No guarantees. The doctor will come see you when your uncle is moved to recovery.”

Gentry’s face paled. “He’s in surgery already?”

“He gave consent in the ambulance and was prepped on arrival.”

“Then, he was conscious.”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t have any details. Sorry.”

Gentry sank into a chair. “Thank you.”

“Coffee and soda machines down the hall.” The woman pointed in their direction. “Mr. Pierce can go out for it. Adam will watch the door.” The guard nodded, and they both walked out.

Gentry turned. “You know her?”

Cameron shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“When did you tell her your name?”

He caught the implication. “The SAR team and police knew I was with you. Word spreads.” Far and wide around Gentry.

She removed her ponytail holder and combed her fingers through her hair, pushing it back and away from her face, then looked up, eyes weary. “I should have been here.”

“They’d have taken him right in.”

“He was conscious. I could have said something.”

“You hadn’t remembered.”

She sighed. “I know, but …”

“You’d have been swarmed without warning.” Having her intercepted hadn’t been his call, but he’d made it. And if she hadn’t been in Okelani’s kitchen when TJ delivered the news about her mother, she might not remember yet. He imagined the confused Jade stepping out into the crowd instead of the poised Gentry Fox.

Her brow pinched. “You know what he meant, don’t you. That reporter.”

He lowered himself into a chair, feeling the release of muscle and sinew and a general post-exertion letdown. “Don’t you?”

She shook her head. “I thought it had all come back. But I’m finding holes.” She turned. “What—”

“You’ve got enough to worry about.”

She looped her ponytail holder around and around her finger. “That look on his face. His lip curled up like …” She spread her hands, then dropped them in her lap. “Past puberty?”

He rubbed his beard. He hadn’t paid enough attention to the story to explain it to the person involved, especially when she looked so vulnerable. He should have ducked out when he had the chance. “Let’s just focus on now.”

“That bad?”

He weighed what he knew against what she might imagine and said, “There were allegations that you had an affair with a minor.”

“How minor?”

“Sixteen, I think.”

“Sixteen?” She sank back as if he’d walloped the air out of her. “Who?”

“I don’t know the name.” He rarely tuned in to celebrity scandal, but the pain that gripped Gentry’s face had substance. “You don’t remember any of it?”

She pressed her palms to her temples. “No wonder they’re out there.” Her voice squeezed.

“Comes with fame. You must have expected it.”

“Not really.” She let her hands drop. “I’ve done some TV parts and stage productions, but my focus the last few years has been a troupe called Act Out. An improv ensemble I started with my friend Helen Bastente for at-risk teens.”

He remembered that now. Oprah had emphasized its purpose, providing a creative avenue for troubled kids to express their tangled emotions. He’d been on the rowing machine when Gentry’s interview aired. Mostly he remembered his annoyance that someone had switched from ESPN.

“I wasn’t seeking a script.” She caught her hair back with her fingers. “Helen was reading for the part in
Steel
; I went along to support her. But for some reason, the casting director had me read too.”

Some reason? Gentry could have been typecast for the gutsy Rachel Bach.

“It was a small, independent production, so I didn’t think it would take much time from the theater. Then it got legs and attracted some serious interest. Big shots took over, renegotiated contracts—the works. I almost bailed, but I’d fallen in love with the character.”

That had come through on the screen, Gentry playing the wife of a striking steelworker who took his place as a scab to pay for their child’s operation. Even he’d seen how she peeled the character off the page and breathed life into the part. “And you thought afterwards you’d slip back into obscurity?”

“I’m not that naïve.” Her gaze returned bruised. “I knew things had changed. I just wasn’t prepared for the rest.”

“You remember now?”

“Not a memory as much as … I can feel the hatred.”

Once again she’d accessed the emotion, but not the facts. “Hate’s as potent as love; maybe more.”

She shook her head. “I won’t believe that.”

Her universe of possibilities must be rose tinted.

She got up and circled the room, the only sounds the ticking clock and the low buzz of the lights. She bit off the broken nail of her index finger, and once again he had a hard time visualizing her as a Hollywood personality. Was it something she turned on and off, as she had when she stepped from the truck? Or had that been a subconscious shift in response to the crowd? How would anyone know what was real with Gentry Fox?

She looked at the clock and rubbed her neck. “How long do you think they’ll have him in there?”

“No way to tell.”

She gripped and released her hands. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I’ll stay.” Nervous energy had built up in her, but now it seemed to seep away and leave her empty. “Want something to drink?”

The time it took her to answer revealed her exhaustion. “Diet Coke if they have it.”

“If they don’t?”

“Anything diet.”

He went out past the guard and strolled down to the vending machines, waited while a slight woman clinked in her quarters, and the machine clunked out a soda. This late at night, those were the only sounds except for the distant
ding
of an elevator.

A flowery perfume wafted from the woman, who stepped aside from the machine, but it didn’t quite cover an underlying sweat. She looked up with eyes like pale sea glass in a face as sharp as a prow. “Cameron Pierce, right? Kapa‘a High. Ninety-three.”

He brought up his guard. “You local?”

“Waimea. I won’t tell you what class.” Her teeth formed a narrow arch to fit the sculpting of her face.

He could usually tell a local even if they’d left the islands, but not always. Just to check, he said, “Any class in your age range, you must have graduated with one of the Barretos.” The twelve PortugueseHawaiians had actually attended his own Kapa‘a schools. He’d graduated with Miguel.

She nodded. “Telling which one gives it away.” And she’d just proved herself a liar, though why she felt the need puzzled him. She could have simply said what paper or station she was with. He scanned the soda selection, slipped in quarters, and procured a Diet Coke.

She said, “Running back, first team, but you prefer the long board when the surf ’s up. Won the ’97 Haleiwa Surfing Championship.”

“You know this because?”

“I talk story.”

“That’s how, not why.”

She popped her tab. “Aren’t you going to drink your Coke?”

He started down the hall, then thought better of giving away his destination. The guard would keep her out, and in fact, she probably already knew, but it still felt like leading the wolf to the door.

“Did she tell you the boy overdosed?” Her voice grated.

He didn’t have to ask who she meant. The media had played up the youth’s attempted suicide. He’d smelled a rat, medical fraud being his specialty. But it wasn’t his business. He headed for the room.

“His mother’s filing a civil suit for pain and suffering. Now Gentry’s lost her memory.” The woman kept at his heels like a terrier. “I’d call that convenient.”

He turned. “Look, Ms… .”

“Walden. Bette Walden.”

“You need to fish another stream, Bette.”

“She’s reeled you in?”

Whatever answer he gave to that could be spun. Even saying she was Nica’s friend would shift the scent a direction he wouldn’t want it to go. “What’s your part in all this?”