Infamous (8 page)

Alison let the curtain fall back into place as she scrambled for her phone, calling security as she also locked her door. Then, she quickly accessed her phone list to search for Skip’s direct number.

His last name was Smith. She dialed him quickly.

He answered on the first ring. “’Lo.” Or maybe that was a “Yo.”

“This is Alison Carter,” she told him. “I’ve just called security because a pair of men—neither of whom I recognize—seem to be shaking down Trace Marcus right outside my trailer.”

“Fuck,”
he said, adding, “Stay where you are,” before he hung up on her.

Presumably—hopefully—to come to the aid of the man he was supposed to be bodyguarding. Or babysitting. Alison wasn’t quite sure which.

She went back to the window, but they were gone. All of them—Trace, too. Maybe they’d seen the movement of the curtain.

She heard a backfire and then a squeal of tires, as if a car that had been parked on the other side of the production assistants’ trailer peeled away. Hopefully Trace Marcus wasn’t in it.

She chewed on her lip, uncertain as to what to do. The horrible, uncharitable part of her was secretly hoping not that Trace had been kidnapped—that would be too awful—but that maybe the little angry man had broken his arm or even just a few fingers, and that the part of Silas Quinn would need to be recast. All of the unnecessary drama on the set circulated around Trace Marcus. It was true, the man was a decent enough actor, but he wasn’t as great as he thought he was, and there were dozens of other Hollywood stars who could’ve played Silas Quinn with just as much conviction.

Skippy—which was a stupid name for a bodyguard—had told her to stay where she was. But even if she stepped out of her trailer, she’d still be where she was, wouldn’t she? Or close enough …

Alison looked out all of the windows on both sides of her trailer. No one was out there—most of the cast and crew were up in the mountains today, out by the entrance to one of the mines, setting up what was going to be a sunrise shot, which they’d all wake up hours and
hours
before dawn to capture.

But then she saw the security team arrive via electric golf cart—a pair of overweight rent-a-cops in uncomfortable-looking
uniforms. They didn’t get out of their cart, they just slowed as they went past, maneuvering to get back behind her trailer.

She watched from the window, intending to go out and join them, when Skip Smith jogged over. So she kept watching.

He spoke to them and he was far more animated than she’d ever seen him. He glanced over at her trailer and although he didn’t wave, it was clear that he saw her at the window. He spoke to the security guards at some length, and they all laughed at something he said. Then he stepped back, gesturing for the cart to proceed, which it did, driving away as if nothing had happened. And Skip, again turning to look directly at her, came toward her trailer.

Alison met him outside. He was a heavy smoker and she didn’t want him exhaling or even just bringing his ashtray-smelling clothes into her personal work space.

“Whoever they were—and Marcus made up some bullshit,” Skip told her, no ceremony, no greeting, “they must’ve realized you were watching, because they let him go and ran.”

“Is he okay?” Alison asked.

The man shrugged, his expression hard to read behind those mirrored sunglasses. “Seems a little shaken. He says he was rehearsing a scene.”

“If he was,” Alison told Skip, “it wasn’t from this movie.”

“You … overheard him?”

She nodded. “He said,
Don’t,”
she reported. “Like,
Don’t hurt me
. And something about money. That he’d have it next week.”

Skip nodded. “Great. The man is a retard. I let him out of my sight for two goddamn minutes …” He reached for a cigarette, lighting it up without even asking if she minded.

“Skip,” Alison chose her words carefully as she took a step back. “I know Trace has had substance abuse issues in the past, and I also know you’ve been with him for a long time, and because of that, you must feel a certain amount of loyalty—”

He made a raspberry sound. “Screw loyalty,” he said. “Right now Hank Logan pays my salary. My job is to make sure Marcus shows up on time with his freaking lines learned—which is a pain in the balls, because like I said, he’s a retard. I’m also in charge of making sure that he tests negative whenever they spring a drug test on him. It’s been a year since he’s popped a positive, FYI. But he’s heavily in debt. Has been for years. It sounds like that’s maybe catching up with him.”

“That’s good,” Alison said. “About the drug tests, I mean. Not so good about the debt.” She paused. “I think it’s important that Henry Logan knows about this latest incident.”

“Oh, believe me,” Skip told her, “it’ll be in my daily report. I’ll make sure he knows.”

“Good,” she said. “That’s … I hate to bother Henry, but … I’m really sorry you have to deal with this. It’s been a heckuva day, with Eleanor’s visit this morning.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. Jesus, was that this morning? It’s been a
fucking
heck of a day.”

“Thanks for getting here so quickly,” Alison told him with a nod that was meant to be a conversation ender.

But he had another question for her. “Miss Carter. The men that you saw with Marcus … Do you think you’d be able to give, you know, an accurate description?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. I got a good look at both of them.” She gave him a brief rundown. Short guy, tall guy.

He nodded, taking one last long drag on his cigarette before dropping it into the street and grinding it out with the toe of his boot. “Good to know,” he told her. “Excuse me.”

He pulled out his cell phone and started to dial, even as he walked away.

A.J. phoned home.

One of the conditions that his mother had set, as he’d loaded his truck for the ferry ride to Seattle, was that he take a cell phone that she’d bought him.

He hadn’t needed one before this, even though she’d been trying to push the damn thing on him for years.

“But I need to be able to reach you,” she would say.

“You know where I live,” he’d answer. “You know where I work. If I’m gone, I’m camping, and if I’m camping, it’s because I don’t want to answer the phone, so I wouldn’t take it with me even if I had one.”

But this time? He’d taken the phone when she’d offered it. And even that didn’t alleviate the worry that was ever-present in her eyes after he’d dropped the Gramps bomb on her.

That had been one hell of a hard conversation. He’d actually scheduled an appointment, and gone into her doctor’s office in town, to talk to her.
So, Mom. You know how some people hear voices? Well, I both hear and see Gramps. In fact, he’s here right now. He says to tell you he likes your haircut. I’m not sure what to do, but I figured the first step was to maybe do a CAT scan to make sure I don’t have a tumor pressing on a part of my brain that would make me hallucinate
.

“A.J.,” she said now, in lieu of hello. The fact that his name and number showed up on her phone’s little screen before she even answered was something he found disconcerting. Dr. Rose Gallagher seemed omniscient enough as it was. “How are you?”

“Hi, Mom,” he said. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Are you still seeing …?”

“Yep,” A.J. said. “Jamie’s sitting right here, next to me.”

“Let’s freak her out, okay?” Jamie said, mischief glinting in his eyes as he popped away—which worked more to freak A.J. out.

“Well, he was,” A.J. amended himself. “He’s gone now.”

“You’ll be glad to hear that the CAT scan came back normal,” his mother told him briskly. She’d referred him to a colleague who’d agreed that they should run an array of tests, and he’d given his mother permission to discuss the results with the other doctor. It seemed silly not to, since he was just going to tell her everything anyway. Otherwise, what good was it, having a doctor in the family? “Your bloodwork looks good, too. You’re healthy.”

“Healthy but crazy,” he said. In his mother’s opinion, the
idea that Jamie’s ghost had actually returned to earth was not a possibility. “Great.”

“You
wanted
a brain tumor?” she asked.

“I wanted an explanation,” A.J. said evenly. “Besides, you know …” He choked the acronym out. “PTSD.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” his mother told him fiercely, as if she might sternly scold him if he disagreed.

So he didn’t disagree. At least not aloud.

“Have you found a meeting?” she asked.

“There’s a church in town,” he told her. “If there’s a church, there’s a meeting.”

“Not always,” she started, but he cut her off.

“Mom,” he said. “I’m okay. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’m not going to drink. And if Jamie starts telling me to kill people, I’m not going to do that, either.”

“Not even remotely funny,” she said tightly.

A.J. sighed. “Sorry.”

“I think you should come home.”

“I know you do,” A.J. told his mother. “But the history professor’s … She’s open-minded, Mom. She wants to hear Jamie’s story, so … I’m going to stay as long as I need to, to tell her and … maybe even try to find some proof.” He changed the subject before she could try to change his mind. “Can I ask you a question?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Did Gramps ever talk to you about Silas Quinn’s second wife? Agatha something.”

“The one he thought must’ve poisoned Quinn?” she asked.

“Yeah,” A.J. said. “Huh. He just told me about that. Just. And he wouldn’t’ve told me what he told me—that Agatha thought Quinn was on the verge of sexually abusing their daughter—back when I was ten.”

“No,” his mother agreed, “but that doesn’t mean you didn’t overhear things that were too grown-up for you to understand when you were supposed to be in bed.”

His mother had an explanation for everything.

“Hey.”

A.J. turned to see that Jamie was back. “She’s grabbing a
sandwich—turkey and Swiss on pumpernickel, she’s wearing a black blouse with those turquoise earrings that she loves, and—drumroll, please—Julie’s at the reception desk.”

“If finding the oil tank didn’t convince her,” he told Jamie, “this won’t do it, either.”

Right before they’d left Alaska, Rose had asked A.J. to please stop by the house. She still lived in Jamie’s house, where she and Bev and A.J. had eventually moved to quote unquote
take care of Gramps
. Of course, at first anyway, it had been Gramps who’d taken care of them.

It was a smallish house, but one that was filled with good memories and laughter—Jamie and Melody had raised much of their family there.

And buried somewhere in the big backyard, Rose had told A.J. the day before he’d headed south, was an old oil tank, long unused. It needed to be removed before the contents started leaking, but all the experts she’d hired to find the thing had come up empty-handed.

She’d stood out on her back porch, arms folded regally across her chest as she told him this.

And he’d realized what she wanted. She wanted him to ask Jamie’s ghost where that oil tank was buried.

“He’s not sure he wants to tell you,” A.J. had informed her. “Seeing as how you don’t think he’s real.”

“Don’t be a pill, kid.” Jamie had been far more relaxed about it. “I’m happy to tell her. Hell, maybe it’ll help convince her—and you—that I’m not a growth on your brain.”

It didn’t convince her. Despite the fact that the tank had been precisely where Jamie, via A.J., told Rose it would be.

His mother’s theory was that its location was something Jamie had told A.J. when he was small—a distant memory that had been awakened.

A.J.’s sister, Bev, though, was happily convinced that their gramps was back. And because Bev knew that A.J. was being “visited,” which was what she called it, the entire rest of the town now knew it, too.

Bev had left him a cheerful voicemail message, telling him that everyone made a point to ask about both of them.
How’s
A.J.? Tell him to say hey to Jamie for me
.… It didn’t seem to make too much of a difference whether A.J. was haunted or crazy. They all took it in stride. With the exception of A.J.’s mother.

“Is he back?” she asked now, her voice tinny through the speaker of his cell phone. “What’s he telling you?”

“That you’re wearing the earrings Jamie and I gave you for Christmas, you’re having lunch at your desk, and that Ariana’s AWOL, so cousin Julie’s filling in again.”

His mother was silent.

“Jamie says he can move from one place to another with no travel time,” A.J. explained. “He just thinks himself there, and … There he is.”

“Convenient,” she said.

“Very,” A.J. agreed.

“Hang on,” Jamie said. “I’ll go and tell you which files she has in front of her, which page the book she’s reading is open to. We’re going to make her believe us this time, kid. I’ll be right back.” He popped out again.

“A.J.,” his mother said, but then she stopped. He could tell that she’d covered the phone, but still could hear her saying, probably to Julie, “I’ll be right there.” The hand was removed. “I’ve got evening hours tonight. Will you call me tomorrow?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And if I don’t call you …”

“I’ll call you,” she finished for him. “Because I think I can get you the proof that you need. For this history person. If that’s what it takes to get you back home.”

“You have proof?” A.J. asked. “Written, documented proof …?”

“Your great-grandmother kept diaries,” Rose informed him.

“Really?” A.J. was bemused. “And you couldn’t have told me this last week …?”

“I didn’t think you’d be able to get anyone to listen to you,” she said honestly. “And … there’s a reason you didn’t know about the diaries. They contain a lot of personal information. It’s been a tradition to pass the diaries down only to
the women in this family and …” She broke off again, again speaking, no doubt to Julie, her words muffled. “I’m on my way.” Unmuffled, “Kyle Notterly fell off his bike and needs stitches. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” A.J. said. “Could you call me tonight?”

“It’ll be late,” she informed him.

“I’ll be up,” he said.