Lovers and Liars (61 page)

Their gazes met. If Belinda didn’t have an iron will, if she didn’t force herself to remember the lie that their marriage was, didn’t tell herself that this was probably a new part of the game, she would have leaned toward him, until
her head rested on his shoulder and her arms went around him. Instead she stood up.

Jack was looking at her anxiously. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“Yeah.” She turned. “The door is over there. Good-bye, Jack.”

“Belinda, I want you back!”

She walked to the door without looking at him and opened it. She heard him coming. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Won’t you even think about it?”

She didn’t answer, didn’t watch him go out the door, didn’t even glance up when she heard him pause, giving her a chance to respond, before tramping down the steps. She couldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

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T
he thing that first brought the magazine to his attention was the
National Enquirer
.

Standing at the checkout counter of his local supermarket, Lansing idly noticed the half-page cover photo of Jack Ford because of its strategic placement. He did a double take, then read the headline:
THE SECRET LIFE OF JACK FORD—PORN STAR
.

Swearing, Lansing grabbed the rag and read it. Naturally there were none of the incriminating photos within, but they graced a dozen pages of a magazine called
Hard Times
as well as a few in
Playgirl.
The article was devoted to Jack’s days as a porn star before he signed with the L.A.P.D. series. The article also revealed the fact that Jack had a wife who was so furious about his secret past that, after an elopement just two weeks ago, she had left him and was filing for
divorce. A picture of Belinda Glassman accompanied the article.

Lansing went out and bought both magazines. In
Playgirl
, Jack was alone, merely naked and sporting a massive erection. But in
Hard Times
the photos were intimate and varied—Jack and one or two women at a time, doing it all in many different ways, and the coup de grace was Jack and another man—which, while not showing them in an act of sodomy, suggested it.

He was furious.

As a private investigator he did not believe in coincidence.

Therefore, after these pictures had lain dormant on a videotape for years, having surfaced only since he had stolen the film for Melody, there was just one logical conclusion.

He broke every speed limit on the way to Jack’s office. And walked in without ringing. Melody glanced up from her desk in the outer room.

He threw the newspaper and magazines on her desk.

She looked down at them.

“It was you!” Peter said.

Melody gazed at him, her eyes wide and innocent. “What? What do you mean?”

“If it wasn’t you, then it was one helluva coincidence, baby!”

“Peter—what are you saying?”

“I stole that video for you. To protect Jack—you said!” He was shouting. “And a few days later these pictures are plastered all over the fucking world! Why, Melody?
Why?”

She shoved her chair back and stood, enraged. Her face was an unfamiliar mask, which startled him. “Get out, Peter! I don’t have to listen to this!” Her eyes were so different—no longer big and vulnerable but cold and ruthless.

Peter unconsciously took a step teck. Shocked.

“Get out!” she snarled.

“You little bitch, it was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes!” she hissed. “I sold that tape to Abe Glassman.” She lifted her chin triumphantly.

“Why? How could you do this? I thought he was your friend.”

“Because I hate him!” she said. “He’s an egomaniacal bastard. He deserves everything he gets. After all, I didn’t make this up—it’s the truth.”

She was ugly in her spite and maliciousness.

And Lansing felt sick. Sick at having been used and at having been the instrument of another man’s destruction.

He walked to the door of Jack’s office.

“What are you doing?” Melody cried.

Lansing didn’t answer her. He couldn’t even look at her. He knocked.

122

I
t didn’t matter.

Nothing seemed to matter.

Jack looked idly at the cover of a magazine called
Hard Times
. Looked idly at himself, naked, probably about ten years younger, but undoubtedly himself, with a very large and very visible erection, poised over a lush female body and with another sex kitten’s openmouthed face and large breasts pressed against his buttocks and thighs. “Film Star Reveals All,” a red subtitle proclaimed. He pulled forward the
Playgirl
, flipped it open and studied his picture dispassionately. He pushed it away abruptly.

He didn’t know who had sent them over, and he didn’t particularly care.

Jack could think of only one thing: Belinda was back in Laguna Beach.

He was sure of it. He hadn’t spoken with her, but he had called several times. And although he always got her answering machine, the messages were different. She was
back. It had been more than a week since he had seen her. And he laughed—bitterly.

What had he expected? That she would fall eagerly into his open arms?

Yeah, he sort of had.

He wished he knew what she was thinking. Did she still hate him? Or did she hate him more now that he was actively engaged in a lawsuit against North-Star, because she knew that was really an excuse to take on her father and drag him through the mud?

He wished he knew what she was thinking. And what about the fact that he had slept with her mother? Christ, that was the least of it, as far as he was concerned—seventeen years ago was another lifetime. But women were funny about things like that, and maybe that clinched it for her. If only he knew.

If only she’d come back.

If only he didn’t care.

If only he had felt like laying the bimbo who’d pursued him last night.

If … if … if …

There was a knocking on his door. “Yeah,” Jack said.

Peter Lansing came in with Melody at his heels. They both looked angry, Melody a bit frightened. “What’s going on?” Jack asked, relieved to have his attention diverted.

“Jack, I don’t know how to tell you this …”

“What’s up?” Jack repeated.

“Melody asked me to do her a favor. To steal a videotape of you from Bart Shelley. She told me she was protecting you—and she asked me not to tell you so as not to worry you. I gave her the videotape the other day.”

Lansing pointedly looked at Jack’s desk, where the rags were open.

Jack followed his gaze.

So did Melody.

A silence ensued.

“I don’t get it,” Jack said. He was confused, first looking at Lansing, then at Melody.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Lansing said harshly, turning an accusing gaze on Melody.

Jack looked at her too, completely bewildered. “I still don’t get it.”

Melody stepped forward aggressively. “Go ahead, tell him the rest,” she said nastily. “I sold the video to Glassman, Jack.”

He stared.

“And now I quit!” she said into the heavy pause.

Jack knew his mind wasn’t functioning the way it should. “You … sold it … to Glassman?”

“That’s right.”

“Mel?”

Tears filled her eyes but not tears of contrition. Tears of anger.

And then Jack understood.

Betrayal. Again.

Unaware that he did so, Jack touched his chest as if to still his pounding heart.
“Why?”

She turned on her heel and was gone.

Jack sat down, visibly shaken. He looked at Lansing. “Why did she do this?” he said.

Lansing shrugged. “She loved you.”

Jack tried to focus, to understand. “She loved me? I love her. She’s my best friend. How could she do this to me?”

“A woman scorned,” Lansing said simply. Then, “I’m sorry, Jack.”

Jack stared at his desk and heard Lansing walk out. A woman scorned. Melody? He loved her. How could she do this to him? When the phone rang he picked it up reflexively.

“Motherfucker, Jack,” Brent Baron said. “You see the rags? Is this for real?”

“I got them.”

“I mean, Jesus Christ! Should I be expecting more of this shit?”

“I don’t think He had anything to do with it.”

“I don’t think this is funny, Jack, not with you on page ten with a goddamn ten-inch hard-on.”

“What do you want from me?”

“An hour of your time—like now.”

“All right,” Jack said heavily.

Then there was a pause. Baron said, “Is it true? Because if it is, it’s more shit we have to deal with.”

“Is what true?”

“That you married Belinda Glassman, and she left you because of the porn you did?”

Jack’s hand tightened on the phone. “
What
?”

“It’s in
The Reporter
. I’m sorry I have to ask—”

“No, it’s not true!” He slammed down the phone, momentarily stunned. He didn’t want Belinda dragged into this …

Seconds later he was out the door, heading for his Ferrari. At the corner newsstand he bought a copy of
The Reporter
and rapidly began reading it. His heart sank when he came to the paragraph about his wife having been interviewed. And then—grim determination.

He had to explain.

He had to.

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