Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (39 page)

This time Harris allowed himself a smile. "I don't think that really matters at this point, do you? He doesn't know about this" -his fingers tapped the videotapes-"and these, along with the movie when it's released, should be all we need. Webb Carnahan's an actor, no matter what his connections, past and present, might be-and a cocksman.

Leave it to Anna-Maria to find out anything else there is to find out about him."

His arm had begun to hurt like hell only after Dr. Brightman's offhandedly solicitous ministrations.

"We won't need more than three or four stitches, and the scar should go away in time." Obvious that Brightman was in a hurry to get back to his other patient. Anne-surprising him first, and then shocking him with her reactions. She had appeared to be in some kind of trance, and for a few moments back there, so had he. Until she'd pulled that cute little ad lib with the knife. Bitch! But what the fuck had gotten into her? Some kind of brainwashing?

Webb didn't like the thought that he was actually making excuses for her. He ought to face the thought that she was, after all, Dick Reardon's daughter, a chip off the old block. And there was Ria, coming out of seclusion, to comfort him. His considerate little wife ... Christ, was she still his wife? Did it matter? He refused to remember the image he'd carried in his mind all these years-the laughing, innocent child- bride he'd loved and even wept for. She was a familiar, dangerous stranger, and he had learned caution.

"Oh Webb! I was trying to stay out of your way, but when I heard .. ."

"Does Espinoza know you're here?"

She shook her head at him, and he could have sworn, if he hadn't know better, that the tears gathering in her eyes were real.

"I've tried to tell you-he understands! We have a-a relationship, we know each other, there is no jealousy in it. I want to be honest with you, can't you hear me?" And then, in a lower voice: "Can't you forgive me?"

His arm throbbed like hell in-spite of the pain pills the good doctor had so thoughtfully provided him with; and he looked at her and saw a familiar image that he recalled pulling out of his mind a million times before-almost the same, but different in some indefinable way. Difference between real and fake. Or, hell, maybe it had all been in his own mind.

Like Annie-breath of cool fresh air. Girl-image running down a snowy hill, arms outspread for balance. Annie laughing, Annie hating. In a killing rage this afternoon-and for Christ's sake, why? She'd been acting, surprising him, taking him off guard.

And then, the bit with the knife. Mere reaction or calculated? And that brought him full circle back to why. Had he been set up? Or maybe he was just becoming paranoid.

Webb felt the brush of Ria's hair against his face, and deliberately closed his eyes, wishing he could close off his mind as easily.

"Webb, why won't you talk to me? Don't you see that we have to talk? I beg of you-please ... I"

He let his eyes open again, squinting them at her, seeing her as a blurred shape, still bending over him. Let his voice come out tired, just the way he was feeling.

"Okay, damn it, okay. But not now. Sorry, baby, but I hurt like hell right now and those pills make me feel real sleepy. Thanks for coming, anyhow. That was real thoughtful of you."

He caught a flash of her Cuban temper then, as she sprang to her feet.

"Maybe you shouldn't fuck around so much-you wouldn't have jealous women sticking knives in you then! And just remember ..." Through half-closed eyes he saw her pause and bite her lip. Letting the pause run into a sigh. "I'm sorry. We are both different now, aren't we? But when you are ready to listen, let me know. Because there are several reasons why we must speak with each other."

When he gave her no reaction, she left the room, showing enough control to close the door quietly behind her. Some women would have slammed it. Claudia, Carol.

Anne, who had gone one step further.

In the mirror of his mind Webb saw her face, drenched with sweat and tears. Hal Brightman's arm tightening comfortingly over her shoulders as he led her away. And superimposed on that, like a transparency, Lucy's face as he had seen her last.

Smiling up at him, brown eyes loving. Dammit, it was Lucy he had -to think of first, and his promise-both to Vito and himself. Find Anne. Maybe she was the key and the solution. Because she was obviously part of whatever was happening behind the scenes.

She was floating back, quite comfortably, to the surface of an ocean that shone like an iridescent turquoise above her. Hadn't the Voice told her she need no longer be frightened of the ocean? She wasn't drowning any longer, she could breathe naturally, even underwater. And there was nothing more she had to worry about-nothing at all ...

Until she felt herself shaken violently, taking her away from her pleasant dream to unpleasant reality. For a few moments, it seemed quite natural to see Webb's dark, angry face looming over her. Webb-hadn't he been part of the dream? And then, like the click of a switch, Anne

came completely back to the present, staring up at him as her eyes came back into focus. Remembrance rushed back in a series of jumbled images turned flame-hot by the sun and the lights and the surprising anger that had burned inside her, driving her to do what she had done. Had he come to take his revenge? She noticed that he wore a white bandage about his upper arm, and had his shirtsleeves tied around his neck like a cape. He looked dangerous, like a stalking tiger, with his narrowed, yellow-gold eyes fixed on hers.

Anne shrank back instinctively, her eyes darting about the room as if looking for rescue. It was unfamiliar, and yet now-and then she recalled that Hal had brought her in here. Afterwards ... But where was Hal, and what was Webb doing here?

His look traced the outline of her face and her exposed breasts, and she couldn't know what he was thinking, or that he had waited until he saw Dr. Brightman hurrying past his window toward the main house, carrying his little briefcase.

As fast asleep as she had been, she didn't know that Webb had searched the room either-reading the notes Brightman had left lying carelessly in his desk drawer.

Right now Webb didn't know why he had bothered to wake her up. He had learned plenty, and he should have left her just the way she was, lying half-naked in Dr.

Brightman'S bed -marks of tears still staining her face. Anne Mallory Reardon. That at one time Reardon had been human enough to react like an ordinary man might be useful to know-or dangerous. But Anne herself was the key, and what in hell should he do about her or with her, for that matter?

"Webb what are you doing here?" She didn't like the way he was staring at her as if he were almost looking through her; nor the strange, sarcastic half-smile that twisted his lips for a moment, only to be wiped away as his actor's mask came back on.

He sat beside her on the bed, ignoring her instinctive wincing away. There was fear mixed with righteous anger in her eyes, and he would have liked to have smacked her hard, leaving another bruise to match the one that purpled her cheekbone.

"What are you doing here, Annie? Where's your faithful guru?"

Angry color flamed in her face. "That's really none of your-"

He leaned towards her slightly, and her eyes were drawn unwillingly to the bandage that showed up white against the .sun-darkened skin of his upper arm. "Hey ... ! You stabbed me, baby, remember? You were really out for blood, and it's goddamned well my business to find out why. Were you set up to do it? Or did you just want another co-star?"

"You-you slapped me! You didn't have to ..."

"And you didn't have to go for me like a damned wildcat either! We were supposed to be acting out a scene, only it got out of hand. What the fuck got into you?"

Anne drew in her breath, unnerved by his closeness; wanting to fly at him again with her nails and her teeth-not quite understanding the force of her emotions.

Be calm, her mind warned her, and she said raggedly, "I- I don't know! Perhaps it was the heat-and waiting around and trying to really get into the part. I didn't really mean to-to stab you. It just seemed to happen! You-those men .. ." She shuddered involuntarily, remembering belatedly that she was still half-naked.

"You'd read the script before, Annie. You were willing to go through with all those explicit scenes, weren't you? And why should you give a damn about showing your breasts? Everybody's doing it these days-on just about any occasion. You've got nice breasts, Anne. And a nice body, which you'll be showing much more of for some of those other scenes. Sure it was only that that set you off?" His voice sounded reasonable and quiet, but the way he looked at her was-

"Webb, please get out of here!" She hated herself for pleading, and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her tug the rumpled bedsheets up to cover her breasts.

Besides, he was sitting on the sheets, keeping her partially trapped. Why had he really come looking for her? What did he really want?

"Why do you want me to leave? Expecting good old Hal back so you two can finish your little session?"

"Damn you! You've no right to question me about anything, or to fling your ugly imputations at me. And now I'm only sorry that I didn't really hurt you where it counts with that knife! Why'd you carry a real one? For the macho image you try so hard to project? You're a cheat and a fake, and I'd like to cut out your .. ." She stopped, appalled at how far her words had carried her. Halted as much by the change in his eyes as by her own realization. Oh God! Perhaps that shot Hal Brightman had given her was still acting in her bloodstream.

He laughed-a short, ugly sound. "Jesus Christ! You sound like a jealous, slighted bitch! Is that what's been bothering you, Annie-go-lightly? You want my balls to add to your growing collection?"

His face was inches away from hers and she hated him more at this moment than she ever had before; striking back at him with the rage that kept spilling over.

"How goddamned wrong you are, you low-down bastard! Is that what you want to think? My collection-what about yours? Yours and Carol's. Your little fuck tapes you played back to each other when you needed a little something extra to add spice to your screwing? Where did you hide the tape recorder, Webb? Under the bed? Did any of the other women you've-you've laid find out? Or .. ."

"What?" And now she had really made him furious, for all that his voice was deceptively soft. "Ohh-never mind! I don't care, do you hear? Just get out and leave me alone!" "Oh no, baby. You've come too far to back off now. Just keep talking."

"Nol" She tried to squirm away from him, but he pushed her back against the pillows, putting his good hand against her throat, fingers exerting just enough pressure to keep her there; looking up at him with sick terror, making a pulse flutter against his fingers.

"You ever heard about the carotid arteries, Annie? Just a little pressure here ... and here"-she gasped while he went on inexorably-"and you're out. And if I were to keep on pressing-no more oxygen to the brain, sweetheart. I wouldn't leave any marks on that pretty throat, either. There was a time when I learned a lot of ways to kill without leaving traces."

She tried to speak-to say something to repudiate the hard-eyed, frighteningly dangerous stranger he'd turned into-and couldn't. She could only continue to watch him while he went on in the same softly uninflected voice: "So why don't you be a good girl and come with me now? Back to my room, where we'll have a little talk-catch up with what's been happening with each other since the last time, huh? When I came back from my trip to Ireland to find you moved out-no note, no call, nothing.

Though I guess Harris had more to offer than I did. Does he stay up nights to keep your bad dreams away? Or is that Karim's job now?"

Her voice came back as sheer rage overcame her terror.

"You and Venetia-you damned hypocrite! Did you expect that I ... God! I saw that very interesting little movie of you two screwing beside her swimming pool. Did you send a copy to Carol? Is that your latest ... oh!"

She thought for a few frightening seconds that he would actually carry out his threat, and her eyes closed.

And then she heard him say in the same deadly voice, "Were you keeping tabs on me, Annie? I wonder what else you found out. All the more reason for us to have a talk. And some honesty for a change. Come along, Anne. Or do I have to knock you out and carry you with me?"

He meant it-and she knew he did. He let her up, and almost flung her his shirt. Her arms shook, like the rest of her body as she slipped them through too-long sleeves.

Why didn't Hal come back?

She made one last attempt at rebellion as he led her through the door, his arm tightly clamped around her waist. "How can you talk about being honest? You've never been."

"Everyone's got to start sometime, baby." His voice sounded almost pleasant for a change, but the pressure of his arm tightened warningly, almost cutting off her breath, so that she stumbled against him on her bare feet.

THEY PASSED NO ONE on the narrow path that wound among cypresses as twisted as the path itself. It gave each of the guest chalets the illusion of privacy.

Anne didn't know why she went with him, except she was sure he would do exactly as he had threatened if she didn't. A voice from long ago repeated itself in her mind.

Webb carries his bad-guy role over into real life ...

How far would it take him-and her? She felt dazed, removed from reality, as if this, too, were a part of the make-believe, and they were still acting out their roles. Jason and Glory. This had nothing to do with Anne and Webb, who were modern and civilized-at least on the surface.

"Make yourself comfortable, baby. Want a drink?"

She sat in the soft chair he offered her with exaggerated politeness, a childishly defensive instinct making her curl her feet under her. She watched him lock the door and walk across the room to fix himself a drink-and one for her, whether she wanted it or not. How many times had she watched the way he walked, the way he held his body-watched his body, felt its length and hardness against hers with fierce possessiveness? She wrenched her mind away from those thoughts with a conscious effort, forcing herself to see him as a stranger she must be wary of. A suddenly frightening, threatening stranger who wanted something of her. Like that cold-eyed Englishman in London in his spy raincoat, who had probably had Violet