Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (50 page)

The sunlight was an enemy, blinding her with its dazzle at first. The tensing of Webb's body beside her warned her before Dave Black's voice called out with forced cheeriness, "There you are! Jesus Christ, we were wondering if you two would ever decide to come up for air!"

We? Dave was sitting with two women. One of them-dark-haired, quite attractive-was looking at her with undisguised hostility. The other one was Anna-Maria. And she was smiling.

Dave was saying unnecessarily, "The ladies decided to come up, for the afternoon.

You know-play some tennis, take a swim in the pool later. And this lady wants to do a piece for a magazine." He touched Anna-Maria's arm, obviously attracted. She wore a maillot swimsuit that accentuated her almost too voluptuous curves. "Everyone knows everybody else, don't they?"

Anne felt herself propelled forward, while Webb said smoothly, "Hi, Ria. Hi, Robbie. I don't think Anne and Robbie have met yet."

Civilized games this time. Politeness cloaking jungle hostility.

What the fuck was Ria doing up here in the guise of a lady journalist? Webb met her eyes, and they were challenging, as if she dared him to say something. And as for Robbie Savage-she clung like a leech, making it only too obvious that they had been lovers. Damn Dave and his open-house policy. Damn his foolishness in bringing Anne here. But how had Ria known? Not that it mattered now; she was here, and up to something. And Anne had gone all stiff and wary, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Stretching out her legs to the sun.

He didn't know what he was going to do about Anne. Touching her seemed to light a short fuse somewhere inside himself.

When he brought her here, he'd meant to get all the information he could out of her.

Anything he could use-using her, too, if he had to. She was Reardon's daughter. All changes and chameleon shapes ever since the first time he'd met her. What was real? Ria should have taught him.

Webb looked at Ria, his eyes measuring, more gold than yellow in the sunlight. She was smiling, talking to Anne. Hiro had brought drinks out to them; the prospect of a tennis game seemed distant with Dave playing the Happy Host and the girls having fun sitting around and talking.

His beer was getting warm-Roberta Savage reminded him of that, picking up the tall glass and handing it to him.

"Do tell me, how is the filming going? I've been wanting to come down, but my God!

All the security ... do you think I could, sometime? I'd love to watch. I mean, I've read the script. The changes they've made from my book won't upset me." He saw her glance towards Anne, not bothering to hide her resentment, even while she made her voice soft and sweet. "How's she doing? Anne Mallory. I couldn't really see her as Glory, do you know, but of course once I signed the contract, I knew I'd lost all the rights to my characters." She talked like Cosmopolitan, with an emphasis on every other word. But he smiled at her, and her heart did flip-flops when his eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Ah, she's doing fine. I'll talk to Harris Phelps and see if we can't arrange for you to come over to the island some weekend, maybe with Dave. See some of the footage we've shot already."

"I'd love that!" With enough persuasion, she was ready to forgive him Anne. After all, she'd read enough to understand how it could happen. She'd written all those very sexy scenes into her book, and the film script had left most of the sex in. Webb usually made love to his leading ladies, didn't he? It didn't mean a damn thing, and she had already sensed that Anne Mallory wasn't really his type. She was too quiet-too cold and withdrawn. And she'd pumped her new friend, the female reporter, who had hinted that she was Harris Phelps's girl friend, and had a romance going on the side with that handsome Egyptian actor who played the Mexican officer. If Webb was interested in her, it was only for the moment, and only for an occasional fuck. Robbie leaned closer to him.

"My next book is almost finished. Can I send you a copy of the galleys? My editor thinks it's the best thing I've done yet."

"Sure, I'd love to read it." He squeezed her hand.

Ria was getting up out of her chair, smiling at Dave. "Will you excuse us for a little while? Anne and I are going to-to powder our noses!" Her nose wrinkled, and she laughed when Dave patted her bottom.

Time for girl talk. What the hell was Ria up to?

Anne felt almost as if she were going to her own execution.

"I think I must talk to you," Anna-Maria had whispered while the others were talking-Robbie Savage hanging all over Webb, and he enjoying it. They'd obviously been together before-she could almost smell it between them, and it sickened her. But what Anna-Maria-Ria-told her sickened her even more.

"I hope you don't think that I am jealous. Believe me, it's not that. Like you, I find he has a certain kind of fascination. I cannot deny it. But the difference is that I know him-and what he is. Do you remember when we were all talking one night with Dr.

Brightman? He makes it easy to talk, to let go. I spoke of my past-it's something I hadn't spoken of before because it was something I did not wish to remember. But you have to know. Sal persuaded me to come here, and tell you."

The washbasin was turquoise, flecked with gold. Anne' fingers clutched at it for cold comfort while the other woman's voice went on, talking fast as if she needed to get it over with and done.

"I'm sorry. Except for the sex, it is over for me. But you see, he's my husband."

He's my husband. Husband, like husband-and-wife. Words pounding into her consciousness like hammer blows, Ria's inexorable voice, telling her things she hadn't known or guessed at, and didn't really want to know.

Webb had worked for her father once. Maybe he still did. (That would account for a great deal, wouldn't it?) Webb had betrayed his own wife-deliberately letting her go back to Cuba to face death or torture. Webb was connected with the Mafia -shades of Craig, his face serious as he warned her in Dune's cluttered office. And Duncan Frazier was dead, just as Violet was. Coincidence or sick pattern? Hit man. Phrase out of a thousand novels, movies, television dramas. Not Webb! He was an actor, a bastard maybe, but the other was unthinkable.

"His profession is the perfect cover-don't you see it? Maybe I am telling you too much, and I could be killed for it, but I feel safer now that I have Sal to look after me.

He sent me here to warn you. And whether you want to believe me or not, be careful.

Please-be very careful."

Pieces fell into place. But was he her guardian or her executioner?

"I'm sorry," Ria said again. "I know what a shock it must be for you to hear all this.

You must not let it show. And I understand the fascination. I feel it myself. When he makes love to a woman, it is as if there is no other woman alive. I was only seventeen when we married, and I am older than my age now, but I still feel it."

Anne felt as though she had sunstroke. All the symptoms. Her mind whirling into space-headache-nausea.

"No! How do you know ... ?" Dune-dead. Blown to pieces by a bomb. Violet-dead.

Killed by person or persons unknown. But why, why? It didn't make sense ... but then nothing made sense right now.

"You should ask Sal-or Harris. They will be able to explain it to you better than I can.

All I know is that it has something to do with your father. I have already said too much, I think.

But there is a conflict going on. For control, for power. Two sides-hasn't he questioned you?"

It took her by surprise. Questions flooded into her mind-mostly his. Her face gave her away before she said in an unsteady voice, "Yes. And he knows about-about the hidden TV cameras. He knows I know."

"Then, if you know anything about survival, you will not let him know everything you know. Make him think there's more, that he might get out of you later. And you had better wash your face and put some makeup on-I have some in my purse." She said again, emphasizing the words, "Please, for your own sake, you will be cautious? You must go back out there and act normally. You are safe for the moment as long as you do that. And I would not like him to know that I have said anything to you."

Anne splashed cold water on her face. Color on her cheeks, lipstick-pale coral-on her mouth. She was not going to fall to pieces. Ria knew too much to be just a jealous woman. His wifeI And he had called her "an old friend" without showing any emotion.

His body had claimed hers, his voice had been warm and husky like his lips and his hands. He wanted her-only this morning she had been able to console herself with that thought. She wanted him-desire was like a dark tide that ebbed and flowed between them. Blood-red, like the ocean at sunset. Would he really kill her or send her to death if he was ordered to? Beloved executioner. The words floated into her mind, stolen from the title of a movie or a book she must have known once. Anne, you won't listen, will you? Craig, his voice carefully controlled. And her father, the spider in the center of the web that threatened to trap her. I have to protect myself too.

A POWER PLAY-or merely a shift of power? Oh, but she was really in it now, involved up to the neck since she had talked to Harris and Espinoza and Rufus Randall. And Webb was on the Other Side. The sunstroke feeling had not diminished, even after she'd gone back out to the tennis court with Ria, acting as if nothing had happened.

No, not much. Another old line from another old song. Why did she have to remember the times when he had been tender with her? All a part of the deadly role he was playing. That's what she had to keep in mind.

Outside, under the hot sun, it had been comparatively easy to pretend that nothing was wrong. Just the heat. Webb and Robbie Savage had decided to have a swim in Dave's enormous pool.

"You coming, Annie?" His voice sounded light and friendly. Friendly! Oh God-that was not the way to describe the force and the depth of the emotion, whatever it was, that kept bringing them together and pushing them apart. Love-hate. And she couldn't-wouldn't-spend another night with him.

Dave Black was flying back to Los Angeles the next day-he kept his private jet at the Monterey Airport. But he was talking about partying up tonight; his charm all turned on to Ria, who sat there smiling at him. They had discovered acquaintances in common in Monte Carlo. She talked a little, but not too much, about her "friend" Sal Espinoza, and his love for dangerous sport.

"And you-where do you come from?"

"I carry a Nicaraguan passport. But I come from everywhere. Europe is more my home than South America, I suppose."

Anne tried to breathe deeply, to make herself relax. She needed to stay calm, especially when Webb and Robbie came back, laughing together and still wet.

The hardest part was for her to tell him she wanted to go back. Tonight, please. She thought she'd had too much sun, and she was tired. Tomorrow she wanted to study the script ...

To her surprise, he was quite agreeable. "I guess I don't feel in the party mood tonight, either. Okay-what if we plan on leaving about eight? Excuse me for now, baby. I've got to call Leo, my agent."

Was he acting so goddamned polite and casual just to impress Roberta Savage, or was it for Ria's benefit? His wife-she couldn't get used to the thought. Thoughts were a jumble in her mind, which felt as if it had been turned inside out.

Plans for the evening were being made, and the sun was like a drug, helping to dull her senses. Roberta was going back to her house in Carmel to change, and then she'd be back. Ria wondered diffidently if she could get a ride back down the coast with Anne and Webb.

"Ask Webb. He's the driver."

"Oh yes, I will. When he comes back. Has he gone to change?" "He said he had to call his agent." "Oh, I see." Small interchanges. And Robbie Savage, deciding not to be jealous, sat next to Anne and asked her questions. About her experiences being a model in Europe, how she felt about acting, about the movie.

Anne could have screamed. The woman didn't like her-her manner, even now, was faintly patronizing. Damn Webb, and his women, and the games he played! And the aura of destructiveness and death he carried with him.

He drove like a speed demon on the way back. Ria, curled up in the cramped space behind, didn't seem to mind; but Anne, sitting next to Webb, was glad for her seatbelt.

It was only after they had returned, and Webb had parked the car in the underground garage, that the real reaction set in for Anne. She felt tired and shaken and sick, just as if the sun had really affected her. And she didn't want to meet Webb's eyes, turned on her now.

"Well, Annie? You going to come with me or go upstairs to join your friends?" He was ignoring Anna-Maria-she was his wife; how could he?

Quickly, she shook her head, negating the rush of emotion; aware again, now that she was no longer terrified for her life, of his nearness.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't feel very well. I'm going up to my room, to rest."

"Take your sweet-dream pills and pass out, huh?"

She forced herself to look at him directly. "Something like that. Thanks for-for taking me to town." "Can I get out now?" Ria's voice sounded plaintive. "I'll see you later, Annie," he said grimly. She rode upstairs in the elevator, too tired for interminable steps tonight, hearing the sounds of music and voices on the way. And she wanted time to think-or at least to sort her thoughts out, but she wasn't given time.

She had been soaking in a hot bath, foamy with Joy, when Harris walked in. "I tried knocking at the door, Anne. I'm sorry, but as soon as I learned that you were back ..

." Harris looked concerned. Worried. He cared about her, and he wasn't a murderer.

It was the one thing she had consciously tried not to think about. That Webb had put the finger on Duncan. That he might have known about Violet-or had that been part of an assignment, too? Sorry, "hit"! She must be spilling over into hysteria, and here was Harris looking at her, probably wondering why she hadn't said one single word to him.