Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (62 page)

When he dropped to his knees and took her in his arms, Webb didn't know if he was praying or cursing. "Oh Christ! Annie-"

Her face was cold and damp, her lips were like ice. But they parted under his urgent, despairing kiss, and he felt the faint flutter of her breath, as warm as life and hope.

"IT'S ALL FINALLY wrapped up then?" General Tarrant questioned. An inveterate golf addict, he owned a ten-room "cottage" overlooking the golf course at Cypress Point, where he was a member. The question was almost rhetorical. Richard Reardon had flown down this morning, and of course that had to mean that everything was settled. But he was still curious about certain rather puzzling things.

The loose ends.

Reardon turned away from his contemplation of the view. "Quite. No scandal, no publicity. Randall-and the others-proved extremely cooperative, as we had expected.

And by the way, l owe a great deal to your idea that we use navy frogmen to get into the house through the caves." He almost smiled. "A good thing your friend Admiral Stuyvesant feels the same way we do."

"Well ... I" Tarrant cleared his throat to cover his pleasure. Reardon seldom paid anyone a compliment. And, damn him, right to the end almost, he'd been too damned secretive. Almost too slow to take action. If anything had gone wrong ...

He looked at Reardon with his bushy eyebrows shooting together as he said gruffly,

"Well? I've been patient for a long time, you've got to admit. And now, dammit, I think you owe me some answers."

Reardon moved away from the window, turning his back to the view of rocks and blue water. The sound of seals barking filtered through the heavy glass. Almost absentmindedly he took the glass his old friend proffered him and began to turn it around in his long fingers.

Tarrant couldn't understand how the man could remain so calm and coldly rational while his daughter was lying in the hospital suffering from the collective effects of exposure, concussion, a gunshot wound and God knew what else. She'd been in pretty bad shape, he'd understood. He wondered, as he often had, how a man like Reardon could once have been married and had a child, like any ordinary man. If he'd ever felt with his gut instead of his head.

Craig Hyatt-now there was the most puzzling piece of all! Bringing his mind back to the facts he wanted to hear, Tarrant leaned slightly forward. He said almost querulously, "What I can't figure out is what Hyatt hoped to gain-and how you got on to him."

"I'd begun to wonder about him," Reardon said obliquely. "That business in London, for instance. Too many coincidences there."

Hyatt had been responsible for that nasty business. He'd romanced Violet Somers for the information she passed on to him, which in turn was passed on to the unfortunate Karim's uncle, who headed a league of the smaller oil-rich states. When the Majco

"cover-up" story was deliberately leaked to the British press in order to implicate Anne and make her more amenable to Harris Phelps's plans for her, Violet had to be eliminated. And Duncan Frazier in his turn, because the poor devil had been in love with Violet and was beginning to have suspicions. After that Hyatt had laid low and been extra cautious, although he had been the one to keep Phelps informed of Reardon's moves. They'd known all along that Webb Carnahan had been coerced into working for his old organization, and if Carnahan hadn't been smart enough or desperate enough to have some cards of his own to play ...

Tarrant let out a gusty sigh. He was frowning. "We were just plain lucky, weren't we?"

he grunted. "Why did you let Hyatt go down there at all?"

"To make sure." Reardon said it without inflection. "Making sure" had almost cost his daughter's life. Tarrant wondered grimly if he'd taken that into account.

"What about the rest of them? We know what happened to the Egyptian and Phelps, and that Cuban woman-Carnahan's wife, or ex-wife, eh? Must have been quite a little Peyton Place there, what with that fun machine Danny Verrano had set up to spy on his friends at play."

"The de Leone woman had all the really incriminating tapes with her-that's what she killed Harris Phelps for. We've just learned she was a Red Army member. It's just as well the helicopter she took off in was headed off by our own men."

Anna-Maria had almost spoiled all their plans. Palumbo, who owed his first loyalty to Vito Gentile, was supposed to have taken care of that angle. When he landed the helicopter at Monterey Airport so that Phelps could transfer himself and his briefcase to his Lear jet, those tapes were to have been taken over by Reardon's own men. But Anna-Maria had shot Palumbo and taken off in the copter herself. When she'd headed away from the coast guard planes that came after her, she'd gone straight for the smokescreen that the fire provided, taking a chance that had failed when a downdraft sucked the small craft into the maw of the flaming forest.

Espinoza and Pleydel, as soon as they realized what had happened, had shown nothing but surprise, concern, and a desire to help. In private, Espinoza had been more talkative.

"So . . ." Tarrant flexed his shoulders, already eyeing the trimmed greens over Reardon's shoulders while he calculated how many hours of play he might squeeze in before it became too late. "I guess with Randall deciding to play it cool and cautious, everything is damn well sewed up,eh?"

He wondered how Richard Reardon could manage to look so detached, just as if it.

had been a successful chess strategy they had been discussing instead of a clever plan that had almost been pulled off, that would have involved and changed millions of lives-not to mention the delicate balance that now existed between the international powers. Reardon was an enigma, and always would be. The man was almost inhuman. There were people who whispered, although never in his hearing, that he had not been born but manufactured.

He also seemed to have an uncanny knack for reading minds, and catching his rather quizzical look, Tarrant could feel his neck reddening. He stomped off to his elaborate mahogany bar to pour himself another drink, muttering over his shoulder,

"Well, thank God that's that! What about the movie people? Suppose they start spreading stories around ... ?"

"I had a talk with Randall this morning before I came down. They're going to finish shooting the movie at a later date. In Spain, probably. He thought it might be released as a rather toned-down version of what had originally been planned. And, of course, there'll be hints of a jinxed production-Pleydel seems to think that might prove good publicity. In any case"-his voice turned bland; the general turned around sharply. "-the upcoming election is what's on most people's minds right now. Randall and I agreed that James Markham is almost certain to win."

"Huh!" Tarrant's bushy eyebrows flared as he waited for the rest of it.

"I think he'd make a good president," Reardon went on in his quiet voice. "He's young, of course, and-to quote the press -charismatic. He's also quite intelligent, I understand. With a Democratic majority behind him in both the House and the Senate, I'm sure he'll achieve a lot of good things for this country."

Reardon never underscored his words, but to Tarrant the meaning behind that enigmatic little speech was implicit. Jimmy Markham was intelligent enough to conform, especially since he had been rather indiscreet.

Anne saw the headlines on a two-day-old newspaper:

TRAGIC HELICOPTER ACCIDENT TAKES LIVES OF THREE

Multimillionaire movie producer Harris Phelps and two companions were killed last night when the helicopter which Phelps was piloting himself went down over the fire.

Phelps's companions were identified as Craig Hyatt, prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and Anna-Maria de Leone, constant companion of racing driver Sal Espinoza ...

The letters danced and blurred before her eyes before she closed them again, not understanding why she felt so sleepy, still so numb all over. The nurse must have been reading the paper ... she vaguely remembered someone sitting in the chair by her bed, she had thought hazily it might be Webb, but of course it couldn't be because he was-was ... her mind closed itself against the thought and she slept again, unwillingly slipping back into a black box--or was it a cave?

She rediscovered that blackness had shades and textures and shapes, and her dreams were like a miniature movie screen in the darkened theater of her mind. She wanted to keep dreaming to keep away the nightmares. Sharply etched picture of Craig, silhouetted against the light, calling her Helen.

Anne stirred uneasily, moaning, and the nurse, reentering hurriedly, checked the IV

in her arm before she sat down again and picked up the newspaper. She shook her head. Bad luck-they shouldn't try to finish this picture. All those people dying or having accidents, including this pretty young woman who was her patient. Poor thing-imagine being trapped for hours in an underground cavern with the sea reaching up to take you ... she shook her head again, frowning slightly when she remembered the bullet wound she wasn't supposed to mention-not to anyone. Who could have wanted to shoot Anne Mallory? Had it been another accident? Ah well, perhaps her patient would feel like talking about it when she recovered consciousness. She'd had a close shave. Good thing the coast guard had gotten in there in time to fly her out.

Anne moved again, uneasily. She felt as if she were encased in steel, or ice. Perhaps she'd drowned? That's what Craig had planned for her. She remembered the triumphant sound of his voice, remembered that she'd wanted to kill him-had tried.

Ugly sound of gunshots corning back to echo in her mind. Terror and pain and the desperation of no hope at all, nothing left. She'd wanted to die, slipping into the black waters of oblivion and nonfeeling.

Until the nightmare changed into a not entirely unpleasant dream. Webb's voice-even though she had heard the shots that killed him, and Craig had laughed, boasting a little. Webb was pulling her out of the bad part of the dream, whispering to her,

"Annie? Jesus Christ, Annie-baby, Annie-love, you're not going to die on me, damn you! I'm not going to let you .. ."

Oh God, she wanted that to be true, to be real. Please ...

Anne woke up to the sound of her own voice saying "Please . . . please . . ." She was back in the room she remembered vaguely. Full of sunshine and flowers arranged in big bowls. Patio doors open onto what looked like a forest. Even piped-in music.

Hospital. Nurse. Newspaper. She hadn't dreamed that, had she? Harris was dead, Ria was dead. Craig was dead-he must have left her then, to run away. She frowned, and the nurse bent over her, voice determinedly cheerful.

"Well, good afternoon, Miss Mallory! Isn't it a beautiful day? Dr. Stein will be very pleased. He's been in and out all day, checking up on you."

"I can't move my legs ..."

"That's because you've got your ankle in a cast, dear. But it's only a crack in the bone, you'll be up and about in no time.

And we'll take the IV out this evening, if you'll promise to eat." The nurse, a middle-aged, smiling woman, looked arch as she leaned over to take Anne's pulse and adjust her covers. "In

fact, you're well enough to have a visitor this evening. Won't that be nice?"

Anne felt her heart leap, and then fall back hopelessly. Not Webb. Never again. The unbearable agony of loss made her eyes sting with weak tears she couldn't stop, and the nurse began cluck-clucking.

"Now, now! Didn't you just hear me say everything's fine? Why, in a week or two you'll be able to leave and go home. But you must make up your mind that you're going to be well. All your bruises are going away ..."

"I-I'd like to see the newspapers, please."

"Of all the strange things to ask for!" Nurse Dunn told the doctor later, shaking her head. "I didn't know what to do-the poor little thing, she looked so lost, you know?

With the tears just streaming down her face. It didn't strike me until just that moment that Mr. Hyatt, the one who died in the helicopter, had been her husband."

Anne had almost snatched at the newspapers the woman had handed her unwillingly. Skim-reading-not in that one, no mention of Webb at all. Merely a brief announcement towards the end that the cast and crew of Greed for Glory had been flown off the island. Hints of a "jinxed production." She was mentioned as lying critically ill in the Monterey Community Hospital, suffering from the effects of exposure and a broken leg. She grimaced, looking at her bandaged right arm, which had begun to throb abominably. And the effort she'd made had tired her out, so that when the nurse came hurrying back into the room to say the doctor was on his way and she mustn't overexert herself, Anne was forced to ask her to read aloud from the next day's paper.

"It just says the same thing, almost. And a little bit about the backgrounds of the poor souls who were killed in that crash. Funeral arrangements-you can't be thinking ..."

"Do they say anything about-about the other people who were taking part in the film?

Are they all right?"

She thought the nurse gave her a peculiar look and didn't care. She had to know. For sure. Kill or kindle the hope that had started to make her pulse race.

When Richard Reardon came in to see her late that evening Anne was sitting propped up in bed. TIley looked at each other, and Anne could feel that her face was as stiff and devoid of emotion as his. Reardon. She couldn't think of him as "Father."

Father-figure. Symbol of everything she didn't and would never understand.

"Anne, how do you feel?" He sounded as gravely formal as she remembered. He didn't come near her, choosing to stand by the patio doors instead. He didn't look changed at all since the last time she'd seen him. God, had it really been almost two years ago? And there was still nothing between them except a mutual wariness.

They might have been strangers-and were.

"Hello. I'm fine. Hasn't the doctor told you? He says that if I behave myself and follow orders, I should be ... out in a few weeks." Out, not home. She had no home. No safe, familiar place to go back to, feeling the roots of old memories hold her fast.