Soft Focus (10 page)

“You should have said something,” she shot back on a rising note.

“Yeah, well, just make a note and put it in my file. ‘Doesn't wear swim trunks in hot tubs.' ”

He went to the control panel and flipped off the hot-tub switch.
Give her plenty of time to run,
he told himself.

But when he turned around he saw that she was still standing in the darkened doorway. She was facing him again, her arms crossed very tightly beneath her breasts. She watched him with brooding, unreadable eyes.

“Sorry,” she said very stiffly. “I overreacted.”

“Don't worry about it.” He shoved his hand through his steam-dampened hair as he walked toward her, scattering a few stray drops. “We're both under a lot of pressure here.”

“Yes.” She frowned, as if that were a particularly new and worrisome concept, one she had not considered until now. “That's true, isn't it. We'll each have to make allowances.”

“You make allowances. I'm going to bed.” He started past her through the doorway.

“Jack?”

He stopped and turned to look at her. She was so close that he could have touched her. So close that he could take her into his arms. Close enough to allow him to see the haunted look in her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked softly. “Worried about how we're going to get through the week together?”

“No.”

“Well, three cheers for you.” He moved closer and planted one hand on the sliding glass door frame above her head. “I'm sure as hell worried about it.”

“Why?” She lifted her chin, but she did not try to duck away beneath his arm. “Because you're afraid I'll freak out every time I see you sitting in the hot tub?”

“No.” He leaned closer. “Because every time I see you, I want to pick up where we left off six months ago.”

“Why would you want to do that? You called me the Ice Princess, remember?”

“I was pissed off at the time.”

“And now you're no longer pissed off?”

“I'm still pissed,” he said, thinking about it. “But that doesn't mean I don't want to pick up where we left off six months ago.”

Her lashes veiled her eyes. “That would be very stupid.”

“Very.” He kept one hand braced against the frame and used the other one to cradle her stubborn chin. “But I've been known to do stupid things.”

“Probably not this stupid.”

“Don't bet on it.”

“Things could never be the same,” she said very distinctly. “Not now.”

Images of their one night together flashed through him. He remembered his own driving urgency. He had been blindsided by his reaction to her that night. Accustomed to making love the same way he did business, with absolute control and attention to detail, he knew that he had screwed up badly. He had been utterly oblivious of the small, telltale signs that should have warned him that he was moving too quickly. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that even if he had been aware of them, he probably could not have slowed down much. Not that first time. But he knew her failure to find satisfaction in his arms had cost him dearly. The morning after, she had learned that he was the man behind the Galloway deal. There had been no second chances in bed.

“The last thing I want,” he said in a very low voice, “is for things to be the same as they were that first time between us.”

“Jack—”

“You have my personal guarantee that next time things will be very, very different.”

She cleared her throat. “You're missing the point here.”

“Don't think so.” He lowered his mouth until it was only an inch or so above hers. “I notice that you're not running, screaming, into the night.”

“Should I?” she said in a hushed voice.

“Let's find out.”

He covered her mouth with his own.

And the rush hit him. Just as hard and fast as it had six months ago. But he was ready for it this time; braced to withstand the high winds at the heart of the tornado. This time he would get it right. This time he would stay in control.

He held himself in check, drawing out the kiss, searching for the response he wanted. She did not pull away. But neither did she throw her arms around his neck. He leaned in closer. He could feel the firm curves of her small breasts beneath the robe. She was still a little damp from the hot tub.

Her hands went to his shoulders. She parted her lips slightly.

He suddenly got the nasty feeling that she was testing him and maybe herself as well. She was willing to dip one toe into the sea, but this time she was not about to dive in headfirst the way she had six months before.

Desperation threatened to sweep through him. He realized then that he had been nurturing a fantasy. In the back of his mind, he had convinced himself that, given another chance, he could ignite the fires in her. But what if he had been wrong?

He took his hand away from the door frame, wrapped his
arms around her, and pulled her close. She made a small, muffled sound—not a protest, but not exactly a sigh of surrender. Nevertheless, he was certain that he could feel the first flicker of a genuine response.

He deepened the kiss. She leaned into him. Relief and anticipation surged through him.

“If this is a test,” he whispered against her mouth, “I'm going to do whatever it takes to pass.”

He knew at once that he'd lost the moment. She stiffened, and pushed herself slightly away from him. Her eyes were inscrutable in the shadows. “Thanks for the warning.”

He put one hand back on the door frame above her head and gripped it hard. It was either that or pull her back into his arms again. He knew that would not be a good idea.

“What's the matter?” he asked. “Decide to run, screaming into the night, after all?”

“I'm going to walk, not run. And I don't think it will be necessary to do any screaming.” She slipped under his braced arm and moved deeper into the shadows of the living room, heading toward the stairs.

She was leaving, heading back to bed. Alone. He felt cold claws close around his gut. There would be no second chances tonight.

“How long are you going to continue punishing both of us for what you think I did to you six months ago?” he asked.

She paused at the foot of the stairs and turned to glance at him over her shoulder. In the darkness he could not see the expression on her face.

“You know, I would have thought that you were busy enough this week looking for Soft Focus, Jack. But if you really feel the urge to take on yet another challenge, I suggest you try something a little more exciting than a repeat of the seduction of the Ice Princess.”

“You think I want to start over because I see you as some kind of challenge?”

“Yes. That's exactly what I think.”

“That's not how it is.”

She did not move. “What do you want from me?”

“Another chance.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you and I think that you want me. Or was I imagining what just happened during that kiss?”

She said nothing, just stood there watching him for an eternity. Then, without a word, she went up the stairs and disappeared into the darkness of the landing.

He let out the breath he had not realized he had been holding, closed his eyes, and flexed one hand into a fist.
No second chances
.

“Jack?” Her voice floated softly down from the loft.

He opened his eyes and looked up with an effort. She was leaning slightly out over the railing. He could see the pale outline of her white robe.

“What now?” he asked.

“I'll think about it.”

THE PHONE BURBLED
, shattering his fitful sleep. He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock. Four-thirty.

The phone squalled again.

He groped for the receiver, found it, hauled it across the pillow.

“This is Fairfax.”

“It was very clever of you to come to Mirror Springs, Mr. Fairfax. But there was no cause for concern. You were on the list. You would have been notified of the location in due course.”

He was suddenly very wide awake. “What list?”

“The list of people invited to the auction. I wouldn't dream of conducting the sale of Soft Focus without you.”

“When? Where?”

“Relax, Mr. Fairfax. You will be notified of the time and place. Meanwhile, as long as you're in town, you may as well enjoy the film festival. Have fun.”

“Who are you?”

“Me? I'm the auctioneer. Oh, by the way, there's no need to waste your time pushing *69. This call is being made from a pay phone.”

There was a click and then silence.

The light came on. Jack propped himself against the pillows and watched Elizabeth hurry into his loft. Her hair was tumbled around her face. She fumbled with the sash of her robe.

“Who was it?” she asked anxiously.

“Called himself the auctioneer. Said I'm on the list of people who will be invited to bid on Soft Focus.”

“
Bid
on it. You mean there's going to be an auction?”

“Sounds like it.”

She grimaced. “So much for your theory that you might be able to ransom the crystal. An auction could really drive up the price.”

“Yes.”

She met his eyes. “Was that Tyler Page on the phone?”

He thought about the mechanically distorted voice on the other end of the line. “Could have been anyone.”

EDEN SITS AT THE DRESSING TABLE AND
regards her own stunning image in the mirror. She wears silver stiletto heels and a cheap, imitation silver lamé dressing gown. The lapels and cuffs of the gown are trimmed with fake fur. Her makeup turns her face into a beautiful, enigmatic mask.

Behind her, the cold flashing light of a neon sign is seen through the room's single window. Harry, obviously distraught, paces nervously back and forth in front of the window.

HARRY
:
“The cops think I killed your husband. They're getting ready to arrest me.”

EDEN
:
“That's too bad.”

HARRY
:
“How can you act so goddamned casual? I'm going to go to jail for life if you don't help me.”

EDEN
:
“I'm kind of busy at the moment.”

HARRY
:
“For God's sake, Eden, I'm innocent. You know that.”

EDEN
: (gazes thoughtfully into the mirror)
“Innocent. How do you spell that? With one n or two?”

HARRY
: (stops pacing and swings around to stare at her with an expression of mounting disbelief and horror)
“Who the hell cares how to spell ‘innocent'?”

EDEN
:
“I always have to look it up, you know. Hard to remember how to spell a word when you're not exactly sure what it means.”

There was a smattering of applause as the film clip abruptly ended. The lights came up, revealing the four panelists seated at the long table in front of the hotel meeting room.

“Our thanks to Bernard Aston, the director of
Fast Company,
for providing us with that clip,” the moderator said. “The character of Eden is a great example of the modern femme fatale in neo noir film. We're lucky to have the star of the film, Victoria Bellamy, here with us on our panel today.”

Under the cover of another round of light applause, Elizabeth leaned toward the young woman seated beside her. “You did a fantastic job with the makeup. Perfect noir look.”

“Thanks.” Christy Barns looked first startled and then gratified by the compliment.

Elizabeth had met the young makeup artist who had worked on
Fast Company
at the Holland reception. Christy was no more than twenty-three or twenty-four at the most, a
thin, sharp-featured woman with long red hair. This morning when Elizabeth had spotted her going into the workshop titled “Femme Fatale: Women in Noir Film,” she had made a spur-of-the-moment decision to sit next to her.

While the rest of the panelists, which, in addition to Vicky, included the author of a book, a self-proclaimed therapist, and a film critic were introduced, Elizabeth did a quick survey of the audience. There was no sign of a short, balding little man with horn-rimmed glasses and a furtive air. It would have been too much to hope that Tyler Page would be drawn to the panel, she thought, even if it did feature some advance clips from
Fast Company
and one of the film's stars.

“The female lead of the classic noir film is the spider woman,” the moderator continued. “The dangerous temptress with her own agenda, the mysterious, sexually aggressive female who threatens every man. She manipulates, seduces, and destroys. Ultimately, she is unknowable. A force of nature that both attracts and repels.”

Seated at the end of the table, Vicky smiled drolly and picked up her microphone. “Speaking as an actress, I can tell you that she's also a lot of fun to play.”

The audience chuckled appreciatively.

The author frowned and seized the second microphone. “The femme fatale character is at the heart of noir. In my new book,
Dark Worlds: A History of Film Noir,
I demonstrate that, in one guise or the other, the female lead subverts the patriarchal establishment. She uses the power of her sexuality to lure men to their ruin. When we think of the femme fatale archetypes, we think bitch-goddess or black widow.”

Elizabeth tuned out the panelist and thought back to Jack's grim mood at the breakfast table an hour ago. Not content to wait for the auction, he had announced that he was determined to forge ahead with his plans to try to locate Tyler Page.
She knew that the thought of having to pay for the return of Excalibur's property galled him. She did not blame him.

But she was also fairly sure that his unpleasant mood owed its origins to more than just the four-thirty
A
.
M
. phone call from the auctioneer. He had not taken rejection well last night. She wondered if he now considered her a bitch-goddess or a black widow. Either one was preferable to Ice Princess, she decided. At least bitch-goddesses and black widows sounded more interesting.

One thing was certain. Jack was never going to know how difficult it had been for her to walk away from him after that scorching kiss. It had taken every ounce of willpower she possessed to climb those stairs.

Another chance?
Was that really what he wanted from her? And what, in the name of heaven, had made her dangle the possibility in front of both of them? For six months she had told herself she would never trust him again. But what she had discovered in the course of checking out his business track record had made her question some of her assumptions about him. Your run-of-the-mill ruthless corporate shark who was smart enough to rescue companies on the brink concentrated on large corporations. Turnaround specialists as good at their jobs as Jack obviously was, piled up fortunes working for the big companies. They rarely wasted time trying to save small firms.

Curiosity had been plaguing her for months. That was the reason she had succumbed to the temptation to try to push Jack into explaining himself last night. She should have known better, she thought. He was not the kind of man who spilled his deepest secrets in a hot tub.

At the front of the room, the therapist grabbed the microphone. “The femme fatale is an archetype that clearly embodies the threat of the overcontrolling mother figure.”

Vicky smiled again and leaned toward her microphone. “Eden is a lot of things, but she's definitely not maternally inclined.”

The audience chuckled. The therapist glared at Vicky.

The author leaped into the opening. He had obviously fallen victim to the ancient publicity maxim “whenever you're interviewed, make sure that the title of your book gets mentioned at least three times.”

“In my book
Dark Worlds: A History of Film Noir,
I argue that the overcontrolling mother figure is a gross simplification of the extraordinarily complex role of the femme fatale.”

“Eden's not complex,” Vicky drawled. “She's very simple, really. All she cares about is her own survival. Nothing else matters.”

The film critic and the therapist both made desperate bids for the second mike, but the author had it in a death grip.

“In my book
Dark Worlds: A History of Film Noir,
I devote several chapters to explaining the varied roles of the femme fatale character.”

Unable to get hold of a mike, the therapist raised his voice. “It's important to realize that the femme fatale comes from a seriously dysfunctional background. Obviously sexually abused as a child, she seeks to manipulate others with sex.”

“No, no, no. You don't understand the role of archetypes,” the critic yelled toward the microphone, which was still firmly in the grasp of the author. “They go much deeper than the limited concepts of modern psychological theory.”

Elizabeth glanced at Christy. The young woman was starting to look bored.

The author gave the film critic a baleful glance. “In my book
Dark Worlds: A History of Film Noir,
I give several examples of how different actresses have portrayed the femme fatale. Claire Trevor, for instance—”

The therapist finally managed to wrestle the mike out of the author's fingers. He started to drone on about the impact of dysfunctional childhoods on the characters.

Elizabeth turned to Christy. “I think I've had about enough of this. Would you like to go somewhere and have a cup of coffee? I'd really like to talk to you about makeup techniques.”

Christy brightened. “Sure. Why not?”

Forty-five minutes later, seated in the window of a small, heavily ferned coffee shop, Elizabeth discovered that she now knew far more about film makeup than she had ever intended to learn. It hadn't been hard to get Christy to talk about her craft. The hard part was finding a way to make her stop.

“I can see that a film such as
Fast Company
is completely dependent on getting the right look with makeup.” Elizabeth surreptitiously glanced at her watch and wondered if Jack was having any better luck in the producers' workshop he had attended.

“Hardly anybody understands that.” Christy dunked her biscotti into a mug filled with a lot of steamed milk and a shot of espresso. “Everyone thinks you get the effect just by using black-and-white film, but that's not true. I had to do a lot of research to get that edgy look for the actors. Eyebrows are absolutely key, you know.”

“Vicky Bellamy appears to be a natural for that style.”

Christy rolled her eyes. “In more ways than one.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was always real particular about everything, including her makeup. Used to drive me nuts. Always telling me I hadn't got the arch of the eyebrows right or complaining because I didn't do her eyes the way she wanted them. Like I hadn't studied the classic films myself.”

“Well, actresses are famous for being temperamental.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Christy grimaced. “And given the fact that her husband bankrolled the film, she got to do pretty much what she wanted on the set.”

“Speaking of bankrolling the film,” Elizabeth began cautiously. “Did you ever happen to meet the producer?”

“Dawson Holland? Yeah, sure.”

“No, the one whose name is listed in the credits. Tyler Page.”

“Oh, him. The nervous, mousy little guy who was always hanging around? Yeah, I met him.”

“That sounds like Tyler,” Elizabeth said. “I'm a friend of his. I've been looking for him ever since I got to Mirror Springs, but I haven't run into him.”

“Hard to find anyone in this crowd right now unless you know where he's staying.”

“Unfortunately, I don't know.” Elizabeth paused. “I take it you haven't seen him?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Did you talk to him much on the set?”

“You kidding?” Christy rolled her eyes again. “He had to be at least fifty or sixty. And he was shorter than me.”

“I see.”

Christy's eyes widened. “Hey, you're not Angel Face, are you? If so, I'm real sorry. I didn't mean to insult him or anything.”

Elizabeth held her breath. “Angel Face?”

“That's what he called her. I heard him talking to her on his cell phone once. He went behind the makeup room to make the call. Guess he wanted to be private, but those walls are as thin as cardboard.”

“You overheard the conversation?”

“Yeah. Kind of embarrassing. He really had it bad.” Christy paused. “It wasn't you?”

“No. I'm a friend of Tyler's, but not his girlfriend. How could you tell he had it bad for Angel Face?”

Christy grimaced. “Just the way he talked to her and all. Sounded like he was reading lines from a low-budget script.”

“What did he say?”

“Like I said, he called her Angel Face. Said she had to know that he would do anything for her. I think he promised her that they would be together forever once this was over.”

“Once what was over?”

“The filming of
Fast Company,
I guess.” Christy shrugged. “I forget the rest. It wasn't exactly memorable.”

“So you never saw his girlfriend?”

“Nope. Just heard him talking to her that one time. Why?”

“It occurred to me that if I found her, I might be able to find him. So you don't know what she looked like, I take it?”

“Can't help you there. But I can tell you that he was crazy about her, whoever she was.” Christy frowned in thought. “I remember thinking it was kinda weird, though.”

“What was weird?”

“Him calling her his Angel Face.”

“What's so strange about that? A little sappy maybe, but—”

“No, no, you don't get it,” Christy said impatiently. “
Angel Face
is the title of a classic noir movie starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. It was one of the films I studied so that I could get the look of the makeup right for
Fast Company
.”

“What about it?”

“Well, see, Jean Simmons plays the femme fatale who ends up destroying everyone around her, including Mitchum's character. Just seemed sort of strange that a guy who was into noir the way Page is would call his girlfriend Angel Face. Not exactly a compliment, you know. I mean,
the lady in the film was a psychopathic killer. He had to know that.”