The Remake (31 page)

He shook his head. It probably wasn’t a great idea to tell her that. “All right, kid,” he said instead. “But you might not like what you see.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.

“Maybe it doesn’t. How soon can you be ready to leave?”

She stood up. “I’m ready now.”

CHAPTER 39

It was just another plane ride.

R.J. had never noticed it before, but the flight attendants treated a man a lot different if he was flying with a woman. Especially if she was young and pretty. He’d probably failed to notice because he’d almost never flown with a woman before. Except Belle, years ago. And when he had been with her, nobody noticed him no matter what.

So it was different now. They still brought him the awful snack and offered to sell him earphones for the terrible movie. But the smiles were a little more mechanical. And they didn’t give his seatbelt an extra tug to make sure it was snug.

And all because Mary was sitting there beside him. It was funny. Women put boundary markers out on their property to warn away other women. Even when it wasn’t their property. More like planets and spheres of influence. R.J. was in Mary’s orbit, and the flight attendant had to whirl away to check some other guy’s seatbelt.

Not that Mary was doing anything. She sat straight up in
her chair for almost the whole flight. She would glance out the window every now and then, as if to be sure that the plane was still in the air and headed in the right direction. But that was it. She didn’t eat her awful “snack.” R.J. took her cookie.

She didn’t talk. She didn’t seem to want to do anything but get there.

In fact, for R.J. it was almost like flying alone. Except for the thing with the flight attendant.

Somewhere over the Rocky Mountains R.J. felt a soft, warm weight on his shoulder. Mary had fallen asleep. Her face had dropped down onto him. It was a pretty good face. In sleep a lot of the worry had slid off it and she looked like what she was again, a pretty kid.

R.J. had an impulse to touch that face, stroke it with his fingertips, brush away a strand of hair. But there was no strand of hair, and if he touched her face he might not stop there.

R.J. blinked. What the hell was he thinking? Was he
attracted
to this kid? Was he in male menopause, thinking about somebody young enough to be his daughter? Had his frustrations with Casey made him totally nuts?

Not that this was a bad package. Just that the idea of getting involved with anybody that age—she really was only a little older than his son, for Christ’s sake!

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just feeling a kind of fatherly affection. Sure, that was it. Probably fathers admire their daughters’ legs all the time.

He realized that the last few times he had seen Mary there had been a subtle attraction working between them. He had laughed at Roberta’s outburst,
Keep your hands off her,
but now he wondered. Had she seen something he hadn’t? Was there something going on here? Was Mary aware of it—was she actually manipulating it? Christ, did
she
have a crush on
him
?

R.J. shook his head. This was rushing him from left field. Maybe he was losing his grip to let a thing like this surprise him. Whatever. He had more important things to worry about. When he’d quit drinking, and then quit smoking, he’d faced
down temptation with a capital
T.
If he couldn’t handle a kid with a crush at this stage in his life, he was hopeless.

But the rest of the trip his mind kept whirling between Casey, Mary, and Kelley. He couldn’t keep them separated long enough to figure any of them out.

His arm fell asleep from the weight of Mary’s head on the shoulder. He let them both sleep, and before long they were circling the airport and Mary was blinking herself awake.

Henry Portillo was waiting for them at the gate. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Mary and gave R.J. one of his significant looks.

Portillo had the idea that R.J. was some kind of smooth-talking satyr and R.J. had never been able to talk him out of it. Portillo, with his old-fashioned sense of what was proper, seemed to believe that R.J. spent all his waking hours chasing after anything in skirts.

Now, seeing R.J. arrive with a pretty young woman in tow, he simply gave a slight nod to himself as if to say, Naturally. And he gave R.J. that look.

But he was too much of a gentleman to say anything. He simply bowed an inch when he was and introduced and said, “Miss Kelley?”

Mary Kelley gave him a slight bow in return and the three of them headed down the long, bright hallway and out into the brown air of the Los Angeles afternoon.

Portillo didn’t say much. He held the door for Mary and threw her suitcase into the trunk of his car, but he didn’t speak until he was nosing the Chevy onto the Freeway.

“You said you had found what you were looking for, R.J.?” he finally asked.

“That’s right. William Kelley is alive.”

Portillo looked skeptical. “You are certain?”

R.J. shook his head. “I don’t have a Polaroid of Kelley holding up today’s
L.A. Times,
Uncle Hank. But I’m as sure as I can be, short of that.

“I found some proof that Kelley faked his own death. The
Connecticut troopers are getting an exhumation order to check the body. I think it’s going to turn out that there’s a biker named Jingo in Kelly’s grave—”

“R.J.,” Portillo interrupted, glancing at Mary Kelley.

“She’s heard it, Uncle Hank,” R.J. said.

“Even so—”

“I think you’ll find she’s tougher than she looks. Maybe tougher than you and me.”

“Go ahead, R.J.,” Mary said. “I don’t mind hearing it. The important thing to me is that my father might be alive. Whatever he may have done.”

“See what I mean?” R.J. said.

Portillo sighed. “Go on,” he said.

“Kelley killed this biker, probably by accident, and decided to use the body to fake his own death. That freed him up to get even with his ex-wife. So he had his buddy from Somers identify the body as his.”

“Even if this is all true,” Portillo said thoughtfully, “you are still a long way from proving that Kelley is the killer. And farther still from catching him.”

R.J. grinned. “You always did look at things backward, Uncle Hank. I’m thinking that if I catch him at it, I’ll know he’s the killer.”

Portillo snorted. “I think you have jet lag, R.J.”

“It’s a lot simpler than it sounds,” R.J. said.

“It had better be. If I understand you, you are planning to set a trap for the killer?”

“You always were the only one who understood me, Uncle Hank.”

“This is a dangerous man, R.J. So far he has made us all look like fools.”

“This time will be different,” R.J. said. “We’ll be waiting for him. You, me, the LAPD—” he nodded at Mary “—and his daughter.”

“No,” said Portillo quickly.

“Yes,” Mary told him.

He shook his head. “No. It is far too dangerous. He has not seen her for what, fifteen years? He may not know it’s her.”

“He’ll know,” Mary said.

“And you don’t even know it’s him,” Portillo said stubbornly.

“I think it is—”

“You think it is,
hijo,
and you make a good case. But if you are wrong—if it is
not
Kelley—what kind of danger are you placing her in?”

“Extreme danger,” R.J. said. “But I’m not wrong.”

“R.J., no,” Portillo said. “I can’t allow it.”

“Why not? This is the only way everybody gets what they want. I stay out of jail, you catch a killer, Mary gets to see her old man. I don’t see a problem.”

Portillo gave R.J. a disgusted look, but he said nothing more.

“Uncle Hank, I could really use your help on this.”

Portillo let out three or four quarts of air through his teeth. “R.J., I do not like putting an innocent person in danger. I will not allow a plan that does so.”

“If you help me swing this, she’ll be surrounded by a hundred people. As many cops as you want. Nothing can possibly go wrong.”

Portillo said nothing for a moment, then, “What did you have in mind?”

“A press release from the studio. We get them to announce they’re shooting a new version of the airport scene from
As Time Goes By.
”

“Oh, God, I
love
that scene,” Mary gushed.

R.J. grinned. “Everybody loves that scene, kid. That’s why I picked it. Maximum instant publicity. Everybody will be on hand for the shoot, from Janine Wright on down. And if I’m a killer trying to get to Janine Wright, I’ll be there, too.”

“It is too risky for Miss Kelley.”

“Mr. Portillo—Lieutenant—you can’t stop me,” Mary said. “I don’t take orders from you, or anyone else. It’s private property, owned by my mother. And we’re talking about my father, and I want to be there. I
will
be there.”

“We will be there,” R.J. repeated. “It’s our best chance, and you know it, Uncle Hank. I can’t do it unless you talk to Janine Wright and get her to go along with it.”

Portillo clearly didn’t like it. But in the end he gave in and agreed to help.

“I will speak to her,” he said finally as he approached the intersection for the Santa Monica Freeway. “By the way, where am I going?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, where are you staying, Miss Kelley?” he asked.

“I don’t—I hadn’t thought—I mean, I don’t know,” she said, and a slow blush climbed into her cheeks.

“Forgive me if I do not offer my house,” Portillo said carefully. “Although it would be a great pleasure, there is simply not enough room.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” R.J. said.

A slight scowl crossed Portillo’s brow. “R.J., I do not think—”

“I want her near me,” R.J. said.

“I know perfectly well what you have in mind, R.J. I do not wish my house used for such a purpose.”

R.J. snorted. “Relax, Uncle Hank. We’re not looking for a place to play strip poker.” He turned to Mary. “He thinks I’m hell on wheels with women. Ever since he caught me playing strip poker with Melissa Gallagher in the eighth grade.” He shook his head. “She was winning, too.”

“Oh,” said Mary, still blushing furiously. “And he thought—I mean, it was… What happened?”

“Uncle Hank taught me to play poker,” R.J. said.

“R.J.,” Portillo said with a warning in his voice.

“Take it easy, Uncle Hank,” R.J. said. “I’ll be fine on the couch. Nothing is going to happen.”

CHAPTER 40

In the middle of the night R.J. woke up with the sure feeling that he was not alone. He reached under the pillow for his gun before he realized he didn’t have one. He wasn’t at home; he was on the couch at Henry Portillo’s house in the San Fernando Valley. And someone was very quietly, very carefully moving in on him.

And as he took a deep breath and prepared to whip his legs out of the blanket and into the attacker he caught a faint whiff of Obsession and a soft hand slid onto his hip.

He grabbed at the wrist, pulled—

—and a naked Mary Keller slid into his arms.

“Mary!” he hissed.

“Yes,” she whispered back, wiggling closer to him and sliding her hand down his hip and around to his crotch.

R.J. tried to pull away but she held on. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked her.

She purred into his ear. “I thought it was obvious,” she said.

“For Christ’s sake, let go of me,” he whispered.

“No,” she said, and she bit his neck.

He put out a hand to move her away and came up with a handful of breast. She arched her back to press harder against his hand. “Damn it, kid—!”

“Stop calling me that!” she said. “Does this feel like a kid to you?”

“No,” R.J. said, struggling to sit up. “But it acts like one.” He managed to get out from under her and sit up awkwardly, but she still held on with one hand around his neck and the other—

He gently pulled the other hand away. “We have to talk, Mary,” he said.

“Let’s talk later,” she suggested, again sliding as close to him as she could get. “Afterward.”

“Now,” he said.

“I know you want to, R.J.,” she said, and slid her hand back again to prove it.

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” he snarled, reaching to take her hand away again. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry and yes, damn it, he
did
want to and she was holding proof of that in her hand.

He grabbed her wrist and moved her hand off him, but she just nestled down against his chest, placing her face against his shoulder. “Mmmm,” she said.

R.J. stood up. The motion caused Mary to slide off him and onto the floor with a bump and in the dim light he could see her looking up at him. He pulled her to her feet, grabbed the blanket off the couch, and wrapped it around her. “What the hell has got into you, kid?” he asked.