Читать книгу Fade To Black - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 11
ОглавлениеBryan McFadden could always feel her, of course. As soon as she decided to grace him with her presence.
Yes.
She was there again.
Watching him, his every move.
He pretended that he didn’t see her. He also did his best to hide a smile.
She wanted something, of course. Or he was due for a lecture, a long litany on how to live his life.
He’d been splitting logs outside his cabin when he’d first become aware that she was there; he continued to chop firewood. If she was going to haunt him because she wanted something, she was bloody well going to have to do so with more than a bunch of her dramatic sighs.
He paused for a moment; the sun was riding in the sky on a beautiful day. The mountains and valleys of Virginia were, in Bryan’s mind, the most beautiful places in the world to be. Here, right at the base of the Shenandoah Mountain, he could enjoy both.
This place had been—as long as he could remember—a haven. He and his brothers, Bruce and Brodie, had always been able to go a little wild out here. They’d never been bad kids, but they had been full of energy and ready to run, climb, fish, swim and love the rugged beauty of the land.
The family cabin was just a weekend retreat.
Home was DC, near the National Theatre, a half-dozen other theaters and easy access to the casting agents who were closer to their parents—Hamish and Maeve McFadden—than any blood relative might expect to be.
Though he and his brothers had long ago left their boyhoods behind, they had managed to stay in the same basic area. And, mainly because each of them had joined a branch of the service—Bryan, the navy; Bruce, the marines; and Brodie, the army—they had maintained the manor house close to a river in Northern Virginia where they had actually grown up.
He was heading back there in the morning. His time here—used to reflect on his choices regarding the future—was at an end. He wasn’t sure he was feeling more certain any one course was right above the others. Bruce and Brodie were coming in the following week; it was time for them to really decide what they were going to do.
As kids, they had quarreled and squabbled. Tumbled on the ground and tussled now and then—and stood ferociously against anyone who insulted one of them or dared to speak ill of their parents.
But life had gotten hard—and made them close.
They were all pretty sure they could work together; they’d talk it out for the final decision in the weeks to come.
Of course, she was still watching him. Still waiting for a response.
She sighed again. Maeve McFadden was certainly an example of the word diva. Not so much in a bad way—she had an ego, but not the kind with which to hurt others. She was passionate, she was demonstrative; she didn’t just “talk with her hands,” she talked with her arms, with her whole body.
But if she wanted something now, she was going to have to talk to him.
With words.
Finally, she did. She rather wafted over and leaned against the wood rail fence that surrounded the little cabin and the area with the chopping block where he was working.
“Bryan McFadden, you’re ignoring me!” She pouted.
“And it’s not working, eh?” he asked, but he smiled at her—she was his mom, and he did love her.
She smiled back and then plunged right in.
“Her name is Marnie, and she really needs help. My friend Cara—Cara Barton, I know you must remember her. She was one of the stars of that yummy vampire show, Dark Harbor, and before that, we were both way younger and in a Christmas romantic comedy together. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is this—Cara was tragically cut down. And now Marnie needs your help. I’m not sure she knows it yet, but Cara has told me. And poor Cara! She’s dead. Most horrifically and dreadfully dead.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t you dare tell me that dead is dead—dreadful or otherwise. She was murdered. Viciously murdered by a sword-wielding villain. Well, someone in a costume. But... Oh, Bryan. It was horrid, quite horrid—you must have heard about it on TV or in the news online!”
“Nope,” he told his mother.
“How could you have missed the news?” Maeve demanded. “Oh, I do hate to say it, but Cara is far more famous now in death than she was in life.”
“I come out here to enjoy the mountains and scenery, Mom. Not watch TV.”
“The news would be on your phone.”
“News is on anywhere, Mother, if you look for it.”
“All right then, I’ll tell you about it. Comic Con—West Hollywood.”
“I thought the big comic cons were in San Diego. Maybe New York.”
“Comic cons are all the rage—they are cropping up everywhere,” Maeve informed him. “And this—Oh, son... Horrible, horrible, horrible. Cara was my good friend. Okay, so imagine this. The cast of Dark Harbor is lined up at a booth. People are flocking over to them for signed pictures. There’s a Blood-bone character whipping his sword around—at first, all to the delight of the crowd. Then he walks up to the Dark Harbor cast booth and starts off as if he’s performing with them—and then he brought his sword down, slashing poor Cara to death, right across her throat!”
“In the middle of a crowd of people, some costumed character slashes a woman to death and walks away?” Bryan demanded, incredulous.
“Well, that’s just it. People thought it was a performance. Cara fell dead, the others began to realize it—people were clapping, thinking it was just an impromptu show done very well. Blood-bone walked off... The cast began to scream. Cops came, but by then, the killer was gone. From what I understand, it was a zoo.”
“But no one noticed a masked man in costume?”
“Well, of course, they did. They gathered up at least twenty Blood-bones—you know, conference attendees in Blood-bone costumes—but they don’t believe that the killer was any of the men, or the one woman, with whom they spoke. They couldn’t find a Blood-bone with actual blood on him or a lighted sword that was really a sword. Don’t you understand? Someone is going to get away with this. Bryan, you have to do something.”
“Mom, at the moment, I’m not a cop.”
“Don’t be silly, darling, I know that. And if you had stayed on the force, you’d be a Virginia cop, anyway. However, you did get your PI license.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So you need to get out to California and help Marnie Davante. Please.”
“Mom, you know that I’m supposed to be meeting with your other sons next week. They’ll be back by then.”
“I know where they are,” Maeve said indignantly. “Brodie took a temp job as a bodyguard for that chain store CEO, and he’s still in China somewhere. Bruce was helping out a friend who is with the Texas Rangers.”
“Right. But we’re due to get together and decide if we do want to form an investigation company.”
“That would be in the near future. You need to help Marnie now.”
“Mom, I have no ins with the West Hollywood Police or even the California State Police. I’m sure they would resent—”
“Please.”
“Mom, again, I’m not in Hollywood. I’m sure there are very capable police out there. Your friend isn’t being threatened—she’s already dead. I’m not sure—”
“It’s Marnie! Cara is terribly worried about Marnie.”
Bryan stopped pretending that he could continue chopping wood. He leaned on the ax and looked at the ghost of his mother.
“Does Marnie know that she needs my help?”
“How could she?”
“Come on then, what do you want out of me?”
“Someone who is invested in the horrible thing that happened—and in Marnie—believes that a dead woman is out there trying to help solve her own murder. Please, Bryan. It’s you—you need to help. You were just working with that FBI friend of yours, helping track down that missing child. And you said that he knows Adam—my friend Adam Harrison? Well, my friend and dad’s friend. I think your father knew Adam first.”
“Yes, I was working with a friend named Jackson Crow, and we were lucky—we found the missing child.” He didn’t mention that his old friend was with a special unit of the FBI, or that he’d suggested that Bryan might be just right for that unit.
He could only hope that she didn’t know that her old friend Adam Harrison had actually created the unit.
“How is Adam? Such a dear man.”
Hopefully, she hadn’t seen Adam since she’d...
He could never think the word died.
Maybe because she was his mother, and he did love her.
And maybe because she had never really gone anywhere.
“And you—all three of my boys—still at odds and ends, taking on various odd jobs.”
“Good jobs, Mom. We help people. You should be a happy camper. All three of us served our time in the military and went through college. And yes, in the last year or so we have taken on some strange jobs, but they’ve been good ones, jobs that help people.”
“And here’s someone who needs help. Yes, I hope, eventually, you and your brothers are going to get together. You’re looking to form a company. I do like that idea. You want to know what to do with your life? You’re doing quite nicely at the helping people thing, and this—this!—would be an important part of that. I mean, you broke my heart when you completely ignored the fact that your father and I were known for our extreme talents and absolute love of live theater. And you didn’t even want to head in the direction of film. I must say, I created—I created!—three of the most handsome men one could ever want to imagine, and you’ve no interest in using that beauty to a good—to a paying—end.”
“Mother,” Bryan said, “I believe you and Dad did emphasize that in life, looks mean nothing, that the heart and soul of a man or a woman matter most.”
Here she was, giving him a pitch about helping someone.
And she was still brokenhearted she hadn’t produced a single actor among them.
“Yes, well, of course,” Maeve said, sweeping back a long, curling strand of her dark hair. “Looks do not matter. Heart and soul and kindness and compassion. Things like that matter most with everyone you meet. Seriously, of course, decency—it’s a total given. But I have these three strapping lads! Strapping, I say—tall, dark and absolutely, stunningly handsome—and not one of you chose to use such wondrous good looks.”
“Mother, you don’t think you might be a little prejudiced on that?”
He moved past her to fetch another piece of wood.
She waved a hand in the air. “One can only be so prejudiced!” she said. “But that’s so far beside the point. I am afraid that I must have done something terribly wrong if not one of you felt the lure of the stage. The military! Well, I do understand. Your father and I were gone and... The military. Noble. What an honorable and lofty ideal—to serve one’s country. Yes, that was all quite fine, and thankfully you all came home in one piece. But that was then, and this is now. You went out and got a PI license. You’ve been working with the FBI and cops. You do realize that if you were to just choose to be an actor, I might not be so determined to haunt you?”
Bryan had the strange feeling that, one way or another, his mother was going to haunt him. And Bruce and Brodie. At least he had two brothers to share the burden. Of course, mothers were known to torment their sons.
Not usually, though, mothers who had passed away.
Bryan was the eldest; he had been twenty-four on the day that Hamish and Maeve had been leads in a DC run of Murder by Gaslight; they had both been killed—hand in hand—when the famous chandelier had fallen onto them both, killing them instantly.
It might have been fitting—they were known for having achieved the rarest of the rare, an amazing marriage and a true love affair; they were always together, beautiful people, blessed to have a wonderful family with their love and their three strapping sons.
It had been an incredible tragedy—for their sons more than anyone else.
Bryan had been the first to pull himself together. He’d been the first to see his mother. She had tiptoed behind him at her own funeral, bringing a finger to her lips and whispering, “Shh!”
He’d assumed he was suffering from PTSD—they’d lost both parents in a single blow.
And then he’d heard his father’s voice.
“Stop that, Maeve. I believe the boy can hear you. Don’t be a tease.”
“Don’t be silly. We’re dead. The living can’t hear us. I’m simply being a diva, darling,” Maeve had assured Hamish. “I’m making sure that the funeral is appropriately massive and...well, that people are properly emoting for us.”
“They’re emoting all over, including our sons,” the ghost of his father had said sternly.
“Oh, dear, yes—our precious boys!”
Then they had been gone. And that night—after an appropriate amount of Jameson whiskey—Bryan had convinced himself that they hadn’t really been there. That it was the shocking loss affecting him. Because he’d known it was what they would have wanted: a massive funeral with all kinds of press coverage.
Even if he and his brothers wanted to believe that they were strong and capable of managing the tragedy, they had loved their out-there, talented and ever so slightly crazy parents. It was natural that the grief might be intense.
Then...
They had moved back in.
It had been quite the night when each one of the brothers had tried to pretend that he wasn’t seeing the ghosts of his parents. But Maeve had heckled and teased—she was really quite as good at being a ghost as she had been at acting. She had quickly learned how to make the fire snap, how to press a glass just hard enough so that it appeared to move across the table and how to touch them...with a gentle stroke on the cheek, the way she had touched them in life.
Brodie—the youngest—had been the first to snap. Maeve had counted on that; Bryan was certain. Eventually Brodie had leaped out of his seat and screamed, “Can’t you see them?”
Bryan had looked at Bruce, and in that moment, they had realized that their parents, while not alive, were still with them.
Hamish was worried; he didn’t know why he and his wife were still there, and he was sorry—a father needed to let his sons lead their own lives. But they were young. Maybe he and Maeve were still there because they were needed. The boys might still need help; they could be there to guide them as they grew older and became men.
Maeve informed them all that she knew the very solid reason they had remained on the earthly plane—were they all daft? To guide their sons, yes. But she and Hamish had been taken too soon. They were kind, decent people—and young and beautiful!
They had basically been robbed of life.
Now they’d been granted the chance to help their boys, though, of course, they hadn’t really been at all sure that the boys could see them until Brodie—bless him—had cried out the obvious.
Maeve and Hamish were home.
At first it was wonderful. It was still wonderful. Other than still wondering now and then if he was sharing a terrible hallucination with his brothers.
If it weren’t for the other dead people his mother and father always wanted to help. The dead they brought home, too.
Because his parents’ reappearance had opened some kind of door, and now he could see the dead. And Bruce and Brodie could see them, as well.
“You do remember Dark Harbor, right? The run ended...oh, five or six years ago. You three were grown-up, but I remember that even you said they managed to make it pretty darned scary and that the plots were good.”
“Kudos to the writers,” Bryan said. He slammed down hard on his hunk of a log.
She came up before him, suddenly very serious.
“Bryan, please. A friend of mine was viciously attacked. And I’m worried sick about a young actress who I thought was wonderful—and who was very dear to Cara. My friend was murdered, Bryan. Do you understand me? Murdered—cruelly and with malice. And now, she sincerely believes that the other members of her cast are in trouble.”
“And why is that?”
“Because of the way the killer came to the table. Cara was always ready to jump up and get out front, and that’s what she did, and she was worried that, well, maybe someone else was the intended target.”
“Someone else.”
“There were five main cast members, Bryan. I know you remember the show. You would have had to have slept through seven years to have missed it. Cara Barton was the matriarch, but Scarlet Zeta was the most popular member of the cast—and she was next to Cara when she was killed.”
“Scarlet Zeta?”
“Marnie. The actress’s name is Marnie Davante. Her role was that of Scarlet Zeta.”
Bryan did actually know. He’d seen the show. He’d actually enjoyed it. He wasn’t usually that big on the paranormal—especially now, living a life in which his dead parents haunted him and brought home their dead friends now and then.
But Dark Harbor had been good.
And he knew who Cara Barton was—or had been. He grudgingly remembered that she had come to the funeral when his parents had died; she had been kind.
And he knew who the actress Marnie Davante was—true, only someone who had been on Mars for the past decade or so would not. She had been great on the show—sexy and endearing, an American sweetheart who might well have sent a few adolescent boys into their first solo sexual experiences. But on many talk shows she’d also come off as an amazing human being. She loved animals, gave to all kinds of children’s charities and appeared to be a really decent human being.
“What is Marnie Davante now, about twenty-seven, twenty-eight?” he asked.
Maeve sighed. “Twenty-nine, but what difference does it make?”
“I’m trying to find out about her. She has a good reputation among coworkers, right?”
“Yes.”
“They’re all in danger, so you say. Why are you most worried about Marnie Davante?”
“Because,” Maeve said, “I told you, the Blood-bone-costumed guy was coming for Marnie first. Cara wanted the extra attention and pushed her way forward. Maybe the killer got mixed-up. Maybe it was supposed to have been Marnie.”
“I’m assuming the police are already looking into it.”
“Ah, but will they look far enough? Bryan, someone who cares, who is willing to give the murder his full attention, needs to be out there.”
Bryan looked up at the sky.
When he’d gone to help in the missing child case, he’d been asked for his assistance.
Getting in on a high-profile murder case where police certainly had to be touchy, and might not want an outsider’s help, wasn’t a pleasant contemplation.
“Well?” Maeve demanded.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then he heard his father’s voice.
Yep. The ghost of Hamish McFadden was there as well, standing behind his wife. His father was a dignified man, and someone who might have been a performer, but who had also lived his life always trying to do the right thing.
“Might as well say yes, son. I believe the young lady will need you. Not to mention your mother will haunt the hell out of you, day and night, until you do. You know that what I’m saying is true.”
Bryan looked up. His father had been an exceptional actor; he’d won an Emmy and a Tony. He was a tall solid man with ink-dark hair that he’d passed on to all three sons, along with his formidable height and shoulder breadth.
Somehow, his father and his mother had kept their careers and been good, loving parents, as well. They’d chosen work to stay as close to their sons as often as they could.
Yeah, they’d been damned decent.
“Please!” Maeve wheedled.
“She’ll torment you to tears, son,” Hamish reminded him.
“This girl doesn’t even know she wants help,” Bryan protested. “And there are police out there, and...” He sighed. “Miss Davante has no idea she needs my help.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Maeve said.
“And why not?”
“Cara will let her know.”
“Cara is dead.”
Maeve smiled. “Yes, she is. But she’s still hanging around, too. Because, of course, she is worried about Marnie, so...not to worry! She will let her know.”
He paused and looked at his mother curiously, frowning. “And just how do you know all this?”
“Oh, I talked to Cara, of course.”
“How?”
“Well, your father and I saw the news, even if you didn’t. I was horrified, of course, and then I saw Cara was trying to get through on the computer.”
“You can use a computer?” he asked his mother, incredulous—and somewhat disgusted with himself.
“She does—I don’t,” his father said. “Your mom has always been the family communicator.”
“A new ghost managed to contact an old ghost?” he asked.
“It’s difficult to explain, but it’s like we Skyped,” his mother said.
“But how—Never mind. Never mind. I’m not sure I even want to know. So, Cara has shown herself to this young lady, this Marnie Davante?”
“If she hasn’t, she will,” Maeve said.
“I really hope so. And I hope, Mom, I can even get near her.”
“Of course—you’re our son. You can go just about anywhere, using the name,” Maeve assured him.
“I believe she is right on that,” his father said.
Bryan set down his ax and headed for the cabin.
“Where are you going?” Maeve asked him.
He turned to look at her wearily. “I’m going to go check out flights to LA. God knows you haunt me enough that I spend more time with the dead than the living.”
He saw the look of relief and pleasure on his mother’s face.
And his father’s approving nod.
Oh, hell.
Hollywood.
Well, he did have a bit of time on his hands. He’d spent enough time fishing and splitting logs and wondering if he and his brothers should form an agency.
Or if he should go ahead and look into the position that had been offered.
If he should join the FBI.
With the unit known unofficially as the Krewe of Hunters.
But his mother and father had come to him, and he wasn’t committed to any path as yet.
He was going to LA.
* * *
Marnie had definitely spent too much of her life in Hollywood.
It was impossible to grasp the fact that what happened was reality.
Someone was going to yell, “Cut!” Then the director was going to step forward and tell them what a great job they had all done; they had gotten the scene in one take.
And then Cara Barton would get up. She would straighten her shoulders and look at Marnie and say, “Of course! I’m a pro. I really was great, wasn’t I?”
And Marnie would laugh. Cara had been ambitious; she had even been obnoxious at times. But from the get-go, she had been good to Marnie, and they had been true friends.
And now Marnie had held someone she loved as she had died.
Even then, even as reality reared its ugly head, she expected everything would happen as it did in the movies or on television. The detectives would look like Josh Hartnett or maybe Ice T, and within an hour, they’d know who had killed Cara Barton.
That hadn’t happened. It had taken them way more than an hour just to sequester Marnie and her fellow surviving cast members, and to begin to round up all the Blood-bones who filled the convention hall.
The day had been a nightmare, endless. Filled with scores of police. With sirens, with medical personnel, with a medical examiner, with crime scene techs.
In the end, though, there were two detectives assigned to the case. One was an older man who, to be honest, in Marnie’s mind, would have been perfect for the movies.
For being a homicide detective, his voice was bizarrely soft and gentle. He was tall and thin, clean-shaven, and possessed a full head of silver-gray hair. His eyes were a powdery blue, as soft and gentle as his voice. His name was Grant Vining.
His partner was his total opposite. She was young, and when she spoke, it was apparent that she was not to be taken lightly. She was a tiny blonde with brown eyes and a powerful voice that apparently made up for her size—she had no problem being heard over any amount of chatter or noise. She seemed to do the corralling and instructing while Detective Vining did more of the intimate interviews. Her name was Detective Sophie Manning. She wasn’t mean—she was just blunt. She started a bit harshly with Marnie. But then Marnie had been holding Cara Barton as she had died.
Good cop, bad cop? Did cops really play it all out that way? Marnie didn’t know.
In the midst of it all, Detective Manning turned to her and said, “We’ve got your statement. I’m going to take you to the station. We’re going to need your clothing. Yes, I know you’re thinking this is horrible and the blood on you belonged to your friend. But the killer might have cut himself. His—or her—blood could be on you, too.”
“The killer was wearing black gloves,” Marnie told the detective.
“Yes, still, we need what you’re wearing. It will be returned.”
Marnie looked around. A group had gathered by Malcolm Dangerfield’s booth; the actor was just beyond the crime scene tape surrounding the Dark Harbor booth.
Close and yet oh, so far away! Marnie thought. To his credit, he appeared to be stunned and horrified.
Malcolm Dangerfield wasn’t paying attention to any of his fans. He was staring at Marnie and the police as if he were in shock. Someone spoke to him. He didn’t seem to notice. His publicist waved the person away.
Detective Grant Vining was speaking to Jeremy Highsmith, asking him about the numbers on the table. Jeremy shrugged and told him he imagined that it had to do with five of them being there—five chairs. What could the numbers mean other than that? Had they been there all day? Yes, they’d been at the table when they’d arrived, just as their nameplates had been there. It was all set up by the comic con people. Did they change anything around?
Jeremy looked at everyone else. No one seemed to have an answer.
“Who knows?” he replied, his voice sounding broken. “We just...sat. We’re all friends. We wouldn’t have cared where we sat. When we get together...we talk.” He swallowed and then said, “It makes these things bearable. For me, at least.”
“I think we more or less sat where our names were,” Roberta Alan said. “I have personally never seen numbers before, and we’re all friends. We don’t care where we sit, and I just honestly don’t remember if we sat by number. Oh, maybe Marnie and Cara switched around... I’m not sure. It’s honestly like I said—I don’t remember. It never mattered to us. We even sometimes play musical chairs. That way, we all got to talk to each other. Oh, yeah, and after these things, at least one of the nights, we’d head out for a meal together.”
“She loved those dinners we’d have,” Jeremy said. When he spoke, he looked old. He wasn’t a spring chicken, but he usually appeared like a very handsome and distinguished older gentleman with his thick iron gray hair and straight and elegant posture.
Now, he just looked old.
“Tonight,” Marnie said softly. “We were all supposed to be together tonight.”
“We really were her family!” Jeremy said.
There was a little more conversation, none of it really helpful toward finding out why a Blood-bone-costumed killer would have singled them out.
“God knows, maybe it was random!” Sophie Manning murmured to Grant Vining.
“No, no. It wasn’t random. Trust me,” Vining said.
Finally, Marnie found herself being led out by Detective Manning. She went to the police station, she turned over her clothing and she was given a strange rough outfit to wear—it made her feel as if she had been arrested herself.
Detective Manning wasn’t so bad; she asked Marnie if there was someone she should call.
Marnie’s parents were going to hear about what happened, but they were off on a dream trip to Australia and New Zealand. She would just text them that she was fine, and she was going to be home and trying to sleep, and she would talk to them in the morning.
She had friends, of course.
But no one that she wanted to talk to at that moment.
Her cousin Bridget lived in the other half of her duplex. She would hear about this soon, but Bridget was down in San Diego for the weekend, visiting one of her friends from college who was there for a writers’ retreat. There was no way she could have gotten home yet.
“I just want to go home,” she told Manning.
“All right, of course. But you know, I can take you to a hospital if you wish. You might not want to be alone. You might be suffering a form of shock.”
“I just want to go home.”
“Of course.”
The detective didn’t call for a patrol officer. She brought Marnie home herself. She checked out the duplex off Barham Boulevard where Marnie lived and declared it safe.
“Do you have an alarm system?” Manning asked.
“No, but I do have a camera that watches my living room, and it’s connected to my phone, so in a way...it’s kind of an alarm system.”
“No, it’s not,” Manning told her. “It’s bizarre. Just your living room?”
“I played with the idea of getting a dog.”
“I see. Well, a dog would have been good. When I leave, just make sure that you lock yourself in.”
Marnie looked at her, startled. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be in danger.
She’d only known that Cara was dead.
That Cara had stared up at her while the light had gone out of her eyes.
She shook off the notion of fear. Really. She just wanted to be alone. She did have good locks on her windows and on the front and back doors. She had bought the duplex; she shared it with Bridget. She had made sure they had windows and doors that were up to code—thinking more about earthquakes than home invaders—but whatever the thought, her place was solid.
“I’m good. Really. Quality locks on the windows. My doors would need a battering ram if someone wished to break them down, and I have three bolts on each.”
“All right, then. We’ll be in touch. Oh, my card—” Manning paused, digging around in her suit pocket “—and my partner’s card.” She shrugged. “People tend to like him more. If he’s easier to call and you do need help or you think of anything, call him, or call me.”
“You will find out who did this?” Marnie whispered. She winced. Oh, Lord. It sounded like such a Hollywood line.
Manning smiled. “We’re good, Miss Davante. My partner and I are good together. We’re going to do our best. But...if there’s anything, call us. There’s one thing that Grant Vining taught me right off the bat—if you can get help from somewhere that will solve a murder—take it. So...”
“I wish I had something to tell you. I wish I had something to say,” Marnie assured her.
“Lock up.”
Manning left, and Marnie did so. She headed to the bathroom and turned on the hot water.
She must have stayed beneath the showerhead for an hour.
When she came out of the bathroom, she got in bed and turned on the television. She didn’t seem able to find a channel that did anything but talk about the murder of Cara Barton that day.
Finally she found the Three Stooges.
And still...
She stared up at the ceiling. So exhausted...
And so unable to sleep. Eventually, she closed her eyes. She could still faintly hear Moe, Larry and Curly as they taunted and teased one another.
Her phone rang; it was her mother. Naturally, her mom was hysterical. Her parents had known Cara Barton. They had visited the set. But not only that, it could have been Marnie who had been killed.
It hadn’t been.
The only way to get her mother to calm down was to remind her that sometimes in life, Cara Barton had been a wee bit...obnoxious. She might have offended someone.
It took her twenty minutes to convince her mother not to cut short her dream vacation. She was okay. Not hurt at all. She wasn’t alone in the city.
So Marnie had a nice long conversation, calming down her mother.
Then she had to talk to her dad.
When she hung up, she found herself talking to the air.
“I’m sorry, Cara, I hope I didn’t sound uncaring. I had to get my mom to be okay.”
Sleep...
Watch Moe, Larry and Curly, and be grateful for the channels that kept old classics alive.
Yes, sleep.
She drifted. And as she did so, she thought that she felt a gentle touch on her face and heard a soft whisper beneath the canned laughter on the TV.
“Darling, I know you. I know you didn’t mean anything evil at all. Not to worry. I’m here. I’m with you. Get some rest, sweet Marnie. You really were a friend.”
It was nice; it was kind. As if Cara were trying to help Marnie accept what had happened.
Marnie couldn’t forget that day.
I’m not a bad person, am I? Cara had asked her.
And that had made Marnie smile. Nope. Not bad. Ambitious, trying to get by and just loving it when you did get the limelight!
“You were never a bad person!” Marnie murmured aloud, half-asleep.
And she could feel those gentle fingers touch her hair in what she assumed were her dreams.
“Such a good friend, Marnie. And now... I’m so afraid for you!”
Marnie frowned, jerked from sleep. She leaped from her bed, running through the duplex, turning on lights.
Maybe not the smartest thing to do if there was a prowler in the house!
But there wasn’t.
A check through the window by her front door showed no one at all in the yard.
She looked through the peephole. No one was there.
It was probably about five in the morning.
And she was afraid of darkness and afraid of sleep.
Maybe she’d stay in the living room.
Eventually, she fell asleep on the couch.
As she drifted off, she could almost swear that she smelled the slightly sweet scent of Cara Barton’s perfume.
* * *
He didn’t go in; he looked at the house in the dark, and he marveled at how he had enjoyed the day. Never—in a thousand years—could he have imagined what this would feel like.
Perfect. Everything perfect.
Using Blood-bone—pure genius.
The police were clueless, asking, questioning...and getting nothing.
There was nothing to get. And they just might understand why when the time came.
But for now...
It was delicious. It was the movies, all over again. Marnie was inside her home—the beautiful young heroine—terrified. Waiting...
For the killer to strike.
It was...
Euphoria!
