Читать книгу The Sinner - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 7

LARA RODE THE GLASS ELEVATOR up to her third-floor apartment, clutching her bag of new shoes as if it were the Holy Grail. It was ridiculous to be so proud of something so simple. But this was the first time she’d ventured out of her apartment alone since the shooting, and even if it was just to the Jimmy Choo store, it still felt like a victory.

Her mother had wanted to go with her. She always wanted to—not because she thought Lara still needed protection, but because she enjoyed the adventure. If none of Lara’s fans recognized her right away—which happened very rarely these days—Karla Gilbert would be sure to do something to draw a crowd.

“Look, Lara,” she’d say loudly enough for everyone standing nearby to hear, “it’s just like the scarf you wore in The Highwayman.” It was childish, but Lara had learned not to mind. Her mother’s vicarious pleasure had always been by far the most uncomplicated reward of this strange and exhausting career.

Today, though, Lara just hadn’t been up to all the fuss. Today had been a test, to see if she could shake off the depression and anxiety that had been smothering her for the past eight weeks.

And she had passed the test. She leaned against the cool elevator walls and closed her eyes, squeezing the Jimmy Choo bag to her chest.

Now if only she could pass this next test, too. She thought of the long yellow packet, the letter from Moresville College, that lay at the bottom of her purse, like a bomb waiting to explode, and shivered slightly. This test would be so much harder.

But she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d agonized over this, she’d worried and prayed and dreamed, until she had thought she’d go crazy. But the time for fretting and planning was over. Now that she knew she was strong enough to face the world on her own, it was time for action.

Today was the day.

The first day of the rest of her life. She almost smiled, thinking how perfectly that old cliché fit the moment. A small squeeze of excitement tightened her chest, but it was brief. Almost immediately the anxiety returned.

She caught a watery reflection of herself in the elevator’s glass cage, pale and incomplete, broken by the green ferns of the three-story atrium that slid down as she ascended. Who was this plain young woman? Without makeup, without the elaborate hairstyling, without the expensive wardrobe, she looked just like any other woman. Nothing special. Not even as pretty as the ladies who sold shoes in the Jimmy Choo store, or the stylish professional women who moved through the elegant foyer below.

Certainly not the kind of woman men died for. If only Kenny Boggs had seen her like this, maybe none of the horror would have happened. A vision of his bleeding body superimposed itself onto her reflection, and she closed her eyes, suddenly sick.

How could he be dead? How was it possible that a human being had died merely so that she could live? Who was she? What made her life more valuable than his?

Logically, she understood that there were rational answers. Kenny Boggs had tried to kill her. People had a right to protect themselves. But the emotional truth was more complicated, like a dark, twisted knot inside her heart. The questions remained, ghosts that followed her around, pale and quiet in the daytime, stronger and louder at night.

But she repeated the mantra she’d used every sleepless night for the past eight weeks. Kenny was dead. She couldn’t go back and change the past.

Now all that was left was to change the future, if she was brave enough to do it.

The elevator finally stopped. She walked to her own door, took a deep breath and put her key into the lock. She was ready, her speech prepared, her shoulders squared—so why were her knees suddenly just a little too soft? She wasn’t afraid of her own mother, was she? Surely, after the initial shock wore off, her mother would—

But this was just more worrying. More procrastination.

She turned the key. The rest of her life lay, green and shining, like Oz, just across the long bridge of this one conversation. She couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now.

“Mom? I need to talk to—”

But for a second, as the door to her apartment swung open, she froze. Had she opened the wrong door?

She didn’t recognize anything in this room.

Except her mother. Karla rushed over, cupping Lara’s chin in her hand and kissing her on both cheeks, an affectation she had picked up recently, as if they were from Italy instead of Mobile, Alabama.

“Oh, good, Lara, you’re here! Ignore the mess in the living room. Remember, it’s a work in progress. It’s going to be magnificent! Maxim, she’s here! Show Lara the plans!”

Lara touched her mother’s hand. “Plans?”

Her mother adjusted a strand of platinum-blond hair behind her delicate ear and knitted her freshly waxed eyebrows. “The decorating, darling. Remember? I told you last week.”

Lara shook her head slowly. She didn’t remember anything about decorating. And besides…this was decorating? The living room looked as if it had been ransacked.

Her mother laughed merrily. “Oh, Lara, you never listen to me. I must have talked to you about it ten times, and you said it was fine. You’ve been needing to do something with this place, and now that you’re—”

Maxim came over, wearing an olive-green suit with gold braids at the shoulders. He had redecorated Karla’s apartment last year, while Lara was in England filming The Highwayman. Lara had met him once or twice on visits home, and he’d scared her to death. With his black eyes and black moustache, he looked like some sadistic headmaster at a horror-movie military school.

“You must change. You must change everything.” He drew his imposing black brows together. In spite of his outrageous clothes, Maxim defied every stereotype about the effeminate interior decorator. He didn’t just redecorate your rooms, he went to war with them. “Everything.”

“Hi, Maxim.” Lara tried not to resent his presence. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. And it certainly pointed out that her mother, at least, wasn’t trapped in a mental maze of guilt and bloody memories, trying to make sense of Kenny Boggs’s death. Her mother was moving on, picking out paint and fabric and furniture.

Of course, she hadn’t been on the dais that day. She hadn’t seen Kenny’s body.

Lara forced a smile. She was always pretending these days, trying to be like other people. “Maxim…I think maybe we should put the redecorating off a little while. I need to talk to my mother—”

Maxim growled. “You cannot put this off a minute. Not a second.” He let his black gaze sweep the room angrily. “There is no style here, there is no ambiance. There is no you. Not the real you.”

If only he knew how true that was. The real Lara hadn’t ever set foot in this apartment. The real Lara hadn’t been seen for years. In fact, in some ways, she felt that the real Lara hadn’t yet been born.

“Maxim has such wonderful things planned, Lara. All white, very modern. With little explosions of color, like…” Karla put a pale pink fingertip against her dazzlingly white teeth. “Oh, show her the lamp, Maxim.”

“Yes. The lamp is the masterpiece.” Maxim picked up a long, cherry-red, twisted-glass thing from behind the sofa and held it out like a javelin. It was at least six feet long. It looked like…Lara searched her memory for what it reminded her of….

It looked like a Twizzler.

Maxim ran his hand along the twisted, ropy surface lovingly.

“Picture,” he commanded. “It glows, top to bottom. Very red. Dramatic. It stands behind a virginal white sofa. The sofa has purple pillows. Perhaps one is yellow, to startle the eye. And then…” He held the Twizzler erect. “Fire!”

Lara hesitated, wondering whether Maxim might be insane.

“Oh.” Without warning, his face crumpled. Even his moustache seemed to wilt. “You don’t like it?”

“Yes, of course,” she assured him, though it shocked her to see how vulnerable he was under that military surface. How could she have forgotten the one immutable truth of Hollywood? Everyone in this town was playing a role, apparently even Maxim. “It’s…unforgettable.” He frowned, unconvinced, so she went on. “I love it, honestly. It’s just that I really need to talk to—”

She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over to see Karla plucking at the cotton sleeve of Lara’s T-shirt and frowning.

“My God, Lara,” her mother said. “Please. Tell me you didn’t wear this out shopping.”

Lara stiffened, but she kept her voice calm. “Yes, I did.”

“Oh, honey, noooo.” Her mother sounded as distressed as if Lara had confessed to walking naked down Rodeo Drive. “And no makeup? No mousse?” She fingered Lara’s hair desperately, as if she could salvage her after the fact. “Oh, honey, honey. Not even any lipstick?”

Lara tried to keep smiling. “It’s okay, Mom.” She held up the shoe bag. “As you can see, they were willing to take my money, anyhow.”

“But what if people had seen you?”

“People did see me. Lots of people. No one turned to stone.”

“But I mean, someone important? God, what about the paparazzi?”

“Mom. I’m not that big a deal. I went, I shopped, I came home. I’m not Elizabeth Taylor. I don’t exactly stop traffic.”

“Not dressed like that, you don’t.” Her mother sighed. “But when you try, when you do something with yourself, then you’re—” She turned to Maxim. “Did you see The Highwayman?”

Maxim nodded. “Yes. It was a foolish movie, but her beauty there, it was amazing. When she shot herself to warn her lover, the audience wept. Everyone. I swear this.”

Karla turned back to Lara. “You see? It’s all in the presentation.” She grabbed her purse off the sofa and began rummaging through it. “I know I have a lipstick somewhere.”

“Mom, please—”

Karla held out a small, elegant gold tube. “Here. It’s a coral, which is really my color, not yours, but it’ll be better than nothing.”

Lara’s jaw tightened, and she felt her heart beating in her ears. “I’m in my own house. Surely it’s safe to be ugly in my own house.”

“It’s not safe to be ugly anywhere,” Karla said firmly, clearly not catching the sarcasm in Lara’s voice. Karla never joked about beauty and grooming. They were a religion with her. “Not when you’re a star. Not when you’re Lara Lynmore.”

“I’m not Lara Lynmore, Mom. I’m Lara Gilbert. And I’m serious. We need to talk.”

“But—” For the first time, Karla’s lovely brown eyes registered an uncomfortable awareness. “Can’t it wait until after the redecorating?”

“No.” Lara gave Maxim a short, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but it’s important.”

Karla bit her lower lip. “But— Wait, that’s right, I almost forgot, you need to call Sylvia. She has some scripts she wants you to look at. She thinks one of them may be the one.” She shrugged as if to say, oh, well, it can’t be helped. “I promised you’d call as soon as you got back.”

“Please, don’t keep brushing me off.” Lara touched her mother’s arm. Though they hadn’t talked about what came next, surely her mother had sensed something. Surely she knew that Kenny Boggs’s death had been a turning point.

“It is very important,” she repeated slowly.

Karla frowned. For a split second, Lara thought her mother looked frightened, but she blinked, and the illusion was gone. Irrationally, as if she hadn’t heard her daughter, Karla turned her back to Lara. She picked up a card full of fabric swatches and began to flip them with a jerky urgency.

“Nothing’s more important than calling your agent.” She didn’t look up, didn’t turn around. “Honestly, Lara, I’ve told you a million times, if you want to make it to the big time, you’re going to have to—”

“But I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t.” Lara hadn’t meant to break it this way, but apparently her mother’s instinctive defenses weren’t going to allow for a cushioned preparation. And the words were desperate, fighting to come out before guilt and fear and pity smothered them in her chest.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mom. I don’t.”

Karla still didn’t turn around, but her hands had frozen on the fabric swatches. When she spoke, her voice sounded tight. “Don’t what?”

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m quitting. I’m getting out.”

“You’re…you—”

The fabric fell to the carpet with a ruffling flutter of color. And then, with a soft exhale of the breath she must have been holding far too long, maybe for eight whole weeks, Karla Gilbert slid to the floor, too.

Maxim jumped, trying in vain to catch her, assuming the faint was genuine. The Twizzler lamp dropped from his hands. It must have been a delicate glass because, even though the carpet was soft and expensive, the lamp shattered into a hundred red pieces, which sprayed out like jagged icicles of blood.

The symbolism was a little heavy, Lara thought numbly. The best directors would eliminate it, judging it over the top.

But whatever it lacked in subtlety it made up for in drama. It definitely got its message across.

Lara Lynmore, the world’s most selfish, ungrateful daughter, had just broken her mother’s heart.

“SO, BRYCE, TELL US. What’s it like living in the haunted frat house?”

Bryce looked over at Claire McClintock, the dark-haired, sad-eyed beauty who had married his brother, Kieran. She was pregnant, very pregnant. All through dinner Kieran had fussed over her as if she were made of moonbeams.

“It’s okay,” Bryce said with a neutral smile. “A little raw, but it has the virtue of being free and unoccupied.” Abandoned for at least three years, the frat house had been part of his inheritance. He had laughed when he heard about it. Old Anderson McClintock really had owned the entire damn town, hadn’t he?

Bryce looked around the lovely blue dining room. “It’s definitely not as elegant as this place.”

He didn’t add that he was surprised to find the McClintock mansion decorated in such good taste. The last time he’d been here, the infamous Cindy, his father’s fifth and final wife, had been in charge of it for five-and-a-half whole months, which apparently had been enough to do some serious damage in the vulgarity department. Bryce wondered who was responsible for the new restraint. Had old Anderson tossed out Cindy’s excesses when he tossed out Cindy herself? Or was this the gentle Claire’s doing?

Bryce had no way of finding out, of course. He’d been gone for fourteen years. A lot of things happened in that much time. One of the things that had happened was Bryce had lost his right to ask questions.

In fact, even Kieran’s simple dinner invitation had come as a pretty serious shock. Back when they were kids, and Bryce had been forced by court order to spend the summers in Heyday, the two boys had hardly been close.

Bryce was four years older, and about a hundred years cockier. He had hated old Anderson, who had divorced Bryce’s mom to marry Kieran’s mother, and he hadn’t bothered to hide it.

He hadn’t hated Kieran, exactly. He’d actually felt kind of sorry for the kid, who had to live with Anderson all year round, and, after his own mother died, endure the string of bimbo wives, too. However, in Bryce’s older, wiser, estimation, Kieran had been an ass-kissing little dork. As he recalled, Bryce had made the poor kid’s summers pretty rocky.

And to top it off, old Anderson had died early this year, and in the will, Bryce, who by all rights should have been disinherited like the black sheep he was, had been left a full third of the McClintock estate.

Bryce could imagine how resentful Kieran must have been when he heard that news. The Sinner, who never went within a hundred miles of Heyday, inheriting equally with the Saint, who had stuck to the old man like a lapdog. Where was the justice in that?

But to Bryce’s surprise, when he arrived in Heyday a few days ago, after two months in the Bahamas trying to forget the whole Lara Lynmore/Kenny Boggs fiasco, Kieran had called him immediately. He had even offered to let Bryce stay here, at the old homestead. But Bryce had drawn the line at that. He had a lot of nasty memories of this place. And he wasn’t sure how much family togetherness he could actually stomach.

“But what about the ghost?” Mallory Rackham, who sat to his right, looked genuinely curious. “Have you seen him yet?”

Bryce transferred his gaze to Mallory, the pretty young bookstore owner who had obviously been invited to this intimate little New Year’s Eve party for his sake. There were only six of them—Kieran and Claire; a smart, sharp-tongued pair of married lawyers named John and Evelyn Gordon; and Bryce and Mallory.

“Not yet,” Bryce said. “But remember I’ve been there only a week. Maybe this ghost is shy.”

“Or maybe he’s fiction,” Evelyn Gordon said as she scooped a bite of the pomegranate parfait Kieran’s gorgeous housekeeper, Ilsa, had just put before her. “Teenage frat boys don’t kill themselves because their girlfriends dump them. They just get drunk and have mindless sex with the first thing they see wearing a dress.”

“Oh, no, he’s real,” Ilsa said suddenly. She blushed, as if aware that, as the mere housekeeper, she probably shouldn’t have spoken.

John Gordon, who had a mouthful of parfait, glanced up. “Yeah? You’ve seen him?”

Ilsa shrugged sheepishly. “No. It’s just that when I pass by there, I get…” She shivered. “A feeling.” She looked across at Bryce and put her hand over her heart. “You are brave to stay there, Mr. McClintock, all alone at night.”

Amazing. He had been in Heyday only four days, and already he’d been invited over for a nice fatted-calf dinner, and now the housekeeper was coming on to him. But she was one damn glamorous housekeeper. If his New Year’s resolution hadn’t been to give up women, he might just have taken her up on it.

He laughed. “The only brave part is living with the mess. You may be surprised to learn that fraternity boys aren’t big on cleanliness.”

Oh, man, how dumb could he get? That sounded like a blatant request for a housekeeper. Ilsa’s blue eyes twinkled at him hopefully. She had just opened her mouth to speak again when Kieran gave her a smile.

“Don’t I get a parfait?”

Ilsa apologized profusely and then deposited the last crystal goblet in front of Kieran slowly—a little too slowly, Bryce thought. And was he imagining things, or did her breast brush lightly against Kieran’s shoulder? Wow. Apparently Ilsa was an equal-opportunity flirt. Any McClintock man would do.

And right in front of Claire, too.

But Claire was leaning back in her chair, trying to get comfortable, ignoring her parfait and equally indifferent, it seemed, to any threat that the gorgeous Ilsa might pose. Even at this advanced, lumpy stage of pregnancy, she obviously didn’t worry that her new husband might stray.

Of course, watching Kieran watch Claire, Bryce had to admit her confidence was probably justified. No matter who was talking, no matter whose luscious breasts were hovering just above his hands, Kieran’s gaze lingered on his bride as if she were the sweetest parfait of all.

The rest of the meal was uneventful. Bryce decided Kieran must have briefed everyone on which subjects were off-limits. Anderson himself and all five wives, especially Cindy, the last one. And of course The Highwayman, which Bryce had noticed was playing right now at the new multiplex on Main Street. Guns, stalkers, bodyguards, the FBI, Kenny Boggs and, last but not least, Lara Lynmore.

Thank God for the weather! Otherwise, they might as well have been mute.

Actually, that was fairly sensitive of Kieran, Bryce had to admit. Bryce almost hadn’t come home from the Bahamas at all, knowing he’d be forced to rehash the whole ugly mess with everyone he met. Over here, Lara was just big enough to still be news, even after two months. In the Bahamas, almost no one had even heard of her.

Over there, he hadn’t thought about her at all. Not in the daytime, anyhow. A couple of dreams might have sneaked through now and then, but that didn’t mean anything. Random firing of neurons, or too many Bahama Mamas.

Finally the parfait goblets were empty, and it was after eleven-thirty. The New Year was almost upon them. Bryce drank the last of his champagne. He didn’t have a New Year’s wish, except perhaps that this year would be more peaceful than the last.

Apparently Kieran had a few business details he needed to wind up with Mallory Rackham. Bryce gathered that her bookstore’s building was part of the McClintock estate. As Bryce’s lawyers, the Gordons were involved, too, Kieran suggested that maybe Claire would like to show Bryce around, help him get reacquainted with the house.

“Just be sure to come back in time for the toast,” Kieran added, pulling his wife close and kissing her lightly on the neck.

Claire smiled. “Of course I will. It’s bad luck, you know, if you don’t say ‘Happy New Year’ to the one you love at midnight.”

“I don’t believe in bad luck,” Kieran said softly. He took his wife’s hand and held it so tenderly Bryce felt the urge to look away. “Not anymore.”

“Knock it off, you two,” Evelyn Gordon said. “You’re going to make me barf up my parfait.”

“Would you listen to that lovely mouth on my lovely wife,” John Gordon said in mock disapproval. But he pulled Evelyn in and kissed her on that lovely mouth, and suddenly Bryce felt so out of touch with the whole damn world it was like being caught in a Plexiglas isolation tank.

Everyone was in love, it seemed. Everyone but him.

He looked over at Mallory Rackham, who was quite beautiful, but who oddly didn’t stir any romantic impulses in Bryce at all. She didn’t seem uncomfortable surrounded by all this fog of bliss. She didn’t seem to feel left out. She was smiling at the Gordons across the table.

So why did Bryce suddenly feel so strangely alone? And what was wrong with that, anyhow? Alone was a choice. Alone was good.

Maybe it had nothing to do with romance. Maybe it was just that this could have been his family, his real family. This could have been his town. These could have been his friends. And yet too many years, too many emotions, too many bad decisions stood between them.

“Let’s go out on the porch and look at the backyard, shall we?” Claire was suddenly at his elbow, smiling up at him. “It’s really beautiful on a clear night like this.”

She was right. The long, narrow strip of garden behind the eighteenth-century mansion was amazing, an orderly oasis of grace and peace under the deep, starry blue sky.

They walked slowly along the back porch, just beyond the warm yellow rectangles of light cast by the library windows, where the others were working. The weather was perfect, hovering on the crisp edge of frost, so Claire seemed quite comfortable in her green velvet maternity evening gown, and he didn’t even really need his dinner jacket.

When they came to the edge of the house, they stopped. He leaned his elbows over the cold, marble railing, favoring his wounded arm just a little, as it was already mostly healed. Claire rested her shoulder against a smooth column.

“It’s changed a lot since I was a kid,” he said.

“What’s different?” Claire looked out into the semi-darkness. “I didn’t know the house before I married Kieran. I don’t even know when the pool was put in.”

“The pool was always here,” he said. “At least as long as I can remember. But it all looked very different to me, somehow. It didn’t look this—peaceful.”

She smiled. “Adolescence isn’t a very peaceful time, is it? I mean, it isn’t for any of us—but it must have been particularly tumultuous for you.”

Somehow he didn’t get the impression she was poking around for gossip. She had a peaceful quality herself, kind of like this garden, as if she had been through a lot and found calm on the other side.

“Yes,” he said, surprising himself. “I was pretty damn angry most of the time. This garden belonged to my father, and that alone was probably enough to poison it for me.”

She just nodded. Bryce looked at her lovely profile rimmed in moonlight, and he decided that Kieran had done very well for himself. A woman who knew when to be silent was rare. A beautiful woman who knew was nothing short of a miracle.

They stood together several minutes. The air was cold and clean and sweet, filled with the scent of unseen winter roses. The light in the pool was off, so the wind-ruffled navy-blue water was lit only by wavering points of starlight. Somewhere a fountain trickled.

Suddenly, Claire made a small noise, something between a gasp and a moan. He looked over and saw that she was clutching the railing with one hand, bending toward it. Her other hand was pressed against her abdomen.

“Are you all right?” He touched her shoulder. “Do you want me to get Kieran?”

She shook her head, but she didn’t seem to be able to speak. Her breath was shallow and quick. He put his arm around her shoulder and felt the trembling in her fragile body. Oh, hell. He didn’t know anything about pregnant women. What was happening?

If it had gone on a single second longer, he would have scooped her up in his arms and carried her in to Kieran. But just then she took a deep breath and straightened up to her full height, which still didn’t reach his chin.

“Sorry about that,” she said with a wobbly smile. “Thanks for not sounding an alarm. It’s just false labor—it happens every now and then. I saw the doctor this morning, and she says it’s perfectly normal. The baby’s not due for a month. The doctor says it may be a little early, but it’s not imminent. A couple of weeks, at least.”

Bryce had removed his arm, but in his mind he still could feel those shaking shoulders. That was normal?

“But even so…shouldn’t you tell Kieran?”

“God, no.” She laughed softly. “You’ve seen how he treats me. If I told him about this, he wouldn’t let me out of bed until the baby was born. He’d be spoon-feeding me parfait night and day. I’d go crazy.”

From what Bryce had seen tonight, he judged Claire McClintock to be a pretty sensible lady. He decided, on the spur of the moment, to trust her.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t say anything.”

She squeezed his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “You know, I—”

But just then the peaceful blue midnight was shattered by the sound of gunfire. Bryce started, his heart accelerating under his dinner jacket, but almost immediately he figured it out. Of course. Up and down these normally quiet streets, people were celebrating, ushering in the New Year with sparklers and firecrackers and half-heard, half-drunken renditions of “Auld Lang Syne.”

In the middle distance church bells began to ring.

The library doors opened, and the others spilled out onto the porch, carrying glasses of champagne. They left the doors open, so that the stereo could reach the garden. It, too, was playing “Auld Lang Syne,” which in this clear starlight sounded more poignant than anything Bryce had heard in a long, long time.

Suddenly the cell phone in his pocket rang. He glanced at the caller ID, and for a minute his heart began to race again. The area code was 213, the area code for Los Angeles, California.

Excusing himself, he answered it, moving to the edge of the porch so that he wouldn’t disturb the kissing and laughing and hugging going on among the old Heyday buddies gathered there.

“Hey, McClintock, this is Joe. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not,” Bryce said. Joe was the police officer who had been shepherding the Kenny Boggs issue through the system. He was a good guy.

Bryce realized that his voice sounded dull, so he put more energy into it. “No problem, Joe. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to tell you the final hoops have been cleared. Everything’s in order. You can even have your gun back if you want it.”

No. He didn’t want it.

“Thanks,” Bryce said. He paused. “I mean it, Joe. Thanks.”

“Forget it. I just— I mean, I also wanted to say…I hope things go good for you there in—what the hell was the name of that burg you came from?”

“Heyday,” Bryce said. “Heyday, Virginia.”

Joe laughed. “Yeah, in Heyday. I wanted to say Happy New Year, you know. I hope it’s a good one for you, McClintock. You deserve it.”

Bryce swallowed hard and thanked him, surprisingly touched that Joe had remembered and made the effort. It was only nine o’clock in California.

But when he clicked off and looked down at the silent cell phone in his hand, he had to face the truth.

He knew what he’d really been hoping.

Fool that he was, he’d been hoping that, in spite of everything, Lara Lynmore had been thinking of him.

He’d been hoping that somehow, even out there in Tinseltown where the New Year’s Eve parties were just getting started, she might sense that, here in Heyday, it was a cold and lonely midnight.