“Doug is so handsome and so charming and just a sweetheart. I love him dearly.”
“Mother, Doug …”
“Yes, dear, I know. He’s of a different persuasion. It’s a pity, though, you do like each other so much, and I’d have gorgeous grandchildren if the two of you got together.”
“Maybe he’d sell me some ‘good-looking grandchildren sperm,’ Mother,” Jennifer said, embarrassed, unable to believe she was having this conversation with her mother.
“Not a bad idea,” Abby said, lying down and grinning up at Jennifer. “Except you’d still be frustrated and cranky.”
“Mom, please.”
Abby laughed. “How on earth did I raise such a straight-laced young woman? No matter, I’m very proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Jennifer said.
Her mother caught her hand. “I waited, yes, and had just one child. But what a child I had. I don’t want anything, Jen, except for you to be happy.”
Jennifer leaned over and kissed her mother’s forehead. “I love you.”
“If I can get better, though, I do intend to have sex again. Lots of it. With that nice Mr. Vic Tyler.”
“Mother, Vic Tyler is in worse shape than you are.”
“He would not appreciate you making such an observation. But he’s going to be better. He is going to have that surgery.”
“That will kill him,” Jennifer said softly, a lump in her throat.
Abby closed her eyes. “Go back to the party, dear.”
“Mother—”
“I can’t talk any more right now, please.”
Was that the truth? Or did she just want to avoid the argument? Jennifer hesitated, gnawing her lip. Her mother’s eyes remained closed. She kissed her forehead again, then tiptoed out of the room. As she returned to poolside, she realized she hadn’t had a chance to talk with her mother about the fact that Molly was coming.
With Ripper.
Ripper. The dog was probably a man-eating mastiff. A macho dog, for sure.
Liam was in the pool with Kelly and Serena. Conar was sitting with Hugh, and Jennifer took a chaise lounge near them. Near enough to overhear their conversation. They were talking about Brenda Lopez.
“She slept with a lot of people,” Hugh was saying. “In fact, Conar, I heard you had a relationship with her yourself.”
“I knew her. She’d been friends with my wife. We were friends.”
“It’s my understanding that you had an affair with her about a year ago.”
“An affair? No, not really.” Conar sounded uncomfortable. “She came to New York about a year ago, yes. We spent an evening together, we slept together. Then she came back to California. It wasn’t an affair—” He glanced over, and saw that Jennifer had heard him.
“So it was a one-night stand,” Hugh said.
“Look, it was just something that happened. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Jennifer was so disturbed, she almost jumped when she heard a voice in her ear.
“It’s getting cold,” Serena murmured. She’d gotten out and wrapped up in a towel.
A breeze had suddenly picked up, Jennifer noticed. Kelly grimaced as she came out, too. She turned toward the canyon and shivered. “I’m going in,” she said softly.
“I’m right behind you,” Serena told her.
“Well, I guess I’d best go in and entertain as the live-in house guest,” Doug said.
One by one, the others began to follow. Jennifer followed, still upset by learning that Conar and Brenda Lopez had been intimate.
Inside, Edgar had made coffee, and she ran upstairs, slipped out of her suit and into a short knit dress. When she came back downstairs, it looked like grade school—Serena and Kelly were hunched together in chairs by the mantel, and the men had taken coffee cups or brandy snifters to the sofa and wing-back chairs in the center of the room. That was just fine with her. She didn’t want to have to talk to Conar right now.
They chatted awhile, and then Kelly said:
“Serena, we should get going. It’s getting dark, and your night vision isn’t great.”
“Excuse me?”
“You told me yourself. You’re getting older, your eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”
“Kelly, I hope I get a face-lift so good I look a decade younger,” Serena moaned.
All three of them watched as Liam went out into the hall, heading toward the kitchen with Conar.
“That man has a great walk,” Kelly said.
“Oh, bull,” Serena told her. “You mean that he has a great butt.”
Kelly sighed. “Serena, I’m really sorry about mentioning the eye thing.”
“And I’m not mad. You mean that he has a great, sexy backside and that it wiggles well when he moves.”
Kelly laughed. “I’m not afraid of the word ‘butt.’ He has a fine backside. And so does … the man upstairs.”
Serena glanced at Jennifer frowning, then said to Kelly, “The man upstairs … Kelly, what are you talking about? God has a great butt?”
“No! That’s blasphemous, Serena. Conar has a great butt.” She grinned. “Tightest cheeks I’ve ever seen.”
“You two are horrible,” Jennifer protested.
“No, we just live in Hollywood, where there is far too much tinsel, and not much that’s real. And I’m aging more rapidly every second I spend with Kelly. We should get going.”
They walked outside. Serena gave Jennifer a quick kiss before she slid into her car. “We may be back tomorrow,” she said gaily. “We still have another day off.”
Serena gunned her motor, and shot down the driveway.
Lady appeared out of nowhere, tail wagging, inspecting one of the front bushes. “Here, girl,” Jennifer called.
For a moment, Lady ignored her. She watched as Serena’s car left the drive.
“Lady, come on, pup.”
At last her dog turned and trotted to her. She grabbed the wolfhound’s collar. “Come on, stay with me. We’ll walk through the house. It will be all right this one time. After all, Ripper is coming soon.”
As she walked into the house, Edgar met her in the hallway. “Miss Jennifer … ?”
She knew that in his totally unreproachful way, he was asking about the dog.
“Edgar, would you mind taking her out to her kennel for me?”
“Not at all, Miss Jennifer. Not at all. Come, girl.”
Lady knew who had been feeding her lately. She obediently trotted right to Edgar. He smiled. “Such a great dog, Miss Jennifer.”
“Umm, well, did you know that Mr. Markham’s dog—Ripper—is coming tomorrow?”
“Yes, miss.” He hesitated.
“Ripper?”
“Yes, miss. Well, he belonged to Mr. Markham’s poor deceased wife …”
“I know,” Jennifer murmured, wondering how Edgar had managed to make her feel like such a heel. “But still, if this Ripper makes one move against Lady—”
“Miss, Lady can manage quite well on her own,” Edgar said, his tone a touch indignant. Jennifer had to smile. “Don’t you worry any. I’ll take good care of Lady.”
“I know.”
She went on into the living room, but it was empty. Then she realized voices were coming from upstairs. Going up, she heard conversation coming from the Granger Room.
Doug, Conar, Drew, Liam, and Hugh were in the room. Drew was tapping at the paneling on the wall to the left of the bed. Doug was sitting at the laptop computer Conar had set up at the desk, and the others were watching with skeptical interest as Drew continued tapping. “Well, it’s here, I’m certain it’s here.”
“What’s there?” Jennifer asked.
They all turned to her.
Drew grinned at her sheepishly. “There’s a stairway that leads down to the first floor, to the garage.”
“A stairway?”
“A stairway, yes, secret stairway. Old Granger liked to disappear and reappear at his parties. He could also sneak women into
his room when he chose without his wife having any idea of what he was up to.”
“She didn’t notice another woman in the room?”
“They didn’t share quarters,” Drew said. “I know that the staircase exists. I’ve seen it in the plans. I know it’s there. Oh, here!”
He tapped a place in the wall. There was no doorway revealed; instead, Drew’s tapping had produced a revolving shelf. It suddenly spun out. There were three black-eyed heads upon it, which caused Jennifer to gasp in horror.
“Masks!” Conar said. “They’re just masks. Old theatrical masks, worth a fortune by now, I would imagine. Look, there’s a wolfman.”
“And I imagine that’s a mummy,” Doug pointed out.
“And the third is a pale, chilling Count Dracula,” Drew said.
Jennifer walked up to them, shivering. The eyes looked black and void and evil because there was really nothing there—they were eye holes.
“Strange,” she murmured. “These have been behind that panel all the time.”
“Well, I give up. I can’t find the stairway. Let me try over there, other side of the bed. There should be a secret hold,” Drew said.
“A hold?” Jennifer asked.
Conar, following Drew, paused at her side. “A hold—a secret hiding place.”
“Voilà!” Drew said with pleasure. Amazingly, without a sound, a large piece of paneling spun around. It would easily accommodate a man, or some personal treasure to be hidden.
“You could hide a body in there,” Doug murmured grimly.
“Well, the man wanted to be a magician, what can I say?” Drew told them with a shrug. “Ah, well, no stairway, I’m sorry. I give up.”
“It’s all right. Maybe we can find the plans some other time,” Jennifer said, lightly.
Yet all the time she was thinking about the feeling she’d had of being watched. If there were secret compartments, what other secrets did the house have?
After everyone was gone, she took a long hot shower. In a long silk nightgown, she crawled into her bed. She still didn’t feel the least tired.
She stared at her ceiling. She tossed and turned.
He’d slept with Brenda. Just once, he’d said. And, admittedly, half the men she knew had slept with Brenda, or so it seemed. If they hadn’t slept with her, they wanted to claim that they had anyway.
Still …
It haunted her. That meant Conar was a suspect. And he was living in her mother’s house.
She didn’t believe for a minute that he had done it. Conar? Never. He could be infuriating, imperious, a bit condescending …
But slash a woman to death?
She was angry and restless, and at a loss as to why she was having those feelings. Her anger suddenly grew. She shouldn’t have been so surprised.
She rose, slipping into her robe. It wasn’t the worn terry cloth she usually wore around the house. It was a silk creation from Victoria’s Secret that matched the gown. She tentatively opened her door. The hall was quiet. She marched down the hall to his room, and tapped on his door.
“Yeah?”
She hesitated, then opened the door. He was in the massive carved bed, hands laced behind his head, very bronze against the light sheets. He had apparently lain there in thought, lights on. Now he stared at her without moving.
“What?”
His tone of voice put her annoyingly on the defensive.
“You never told me that you’d slept with Brenda Lopez,” she said.
He stared at her, eyes glittering sharp as knives.
“I’ve slept with a number of people. Do you want me to list them?”
“I don’t know. Would we be talking something as thick as the Yellow Pages?” she retorted.
He sat up in the bed, jaw locking for a moment. “No, Jennifer. Since you’re asking so nicely, I’ve slept with a moderate number of people. As to Brenda … you never asked. So if you want a list, tell me now. I’ll do my best to deliver.”
“You had a relationship with a murdered woman. And we’ve been talking about little else since you’ve arrived. You might have mentioned that you’d been intimate.”
“You heard what I told Hugh. I didn’t know Brenda that well. I hadn’t seen her in a year or so. She came to a show in New York. She had been good friends with my wife, Betty Lou. They’d been very supportive of one another. You should remember, Brenda said a few words at Betty Lou’s funeral. What I said is what happened. We had dinner, a few drinks, talked about old times. She stayed at my place and left the next morning.”
She needed to say something. She didn’t.
“Is that all?” he asked brusquely.
“What?”
“Is that all? Was there something else you wanted? If so, please enter. Any more in the vein of a third degree? Or are you standing there for another reason? Take off those sexy things and crawl right in if you’re looking for companionship. If not, would you mind? Would you please leave me the hell alone?”
She felt as if an iceberg had settled over her.
She narrowed her eyes. “I just thought I should mention once more that if your Ripper gives Lady any trouble in the least, I’ll be ripping him right into little pieces.”
“I’m sure Lady can take care of herself against my dog.”
“Your dog’s name is Ripper, Conar.”
He stared at her, not deigning to reply.
She tried to turn and exit with dignity, but her dignified spin was a little too close to the door frame. She bumped right into the wall and had to back up.
So much for a regal exit.
She was shaking more than her mother ever did.
Back in her own room, she slammed and locked the door, and crawled into bed. And lay awake.
Damning him for coming here, for being her mother’s stepson, for sleeping with Brenda Lopez.
For keeping her awake. Making her feel as if she wanted something so badly …
It was deeply disturbing to realize she knew exactly what she wanted.
Hugh Tanenbaum found himself driving, and driving, and suddenly on Sunset, where lots of places were still in full swing.
He didn’t feel like full swing. He wanted a quiet bar, a place to think.
He got a parking place on the street. Hands in his pockets, he whistled as he walked along. He loved L.A., Hollywood, all the glamour and all the tinsel. He’d never changed his name, but he’d changed everything else about himself. He’d been born in the garment district of New York; he’d been expected to become a tailor like his father, and grow up to help take over the family tailoring/dry-cleaning business. His entire family had thought that he was weird, reading all the time, hanging around Broadway, eager to do anything that had to do with theater or film. Finally, his father managed to get him a job. One of his repeat clients was an assistant director for an independent film company. He managed to get Hugh a position as a production assistant for a film.
He’d headed to Hollywood.
He hadn’t become a Kubrick, a Lucas, or a Spielberg, but he’d done darned well in the B movie world. He had a feel for the cliff-hanger. The nicest comment he’d read on his directing had to do with his ability to “scare, really scare” an audience. He might not go down as a Hitchcock, but he had a rock-solid reputation, and a sterling record at the box office. That was good enough for him.
And aging as he was, with good-looking, Hollywood dignity, he liked to think—okay, slightly repaired dignity—he was still doing damned well with life.
He felt shaky tonight, though. He hadn’t mentioned to Conar his own recent relationship with Brenda. Not actually a great passion there, either, though she did say that he was really magnificent. Brenda had been like that. Those who knew her understood. Sex was like a handshake to her. She’d agreed to a small but important part in his movie.
“Hugh!”
He heard his name called and turned.
The woman summoning him had been sitting at the end of the bar. She’d just noticed him,
he realized.
She was beautiful. Blond. A natural blond? What difference did it make?
Young. How young? Sometimes not so easy to tell out here. She approached him. No … she wasn’t quite so young anymore. She was at that age where perfection began to slip. Some might say it was a great age, when character began to slip in. But this was Hollywood. Yesterday’s beauty was today’s discard. There were so many actresses. What was her name?
“Hugh, you do remember me, right? We met at one of Rob’s parties a few years ago. How nice to see you. I hear your new movie is going to be spectacular. I’m so pleased for you. I just wrapped a project, and if …”
He shrugged, smiling. She was almost on top of him. She was still stunning. Put together like an hourglass. She was leaning against him. He could feel the heaviness of her breasts. His grin deepened. Silicone. What the hell. He didn’t have anything against silicone, and he was feeling very lonely tonight. Besides, being a director could kind of be God-like. He could help her career, a real value.
“There are a few places I could probably use you before we wrap. You understand, however, that my real leads are taken … We could discuss what’s left.”
Her eyes, like enormous blue cornflowers, widened. She set delicate, perfectly manicured fingers upon his shoulder.
“I’d love to discuss what’s left.”
“Want a drink?”
“I don’t live far from here. Walk me home, and we’ll get a drink at my place while we discuss what’s left.”
“How do you feel about being a victim?” he inquired.
Her blue eyes rolled. She slipped her arm into his, squeezed closer.
“I’d just love to be one of your victims,” she purred. She let her hand trail discreetly down to his lap. “Oh, yeah, honey, I would just love to be one of your victims. Anytime.”
Her fingers moved delicately. Touched.
Stroked.
He stood, gravel in his throat as he called for his check.
Hell, yes.
She could be his victim.
Anytime.
Sometime, late in the night, Jennifer actually slept.
Even later, she awoke, bathed in sweat, jerking up. In panic, she leapt from the bed and began turning on lights. Her door remained locked. And yet …
Yet what? She had awakened from a nightmare. With the awful feeling that …