Abby looked at Conar, then answered Jennifer at last. “He died of complications due to surgery.”
“Oh, Mother! I am so sorry, but see, I’m right. The operation is dangerous.”
“I’m going for tests in relation to having the surgery, Jennifer,” Abby said firmly.
Jennifer rocked back on her haunches. She held her mother’s hands more tightly.
“Mom, you just told me that Vic died because of the surgery.”
“Yes.”
“Then, Mom, you must realize—”
“Jennifer, you must realize that I function at times, but that I shake more and more violently every day. I’m losing control of bladder function. I talk to people in the walls. This will only get worse as I get older. There is hope in the surgery. I want to do this while I’m young enough. There is an opening with my doctor in a few weeks. I’m taking a chance, I’m having the tests done. I can still decide against the surgery, but I don’t think that I will. You just told me that you have to live a normal life. So do I, Jennifer, do you understand?”
Jennifer stood up, feeling the prick of tears in her eyes. She did understand, and she didn’t understand. She didn’t want her mother to die.
But she couldn’t talk. This was between the two of them, but Conar was there. Supporting Abby.
“I have to go to work,” she said simply.
Jerkily, she started out of the room. Edgar was in the doorway, his silver tray of medications in his hand. He looked at her in silent sympathy.
“Conar!” she heard her mother say. And she knew that Conar would follow her.
She whirled around. “I don’t want him with me, Mother. I have to live a normal life, understand?”
She strode out to the foyer and exited the house. Still, she wasn’t surprised to find Conar coming up behind her when she reached her car.
“I mean it. I need to be alone, I don’t want you with me,” she said stiffly, her back to him at the driver’s side of her door.
He caught her arm firmly, turning her around to face him. He reached for the keys in her hand. “You just upset her even more,” he said, “and I don’t give a fuck what you want. Give me the keys.”
She tried to hold on to the keys, but she didn’t have the strength to fight him. He forced her fingers, and she relinquished her hold. She walked around the car, opting for stony silence. She had no intention of speaking to him on the way to the studio.
He didn’t speak to her either.
Doug was in her dressing room, waiting for her, anxious to see if she was all right. “Fine. Absolutely fine,” she told him curtly.
“Don’t bite my head off,” he protested. “What’s up?”
She sat in front of her mirror. “My mother is going to have the surgery.”
“Great!” Doug said.
“Doug, my mother could die. Don’t you know what that means? No good moments and bad moments—you get no moments at all.”
“She’s afraid of losing you, you know.”
“Conar is supporting her.”
“So you’re angry at them both.”
“I have a right to be.”
“Sure.”
“I have a right to be!”
“Sure. Let’s see, he’s trying to help Abby make you see what she’s feeling, and he kept you from being assaulted by a filthy mugger with a wine bottle. I say we shoot him.”
She spun around. “What if Conar is the killer, Doug?”
“What?” he said incredulously. “Brenda was already dead before his plane touched the ground.” He hesitated a moment. “You’re upset, aren’t you? Want me to come back to the house for a few days?”
“No, no … I’m just talking wildly. He did come to my defense, and I guess I’m angry that he had to, because I was taking an unnecessary risk.”
“I love all of you, you know. I could come for the weekend again. Act as referee.”
She hesitated. Her mother was going to be gone. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone in the house with just Conar.
“Yes, that would be great. Plan on coming to the house for the weekend.”
“Jennifer!” There was a tap at her door. “Makeup!”
Thorne McKay was right outside. “How on earth does he manage to make the one word ‘makeup’ sound so obnoxious?” Doug asked.
Jennifer grinned.
“See you later. I’ve got a few rewrites for the scene this afternoon when you find out you’re pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant?”
“I guess you haven’t seen the original ‘revised’ scene as yet. It’s great. Really, really, wickedly soap, if I do say so myself. I mean, you’ve been sleeping with your own almost ex-husband, your sister’s almost ex-husband, and now, of course, the enemy vintner’s son.”
“I thought that was a flashback.”
“No, you’re sleeping with him currently as well.”
“And I already know that I’m pregnant?”
“We’re building in the time span. That way, lots of people hate you at the moment. Verona, because you might be having her husband’s baby. Your husband, because you might not be having his baby. Your new lover, because he doesn’t want to be saddled down by you, and reviled by his own family.”
“For seducing me?”
“Hell, no, just for not being more careful. Then, of course, there’s the fact that your family might want to kill him.”
“Great. So why am I telling everyone that I’m pregnant?”
“You’re not telling everyone. You’re taking a home test, and when you’re showering, Verona is going to try to talk to you. You don’t hear her over the sound of the water, she comes in, sees the test … voilà.”
“I’m taking a lot of showers.”
“You’ll be very clean, you sleaze bucket of a heartbreaker,” he said cheerfully.
“Jennifer!”
Thorne McKay pounded on her door again.
Doug threw the door open. “You again,” Thorne muttered. “You know, this is my job. This is not very professional. I’m going to tell Joe and Andy that I just can’t do my job when the two of you are always making it so hard.”
Doug glanced at Jennifer. “He’s going to tell on us.”
She grinned. “See ya later.”
He closed the door. Thorne sighed. “So you got mugged last night. You’re like a catalyst for evil, Jennifer, do you realize that?” he said dramatically.
“Thorne, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So were those dead girls,” he said. “Things are happening around you, Jennifer.”
“I’m not a catalyst for evil. I’m not,” she said angrily. And suddenly, she didn’t want to be alone with him. She didn’t want to be alone with anyone anymore.
“Maybe it’s the house.”
“Trish Wildwood had nothing to do with Granger House,” she said. “Thorne, I have to be on the set in two minutes.”
“So now you’re in a rush. You left me standing at the door while you and Doug had a tête-à-tête, and now you’re in a rush.”
She groaned. “Thorne, please hurry.”
Liam didn’t want to stay at the studio. He and Conar left, heading for a coffee shop down the street.
Conar had black coffee. Liam had a mocha with lots of whipped cream and chocolate shavings. The girl didn’t seem to want to serve it to him.
“I don’t understand the problem,” Liam said, stirring his whipped cream into the drink at a small back table in the coffee shop.
Conar grinned. “It’s a sissy drink.”
“Hey!”
“You don’t look like a sissy. That’s why they have a problem serving it to you.”
Liam nodded.
“So what’s up? Our mugger last night was not the murderer?”
Liam licked whipped cream off his straw. “We got back the profile from the FBI.”
“What does it say?”
“Organized murderer, intelligent, plans out his crimes very carefully. S
omething of a showman, he wants his bodies found in a certain way. He’s probably killed before, and been so organized that no one ever suspected a serial killer. He uses a different M.O., as we’ve seen.”
“So the guy does think it’s one and the same killer?”
“Yes, and we’ve put out warnings in the paper to young women, especially actresses.”
“So even if Abby wasn’t so worried, it would be a good time for Jennifer to be very careful, and not go out meeting with people after dark.”
“Yep.” Liam sighed. “Yesterday, I got a call from a woman.”
“Let me guess. Her name was Lila Gonzalez.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Because this Lila Gonzalez called Jennifer yesterday and they met for coffee, right before she was mugged.”
“Lila Gonzalez gave me a list of suspects.”
“And I’m on it?”
“Number one.”
“Do I have a motive for these murders?”
“No, you just had intimate relations with the victims.”
Conar shook his head. “I knew Trish Wildwood. I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Lila seems to think you did.”
“I don’t care what she thinks, it didn’t happen.”
“Hey, I think you’re innocent.”
“So what else? Have you matched up any more crimes in your cold-case files?”
Liam hesitated, forming his words carefully. “We’ve established that someone might be imitating the murders in Hitchcock films.”
“Brenda, the shower scene. Trish, Frenzy, the necktie murders.”
“Well, a young college student was killed about two years ago, a young man with no record, good grades, good friends—no enemies. No drugs. He was discovered in a trunk in an abandoned apartment building.”
“That’s Rope. Jimmy Stewart.”
“Maybe it’s not connected,” Liam said, frustrated. “After all, you can connect almost anything, if you want.”
“So you’re still nowhere,” Conar murmured.
“The good—and the bad, according to our profiler—is this: At heart, the killer is a showman. He wants his work to be found, seen, appreciated—applauded as art, if you will. So at this point, it’s possible that he doesn’t think that he’s received the accolades he deserves.”
“And that means?”
“He might grow more careless.”
“And therefore, more reckless?” Conar asked.
“You got it.”
“Maybe I’d better get back to the set.”
“Maybe. The second name on Lila’s list was—”
“Joe Penny?”
“No. Hugh Tanenbaum. But Joe Penny was the third, and she named Andy Larkin as well—and Jim Novac. I think she felt she just might as well point a finger at everyone on that set. Was she turned down for a job there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m the new guy in town.”
“The very well-paid new guy in town. No wonder she has it in for you. Oh, guess who else she mentioned.”
“Not me, I’m already at the top of the list.”
“No, not you. Doug. Doug Henson.”
“But Doug doesn’t enjoy women.”
“Who says this killer enjoys them?” Liam inquired.
Jennifer and Andy had rehearsed a confrontation scene several times. They stood on the set alone together while Jim was setting up with the cameramen.
Andy still looked like a man who had been through the ringer. He seemed to be trying to behave normally, but every time his name was mentioned, he jumped.
“Andy, what’s the matter with you? Why are you acting so strangely?” Jennifer queried. He had changed. He’d always been so damned sure of himself.
“Maybe I should tell you, Jennifer. God knows, I need to talk with someone. Maybe I should go to the police. But this soap is everything to me …”
“Andy, I don’t understand you.”
“There was blood all over.”
“Andy, blood all over where?”
“And there was a body in his bed. He had a girl over. And then he strangled her. But then again, these guys are always dreaming up things for the show …”
“Who? Andy, who are you talking about?”
He looked at her seriously. “Jennifer, we have to be careful. Really careful. It’s dangerous to know too much, don’t you think? But what would you say if I were to tell you that I think someone involved with our show murdered those two actresses?”
“Andy, I’d say that you need to tell me who, and that we need to tell the police, and you need to tell them why you suspect someone in particular.”
“Quiet on the set!” Jim suddenly roared. “Andy … Jennifer? Ready? And we’re on in five … four …”
They went through the scene. Despite the fact that Andy was so upset, he was the consummate professional—he didn’t flub a line.
“Cut!” Jim called, pleased. “That’s it, we’re moving quickly here … Andy, you’re off.”
He started to exit the set. Jennifer was intent on following him, but Jim called her back.
“Jennifer, wait, not you. I still need you. Move on over to the bedroom set,” he told her. “The props are set, so you’re doing the scene where you’re by yourself, taking the home pregnancy test out of the drugstore bag, all right? Just like we rehearsed, it’s just you, no lines. We’re moving right along here.”
“Jim, wait, just a minute,” she said. “I need to speak with Andy.”
“Catch him later. Come on, Jen, we’ve got to keep things moving along.”
She moved obediently to her mark on the bedroom set, felt the lights, heard the cameras follow her, heard Jim call, “And in five …”
That afternoon, Conar and Jennifer filmed the argument and passionate bedroom scene between her character and Conar’s. In real time, when it was shown in about two weeks, it would precede the earlier filmed sequences in which she feared she was pregnant. Not even in soaps could they change such a fact of nature. Children might grow up overnight, but the parents still had to have intimacy before they were born.
Jennifer was scripted to throw things at him until he reached for her and drew her into bed, a forceful seduction.
Jennifer was a good actress. That afternoon she was more. All the venom she was feeling toward him came out in her soap character’s voice.
Bursting into the DeVille cottage, where he’d been prepared to meet another lover, Jennifer came into the scene with wine on the table, the bed lushly made. She immediately began to accuse him of attempting to seduce her sister for evil gain. He had no right to suddenly return to their lives, to come back to the valley, to twist and manipulate them all. He suggested that he might be falling in love with her sister, and she reminded him that he had once claimed to be falling in love with her, when all that he was really in love with was power. She threw a wineglass at him.
Damned close. Far closer than she’d been directed.
Then a book.
That one scored him right in the chest.
By the time he seized her—as directed—he was definitely forceful, and it was definitely in self-defense. When he threw her on the bed, she flew. When she was supposed to be breathless, fighting his kisses, she was. When he crawled over her and the scene was due to end, Jim forgot for several seconds to call cut. Then he did, and there was silence, and then there was suddenly a barrage of applause from the prop people, costumers, production assistants, and others on the set. Jim effused over them. “Damn, will we get the ratings! You two are hotter than July on the equator,” he said happily. “I love it; I can’t wait to see the dailies.”
Hotter than July on the equator.
Conar stared down at Jennifer, his teeth gritted, muscles tensed. She was looking back at him with ice in her large blue eyes. She was such a strikingly beautiful young woman. So perfect in so many ways. Yes, he’d seen that before. Now he had come to enjoy the sound of her voice, the curve of her smile, her loyalty t
o Abby, her feet-on-the-ground attitude. Yes, of course, he cared for her, wanted her. Not even Abby could have glued him to her if he hadn’t found himself so attracted. But it seemed that the more he cared, the more she repelled him … like now. He could see cold suspicion in her eyes again.
“Conar—”
“Don’t worry. I’m getting my hands off you,” he told her.
“And your chest! And your naked legs,” she hissed, quiet but vehement. He was in a robe and briefs, the liaison outfit the script had called for. She was still more or less dressed. She was wearing a low-cut cocktail dress from which he had done no more than lower the strap. “God, have you had any scenes in clothing yet?” she demanded, irritated, palms against his torso.
“Yes, a tux,” he told her. “Excuse me, lovely working with you, Miss Connolly. If you try to ditch me here on the set again today, I’ll break your arm.”
He rose quickly, leaving her on the set bed. Turning to exit, he realized they still had an audience.
He nodded curtly to Jim, then walked on off.
In his dressing room, he changed quickly to his street clothing, anxious to find Jennifer before she could leave the building without him.
Jennifer thought that the tap on the door would be Conar. She steeled herself. The ride home with him would be worse than the ride here.
“Jennifer?”
It was Liam, not Conar, who was at her door. He left it open as he entered.
“Liam, hi, how are you!” she said, greeting him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Do you have any information?” she asked anxiously.
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, I really have nothing. We don’t think your mugger is the killer. The guy is a scuz—did time for manslaughter in a barroom brawl, went to jail for abusing his ex-wife—but he doesn’t fit the personality type we’re looking for in the recent murders.”
“Liam, you need to talk to Andy Larkin.” Andy had left the studio. She was disturbed because of his behavior. Andy had talked so wildly, and he scared her, and she still didn’t know what—or who—Andy had been talking about. “He seems to think that someone on the set might be involved.”
“Interesting. Your friend Lila Gonzalez seemed to think the same.”
“Lila?” she asked slowly.