Dying to Have Her (38 page)

Liam didn’t argue.

He looked at her.

“Yeah. She just isn’t you.”

The next day’s filming was great. The entire family appeared. The threat to the family came from a new addition to the cast: an Egyptian furious with Verona’s insistence on stealing artifacts from his country. After Verona and David were dug from the tomb and the family had its huge row, they were all held hostage. And despite the protests of Randy Rock, Dale Donovan, and David DeVille—Jay Braden, Andy Larkin, and Conar Markham—Hank Newton was dragged out by the fanatical patriots holding them all hostage. Originally, they were going to execute him.

Now they were going to beat him, and he was going to escape.

“So who’s going to be murdered to live up to our promos?” Serena asked Allona after the third day’s taping.

“Heck, I don’t know. Maybe we will have to bring in the poor waiter and draw and quarter him in the Arabian desert,” Allona said. “Or maybe they liked my idea about raising a mummy and then killing it over again. I don’t know. We’ll get to it.”

Allona left her. Serena sat at her dressing table alone, trying to remember everything that Jinx had said before she died. Jinx had been in love. She had done it all for love. …

She sat in front of her dressing table. “Paper,” she murmured out loud. “Paper. What
paper
was she talking about. And ref … ref …”

She drew a scratch pad to herself and started writing. “Ref … referee … refuse … refute. Hm.” She stared idly across the room. “Refer to …” She paused, frowning, staring at the little white cubicle in her dressing room where she could keep cold drinks. “Refrigerator?”

She jumped up, rushing over, throwing it open. Nothing. Bottles of water, juice, soda. She went down on her knees, placing her hand around the sides and then the roof of the little box. To her amazement, she touched something. She twisted around to look upward. A small scrap of charred paper had been taped there.

Shaking, she carefully pulled it free. It was badly charred, damp, barely legible. There were only pieces of words.

But it had been handwritten.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly six, but Liam, who, still distrustful, had agreed to leave her at the studio because Olsen had called him down to the station, was coming for her at seven. She knew that Liam didn’t think that the danger was over, that they could let up. Olsen, on the other hand, seemed to believe that if anyone had been pushing Jinx, it had been Kyle Amesbury. A man who was dead now as well.

Still, Liam had quit being so continually tense at every turn. And tonight, they were going to eat out. He had said he needed to talk to her, and he had booked a restaurant with quiet booths and low-key music.

She left her dressing room and took the elevator down to the set. Lights were being switched off; they were done for the day. Jim Novac was walking away.

“Jim—hey! Where’s Conar?”

“Gone home.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah, he was looking for you, but someone told him that Liam had already picked you up because no one had seen you for a while.”

“I was in my dressing room.”

“Sorry. Wow. And Conar is kind of pissed off, too.”

“Great,” she murmured.

“Is anyone still here?”

“I’m here, but I’ve got to go. Hey, Jay and Jeff have gone over to the tomb set. Jeff wanted to check something out for tomorrow.”

Serena thanked Jim, then hesitated a few minutes. She didn’t want to be here alone. She went back to her dressing room and tried to call Liam. She didn’t reach him. The sergeant on duty jotted down her message that she needed to see him as soon as possible about the “ref’ and “paper” and that he should pick her up at the Egyptian set rather than at the studio. Then she ran downstairs, hoping to catch Jim.

She saw his car retreating around the corner. She stood on a street corner, flagging madly for a cab. None stopped. She decided to walk.

There were gates up around the set, but she knew where there was a loose section that she could slip beneath. She swore, dusting off dirt and sand as she crawled under the wire. Her heels were unsteady on the dry, rocky ground as she traveled down the drive to the setup. As she approached the stage tomb, she could hear Jeff talking.

Jay replied.

There were some safety lights on around the set, but it seemed that darkness had fallen, that shadows had followed her right through the fence.

The set appeared very real at night. The sand seemed to be a towering dune, rather than a thin layer thrown over the shell of an old office building about to be completely razed.

“Hey!” she called out.

Coming around the path, through the trailers and the set itself, she came to a sudden, startled halt.

Jay and Jeff were both there.

They both had rifles.

Pointed at her.

Y
OU KNOW,
L
IAM, YOU’RE
driving this thing into the ground,” Olsen said. He sighed. “I wanted you on the case, because you’re good. But you know, Kyle Amesbury taped
everything.
There was a camera at the door the night you ‘talked’ to him. You threatening to kill him is on tape. You could wind up in jail yourself. It’s a damned good thing his death was definitely drowning.”

“Did you call me down to arrest me? If so, do it quick. I’ll get a lawyer and get out of here. I still don’t think Serena should be alone.”

“Jinx is dead and buried.”

“She wasn’t working alone.”

“You suspected Amesbury yourself. He’s dead now, too. Some things, we’re getting from the tapes. Some things, we’ll never know.” He sighed. ‘Too bad we didn’t get some of these earlier. You know, Jinx starred in several of them.”

“Can I see a few? That is, if you’re not arresting me right now,” Liam asked.

Olsen shrugged, and pointed toward a conference room. “Just hit the buttons.”

Liam glanced at his watch. He had time. He went into the conference room and started running tape. And there was Jinx.

First, alone, standing in a room. She’d been listening to a voice give her instructions. Amesbury’s voice. He was talking like a director. She listened, she obeyed. She objected once, saying she didn’t want to be a porn star. “Hey, kid, all the big shots have to do love scenes. If you’re going to go this route …”

So she had postured and postulated, and then the tape ended, and another began. Jinx, with a dark-haired man. The man’s back remained to the camera. His hairless back.

He heard a door open and close.

“Jay Braden, you think?” Olsen asked.

“I don’t know. Sure, I’ve suspected him. His denials, though, have been fierce. He was protective as hell of her, though.”

The door opened again. Liam didn’t glance up. “Hey, Bill. I thought you were taking a few days,” Olsen said, concern in his gruff voice.

Bill Hutchens was in the room. “Yeah, I’m taking time. You watching this trash again? We should just fast forward the stuff.”

“That girl had something going with a man,” Olsen said firmly. “I’d like to know who. And who knows if the love was all in her head or real, someone really jerking her chain.”

“Your answer is on that tape. Look at her listen to every disgusting word Amesbury says!”

“Could be,” Liam murmured.

That tape flickered to an end, another began.

Jinx again. She had really been Amesbury’s starring innocent.

Again, the man’s back was to them. The room was darker. It was impossible to see his hair color or even make out much about his build.

Or even if his head was completely clean of hair.

“I haven’t even had the stomach to sit through all these yet,” Olsen said. “There’s the last one. … I think that’s it. It’s amazing she didn’t kill Amesbury,” Olsen murmured.

“Maybe she did,” Liam said. “Look what’s coming up.”

There was a scene by a pool. Amesbury jeering at the girl, all dressed up in party clothes. Jinx hitting Amesbury.

Amesbury falling in the pool. Begging for his life …

Jinx, frozen, watching.

There was a tap on the door. An officer poked his head in. “Sorry, sir,” he told Olsen. “I thought Lieutenant Mur—sorry, again—Mr. Murphy might be in here.”

“Right here,” Liam said.

“I thought you had gone. There’s a guy on the phone for you. Says his name is Oz and that he has something for you.”

Liam jumped up, looking at his watch. He had time to run by Oz’s studio before picking Serena up from Conar’s care at seven.

“Great, thanks.”

“There are more tapes—” Olsen began.

“Thanks. I’ll check into them later.”

Liam departed swiftly, not hearing the sergeant at the desk, who stared at his back, then called his name.

Bill Hutchens, following behind Liam, told the sergeant that Liam was heading out.

“I had a couple of messages for him. Officer Perez just told me he was still here. Think you can catch him?”

“He lit out like a tornado. Maybe I can catch up with him. What have you got for him?”

The sergeant grinned. “Well, first, his buddy Conar said that if he saw him to tell him he was an asshole for not letting him know he’d picked up his girl. Then Miss McCormack called herself. She said to tell him something about having found the ‘ref’ and the ‘paper’—whatever that means. And also, he’s supposed to pick her up at the Egyptian set, and not the studio.”

“Shit!” Bill said, running his hands through his hair. “Shit! I hope I can catch him.”

“Serena! Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Jeff called out.

What was the matter with her?
You’re pointing a rifle at me
—
what do you think?
she thought. She held silent. After seeing them, she had turned and run. Thankfully, there were sandpiles everywhere. There were trucks here now as well, big, military vehicles in khaki and green. They stood just off the “tomb” set and were placed to be taped as the trucks that carried the nationalist fanatics who were holding the Valentines hostage. Near the tomb itself were water troughs made to look like outer sarcophagi and standing pieces that the set designers had created to look like the inner coffins. With the scattered props around, it would be a great place for children to play hide-and-seek.

Except that she wasn’t a child, and if she were caught, the game would be a deadly one.

She stared at the two of them for a split second, adrenaline racing into her system along with a sense of raw panic.

Then she ran.

She swerved behind a big Styrofoam sarcophagus, zigged, zagged, and kept running. At last, she flew behind one of the big green army trucks.

“Serena!” Jeff called.

“Where the hell is she?” Jay said.

“You go that way. I’ll come around,” Jeff said.

Crouched down by the truck, Serena heard Jeff’s footsteps coming around toward her. She was shaking, locked into uncertainty. Two of them, one of her. The footsteps were coming closer and closer. Her mind raced. Jeff—had he had something going with
Jinx
that none of them had suspected? Jay—Liam had been wary of him all along.

There was another crunch on the ground, closer to her.

Self-preservation kicked in. She rolled under the truck. She thought that she would leap to her feet on the other side and run again, finding a path behind the prop pieces until …

Until she could reach the street.

Dirt filled her eyes and nostrils but she kept rolling, cleared the truck, and flew to her feet.

She came up right in front of Jay Braden. She couldn’t run; he blocked her path. If she turned, he couldn’t miss—a bullet would hit her back.

“You!” she accused him, shaking, pointing a finger at him. “You … you … Jinx …”

“Hold it, Serena. What’s the matter with you?” Jay demanded, frowning. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and took her by the shoulders. She shook him off, backing away, never taking her eyes from his.

“If you’re going to shoot me, do it!”

“Shoot you?” He seemed really incredulous. “Serena, how long have you been doing this? These aren’t real guns—they’re props.”

She arched a brow, staring at him. Her knees were giving, and at the same time, she felt like a fool.

“You were sleeping with Jane Dunne,” she said, still unnerved. “Did you get pissed off at her and write a note about killing her and suggest to Jinx that she should die?”

“Hell, no!”

“Serena, I’m sorry. You’ve got it all wrong.”

It was Jeff who spoke, coming around the side of the truck. He looked weary. “This is still crazy, all of us distrusting one another. Serena, I can tell you this because I’ve been around sometimes in the studio when you weren’t. Jay was kind to Jinx. Yes, he slept with Jane Dunne, and God forgive all of us, but yes, we all hated her. You want to know who slept with her, Serena? Andy, Jay, Joe, half of Hollywood—and as you know, me.”

Serena inhaled, caught between Jay and her brother-in-law. They had obviously talked about this before.

“Jane was almost … evil. She started by seducing people, Serena, and then ridiculing them,” Jay said ruefully. “I wish I’d been a better man. Or even a smarter man. But I never wrote anything to her, and I sure as hell never plotted to kill anyone.”

“I don’t think she even wanted me,” Jeff said, stuck back on his humiliation and ego. “She wanted to prove to herself that she could have any man—happily married or not.”

She stared at Jay. They were both close, and despite their words, she still felt uneasy. Yet she had come this far. “You’re still talking about Jane Dunne.
I
was meant to die. Because someone had seduced Jinx! And someone had talked her into murder. Jay …”

“Serena, dammit, I was her friend. I tried to be with her around Amesbury because—because I knew he was doing really bad things. I knew that Jinx was … I don’t know, I thought she was delicate, nervous. She told me that there had been someone, but that he had betrayed her. I think that whoever it was also slept with Jane. But whoever it was she had been seeing hurt her badly. I swear, it had never occurred to me that
Jinx
could … Anyway, this man had needed her, and he used her. She wouldn’t tell me who it was, only that she still loved him. She told me that I didn’t really know him and certainly not the way that she did. She talked me into taking her to Kyle Amesbury’s several times, so I thought that it might have been Kyle Amesbury. Because she said that
he
was going to be there, and it was getting harder for her to see him because he had suddenly turned against her and never wanted to see her at all. I knew that she was hurt, and suffering. I never knew that she was … lethal.”