Phoenix Falling (16 page)

"Celebrate Chapel is real nice and only a couple of miles away. I'll call and see if they could fit you in," the clerk offered.

The chapel was not only available, but could provide rings and flowers, and it turned out to be in a pretty Victorian-style house. Under the excited gazes of the husband-and-wife proprietors, Rainey chose a beautiful bouquet of white roses and silver ribbons. She was almost as white as the flowers, but her eyes glowed.

After they selected plain gold wedding bands from a range of sizes, it was time. Kenzie's memories of the actual service were sketchy, apart from the fact that he had a death grip on Rainey's hand, fearing she'd change her mind. This was the most foolhardy thing he'd ever done. He'd never wanted anything more.

Voice resonant, the minister intoned,
"I now pronounce you man and wife."

In the flowing green dress she'd worn at the London wrap party, Rainey was the most beautiful bride Kenzie had ever seen, but she was trembling when he kissed her. He enfolded her in his arms, stroking her amber hair until the shaking stopped. "We'll make this work, Rainey," he whispered. "We can, and we will."

Smiling tremulously, she took his hand, and they walked outside into a seething crowd of reporters and onlookers. Kenzie swore to himself. Either the courthouse clerk or the chapel owners must have called every TV and radio station and newspaper in the Reno area, then every one of their friends and neighbors.

Microphones stabbed toward them like spears and questions pounded in from all directions. The loudest voice bellowed, "How did you get Kenzie Scott to many you, Raine?' The tone made it clear that he was a prize, and she was a nobody.

Swearing to himself, Kenzie wrapped an arm around her shoulders, walking them both toward the car. "That's the wrong question. The correct one is how did I manage to convince the loveliest, most intelligent woman in the Northern Hemisphere to be my bride? And I think the answer is that I was very, very lucky."

Rainey gasped when a particularly aggressive reporter shoved her aside, crushing the bouquet against her chest as he jammed the microphone in Kenzie's face. "Where have you two been hiding for the last week?"

Seeing no reason to reward rudeness, Kenzie ignored the man and answered a question from a woman with better manners. The crowd was coagulating in front of them. Rainey halted, unsure how to proceed.

More experienced with press mobs, Kenzie cleared a path with his free arm, surreptitiously crunching down on the foot of the rude reporter. "Keep moving," he murmured in Rainey's ear. "If we stop, they have us."

She nodded and managed to answer the next question, an innocuous one about making
The Scarlet Pimpernel
together. As they neared the car, a cloud of soap bubbles drifted toward them, blown by a group of giggling teenage girls. Surrounded by fragile, popping bubbles, Kenzie used the keyless remote to open the passenger door. He bundled Rainey inside and locked the door instantly so no one could open it again.

He'd have liked to drive over the whole damned lot of them, but experience had taught him that a measure of cooperation worked much better. Before getting into the car, he said in his best stage-trained voice, the one that could carry to the cheap seats in the back of a theater, "Ladies, gentlemen. This is a very special day for Raine and me. I hope we have your best wishes."

That disarmed the reporters enough that they allowed Kenzie to slowly maneuver the car away. He turned at the first corner into a residential area, weaving among the streets until he was sure they weren't being followed.

When they were safely away, he glanced at his bride. Rainey was staring down at her crushed bouquet, her face pale. "What have we done, Kenzie?" she asked in a low voice.
"What have we done?"

"The right thing, I hope." He captured her tense left hand and carried it to his heart. "Thank you for marrying me, Rainey. Wife."

She gave him a fragile smile. "Will it always be that bad?"

"No. We're a new item, and far more interesting as a couple than either of us were individually. Soon we'll be old news."

"I hope you're right." They had survived the first assault on their marriage. But they never quite recaptured the uncomplicated joy of that week on the California coast.

* * *

The New Mexico night was turning cold. Wearily Kenzie rose from the balcony chair and went back inside. It would have been better by far if he and Rainey had never married. For himself, he couldn't be sorry, despite the agony of losing her. Better this pain than emptiness.

It was subjecting her to equal pain that was unforgivable.

Chapter 11

Naturally, the day Marcus Gordon arrived everything went wrong. The truck carrying the cameras broke down on the rutted road leading to the morning's location, delaying shooting so much that they lost the light for the scheduled scene and had to postpone it.

Rainey then called for a scene planned for two days later—and found that Sharif didn't know his lines yet. Sweating and swearing it would never happen again, he asked for an hour and disappeared into a trailer to memorize his part. More delays.

A complex sequence that she'd painstakingly storyboarded in advance turned out not to work well in practice. She went into a huddle with her director of photography, assistant director, and production designer, and they devised a new sequence that worked beautifully. But by the time that was done, it was too late to shoot Sharif's scene.

Marcus had been quietly observing in the background, making use of the slack periods by working on papers he'd brought in a voluminous briefcase. As they shared a car back to the hotel, Rainey observed, "I think you brought us bad luck, Marcus."

"It's the same principle as bread always falls butter-side down—as soon as the producer shows up, everything falls apart. Don't worry, you're only a half day behind, and you should be able to make that up easily enough. Considering the number of action scenes you've shot, you're doing amazingly well."

He glanced at the papers on his lap. "You're staying on budget, too, which proves you've got some of the qualities of an effective director. Now all you have to do is produce a great movie at the end."

Though his comment was intended as a joke, Rainey was too frazzled to be amused. A movie was a terribly fragile creation that could be wrecked in ways too numerous for counting. They'd finish up in New Mexico within the next couple of days, and if she hadn't captured the right images on film, it would be too late.

Marcus continued, "I want to talk to you and Kenzie half an hour after we get back to the hotel. Just a short meeting in the production office, mostly about some promotional ideas I'd like to kick around."

"Fine." She guessed that Marcus wanted to see how much cooperation Kenzie would provide for publicizing the movie when it was released. Having Kenzie on a few major talk shows would be invaluable.

Ordinarily publicity was spelled out in a contract, but since Kenzie hated doing such things, Rainey had avoided the subject when she worked out their initial agreement. Now Marcus had to coax his star into a commitment. She'd have to do promo gigs herself if she wanted
The Centurion
to do any business, even though she hated them as much as Kenzie did.

"There's been some bad news on the financial front."

That caught Rainey's attention. "How bad?"

"Two million dollars of money that was promised has fallen through."

Her fists clenched. "That's a big chunk of my budget."

"I think I can find at least part of that amount elsewhere, but you might want to consider if you really need all the more expensive scenes, like the welcome at Victoria Station when Randall returns from his captivity. Crowds of people in a large location?" He shook his head. "That sort of thing is a nightmare to shoot, which means extra time and more money."

"I have to do that! The welcome home shows how appalled and overwhelmed Randall is to find himself being greeted as a hero when he feels like a disgraced failure." She'd written that scene from memories of the suffocating panic she'd felt when she and Kenzie were mobbed in public.

Marcus frowned. "I see your point. Very well, see if there are a couple of smaller scenes that aren't essential." They rolled up in front of the hotel, and he assisted her from the car. "I'll see you in the office in half an hour."

Rainey would have loved to take a shower, or better yet, a long bath, but the day was far from over. She headed straight to the production office, a conference room on the ground floor of the hotel. Val was already there sorting through Rainey's mail. She handed over a sheaf of papers. "This report is personal business."

Scowling, Rainey dropped into a chair. By the time she finished skimming the pages, Val had made a cup of mocha latte and placed it by her hand. Rainey took a deep swallow, needing the combination of sugar, caffeine, and blessed chocolate. "You'll have noticed that this is from an investigator researching who my father might be."

"Yes, but you don't have to tell me anything about it." The espresso machine made gurgling noises as Val processed another shot of coffee. "All I saw was the first paragraph. I didn't look any further."

"Such restraint must have been painful for someone of your curiosity."

Val grinned. "Damn right it was, but the last thing you need is more stress."

"Since you've known me forever, you might as well hear what Mooney has to say. He doesn't have any definitive answers. Just a list of contenders for the honor of having fathered me, rated in rough order of likelihood and with notes on which are dead and beyond DNA testing."

Val sipped a cappuccino, delicately licking a line of cream off her upper lip. "Are you that curious about your father?"

"I'm not obsessed, if that's what you mean. It's more that this is a... a piece of unfinished business. Maybe I'll never find out who the bastard is, and if so, fine, I've survived this long without knowing. But I figured that if I wanted to know, I'd better get cracking. The trail is already over thirty years old."

"Since your mother was famous, plenty of people must remember her."

"They certainly do. According to Mooney, he's established that Clementine's likely partners around the time I was conceived are in the range of eight to ten."

Val winced. "She lived up to her reputation as a hard-lovin' woman."

Rainey consulted the report. "If the semen contributor was a one-night stand at a club or concert, he'd be virtually impossible to trace, so Mooney sticks to potential daddies who had something resembling a relationship with her. Two were Asian and one black, so they're rated low probability, given my rather Celtic coloring."

She flipped to the next page. "There were three musicians, one of them part of her backup band, a rather mediocre bass player. She had a fling with the star of a hit cop television show of the time. I've seen it in reruns—the guy couldn't act his way out of a canary cage. There are rumors that she was involved with a studio executive, and/or a recording company honcho, but Mooney hasn't any names on that.

"The highest probability listing is for her drug supplier. They apparently consorted regularly for some months, but he met an untimely end from lead poisoning—the kind that comes in concentrated pellets that do bad things to one's anatomy. That happened when I was about six months old, and if he was my father, I can only rejoice. That's all Mooney has for now. If I want to continue, he figures he can narrow the field down to more manageable numbers."

From Val's compassionate expression, Rainey knew she was overdoing the brittle humor. She slid the report back into the FedEx envelope, wondering if she really wanted to know more. Probably not—but she did want to tie up the loose ends of her life, and this was a big one. When the investigation was over, she could file the findings away and forget the matter of her father.

Seeing the tawdry details of Clementine's life made Rainey appreciate her grandparents more. They were cold, strict, and humorless, but at least she'd never had to worry about strangers emerging from their bedroom in the morning.

Marcus and Kenzie entered the conference room together. Val made cappuccinos for both of the men, which gave Rainey time to bury the past again. The stresses of a bad day of shooting were mild compared to her early childhood memories.