DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (46 page)

"Oh, Jesus, Jimmy. Where is he? Is he going to be all right?"

"He's in General. They're keeping him for observation, but he's going to be all right. Had a long cut on his scalp and some bruises, that's about it. He's pretty shook up."

"Robyn told me Karl's been having a rough time. Could you fill me in?"

Jimmy hesitated a couple of moments and that made Catherine frown. "Jimmy? What's been going on? I want to know."

"Too much to tell you about over the phone." Jimmy was evasive. "Let's just say someone's got it out for him.”

“Who?"

Another pause. Jimmy finally said, "Karl doesn't know yet. Some damn nut, if you ask me. Tore up his house just a few days ago. Now tried to run him off the road."

"Thanks, Jimmy. I'm going to the hospital to see Karl. I'll talk to you later."

Catherine picked up her car keys from where she'd dropped them next to the phone. She called to her housekeeper to watch after Barb, she had to go out again. On the way to the hospital she couldn't help but notice the similarities between Karl's house being roughed up and his accident on the freeway today to the scenes they had recently filmed for Pure and Uncut. Some coincidence. It gave her a prickly feeling of foreboding. It was just too coincidental, wasn't it?

She found out from the hospital information desk where Karl's room was and took the elevator up. The door to 221 was closed. She pushed it open slowly, wondering if she might accidentally intrude on some kind of medical procedure or maybe an aide giving Karl a sponge bath. She was relieved to see it was a private room and Karl was alone.

"Hi there," she called cheerfully, having steeled herself for the worst. Karl's head looked like a bandaged melon. Both his eyes were blackened and an angry lump the color and size of a red rose swelled his left cheek.

He was sitting up in bed, propped by two pillows. He immediately muted the television set where the evening news was playing. He turned toward her as if his head were made of thin, fragile glass that might roll off his shoulders and break.

"Catherine. Who told you?"

"I called your house and Jimmy answered. He told me. I wanted to see for myself how you were." She approached the bedside and laid a hand over his on the mattress. He withdrew his hand from beneath hers. She gave him a slightly puzzled look. "You look beat up, I'm afraid."

"Everything from my neck up hurts," he said. "I was bleeding like a slaughtered hog when they brought me in. How are my eyes? Last I looked, I thought I had turned into a raccoon."

She shrugged and tried to smile. "Looks like you took a few too many one-two punches from a heavyweight contender. Did the doctors say you're going to be okay?"

He shifted on the sheets, trying to sit straighter. She automatically put her hands under his arm and lifted to help him. She could feel him stiffen and draw away a little. Maybe his ribs were bruised too. Just what was his problem with being touched by her?

"I can go home tomorrow. They're just keeping me to see if I'm going to fall into a coma and die or something." He grinned a little to show he was making a brave joke. "It's not a bad head wound. Got some stitches . . . oh, about fifty-two of them." He reached up and gingerly touched the bandage on his head. "These bruises are from being knocked around in the car, slamming my head into the windshield. No big deal. I'll live."

"Before I knew this happened," Catherine said, "Robyn told me you'd been having trouble and asked if I'd talked to you. Jimmy wouldn't tell me much about what's been going on. What's this about somebody busting up your house?"

Now he turned to face her, wincing as he did so. His color was the dull, washed gray of concrete so that the black eyes and raised red knob on his cheekbone stood out like garish blobs of paint. "You're pretending you don't know about this, right?"

"I'm not pretending anything, Karl. I didn't know anything until Robyn said something today."

"You know, you're the one who might have made my life work out. If we'd given it a chance," he added.

"Well, that was a long time ago. Why don't you tell me about the things going on in your life now?"

"That's just it, Cat. Someone from the past is out to gut me like a fish. And doing a damn good job of it, I might add."

"The person who ran you off the road today, you mean? Did you see him?"

His eyes narrowed down so there was no light at all reflected from them. It looked as if empty black eye sockets were trained on her.

"Sun kept me from seeing who tried to kill me today. But it's a her, not a him. Right, Cat? It's a her."

"A woman? Who do you know crazy enough to play tag on a freeway during rush hour?"

"You drive pretty good, as I remember."

She had felt that coming since she'd walked into the room. He was holding back, he wasn't his old self, and it had nothing to do with his injuries. "You think I tried to run you down? Karl, why would I do that?" Maybe he was suffering from some kind of mental lapse from hitting his head. She had heard of head injury patients acting out of character. This wasn't at all like Karl to be paranoid and accuse people of crazy things.

Now he glanced away and his mouth was set in hard lines. "Just come out and tell me if it's you, Catherine. Whatever you've got against me, we need to work it out."

"Karl? What's wrong with you? I didn't run you off the road this morning."

"Do you blame me for losing the babies? You got rid of them because of me, didn't you?" He sat straight up and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her in close. She shuddered, looking into his eyes. She saw rage there, enough for him to tear her head off if he wanted.

He said, low and threatening, "How can you think it was my fault? I didn't even know about the pregnancy. If you'd asked me to choose between our relationship and the lives of the unborn, I wouldn't have hesitated a second. I would have told you to spare the twins."

His words were a kick in the stomach that caused her to pull free his hands and step back from the bed in shock. "What are you talking about, Karl?"

"You didn't know I found out about the abortion? You had it two days before our second date. You must have thought I wouldn't want anything to do with a woman pregnant by another man, but would have been wrong. You didn't even say anything to me. Did you even bother to tell the father? Did he want to abort them too?"

Tears cascaded down Catherine's cheeks. She tried to bury her sorrow and the vile sickness that had risen in her to form a hard knot in her throat by pushing her head down, down, forcing her chin toward her chest.

"I have to get out of here . . ."

She whirled around and stumbled into the food stand, knocking a Styrofoam pitcher of ice water to the floor.

"You did it, Cat. I didn't do it. I didn't even know. Is that why you want to hurt me now? To get me back for something I didn't really do? Don't you see how unfair that is? Cat, talk to me!"

She stepped over the ice and the puddle of water, grabbed the door handle and pulled the heavy door toward her. Everything in her vision was clouded by a veil of tears. She heard Karl pleading with her at her back, but she was out the door now and away down the hall, stumbling, crying, wiping the wetness from her face, and furious now, pinwheeling down the hallway. She ran past the nurses' station to the elevator door.

She did hate him now. She hated him for making her remember, for making her rehash the morality of her decision. For making her feel like a hard and cruel woman who had no heart at all.

In the elevator, alone, she wiped the last of the tears from her face. She thought of Barbara, her little girl, of how much she loved her to distraction, would do anything for her, sacrifice anything.

She sucked in breath, hurried out of the elevator on the ground floor, and rushed from the building.

What he had said hurt because it pointed to the truth she didn't want to think about. She could have sacrificed one affair with a man, with Karl, for the twin children she had been carrying in her body. She had acted selfishly and without honor. She had aborted the fetuses for the worst reason of all—for the hope of a love that never materialized. She had lost all around.

Done it to herself.

But Karl was wrong. She didn't blame him for anything.

She had absolutely done it to herself.

30

"Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are."

Dorothy Parker, Writers at Work

Karl looked straight ahead through the windshield of Lisa's car. She had taken the day off to pick him up from the hospital. She had been with him a few minutes when they'd brought him into emergency the day before. His face wasn't as black and purpled with bruises then. She flinched on seeing him this morning. He had to hold her close and reassure her before she stopped her anxious fidgeting around the room, gathering his things.

"Karl, why don't you let me drive you to my house? I don't think you should stay at your place until this gets resolved."

He tried to shake his head, but it hurt too much. "No, I'm going home. No one's going to run me out of my house. Whoever this is, she's not going to win. Not an inch."

Lisa turned left onto his road. "If she kills you, I guess that means she wins."

"No one's going to kill me. I'm going to start carrying my gun."

"That won't help much when you're in your car being bumped off the freeway."

"It'll help." Karl felt stubborn enough to hold out against any logic she might try on him. He wasn't moving out. He wasn't running. He wasn't going to give up his life or his career or his future over this.

He turned in the seat so he could see Lisa. "Have you talked to the garage that towed my Jag?"

"They left a message at your office. It's going to cost about six grand to repair the body damage. You wound up with two flats on the rear, too."

Karl kept silent, seething. He loved that car so much. It wasn't worth all sorts of body work, really, except for a sentimental old fool like himself. He'd rather have the older Jag than a new one. He'd have to pay the money for repair. If he said anything about this right now, he was afraid he'd start yelling and that would scare Lisa, the way he had scared and hurt Catherine last night. Unlike Catherine, who he suspected might be his stalker because it seemed to him she had the most motivation—as wrongheaded as it was—he really didn't want to upset Lisa any more than he had to.

"I'll need a loaner."

"I already handled that for you." She turned into his driveway and parked next to a blue Chevy Caprice.

"That?" he asked, indicating the Chevy.

"It's all they had."

"But it's so big and American looking."

She grinned over at him. "It's a Chevrolet, Karl, it's supposed to look like an American car."

"Well, I guess it might be more protection in freeway mishaps," he said, not quite kidding. "It was great of you to go to this much trouble to get me wheels."

She reached into her purse and produced the keys. He took them and held onto her hand, drawing her over to kiss her. For just a few moments the pain in his head went away and he felt at peace. "Thanks," he said. "Without you and Jimmy, I don't know what I'd do."

"Jimmy said he'd come by later, see how you are. He's working on the lot at Universal."

Karl kissed her again and opened the car door.

"You sure you should stay here, Karl? You won't reconsider?"

"You worry too much. I'll be fine." He didn't know if he believed that, but people had to lie sometimes just to keep everything square.

He let himself into the house before Lisa left the driveway. He shut and locked the door, engaged the alarm system.

His head hurt again and he needed to take one of the Tylenol 3 tablets prescribed by the doctor he'd picked up at the hospital pharmacy. He needed to call Lois and see how the office was doing. There would be a lot of calls to make.

And he needed a nap. He hadn't slept worth a damn in the hospital bed, nurses checking on him all through the night.

He touched the bandage around his forehead and then gently probed the swelling on his cheek.

He had to be so careful now. He had to watch his back at all times.

This must be what it felt like to be a foot soldier in a guerrilla war. You had to notice every leaf movement, the sound of every breaking twig. An enemy might hide in the shadow. Your life depended on being observant.

He had never been a soldier. He had never before been under attack. But he was learning fast what it took to survive.

When he went to open the cabinet in the kitchen to get a glass for water so he could take a pill, he saw the note.

He withdrew it and stood reading the words, heavy apprehension seeping into his bones.

I hear you survived. I'm so glad. I don't want to hurt you, Karl. You're my life. If something happens to you, I might as well be dead too.

Will you take me back now? Can you honestly tell me you're sorry for past transgressions and love me again?

Think about this before you answer. I'll be in touch to let you know what to do.

Karl ran his thumb over the string of Xs and Os that ended the note.

Perhaps this was his chance. If she let him meet with her or if he could leave a message somewhere, then he could watch to see her pick it up.

He'd have her. He'd have her good.

31

"In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future."

Stendhal, De l'Amour

Robyn made reservations at the Phoenix restaurant in the Algonquin Hotel on Sunset for a party of four. The Phoenix used to be the hot spot for Hollywood stars, but these days it had been supplanted by trendier places like the House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, and the Universe. The Phoenix's lack of notoriety meant they could talk without a lot of interruption.

She wasn't sure she knew what she was doing, calling this meeting. But she owed it to Karl. She still loved him, though she couldn't live with him; no, of course not, never again. She needed to investigate how the others felt about him to see if she could ascertain a clue as to who was doing the stalking. She owed him that much.