Fade to Black (31 page)

In fact, when he heard that name from the television announcer’s lips a moment ago, his first thought was that it was in reference to the open call for the de Lisser film.

But it wasn’t.

No, that’s not what’s causing the latest media furor. Not by a long shot.

Flynn never moves his gaze from the screen as he dismounts his exercise machine and reaches for the phone.

W
ho can be calling at this hour?

At …

Rae lifts her head and glances at the clock radio on the nightstand.

… seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?

She pulls the quilt over her head and squeezes her eyes shut, hoping whoever it is will go away.

But the phone rings a second time …

A third …

A fourth …

And the machine picks it up, clicking on in the next room with her familiar recorded message.

“Hi, this is Rae, and I’m not in. Please leave your name, number, and the time you called, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.”

A beep.

And then, “Rae, it’s me. Flynn. Are you there? Pick up, Rae. You’re not going to believe this …”

H
arper Smith skipped his morning jog today, and not just because of the rain, which is still falling over coastal Rhode Island.

For one thing, he hasn’t slept a wink, though he went through the motions of climbing into bed when he got home in the wee hours of the morning, after the police let him go.

For another, he’s been waiting by the phone, thinking she might call. That she might want to talk to him.

Apparently not.

But the world wants to talk
about
her.

He sits on his futon with a cup of coffee in one hand and the television remote in the other, focused on the screen, where a breaking story has interrupted regular programming on every local network affiliate.

A story about
her
.

Elizabeth Baxter.

AKA Malloy Eden, who has just turned up alive and well and living in Windmere Cove, Rhode Island.

“M
rs. Minelli, how does it feel to discover that your husband is actually the man who stalked and tried to murder Mallory Eden five years ago?”

Pamela clenches her jaw and stares straight ahead, shouldering her way past the reporter who leapt at her out of nowhere as she got out of her father’s car in the police station parking lot.

“Did you ever realize your husband was fixated on Mallory Eden?” someone else calls, rushing toward her with an outstretched microphone.

“What about you? Were you aware of your next-door neighbor’s true identity, and that she was the reason your husband wanted to move to this particular town, to that particular house?”

Good Lord, the place is crawling with reporters, Pamela realizes, trying to move on, up the steps to the police department.

How many times has she been there in the past? she wonders vacantly, gazing at the familiar building. How many times, with the kids in tow, dropping off something that Frank forgot, or stopping in to say hello and show off her babies to the guys on desk duty?

The kids aren’t with her today, of course.

They’re at home with her mother, asleep and—hopefully—unaware of the furor that’s erupted, surrounding their father.

Pamela takes another step, then realizes that her path is blocked by a camera crew that’s up on the steps, shining an obnoxious spotlight right in her eyes.

She blinks, feels her father’s arm coming around her.

“Ignore them, honey,” he tells her, guiding her around the camera crew and into the building, where detectives are waiting to question her about her husband.

“I
told you, I had no idea who she was until I happened to see her in that video,” Frank Minelli says, keeping his voice steady and his gaze focused on the two grim-faced detectives seated across from him in the interrogation room.

They’re more likely to believe you if your voice is steady, he knows, and if you look them in the eye.

But damn, it’s nearly impossible not to find yourself shifty-eyed and warbling all over the place under tense circumstances like these.

He reaches up to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow.

“You’re saying that you are
not
responsible for stalking Mallory Eden in California, for following her here to Rhode Island after she faked her suicide, and for resuming the stalking?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Look, I already admitted that I sent the card to her post office box—”

“You had no choice. We’ve confirmed that the handwriting belonged to you.”

“I didn’t deny it.

“No, and you didn’t deny that you broke into her house,” one of the detectives puts in. “Or that you went to the library and used the computer there to investigate her background. Or that you were sneaking around at night, looking into her windows.”

“No, that’s not true. I couldn’t see into her windows,” Frank mutters. “The blinds were always down.”

“Such a shame,” the detective says in a mocking tone.

“You also admit that you were living in California five years ago when Mallory Eden was stalked and shot,” adds the other. “I’d say it looks like—”

“I was
staying
there,” Frank cuts in, careful not to let his voice rise. He clenches his fists beneath the table, away from their view. “I stayed there temporarily. With my brother, at his house. He lives in Pasadena. Check it out with him. I was out of work, so I went out there for a few months—but I swear I had nothing to do with stalking Mallory Eden. I didn’t even know she
was
Mallory Eden until last night.”

“Oh, come on. Then why send her the card?” asks one detective.

“A card that reads—” the other detective checks his notes, and continues—“‘I know who you are.’ What did you mean by that if not—”

“I meant that I knew who she was—that she was Babie Love. Not Mallory Eden.”

“Babie Love and Mallory Eden are the same person.”

“But I didn’t know that then. Look, I’m not the guy who stalked her in California and made her jump off a bridge. This whole thing is a coincidence.”

“You mean your winding up as Mallory Eden’s next-door neighbor?”

“Of course it’s a coincidence. How could I have followed her here, the way you think I did, knowing that the house next door would suddenly go up for sale when the old lady died, and I would be able to buy it?”

“You tell me,” one detective says.

“We’re looking into the old lady’s death,” the other puts in.

Frank’s heart starts beating even faster.

“You think I …? But that’s ridiculous,” he says. “I swear this is a coincidence. I swear I’m just a normal married man, a
father
, for Christ’s sake, who—”

“A normal married man who goes around stalking his next-door neighbor, breaking into her place, attempting to rape her.”

“I didn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do, so—”

“And I don’t think you and she are in agreement on that point.”

Frank clamps his mouth shut.

There are a few moments of silence.

Then Frank says, “Look, I didn’t know she was Mallory Eden. I didn’t even know she was Babie Love until I saw that porn video a few weeks ago, and I happened to recognize her.”

“So why stalk her? Why not go over to her like a normal person and say, ‘Hey, I saw you in this video last night …’?”

“Because—have you
seen
the video?” Frank’s face is hot; he knows he’s flushed.

And flushed doesn’t look good. Flushed indicates that a perp is lying.

The detectives shake their heads briefly.

“Well, after I saw that video, I figured she would go for that sort of thing,” Frank begins.

He’s interrupted by one of the detectives, saying incredulously, “You thought she would go for
stalking?
”

“I wasn’t trying to stalk her. I was just trying to get her attention, trying to be …”

“Trying to be what, Frank?”

“I don’t know …”

“What?”

“I don’t know … mysterious,” he blurts out.

He hates the smirks on their faces, loathes himself for being stupid enough to get caught.

And most of all, he’s furious with Elizabeth Baxter—Mallory Eden.

S
o.

Mallory Eden.

She isn’t dead after all?

Is it really such a surprise that the superstar actress never jumped off that bridge?

You should have known...

Mallory the golden girl would never have been able to take her own life—a golden life.

How clever she must have thought she was, to have escaped her stalker so easily, to have faded into obscurity.

How clever to have established a nice little life for herself, according to the television reporter now reporting live from the street in front of an unassuming Cape Cod house in a small Rhode Island town.

But not clever enough.

The world knows You’re alive, Mallory
.

The world knows…

And I know.

So …

What next?

You’ll have to see what she’s going to do now
.

And, depending on that …

You might have to get rid of her …

The knowledge comes in an unexpected, yet oddly welcome surge of awareness.

Get rid of her …

Yes, that’s right. It may have to be done.

Get rid of her …

This time for good, leaving nothing to chance.

But how?

When?

The specifics can wait.

Step one can’t.

The first thing to do is to get in touch with her again; to reestablish the connection; to win her trust.

You had it before. You can get it back again
.

And after that, if the situation isn’t satisfactory …

Prepare to die, Mallory Eden. This time for good
.

T
he ringing telephone jars Mallory’s thoughts.

The police detective seated next to her on the couch glances at her and she gets up to answer it, knowing she doesn’t have a choice.

Anything’s better than sitting there, under police guard, staring at the television set, where her very existence is being trumpeted by the media in special live news reports that have disrupted the Saturday morning cartoons. Outside, reporters are swarming, and there are helicopters vibrating in the sky overhead.

She is once again a prisoner in her own home, dogged not by fear, as she has been for the past five years, but by the press, and her fans, and curiosity seekers.

Strange, how quickly the familiar trapped feeling has come rushing back at her, even after all these years. She can’t even peer through the blinds at the hoopla in the street without feeling as though she’s suffocating.

She reaches for the phone, lifts the receiver, sees the detective, a fleshy-faced, hard-eyed man, keeping a watchful gaze on her.

Presumably, he’s there to keep her safe.

But she doesn’t trust him.

She’ll never trust anyone again.

“Hello?” she asks, bracing herself for a question zinged by a member of the press. They haven’t gotten hold of her unlisted number yet, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before they do, before they start calling and force her to take the phone off the hook.

“It’s me.”

She finds a faint smile slipping over her lips, catching her by surprise. How can she be smiling at a time like this?

“Harper,” she says, unwilling to let him know how relieved she is to hear from him. “What do you want?”

“To make sure you’re okay. Are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I figured you were. If you weren’t, you would have paged me. Right?”

She hesitates. He had given her the number of his pager before they separated early that morning, telling her to use it if she needed anything. Anything at all.

She wasn’t sure then, and still isn’t, whether he was talking about needing a locksmith, or needing …

A man.

A friend.

Or …

Whatever Harper Smith has somehow become to her in the past twelve hours or so.

“Hello?” Harper prods.

“I’m here. I just … isn’t your pager number for business purposes?”

“I’m self-employed. It’s no big deal. Just like I said … if you need something, page me.”

“I can’t imagine what I would need, aside from some privacy.”

“Privacy?” He makes a snorting noise. “I’ve been watching you on television. Finding out all sorts of things.”