Judith McNaught (71 page)

Julie nodded in the dark, shivering at the clandestine overtones of everything he'd said. "I get your meaning," she said with a tight, nervous laugh.

The rocking chair creaked as he stood up. "It's been nice talkin' to you," he said, as his hand briefly touched her arm. "Good-bye, Zack's Julie. I hope you know what the hell you're doin'."

Julie hoped so, too.

"Don't turn the lights on in the back of the house until I'm gone."

She listened to his slow footsteps and had the feeling he moved with a slight limp.

Tony Austin heard a noise behind him and he reached for the lamp on the table beside him at the same

moment he saw the curtains stir beside the sliding glass doors. "Don't turn on the light!" the voice commanded as a shadow moved away from the curtains. "I can see you fine from right here."

"I don't need light to recognize your voice! Why the hell didn't you come to the front door?" Austin said, jerking his hand away and masking his surprise behind contempt. "I left it open for you."

"Do you have any idea how much I've wanted to kill you?"

"You blew your chance five years ago. Where's the money?"

"You're like a vampire, you bleed people dry."

"Shut up and hand over the money."

The shadow at the curtains raised its hand and Tony saw the gun. "Don't be a fool! If you kill me now, they'll figure out it was you in twenty-four hours."

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"No! They won't. Zack Benedict is on the loose, he's on a rampage, haven't you heard?" The laugh was chillingly shrill. "He's making threatening phone calls. People think I got one, too. I made sure they do.

They'll think he killed you. I waited such a
long
time for this moment—" The gun lifted, aimed, adjusted…

"Don't be crazy! If you kill me, they'll tr—"

The explosion from the barrel of the gun blew a small hole in Tony Austin's chest near his collar bone,

but the fact that the hollow point shell had missed his heart didn't matter. On impact, it fragmented throughout his entire chest cavity, killing him instantly.

"
I
t's wonderful of you to have all of us over for dinner like this," Mrs. Mathison told Julie as she stood up

to help her clear the table. "We shouldn't wait for special occasions, the way we often do," she added.

Julie picked up four glasses and smiled at her mother. It was a very special occasion—the last night she

would ever spend with them, because she was leaving to join Zack in the morning.

"Are you sure you don't want Carl and me to stay and help put the dining room back to order?" Sara asked as Carl helped her into her coat. "Carl needs to work up a bid for the recreation center, but that could wait for another half hour."

"No, it can't," Julie said, walking quickly into the living room and giving Sara and then Carl a hug.

She

held them both longer than necessary, and she added a kiss to their cheeks. Because this was good-bye.

"Take care of each other," she whispered to them both.

"We only live a mile and a half from here," Carl pointed out drily. Julie watched them walk down the sidewalk, memorizing the moment, then she closed the door. Ted and her father had settled down in the living room to watch the news and Katherine was helping clear the table.

"Sara is such a sweet girl," Mrs. Mathison said when she was alone with Julie in the kitchen. "She and Carl are so good together, so happy." Glancing over her shoulder into the dining room where Katherine was gathering plates, she whispered, "I think Ted and Katherine have found each other again, don't you?

Katherine was so young before, but she's settled down and matured, and Ted loved her so much. He never got over her."

Julie smiled somberly as she stacked the dinner plates Katherine was carrying from the dining room into

the dishwasher. "Don't get your hopes up too far. I invited Katherine tonight, Ted didn't. He's still seeing

Grace Halvers—fighting whatever he feels for Katherine probably."

"Julie, is something wrong? You seem strange tonight. Preoccupied."

Picking up the dishcloth, Julie fixed a bright, attentive look on her face and began wiping off the sink.

"Why do you say that?"

"For one thing, the water is still running, the dishes aren't done, and you're trying to wipe the counters.

You were always a neat girl, Julie," she teased as Julie hastily tossed the dishcloth aside and returned to

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her earlier task, "but that's carrying things a little too far. You're still thinking about Zachary Benedict, aren't you?"

It was a golden opportunity to prepare her mother for what she was going to read in Julie's letter and she

decided to take advantage of it. "What would you say if I told you I fell in love with him in Colorado?"

"I'd say that's a very pointless, painful, foolish thing for you to believe."

"And what if I can't help it?"

"I recommend tincture of time, honey. That cures everything. You only knew him for a week, after all.

Why don't you fall in love with Paul Richardson instead," she said half-seriously. "He has a good job, and

he's crazy about you—even your father noticed."

Realizing the conversation about Paul and the mundane chore of doing dishes were both wastes of what

precious time was left with her family, Julie tossed down her dishcloth. "Let's go into the living room,"

she

said, hustling her mother out of the kitchen. "I'll finish the dishes later." Raising her voice, she called,

"Does anyone want anything from the kitchen?"

"Yes," Ted called in answer. "Coffee."

Katherine, who had just come in to help at the sink, reached for cups and saucers, but Julie shook her head. "Go and spend some time with Ted. I'll come back for the coffee when it's ready."

Julie was partway into the living room, carrying a tray of cups, when she heard her father hiss, "Ted, turn

the television set off, Julie doesn't need to hear that!"

"I don't need to hear what?" Julie asked, stopping in cold dread as Ted dived for the television set.

"Leave it on, Ted," she warned sharply, knowing instinctively it was something about Zack. "They've got

Zack, don't they," she said, shaking so violently the cups on her tray rattled. "Answer me," she cried, looking at four appalled faces.

"They didn't get him," Ted fired sarcastically, "he's gotten himself another victim!" As he spoke, the television commercial ended and Julie saw a stretcher being taken out of a house, the body covered in a

white sheet, while the newscaster's voice seemed to loom in the room:
"Repeating the news of the
hour, Tony Austin, who starred with Zachary
Benedict and Rachel Evans in
Destiny,
was found
dead in his Los Angeles house today from a fatal
gunshot wound in the chest. Preliminary reports
indicate that the bullet was a hollow point shell,
similar to the one that killed Zachary Benedict's
wife, Rachel Evans. The coroner has tentatively fixed
the time of death at approximately ten
o'clock last night. Orange County police officials
have confirmed that Austin reportedly received
a threatening phone call last night from Zachary
Benedict and that Benedict was allegedly seen in
the area earlier last evening. Other members of
Destiny's
cast and crew who also received
threatening calls from Benedict have been warned to
exercise extreme caution—"

The rest of his words were drowned out by the crash of breaking china as Julie dropped the tray and covered her face with her hands, trying to blot out the memory of the white-shrouded body being put into

an ambulance and the recollection of Zack's cold voice:

"Leave Austin to me. There are other ways to handle him."

"Julie!" Voices rushed at her and hands reached for her, but she stepped back, staring blindly from her
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mother and Katherine who were bending to pick up the broken china to her father and Ted, who were standing near her now, watching her in alarmed consternation, "Please!" she choked. "I need to be alone

now. Dad," she said, reining in her hysteria so tightly that her voice was constricted, "please take Mother home. She shouldn't get upset over me. It's not good for her blood pressure."

She turned and walked into her bedroom, closed the door behind her, and sat down in the dark.

Somewhere in the house she heard the telephone begin to ring, but it was Mrs. Stanhope's voice that was

screaming in her mind:

"Zachary killed his own brother, and he killed his wife. In his movies, he played men who murdered needlessly and then escaped the consequences because they were 'heroes'…
He can no longer
separate reality from fantasy… Zachary is insane.

"If he had gotten help, Rachel Evans would not be lying in her grave…
For your own sake, turn him
in. Otherwise, there will be another victim someday,
and you will live the rest of your life carrying
the same burden of guilt that I must bear…"

Tony Austin's famous, charismatic face swam before Julie's eyes, his smile endearing and sexy. He wouldn't smile again. Like Rachel Evans and Justin Stanhope, he was dead. Murdered.

She heard Matt Farrell's warning,
"We also
discovered evidence that points to Diana Copeland

…

Emily McDaniels
…
Tommy Newton."

Reaching into the nightstand drawer, Julie took Zack's letter out and clutched it to her, but she didn't need to read it; she'd memorized every word.

Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she bent forward,

rocking back and forth in a tearless agony, pressing the letter to her heart, silently keening his name in the

dark.

* * *

her except the torment of the moment, voices that forced her slowly to her feet. Voices of people who need to know … to help … to tell her…

Her father broke off his conversation with Ted and Katherine as Julie walked into the living room, her body stiff as wood, the letter she'd intended to leave for them clutched in her hand,

"I sent Mother home," her father said.

Julie nodded stiffly and cleared her throat. "That's good." For a moment, she twisted the letter she'd written to them in her hands, then she thrust it at him. When he took it and opened it, holding it out so Ted could read it, too, she added, "I was … was leaving to join him tomorrow."

Ted's eyes snapped to hers, narrowing in furious disapproval.

"It's true," she said before he could speak.

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Julie watched him move toward her, but she jerked away when he reached for her arm, "Don't touch me!" she warned hysterically, clutching the back of a chair. "Don't touch me." Switching her gaze to her father's grim, hurt face, she watched him finish the letter, drop it on the table, and stand up. "Help me,"

she told him brokenly. "Please help me. You always know what's right. I have to do what's right.

Somebody help me," she cried to Katherine, who was blinking back tears, and then to Ted.

Suddenly she was pulled into her father's arms and clutched tightly to him, his hand soothing her back as

he'd done when she was a little girl crying over a minor hurt. "You already know what you have to do,"

he said gruffly. "The man has to be caught and stopped. Ted," he said sounding shaken, but taking over,

"you're the lawyer. What's the best way to handle this without further incriminating Julie?"

After a moment of silence, Ted said, "Paul Richardson is our best bet. I could call him and try to make a

deal with him. Julie turns Benedict in and he holds her blameless. No questions asked."

The word
questions
jerked Julie out of her tortured stupor. Her voice vibrating with wild alarm, she warned, "Tell Paul I won't answer any questions about how I know where Zack is going to be!" She thought of Matt and Meredith Farrell and the laughing young man who'd brought her a car to drive

—all

of them loyal to a man who'd betrayed their trust because he was sick. Because he couldn't help himself.

"If you call him," she repeated, trying to keep her voice steady, "he has to agree that I won't be expected

to tell him anything except where Zack is going to be tomorrow night. I won't involve anyone else in this,

I mean it!"

"You're up to your neck in illegal intrigue and you're worried about protecting somebody else!" Ted bit out. "Do you realize what Richardson could do to you? He could haul you out of here in leg irons tonight!"

Julie started to answer, but the restraint she'd been exerting was collapsing, and she turned on her heel instead. Walking into the kitchen, she sank down into a chair at the table, because that was as far as she

could possibly get from the phone call that was going to betray her lover. Her shoulders shaking with

silent sobs, she covered her face with her hands, and the tears she'd been fighting streamed in hot torrents down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, darling," she wept brokenly, "I'm so sorry…"

Katherine pressed a handkerchief into her hand a few minutes later, then sat down across from her, lending silent support.

By the time Ted walked into the kitchen, Julie had managed to get herself under a semblance of control.

"Richardson will take the deal," he said. "He'll be here in three hours." He turned as the telephone rang on the kitchen wall and yanked the receiver out of the cradle. "Yes," he said, "she's here, but she's not taking calls—" He frowned and paused, then he covered the mouthpiece and said to Julie, "This is someone named Margaret Stanhope. She says it's urgent."

Julie nodded, swallowed, and reached her hand out for the phone. "Have you called to gloat, Mrs.

Stanhope?" she asked bitterly.