One of Those Malibu Nights (15 page)

She groaned. “Explain to me why we don’t just use the garage door opener and get out the usual way.”

“Because we don’t want to announce our illegal presence to all and sundry passing by on the street. Especially if Demarco is still around, though I doubt that. Tell you what, why don’t you get out, then go around to the beach side. The window should still be open. Then come back through the house and let me out.”

Sunny glared at him. “I’ve a good mind to leave you here.”

“Aw come on. You’ve got to admit it was worth a try.”

Sighing, Sunny eyed the doggie door. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she said.

In a few minutes she was standing outside breathing the fresh salty night air.

“Oh thank God,” she whispered to herself. But she had to be quick and rescue Mac before somebody got suspicious or Demarco came back.

“Thanks,” Mac said, when she finally opened the
kitchen door and let him out. “Tell you what,” he said as he reset the alarm and they exited quickly, locking the door behind them. “I’ve got a bottle of good champagne chilling just for you. How about it, babe?”

“I hate you,” she said, smiling.

After the second glass of champagne, when Sunny’s nerves had stopped twitching and she had agreed not to keep looking back down the beach at Perrin’s house, she told Mac about Allie’s visit, and how she had revealed her very personal life story.

“She just wanted to talk,” Sunny said. “And I was the anonymous person who would listen. A ‘girlfriend.’”

“So what do you think of Allie, now?” Mac asked.

Sunny took a thoughtful sip. “I like her. I think she’s had—is having—a hard time. And I admire her. She came from a tough background and fought her way to the top, even though she says it was Ron who in the end gave her that final leg up to movie-biz stardom. But I get the feeling she’s at a crisis point. I don’t think she knows which way to turn. And besides, she misses her husband. I got the impression that she depended on him for everything. Ron Perrin was her rock in a very craggy business.”

“You sure she misses him?” Mac sounded surprised.

“I’m sure of it,” Sunny said firmly. “In fact I’d be willing to bet she still loves Ron Perrin.”

It was a few days later and Allie was in the South of France, alone on the terrace of her luxurious suite at the Hôtel du Cap. She was clutching a glass of champagne, taking a gulp from it every now and again to steady her nerves, thinking of what she was about to do. Snatches of conversation and laughter drifted from the gardens below, along with the faint slurp of the Mediterranean hitting the shore. Umbrella pines straggled across the skyline as the horizon turned a neon blue to match the sea, and the air felt soft against her skin.

She thought of Malibu, where the Pacific Ocean always let you know who was master, curling in high iced-green waves that slammed against the shore in a torrent of white
foam, then receded with a whisper over the rocks. She thought of Ron and their home at the water’s very edge, of how, when they had first bought it, they would lie awake listening to the ocean that somehow soothed them into sleep with its noise. And she remembered Mac’s humble little place, perched precariously on its wooden pilings, and as charming and casual as the man himself.

A glance at her gold Cartier watch told her it was almost time. She just had one last call to make. She punched in the numbers, hoping Sheila would be there. Luckily, she answered right away.

“Sheila, this is it,” Allie said softly. “I have nothing to return for.”

“Sweetheart, are you sure?” There was a hint of panic in Sheila’s voice.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything since I was a teenager and wanted to get out of that deadly little town in Texas. Sheila, it’s what I have to do. What I
need
to do. I don’t know where it will end, but I have to be on my own. I have to try to create a new life.”

“But how, what will you do, Allie?”

Sheila was worried, but there was a new lift to Allie’s voice as she answered. “I have no idea. I guess I’ll find something. I’ll let you know, my friend. But you promise to say nothing to anyone?”

“Not even Ron? If he should return that is?”

“Especially not Ron.”

“And what about the detective? Reilly?”

Allie hesitated, but she decided quickly she had to do this alone. “Not even Mac Reilly,” she said firmly.

Sheila wished her luck, said she would be thinking of her, and Allie promised to call before too long. Then she walked back into the suite, checked her appearance in the full-length mirror and called for the bellboy to carry her small suitcase to the waiting limo.

Taking a deep breath, she walked to the door. She turned for one last look at the charming room with its view of the sea; at the silver ice bucket with the open bottle of excellent champagne and the massed bouquets of scented flowers; at the piles of expensive clothes that the maid would straighten out for her. At the life of a movie star on her way to her premiere. And then she closed that door and took the elevator downstairs to the lobby where her director was waiting for her.

She caught his slight frown of disapproval at her plain outfit, but still he smiled and said how lovely she looked.

“Sometimes simplicity is better,” she said “It’s just a pity we didn’t keep that in mind when we made this movie.”

They sat in silence for the almost forty minutes it took to drive what usually took only twenty. The traffic was hell and the director was biting his fingernails, afraid they were going to be late. But Allie knew they would wait for her. Everyone always did.

As the limo drew up at the Palais des Festivals, she
stepped out and posed smiling for the photographers. Compared to all the glitter and the gowns and the glamour, she caused a sensation. So simple, so different in her narrow black silk pants and plain white taffeta shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her only jewels a pair of gold hoops and, oddly, since it was known her marriage was on the rocks, her gold wedding band. Her blond hair was pulled back into a chignon and tied with a black satin bow, the way Grace Kelly used to wear hers in the sixties, and in fact more than one person commented on her resemblance to Monaco’s late princess.

She walked to the enormous red-carpeted flight of steps leading into the Palais, holding hands with her director, smiling and waving to the crowd, posing some more, the complete professional, making sure the photographers had what they needed. Then she strode up the steps, turning at the top for one final wave. No one would have guessed that at that moment she felt she was the loneliest woman in the world.

She sat through the screening of her movie, with its title,
Midsummer’s Dream
, half-stolen from Shakespeare. Despite some drastic last-minute cutting it was as slow and emotionally unmoving as she’d suspected it would be from the first week’s shooting, when the script had begun to be changed. From then on it had been changed on a daily basis until nothing was left of the charming little love story, which was how it had started out. But anyway, her thoughts were not on the film. That was the past.

She was thinking about Mac Reilly and his phone call before she’d left for France, wishing her good luck. “Sure you won’t change your mind and join me?” she had asked wistfully, already knowing his answer. Loneliness had made her try, and despite her brave words to Sheila, she was scared by what she was about to do.

The movie was over. Time to face the press, do the interviews, pose for the photographers one more time. Then on to the cocktail party given by the studio on the enormous yacht moored in the bay, and then to dinner at the famous Moulin de Mougins restaurant, where once again the beautiful Sharon Stone was conducting a live auction to benefit AIDS.

And after that? After that Allie’s time was her own.

At the auction, she bid on a luxury cruise for two. Surprised when she won, she generously donated it back to be reauctioned. Then whispering to her director that she was tired, she said good night and slipped from the darkened room.

Her small suitcase was already stashed in the back of the limo. Allie asked the driver to take her to Nice airport. She opened the case, took out a long cardigan and slipped it on. She pulled a straw hat over her hair and adjusted the brim so it shaded her face. A pair of square-framed glasses hid her eyes and she wiped off her lipstick.

When they arrived, she tipped the driver a generous couple of hundred dollars, said she did not need any help,
hefted her suitcase, then walked into the departures terminal and headed for the restroom.

In a stall, she quickly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Then she picked up the suitcase again and walked out to the car rental facility.

This was the test. Would they recognize her? Or would they not?

The woman at Euro-Car was tired and disinterested. Yes, Madam’s car was waiting. She just needed to see her driver’s license, passport, credit card, and she should sign here.

Allie gave her the new passport with her real name, Mary Allison Raycheck, and the new credit card. She held her breath. Would the woman look at her to check?

“Row C, number 42. Left out of the door.
Et bon voyage.”

Bon voyage
, Allie thought, elated, throwing her suitcase into the trunk of the small baby blue Renault then climbing into the driver’s seat. Little did the woman know this was to be the
“voyage”
of a lifetime.

She shut the car door with a solid thud, then sat for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by fear. Desperate, she took out her BlackBerry and called Ron at the Malibu house. There was no reply. She tried Palm Springs. The same. She called Mac Reilly. Again no reply, only the request to leave a name and number, which she did not.

Tears glittered in her eyes but she brushed them away.
There was nobody to even care what she did. Still, there would be no more threatening letters, no more crazy stalkers, no more complicated love life—or rather, lack of one. And no more movie star. She was free. She was Mary Allison Raycheck.

Back to that again.

Roddy was having a busy day and one not quite to his liking. First he paid Allie’s housekeeper a visit to question her about the staff and the extra cleaners, the pool service, the gardeners. Allie was in Cannes and Ampara was alone.

She was holding Allie’s little white dog on her knee while they talked over a glass of iced tea in a rich man’s kitchen that could have graced the cover of
Architectural Digest
, and that Roddy thought was big enough to double as a ballroom.
Cozy
was not exactly the adjective that sprang to mind, but he smiled and said how great it was and how happy Ampara must be to be working in such elegant surroundings.

Ampara was from El Salvador and knew what poverty looked like. She had worked for Allie and Ron Perrin for
four years and sent money home regularly to her family. Comfortable-looking was how Roddy would have described her, small and round and sort of grandmotherly, though in fact she was only forty-five. She spoke excellent English, which she told him was essential if you wanted a good job like this one because it meant you could take messages.

“And have there been any messages for Miss Ray since she left for Cannes?” Roddy asked.

Ampara shook her head, looking sorrowful. “No, sir. There’s been no messages for Mr. Ron either. And with both of them gone and maybe splitting up, I’m not sure where I stand anymore, job-wise.”

Roddy looked concerned. “Even though they’re away, you still get paid though, right?”

“Oh yes sir, the accountants have always taken care of that. But it gets lonely here, in this big house all by myself. Especially at night. I have my own apartment over the garage and I don’t mind admitting that me and Fussy lock ourselves in there and bolt the door. I’m glad of the little dog’s company,” she added, lifting Fussy to kiss her on her nose.

Roddy could have sworn he saw the dog smile, quite different from the snappy little creature that evening at the beach. And he didn’t blame Ampara for being intimidated. This was a huge house that demanded to be filled with people, a party house meant to be exploited and shown off. A bit like Allie herself, he thought.

Ampara told him that all the indoor and outdoor staff had worked there for years. The only casualty was Allie’s assistant, Jessie Whitworth, who had worked for Allie for almost a year and who she had “let go” a couple of months back.

“I think Jessie was surprised when Miss Allie told her she didn’t need an assistant anymore. Miss Allie said she was cutting back on work and personal appearances, and anyway she wanted to take over her own life,” Ampara added.

Roddy’s ears perked up. A sacked personal assistant sounded likely to be an angry ex-assistant, one who might want revenge. But when he asked Ampara she said no, Jessie wasn’t like that. She was a nice quiet young woman, always polite and with a smile.

So were some serial killers, Roddy thought, writing down Jessie Whitworth’s name, address and phone number.

“More iced tea, sir?” Ampara asked.

“Thanks, no. I’ll be on my way. You’ve been more than helpful.”

The housekeeper’s round face looked doleful. “I surely hope Miss Allie and Mr. Ron gets back together, sir. I’m not happy being here alone. I need someone to look after. That’s why I’m so fond of Fussy here.”

She saw Roddy out through the massive front hall with its double sweeping staircase and crystal chandelier, standing on the steps, the dog in her arms, watching as he got in his car. She waved as he drove off.

Roddy dialed Jessie Whitworth’s number. She answered right away. A pleasant low voice, precise and businesslike. She sounded like the perfect secretary as she agreed to meet him at the Starbucks near Wilshire and Third in Santa Monica.

She was already there when Roddy made his way in. He could have picked her out even if she hadn’t waved hello from a corner table. In contrast to the young clientele, who were mostly in lowrider jeans and cropped T-shirts with their hair bubbling down their backs in blond extensions, she was tall and very neat looking in a buttoned-to-the-neck blouse and well-cut brown pants, worn with Gucci loafers. Miss Whitworth’s hair was cut in a neat black bob, and she was pretty in an unobtrusive sort of way. Roddy got the feeling she had spent a lifetime trying to appear unobtrusive. He guessed it was the only way to survive as an assistant to important people who sometimes acted as though they were more important than they were.