One of Those Malibu Nights (28 page)

“True,” Allie agreed. And she strode outside, order pad at the ready.

“Bonsoir,”
she said, wafting away the new wispy bangs that were sticking to her glasses, and giving them a smile. “Lovely to see you both again. Vodka tonics, isn’t it?”

Robert smiled at her. “It is,” he agreed.

The blonde took out her cell phone. “Has anyone ever told you you should get rid of those glasses?” she said. “Try some contacts. It would make a difference.” And suddenly she reached over and snatched off Allie’s glasses, holding her cell phone up to her surprised face.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it, Robert?” she said. She put down her cell phone, handed Allie back the glasses and said, “I’m dying for that drink.”

“Do you have any idea how rude you are, Félice?” Robert’s voice was icy. “How dare you do that to Mary.”

She shrugged. “It was just a helpful little gesture, that’s all. Woman to woman. And you have to admit she looks better.”

Allie rammed the glasses on her nose and, furious, hurried back indoors. She knew Félice de Courcy had photographed her and there was nothing she could do about it.

She sent Jean-Philippe out with the drinks. When she complained to Petra, Petra went out and took their order and served them herself.

“There’s something about that Félice woman I don’t like,” she told Allie later, when they were tidying up the kitchen together. “She’s too nosy by far, always asking questions about you. I don’t know what she’s up to, but it’s something, you can bet on that.”

Allie’s heart sank. All was not well in Paradise after all.

The drive to the Villa Appia in Tuscany was a long one, and it was dark when Mac finally found the large rose-colored house behind iron gates. A perfectly kept gravel driveway led to the massive front door. No lights were on and it appeared to be deserted.

“It looks like a fortress,” Sunny whispered.

Mac tried the gate. “Maybe not,” he said, opening it.

He rang the bell. There was no answer. He rang again, waiting. When no one answered, he tried the door. It was locked. They walked around the side of the house until they came to the kitchen door. Surprisingly, this one was open.

Sunny hobbled indoors after Mac. She didn’t want to be left behind in that silent garden. There was not even a bird singing, for God’s sakes.

She hated breaking into places, it gave her the creeps. Like in Palm Springs, she had spooky tremors up and down her spine as they stood waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, she saw they were in an enormous kitchen. Very modern, with everything built in behind dark wooden doors with no handles. It might have been a library there was so much wood. The only way you could tell it was meant for food preparation was the double sink beneath the window and the six-burner stove top. Not a coffeepot, not a canister, not a refrigerator or dishwasher in sight.

“Wait a minute,” she whispered. “Aren’t Tuscan villas supposed to have nice old-fashioned kitchens, all white tiles and ancient cast-iron cooking utensils and a big old fireplace for roasting wild boar or something?”

Mac was standing at the polished granite slab that served as a table, looking at an envelope by the thin beam of a pencil flashlight.

“Not this one,” he said. “This is a movie mogul’s country house. Renato Manzini.”

“Manzini,” Sunny breathed, stunned. “Could
he
have kidnapped Marisa?”

But Mac had already disappeared through a door. It swung silently closed behind him, creating an evil little draft, and Sunny shivered again.

She shifted uncomfortably on her painful foot, hating to be left alone yet afraid to go through that door and try to find Mac in the dark. Why did she always let herself in for
these kinds of things anyway? She should have learned by now.

She had a raging thirst and she peered round, wondering which of the doors might be hiding a refrigerator, hoping for some cold bottled water. She tried one, then another. No luck. She stopped and listened, heard the low hum that said fridge, stepped toward it and pulled open the door.

The interior light switched on.

She was staring into the blank green eyes staring back at her. All the shelves had been removed and Marisa Mayne’s slender body was folded into the space like a ventriloquist’s dummy. A trail of blood streaked from her mouth, and her tumbling red hair sparkled with a coat of frost
.

For a numb second, Sunny was spellbound. Then fear surged into her throat, hot as battery acid. A scream gurgled somewhere inside her but she couldn’t get it out. She turned to run …

A hand slammed over her mouth. Her arms were pinned at her sides. She felt his breath on her neck …

She bit down on his hand, gagging as her teeth sank into his flesh. She bit harder, teeth seeking bone, red-hot with panic.

The killer ripped his hands away, and now he wrapped them around her throat …

She had not known fighting for your life could feel like this, fighting for every breath
.

Her tongue was forced out of her mouth …She choked and gurgled.

“Sunny?” Mac’s voice came from the door. “Sunny, where are you?”

So this is what it feels like to die
, Sunny thought, as the killer let go and she dropped like a stone to the floor.

“Oh my God, Sunny.” Mac knelt over her, his mouth on hers. “Tell me you’re okay. Please,
please
, Sunny …”

She could still feel the painful imprint of the killer’s fingers on her neck, and her tongue was twice as big as normal. When she finally managed to speak her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

She pointed a trembling finger at the wall of dark wooden cabinets. “Look,” she managed to say.

“Who was it?”
Mac demanded.

“Just open it,” she whispered ….
“Open the door.”

Mac opened the refrigerator door, the interior light clicked on. And Marisa’s icy body slid out and landed at his feet.

Oddly, the one thing Sunny noticed then was that Marisa’s ring was missing.

If Petra was surprised when Robert Montfort casually dropped by the Manoir, she kept her silence. He pushed through the door calling
“Bonjour”
and strode into her kitchen, making himself at home. He took a seat at the vast table, doing as Petra did and clearing a space with his arm while she brewed up tea in the big brown pot and produced jam tarts fresh from the oven, that along with the chocolate digestives were her favorite snack.

Allie’s cheeks were pink from embarrassment as Petra gave her a long inquiring smirk, when she came and sat at the table.

“You two going steady or what?” Petra asked, impatient with all this dodging around the issue. “If not, Robert, then it’s time you took her out on a proper date. Tell you what, I’ll
give her the night off. She’s earned it. Take her to Monpazier, let her see how beautiful a thirteenth-century fortified village is. Show her the square and the stone arcades, have dinner at the Hôtel de France. It’s always nice there.”

Robert laughed. “You should be in the matchmaking business.”

“I thought I was,” Petra replied, passing him a hot-from-the-oven jam tart.

Robert looked at Allie. “Would you please accept my invitation to dinner tonight?” he asked with mock solemnity.

“Only if you tell me you weren’t bullied into it,” she said, and they both laughed.

“And Mary love,” Petra said to Allie, “wear something pretty tonight, instead of those everlasting jeans.”

So Allie put on the black pants and the white taffeta shirt she had worn for the movie premiere in Cannes. Her hair had grown from the Jean Seberg
Breathless
crop into a spiky bob, though she still colored it a drab brown. The heavy framed glasses were not exactly an asset, but she was afraid to go without them. As it was, in her pretty outfit, wearing a little makeup and with gold hoops in her ears, she hoped she would not be recognized.

“But you are gorgeous tonight, Mary,” Robert said, his eyes gleaming with appreciation. Actually, Allie thought Robert didn’t look so bad himself, in a blue shirt that set off his dark good looks.

As they drove he told her about the history of the countryside:
about the wars when Edward of England, known as the Black Prince because of his dark suit of armor and his black stallion, had ruled over this part of France. Monpazier remained as one of the most beautiful of the fortress villages in the area.

The tiny ivy-covered Hôtel de France was tucked away behind one of the stone arcades. Tables were set outside and the bar was doing good business. Robert had requested a corner table indoors and they were greeted by the owner, who of course knew him, and settled them in with a bottle of Clos d’Yvigne white. A rival vineyard, Robert explained, though he liked their wines very much.

Relaxed, Allie found herself telling him about her Malibu home, and how much she liked the temperamental weather and the sound of the ocean always roaring in the background.

“So tell me the truth, why are you really here?” Robert asked, surprising her.

“So, okay,” Allie said, thinking. “I’d lost myself,” she said eventually. “I didn’t know who I was anymore. Perhaps I never had known. I needed to get away, try something new, in some place where no one knew me, and where I would have to function completely on my own.” She smiled with the relief of saying it. “And I did. I found myself a dog. I found Petra and the Manoir. I got myself a job at the Bistro …”

“And tell me, what did you do before you became a waitress and now a chef?”

She could see he wanted the whole truth and nothing but, and he knew he wasn’t getting it.

“I guess I was just a Hollywood wife,” she said finally. “I loved my husband very much,” she added, surprising herself. “He was the only man I ever met who saw the real me.”

“Until now, perhaps,” Robert said with a meaningful look.

Worried that this might be progressing faster than she wanted, Allie avoided his eyes.

“All my life I’ve had to make plans, to show up and please people,” she said. “When I came here I made a new vow. I would only please myself. I’m happy the way I am. For now,” she added.

He lifted his glass in a toast. “Then let us drink to that. I admire a woman who knows her own mind.”

Robert didn’t try to kiss her on the way home, though he did hold her hands in both his as they stood on the steps of the Manoir, saying good night.

“Tell me we can do this again, Mary,” was what he said, and Allie replied that she would love to.

It proved to be the first of several dinners together, each more enjoyable than the last, where Robert taught her the history of the area and they enjoyed the local gourmet produce, until Allie protested that she was getting fat.

“Never,” he said, kissing her this time. “You’ll always be beautiful.”

Allie had kissed a lot of men in her movie career, but she really enjoyed that kiss.

In the South of France, Jessie Whitworth was driving a silver Peugeot convertible with the top down. She wore large dark glasses and an expensive designer dress that belonged to Allie. She had taken it from Allie’s overstuffed closet a few months ago, because she liked it and saw no reason why she should not have it. After all, Allie had so much, she wouldn’t miss it.

She had been taking things for a long time, knowing that Allie was caught up in her work and also in her emotional turmoil. And besides, Jessie knew she was unlikely even to notice. Allie was not into clothes, she was into “people” and finding what was “missing” from her life. Jessie knew exactly what was missing from
hers
. And it was exactly what Allie possessed.

Driving along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, Jessie thought appreciatively that the Peugeot was a better car than the Sebring she had used in L.A. to stalk Allie, though of course it was not in the same league with the Porsche she’d rented every now and then, when she would get dressed up in one of Allie’s outfits, with one of her designer handbags, and shoes. (Jessie preferred Vuitton, because it was so recognizably expensive and she liked people to look at her and admire her and imagine how rich she must be.) Sometimes she would go shopping in Beverly Hills, exploring Neiman’s and Barneys and Saks, though she could not afford to buy anything. Still, she’d try things on and the saleswomen were more than nice to her, and for a few hours she’d feel important. She had felt like Allie Ray.

Her own car was a down-to-reality Ford Explorer, five years old and bought used. Somehow, making money had never been one of Jessie’s talents.

It was true, what she had told that nosey parker friend of Mac Reilly’s. Roddy Kruger, that was his name. She had indeed had ambitions to be an actress. More than mere ambition, she’d wanted it desperately. She was different, with her anonymous half-plain, half-attractive look, and with makeup and clothes she could become almost anyone. But somehow nobody had taken her seriously. Worse, they had rejected her. Time and again they had rejected her. Every audition she went to she faced those same blank dismissive looks, the “Thanks for coming, miss… .” They never even
remembered her name. The scars of those years were visible now in her tightened mouth and hard eyes.

Jessie so wanted to be Allie, sometimes she believed she really was her. Sometimes she would have her blond hair, her look, her clothes. Then her whole persona became Allie.

But Allie had rejected her too. She had fired her. At first Jessie had thought her boss had found out she had been stealing. But no. It was the same old same. Allie did not want her around anymore. Three months’ salary and a reference and that was it.

Jessie had wanted to kill her right there and then, but the timing was bad. And then there had never been the opportunity. And Allie had already left for France the night she went to the house in search of her, the big kitchen knife in her hand. So she’d slashed the gowns instead, taking with her the ones she fancied, and which were now in her luggage ready for her next public appearance.