The Pretender (3 page)

Next, the suitcase. It was old and shabby; Abby remembered
it from the trip to the Adirondacks, the only time she could recall Sunny ever using it. She pulled it out…opened it. And for a moment just sat on her heels, staring at the contents of the suitcase, not quite taking it in.

It was neatly packed, not with hot weather clothes, but as if ready for a trip tomorrow, with an assortment of underwear and socks, tops and pants, shoes, toiletries,
a jacket. Lying on top of the folded clothes was an envelope, the cardboard the red, blue and white kind used for priority mail. It was addressed to Sunshine Blue Wells—Sunny’s actual full name—and the return address was a law firm in Beverly Hills, California.

Slowly, clumsily, as if there was a faulty connection between her hands and the brain that controlled them, Abby turned the envelope
over and shook it. Several items fell out.

She drew a shaken breath and settled herself more comfortably. Then, cross-legged in front of the open suitcase, she picked up the items, one by one.

A heavy white business envelope embossed with the law firm’s return address, covered with the official forms and stamps and tags that designate a letter as certified, registered, return receipt
requested. It, too, was addressed to Sunshine Blue Wells.

A second, similar envelope, this one with only Sunny’s name handwritten on the front.

A Visa card, stamped with the law firm’s name.

A wad of small bills, mostly ones and fives. Almost one hundred dollars worth, Abby discovered as she counted it. She wondered if Sunny had saved the money from her tips at the club.

She opened the registered, official-looking envelope and took out several sheets of folded paper. She placed the papers in her lap, wiped her hands on her thighs, then took a deep breath before she picked up the first one and unfolded it.

It was a hand-written letter, on old-fashioned lined notebook paper, the kind with holes punched on one side. The writing was shaky and hard to read, and
after a moment Abby put it down and picked up the second sheet. This was heavy, expensive-looking paper, and on it was what appeared to be a typed translation of the hand-written letter. As she began to read it, her breath stopped. Her skin prickled.

My Dear Sunshine,

My name is Sam Malone, though for some reason many have preferred to call me by the nickname, Sierra, and I happen
to be your grandfather.

I am a very old man now, and I’ve lived a full and interesting life, during which I managed to amass a considerable fortune and squander the love of three beautiful women. As a result, I was not privileged to know my own children, including your mother, a fact that I deeply regret. But this is not the time for regrets, and I can’t change the past anyhow.

Since
I have outlived all of my wives and my children, it is my desire to share my earthly treasure with my grandchildren, any that may chance to survive me, and it is this last wish that has led me to write this letter to you. If you are not too dead-set against me and would care to come to my ranch to collect your inheritance, I do not believe you would be sorry.

My lawyer will no doubt include
with this letter the information you need to contact him to make the necessary arrangements.

Yours very truly,

Sam Malone

Cold, numb, hands shaking, Abby fumbled through the remaining papers and managed to scatter most of them onto the floor before she found the one she wanted.

The letter from the attorney—no, that one was only the cover letter for the hand-written one
and its translation.

There must be another one. Yes—there it was, the second one. Dated just two weeks ago.

Dear Miss Wells,

Thank you for your email in response to your grandfather’s letter. We are pleased you have decided to accept his invitation to visit him at June Canyon Ranch. Since circumstances make it advisable that you come as soon as possible, and you have indicated
that you have no restrictions on your time, I have taken the liberty of booking a flight for you. Enclosed you will find your itinerary, which includes your reservation. This along with your photo I.D. is all the ticket you will need. However, since you will no doubt encounter additional costs, such as baggage fees and ground transportation to the airport, I have included a credit card for your
use. Please use it with discretion, as its funds are limited.

If you require more time, please feel free to change the reservation to fit your schedule. If I do not hear from you to the contrary, I will assume the itinerary is to your satisfaction, and upon your arrival in Bakersfield, you will be met and transported by car to Mr. Malone’s June Canyon Ranch.

I hope you enjoy a safe
and uneventful flight, and I look forward to meeting you in the very near future.

Sincerely yours,

Alex Branson, Attorney at Law

Abby uttered a sharp cry, quickly stifled it with a hand clamped over her mouth. Then she began to shake with silent sobs. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she wrapped her arms across her stomach and rocked herself back and forth as all the tears
she hadn’t been able to shed in the past weeks poured down her cheeks, mimicking the rain cascading down the windowpanes.

Hearing strange sounds emerging from her mother, Pia came running and jumped into the suitcase with a questioning chirp. Receiving no immediate reassurances, she stood on her hind legs, placed her front paws on Abby’s chest and bumped her forehead against her chin. When
even that failed to produce the soft words and ear rubbings to which she was accustomed, she began to lick Abby’s cheek with her little sandpaper tongue. Tasting the salt, maybe. Or…offering comfort the only way she knew.

For the rest of that day and most of a sleepless night, Abby pondered the contents of the suitcase, the envelopes, the letters. A futon didn’t allow much room for tossing
and turning, especially with Pia curled up somewhere in the vicinity of her knees, and God knew she didn’t want to disturb the Cat-from-Hell in the middle of the night, so mostly she stared at the darkness and thought. And by the next day she still hadn’t decided what she should do about any of it. At times she felt all but smothered by the overload of the incredible, the unexpected, the unimaginable.
She hardly knew where to begin to dig out and try to make sense of a senseless mess.

One thing that struck her almost as soon as the wave of overwhelming grief had passed was the irony of discovering that Sunny did have something of value—a first-class ticket to California would almost certainly be worth enough to cover the rent with some left over for next month. Except that, not counting
the pitiful wad of cash, none of it was of value except to Sunny. The airplane ticket was in Sunny’s name and evidently nonrefundable. The credit card? No matter how many times Abby looked at it longingly, picked it up, turned it over in her hands, she always put it back in the envelope with a sigh. It, too, was meant for Sunny. If Abby used it, surely that would be stealing, or at the very least,
fraud. And anyway, according to the letter, the funds available were “limited”—whatever that meant. So, no—nothing in the envelope was of any help to Abby in her present financial situation.

And, of course, of no use to Sunny, now, either.

What kept Abby awake in the cold, lonely darkness listening to the night sounds of the city and the relentless rain outside her windows, was the
thought that played over in her mind like a stuck phrase of a song:
Sunny had a family.

She
has
a family.

One of the things that had brought them together from the very first moment they’d met at that audition—Abby fresh off the bus from Minneapolis, Sunny a veteran of the New York theatre scene, both hungry and determined—had been the fact that both of them were pretty much alone in
the world. Once they’d determined they weren’t in direct competition with each other—Sunny was a singer, mainly, whereas Abby had a voice like a lovesick crow—they’d become not only friends, but each other’s family. They’d looked enough alike to be sisters—and they’d fought like sisters, too. It had been an unlikely alliance from the beginning, but somehow it had worked.

But now…

Sunny
has a family. Did she know all along? Why didn’t she tell me?

Was she going to tell me? Ever? Or was she just going to leave, and not say anything?

She was like my
sister,
dammit!

She lay wretched in the wee hours of morning, thinking of Sunny abandoning her without any explanation, while self-pitying tears ran cold down the sides of her face and into her ears. It only made her
feel worse knowing she was being selfish and horrible, feeling sorry for herself when it was Sunny who was dead and wasn’t ever going to get to see the family she hadn’t known she had.

Then, somewhere along toward sunrise, it hit her.

Somewhere out in California, there’s a grandfather, and…who knows who else. A grandfather, at least. An old man who is looking forward to finally meeting
his long-lost granddaughter. And now…

I have to tell him.

How am I going to tell him she’s dead? Murdered. Strangled to death and left in an alley like so much trash.

Several times over the course of the next day she tried to do it. Picked up the lawyer’s letter and her cell phone, held one in each hand, heart thumping while she tried to gather her courage to make the call.
Once, she actually did punch in the numbers, but broke the connection before the call could go through. Telling herself,
Maybe if I wait a day or two, until the shock has a chance to wear off, it will be easier.

Hungry for more information, she searched the computer she and Sunny had shared, looking for the email the lawyer’s letter had referred to. She finally found it in the computer’s
unemptied trash bin, Sunny’s brief response to the letter from her grandfather, saying only that yes, she would come to California to meet him. Typically Sunny, no emotion, no excitement, just…sure, yeah, okay, might as well. Whatever.

Never let ’em see you sweat, right, Sunny?

Abby tried to imagine how Sunny must have felt, reading the letter for the first time.
What was going through
your mind, Sunny?

And why didn’t you tell me?

Naturally, she ran an internet search on Sierra Sam Malone. After reading through the first half dozen entries—including the one from Wikipedia—out of many millions, she shut down the computer and sat for a long time staring at the blank monitor screen.

Apparently, the man—Sierra Sam Malone—was some kind of a legend. He’d gone from
being a hobo during the Great Depression and a stuntman during the Golden Age of Hollywood Western movies, to become one of the richest men in the world. According to Wikipedia old Sam had indeed been married three times, had had three children and had outlived them all—the letter seemed to have been right on that score. At one time, during his marriage to his third wife—from a socially and politically
prominent family—he’d even been talked about as a possible presidential candidate. Then, following the tragic death of their son and daughter-in-law and the subsequent collapse of that marriage, Sam Malone had completely dropped out of sight. Supposedly he’d retired to his ranch in a remote valley in the Sierra Nevada mountains, rarely to be seen in public again. Howard Hughes without the weirdness,
it would seem.

As near as Abby could figure out, Sunny would have to be the descendent of Sam and his second wife, a Hollywood starlet named Barbara Chase, who had supposedly committed suicide when her daughter, Sunny’s mother, was still an infant.

Wow, this can’t be real.

Was that why Sunny hadn’t mentioned it? Had she been afraid it was all some crazy joke, an elaborate scam,
simply too far-fetched to be true? Maybe she was planning to check it out personally before allowing herself to buy into it?

It sure did seem real. Abby checked out the law firm, too, of course. It looked about as legit and respectable as anything possibly could. A bit staid and stuffy, even.

The credit card and plane ticket were real, too. So was the packed suitcase. There was no
getting around the fact that, for better or worse, before she’d gotten herself murdered, Sunny had been planning to go to California.

Abby went to work that night, even though her boss had told her to take the rest of the week off if she needed it. But she’d had enough of sitting alone in her apartment with only the internet, the Cat-from-Hell and her own tortured thoughts for company. She
figured even the club would be an improvement.

And besides, she needed the money.

It seemed strange, being in the club, everything looking the same, doing the same things, seeing the same people, the same faces, knowing it wasn’t ever going to be the same again. The weirdest thing was, it actually
felt
the same, as if any minute Sunny would come gliding in, wearing the skintight
black pants and black halter top that were her trademark, the golden mane of her hair tumbled over her bare shoulders as she picked up the mic and the room fell into a hush of anticipation.

“Seems impossible she’s gone, doesn’t it?” Elton, one of two bartenders on duty tonight, placed a pitcher of dark brew on a tray with four glasses, then turned a lopsided smile on Abby.

She gave
him the same smile back as she picked up the tray. She was an actress; she could smile and pretend with the best of them.