City Of Mirrors: A Diana Poole Thriller Part 7

"It's all over the TV. I discovered her body. You can go into the kitchen and learn all about it. I'm still going to bed."

"You found her body?" Confused, he ran his large hands through his red unruly hair. "How well did you know her?"

"You don't need to know someone well to find their corpse. We were working together on a movie, that's all. We talked alone in her trailer yesterday evening."

"What about?"

"She couldn't remember her lines. Why? Did you know her?"

"This'll bring her father down here." He edged crablike back out onto the deck and toward the stairs.

"You know Jenny's father?" I followed after him.

"In a way." He loped down the steps to the common pathway.

"In what way?" I yelled after him.

"I owe him money." He ran up his steps and disappeared inside his house.

My landline rang. Closing and locking the sliding doors, I answered it.

"Don't you ever answer your cell?" Zaitlin bellowed.

"I turned it off."

"You're all over the television holding your mother's ashes, for G.o.d's sake."

"I know. I think it was the doorman who took ..."

"Our insecure star, Jake Jackson, is chewing my a.s.s out about it. He asked me if you'd gone f.u.c.king nuts." Before I could respond, Zaitlin continued, "I'm sending a car for you tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Jackson wants a meeting to discuss if we go forward with the movie or not. And he wants to make sure you're okay."

"In what way?"

"'Okay' as in not f.u.c.king nutso."

"You know I'm not. And why a car? You think I'm so crazy I can't drive?"

"In case there are reporters outside your house. I don't want any more mistakes, Diana."

"Mistakes? You mean like finding Jenny Parson in a garbage truck?" I was yelling now.

"No, I mean your reaction to it."

"If you had done your job as producer I wouldn't have been put in this position."

"All right. Let's calm down. We're all on edge. Just don't bring your mother to the meeting." He hung up.

I slammed the phone down and stared at the urn dominating the mantel. The cherry wood looked substantial. Her nameplate shone. Maybe I should unpack her Oscar for Best Actress in a Starring Role and put it up there. Except I wasn't sure where it was stored. I wasn't sure where anything or anyone was.

In bed, I took a sleeping pill and turned out the light. The TV flickered a bad black-and-white film. They weren't all great.

I thought about Ryan owing Jenny's father money. He didn't ask how Jenny was murdered. Nor did Celia. n.o.body seemed interested in how she died or why. Except Ben. And why would the head of a security firm, a fixer, use an alias to look at Bella Casa? And then there was Beth Woods, our director, who thought Jenny was evil. Why did she think that?

My mind wandered to tomorrow's meeting with Jake Jackson. He had star power and an image to protect, a dangerous combination. Was he going to kill the movie? Or just kill me by recasting my part when they recast Jenny's? One way or another we were all in danger. Somehow. I reached out my hand to the empty side of the bed. It was a futile attempt for comfort.

The sound of a woman screaming bolted me out of my sleep. My heart leaping, I blinked at the TV. Joan Crawford, her mouth opened so wide you could park a truck in it, was screaming herself into a nervous breakdown. I didn't blame her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

By nine o'clock in the morning, the fame suckers were gathering outside my house. Cameramen and reporters with microphones were focused on my front door with all the intensity of a group of sharpshooters. On the ocean side, a few photographers took pictures of my rotting deck and yelled for me to come out and talk to them about Jenny Parson. I ran around pulling shades and curtains.

In the kitchen I drank my coffee and ate my breakfast huddled low over the table so they couldn't get a good shot of me through the window above the sink. The onslaught brought back all the old fears I'd experienced with my mother as we were rushed through hotel kitchens to avoid the paparazzi that always waited for her. Instead of feeling special, I had felt trapped and vowed never to live like that. Yet here I was, not because I was one h.e.l.l of an actress, but because I'd discovered a dead one. And the fame suckers wanted a piece of that.

The limo driver whom Zaitlin had ordered to pick me up at eleven arrived thirty minutes early. When I looked out my peephole, he yelled above the pandemonium that he was here to get me. Letting him into the house, I slammed the door before they could take a picture.

"I'm Gerald, ma'am." He was a big guy with dyed brown hair.

"Wait here." Before he could answer, I left him standing.

In my bedroom, I gulped more coffee and put on makeup with a shaky hand. Then I struggled into my LBD (little black dress), which I thought would make me look less "nutso" to Jake Jackson. Slipping into high black heels, I ran around trying to find my cell phone. It was in my purse. Grabbing a short gray leather jacket (a little edge always helps in Hollywood), I hurried into the hallway.

The driver came to attention.

"I'm ready, I think," I said.

"Do you want me to hold your jacket up in front of your face or anything?"

"I'm not a suspect. Let's just get to the car as fast as we can."

"It's parked about fifteen houses down. I couldn't get any closer, sorry." He put his hand on the doork.n.o.b. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." I slapped on my sungla.s.ses.

But you are never ready. Reporters with mikes rushed at me, mouths flapping, screaming questions. I could smell their rancid coffee breath and the sweat of the paparazzi, which was permanently distilled into the zip-up jackets they wore.

"Diana! Did you see her die?" shouted one man.

"How close were you and Jenny?" added another.

"Will her death hurt the movie?" a third bellowed.

"Did you kill her?" a woman called out.

Lights flashed. Video cameras crushed in on me. I dipped my head, trying to turn away from the prodding lenses.

"Look this way, Diana. Do you know who did it?"

"What did her body look like?"

Elbows and the sharp edges of equipment jabbed into my shoulders and back. I tripped over feet and someone stepped on my toes.

"Did your mother know her?"

"Smile, Diana!"

A woman jerked at my hand and stuck a cell phone in my face. "Talk into this, Diana. Why were you carrying your mother's ashes? Was it a ritual murder?"

The driver grabbed my arm and pulled me through the mob. "The car is down this way. Run!"

Cursing my choice of high heels, we ran for the limo as vehicles speeding on the highway came dangerously close. The asphalt was uneven and slippery with sand and gravel. The photographers and reporters chased after us.

"Diana! Diana!"

I stumbled as we reached the glistening black car. The driver caught me, grabbing my purse as it slipped from my shoulder. Quickly he opened the rear door and pushed me in. I fell flat on my face onto the black leather seat as he slammed the door shut.

Breathless and unnerved, I righted myself, flipped my hair out of my eyes, and saw the back of a man sitting in the front pa.s.senger seat. There was something familiar about him. The driver slipped in behind the wheel and threw my purse into the man's lap. The locks on the doors slid down just as one of the paparazzi reached my side of the car, angrily striking at the darkened window with the palm of his hand. Tires screeched and I sank back into the seat as we sped off.

The pa.s.senger turned his head. Leo Heath's solemn dark brown eyes stared at me from his lean rugged face. I stiffened.

"What are you doing here?"

"Security. Zaitlin wanted me to keep an eye on you. Put your seat belt on." He faced forward.

"Sorry about shoving you so hard," the chauffeur offered as he rapidly cut in and out of the traffic. "Hope I didn't hurt you."

"I'm fine." But I wasn't. I was rattled by the run through the gauntlet of the fame suckers. And the presence of Heath wasn't helping.

"May I have my purse?" I asked.

"When you're finished, I'll give it back to you." Heath didn't bother to turn around.

"I beg your pardon? I'd like my purse. Now."

He put it on the floor.

"What do you think you're doing?" I demanded.

Both men acted as if I hadn't spoken. Jesus, what was going on? I looked more closely at the car. The burl wood on the side panels and the dashboard was rich and expensive, the leather soft as a baby's a.s.s. I peered out the front window at the shiny Mercedes Benz emblem on the hood. Zaitlin was careful with his money. He never would have sent such an expensive car to pick me up. This was no rented town car or SUV, it belonged to someone. And it wasn't Zaitlin.

I peered at the heavy chrome molding lining the doors and listened to the silence. There was no road noise-other cars, the wind. I could feel the heavy smooth grip of the tires on the pavement, but not hear them. This was the kind of car presidents used: soundproof, bulletproof, maybe even missileproof. Except that Heath with his bashed nose and the chauffeur with his dyed hair were no secret service.

I reached over and pulled at the door lock. It didn't move. Then I tried my window. I couldn't open it I took a deep breath, calming myself. "I need some air. Unlock my window so I can control it."

Heath turned up the air conditioner. "Let me know it if it gets too cold." He was as accommodating as a maitre d' with a hundred-dollar tip in his pocket. The air ruffled his hair.

So they weren't going to give me my purse and they weren't going to let me operate the window. I pressed my lips together as I fought back the fear that was crawling through me. When I stumbled, had my bag really slipped from my shoulder, or had the driver purposely taken it? There was nothing in it except my lipstick, hairbrush, wallet, and cell phone. My cell. My contact to the outside world.

The driver swerved left onto Malibu Canyon Road. We were going in the wrong direction for Zaitlin's house. My fear was no longer crawling, it was at full gallop.

"This isn't the way to Zaitlin's!" I leaned forward, gripping the top of the driver's seat.

"The meeting's been canceled," Heath said.

"By whom?" I demanded.

"Zaitlin."

"He would've told me."

"He told me."

"Is that why you won't let me have my purse, so I can't call him?"

Silence.

"I thought you were supposed to protect me."

"I am."

We began the long climb up the twisting canyon road.

"So where are you taking me against my will? If anything happens to me, the photographers and TV people saw this car. Saw me get into it." I stared into the rearview mirror and met the driver's dull penny-shaped eyes. "Gerald, your name is Gerald, right? They saw you. They have you on tape."

"Will you tell her to shut up!" he snapped at Heath. "She's giving me a headache."

Heath glanced over his shoulder at me. "Nothing's going to happen to you. Trust me."

"Trust you? A man who likes to batter women?"

The driver's eyes slid sideways, regarding him curiously. "What's she talking about?"

Heath swiveled fully around so fast I had to jerk my head back to keep our chins from colliding.

"I know what you did, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

He had that empty expression of not knowing me again. Turning forward, he hit a b.u.t.ton on the dashboard. A window rose up cutting me off from them. I pounded on it. The driver laughed at something Heath said, but I couldn't hear it. I could hear only my heart thumping against my ribs as the limo sped down the canyon and into the west valley.

Soon, the car raced up the on-ramp to the Ventura freeway and headed north. My permanent chill was back. I slipped on my jacket, but it had lost its edge.