Tightrope

by Amanda Quick

  Vincent looked pained. “The sacrifices I make for my career. I would so much rather be relaxing poolside at the Burning Cove Hotel.”

  Lorraine went to the liquor cabinet and picked up the pitcher of martinis. “We both know why it would not have been a good idea for you to stay at the Burning Cove. There are too many big names registered there at the moment. Too much competition on that particular stage.”

  Vincent shuddered. “You don’t need to spell it out for me. I understand. It’s just that the Hidden Beach Inn is so damn quiet. As far as I can tell, the highlight of the day is afternoon tea. I don’t even like tea.”

  “You must be patient,” Lorraine said. “There is too much at stake. Neither of us can afford to make any mistakes.”

  She poured the martinis and carried the two glasses across the room. Vincent took a healthy swallow of his drink and met her eyes.

  “Do you really think this is going to work?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It will work. By the end of the week your name will be on the front page of every newspaper and Hollywood magazine in the country. The studio will beg you to take the lead in Nightmare Lane. Your old studio will be desperate to get you to sign for another Mad Doctor X film. No one will even remember Karloff and Lugosi.”

  Vincent inclined his head. “If I land the lead in Nightmare Lane, I will forever be indebted to you, Lorraine.”

  She laughed. “I know. And when your next film comes out, you will once again be invited to all the best parties and clubs. More to the point, you will once again become a valuable source for me.”

  Vincent chuckled. “Be careful, my dear, or I will start to suspect that your ultimate goal is to use me.”

  “Of course that’s my objective.” She touched her glass lightly against his. “Just as your goal is to use me. I need a constant flow of film world secrets and you require a constant series of films. We do understand each other, don’t we, Vincent?”

  He gave her his best Mad Doctor X smile. “We do, indeed, my love.”

  She watched with satisfaction as he downed half the contents of the martini glass.

  “Let’s go outside onto the patio,” she said, leading the way across the living room. “We have a lot to discuss, Vincent.”

  Promptly at six Jasper returned to pick up Vincent. Five minutes after her first visitor had departed, Lorraine’s second one arrived. Ray Thorpe did not pull up in a flashy limo. He was at the wheel of an unremarkable Ford sedan. Nor did he stop at the front of the villa. He parked in the back and let himself in via the kitchen door.

  “I thought Hyde was never going to leave,” Ray said.

  If Jasper Calloway was playing the role of Hollywood bodyguard, Ray Thorpe was the real deal. He had worked security for various studios over the years. The job description covered a lot of territory.

  Thorpe was one of the hard guys that the studio fixers sent out when they found it necessary to recover incriminating photos or to ensure that people who might be considering assault or rape charges against an actor stayed quiet.

  He was in his mid-forties and some of the muscle had gone soft, but everything else about him was tough and dangerous. He wore a holstered gun under his rumpled jacket.

  Lorraine lit a cigarette.

  “I told you that Hyde would be here until six today,” she said. “What’s the matter, Ray?”

  “We’ve got a problem,” Ray said.

  “Are you talking about Matthias Jones? We already know he’s a problem. We’ll deal with it.”

  “I don’t like the feel of this job,” Ray said. “Too many things have gone wrong. I still say we should walk away.”

  “I understand your concerns but it’s too early to abandon the project. There’s still a chance that we can make it happen.”

  “What makes you sure of that?”

  She smiled. “The same thing that has you so worried. Matthias Jones.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You said it yourself—Jones has moved into the Hidden Beach Inn.”

  “So?”

  “It’s obvious now that Jones and Pell are after the Ares machine,” Lorraine said, striving for patience. “Logically they should have assumed that it vanished the night Pickwell was shot onstage. Yet not only is Jones still in town, he just checked into the very same inn that Pickwell checked into the day of the robot demonstration. What does that tell us?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Lorraine stifled a sigh. Ray Thorpe had his uses but he was not the sharpest of tools.

  “It tells us that he knows something that we don’t know and that he has a reason to believe he might find whatever he’s looking for at the Hidden Beach Inn,” she said.

  “How did Jones and Pell find out about the Ares machine, let alone figure out that it would turn up in Burning Cove?” Ray demanded.

  Lorraine blew out a lungful of smoke and flicked the ashes of her cigarette into a glass ashtray while she thought about that.

  “Obviously the Broker double-crossed us,” she said. “We had a deal but evidently the bastard decided to turn what was supposed to be a straightforward sale into an auction. He must have concluded he could greatly increase his commission if he invited Luther Pell to bid. Pell brought in Jones.”

  “I’ll take care of the Broker when this thing is over,” Ray vowed.

  “Good luck with that. No one knows his real identity and no smart person goes looking for him. He’s dangerous and he’s very well protected. Forget him. We need to stay focused.”

  Ray snorted. “What, exactly, are we supposed to focus on? We’ve got a cipher machine that’s missing some key parts, and the only man who knows where they are is dead.”

  “Pickwell must have brought the missing parts to Burning Cove. That means they could still be in the vicinity. For now we keep an eye on Jones. Word is, he’s a freelance agent who is currently working for Pell. There’s only one reason he would have moved in to the Hidden Beach Inn—he’s got a lead. We’ll give him some room to run.”

  “We can’t hang around Burning Cove indefinitely.”

  Lorraine thought about the scheduled rendezvous at the L.A. docks. The clock was ticking. Her number one client would not be happy if she failed to deliver, and the client did not take failure well. If she did not come up with the complete cipher machine by the end of the week, she would be well advised to disappear.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. A woman on her own had to be creative.

  “You’re right,” she said. “We won’t be here indefinitely.”

  Chapter 20

  The night was cool but not cold. Matthias had decided to leave the top down on the Packard. The powerful convertible took the twists and turns of Cliff Road with the deceptive ease and precision of a big cat. Fog was coalescing out over the ocean but for now the moon was a silver disc in the night sky. And Amalie was in the seat beside him.

  Too bad about the destination, he thought. Unfortunately they were not heading out for a night of cocktails, good food, dancing, and passion. That would have been Plan A. Instead they were going with Plan B—a visit to a sleazy nightclub during which they would attempt to interview a man who might have information that would lead to a cold-blooded killer.

  He needed to rethink his priorities, Matthias decided.

  “We’re probably wasting our time tonight, aren’t we?” Amalie said.

  The question jolted him back to reality.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” he said. “Pickwell was barely conscious when they loaded him into the ambulance. If he said anything at all, it was most likely incoherent. But I need to make sure I’m not overlooking any lead.”

  “Because you don’t have anything else to go on?”

  “Because of that, yes.”

  Everything about the woman sitting beside hi
m was mysterious, sultry, and just a little dangerous. Allowing her to accompany him tonight had probably not been the best idea he’d ever had but damn if it didn’t feel good to have her here with him.

  Excitement and anticipation were heating his blood. It took him a while to comprehend exactly what he was feeling, because he had not experienced such sensations in a very long time. He finally realized that he was thrilled.

  He had been half-aroused ever since he had watched Amalie float down the inn stairs to meet him a short time ago. She was dressed in a sleek little cocktail number in a deep shade of blue. The short cap sleeves framed the nice curves of her upper arms. The dress fit her snugly to the waist, emphasizing her slender figure and delicate breasts. The skirt flared out gently just below the knees, calling attention to her slim ankles with every step.

  He had caught a whisper of her scent when he helped her adjust the wrap around her shoulders. For a few seconds he had been dazzled. It was as if he had downed a full glass of some very potent drink, except that his senses were not at all dulled. They were fully, exultantly alive.

  He really did wish that they were on their way to anywhere but the Carousel.

  He accelerated smoothly out of a curve, enjoying the purr of the finely tuned engine.

  “Even if we don’t get anything from Seymour Webster,” he said, “talking to him could be useful in other ways.”

  Amalie turned her head to look at him. “How is that?”

  “It’s called stirring the pot,” he said. “Someone saw something. Someone knows something. Seymour Webster might not have anything useful for me, but talking to him at a place like the Carousel will get the word out that I’m willing to pay for information.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Bit risky, though, isn’t it?”

  “Which is why I tried to talk you out of coming with me.”

  “I know. But I can’t just freeze on the platform and wait for someone to shove me over the edge.”

  She hadn’t employed some random image, he thought. This was personal.

  “Are you talking about Abbotsville?” he asked quietly.

  “You know about that? Of course you do. You’re an investigator.”

  “I know what was in the papers. I don’t know your version of events.”

  She was quiet for so long he wasn’t sure she was going to respond. She did not owe him any answers, he thought. She had a right to her secrets. He was keeping a few of his own—the kind that sent most people, especially potential lovers, running for the exits.

  “The police concluded that it was an accident,” she said finally. “A roustabout and a flyer got drunk and decided to play games on the trapeze. Harding used to be a catcher, you see.”

  “The trapeze artist who catches the flyers?”

  “Right. But I think something happened to him along the way. Maybe he lost his nerve or maybe he made flyers nervous. All I know is that he ended up out west working as a rigger, not a catcher. The Ramsey show hired him about a month before he tried to murder me. His work was good, so good that if he had succeeded in murdering me, everyone would have said my death was an accident or maybe suicide.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Flying can be . . . intoxicating,” Amalie said. “Exhilarating. There is nothing quite like it. You feel so free when you are up there, sailing through midair like a bird. They say that the sensation drives some artists to wonder what would happen if they just . . . let go.”

  “What about the net?”

  “A lot of artists refuse to use a net during a performance. The audience wants to be thrilled. The acts that sell tickets are those that don’t use a net.”

  He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Did you ever fly without a net?”

  She smiled as if she found the question naïve. “All the time. I was the star attraction of the Ramsey Circus, the last of the Fabulous Flying Vaughns.”

  He told himself this was not the right moment for a stern lecture but it was hard to resist the impulse. He longed to pull over to the side of the road and shake her. What the hell do you think you were doing working without a net?

  Take it easy, Jones. She doesn’t fly anymore. She’s an innkeeper now.

  “You can get killed just as easily by going down in the net, you know,” she said as if she had read his mind. “Land wrong and you’ll break your neck as surely as you will if you hit the floor.”

  “You’re scaring the daylights out of me, Amalie. Let’s get back to what happened in Abbotsville.”

  “There really isn’t much more to tell. I’m pretty sure Harding drugged me that night at dinner. I woke up to find the point of a knife at my throat. He put a wire necklace strung with glass beads around my throat and forced me to climb the ladder to the platform. He ordered me to grab the bar and fly. I knew he meant for me to die. I goaded him until he lost his temper and stepped out onto the platform. The moment he did that he was in my world. I was in control. I used the trapeze bar as a weapon. He went down. I didn’t.”

  There was a sudden silence from the passenger seat.

  She was telling the truth, Matthias thought, or, at least, the truth as she remembered it. He downshifted for an upcoming curve and tried to read the scene she had verbally painted.

  “There must have been a lot of evidence,” he said. “The knife. The necklace.”

  “The crime involved circus people and the circus was due to leave town the following day,” Amalie said. “The cops just wanted us gone. The press turned the whole thing into a lovers’ triangle story. Marcus Harding had been spending a lot of time with Willa Platt, the equestrienne in the show. There was speculation that I was jealous and that I had somehow persuaded Harding to climb the ladder so that I could murder him.”

  “You said the platform was your world. But I’ve seen trapeze platforms. They are very narrow. It’s a miracle that Harding didn’t take you down with him.”

  “I was good,” Amalie said. “One of the best.”

  “Did you ever get a chance to fly again?”

  “No. The circus was barely hanging on as it was. The Abbotsville incident was the end. But even if the show had survived, it’s unlikely that anyone would have wanted to fly with me after that. There would have been too many questions about what really happened up there on the platform. The rumors would have destroyed my career.”

  “How did you end up with the cash to buy the inn?”

  “My mother had a head for business. Before she died she was the one who kept the books for the Ramsey Circus. At some point she bought a few shares of stock in a couple of speculative oil companies and gave them to me. She told me they were my inheritance. After the show folded I dug out the shares. I was amazed when it turned out that they were worth a few thousand dollars. I spent it all on the Hidden Beach Inn.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  “They died in an accident a few years ago.”

  “A trapeze accident?”

  “No. A train crash. I survived because I was in a different car. They never had a chance.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Amalie did not speak.

  “Any other family?” he asked.

  “Just my aunt Hazel.”

  “What about your mother’s people?”

  “My grandparents disowned my mother when she ran off with my father. When the Ramsey show closed for good, Hazel convinced me to contact my relatives on Mom’s side of the family. I got hold of my grandfather on the telephone. They were not interested in meeting me. I think they blamed me for my mother’s death.”

  “How did they come to that conclusion?”

  “My mother was pregnant with me when she ran off with my father. As far as they are concerned, if it hadn’t been for me—”

  Amalie made a small gesture with her hand, leaving the conclusion unsaid.


  Matthias exhaled with control and gripped the gearshift so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t fracture. Every family was different, he reminded himself as he accelerated out of the curve. Feuds, quarrels, bitterness, and resentment could pass down through the generations, just like the color of one’s eyes. Nevertheless, he had a hard time dealing with the concept of a disowned daughter and an unacknowledged granddaughter. In the Jones family, you were always family, no matter what happened.

  “So these days, it’s just you and your aunt?” he asked.

  “And Willa. She showed up on my doorstep this morning. She had nowhere else to go.”

  Matthias thought about the petite, vivacious blonde he had seen at the inn that afternoon.

  “Is that the woman Marcus Harding was seeing shortly before he tried to murder you?”

  “Yes. Willa Platt.”

  Matthias frowned. “She just showed up out of the blue? Now?”

  “She reads the papers like everybody else.”

  “And she tracked you down.”

  “She needed a job and a place to stay.”

  “Was she in love with Harding?”

  “She was in love with the future that he promised her.”

  “Did she blame you for his death?”

  Amalie hesitated. “At the time. But you have to understand—she was devastated by what happened in Abbotsville. She had believed that Harding adored her and that they were going to be married and move to the Ringling show.”

  “What makes you think,” Marcus asked evenly, “that Willa Platt doesn’t still blame you for Harding’s death?”

  Amalie tensed. “I think she knows the truth now.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Willa and I grew up together. Our friendship runs deep. She was devastated by what happened in Abbotsville but she said herself she’s had six months to think about it. She knows now that I’m telling the truth.”