by Bobbi Holmes
Pearl shook her head in disgust and turned from the window.
Tears streamed down Polly’s face as she ran down the street—her destination unknown. She just knew she needed to put space between her and Teddy so she could think. Eventually she slowed to a walk and then stopped when she reached the pier. Using her fingers to wipe tears from her eyes, she jumped when a hand unexpectantly seized her upper left arm and jerked her around.
“Teddy!” Polly said in surprise, her face just inches from her husband’s.
“Who in the hell did you think it was? And why were you running?” Teddy asked, slightly out of breath.
Yanking her arm from his hold, she rubbed where he had roughly gripped her.
“That’s what you have to say to me?” she asked angrily.
“Chase didn’t know what he was talking about. It was just guy talk. You don’t need to get all dramatic about it.”
“Did you or did you not have an affair with Phoebe?”
“Of course I didn’t! You know I can’t stand the woman. She’s a user,” Teddy said.
“Did she use you? Is that why you hate her? Did she drop you for Barry?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “It’s cold out here, and you didn’t even have the sense to put on a coat. Let’s go back to the house.”
“I want to know, did you have an affair with Phoebe? Don’t lie to me. I can ask Phoebe.”
“And you don’t think that will make the week a little awkward?”
“I know what I heard,” she said stubbornly.
“I tell you what.” Teddy used a calmer voice. “Walt said there’s a nice café on the pier. Let’s go get a cup of coffee, warm up, you calm down, and I’ll explain exactly what Chase and I were talking about. Trust me, Polly, I would never touch that woman.”
The waitress with the purple and pink hair set a cup of hot cocoa in front of Polly and filled Teddy’s cup with coffee. When she left the table, Polly said stubbornly, “Okay, you explain.”
“Remember when we went to Vegas to promote the first film Seraphina was in?”
“Yes. I couldn’t go. I had the flu. Is that when it started between you and Phoebe?”
“Nothing happen between us, but Phoebe made an obvious play for me in exchange for a part in a film.”
“And you turned her down?” she asked.
“You tell me, have you seen Phoebe in any of my movies?”
Polly considered the question. Uncertain, she looked at Teddy and asked, “Then why did you tell Chase you both moved on, that it was fun while it lasted?”
Teddy reached across the table and took Polly’s hands in his. “It was a joke. Nothing more. It was a stupid ill-timed joke.”
Polly studied her husband’s expression from across the table, her hands still in his.
“That was about a few months before Seraphina caught Phoebe with Barry, wasn’t it?”
She felt Teddy’s hand tighten momentarily and then relax. He smiled across the table and said, “I suppose.”
I know your fake smiles, Teddy, Polly thought. That is a fake smile if there ever was one.
Seventeen
Moving slowly up the staircase to the second floor of Marlow House, her hand on the rail, Seraphina failed to notice Bentley coming down the stairs.
“Earth to Seraphina,” Bentley said good-naturedly.
She paused and looked up and found Bentley standing a few steps ahead of her.
“I’m sorry. I was just thinking,” Seraphina said.
Bentley grinned. “Must have been some pretty heavy thinking. I have a feeling if I hadn’t said anything and kept coming down the stairs, you would have walked right into me.”
“Just a lot on my mind,” she said. “Umm, is Phoebe upstairs in her room?”
“You mean our room,” he said dryly.
Seraphina smiled up at him. “How is that going? Sharing a room with her?”
He shrugged. “No problem.”
“So where are you off to?” she asked.
“Jackie wants me to go find Julius. He went out to take some photographs, and he hasn’t come back yet. He’s not answering his cellphone.”
“She doesn’t think anything is wrong, does she?”
Bentley laughed. “No. Julius is notorious for forgetting to charge his phone. So, if you will excuse me…” He flashed her a smile as he passed her on the stairs, continuing on to the first floor.
Seraphina stood midway up the staircase for a moment, watching Bentley head for the front door. After a moment she turned back around and continued up the stairs.
“Do you need me to do something?” Phoebe asked when she let Seraphina in her room a few minutes later.
Seraphina didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she walked all the way into the room and then turned, facing Phoebe, waiting for her to close the door for privacy. What neither woman knew, someone else had walked into the room with Seraphina, Marie’s ghost.
“Is there a problem?” Phoebe asked as she closed the door and turned to face Seraphina, noticing her stoic expression.
“I know Chris never asked you out,” Marie said to deaf ears before taking a seat on an imaginary chair.
“I know Chris never asked you out,” Seraphina said.
Marie arched her brows. “I just said that! Can you hear me?”
“What are you talking about?” Phoebe asked.
“I know you lied. Chris didn’t ask you out,” Seraphina accused.
“Who told you that?” Phoebe demanded.
“Chris,” Seraphina lied.
Color drained from Phoebe’s face as she stared into Seraphina’s dark eyes. Licking her lips nervously, she swallowed and then said, “I can explain.”
“Please do,” Seraphina said calmly.
“I…I was just attracted to Chris immediately. There is something about him. But men, they always like you best. It’s always been that way, even when we were teenagers. You were the pretty one, the talented one.”
“We were both awkward teenagers. The only thing I had back then was my voice. And look at you now. You’re gorgeous,” Seraphina reminded her.
Phoebe let out a harsh laugh. “Maybe, but I could never compare standing by you. I’ve been in your shadow since we were kids.”
“Then why did you stay, if you felt I stole all the attention?” Seraphina asked.
“Because you were the closest thing I had to a sister,” Phoebe said. “I was proud of you. I knew what incredible talent you had. I wanted to see you succeed—I always knew you would.”
“I still don’t get why you lied about Chris.”
“You have to understand. I saw Chris, and I knew I wanted him. But I could never compete with you, so I lied.”
“Is that why you lied about Barry?” Seraphina asked, her voice toneless.
Phoebe looked as if she had been slapped and took a step backwards. “What are you saying? I explained all that.”
“No, you lied. You lied about Barry forcing himself on you. You wanted Barry like you want Chris now,” Seraphina said.
“How can you say that? You told me you believed me!”
“Birdie told me.”
“Birdie?” Phoebe frowned. “What does Birdie have to do with this?”
“Birdie was with Barry when you called him. She heard what you said to him, how you told him it was probably for the best that I’d caught you. That now you could move in with him.”
“Birdie heard all that?”
“What happened between you and Barry?” Seraphina asked.
“I thought you just said you knew all about it. Birdie told you.”
“No, I mean later, after I fired you and broke it off with Barry. At the time I assumed you two were together. But then you didn’t go to his funeral. And when I ran into you and asked you why you didn’t go, you asked me why you would go to the funeral of the man who tried to rape you. You convinced me you hadn’t seen him since that day I walked in on you.” Seraphi
na paused a moment and then let out a harsh laugh, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What?”
Looking Phoebe in the eyes, Seraphina shook her head in disgust. “You are a good actress. You didn’t need to hitch yourself to my wagon to get where you wanted, you had all the talent to do it on your own.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your performance. Your cold, calculated, and rehearsed performance, convincing me the man who you had been involved with—a man who had just tragically died—was someone you hated and had never been involved with. It was quite the performance. I believed you. I felt guilty for not believing you the first time. I hired you back.”
Phoebe stared at Seraphina. Finally she said, “I did you a favor.”
“How do you figure that?” Seraphina asked.
“You were better off without him. All he wanted to do was drink.”
“He’s dead. Don’t you feel anything?” Seraphina asked.
Phoebe shrugged. “Not really.”
“How can you say that? As much as Barry hurt me, I felt bad when he died. It was so senseless; he was so young. It was such a stupid and foolish way to die. How could you not feel something?”
“It was his own fault. If he hadn’t had so much to drink that night, he’d still be alive. I told him if he opened the other bottle of tequila, I was leaving. Booze and pills don’t mix, but he would never listen to me.”
“You were there that night? The night he died? I thought he was alone?”
“I wasn’t there when he drowned. He was still sitting in the spa, alive when I left. Idiot opened the bottle right in front of me and started guzzling.”
“And you just left him?” Seraphina gasped.
“I wasn’t his keeper. I didn’t make him take all those pills. And I certainly didn’t pour that second bottle of tequila down his throat.”
“You might as well have killed him!” Seraphina shrieked.
The next moment, to Marie’s utter surprise, Seraphina leapt on Phoebe, and an instant later there was a full-blown girl fight taking place on the bedroom floor. Marie’s chair floated upward, with her still seated, allowing her a view from above. She didn’t feel the need to intervene, not quite yet. There was significant hair pulling, cursing, but no biting, and the two women rolling around on the floor didn’t look like they were going to break anything, aside from a few nails.
She watched as they rolled into one wall and stopped, with Seraphina on top. Seraphina took advantage of the position and managed to straddle Phoebe, sitting atop her. Marie cringed the next moment when Seraphina gripped two fistfuls of blond hair and used them as makeshift handles as she began slamming Phoebe’s head on the floor while shouting, “You killed him! You left him to die!”
Marie thought it time to break up the fight before real damage was done. She didn’t know how much pounding Phoebe’s head could take. But before she could intervene, the bedroom door flew open and she heard a man yell, “What the hell?”
Bentley and Julius rushed into the room, and the two men did what Marie was about to do—they broke up the fight. Bentley took hold of Seraphina and pulled her off, while Julius grabbed Phoebe, who was preparing to go after Seraphina now that she was free. The two women hurled insults at each other while the two men held them apart. When they finally calmed down, Seraphina jerked her arm from Bentley’s hold and, without offering an explanation, marched from the room.
“She’s crazy!” Phoebe called after Seraphina, no longer being held by Julius.
“What happened?” Bentley asked.
Out of breath and red faced, Phoebe glared at Bentley. “None of your business! And just get out of my room, both of you!” she shrieked.
A moment later, Bentley and Julius stood alone in the hallway, looking at the now closed door of the room they had just exited.
“What brought that on?” Bentley asked, still staring at the closed door.
“I don’t know, but I think you just got kicked out of your room,” Julius said.
Hand on the rail, Seraphina hurried down the staircase, her long black curls waving behind her like a flag. The last person she had expected to walk in the front door of Marlow House was Chris Johnson, but that was who entered the house. Considering he hadn’t knocked and just walked in, Seraphina had to assume he was as close with the Marlows as Danielle had claimed.
Chris was midway in the entry hall when he spied Seraphina hurrying down the stairs. He smiled at her and was somewhat surprised when she rushed in his direction, grabbed one hand, and pulled him back to the front door.
“Where are we going?” Chris asked, mildly amused.
“I don’t know. Just take me somewhere, anywhere,” she told him.
Thirty minutes later, Seraphina and Chris sat in his car in the pier parking lot, looking out at the ocean. Seraphina had just told Chris everything that had happened back at the bedroom at Marlow House.
“I really can’t see you in a girl fight,” Chris mused.
“It’s been a long time. But it all came back to me.” Seraphina chuckled.
Chris looked to Seraphina, studying her profile as she looked out to the ocean. “You’ve been in girl fights before?”
Seraphina looked to Chris and smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never been involved in a bar brawl. And the only girl fight—or any physical fight, for that matter—was with Phoebe.”
“You and Phoebe have done this before?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, but not since we were eleven.”
“You’ve known her that long?” he asked.
She nodded. “We were in foster care together. I suppose we were like sisters back then, at least the only sister I ever had. And that included the occasional knockdown. Do you have any siblings?”
“I have an older brother,” Chris said.
“Did you guys ever knock it out when you were kids? I’ve always heard stories of how brothers go at it.”
Chris shook his head. “No. He was much older than me. Plus, we were raised in foster care and separated when I was very young. I only recently hooked up with him again.”
Seraphina’s eyes widened. “You were raised in foster care too?”
Chris nodded. “For a time. But when I was six, I was adopted by a very nice couple, and they raised me.”
“Did you love them?” Seraphina asked in a soft voice.
“Very much.”
“Did they love you?”
Reaching out one hand, Chris brushed the back of it across Seraphina’s left cheek and said, “Yes. They were wonderful parents.”
“You were lucky.”
Dropping his hand back to his lap, he said, “How about you let me call Danielle, tell her I’m taking you out to dinner.”
“I think I would like that.”
Eighteen
A chair had been removed from the dining room table to make more room for Chase, who sat between Birdie and Bentley, where Seraphina and Phoebe’s chairs had been. Danielle thought the table might be a little crowded had Phoebe and Seraphina joined them for dinner. But Phoebe was still upstairs in her room, the door locked, and Seraphina had gone out with Chris.
“I’m not sure what shocked me most—that Seraphina hired Phoebe back in the first place, or that the two had a brawl,” Jackie said as she grabbed a roll from a nearby basket. She looked over to Teddy and said, “What is it you always say, keep the drama in front of the camera?”
“I don’t know what Seraphina was thinking when she rehired Phoebe after all that drama with Barry,” Teddy grumbled.
About to take a bite of mashed potatoes, Birdie paused and looked across the table at Jackie. “I don’t think we should be gossiping about Seraphina and Phoebe. It is their business.”
“They made it our business when my husband and Bentley had to break up their fight,” Jackie said. “And now poor Bentley has been locked out of his room.”
“It’s okay,” Bentley assured her. “Danielle said I could
sleep in the parlor tonight on a blow-up bed. I can grab my things from the room when Phoebe comes out to use the bathroom. I’m sure she’s going to need to use the bathroom eventually. And it’s probably only going to be for one night.”
“What makes you say that?” Julius asked.
“Obviously, when Seraphina comes back, she’s going to officially let Phoebe go, and when she does, there’s no reason for Phoebe to stay any longer. I don’t expect her to leave tonight. She’ll have to arrange some transportation back to Portland, since she came here in Birdie’s rental car,” Bentley explained.
“I have to say, I am a little jealous of you and Julius,” Chase said with a gruff laugh as he picked up his glass of wine.
“Why is that?” Julius asked.
“I wouldn’t have minded walking in on those two rolling around on the floor. But I don’t think I would have been so anxious to break them up, if you know what I mean.” He laughed again.
Birdie glared at Chase. “That is a crude thing to say.”
“Just speaking the truth. But it’s probably best if Phoebe left.” Chase glanced across the table and looked at Teddy, flashing him a smile.
Teddy met the smile with a brief glare before turning to Walt and changing the subject. “I was wondering if we’re going to be meeting Jon Altar. You know, in all these years, I’ve never met the man, but I have great respect for his work.”
“That’s right,” Chase said dully. “Altar is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“He and his wife live across the street. But to us, he’s Ian,” Danielle said.
“Ahh, yes, Altar is a pen name. Never understood that. Like you’re not proud of your work, you have to hide behind a fake name,” Chase said.
