Lethally Blonde

by Nancy Bartholomew

  I smile to myself as I imagine Marlena in vintage couture, and then frown as my imagination brings Sam the cowboy into the picture. He is wearing a Western-cut tux and black, snakeskin boots, and he is walking toward me, his hand extended. He wants to dance!

  I shake my head “no” but he insists and moments later I am in his arms, waltzing. His scent intoxicates me and I find myself molding into his strong embrace. I want this man more than I have ever wanted any man in my life. I am about to tell him this when the dance floor suddenly opens up into a large fountain. A dolphin splashes loudly as it jumps high in the air and falls back beneath the surface. A man chuckles softly. I open my eyes with a start and realize I have been dreaming.

  The splashing sound is coming from the pool area where Jeremy stands, attempting to skim rocks from the flower beds across the surface of the water. The bottle of tequila on the bar is empty. A mirror lies along the edge of the pool and on it rests a razor, two short straws and a small pile of white powder. Andrea is nowhere in sight and the candles on nearby tables have burned down to nubs of red wax. How long have I been sleeping?

  I sit up, struggling to clear my brain, and see Sam strolling slowly toward the side of the pool where Jeremy is standing.

  “All right, partner,” I hear him say. “You’ve got an early call in the morning.”

  Jeremy looks up at him, smiles drunkenly and says, “Sod off! I haven’t even been in the water yet!”

  Sam looks Jeremy in the eye and says nothing.

  “Aw, come on, Sam! Live a little. Have a drink with me.” The British accent is gone; in its place I hear the western twang return.

  When he turns and lurches off toward the bar, Sam reaches out, grabs Jeremy’s elbow and firmly steers him off toward the house.

  Scott and Dave, in the meantime, wander to the edge of the pool and Dave steps up onto the diving board and grins back at Scott.

  “What d’ya wanna bet I can get those five rocks down there in one dive?” he asks. “I was a lifeguard in high school, you know.”

  Scott raises a skeptical eyebrow. “They had pools in south Georgia?”

  Without another word, Dave walks to the end of the diving board and drops the towel around his waist. He is completely naked, and while I try not to look, it is like turning away from the scene of an accident. I shrink back against my chaise and try to remain forgotten and invisible as I watch Dave prepare to jump into the pool.

  He bounces twice on the edge of the board, a naked, pink-skinned doughboy, and flies up into the still night air. He jackknifes and hits the water with almost no splash. His execution is flawless, but when he surfaces, I realize something is terribly wrong. His eyes are wild and he screams through clenched jaws.

  “Help! Shh…shhh!”

  His body jerks like a marionette connected to invisible strings, and Scott, without thinking, reaches out to grab his partner. He, too, begins the macabre dance as I realize they are being electrocuted.

  Sam and Jeremy have just reached the doorway into the house, but Dave’s cries stop them. I am on my feet and running. Remembering my Girl Guide first-aid training from summer camp, I grab a towel as I go. Never touch a person who is in contact with a live wire. Break the conduction between you with something inert.

  I reach Scott and throw the towel across his broad forearm, grab both ends and tug, breaking his hold on Dave.

  I hear Sam running toward me and I yell, “Don’t touch Dave. We’ve got to cut the power first! Jeremy, hit the circuit breaker! We’ve got to get Dave out of the water!” But Jeremy is too stupid with chemicals to be of any help. It’s Sam who dashes for the pool house and seconds later all the lights in the pool go out and the pump falls silent.

  I lean down, trying to grab Dave and pull him to safety, but Sam reaches us, pushes me aside and pulls the unconscious man from the water. Scott is conscious and struggling to control his still-quivering body. He reaches Dave’s side and watches as my fingers find Dave’s carotid artery and press to feel for a pulse.

  Behind me I hear Sam on the phone, calling 9-1-1 and giving them information in a strong, calm voice.

  “Is he breathing?” Scott asks.

  “Yes, but it’s irregular and shallow.” I continue to work with Dave, frantically grabbing up towels from a stack by the bar and trying to cover him as best I can. “We don’t need to do CPR but let’s get the two of you covered up and warm.” I turn to hand Scott two towels and find him staring at Dave and almost unaware of my presence. “An ambulance is on the way,” I say. “Are you all right?”

  Scott nods briefly, but his eyes never leave Dave’s face.

  “What happened? You were just in the pool earlier. What happened?” I grab Scott’s arm and shake him, but all I get is a puzzled look in return.

  In the distance, I hear sirens and breathe a sigh of relief. Sam has come up to stand behind Scott, but when he hears the sirens I see him turn to look for Jeremy. He spots him leaning in the doorway, watching the scene before him with a dazed expression.

  “Stay there when the ambulance arrives,” Sam says quietly. “I don’t think they should see you in your condition.”

  “Is he?” Jeremy starts to ask, clearly shaken to the core.

  “He’s going to be fine.”

  Jeremy nods and sinks into a lounge chair as the front gates slowly swing open and the ambulance pulls into the courtyard, red lights flashing.

  Sam meets the emergency techs, leads them around the house to the pool and stands by as they take over. As the EMTs tend to the two bodyguards, I walk over to the side of the pool and bend down to look for anything that might’ve caused the problem. I am squatting there, using the full moon for light, when a shadow falls across my shoulder.

  “Find anything?” Sam asks. He leans closer, bending to peer into the water.

  “See that?” I say, pointing. A slender wire dangles from beneath the diving board. “I don’t know what it is, but I bet it doesn’t belong there. I think it fell down into the water when Dave jumped on the board.”

  Behind us I hear the sound of the gurney being lifted as the EMTs prepare to roll Dave out to the ambulance. Sam straightens and says, “I’ll be right back.” He crosses the patio again and escorts Scott and Dave to the waiting ambulance.

  Scott hangs back as the doors swing shut on Dave. I see him shake his head when Sam asks a question and hear, “No, as long as I know he’s all right. We have a job to do here and that’s what Dave would want.”

  Sam says something else that I don’t hear because he’s got his back to me, and the two men turn and start walking toward me. As Sam passes the bar I see him stop for a moment and grab something from beneath the counter, a flashlight that he switches on as the two approach.

  “Show Scott what you showed me,” Sam says, but he doesn’t wait for me to do as he’s asked. Instead he points the beam of bright light at the diving board and follows the slender wire to the water where it disappears behind the underwater light fixture. I rise to my feet and move back so Scott can replace me at the water’s edge.

  When he does, his lips tighten and his expression grows grim as he nods. “Electrical Sabotage 101,” he mutters. “Lucky it didn’t kill Dave. Sorry son of a bitch!”

  I sink down onto a nearby lounge chair and watch the two of them figure out how the wiring has been rigged. Of course they don’t include me. I’m just the wealthy heiress visiting the bad boy actor.

  “What was that police detective’s name?” Sam mutters. “I need to call him.”

  Scott shrugs and turns his attention back to the wire. “Not much point in doing that,” he says. “There won’t be any prints on the ground wire. Far as I can tell, the police have done a piss-poor job of assisting us. Santa Jacinta’s a small town. They don’t know dick about forensics.”

  This gets my attention. It doesn’t matter what Scott thinks about the police force, this is certainly a police matter. Someone could’ve been killed. We were just lucky. I look over at Jeremy. H
e seems to have drifted off to sleep. There’s no way he could’ve done this. He’s too high to pull off a stunt like this one.

  “I’m calling. They need to be notified.”

  I close my eyes for a brief second as the back of my skull begins to pound in earnest. I am having a mental conversation with Renee, a rehearsal for the talk I plan to have with her as soon as Sam and Scott finish their inspection of the pool light.

  “Renee,” I will say, “send in your team of camou-fighters. This is the real deal. Jeremy’s not playing and I want to come home.”

  Oh, and I’m just sure she’ll want to use you again real soon! the little voice in my head says. Finally, someone believes in you and you give up without a fight!

  I hate my inner voice, especially when it could be right. I was sent to discover whether the threat to Jeremy Reins was real or not. What sort of proof did I have that Jeremy, or a hireling, hadn’t shot up the estate or booby-trapped the swimming pool? After all, Jeremy wasn’t injured in any way. I felt my heart sink all the way to the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t go home; not yet.

  I make a mental note to get a new internal voice and open my eyes in time to see Sam walking toward me.

  “Listen, Scott and I are going to make a thorough search of the property. The police are on their way, but on the off chance someone’s still on the grounds, we’d better take a look around.” Before I can say anything, he hands me a walkie-talkie. “We’ll be nearby, so if you see anything or get scared…”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I say. But my head is pounding and I feel sick to my stomach. I wish someone would worry about me.

  Sam grins, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “If Jeremy wakes up, try and keep him out of the house until I give the all clear, okay?”

  I nod and watch as Sam and Scott disappear in opposite directions. Scott is moving stiffly and I wonder at his ability to recover so quickly from what had to be a strong dose of electrical current. This leads me to wonder further about his reluctance to call in the police. Does he know something we don’t? His partner was the one injured. You’d think he’d want to call the cops.

  I wander over to the edge of the pool again and look down into the water by the diving board. The slender wire still dangles beneath the board and as I follow it back along the board I discover its path back to a junction box at the base of the diving board.

  “Lovey, an electrician, are we?”

  Jeremy’s sleep-slurred voice startles me and I adjust to find he’s come up behind me silently.

  “Well, aren’t you curious?” I ask. “Someone sabotaged your pool. It almost killed Dave. That could’ve been you, or hadn’t you considered the possibility?”

  Jeremy’s mocking expression vanishes. “Of course I know that, lovey, but showing fear only lets the enemy know you can be rattled. No chinks in the armor, lovey, no soft spots here!”

  His voice has dropped to a whisper and he looks over his shoulder into the darkened shadowy stillness behind the pool walls. Without meaning to, I shiver. When the headlights of the arriving police car play across the courtyard it is all I can do not to run toward it.

  “There now, see?” Jeremy says, sounding suddenly cheerful. “There’s no need to worry. The police will track down our intruder and we can go on about our lives.”

  I stare at him. What line from which movie is he quoting now, because surely Jeremy can’t be naive enough to think the solution to his threatening saboteur is going to be this easy?

  Sam and Scott emerge from the darkened grounds into the light of the courtyard and walk quickly to meet the cruiser. As I watch, the older detective who investigated the earlier incident steps out from behind the wheel and the three men consult before turning to walk in our direction.

  “Has anyone checked on Andrea?” Jeremy asks. He is halfway across the slate patio before I can stop him.

  “Wait, Sam said you should stay out here. He and Scott were going to search the house. We shouldn’t go in until they…”

  Jeremy isn’t listening to me at all. He breaks into a sprint, forcing me to run after him.

  “Jeremy!”

  I step into the house, following the echo of Jeremy’s footsteps as best I can, but the place is totally dark. Did Sam cut the power to the entire estate? Where is Andrea? My skin prickles as my nerve endings tingle with alarm. Why hadn’t I remembered that Jeremy had insisted Andrea stay the night?

  I close my eyes for a moment and stand still, listening. When I open them again, my eyes have adjusted to my inky surroundings. I follow the distant sound of Jeremy’s footsteps and follow him up a staircase to the second floor.

  “Andrea!” Jeremy’s voice is unexpectedly nearby, his tone anxious. “Andrea!”

  I follow the sound to the entrance of a bedroom and almost run into him. Jeremy is holding a cigarette lighter high above his head and staring at an empty bed.

  “She was here,” he says, turning to look at me. “She was right here! I brought her upstairs, saw she had what she needed and then I went back downstairs to my room. She was right here!”

  A low rumble, like a jet passing overhead, startles us. The light in the hallway suddenly flickers as power returns to the house. Jeremy reaches over my shoulder to flip the light switch and the room is filled with bright, white light. The bed is empty and from all appearances, undisturbed.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  Jeremy spins away, pushing past me as he darts back out into the hallway, rushing toward the staircase. Just as suddenly, the lights go out, leaving me disoriented and in total darkness again. I move in what I think is the direction of the staircase and hear Jeremy cry out sharply, as if in pain.

  “Jeremy, where are you?”

  I reach the top of the stairs unexpectedly and almost pitch forward, but grab the railing. A low moan comes from somewhere below me.

  “Jeremy?”

  I rush down the steps and fumble my way around the hallway, listening for any sound that will help me find him. I reach the edge of the hallway and hesitate at the edge of what I remember as the great room, trying to reorient myself. When I hear another low moan, I move forward and collide with a fast-moving body, running past me.

  “Jeremy?”

  The dark figure shoves me hard into the opposite wall and I feel myself falling. Someone snickers and I hear a terrified scream—my terrified scream. Shouts erupt out on the lawn and I hear people calling out in a chaotic frenzy. The lights flicker again but this time they come on and stay on. Across the room, Jeremy is attempting to rise to his feet; an ugly bruise colors the skin above his left eyebrow.

  Chapter 6

  Marlena is singing. It is the first thing I hear as I come swimming up from the depths of a deep sleep. Okay, other people might not consider the sounds Marlena makes as singing exactly, but I know my baby and she is singing. It is her morning song, her “Why haven’t you fed me? Oh, I don’t mind!” tune that gently awakens me each day. To the untrained ear, it sounds like little bird chitters and clucks, but I know better.

  I roll over and, for a moment, forget where I am. I lie on my stomach, facedown, breathing sweetly scented sheets and feeling warm sunlight on my hair and shoulders. The world is a wonderful place, until my pink rhinestone cell phone starts ringing and reality once again invades my serenity.

  I sit up, searching for the cell as the events of the evening rush back to me in a fast-forward collage of mental images. Dave and the pool electrocution; Jeremy with a huge bruise over his eye, caused by an encounter in the dark with the same intruder I bumped into; Scott and the police, chasing across the south pasture, pursuing someone who abruptly vanishes; Andrea, missing.

  I grab the phone, hoping for news, alarmed that I could’ve fallen asleep when I intended to stay awake to monitor my possible concussion.

  I flip open the phone, hoping for news. “Hello?”

  “Muffin?”

  I cradle the phone against my ear and roll over. I so do not need this.

/>   “Mummy?”

  “Muffin, where are you?”

  I open my eyes and look around the guest bedroom, bringing the brightly lit room into focus. I need to get her off the phone, but I can’t let her know I’m in trouble.

  “San Jacinta, California.”

  My mother is not pleased to hear this. I can feel her stiffen, even though I cannot see her. It’s just her way.

  “What are you doing in California?”

  I sigh silently, roll out of bed and go in search of coffee.

  “Finding myself,” I say, even though I know flip is the wrong attitude to take when Mummy is in one of her moods.

  “I don’t believe you!” she cries, and I suddenly realize this is no normal disapproving attitude—my mother is truly angry.

  “Mummy, what is wrong? Am I supposed to be somewhere else? I agreed to host a…”

  She cuts me off. “Porsche Dewitt Rothschild, I told you to wait and we would talk about it when I returned. Instead, what do you do? You hire a private investigator and go off after him!”

  Now I am completely thrown. There isn’t enough coffee in all of California to wake me up enough to deal with my mother on the rampage.

  “Mother, what are you talking about?”

  “Don’t try and snow me, young lady! I know exactly what you’re doing in California and I forbid it! That man is no good! Furthermore, he could be dangerous!”

  I hold the phone out away from my ear and stare at it. How in the hell has my mother found out about Jeremy Reins and the Gotham Roses? Just as quickly I realize she could not possibly know about the Roses, but any paper in the world could and would carry a picture of my arrival yesterday. Mummy was probably holding a newspaper with a picture of Jeremy and me rolling around on the L.A. airport runway.

  “Now, Mother, it isn’t at all what you think. He’s really very…”