by Nancy Bush
But if this was Callahan’s house, she had to leave. She couldn’t pretend to be Denise and hang around here all day when she didn’t belong. What was the point? Plus, given enough time, John Callahan would undoubtedly start to grow suspicious.
And what was he doing here anyway? He should be on the set of that damn movie; Denise had been very clear about how obsessive the man was about his work.
Narrowing her eyes, Dinah sorted through various scenarios, rejecting them all. There was nothing to do but to keep up appearances—at least for now. And that meant appearing more like Denise.
Feeling like a sneak, Dinah gingerly pulled open several drawers until she found a stash of lipstick, blush, mascara, eyeliner, and several small instruments of torture for plucking brows and curling lashes. Most everything was still in its original package, purchased and forgotten.
Unwrapping the various and sundry pieces of makeup, Dinah carefully applied a soft bronze eye shadow, followed by medium brown eyeliner and mascara. A touch of blush and some lip gloss with an aromatic peach scent finished the transformation.
Sliding a sideways glance at her reflection, a shiver rolled down her spine. Apart from the hair, she did look like her twin, something she consciously played down in real life. Yet, it still might not be enough to fool John Callahan.
The thought of curling her smooth blondish mane was more than she could stand, however, so she twanged it back once more and shrugged at her appearance.
Adjusting the three-way mirror and turning her chin, Dinah surveyed her profile. Inspiration struck. Quickly, she wrapped her hair in a tight bun at the top of her head and dragged loose strands to frame her face. It had been Denise’s style in Willful.
Stepping back, Dinah stared at herself in trepidation. It had been years since she’d dressed like Denise. Eons, if measured in experience and growth. She’d never wanted to be her twin. Had always shied away from emulating her in any way. Jealousy? Because Denise had been prettier, wilder, more daring? Probably. But also a desperate need to discover her own talents and needs. Her own self.
Stepping from her bedroom, she glanced both ways along the gallery. Not a sign of Callahan.
Ears sharpened for the slightest noise, she tiptoed barefoot past Denise’s bedroom toward the back staircase that led to the kitchen. The house was silent and wrapped in the coldness of early morning.
At the bottom step, she hesitated, peeking around the corner. The kitchen was empty and dark. The digital clock on the oven read 5:30.
Dinah heaved a sigh of relief, belatedly aware she’d been holding her breath. She headed straight for the Keurig—eco-friendly, Denise was not, maybe John, neither. She waited for her cup of coffee to fill, thinking hard. It felt like she had to be out of here by tomorrow’s sunrise or face pistols at dawn.
She grimaced at the sudden thought of all her work scattered around Callahan’s library. How could she explain Denise’s sudden interest in writing?
Heedless of noise, she ran through the shadows to the library. Heart pounding, she half expected Callahan to be seated at the computer, poring over her latest article.
But the room was dark. Empty.
With shaking hands she saved all her updated files to her flash drive, then purged them from the desktop computer. She needed to get her laptop back and plug the flash drive into it, but that was for later. For now, she grabbed up any papers she’d tossed into the trash, threw them into the fireplace, grabbed the lighter and set them aflame.
Firelight danced in spooky orange flickers that touched on the corners of the room as the papers ignited and flamed out. Dinah’s mind raced. Switching on the desk lamp, she glanced around, searching for more signs of Dinah Scott’s writing career. So far so good.
At the kitchen, she clutched her flash drive tightly, thinking hard. Childish fear made her slip it inside the cookie jar, just as a precaution in case His Highness should appear and find it on her.
She suddenly realized that she would really have to leave today. Flick would be thrilled, but surprisingly, she wasn’t as anxious to shake the dust of L.A. off her boots as she thought. And she needed that laptop.
Watching the coffee stream into her cup, Dinah frowned, considering her options. She had to talk to Denise, too, but she didn’t know where to look. Had she run off with this Derek person? Callahan seemed to think so. But that was during the divorce and a lot of water had run under the bridge since then. Denise had insisted she was getting psychological help and that was why Dinah had agreed to this sham in the first place.
But where?
She was annoyed to see that the hand holding the coffee mug was shaking. She was angry. Angry with herself for letting Denise dictate the terms of this alliance. Denise knew where she was going, but Dinah didn’t have a clue where her flakey sister was.
And what kind of trouble she might be in.
And with whom . . .
Balancing the extra-full cup, she turned toward the table. She needed a shot of caffeine like another dose of bad news but hey, she felt like it.
The sight of a belt over low-slung jeans brought a scream to her throat. Coffee sloshed. Burned her wrist. “Shit,” she bit out as Callahan jumped forward to save her, the coffee, or maybe the tile floor should she drop the cup. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dinah demanded furiously.
“I thought someone had broken in. I just wanted to catch them.”
“It never occurred to you it might be me?”
“No,” he admitted honestly. “Since when do you get up so early?”
“Since I . . . I got . . . since you said I couldn’t stay here anymore!” Dinah sputtered.
He grinned, more a smirk of disbelief, actually, but it was charming, which pissed Dinah off. “Like you would listen to me,” he said ironically. “For Christ sake, Denise, the last time you pulled this, it took the National Guard to get you out.”
“The last time?” Dinah queried, unable to stop herself.
He waved that away impatiently. “On the set. You know.”
Dinah gave him a faint smile, at sea once again.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly the National Guard,” he admitted, watching her closely. Then, when she didn’t respond, “So, this early-morning coffee moment is because you’re getting ready to go?”
“I didn’t feel like being bounced out of here like last night. I make my own decisions.”
“Yeah, right.” This amused him and his amusement irritated Dinah.
She didn’t want to go. And she certainly didn’t want him to have the last word. Pursing her lips, she realized the only answer was to stall. “If I asked you some questions . . . about the terms of our divorce, do you think you could give me some honest answers? Could you pretend that I really don’t know, so I could hear it all again?”
Callahan slowly shook his head, his blue eyes searching hers for some kind of explanation.
“It’s all kind of a fog to me,” Dinah said. “I’m in therapy, you know.”
“You’re always in therapy.”
How well they both knew Denise. “Humor me, all right? My therapist says it’s good for me to hear the truth spoken again and again. It helps me keep on track.”
“Who is this therapist?” John demanded.
“Dr. Runyan,” Dinah pulled out of her ass. Runyan was the name of Flick’s bloodhound. “Want a cup of coffee?” she asked, hooking a thumb toward the Keurig machine.
He eyed her carefully, and Dinah realized she was maybe being a bit too helpful. “What’s with you?” he asked. His gaze slid scathingly over her black shirt and jeans. “And what’s with the clothes? Buy stock in Gap?”
Dinah stared coldly. The best defense was a good offense. “So are you going to help me, or what? It’s up to you.”
“You’re the one who can’t talk about the divorce. You always start screaming, name-calling, and throwing blame.”
“I won’t do those things.”
“Right.” He snorted.
&nbs
p; “I promise.”
“Yeah, and I got a bridge to sell you. Give it up, Denise. I don’t have time. I’m in the middle of production.”
“So why are you here?”
“Just a bit of R & R.”
“Yeah? I thought you lived and breathed the film during production. Something must have happened to bring you home.”
“One night in Malibu isn’t exactly a world-tour vacation. I can still go to work.” He stared at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “I don’t get you at all.”
She felt his assessing gaze as it scoured her face. Heat flooded beneath her skin. To this point, he’d treated her with contempt, annoyance, and a bit of amusement, as if she were a mere frivolity instead of a thinking, feeling human being. But she was starting to interest him. A bad sign. Time for retreat.
“I’ll get my things together and leave.”
She brushed past him but hard fingers suddenly circled her upper arm, turning her toward him. Her pulse fluttered nervously. This close, she could see the flecks of color in his eyes, gold and green against a deep, radiant blue.
And they say my eyes are beautiful, she thought inconsequentially, recalling all the press about Denise Scott’s aquamarine orbs, identical to her own.
“No fight?” he asked softly, huskily.
“No fight.” Her own voice was breathless, shaky.
She could feel every hard fingertip pressed into her skin. Glancing down, she looked at those long, tanned fingers wrapped around her black shirt.
“When I asked for a divorce, you swore you’d cut off my balls and serve them to Gillian Gentry for an hors d’oeuvre.”
Gillian Gentry. Redheaded model with a little girl’s voice. One of Callahan’s conquests. A bad feeling stole over Dinah as she remembered there was some kind of scandal involving Denise.
Callahan enlightened her. “And then you called the press and told them Gillian’s implants were filled with champagne, not silicone or water.”
For a wild moment, Dinah nearly burst out laughing. She remembered the incident clearly, though at the time she’d thought the write-up was a misquote; even Denise had her limits, after all. Now she wondered.
Denise, you crazy nutcase!
Not that Gillian was such an angel. She’d been screwing Denise’s husband behind her back and telling the press that she and John Callahan were as good as engaged—long before divorce proceedings began.
“Did you love her?” Dinah asked curiously.
“Love her?”
“Is that why you cheated?”
“I did not sleep with Gillian Gentry,” he stated flatly.
She heard the implication even though she was certain he hadn’t meant her to. “But there were others.”
“There were others in your bed,” he reminded her in a cold voice that warned that if she wanted to play with fire, she was bound to get burned.
Dinah subsided into the safety of silence. This apparently was a new tack for Denise, because John Callahan’s puzzled surveillance intensified even while he released her arm. He sat down at the table, his gaze fastened like iron on her face—as if he’d never seen her before.
Which wasn’t all that far from the truth.
She didn’t know whether to leave or stay. She wanted to leave. She really wanted to leave, but her feet couldn’t seem to get the message. They were planted firmly, and a bit belligerently, on the terra-cotta tile floor.
“I got the house,” he said. “And you got the money for Cosmos even though you didn’t earn a penny of it. I got my freedom and you got Derek. Per the prenuptial, I kept my possessions and earnings; you kept yours. Clear?”
“Clear.”
“And you slandered me with accusations about Gillian Gentry and Tia Martinez.”
Tia Martinez. Starlet with a nineteen-inch waist and thirty-eight Double-D’s, which were purported to be real. Tia Maria, as she was known to the press, who loved to report on every detail of her life.
“Isn’t she in your latest film?”
“She’s a Borrowed Time costar.”
Dinah nodded.
“You know damn well I don’t get involved with anyone during film production.”
“Any woman who’s named after a drink is probably available after hours,” Dinah stated loftily. “But I’m certain your scruples are so high that you stay away from her.”
“Higher than yours.”
“Okay,” Dinah said flatly. She didn’t like to fight any battle she couldn’t win, and this was one of them. “After the divorce, you kept a stellar career, but the name, Denise Scott, will be forever linked with scandal. It doesn’t matter what you did, it’s what the press thinks Denise Scott did. The double standard sucks.”
This was where Denise had taken it in the shorts after her split from John. Not monetarily. Not immediately, at any rate. But her self-respect, never much to begin with, had been beaten to death. The press had pummeled her while John Callahan, the superior male being, had come out unscathed.
It really was a man’s world.
“You deserve every negative comment ever printed about you,” he answered remorselessly.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“And did I deserve to lose my home?”
A flicker of emotion crossed his eyes. A chink in the armor? His Highness actually felt guilty about screwing over Denise? She was amazed he was capable of the emotion.
“What do you want? What do you really want?”
“I want to stay here,” she heard herself say. “I want a part of this back.”
His gaze darkened. Lines formed beside his mouth. In lieu of answering, he swept up yesterday’s paper, which was lying on the table where Dinah had left it. The Santa Fe Review. Folded open to Dinah Scott’s column . . .
“Fine,” he bit out. “I won’t be here much and you can—”
Dinah snatched the paper from his hand. His jaw slackened in surprise as she tucked it under her arm. “I was reading that.”
For half a beat he just stared, then he threw back his head and deep laughter rolled from his chest. Dinah’s cheeks flamed. But she hadn’t had time for a subtler plan. How would she have explained her name and the Review? He would have wondered and wondered and wondered until he finally decided to go after the truth. He was made that way.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, and I really don’t care. But I’ll say this. It’s sure a helluva lot more entertaining than your usual tricks. Stay as long as you like.” He stood and swept an arm in grandiose invitation.
With that he disappeared back upstairs, his chuckles drifting down the stairs after him, rich, husky, and irresistibly male. Dinah snatched her flash drive from the cookie jar and ran to the safety of her own room, the echoes of his laughter hovering in her mind like a curse.
Six A.M. Too early for Connor to check with Dempsey and compare notes, but it had been near midnight when he’d finished with Candy and he hadn’t felt like disturbing Dempsey’s wife by phoning the sheriff in the middle of the night.
Now he sat over a cup of coffee at the counter of the early-morning doughnut shop. Yep. Gus Dempsey was a regular here. Often times the stereotype fit the group—more times than was politically correct to admit, Connor had learned. And Gus sure liked to chew his way through doughnuts and coffee.
He watched the two aproned women yawn as they slogged from the coffee machine to the back room where they brought in trays of doughnuts. Connor, who’d sworn off deep-fat fried food long ago, could feel his mouth water despite his good intentions. He was whip-lean and tough now, a product of a self-imposed regimen of exercise and healthy eating. He rarely drank and his vices were few. You couldn’t be in L.A. Vice and then Homicide without a certain amount of self-control. Weaker men succumbed to the seductive dark side.
Besides, he’d gotten his daily shot of adrenaline-high with the sordid images and life and death decisions thrust upon him working for the L.A.P.D. Who needed more thrills than that?
&nb
sp; “Can I freshen that?” the younger woman asked, holding a glass pot of coffee above his cup.
“Sure.”
He hadn’t sworn off caffeine yet. There was, after all, a limit.
Dempsey strolled in a half hour later. His stomach slipped gently over his belt just enough to prove he was a man who liked life’s little indulgences. “You didn’t show up last night after seeing Candy Dandy.”
“I couldn’t get away.”
Dempsey smiled faintly. “Be careful now. She’s got a bit of a reputation around here.”
They moved to a booth by silent agreement. The waitress brought Dempsey a cup of coffee and three chocolate-frosted doughnuts.
Gus bit into the first one, eating half in one bite. “She tell you she’s a whore?” he mumbled, his mouth full.
Connor stirred his coffee. “She told me a lot of things.”
He nodded. “She’s a sad case in a lot of ways. What did she tell you about Daniels?”
“She had a lot of opinions—not as many facts. She’s not the only link to the Scott girls, is she?”
“Nah. People remember Daniels even if they don’t quite remember his wife. And the girls are memorable.” Gus pulled a small notebook from his back pocket. “They kinda were in and outta school. Not a lot of supervision. But one of ’em got herself pregnant and tried to pin it on a local boy of a good family.”
“What happened?”
“Nothin’.” He shrugged. “The boy’s grown now and livin’ in Seattle. I called him. He’s proud of it—now that she’s a star and all—but apart from us in Wagon Wheel, he can’t convince anybody that he slept with Denise Scott, the film star. He’s a braggart and she’s got some funny history cooked up that doesn’t say nothin’ about Wagon Wheel, so it’s all kind of a mess.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t taken his story to the tabloids,” Connor remarked ironically.
“Oh, he did. The story ran. But that lady’s got so many stories about her now, nobody knows whether she’s from New York City or Juneau, Alaska. And a little abortion in the past ain’t no big deal.”
