“What happened?”
“Someone pushed her down the stairs.”
I felt the dull thud of my heartbeat. “She was pushed? For sure?”
“She insists she was pushed. She was going upstairs to look around, and she said she saw . . . a figure. Coming out of your room.” He swallowed and looked at the floor. “A woman with dark, flowing hair and eyes that burned like hot coals.”
Goose bumps raced up my arms and along my back. “Who was the woman?”
He shook his head. “There’s no one on the set who looks like that.”
“What happened next?”
“Jovan was frightened. She said the woman was strange. So she retreated, headed back to our room. She was looking down when someone gave her a big push. She could have broken her neck.”
“Did this woman push her?” According to the rules of the Great Beyond, a noncorporeal being couldn’t push a flesh and blood human down the steps. Only the most powerful ghosts—or evil spirits—could manipulate matter.
“She couldn’t say for certain. She took a sedative and she’s resting now. The only thing that calmed her was your dog and the other one. She felt like they guarded her—that they would sense an evil presence. She’s finally relaxing.”
“She isn’t injured?”
“Some bruises, nothing serious. But it could have been. Sarah Booth, it could have been fatal. And if the media gets word of this, our film may die. No one wants to be affiliated with a movie that’s cursed.”
The media was already blowing things out of proportion. An “attack” on Jovan would send them into a real feeding frenzy. But the problems on the set couldn’t be ignored, either.
I showed Federico my arm. “Estelle did this. She came into my room. She doesn’t want us in this house.”
“When? How?” Federico was shocked.
“Earlier today. She grabbed my arm and said her mother wouldn’t approve of us being here.” I cleared my throat. “Is she delusional, thinking that Carlita is still alive, or does she believe Carlita’s ghost is here?”
Federico sat down heavily. “The past never dies, does it?”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t.” I spoke from personal experience.
“I’ve lied to Estelle about her mother’s death, and now I’m afraid she’s losing her mind.”
I couldn’t help that my heart rate accelerated. “How so?”
“I wasn’t truthful about how Carlita died.”
Jovan slept peacefully in the bedroom. I caught a glimpse of her through the open door from the sitting room where we were. “What really happened?” I asked.
“You see the picture of her in your room, yes?”
I nodded.
“She was a beautiful woman, lush and exotic even in that picture, where her illness was beginning to show.”
I’d never heard that Carlita was ill, but I kept silent while Federico continued.
“Carlita wanted to be something else, someone other than who she was. She suffered from the harshest of diseases. Self-loathing.” He straightened his shoulders.
“Who did she want to be?”
“Someone European. Someone tall and slender and fair. She felt too short, too curvaceous, too Latino. She wanted to be considered a serious actress, and she felt she was typecast as the femme fatale because of her looks. She thought if she was thin, she would be viewed as a talented woman instead of a woman with looks.”
I was stunned to hear this. “She was gorgeous. What a shame not to revel in that gift.”
“And she was talented, Sarah Booth. Greatly talented. I was drawn to her beauty and her talent like a moth to a flame. But no matter what I told her, she could never see those things in herself. I have no idea what she saw when she looked in the mirror, but it wasn’t the truth.”
No one ever sees the truth in a mirror, which is the power of Sleeping Beauty. But none of this answered my question. “How did she die?”
“The medical term is anorexia nervosa. We were living in Los Angeles for my work. I got the finest doctors money could hire. The incredible truth is that she starved herself to death.” He blinked tears from his eyes. “I’ve never endured anything more terrible. We force-fed her, we tried everything, from drugs to electroshock therapy. Before she died, her teeth were falling from her gums. To watch such loveliness descend into ruin was excruciating.”
There had been a girl in college who was rumored to suffer from anorexia. I never knew for certain, because her parents came and took her home. I only knew that in one semester’s time, she went from thin to skeletal.
“What did you tell Estelle about her death?”
“Estelle has always been self-conscious about her appearance. I was terrified if she knew her mother’s true illness that she would mimic Carlita. They were so close. In appearance and temperament and emotions. So I sent Estelle and Ricardo to boarding schools in the East. Toward the end, I never allowed them to come home. Not even for holidays. And when Carlita finally died, I told them she’d accidentally taken a drug overdose.”
“The coroner went along with this?”
He nodded slowly. “Which is perhaps why Sheriff King has no love for me. He feels I manipulated the system. That’s why I had to lie to him about Suzy. He wants me to be guilty of some atrocity. He thought I was hiding something criminal in Carlita’s death, but I was only protecting my children.”
I blew out a breath and sat on the edge of the chair facing his. “You shouldn’t have lied to Estelle and Ricardo.”
“Hindsight is crystal clear, isn’t it?”
“Right.” I wondered what the best thing to do might be. “Should we leave this house? Surely there are other locations . . .”
“We’d have to reshoot everything, and the budget won’t allow it. We’ll finish before long, and then Estelle will be satisfied. I will be gone from here.”
“Will that make her happy?” I asked the question gently. “She’s so angry, Federico. She comes and goes at will in the house. There are obviously ways in that the guards don’t know.”
“She grew up in this house as a young girl. I’m sure there are passages. Not even I know them. But her grandfather would have shown her. He designed and had the house built. He never approved of me.”
“Does Ricardo know the truth about his mother?”
He stood and walked to the mantel above the cold fireplace. He picked up a framed photograph I hadn’t noticed and handed it to me. It was his family, all four of them smiling and hugging each other.
“Ricardo suspects. But whatever he thinks, it doesn’t eat at him the way it does Estelle. He wasn’t that close to Carlita. He knew she was very sick. He came home one holiday, unexpected, and saw her. He never asked any questions, and I sent him back to school.”
“What a tragedy, Federico. I’m so sorry.”
“If you could have known Carlita, you would have been charmed by her. Everyone was. And yet she could never love herself.” He put the picture back. “But we must work tomorrow, Sarah Booth. You should rest, and I’ll do my best to prevent Estelle from harming anyone else.”
“And Jovan will accept this?” It didn’t seem like much vindication for her near-death fall.
“She will. She understands.”
“Estelle can’t continue to terrorize us. My friends are here—”
“I know. I’ll take care of it. Now get some rest.”
He walked me to the door and brushed a kiss on my cheek before he shut it.
I went upstairs, following the sound of laughter to Cece’s room. The gang was there, including Graf. They were waiting for me. I wasn’t home, but I was pretty damn close.
That night I dreamed of riding the little red roan along the sandy beach as the ocean crashed mightily into the shore. When we got to the rock formation, where the spray rose thirty feet into the air, my horse suddenly changed into a creature of foam, and I was riding the sea, almost a mermaid but not quite.
I awoke in the early hours to Swe
etie’s gentle snores and the security of Graf’s arms around me. The curtains in the room blew lazily on a soft breeze. Not once did I see the shape of a woman’s body in them.
Outside were the sounds of the tropics, not the Delta. But my friends were all around me, and for that moment, I had happiness, peace, and contentment. My final thought before drifting back to sleep was that perhaps I’d begun to learn the Buddhist art of living in the moment. No mean feat for a Mississippi gal raised to gamble on the weather and a crop that was six months away.
The next morning, I woke Graf with a thousand kisses. I hadn’t meant to fall in love with him. I wasn’t sure that I had, but I had begun to trust the feelings that he stirred in me enough to at least explore them. There was the simple pleasure of the flesh. I was good with that one.
His body was a wonder to me. He was physical perfection, and I enjoyed looking and touching.
“I’ll bet your friends are up,” he whispered when we were both panting and sweating, spent from our efforts.
It was nine o’clock. Millie and Cece were up for sure. Tinkie—it was debatable. Unless she was on a case she liked the horizontal position in the morning.
“I’m starving,” Graf said, gently biting my shoulder.
“Me, too.” I didn’t know if it was the work, the tension, or the lovemaking, but I was hungry.
“Let’s see what’s for breakfast.” He slipped into his robe and held mine for me.
“Shall I bring you some breakfast in bed?” I asked.
“We can eat with your friends. I’ll find out the filming schedule for the day and let them know so they can plan to be on-set for the scenes they want to see.”
I smiled my thanks as we headed to the kitchen.
Halfway there I heard a burst of laughter. When we opened the door, Millie was flipping French toast and ten members of the cast, including heartthrob Ashton Kutcher, who was playing Teddy, the Mickey Rourke role of the bomb maker, were cheering and clapping.
“Sarah Booth, Graf, I thought I’d make breakfast,” Millie said. “Tinkie is eating in her room.”
“You can take the girl out of the kitchen, but you can’t take the kitchen out of the girl.” I took a seat at the huge table. “French toast? Yumm.”
“It’s wonderful,” five people assured me.
“I can have it anytime I want in Zinnia, Mississippi.” It was a point of pride.
By the time we finished eating, the kitchen was clear and I could ask Millie the questions that were on my mind. Graf excused himself and took the dogs out to the stables to check on the horses.
“What do you know about Carlita Marquez’s death?” I asked.
Millie was washing dishes and her hands paused in the suds, a sure sign she was thinking through the implications of my question.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Maybe twelve years.” I was guessing, but I was fairly close.
“She was the Latino bombshell, sort of the Spanish Marilyn Monroe. My God, she was beautiful, but you can see that in the portrait in your room.”
“Quit hedging and tell me what you know.”
“Her death was ruled accidental overdose. Or that was the official version, but everyone thought there was something else going on.”
“What in particular?”
“It was rumored that Federico was seeing a Danish actress. I don’t recall her name, Alana or Alissa or something like that. I’ll check. Anyway, there was talk.”
If that was true, no wonder Carlita came up short when she measured herself. If Federico was dallying with a tall blonde it would go a long way toward explaining Carlita’s image problems. The betrayed almost always assumes the blame—that’s the destructive part of betrayal.
“I need to find out if that’s true.” I’d learned how the media could take a simple thing and turn it into a big deal. Perhaps Federico and the blonde in question were only friends. Or perhaps there was no blonde, only ugly speculation.
“I can do some checking,” Millie said.
“How?” I was curious.
“I have membership in several different fan clubs. There are online lists where members are authorities on certain celebrities. I can post a question. If there’s a computer I can use.”
I shook my head. “Millie, you astound me. I’m sure I can find an Internet hookup among the cast and crew. Just be sure you erase your footsteps.”
“No problem.” Millie dried her hands. “I have to go put on my makeup and get ready for today. I heard that Pierce Bros-nan was dropping by the set.”
“He’s not in the picture.”
“He’s a friend of Jovan’s.”
“I’ll put the dishes away. You go get ready.”
My aunt Loulane had always claimed she did some of her best thinking with her hands in dishwater. I knew it was a trick, so I didn’t fall for it. But the rhythmic motions of drying and putting away dishes did give me a chance to order my thoughts and probe my feelings for Graf.
I had acted rashly in jumping into bed with him, but for the first time in months I felt as if I had a toehold on a precarious cliff. I had no doubt that Coleman Peters cared for me, but his actions toward me had not been loving. Torn between honor and love, he’d chosen honor. And the terrible predicament was that such behavior was exactly why I’d fallen for him in the first place.
But a woman can’t always come in second, not even to honor. And I’d been third to his wife, Connie, producer of fake pregnancies and tumors, for I had no doubt that the latest of her cranial difficulties was fabricated.
As a point of honor I refused to ask Cece or Tinkie or Millie how Connie’s medical issues were progressing. I’d made a decision about Coleman, and now no matter what happened between Connie and him, I had moved on.
“Are you okay, Ms. Delaney?” I turned to find Jovan standing in the kitchen. “Is there coffee?” she asked.
“Yes and yes.” She was a beautiful woman, but there was also sadness in her crystal blue gaze.
She poured a cup of coffee, black, and sat at the table. There was a large bruise on the orbital socket of her eye that ran down her cheek. There was also a cut on her lip, but she was able to work all of her limbs properly.
“You looked so sad when I walked in. My grandmother would say that you’re too young for sadness.”
“Chronologically speaking, your grandmother might be correct. But life doesn’t wait ’til a certain age to dish out the hard spots.”
“How well I know.” She sipped her coffee. “Forgive my nosiness, but why are you unhappy today?”
I could ask her the same, but I didn’t. “I was thinking about the people I’d left behind in my life.”
“I suppose we all have our ghosts.”
I knew she couldn’t be referring to Jitty, but I was struck by a wave of homesickness. “What ghosts do you carry, Jovan?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes we’re born burdened with the past.”
She was smart for someone so young. “Tell me what happened last night, if you don’t mind.”
She went through the story Federico had told me, point by point.
“Do you think that woman you saw pushed you?”
She hesitated. “She was halfway down the second-floor hall. She would have had to move fast to get to me.”
“If she didn’t push you, who did?”
“That’s the thing that’s really scary, Ms. Delaney. I can’t explain how she did it, and if she didn’t, who did.”
CHAPTER TEN
Federico was true to his word, and the next two days of shooting went without a hitch. There are rare times, sometimes only moments, when life is close to perfect. This was such a time for me. I had Graf, my best friends in the world, a job that I’d dreamed of and now discovered that I could do well, and a place that was close to paradise. If I’d been asked to make a wish, I would have had to say that I had everything I wanted.
Graf and I rode each morning on the beach, the waves crashing onto the sand
and the seabirds calling. The brisk salt air made the horses frisky, and we rode and frolicked, and for those short hours I had no worries or cares. I embraced the happiness the gods had thrown in my path, and everyone on the set noticed, especially Tinkie.
The days had begun to run together, but Tinkie informed me that it was a Tuesday, and that she and Cece and Millie would have to leave soon. While I had started a new life, they were only vacationing from theirs.
The idea of saying good-bye almost made me cry, but I walled off my own sadness. “I wish you guys could stay forever.”
“Oscar called three times last night. He’s getting grumpy, and that means it’s time for me to head home. Cece says the newspaper is nagging at her, too.”
Cece had worked too hard to overcome the stigma of being a transsexual to ever take her job assignment lightly.
“And Millie is worried about the café.” Tinkie took my hand. “Let’s take a walk.”
We went to the beach and watched the surf strike the rock formation that looked like a castle from a distance.
“This is a beautiful place, Sarah Booth.”
“Indeed it is. But we’ll be heading back to California soon.”
“I’ve been watching you act, and you do have a special talent. I’m so proud of you. You’re going to have a big, big career in film.”
She was the most generous of friends, offering freedom without guilt, even if it meant leaving her behind. “After the movie is finished, I’m coming home. We can have a big ole party at Dahlia House.”
“That’ll be nice.” She turned to go back. “But Hollywood is where the parties count. No one in Zinnia can help your career.”
“The party isn’t for my career, it’s for my friends.”
She smiled and tugged me along behind her. “Millie is cooking dinner for Federico and Jovan and us. I promised her I’d go to the store and get some supplies. Want to come?”
I did but I had some lines to learn for the next day’s shooting. “I’ll help later in the kitchen.”
“Good deal.” We parted ways at the front driveway. Tinkie had borrowed the keys to a rental car and she had her list in hand.
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