IN THE DARK

by Pamela Burford

  "What's the matter? You don't think he'd appreciate our little 'comedy of errors'?"

  Cat got to her feet. "Look. If I could, I'd go back and undo that horrendous mistake. I'd like to forget it ever happened, but you seem determined to make that as difficult as possible. If this is how the next four weeks are going to be, I'm out of here, Brody, I swear it."

  He snatched up his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. "You can walk. Go ahead." He made a sweeping gesture inviting her to do so. "I'm not holding you against your will."

  She closed her eyes briefly, struggling with her temper. "And if I do?"

  "You know the answer to that."

  If she walked, Nana got an earful.

  "I'll lose my job," Cat said. "I can't afford that, especially not—" She stopped abruptly.

  He quirked an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.

  Especially not now, when I might have a child to provide for.

  She said, "You know you have me backed into a corner. You could do the decent thing and just let me go."

  Spot joined them, and Brody knelt to roughhouse with him. "But I'm not a decent person, remember? I'm the lowest form of life, a purveyor of lies and smarmy innuendo. A destroyer of lives."

  Cat let her silence express agreement. Her opinion of his livelihood was no secret.

  "Driving Serena Milton to suicide was my finest career move," he said, rubbing the big animal's head. "That book sold in the millions. Hell, I paid off the mortgage on this house. Bought a boat—a big one."

  His callous words saddened her. She realized she'd been trying to give Brody the benefit of the doubt. Despite her disapproval of what he did for a living, up till now she'd assumed his worst crimes were simply indifference and greed. She hadn't wanted to think him capable of this cold calculation.

  Cat knew she'd let her innermost hopes and fears cloud her judgment. In truth, she didn't want to think the father of her child capable of this cold calculation. She swallowed her bleak disappointment and let the anger bubble to the surface.

  "A boat, huh?" she sneered. "Don't tell me. You named it the Serena."

  "It was tempting. But I settled for The Tramp."

  After a moment Cat said, "Enlighten me."

  "Charlie Chaplin. I'm a big fan of his—of all the comic greats of the big and little screens. Fields, Marx, Mostel, Brooks, Ball, Burnett…"

  "I should've guessed. I can't recall you targeting any of that crowd for character assassination."

  Whereas the subject of his current exposé was getting it with both barrels. She'd been appalled when Brody had shown her his research notes and the draft of the first few chapters of Nolan Branigan: Sins and Secrets. The subtitle had been borrowed from Branigan's most renowned film, for which he'd received the Academy Award for Best Actor.

  A squirrel darted up a red maple at the edge of the property, and Spot lumbered off in lukewarm pursuit. Still kneeling, Brody gave Cat one of his lopsided teasing smiles. "You're still angry about Nolan Branigan."

  She grabbed the milk glasses from the table. "I still don't see why, just because someone's in the limelight, a movie star, that gives you the right to savage his reputation. For money."

  She stalked toward the house, and he followed, laughing.

  "You just can't stand it that your big Irish heartthrob has weaknesses like everyone else," he said.

  Cat entered the kitchen through the screen door, letting it slam on Brody. "Which you don't hesitate to exploit for a buck, no matter how much damage you cause. If someone's a celebrity, his personal problems become fodder for hacks like you—" She bit her lip. "I didn't mean to say that."

  He laughed again, slinging the cookie plate onto the counter. "After everything else you've said, you're apologizing for calling me a hack? That's so cute."

  "I don't even believe half of what you're writing. Nolan Branigan is a good person, a dedicated family man."

  "That 'family man' has been messing around with other women since his wedding day. And then there's the question of his—how to put this politely?—ambiguous sexuality."

  "You have no proof of that!"

  He shrugged. "Close enough."

  "Why does the public need to know, even if it's true? It's between him and his wife."

  "His long-suffering wife, who's come close to divorcing him twice over his infidelities."

  Cat poked a finger at Brody's chest. "Which you only found out by prying into their personal lives. If you publish that book with all this stuff in it, it'll be your fault if they divorce—if their three kids become the casualties of a broken family." Cat's voice had turned shrill. To her horror, her eyes stung.

  "There are worse things for kids than a broken family. Why are you getting so worked up over this? I'd have thought you were too old to have crushes on movie stars."

  She turned from him and wiped her eyes with her fingertips, took a couple of deep breaths.

  "Cat?" His voice held concern. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"

  "Nothing." The less this man knew about her personal demons, the better. "I'm just … a little tired."

  After a moment he said, "Is it the kids? That business about the broken—"

  "It's nothing!" She shook off his hand and escaped up the stairs.

  * * *

  Cat was constructing a shopping list for Brody when his phone rang in the computer room. He was in the basement sorting his laundry. The housekeeper who came twice a week was on vacation, and he'd done his best to convince Cat that washing his dirty socks was the sort of motherly service that would make him feel all warm and nurtured. Instead she'd patiently instructed her client in the intricacies of water temperature and permanent press settings. He was forty years old, she'd pointed out. Didn't he think it was high time he learned to fend for himself?

  "No."

  "You know what they say." She'd shoved the bottle of bleach at him. "Give me a fish and I'll eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I'll eat for a lifetime."

  "So I take it you know how to fish."

  "What? No." She'd stepped back as he enthusiastically splashed bleach into the machine.

  "Now's as good a time as any to learn," he said. "We'll take out The Tramp—"

  "You are going to stay down here until that entire mountain of laundry is washed, dried and folded."

  "And if I don't?" A devilish light had come into his eyes. "What'll you do—spank me?"

  He'd started to advance on her and she'd beat another hasty retreat. Cat wondered if she was destined to spend the next month running from her client like a startled rabbit.

  She finally located the ringing phone on the floor under the latest issue of Mad magazine, and grabbed it up.

  "Brody Mikhailov's office," she said.

  "Who's this?"

  Cat glared at the phone. "May I ask who's calling, please?"

  "Leon Lopez. Brody's agent." His voice was rough as steel wool. "Are you the office mom?"

  "Yes, I am. Cat Seabright."

  "You don't sound very friendly, Cat. I thought you gals were supposed to be all warm and fuzzy."

  "I am." She swept a pile of papers from the wing chair and plopped down on it. "I'm very warm and fuzzy."

  "You know this was my idea, right? An office mom for Brody's birthday present?"

  "Yes, I know." Cat squeezed the phone as she imagined her fingers around Leon Lopez's throat. "So I have you to thank for this assignment."

  His bark of laughter had her jerking the phone from her ear. Did he know about that night? Had Brody told him about her? She prayed not. The more people who knew, the greater the chance it would get back to Nana.

  He said, "I knew he'd be a handful. You a looker?"

  "What?"

  "You know—are you a good-looking babe?"

  "My face hasn't stopped any clocks lately."

  "Then I'm not even gonna ask if he's keeping his hands to himself. Just smack him around if he gets too frisky."

  Good. He didn't know.


  "Thank you, Mr. Lopez. I'll keep that in mind."

  "Call me Leon. Listen, kiddo, I'm counting on you to give me my money's worth. I could've bought that boy a set of luggage for his birthday. Season tickets to the Giants. Hell, I could've hired him a high-class hooker!"

  Cat sagged in the chair, rubbing her temple.

  "But I've known Brody for almost twenty years," Leon said. "I know what he really needs. Even if he doesn't."

  "TLC," she murmured, recalling the conversation in Nana's office. How did Leon put it? A little TLC might have a humanizing effect on me.

  "Bingo!" Leon cried. "Tender loving care. Which, since he's never had any, he won't know what to do with, but don't let that stop you."

  Before Cat could ask what he meant by that, he said, "Oh! The reason I called. Tell Brody I'm flying out to L.A. tomorrow, gonna do lunch with Schneider and Serrano." He singsonged, "Tell him it's look-ing go-od."

  "Serrano? Pia Serrano?" Cat asked, referring to the 1980s sitcom actress who now hosted one of those smarmy daytime talk shows.

  "Yeah, she's the talent, though I personally think Schneider should've held out for someone hotter."

  "Wait. Brody's involved in TV?"

  "He didn't tell you? With any luck, our boy'll be head writer for a new prime-time network newsmagazine that's in the works. They're calling it Banner Headline. Gonna highlight a different celeb each week—dead celebs mostly, to cut down on slander suits. Kind of like those books he writes, but in one-hour doses for a viewership in the millions. Biography meets the National Enquirer."

  Just when she thought Brody couldn't go any lower, he sheds his skin and slithers under the doors of a new batch of bedrooms—and mausoleums. Dead celebs mostly, huh? She shuddered, thinking of Serena Milton.

  Leon continued, "He's got stiff competition for the job, but let's face it. Nobody slings the mud like Brody. He's the King of Sling. Like I said, it's look-ing go-od."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  "It's look-ing go-od," Brody warbled, as he closed the oven door on the bubbling lasagna. "Smelling good, too."

  "Been talking to Leon, have you?" Cat pulled aside the kitchen curtain and peered out at the rain battering the backyard.

  "I'm always talking to Leon. Why?"

  Instead of answering, she said, "You were wrong. The rain's not letting up—it's getting worse. I really think I'm going to have to knock off early, Brody. I have a long drive home."

  She was supposed to stay until eight. It was now five-thirty. "But I'm actually cooking, Cat. I'm making history here! No part of this meal had anything to do with the telephone or takeout menus. You have to stay."

  During the two weeks that she'd been Brody's office mom, Cat had made him start laying in fresh food, the kind that required some degree of preparation and was presumably better for him than the Colonel's extra crispy and microwave burritos. She'd watched him cook for Spot often enough; he couldn't claim he didn't know how.

  On several occasions Cat had scribbled shopping lists and dragged him to the grocery store—a real supermarket, not the pricey convenience store he usually patronized—where he'd learned how to grope mangoes and eyeball expiration dates. She seemed determined to turn him into a responsible, self-sufficient adult.

  He slit a loaf of Italian bread and started spreading garlic butter on it. "Besides, if you leave now, you'll hit rush hour."

  She dropped the curtain and turned to him. "Going toward the city?"

  "Well, once you're past the city, it'll be bumper to bumper heading north. You know that. You're better off waiting. Maybe the rain'll let up."

  "Mmm … maybe."

  "Or you could take me up on my standing offer of the guest room. It wouldn't take me five minutes to clear all that stuff off the bed and throw some sheets on it."

  Her expression didn't change, but she crossed her arms over her chest. He doubted she was aware of the eloquence of her body language.

  "Scout's honor." He held up a butter-smeared hand. "I'll be good. No tiptoeing into your room in the middle of the night."

  She looked away. "That's all right I'd rather be home. But thanks anyway."

  He wrapped the bread in foil and shoved it in the oven. "Is it Mr. Perfect? Afraid he'll object if you spend the—"

  "No. I mean, maybe. He … he wouldn't like it."

  Brody placed a ripe tomato on the wooden cutting board and split it with a sharp kitchen knife. "Why would he have to know?"

  She hugged herself tighter. "I couldn't lie to Greg. I believe in honesty."

  Brody kept his eyes on the tomato he was slicing. Whack. Whack. "Like you were honest with him about you and me?"

  She didn't answer, and he slashed the tomato with increasing zeal. Whack! Whack! Whack! Hadn't she told him she wanted to forget it ever happened—their "horrendous mistake"? Whack!

  A raw curse erupted as blood oozed from his finger.

  "Let me see it." Cat was by his side immediately, grabbing for his hand.

  "It's nothing," he said, pulling away.

  She fought him for possession of the wounded digit. "Looks deep. You may need stitches."

  "No!"

  "Oh, come on, it's not the end of the—"

  "No! No stitches."

  She sighed. "All right. Let's get the bleeding stopped and I'll take a closer look. Sit down."

  Cat shoved him into a chair, grabbed a clean paper napkin, folded it and pressed it to the finger, holding his arm vertical. She was a paragon of efficiency. Normally he had no patience with efficient people, but something about her brisk, take-charge attitude made him feel … well, nurtured.

  After a couple of minutes she eased the bloody napkin away and peered at the injury, a half-inch gash. "Okay, the bleeding's mostly stopped. I think we can get away with a butterfly."

  "What's that?"

  "It's like stitches, only worse."

  "Ha ha ha," he heard himself say, chagrined at having picked up his office mom's most annoying expression.

  "Hold this," she said, turning the napkin and pressing it back on the wound. Before leaving the kitchen, she checked the lasagna and bread, and turned off the oven. She was back shortly with a few first aid supplies and a pair of scissors, with which she cut a small piece of adhesive tape and notched it on both sides. She held it up for him to see. "Butterfly."

  "Bow tie."

  "What?"

  "It looks more like a bow tie than a—"

  "Shut up and sit still."

  She cleaned his finger with peroxide and let it dry. He watched in fascination as she carefully placed the bow tie across the cut, holding the skin closed.

  "Isn't that clever," he said.

  "I didn't make this up. They sell butterfly bandages ready-made, but you didn't have any."

  "How do you know how to do this?"

  She shrugged. "I guess I just picked it up."

  She unwrapped a bandage and squirted a little antibiotic cream on it, then applied it to the wound. Brody watched her slim fingers gently smooth down the plastic strip. Her nails were short, adorned only with a little clear polish. She wore a narrow band of braided silver on her pinky.

  Her hand lingered on his and he looked up at her face, inches away. Her pale azure eyes seemed to hold a question. For him? For herself? Time lengthened, quivered, stretched tight as a drum. Rain that sounded like gravel drilled the window glass. Cat glanced down at their joined hands and stepped back.

  "I'll finish the salad," she said.

  "Cat—"

  "Do you want wine with dinner?" Her tone was nonchalant, in contrast to her stilted movements as she reached into the refrigerator for lettuce.

  Brody almost said, Can we talk about this? This thing simmering between us? It's not going to go away. Then he remembered Mr. Perfect and was forced to acknowledge that this thing between them might be more one-sided than he wanted to admit. Maybe Cat and Greg had a hot date lined up for tonight. That would explain her eager
ness to get home.

  He realized he didn't want to know. His mind began to form a picture of Cat and her lover together in bed, doing the things Brody had done with her that night.

  "Well?" she said. "Wine?"

  "Vodka. I'll get it." He got up and retrieved the bottle from the freezer, and poured a liberal dose into the first thing that came to hand, a large coffee mug embellished with a reproduction of Edward Hopper's moody painting Nighthawks. He barely felt the first long swallow. Cat was pretending not to notice as she dried the lettuce in the spinner and emptied it into a handmade ceramic salad bowl.

  Spot whined at the back door. Brody let him in and hustled out of range as he shook rainwater off his fur. The dog took an interest in his master's neatly bandaged finger, which Brody held away from him. "Thanks anyway, boy, but that's my office mom's job, to kiss my boo-boo all better." To Cat he said, "Isn't that what moms do?"

  "Is that what your mom did?" She rinsed a green pepper and started to cut it, but stopped to look at him when he failed to answer.

  The only thing more pathetic than a drunk lusting after an unavailable woman was a motherless drunk lusting after an unavailable woman. Brody ignored the question and set about pouring Cat a generous glass of burgundy, resolved not to get hammered alone.

  "I don't want that much," she said, eyeing the overfull wineglass. "I have to drive tonight."

  "So don't finish it." He set the bottle on the table.

  Cat did indeed finish her wine during dinner, absently sipping it while they decimated the lasagna and debated which of Mel Brooks's movies was the most sidesplitting. Brody surreptitiously topped off her glass a couple of times.

  Finally she sat back, replete and glassy-eyed. "You said it would stop." She yawned, gesturing languidly at the rain-lashed window.

  "I said maybe." He lifted the wine bottle.

  She waved away his attempt to refill her glass and came sluggishly to her feet.

  "Leave the dishes," he said, rising and steering her out of the kitchen toward the living room. He grabbed his cigarettes off the counter on the way. "You want coffee?"

  "No." She checked her watch. "Damn, Brody, you did that on purpose."

  "What?" He settled them on the powder blue camelback sofa and switched on the table lamp, casting the room in a warm glow.