Passion

by Marilyn Pappano

  But D.J. simply leaned against the counter, a glass of orange juice in hand, and watched as Lorna juggled it all.

  She wasn’t comparing D.J. unfavorably to Teryl, she insisted, feeling a twinge of guilt that such a denial felt necessary. She had other children who were all thumbs in the kitchen, other daughters who couldn’t cook, others who, for one reason or another, had lost their maternal instinct long before it had had a chance to develop.

  Still, she would rather be talking to her first daughter instead of about her.

  “What do you mean she hasn’t come back from New Orleans yet?” she asked as she poured the first baseball-sized circles of batter onto the hot griddle. “I thought she was due back Wednesday night.”

  “She was. But you know Teryl. Rebecca offered her the chance to stay on a few days, and she took it. She’s always wanted to see New Orleans, you know.”

  That was true, Lorna conceded. From the moment Teryl had been offered the trip, she had been brimming over with excitement—although it was a toss-up which had excited her more: seeing the city she’d dreamed about or meeting the author she adored. “What did she think of Simon Tremont?”

  D.J. shrugged. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say.”

  “I hope she wasn’t disappointed.”

  “Why would she be?”

  “Because she’s admired the man since she was a teenager. Because she tends to have higher opinions of most of us than we deserve. I just hope her expectations weren’t so lofty that no mere mortal could live up to them.”

  “Who says Simon Tremont’s a mere mortal?” D.J. scoffed. “To hear Teryl talk about him, he’s some god come down from his mountaintop to bring meaning and purpose to our lives.”

  “That’s precisely my point. I like the man’s books myself, but I couldn’t care less what he’s like in person—whether he’s young or old, selfless and humble or arrogant and petty. If he turned out to be a perfectly hateful old goat, it wouldn’t affect me one way or the other. Teryl, on the other hand, is a fan—”

  “As in fanatic.”

  “And fans usually expect a tremendous amount from the object of their admiration.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

  Lorna matched her teasing tone. “There was a time, young lady, when I wore silks and furs, diamonds and emeralds and rubies. When I never went out without creating a stir, when young men fell at my feet, when every entrance I made was a grand one.”

  “And to think, you gave it all up—Hollywood, the silver screen, fame and fortune—well, you held on to your fortune,” D.J. amended before continuing. “Fame and celebrity, glamor, stardom. And you gave it all up for a house full of kids in Richmond, Virginia. Why?”

  Using a pancake turner, Lorna flipped the eight round discs so the tops could brown, then shifted Kesha to her other side. D.J. had asked the question before, and she’d always gotten the same answer, but it never seemed to satisfy her. That was one more of the differences between her and Teryl. Teryl thought giving up an acting career to raise a bunch of kids was a perfectly normal thing to do. A career held little interest for her. If she ever found a nice guy, fell in love, and got married, she would like to be a full-time mother herself, provided they could afford it.

  A career held little interest for D.J., either, truth be told, but neither did nice guys, love, marriage, and motherhood. The things D.J. had mentioned, though—fame and fortune, celebrity, glamor, and stardom… Those things sounded ever so much more appealing than a house filled with kids, with expenses and responsibilities, with tough times and heartache and sorrow. Having a good time, never settling down, never having a child whom she might hurt the way her mother had hurt her—those were D.J.’s priorities.

  And although Lorna didn’t approve of her foster daughter’s lifestyle, while their definitions of a good time differed vastly, while she thought a good man and the unconditional love of a sweet baby who needed her could do D.J. a world of good, she never said so. Maybe someday the girl would come around, but in the meantime she was still dealing with the first nine years of her life in the only way she knew how. By committing herself to no one and nothing. By flitting from job to job and from man to man. By indulging in countless affairs with countless men. By settling for affection, however temporary, instead of holding out for love.

  But it wasn’t her place to judge. She hadn’t lived through what D.J. had.

  With a sigh, she turned her attention to D.J.’s question. Why had she retired at the height of her career and moved all the way across the country to spend the rest of her life as a housewife and mother? Because she had wanted a family. She had needed one in ways that threatened to destroy her.

  She had come to a point in her life where her career had meant less every day. Making movies and playing the role of sex symbol had seemed such a waste of time. Keeping her private life—including her husband—secret because the studio didn’t want a married bombshell had become wearisome. Philip had wanted public acknowledgment—had deserved it—and they had both wanted a family.

  Truthfully, if she hadn’t quit the business and moved back to Virginia, they might never have had that family. They had been trying so long out there in L.A., but moving back here had been magic. One day they had been childless, and the next there had been the promise of the sweetest little baby any mother could hope for. Teryl wasn’t their oldest—D.J. was older by a year, Scott by three years—but she was their first, and she was theirs in ways the other kids, no matter how dear, no matter how loved, would never be.

  “It’s the same old story, D.J.,” she said with an indulgent smile. “Philip and I wanted more than we could have in Los Angeles. I wanted to be a wife. I wanted kids. I wanted to get fat and wear my hair in rollers and go to PTA meetings. I wanted to escape the reporters and the fans and the critics and the studio heads and live a happy, healthy, normal life.”

  D.J.’s response was little more than a snort. “I’d take L.A. over this place any day.”

  “You know, sweetie, if you really believe you would be happier someplace else, you could always move.”

  For a moment the younger woman was utterly still, as if such a thought had never occurred to her. Then her expression shifted, changed, all the cynicism and teasing and vitality fading, and she morosely replied, “No, I couldn’t.” Before Lorna could respond, she came around the island, gave her a hug, chucked the drowsy baby under the chin, and said, “I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late for work for the third time this week. Tell Dad I’ll see him soon.”

  From the door, Lorna watched her hurry across the patio and to the sports car she had treated herself to on her thirtieth birthday.

  Tough times, heartache, and sorrow. Debra Jane Howell had lived through her share of them, and she had caused a fair share. Lorna and Philip had done what they could for her, but it hadn’t been enough. Over the years, they’d had their failures; she still wasn’t sure whether D.J. was one of them. Sometimes all the love in the world wasn’t enough.

  But sometimes, she thought as Kesha stirred, lifted her head from Lorna’s shoulder, and sleepily smiled at her, sometimes it was all a heart needed.

  * * *

  As they crossed the Savannah River from Georgia into South Carolina, thunder rumbled, deep and threatening, loud enough to vibrate through the Blazer. John glanced at Teryl as she stirred. She had dozed the last seventy-five miles, a restless sort of sleep. Now she rolled her head from side to side, then stretched before returning the seat to its upright position. Combing her hair back from her face, she looked around, up the river to the left, down to the right, then twisted to see the city behind them. “Where are we?”

  He directed his gaze back to the road and the surrounding traffic. “That’s Augusta, Georgia, behind us and North Augusta, South Carolina, in front of us.” As the bridge gave way to land, he shifted into the right lane, since he seemed to be the only driver on the road who wasn’t exceeding the speed limit. It gave him a perfectly g
ood excuse to look at her again.

  “It’s going to rain,” she remarked, taking a panoramic look around. Her words were barely out before lightning flashed ahead of them. She flinched and reworded her pronouncement. “It’s going to storm.”

  He offered no response.

  “I hate storms.”

  A glance her way supported her words. She looked wary, uneasy. She didn’t merely dislike thunderstorms, he realized. She was afraid of them. “Why do they bother you?”

  “I don’t know. They’re violent and dangerous.”

  “I like them,” he remarked evenly. “My house in Colorado is all glass—was all glass and wood. Every room had walls of windows for the view, and the most spectacular view in the mountains is a summer storm. There’s something more intense about it up there—maybe because of the elevation, because you feel so much closer to the heavens. The lightning is sharper and more brilliant, and the thunder reverberates from valley to peak, and the rain comes down in torrents. It’s impressive.”

  She gave him a long, steady look that prickled his nerves and made him feel edgy and awkward. A measuring look. A judging sort of look. When she spoke, though, her voice was even and hinted at nothing of her thoughts. “This is the house that burned down.”

  Gripping the steering wheel tighter, he answered with one terse word. “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “Wood burns. Glass, when exposed to high heat, shatters. It was gone in minutes. Totally destroyed.” But he knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted. She wanted to know what had caused the fire. She wanted to know if maybe he had caused it. She didn’t want flippancy or deliberately obscure responses. But she didn’t want the truth, either. She didn’t want to hear that the fire had been caused by three bombs that had demolished the house. She sure as hell didn’t want to hear that the man she believed was Simon Tremont had set—or paid someone to set—those three bombs.

  Damn the man. She seriously disliked him, but she still admired him. She still had faith in him.

  She was waiting for an answer—for a serious answer—and he offered it in blunt terms. “The fire was caused by the explosions. The explosions were caused by three bombs. One went off at the back door, one at the front door, and one upstairs in my bedroom.”

  It took her a long time to respond. Was she trying to find some truth or logic in his words? Or was she merely finding further proof that she had, indeed, been kidnapped by a raving lunatic?

  “And where were you when the bombs exploded?” Her manner was cautious, her tone soothing.

  John knew she didn’t believe him. She still thought he was crazy. But she was going to play along and avoid upsetting him for fear he could turn violent. The hell of it was he could.

  Knowing he was wasting his time, he replied in a voice that was little more than a monotone, empty of emotion, stripped clean of hope. “I had just left the bedroom and was on my way into the office. I was going to get my contracts, the correspondence, and tax records—everything I needed to prove to Rebecca and Candace and Morgan-Wilkes that I was Simon Tremont.”

  He paused, watching as raindrops began splattering on the windshield. He had awakened that morning in a hotel room in Denver—had awakened with Tom on his mind. He must have been dreaming about him. That would have explained the uneven beat of his heart, the unrested feeling, the dampness of the pillowcase.

  Sometimes he tried to remember the dreams—whether they were good or bad, whether Tom had been alive, laughing, and so damned real, or dead in his arms—but not that morning. He had deliberately shut his brother out of his mind, had focused instead on what he would do while he was in the city. He had thought about his phone call the night before to Janie, about how good she had sounded and how excited she had been about the working vacation to Mexico that she was leaving on that very day. He had even, for a time, regretted sending away the pretty blonde in the conceal-nothing blue dress whom he’d met the night before in the hotel lounge. They’d had dinner together, had shared drinks in some of Denver’s finest establishments. He had paid for her time, and when the evening was over, she had graciously offered an extension. Even though he’d been alone too long, he had turned her down. The next morning, he had regretted it.

  With another flash of lightning, the rain increased in intensity to the sort of deluge he liked best, the kind that made driving hazardous, that could flood streets or wash away mountainsides. It was the kind of rain that, he’d often suspected, if he could just stay out in it long enough, could wash him away.

  Maybe it could even wash him clean.

  He braked carefully, slowing the Blazer to little more than a crawl, and, at the first opportunity, he turned off the road into a shopping center parking lot on the outskirts of a town called Aiken. He chose a parking space at the highest point of the lot, shut off the engine, and immediately felt the clammy heat start seeping in.

  “You don’t believe anything I’ve told you, do you?” he asked wearily.

  She shrugged, bright colors on a gray day. “You have to admit that, so far, it’s a fantastic story.”

  Disappointed again, he stared out the window. “I am not crazy.” He had intended the denial to be strong, sure, convincing. Instead, it came out little more than a pathetically pleading whisper.

  As if he didn’t quite believe it himself.

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning?” she suggested, her voice still so perfectly calm, so perfectly placating. So perfectly phony. “Tell me the entire story.”

  Start from the beginning. It was good advice—advice that a writer the caliber of Simon Tremont shouldn’t need. He’d been called the country’s most powerful storyteller. The master of the psychological thriller. A manipulator of emotions who could make you feel things you had never felt more deeply than you had ever felt.

  Start from the beginning. He had done that yesterday when he’d told her about Tom. Tom and Janie were the beginning of Resurrection. They were the beginning of his story and the beginning of his life. They had helped lead him to where he was today. The good stuff was all their doing.

  The screwups, though, were all his own.

  Start from the beginning. Taking a deep breath he did so.

  “Over a year ago, I sent Rebecca the outline for Resurrection…”

  Chapter Seven

  Whatever else he was, John Smith was definitely talented in the telling of tales.

  He understood the art of storytelling, Teryl thought. It showed in the way he used his voice, in his choice of words, in the pauses that paced his story. Some phrases were pure images. Others were stripped bare, blunt. Almost every thought he spoke of himself was brutal and unforgiving.

  And virtually everything he said sounded believable.

  He had told her about writing the outline for Resurrection, the story that had been born of his brother’s death seventeen years ago. It was autobiographical, he said—and the real Simon had also said—but not so clearly autobiographical that she could say with conviction, yes, this book was derived from his life. The feelings were there, though—the emotions, the losses, the grief. Based on what little of the book she’d read, she could easily see John giving life to Colin Summers.

  But that didn’t mean he actually had.

  He had covered up to the point some eight months ago when writer’s block had set in, and then he had fallen silent. Now he was staring gloomily out the window, watching the rain that hadn’t slackened one bit, thinking about something personal and, judging from his expression, very painful.

  She was thinking, too. About the fact that he knew more about Resurrection’s story line than anyone out there should. About the fact that he knew details about Simon’s writer’s block and his missed deadline that no one else should know. About the fact that everything he said sounded true.

  It felt true, even though it couldn’t possibly be… could it?

  What if this John Smith really was Simon Tremont? What if the man in New Orleans really was an impo
stor? What if he was the delusional one?

  She wanted instinctively to deny it. It was, as she’d just told John, a fantastic story—too fantastic to believe. But if she believed that he could be delusional enough to convince himself that he was really Simon Tremont, why couldn’t the same be possible of the other John Smith who was claiming to be Simon? If she believed that this John had suffered enough grief, guilt, and sorrow to make taking on a different identity understandable, then she had to believe that the other could also be capable of the same suffering and the same decisions.

  After all, this man sitting beside her knew that Simon Tremont was merely a pseudonym. He knew—as so very few Tremont fans did—that his real name was John Smith.

  He was from Colorado, where Simon had lived the past eleven years. He knew Simon’s Denver address. He knew that it was only a few months ago that Simon had moved from Colorado.

  He knew that she was fascinated with Liane from the Thibodeaux series. He knew that Simon had never had writer’s block until this book, that he had met or beaten every deadline. He knew when Simon had stopped writing, knew when the deadline had come and gone with no book to show for it. He knew about the notes Rebecca had sent Simon, friendly little reminders at first, only to soon become touched with concern. He knew when those notes had stopped.

  But she knew that they hadn’t stopped. The address had simply been changed from the mailbox place in Denver to a rural route number outside Richmond. Rebecca hadn’t stopped the gently prodding notes until the day Simon had shown up at the office to reassure her in person. Teryl had been at a dental appointment that afternoon, and she had deeply regretted missing the chance to meet her idol.