This was the third time they’d worked together and it was always the same. Alana was a piranha both in bed and out. She rarely stood for anyone usurping her “star power” during a shoot. He reminded himself that he wasn’t stupid, just taking advantage of the situation, her body, the sex she’d provide over the stressful weeks of filmmaking. But this time, her clinging vine act was becoming tiresome—and more than a little scary.
“Alana, Sarah isn’t stealing anything. You’re the star, baby, as always. No one’s taking anything away from you. Sarah’s simply playing her supporting role as the bothersome little sister to her fullest potential.” And was doing a superb job of it, he thought, as he pulled on his pants, tucking his shirt in with some haste, anxious to get the hell out of Alana’s trailer. He looked around for his shoes.
But the woman rose slowly, seductively out of bed with purpose, looking like Lady Godiva with her long blond hair billowing around her shoulders. Comfortable with her body, she slithered out of bed and made her way to stand in front of him, cupping his groin with one hand, and expertly unzipping his fly with the other. “Darling, if I won’t permit Sarah to steal my best scenes, I certainly won’t allow her to take you away from me. You of all people know how very much I count on our time together.”
God, the woman was Venus in heat. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do in bed. His brain disintegrated as it so often did when she touched him. He went stone hard. Alana was tall, almost as tall as he was, with the body of a perfectly toned athlete, not an ounce of extra flab anywhere. She smelled like sex. He grabbed her, pulling her back into him and was inside her before he could think about the consequences.
A knock on the door ten minutes later reminded William he had a film to finish. He backed up and sat down on the bed to slip on his loafers and look around for his sunglasses.
Allowing a glance at the woman lying behind him on the sheets, noticing the pout that formed on her lips, he hurried his routine. When she started to speak, he was caught off guard by her change in tone.
“William, I know what you’re thinking. I’m petty. But I’m just trying to protect what’s mine.” How could she dare let him know how much she cared for him, what was in her heart for the first time in her life? If he found out she felt more for him than she’d ever felt for any other man what would he do? What would his reaction be? She couldn’t take the risk. She wouldn’t leave herself open and vulnerable like that, so she gentled her voice even more, made it sound as if it were all about her work.
“It’s hard for a woman to succeed in this business. I’ve already got a backup plan. I took some real estate courses. My friend helped me get my license some years back. I’m not stupid, William, I know I don’t possess that much talent for acting. I know why I get the roles I get. With selling real estate in this market, the money’s so much better than acting and I bought a house—in Beverly Hills. You should see it. I could get you into a house there too, William. For once, I’m making plans for the future, a future that could be so much better if we were together.” There, she’d said it, she thought as she ran her fingers along his back, and then up through his hair.
Alarms went off. This was news to him. Alana didn’t care for anyone but Alana. And make plans? She’d always been an in-the-moment kind of woman, never considering consequences or the ramifications of what her actions might bring to anyone else. “What are you saying, Alana? You’re ready to give up acting?”
“My friend Jessica thinks I could make a fortune selling real estate. I could make a lot more money in sales than I ever could in this heartless business.” She’d already made a small fortune from the commission from her first sale, but William didn’t need to know how much money she had in the bank.
The sex had obviously addled his brain or his hearing. Alana leave acting behind? It was true she wasn’t that talented. She got roles because of the way she looked, the way she was built. But she had more ambition and drive and determination than anyone he’d ever seen. And depending on the role, she could light up the screen with the best of the sex kittens. He couldn’t imagine her giving it up. “Real estate? You’re kidding right? You’d be happy selling houses instead of the attention you get from acting?”
“Selling real estate gives me security. I just want some financial security, some continuity for once. Jessica’s convinced I could open my own office right here in Beverly Hills. Right now, I just want to know about us.”
Us? What us? He had to get the subject back on track. “I can’t imagine you doing anything but acting, baby. But it’s your life. Obviously, you don’t need my blessing. Sounds like your friend’s already talked you into it.”
Her heart sank. Had she really expected him to declare his love? The feeling of despair coupled with rejection was fleeting as Alana’s temper burst into full-blown fury.
“At least Jessica has my best interests at heart. For once, I need someone to think about what’s good for me.” When he stood up, she tugged on his hand, the gentle tone gone completely while her demeanor turned back to demanding. “Just remember, William. Be a very good boy, or you’ll pay big time for being mean to me.”
That comment, as well as the shoe she aimed at his head, had him finally moving toward the door. “William, do not piss me off. People have been known to pay when they do.”
He paused before opening the door. “What the hell does that mean? Is that a threat?”
“Not at all. I’m just telling you like it is. I won’t put up with you making time with Sarah. As long as you’re sleeping with me, don’t even think about going near her.”
“You are some piece of work, you know that? She’s seventeen, a child.” He let the door slam behind him. But he wasn’t far enough out of earshot to miss her parting shot. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Cross me and you’ll pay.”
William flinched. The scene in his head faded to black, bringing him back to the present, back to his bed, and the room where he remembered his lovely, innocent Sarah.
He shuddered at the memory.
No, the frail old man he was now always hated remembering what he’d done. Because ultimately, even as a young man, he’d had no idea what Alana Stevens, or her friend Jessica Boyd, had been capable of doing until it was too late.
CHAPTER 6
Kit and Quinn agreed that no one needed a little TLC more than Baylee, the sooner the better. Since Memorial Day was still a few days off, they decided not to wait. And being the lowly first year res at the hospital, Quinn was pretty sure she had to work the holiday and wouldn’t get to spend Monday with her friends anyway, but she did get the Friday off before the holiday, so it would be a good time to get together with Baylee and boost her spirits.
Because of Quinn’s shift at the hospital, unable to get together face-to-face, both Kit and Baylee had burned up the minutes on their cell phones over the past forty-eight hours rehashing the fact that Connor Boyd was Sarah’s father. Chewing on that sickening disclosure had them troubled over what that meant for Baylee.
Quinn still couldn’t believe it. “We should’ve held her down and made her come clean months ago. The minute she took off we should have hired a private eye to track her down. That way we’d have known about her pregnancy and been there for Sarah’s birth. I never believed that hokey story about her heading off to Europe in search of her mother anyway. As her best friends, we should have been more proactive.”
“Okay, I didn’t believe the story either. We should have done more. But that’s in the past, Quinn. You should have seen her face. She’s terrified of him. He must have put the fear of God in her for Baylee to have let the bastard get away with this. I mean, we’re talking Baylee here, tried and true Baylee, who never so much as jaywalked; the one who is constantly the voice of reason, always the one after us to do the right thing. She didn’t go to the police then and I think she regrets that now. But that part is over. Now, we need to make sure Connor doesn’t find out about Sarah. Concentrate on protecting that baby fr
om him. Period.”
“I know. I know. I’m with you there. I just wish she’d told us. We could have helped her in so many ways. That’s what the whole brown hair thing was about. And next time I talk to Blair I’m going to kill her. We e-mailed each other during the entire time Baylee was right there in Denver. And she never said a word. Not a word.”
“I know. I know. You have to give it to Blair for keeping her secret, though. You know, Sarah doesn’t look a thing like Connor, no dark eyes, no black hair. I thought brown eyes dominated. But that little fact is in our favor. Can you imagine what he would do if he found out he had a daughter? Think Jessica and Alana here. You just know he would find some way to take her away from Baylee, you just know that, Quinn. He’s like his mother; he’d never allow anyone to get the better of him. That’s what is so horrifying for Baylee in all this, knowing what Jessica and Alana did to Gloria.”
Kit kept talking into her cell phone as she tallied the day’s cash receipts from the store while sparing a glance in Jake’s direction. He was hard at work on his laptop computer still searching database after database, trying to get a hit on Benjamin Griffin, her brother, the brother she’d never laid eyes on who was supposed to be living in Ireland. When he looked up from his search, she grinned and mouthed the words ‘I love you’ at him before turning her attention back to Quinn.
“Thank God. She’s the spitting image of Baylee, blonde, blue eyes. But what’s up with this arrangement with Dylan? Why pawn her off on him? What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. It sounded reasonable when Dylan offered her the opportunity to stay in the area. It was selfish of me because she was ready to bolt, take off for parts unknown. At the time it sounded like a good way to keep her safe, a spur-of-the-moment decision. But now, I’m not so sure.”
“Neither am I. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him, that’s all. Make sure he doesn’t hurt her. I talked to her the other night; she sounds like she’s doing okay. Working on the Jessica slash Alana timeline angle we started is a good excuse to get together. And I think she bought it. I mean why wouldn’t she? It’s what we’ve been trying to do, trying to link those bitches to the Parkers, enough so that any good detective can take the information we’ve gathered and run with it, finally bring some closure to this whole thing.”
“Do we know more than what we found in those boxes from Alana’s attic? We’ve gone through them until I’m tired of looking at that stuff.”
“We’ll go over all that. Look, if you’re bringing the food, how about we do Mexican for a change? I haven’t had fajitas in forever.”
“Fajitas it is then. But Quinn, promise me, you won’t give Baylee a hard time when you see her. Not about her lying to us or the fact she held everything back.”
“It isn’t her I plan to give a hard time. If I ever catch Connor Boyd near her again, so help me God, I’ll make him pay for what he did.”
With Sarah fast asleep in her car seat in the back, Dylan concentrated on making certain they weren’t followed from William’s house. Call it caution or paranoia, he didn’t care, but he wanted to be thorough. Every so often he checked the rearview mirror and listened as Baylee talked about her plans for tomorrow.
“Quinn called. Tomorrow’s her day off. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to have them over for lunch. She and Kit want to work on that timeline thing they put together, see if we can make it a little more solid linking Alana and Jessica to the Parkers. Kit’s offered to bring the food. Afterward, we can work on the documentation, work out the kinks, make an afternoon of it. The plan is to get our act together and then ask Jordan Donovan, since he’s the ex-cop, if he’ll take our evidence to the sheriff’s department, see if they’d be willing to re-open the Parker murders as a cold case. Once we get their attention, we convince them Alana and Jessica are the killers.”
Dylan was in on the plan and thought it sounded like a good idea to him, anything to get Baylee’s mind off Connor. “It’s fine with me, but does Jake know about this?” No one could accuse Dylan of not playing his part to the max.
“Knowing Jake won’t let Kit out of his sight right now, I’m pretty sure he knows. It’s Reese that thinks we’re nuts.”
“Reese is just being a lawyer.”
“I’m sorry, Dylan. I should have mentioned it to you before now. But it was the only time we could get together and include Quinn. It’s a rare day off for her. Who knows when she’ll have another? I don’t think we’ll see her on Memorial Day.”
“I’m not upset, Baylee. You don’t have to clear everything you do with me.”
She thought she did; it was his house after all, but she changed the subject. “Can you believe Jake and Kit are moving in together?”
“No. This thing between them moved really fast.”
Baylee laughed and shook her head. “Men. Glaciers move faster than Jake Boston. Think about it, they’ve known each other for ten years. Kit’s been hoping this would happen since she was fourteen. Personally, I think it’s great he finally got off the pot. Kit’s the best. She’s loyal and loving. She’ll be wonderful to him.”
“Hey, if it works for them, I’m all for it. His first marriage to Claire was a disaster, a joke. The woman was a…” He tempered his words. “Claire slept around. It’s always been Jake’s theory that she was sleeping with whoever killed her.”
Baylee was no prude, but her mouth fell open. “I had no idea. Were they ever happy?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sarah’s pacifier fall out of her mouth and Baylee reached into the back seat to retrieve it, stuffing it down into the diaper bag. When she turned back around she pointed out, “Jake won’t have to worry about that sort of thing with Kit. Like I said, she’s loved him for such a long time, she won’t hurt him. Does Kit know that about Claire though? She thought Claire was the love of his life.”
Dylan laughed at that and shook his head. “Oh God no. Claire told him she was pregnant, so they got married. Two weeks after the wedding he caught her taking a birth control pill. There was never a baby. There was, however, Claire wanting Jake’s money. But Jake suspected she was never faithful. So, when she ended up murdered, the police thought he had motive.”
“How terrible for Jake. He was never charged, though. You know Dylan, Kit isn’t really into the whole money thing. She isn’t into material stuff. She’s about as down-to-earth as you can get. But I’ll tell you right now, Kit wants a family more than anything. That’s what I think is behind this whole idea of finding her long lost brother in Ireland.”
Dylan had grudgingly revised his opinion of Kit somewhat as he had gotten to know her a little better over the past few weeks. Okay, Kit wasn’t the money hungry viper Claire had been.
He also didn’t think Baylee was into the whole material thing either after inventorying her clothes. The clothes weren’t out of style exactly, they just weren’t the latest in trendy fashions, no designer labels or flashy party dresses for Baylee.
But then he realized she was staring at him, waiting for him to say something. “I take it you aren’t sold on the idea of Kit finding the long lost brother.”
“I wasn’t at first. But I see her point. Family means a lot to her. Now that she knows Alana wasn’t her real mother, I think she’ll want to start a family with Jake. Right away.”
“You mean she didn’t want kids before?”
Baylee shook her head. “Sadly, no. She was convinced that she might…she was afraid she might turn out like Alana.”
“Ah, got it. The whole child abuse cycles theory.”
“Something like that.”
“And you don’t feel that way even though your father…”
“Knocked me around. It’s okay to say it, Dylan. That’s why I was in therapy for so long. I can say it. As bad as things were at my house, Kit had it a hundred times worse. At least my father didn’t lock me in a closet.”
Dylan’s eyes drifted from the road and zeroed in on Baylee’s. “A clo
set? You’re kidding?”
“I wish I were.”
“Jesus. After finding all the porn in Alana’s attic that day I can only imagine what it was like for Kit to grow up in that house.”
When Baylee didn’t say anything, Dylan realized she had her own childhood demons to fight off. He changed the subject. “So Kit hasn’t seen hide or hair of Collin?”
“No. All of them seem to be keeping a low profile or as Quinn says, it’s as if all three roaches have gone underground or something.”
It was the “or something” that had Dylan glancing in the rearview mirror once again to make sure no one trailed them from Beverly Hills.
True to his word, that night Dylan got on his computer, Googled the name Sarah Moreland, and was disappointed in the lack of hits. After trying several websites that promised they kept the best bios and trivia on celebrities, both past and present, he found an article that gave a four-line history of Baylee’s mother, but not much else.
One thing Dylan couldn’t get past was the vanishing off the face of the earth thing. A talented actress doesn’t just give up on her career. And couldn’t she have picked up her acting career once she got to Europe? But there was no mention of Sarah’s work or films after the year she vanished.
The bio told him that Sarah Moreland had been born in Glendale, California. She was a local girl who had gotten her first break in show biz when she’d landed a small part in the movie Happy in Love. From there she’d been cast in a supporting role in the comedy drama Growing up Dead with Alana Stevens playing her older sister.
The article went on to say that she’d given up her promising career for marriage to director William Scott, and later had a child. The footnote to the story said that she’d given it all up to run off with a young tennis pro with aspirations of joining the European circuit. The article didn’t elaborate on the tennis pro.
But for some reason, Dylan refused to buy the story. It just didn’t add up.
Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2) Page 9
