Passion and Scandal

by Candace Schuler

  "I don't know." She looked at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable, sure he would know. "Was it a hit-and-run?"

  "We'll know tomorrow," he promised her. "I called my contact at the LAPD last night while you were in the shower. He's going to look into it for me."

  "If it was, then somebody killed her, didn't they?" She said it matter-of-factly, calmly, as if she were talking about a stranger. "And somebody tried to kill me."

  "If," he emphasized. "But, yes, if all that's true, then it's beginning to look that way."

  Willow was silent a moment, coming to terms with that. "Ethan Roberts?"

  "We don't know that for sure."

  "No, not for sure," she agreed. "But you think it was him." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

  "If your mother's accident turns out to be a hit-and-run, then, yes, on the basis of what I found out yesterday, I think it very well might be him. Or someone hired by him."

  "Tell me," she demanded. "Everything."

  "It isn't a pretty story."

  "Tell me."

  Steve sighed, and told her.

  "Roberts first surfaced in Hollywood in the late sixties. He did a couple of commercials, snagged a few spots as a bit player in a couple of the weekly series on TV at the time. He got his big break in 1970, playing a doctor on 'As Time Goes By.' That's where he met your mother. He told the truth about that as far as it went. The studio did arrange the dates, at least the first one, but it was at Roberts' insistence. According to one of the grips I talked to who still works on the show, it was the only way he could get her to go out with him. That may be sour grapes," Steve cautioned her. "The guy admitted he didn't like Roberts much, said he was on a star trip in a big way and treated the crew as if they were some kind of subhuman species who'd been put on earth for his convenience."

  "The way he treats his maid," Willow said.

  Steve nodded. "This grip, though, he liked your mother. Said she was a real sweetheart, always friendly toward the crew, always prepared and professional. He said he was real sorry when she left the show. Everyone thought she had a lot of potential."

  Willow reached up and squeezed the hand that curved over her bare shoulder, silently thanking him.

  "Anyway, Roberts quit the show in '72 after hitting it big as the the upright, clean-cut hero in a couple of low-budget Westerns that were a surprise hit at the box office."

  "I remember those," Willow said. "They play on TV every now and then. On the Family Channel."

  "He married his costar from one of those movies in 1977, a young actress named Heather Blaine. She had their first son, Peter, seven months later. Edward was born in 1979 and they were divorced before he was a year old. Roberts continued to make movies, becoming more and more successful without ever actually achieving the status of a really big star, like, say, Nicholson or Eastwood. It was enough to make him very, very wealthy, though. Meanwhile—" Steve's jaw clenched with anger "—his ex-wife and kids were living in a two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood and struggling to make ends meet."

  Willow's hand tightened on Steve's, reflecting his feelings, telegraphing her own. Without lifting his palm from her shoulder, he spread his fingers, linking them through hers.

  "By '82, his star looked like it was beginning to fade," he went on. "He hadn't made a movie in a while and was doing cameos and guest appearances on television. Then, in 1984, he met Joanna Hudson, the daughter of local political bigwig, Blake Hudson, at some local charity thing. The three of them apparently hit it off. With Hudson's backing, Roberts ran for his first political office in '85 and won a seat on the L.A. city board by a wide margin. He and Joanna married the following year and, by all accounts, his father-in-law started grooming him for bigger and better things. In 1986, before he announced his campaign for a seat in the California House of Representatives, Roberts began a custody battle for his two sons. It was very nasty. His ex-wife didn't have a chance. Roberts' high-priced team of lawyers produced witnesses who claimed she was a junkie who had traded sex for drugs, sometimes in front of the boys. It was believable because Heather had a history of drug problems, back before her first son was born. And she admitted to accepting gifts of money from men to help make ends meet, but she swore that she'd never brought them into the apartment. She had friends who testified to that in court, who said she was a good mother, doing the best she could for her kids, with no help from their father. The local press ate it up, of course, making Roberts out to be this avenging angel swooping down to save his kids from their drug-addicted slut of a mother. When the judge gave full custody of the boys to Roberts, Heather apparently went berserk, screaming about how she wasn't going to let him get away with it, how she was going to expose him for what he really was and get her boys back if it was the last thing she did. It took two bailiffs to drag her out of the courtroom. The day after the boys were taken away, Heather was found dead of an overdose in the bathroom of her apartment."

  "Suicide?" Willow whispered.

  "Maybe." Steve reached for his glass of orange juice with his free hand and took a long drink, trying to wash the bitter taste out of his mouth. "Or maybe she was just an impediment to be gotten rid of."

  "Like my mother," Willow said softly, horror making her voice barely audible. She shuddered. "Like me."

  Steve put his glass of orange juice down on the edge of the tub and reached for her, dragging her onto his lap and into his arms. "We don't know that for sure," he said, lifting his hand to tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "Your mother's death may have been an accident."

  "And yesterday, was that an accident, too? Was that little boy wrong in thinking the driver tried to run me down?"

  "No." Steve shook his head, wishing he could reassure her, knowing he couldn't. The minute he'd seen the car bearing down on her, he'd somehow felt the intent of the driver. The kid's words just confirmed what he already knew. "Whoever was driving that car was trying to kill you," he said.

  Willow closed her eyes for a moment, fighting tears and panic. "What if he's my father?"

  "He might not be. Odds are, he isn't," Steve said, trying to wipe that stark, horrified look out of her eyes. "We could find something in that box of Jack Shannon's that proves he isn't, and Eric Shannon is. Or maybe it'll turn out to be Blackstone. Or maybe it's someone else entirely. Someone we don't even know about. It doesn't have to be Ethan Roberts."

  "But you think it is. And you think he tried to kill me because I could be an impediment to his career, too."

  Steve was silent, unable to give her the answer she wanted, unable to lie.

  Willow's control broke. She dropped her head to his shoulder and started to cry.

  Chapter 11

  Steve wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her close, stroking her hair, cradling her like a beloved and grieving child. He didn't offer mindless platitudes or soothing words; there were none to offer. He simply held her while she cried, slowly rocking her back and forth while the warm, bubbly water swirled around them. She stopped after a few minutes, sniffling into his neck as she struggled to control herself. And then, even that soft noise stopped and she fell silent, her body limp against him. He thought she'd fallen asleep, like a child exhausted by the passion of her tears, but she sighed raggedly, drawing in the breath to speak.

  "When I was a little girl," she said, the words so softly spoken that he had to strain to hear them, "I used to make up all these wild, improbable stories to explain to myself why I didn't have a father. The details changed over the years but the one constant was that he hadn't abandoned my mother and me by choice, that something beyond his control had taken him away, and that he really had loved us. I knew I wasn't going to find that tragic fairy-tale hero when I finally came looking for him," she admitted. "And maybe that's why I waited so long to begin the search. But I thought..." Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. "I don't know, I guess I thought I'd find some regular kind of guy, somebody who'd once been in love with a beautiful young woman but it didn't
work out. Someone who might even be glad to know he had a daughter." She lifted her head to look at him, the expression in her eyes piteous and vulnerable, asking for reassurance. "I didn't think I'd find a monster."

  Steve cupped her face in his hands. "It doesn't make any difference, one way or the other, whether Ethan Roberts is your father or not," he said softly, brushing at the remnants of her tears with his thumbs. "He didn't have anything to do with who you are and what you've become. That pleasure belongs to your aunt Sharon and uncle Dan, and the rest of the people who raised you. You are who you are because of them. Not because of some guy who may or may not have donated a sperm cell."

  "I know that," Willow said. "I really do. Finding out who my father is—even if it is Ethan Roberts—isn't going to change my life, or who I am. I didn't expect it to. It's just..."

  She shrugged and sat up in his lap, smiling crookedly, embarrassed by her tears, dismayed by the loss of her childhood dreams, frightened by the ugly possibilities looming in the future, determined to face what came with her head up and her back straight.

  "The whole thing's kind of knocked me for a loop," she said, trying for a semblance of her usual light-hearted flippancy.

  Steve was unbearably moved by her courage. Emotion swelled in his chest, threatening to choke him. "I love you," he said, wanting to give her something to replace what she'd lost.

  Willow's eyes widened until they threatened to fill up her whole face. Of all the things he could have said to her, that was the last thing she had expected. Coming on top of all the other shocks she'd had in the last few days, it was almost too much to take in. "I don't know what to say," she murmured, finally, unable to give him anything but the truth.

  "You don't have to say anything," he said. "I just wanted you to know."

  He stood then, and set her on her feet in the tub. "We'd better go in and get dressed," he said, as casually as if he hadn't just made one of the most incredible declarations she'd ever heard. "Zeke Blackstone is expecting us at four and we have to stop by your hotel first and get you checked out."

  * * *

  Zeke Blackstone was something of a Hollywood legend. He'd come to California from off Off Broadway in New York at the age of twenty-two, lured by promises of fame and fortune on the silver screen. His sizzling performance in his very first movie had fulfilled that dream, catapulting him into the movie star stratosphere, and he'd resided there ever since. Now, at age forty-seven, he was in his prime, both professionally and personally, directing and producing as well as playing romantic leads opposite women less than half his age.

  He lived with his wife, television star Ariel Cameron, in a house just off of the Pacific Coast Highway in a private and very exclusive beach community formally known as the Malibu Beach Colony but called, simply, The Colony, by those in the know.

  Expecting breathtaking views of the ocean, fabulous shopping arcades where the rich and famous bought their Armani, Evian, and imported goat cheese, and million-dollar estates, Willow was disappointed in the actuality. The only views of the Pacific were those that could be glimpsed between buildings and foliage, the shopping was mostly ordinary strip malls, and the estates—if they were there at all—were hidden behind security gates and tall, weathered fences.

  "Are you sure this is it?" Willow asked as they turned down a narrow road that supposedly led to Zeke Blackstone's beachfront home.

  Steve gave her a knowing glance. "Trust me," he said as he nosed the Mustang into a wide blacktop driveway in front of what looked like a simple suburban garage. Tall overgrown hedges that appeared not to have seen a pair of gardener's shears in months rose up on both sides of the driveway, blocking the view of the beach and partially obscuring the walkway to the narrow set of steep wooden steps leading up to the front door—which was weathered and blue and badly in need of paint.

  Ariel Cameron answered the door herself, looking as cool and elegant as she did on television. Her hair was as pale and golden as it appeared on TV, worn sleek and smooth with the ends turning under just before they reached her shoulders. Her eyes were big and blue, her slender figure was stunning.

  She was barefoot, wearing a pair of slim white jeans, a white cotton tunic sweater and tiny pearl studs in her ears. A diamond the size of a small ice cube glittered on her left hand.

  "Zeke's out on the deck," she said when they had introduced themselves. "Please, come in."

  They followed her through a house that lived up to every expectation Willow had ever had about the way movie stars lived. The foyer was larger than her Portland living room, triangular in shape, with an abstract metal chandelier hanging from the apex of the canted cathedral ceiling and a three-panel Andy Warhol silk screen of Ariel Cameron's fabulous face on the wall.

  The living room was two steps down, the textured pale gray slate floor of the foyer giving way to smooth bleached wood. The furniture was overstuffed and oversize, big cushy sofas and chairs upholstered in white, cream, and ivory with dozens of fat pillows in delicate, dusty shades of the palest pinks, blues, yellows, and greens. Large Turkish carpets echoed the color scheme while defining the separate conversational areas. The coffee tables were large, square and low, made of pale wood and squares of beveled glass. There was a huge fieldstone fireplace at one end of the room and a grand piano at the other, which still left enough room for a hundred people to have a party. The entire wall on the west side of the house, facing the beach, was glass.

  Through it, they could see a man leaning against the railing of the wooden deck, talking on a cell phone. Ariel rapped on the glass to get his attention. He looked up and smiled, holding up one finger to indicate he'd be a moment longer, and went back to his conversation.

  "Sit down, please," Ariel said, indicating the nearest conversational grouping. "I'm going to run out to the kitchen and get us all something to drink. Is wine all right or would you prefer something else?"

  "Wine's fine," Steve said.

  "Can I help you with anything?" Willow asked automatically, because that's the way she'd been raised.

  Ariel smiled. "No, thank you. I can manage." She glanced toward the glass door as it slid open. "Here comes Zeke now."

  Zeke Blackstone was as gorgeous as his wife; tall and broad shouldered, nearly as dark as Ariel was blond, with coffee brown eyes and a thick shaggy mane of hair that was just barely touched with gray at the temples. His jeans were faded and blue, his shirt was rumpled white linen and he wore battered Sperry Top-Sider deck shoes on his sockless feet. Where his wife was all cool elegance and understated sex appeal, he radiated roguish bad-boy charm and heated sexuality. He was the kind of man women lost their heads over, and Willow could easily believe every scandalous word ever written about him in the tabloids.

  "Zeke Blackstone," he said, offering his hand as if he were just like plain folks. "Sit down, please." He motioned them toward the sofa, perching himself on the arm of one of the oversize chairs. "Jack Shannon left me a rather cryptic message on my answering machine yesterday about making sure I talked to you when you called," he said. "But when I called him back, he wouldn't tell me what it was about. Said it would be better if I was surprised. Writers," he said with good-natured disgust. "Always so dramatic."

  He popped up from his perch as his wife came back into the room, reaching out to take the tray she carried and place it on the coffee table. "All I know is that this has something to do with a young woman who used to live at the Wilshire Arms back in '70." He handed them each a glass of chilled white wine, took one for himself, and sat down next to his wife. "How can I help you?" he asked.

  Willow hesitated and glanced at Ariel Cameron.

  "You can ask him about old girlfriends in front of me," Ariel said with a smile. "I'm shockproof."

  "Well..." The best way, Willow had found, was just to ask. Hemming and hawing wouldn't make it easier for any of them. "I was wondering if you might be my father."

  Ariel Cameron might have been shockproof but her husband wasn't. He nearly spilled hi
s wine all over himself. His wife reached out and rescued it, leaning forward to place it on the table. "Could you elaborate on that statement?" she asked calmly.

  * * *

  Zeke Blackstone sat staring down at the pictures Willow had handed him. "I never dated your mother," he said. "And that's God's honest truth. If it would put your mind at ease, I'd be happy to take a blood test."

  "No, that would be—"

  "Maybe at a later date," Steve interrupted before Willow could let the other man off the hook completely.

  Willow shot him a chastising look out of the corner of her eye; to her way of thinking, the very fact that Zeke Blackstone had offered to take a blood test indicated the truth of what he'd said.

  "Do you recall anything about Donna Ryan?" Steve asked. "Who she might have dated, that sort of thing?"

  "She was Eric's girlfriend."

  Steve and Willow looked at each other. "Eric's, not Ethan's?" Steve said, just to be sure.

  "Actually..." He frowned, thinking, then shrugged. "That whole situation was a little weird. She dated Ethan a couple of times right after she moved into the Wilshire Arms, maybe even three or four times. And then she and Eric got involved. Pretty seriously, I thought."

  "Do you know if they were intimate?"

  "I thought so at the time but..." He shrugged. "Who really knows what goes on between two people? Later, after Eric died, I wondered about it."

  "Why was that?"

  "Ethan was annoyed when she started dating Eric. They almost got into a knock-down-drag-out over it. The two guys, I mean. Apparently, Ethan thought that since he'd been the one who had brought her to the Wilshire Arms, as it were, she should be his exclusive property. He wasn't happy about sharing."

  "Were they?" Steve asked, elaborating when Zeke looked at him. "Sharing?"

  "I don't know." He glanced at Willow, his gaze apologetic. "Maybe. It was a pretty volatile situation. And then, after Eric committed suicide, she seemed to turn to Ethan for comfort. It was like she felt guilty and Ethan was the only one who would understand. Now, you've got to take into account that I was pretty much in a blue funk myself at the time—that night changed things for everyone in 1-G—but I seem to remember them talking a lot about the lady in the mirror and how it had affected their lives and what her appearance really meant. They were very intense about it. It gave me the creeps."