Watching You

by Leslie A. Kelly

  “I heard on the news this morning that they caught the woman who did it. And she killed somebody else? That’s crazy, man.”

  Her hand tightened around her glass. Every time she thought about the murder, her thoughts darkened. Not just with sympathy for the victim, but with a hint of fear. It could so easily have been her, or Reece. Not just the night of the chemical attack, but with that shot at the gallery. No, the woman apparently hadn’t confessed to it yet, but there seemed to be little doubt she was the one who’d done it.

  “It was a rough couple of weeks. I’m glad it’s over.”

  “Me too.” That nonstop smile broadened even more, though his eyes seemed flat. Because she was studying them, she noticed immediately when he dropped his attention to her chest for a quick peek.

  She straightened the towel.

  He pretended he hadn’t been looking.

  “So it seems like you and Reece are pretty serious.”

  Jessica’s tension built. Every woman knew to obey the little Spidey sense that said the words coming out of a man’s mouth didn’t match his mood or expression. This guy’s didn’t. His smile was too broad, his voice a little loud. He was trying to hide the fact that he’d been drinking. Maybe he’d just been fortifying himself for the meeting with Reece, knowing there was a lot riding on the audition, but she didn’t think that was it.

  Something strange was going on here. She didn’t like it.

  “I’m so…happy for him.”

  She heard the hesitation and saw his hand tighten around his glass. It was like he had a poker player’s tell—a sign he unconsciously made when bluffing. She just didn’t know what game he was playing or who was holding the better hand.

  “You know, why don’t I call him? Maybe he’ll want you to come into the city and meet him at his office.”

  Not waiting for him to respond, she got up and headed for the door. She had left her cell phone outside. Good thing—she preferred to be out in the open rather than in the enclosed house. It felt a little safer, despite the fact that there were no close neighbors.

  You’re being paranoid. Steve was an old friend of Reece’s family, and Reece himself admitted he’d been innocent in Rachel’s descent. He had been maligned and practically ridden out of Hollywood. On top of that, his father had died a brutal death. He deserved her pity, not suspicion.

  That was why she didn’t react when Steve followed her out.

  “God, what a view!” he said, staring out at the hills rising on either side of the yard, and the edge of the cliff that fell away across the back. “Can we sit out here for a while?”

  Relief flooded her. That didn’t sound like a man who was trying to keep her in an enclosed space. Of course, given the hills, the cliff, and the high metal fence running along the front of the property, they were in an enclosed space. It wasn’t as confining at the house, at least.

  “Sounds good. I was just enjoying the pool before you arrived.”

  “Don’t let me stop you,” he said, wagging his brows, giving off that creepy vibe again.

  She smiled tightly. “Oh, I should stay covered up. You know redheads and sun.”

  Steve scooted another lounge chair close to the one she’d been using. Dropping his satchel onto it, he said, “Um, actually, mind if I use the restroom?”

  “Of course not.” She told him where to find it and watched him go inside. As soon as he was gone, she grabbed her shorts and T-shirt from the pool deck and yanked them on.

  Why did men not realize women were primed to be suspicious of strangers? That it might not be cool to intrude when a woman was alone, to sneak uncomfortable glances and make suggestive comments? It was the twenty-first century. Every woman in the world had run into men who gave her the creeps. She didn’t understand why the decent ones didn’t grab a clue and follow some basic rules of conduct.

  Maybe this isn’t a decent one.

  Remembering the reason she’d come out here in the first place, and suddenly wanting to hear Reece’s voice, she glanced at the door, hoping to make the call before her visitor returned. She couldn’t imagine Steve would tell such an easily disproven lie, but she wanted to be sure Reece really had been expecting him.

  She only hoped she could reach him. He had been gone for about ninety minutes and might very well be sitting in a police interrogation room facing the woman who’d tried to kill Jess less than a week ago. Wanting something to ground her, however, she tried anyway.

  Hoping to keep it dry, she had left her phone on a small table out of splashing range. She spun around to retrieve it, forgetting Steve had repositioned the other chair.

  “Ow,” she snapped as she banged right into it. That was going to bruise the heck out of her shin.

  Her hard knock had not only injured her; it had also sent Steve’s satchel flying off the seat. Pages of a scene-side, probably the one he was working on with Reece, had fallen on the wet cement, as had other documents, a notebook, and bound scripts. Embarrassed, and glad he was taking a while inside, she bent to scoop everything up. She’d have to lay the pages out on the chair and hope they would be legible when they dried.

  Before she picked up a single one, though, something else caught her eye. It had fallen between the two lounges—a bound script, with all the typical proprietary warnings about not sharing it. ACTOR’S COPY was stamped on top, the title below.

  And below that were two signatures, plus a handwritten sentence.

  Her heart started to pound. Feeling like she was still in the water, moving through it slowly, she picked up the bound pages. She had left her sunglasses inside, and had to squint against the brilliant sunlight to make sure she was reading correctly.

  ACTOR’S COPY: RACHEL WINCHESTER. Together at Last.

  Below that, in a boyish scrawl, was Reece’s signature; beside it, his sister’s. The additional writing proclaimed the Winchesters as the world’s biggest stars.

  There was something else. Drawn in the bottom corner was a heart, with the initials RW and SB.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, recognizing what she held. There couldn’t be two scripts like this; it was an irreplaceable piece of history. Reece’s history, or at least one precious moment of it. He thought it had been lost forever in the fire that destroyed his home. But Steve Baker—Rachel’s teenage boyfriend—had it in his possession.

  This could mean only one thing.

  “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

  She swung her head up. Steve stood a few feet behind her. Jess launched to her feet, clutching the script to her chest and backing away slowly between the chairs.

  “You burned down Reece’s house.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Please give that back.”

  She took another step back on the slippery deck. “Admit it.”

  He extended a hand, his whole face tense, a mixture of anger and what looked like sadness. “Please, Jessica, give it back to me. It’s precious.”

  Not because of the signatures, she’d bet, but because of that heart. Rachel had doodled it on one happy day of her life, when all had been right with her world and cute TV star Steve Baker had been her boyfriend.

  He started to walk toward her. Reacting instinctively, knowing she was in danger, Jess extended her arm, holding the script over the deep water. “One more step and she swims.”

  He froze, his stare focused on her hand. “You wouldn’t. Reece…”

  “Reece has already mourned the loss of this. Not to mention everything else he owns.”

  Steve’s back stiffened. “That fire was an accident.”

  “Bullshit. They found accelerant.”

  Finally looking her in the eye, he insisted, “I didn’t mean to burn the house down. I just…” He swept a hand over his red, sweaty brow. “I was looking for something.”

  “This?”

  “No. Not that. But when I saw it…when I saw his room with all the awards, the pictures, the memories, I lost it.”

  The self-pitying tone really
got on her nerves. “Poor you.”

  “Look, I was drunk. I went a little crazy seeing everything he had that I was supposed to. I dumped some booze on some of his stuff and threw a match. It just got out of control.”

  “So you let his house burn down because he was successful and you weren’t.” She glanced at the script in her hand. “All you gave a damn about was this.”

  He walked toward her again, reaching out. She leapt back, forgetting the other items that had spilled out of Steve’s bag. Her feet hit wet paper, and she skidded like an old cartoon character slipping on a banana peel.

  As her feet flew out from under her, she heard Steve cry out. He lunged forward, though whether he was trying to grab her or the script, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Her feet hit the water, the rest of her body starting in after them.

  All except her head. That went straight down on the concrete lip of the pool before she fell all the way in. And brightest day descended into darkness.

  Chapter 14

  The ten minutes Reece spent with a deranged woman who thought he was going to marry her were eleven minutes too many. His only solace was that they’d paid off.

  Sitting in his car as he left the city, he thought about the pool at the house. He wanted to get in it, needing to feel washed clean of the crazy that had rained down on him in that interview room. He wanted Jessica in there with him so he could hold her close and promise never to expose her to anyone like that again.

  After a briefing with the detectives handling the case, Reece had gone into the interview room with three goals: getting Maisy Cullinan to confess to the shooting at the gallery, the murder of Sid Loman, and the fire at his house. He’d succeeded with two of those goals almost immediately. When she saw him, she’d begun to weep, begging him to forgive her for firing the shot at him through the gallery window.

  Check. One down.

  “I would never—ever hurt you, darling! I was just so mad,” she’d exclaimed as she wiped her tears and her nose on her arm. “I can’t control myself when I get mad. Why did you make me mad?”

  She hadn’t expressed any remorse at all when talking about Jessica, Sid Loman, or the woman she’d killed in Brentwood. She only feared he would believe she had intended to hurt him.

  He had remained silent throughout most of the visit, letting her talk, plead, cry, and tell him all about her plans for their future. The recorded conversation had given the police enough details to charge her with a number of crimes.

  Reece pitied her for her illness and her delusions. But maintaining that pity had been damned hard when she asked how much skin and hair Jess had lost because of the bleach attack.

  “Her house. She wants to give me her house?” he muttered, shaking his head and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Her “gift” was the other reason she’d demanded to see him.

  I bought it for us to live in together.

  He’d remained silent throughout most of the visit, but at that, he hadn’t been able to refrain from snapping, “Is that why you burned down mine?”

  Her response had surprised him, and he couldn’t help going over it in his mind. I didn’t do that. I would never do that! You lost all your things, all the awards and statues that would have looked so beautiful in our home.

  Her denial still bothered him. She’d confessed to everything else—including killing Sid Loman because she thought he had seen her shoot at the gallery window. So why not throw a little arson in the confession soup?

  About to get off the highway, he suddenly remembered he had promised his dad he would come by to pick up Cecil B. today. He almost turned around to do it, but something made him keep heading toward home. He wanted—no, right now he needed—to see Jessica.

  Reece had done what he had to do. Maisy had agreed to plead guilty to many of the charges, meaning Jessica wouldn’t have to testify. Knowing what a relief it would be to her, he didn’t want to delay telling her it was really over.

  There was one more thing he needed to tell her…that he loved her. Having realized it at some point during the past couple of days, he knew he had to say the words out loud.

  He didn’t deserve her, for any number of reasons. One was that he was still keeping secrets from her, for the sake of his brothers.

  No. Not just them. You too. Coward. It was a bitter truth. He feared he would lose her if she found out what else he was guilty of.

  “She could do so much better,” he told himself as he reached the driveway and waited for the gate to open. But he was a selfish enough bastard that he wanted her anyway. He wanted her in his life, in his future, and he envisioned making her his wife.

  That meant she had to know everything. She couldn’t become part of his family without being told what that family was capable of.

  For the first time in six years, he was going to have to revisit the memories of that night, and admit what he and his brothers had done. What happened between them afterward would be in her hands. He would have to hope she understood, and that she stayed.

  Spotting a strange car parked in the driveway, he figured Liza had decided to pay her promised visit. Although glad Jess had company, he couldn’t help being disappointed they wouldn’t be alone for a while. Now that he was in the confession zone, he wanted to get it over with so he could proceed into the I love you scene, and then the black moment where he would wait and hope she wasn’t so disgusted by him that she took off.

  He wanted it over with, but he was also dreading it. He’d never been a procrastinator, but suddenly thought Liza’s visit wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Delay of execution.

  Entering the house, he looked around and called, “Jess? Where are you guys?”

  No answer. He headed for the kitchen. Figuring they were probably sitting by the pool, he dropped his keys and phone onto the counter and went to the sliding glass doors.

  What he saw through them stopped his heart, until adrenaline surged and sent it racing. In a lifetime that passed in one endless second, he let what he was seeing soak in.

  A large man was kneeling over a prone form on the far side of the pool. It was Jessica, limp and unmoving, the ends of her wet hair dangling in the pool.

  Blood was running from her temple down into her hair.

  Steve Baker’s hands were on her shoulders, close to her neck.

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” he shouted as he threw the door open and ran outside, rage and fear warring to control him.

  Steve jerked his head up, his eyes widening in shock. Looking terrified, he reacted in an instant, far faster than Reece ever imagined possible for such a big man. He yanked Jessica up, wrapping one beefy arm around her middle and one around her throat, clutching her back against his chest as if she were a rag doll.

  “Stay back,” he called. “She’s barely breathing. She almost drowned. Come any closer and I’ll finish her off.”

  Reece froze, wondering what in the name of God was going on here. This couldn’t have been an accident; he wouldn’t be threatening her if it were. Had Steve tried to assault her? Had he tried to cover up his crime by staging a drowning, leaving the woman Reece loved dead in the pool, a horrible gift for him to find when he came home?

  Images of that scenario flooded his mind, but he forced them out. If he envisioned them too long, he would lose control. Jess needed him. Whatever he did now could mean the difference between her life and her death.

  The thirty-meter-long pool separated him from Jess and Steve. He could run around it, or dive in and swim its length, but in the long seconds it would take to reach them, Steve might be able to tighten his grip and finish what he’d started.

  He had to keep the man calm and wait for a better opportunity.

  “You’re sure she’s alive?” he called, the words hard to push out. Even as he asked the question, he saw her move, lifting a weak arm. He exhaled slowly. “It’s okay, Jess. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “That depends on what you do, Reece.”

 
; “Baker, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

  Steve was shaking, crying, his face red, his thick neck corded with straining muscles. He looked like a bull about to gore. “I know what you did. Admit what you did to my father.”

  The whole story changed in an instant, an unscripted moment striking the set like a lightning bolt.

  A slow-motion shot.

  Camera right.

  Zoom in on the face.

  Tight close-up to catch the director’s expression as fear turns to remorse. Guilt.

  And, cut!

  “Steve,” he called. He extended a supplicating hand and began to walk around the pool. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Stop right there!”

  The arm tightened. Jessica whimpered. Reece froze.

  The other man’s eyes were wild; so was his voice. “You pick up the phone and call the cops to confess to what you did.” He backed up, crossing the far end of the pool deck, closing the distance to the open space behind it.

  “You don’t understand,” Reece said.

  Steve took two more steps back. “How would you feel about losing someone you love?”

  I already have. More than once.

  He didn’t say the words, not wanting to inflame the man further. Not when Steve had Jessica in his grasp. Not when he was backing slowly toward a sharp, rocky cliff, a mere fifty paces from the pool.

  The jagged cliffs plunging to the valley below were stark, dramatic, and beautiful.

  They were also deadly.

  “She’s got nothing to do with this. Please, let her go.”

  A step.

  He threw a hand up, palm out. “I’ll make the call. Just stay right there.”

  The crazed man kept going, dragging Jess through a rock-filled garden. Her heels scraped stone, but she put up no resistance. If she were fully conscious and coherent, he knew she would be struggling. But she was weak, probably finding it hard to breathe. He suspected powerful hands had been around her neck, choking her right before he arrived. Jesus. Once again, she was being robbed of oxygen because she’d been in the path of someone wanting to get at him.