“It’s all Hunt’s fault.” It was her fault, as well as Hunt’s, but Tallie didn’t want to talk to her any longer.
“I’ll send you the briefcase.”
“I don’t want it, throw it away.” It hurt Tallie that she made no mention of how she had betrayed her and didn’t seem to care. Her dishonesty mattered nothing to her. And with that, she hung up without saying another word. Tallie sat looking at her cell phone and shaking. Brigitte’s call had given her the creeps. She thought about calling Jim, but she didn’t want to bother him on the weekend. She thought of calling Hunt too and warning him that Brig was on a rampage, but there seemed to be no point to that either. He was a big boy, he had gotten involved with her, and he could deal with her now. It wasn’t her job to protect him. The phone rang again as she sat there, and it was Max. Tallie answered immediately in a shaking voice.
“What’s wrong? You sound awful.” Max heard the tremor in her voice.
“I just had a weird, very creepy call from Brigitte. She sounds crazy. She said she was outside, but she probably isn’t. I’m going to stay home this afternoon anyway. I have work to do. It’s going to be a long year till this gets to trial,” she said glumly, but she sounded calmer again by the time they hung up, and Max reminded her to be careful.
Tallie went to look for the briefcase in the downstairs closet then, and found it where Brigitte had said it was. There were a few papers in it, some decorating articles, a bill from her doctor, and a couple of magazines. It was nothing she needed, and Tallie realized she had just wanted to get into the house and berate her, or maybe attack her. Tallie wasn’t taking any chances and made sure that all the doors were locked. But when she glanced out the windows, she couldn’t see anyone outside. She hadn’t heard a car arrive or drive away. Maybe she had never even been there and had called from somewhere else and just wanted to scare her. Tallie was sorry she hadn’t stayed in jail.
She took her stack of bills upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom and turned on the alarm, and she spent the afternoon in bed paying all her bills. She had just finished paying the last one, when Jim Kingston called her, and he sounded tense.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Why? I had a weird, very unpleasant call from Brigitte today. She sounded hysterical, and she wanted to come in. I’m in my bedroom with the door locked and the alarm on, but she didn’t call me again. I hope she isn’t going to stalk me for the next year until the trial.”
“She won’t,” he said firmly. “I’m coming over,” he added quietly.
“Why?”
“I’m already in my car. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He didn’t explain further, and she thought it was nice of him to come. The doorbell rang five minutes later. She unlocked her bedroom door and turned off the alarm, and hurried down the stairs to open the front door to him. But the look on his face told her that something terrible had happened, and she was frightened as she waited to hear what it was. What if Brigitte had gone to her father’s house and done something to him? It was the only thing she could think of.
Jim didn’t waste time waiting to share what had happened. He told her as they stood in the doorway.
“Brigitte just killed Hunt. She showed up at Angela Morissey’s apartment, and fired at him, right in the chest. She told him he would never testify against her, and then she shot him.”
Tallie looked shocked, and her face went deathly pale as the room reeled around her, and she grabbed Jim’s arm to steady herself. “And Angela and the boy?”
“They’re fine.” But Hunt was dead. Hunt, who had lied to her and betrayed her, whom Brigitte said had never loved her. And who was having a baby with someone else. It didn’t matter now. It was over. He was dead. She realized too how lucky she was that Brigitte hadn’t shot her. Maybe their years of friendship had meant something to her after all and saved Tallie. Or maybe she was just angrier at Hunt, because of Angela. Tallie was grateful she hadn’t let her in that morning. She might have shot her.
“Where’s Brigitte?” she asked in a wan voice as he led her into the living room, and they sat down.
“She’s in custody. She went back to her house and was packing a suitcase when they got there. She’s in jail. She’ll be there till the trial.” But now she was going to be tried for murder as well. Her life really was over. Tallie couldn’t imagine it, and she suddenly realized she had to call Max before she saw it on the news. She was panicked and ran upstairs to find her phone. He followed her up the stairs and she sat down on her bed to call Max, while Jim stood by to offer support. Max answered immediately and she could tell something had happened by the shaking tone of her mother’s voice.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine. But I wanted to tell you before you heard. Brig just killed Hunt. She shot him. She came here first, and I didn’t let her in.”
“Oh my God, Mom!” Max burst into tears immediately. “What if she’d shot you?”
“She didn’t. And it’s all over now. She’s in jail. She’s not going to hurt anyone else, but poor Hunt. He’s dead. He was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve this.”
“Did she shoot anyone else?”
“Just him.” And as she said it, Tallie picked up the remote control and turned on her TV. Hunt’s face was huge on the screen, and then it went to the scene at the apartment where he’d been living with Angela. Tallie could see her in the background with her enormous belly. She was crying, and there were police cars all around. And then they flashed a picture of Brigitte on the screen in an evening gown. It was an old picture from some Hollywood event and she looked fabulous. And then Tallie heard them mention her name. She talked to Max for a few more minutes about what had happened and then they hung up and Tallie called her father, who had just seen it on TV, and was as shocked as they all were. She promised to call him back when Jim left.
“What now?” Tallie said as she turned to look at Jim, after she ended the call to Sam.
“She’ll have to cop a plea, or claim temporary insanity, but either way she’s done. They’ll probably get her to plead to everything now. She’s going away for a long, long time. She’s crazier than I thought she was. She seemed sane when I talked to her at her house.” As he said it, his cell phone rang. It was Jack Sprague.
“Yeah, I know,” Jim said. “I’m watching it on the news. They called me as soon as it happened. I’m at Tallie Jones’s. She came over here first, but Tallie didn’t let her in. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’ll call you later,” he said, and hung up. “How do you feel?” he asked Tallie as he looked at her.
“I don’t know.” She seemed disoriented. “Scared. Sick. Numb. I was going to call and warn him that she was furious with him, but I figured it was none of my business, so I didn’t.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Jim. “I guess I should have. Maybe he’d still be alive if I had.”
“I don’t think so. She was out to get him, and she would have eventually.”
“She didn’t want him to testify against her. That’s what she said.”
“Did she tell you she was going to get him, or kill him, or anything like that?” He had slipped into FBI mode without even realizing it, and she shook her head.
“No, she didn’t. She was very wound up. She kept repeating that he wasn’t going to testify against her.”
“But she seemed sane?” As sane as anyone was who went out and shot someone.
“More or less. She was very angry at me too. I wasn’t even sure if she was really outside, or just saying she was to scare me.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted to come in for her briefcase, and I said I’d send it to her. And after she insulted me for a while, she hung up and went away, I guess.”
They went back downstairs again to her kitchen, and Jim made her a cup of tea. He looked in the fridge for milk, and then he smiled at her.
“Do you ever buy groceries?” he asked.
“Not lately.” She smiled back at him
. “I’m not big on domestic skills. It’s not my thing.”
“Apparently. Do you ever eat?”
“Yeah. Sometimes. Well actually, no. Not often. I haven’t been doing that much lately either.” He could tell. She was very thin. “I can’t believe Hunt is dead. It just doesn’t seem possible. I wish I’d called him.” She looked sad as she said it, and he was stern.
“Stop it. If she wanted to kill him, she was going to, no matter what you did. You couldn’t change that.” She nodded, trying to believe him, but she didn’t, and she started to cry. The whole thing had been such a nightmare for the past few months. But it was over, Jim knew, more than Tallie realized or was able to understand right now. Brigitte was gone forever, or for a very, very long time.
Jim sat with her for an hour, and talked to her in her kitchen, and then he got up to leave. He knew she was no longer in any danger, and when he opened the front door, he saw news trucks outside. There were four of them, and a flock of photographers on foot. The press had arrived to lay siege. He closed the door again and spoke to her.
“The press are outside. Keep the door closed. Close the curtains. Don’t go out. Don’t talk to them, unless you want to.” She looked horrified and shook her head. “I’ll bring you something to eat later, or you’ll starve to death.” He smiled at her. “It’ll be all right. Can you stay somewhere else for a few days?”
“At my dad’s, but I’d rather be here.”
“Then just stay here, and stay out of sight.” Her phone started ringing then in the house. He disconnected it, sure that it was the press. Anyone close to her would call on her cell phone. “It will all be over soon.” She nodded and wanted to believe him. He stepped outside then and walked toward the cluster of press with a determined look. He held his FBI badge up so they could see it.
“Ms. Jones has no statement to make. She knows about what happened. She is deeply sorry and extends her sympathy to the family. She’s not going to speak to you so it’s pointless staying out here. If she has anything to say, we’ll contact you.” They looked disappointed, but they didn’t move. And with that, Jim walked past them, got in his car, and drove away.
In the house, Tallie saw a TV news flash of Jim outside her house making his statement to the press. They were still out there, and they weren’t leaving. Her father called her on her cell phone then, and she told him again that she was fine. She watched the news all night, and at nine o’clock Jim came back, with a bag full of hamburgers and Mexican food. She let him in, and they went back to the kitchen. A full fleet of press was still outside, hoping for a glimpse of her. They had announced several times on the news that night that she had lived with Hunter Lloyd for a number of years until recently. And then they showed shots of Angela crying with her huge pregnant belly. And they explained that she was having his baby. And they had shown footage of Brigitte as she was led into the jail with her head down. It didn’t even look like her. The glamorous still shot of her in the evening gown did. That was the Brigitte Parker everyone knew. The one who looked like a star. And Tallie laughed when they ran a still shot of her that they’d taken on some movie set somewhere. She looked like she’d been shipwrecked for a year.
“Which one is the star?” she said, as Jim unpacked the food, and she got out plates. He had even brought a six-pack of Cokes and another one of beer.
“You’re the star. That’s what she hated about you. She wanted to be you. But it didn’t matter what she stole from you-she still couldn’t be you. She didn’t have your talent or your looks or all the things that make you you. It takes more than evening gowns and furs and jewelry to make someone a star,” he said, smiling at her, and she was touched by how kind he was. She had become a prisoner in her own home, and she was actually starving.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt if I combed my hair once in a while,” she said sheepishly, and he laughed.
“No one would recognize you if you did. It might be a pretty good disguise though. You could go out looking like that, and people wouldn’t know it was you.” They both laughed, and sat down to the dinner he had brought her. His son called as they were eating and he said he’d be home soon.
“I’m sorry to screw up your Saturday night,” Tallie said apologetically, haunted by the fact that Hunt was dead. It just didn’t seem possible. And it was so wrong despite how dishonest he’d been to her. And she felt sorry for Angela now. Her baby would have no father. By ten o’clock they said that the interment would be private and later that week. Tallie knew when she heard it that she wasn’t going. It would have been hypocritical of her. He belonged to Angela now, and their baby. She had no place in his life or at his graveside, and she didn’t want to be there. She’d rather remember the good times, for what they were worth. Not much, after the way he’d behaved. Their whole relationship had turned out to be a lie.
She ate a cheeseburger and a taco and downed two Cokes. And she looked gratefully at Jim. “Thank you. That was delicious.” She had needed it more than she knew and felt better after she’d eaten.
“I enjoyed it too, and you’re not screwing up my Saturday night by the way. The alternative was pizza and root beer with a bunch of fifteen-year-old boys. Besides, I wanted to be here.” He had brought her some pastry for the morning too. “Are you going to be okay here tonight?” She nodded. There was no danger. Brigitte was in jail, and the press were locked outside. The only problem would be if she decided to go somewhere eventually. She could tell that they were camped out for the duration, probably till after his funeral. She wouldn’t go, but she also realized suddenly that she was currently working on the last Hunter Lloyd film that would ever be made. It was a strange feeling. She wanted to make it as good as she could as a suitable last tribute to Hunt. It was all she could do for him now.
She and Jim talked for a while about everything that had happened, and then he left again, and said he’d be back in the morning. She was a hostage in her own house. She thanked Jim again for dinner before he left, locked the door behind him, and left the TV on in her bedroom all night. There were bulletins and news flashes and commentaries about Hunt. And occasional mentions of her, Angela, and Brigitte. An unidentified source at the Sunset Marquis had volunteered that Hunt had been involved with Brigitte for several years, and a reporter questioned if the fatal shooting had been the result of a lovers’ quarrel, or a love triangle with the woman carrying his child. Tallie was awake for most of the night.
She was up and dressed when Jim came back the next morning, and she was wearing jeans without holes in them for a change. Her hair was pulled back, and her face was clean and fresh. She looked wholesome and young and more relaxed. He had brought her an egg sandwich from McDonald’s, and they ate the pastry he’d brought her the night before.
“It’s going to be a long week,” she said, referring to the press still camped outside.
“They’ll give up eventually. Someone will shoot someone else, and they’ll move on.”
“That’s a cheering thought.” At least it wasn’t going to be her, and she realized more than ever that she had narrowly escaped it, and it might have been her if she had let Brigitte in. But she had known not to. Brigitte had sounded so crazy on the phone.
Jim stayed until he had to pick up his son for a ball game, and then he left her for the afternoon. He came back that night with more food, but he couldn’t stay. He said he had to go somewhere with his son, but he was worried about her alone in the house, ruminating over Hunt’s death.
“I had no idea that the FBI provided catering service too,” she teased him with a tired smile.
“Absolutely. I’ll have to make dinner for you sometime. We take culinary classes during our training.” He was smiling, and he had made the weekend more bearable for her, in the face of a bad situation.
“Thank you, Jim. It would have been a terrible weekend without you.” He had eased the pain of Hunt’s death, her guilt over not calling him, and her regrets about how his life and their relationship had ended.
>
By Monday morning, she felt sad but at peace with it, and the press had finally given up and left.
They came back again the day of Hunt’s funeral, but she hid out at her father’s for the day, and they talked about him. It felt better being with her father than standing at Hunt’s grave, and they talked to Max several times. Tallie went back to her own house late that night. The next day in the mail, she had a letter from Angela Morissey. She had meant to write to her, but hadn’t done it yet.
“Dear Ms. Jones,” it said politely, “I know that I caused a great deal of unhappiness in your life, and Hunt did too. But he truly loved you. He got caught in a difficult situation, and he didn’t handle it well, but he always told me how wonderful you are and how much he loved you. I’ll miss him so much, and I know you will too. I’m sorry for any pain we caused you. I hope everything comes out all right for you. Respectfully, Angela Morissey.” It was a sweet gesture, and Tallie appreciated it. It put balm on the wound Brigitte had tried to make worse when she told her Hunt had never loved her. He was a foolish man, Tallie knew, and a weak one, but also in some ways a good one, despite the mistakes he had made. She folded the letter and put it away, and silently wished Angela well too, and hoped that Hunt’s soul had found peace.
Chapter 16
MAX CAME HOME for vacation before summer school, as planned, and her mother and grandfather were thrilled to see her. She went over to visit her grandfather almost every day, and when Tallie finished work, she took them both out for ice cream, and Sam had a root beer float, which he said had been his favorite when he was a boy. And in the afternoons, Max would take him out for walks in his wheelchair, which he used more now than the walker. He was less steady on his feet, but his mind was as sharp as ever. Sam loved having his granddaughter around and hearing her views of the world. And they were all still trying to recover from the shock of Hunt’s death and his betrayal before that, and Brigitte’s horrifying crimes. And both of them were worried about Tallie. She joined them at night when she finished work, and then she and Max went home. Sam loved spending time with his “two girls.”
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