River's End

by Nora Roberts

  The brutality of the crime had outweighed everything else. And, Noah thought now, the pathetic video testimony of the victim’s four-year-old child. No jury could have turned their backs on that little girl, her tearful description of what she’d seen that night, and given Sam Tanner any pity.

  Twenty to life, the first fifteen without possibility of parole.

  Noah didn’t intend to be judge or jury but to align facts. As far as he was concerned, drugs didn’t matter. Drugs might blur the edges, remove inhibitions. They might bring out the beast, but the beast had to exist in order to act.

  The hand that had plunged the scissors repeatedly into Julie MacBride had belonged to a monster. He didn’t intend to forget that.

  He could research the crime objectively, he could distance himself from the horror of it. That was his job. He could sit and listen to Sam Tanner, talk with him, become intimate with his mind and put it all down on paper. He could dissect the man, prowl around in his brain and note the changes that may or may not have taken place inside him over the last two decades.

  But he wouldn’t forget that one night in high summer, Sam Tanner hadn’t been a man.

  He started to begin a new search on Julie MacBride, then on impulse changed it to River’s End Lodge and Campground. He sat back and sipped his coffee as their home page came up. Technology, he mused, was a wonderful thing.

  There was an arty and appealing photo of the lodge, exactly as he remembered it. A couple of interior photos showed the lobby and one of the guest suites. There was a chatty little description, which touched on the history, the accommodations, the beauty of the national forest.

  Another click took him to the recreational offerings—fishing, canoeing, hiking, a naturalist center . . .

  He paused there and grinned. She’d done it, then. Built her center. Good for you, Liv.

  They offered guided tours, a heated pool, health-club facilities.

  He skimmed down, noting that weekend, full-week and special packages were offered. The proprietors were listed as Rob and Val MacBride.

  Nowhere did he find Olivia’s name.

  “You still there, Liv?” he wondered. “Yeah, you’re still there. With the forest and the rivers. Do you ever think of me?”

  Annoyed he’d had the thought, the question, he pushed away from the desk and stalked to the window. He looked out at the city, at lights, at traffic.

  And wondered what had become of his ancient backpack.

  Turning away, he flicked on the television, just for the noise. There were times when he couldn’t think in silence. Because he was a man, and there was a remote at hand, he couldn’t resist surfing the channels. He let out a short laugh when Julie MacBride, young, gorgeous and alive, filled the screen. Those striking amber eyes were glowing with love, with pleasure, with the sheen of tears as she raced down a long sweep of white stairs and into the arms of Sam Tanner.

  Summer Thunder, Noah mused. Last scene. No dialogue. The music swells . . . He watched, hearing the flood of violins as the couple embraced, as Julie’s warm flow of laughter joined it. As Sam lifted her off her feet, circling, circling in celebration of love found.

  Fade-out.

  Fate? Noah thought. Well, sometimes there was just no arguing with it.

  He picked up a notebook, plopped down on the bed with it and began to make a list of names and questions.

  Jamie Melbourne

  David Melbourne

  Roy and Val MacBride

  Frank Brady

  Charles Brighton Smith

  Prosecution team? Who’s still alive?

  Lucas Manning

  Lydia Loring

  Agents, managers, publicists?

  Rosa Sanchez (housekeeper)

  Other domestic staff?

  At the bottom of the list, he wrote “Olivia MacBride.”

  He wanted more from her than memories of one violent night. He wanted what she remembered of her parents together, what she remembered of them individually. The tone of their household, the undercurrents of marital distress.

  There were always other angles to pursue. Had Julie been involved with Lucas Manning—giving credence to her husband’s jealousy?

  Would she have told her sister? Would the child have sensed it? The servants?

  And wasn’t it interesting, Noah decided, that his daughter hadn’t been among the things Sam Tanner claimed to miss?

  Oh yes, Olivia was key, Noah thought, and circled her name. This time, he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by feelings, by basic attraction, by even the connection of friendship.

  They were both older now, and that was behind them. This time when they met, it would be the book first.

  He wondered if she still wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail, if she still had that brief hesitation before she smiled.

  “Give it a rest, Brady,” he muttered. “That’s history.”

  He pushed himself up, then dug in his briefcase for the numbers he’d looked up and scribbled down before leaving L.A. Rain began to lash the windows as he made the call, and he adjusted his vague plans of going out and indulging in some San Francisco nightlife to a solo beer at the bar downstairs.

  “Good afternoon, Constellations.”

  “Noah Brady calling for Jamie Melbourne.”

  “Ms. Melbourne is with a client. May I take a message?”

  “Tell her I’m Frank Brady’s son, and I’d like to speak with her. I’m out of town at the moment.” He glanced at the phone, then reeled off the number. “I’ll be in for another hour.”

  That was a test, he mused as he hung up. Just to see how quickly the Brady name got a call back.

  He stretched back out on the bed and had surfed through the channels twice when his phone rang. “Brady.”

  “Yes, this is Jamie Melbourne.”

  “Thanks for getting back to me.” Within six minutes, Noah thought with a glance at his watch.

  “Is this about your father? I hope he’s well.”

  “He’s fine, thanks. This is about Sam Tanner.” He paused, waited, but there was no response. “I’m in San Francisco. I spoke with him earlier today.”

  “I see. I was under the impression he spoke to no one, particularly reporters or writers. You’re a writer, aren’t you, Noah?”

  The first name, putting him in his place, he decided. Maintaining control. A good and subtle move. “That’s right. He spoke to me, and I’m hoping you will, too. I’d like to set up an appointment with you. I should be back in town by tomorrow evening. Do you have any time free Thursday or Friday?”

  “Why?”

  “Sam Tanner wants to tell his story. I’m going to write it, Ms. Melbourne, and I want to give you every opportunity to tell your part of it.”

  “The man killed my sister and broke the hearts of every member of my family. What else do you need to know?”

  “Everything you can tell me—unless you want the information I gather coming only from his point of view. That’s not what I’m after here.”

  “No, you’re after another best-seller, aren’t you? However you can get it.”

  “If that were true, I wouldn’t have called you. Just talk to me—off the record if you want. Then make up your mind.”

  “Have you spoken with anyone else in my family?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t. Come to see me Thursday at four. At my home. I’ll give you an hour, no more.”

  “I appreciate it. If I could have your address?”

  “Get it from your father.” She snapped that out, her controlled voice finally breaking. “He knows it.”

  Noah winced as she broke the connection, though the click was quiet, almost discreet. Definitely stepping onto shaky ground there, he decided. She was predisposed not to cooperate, not to be objective about what he intended to accomplish.

  He flipped through channels without interest as he considered. Sam hadn’t told him about his death sentence in confidence. Perhaps he’d pass that information to Jamie,
see if it made any difference to her. He could also use her reluctance to cooperate in his strategy with Sam.

  Playing one against the other would result in more information from both of them—if he did it well.

  And he’d just keep his own long-term and personal fascination with the case his little secret for now.

  He drifted off with the rain pattering on the windows and the television blaring, and dreamed a dream he wouldn’t remember of giant trees and green light, and a tall woman with golden eyes.

  thirteen

  The same guard took Noah to the same room. This time he’d brought a notepad and a tape recorder. He set them both on the table. Sam glanced at them, said nothing, but Noah caught a quick glint in his eyes that might have been satisfaction. Or relief.

  Noah took his seat, switched on the recorder. “Let’s go back, Sam. Nineteen seventy-three.”

  “Fever was released in May, and was the biggest moneymaker of the summer. I got an Oscar nomination for it. I listened to ‘Desperado’ every time I turned on the radio. The sixties were pretty well dead,” Sam said with what might have been amusement, “and disco hadn’t quite reared its ugly head. I was unofficially living with Lydia and having great sex and monumental fights. Pot was out, snow was in. There was always a party going on. And I met Julie MacBride.”

  He paused, just a heartbeat of silence. “Everything that had happened to me before that moment took second place.”

  “You were married that same year.”

  “Neither one of us was the cautious type, or the patient type.” His gaze drifted off, and Noah wondered what images he could see playing against the ugly bare walls. “It didn’t take us long to figure out what we wanted. What we wanted was each other. For a while, that was enough for both of us.”

  “Tell me,” Noah said simply, and waited while Sam took out his contraband cigarette, lighted it.

  “She’d been in Ireland with her sister, taking a couple weeks between projects. We met in Hank Midler, the director’s, office. She came in—wearing jeans and a dark blue sweater. Her hair was pulled back. She looked maybe sixteen. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.”

  His gaze arrowed back, shot straight into Noah’s eyes. “That’s not an exaggeration. It’s the truth. I was used to women—to having them, enjoying them. One look at her, and she might have been the first. I think I knew, right then, she’d be the last. You may not understand that.”

  “Yes, I do understand it.” He’d experienced that rush, that connection, when this man’s daughter had opened her apartment door and given him a faintly annoyed frown.

  “Been in love, have you, Brady?”

  “I’ve been in something.”

  Sam let out a short laugh, then looked past Noah again, seemed to dream. “My belly clutched up,” he murmured. “And my heart . . . I could actually feel it shaking inside me. When I took her hand it was like . . . yes. You. Finally. Later, she told me it had been exactly the same for her, as if we’d been moving through our lives to get to that moment. We talked about the script, went about the business as if both of us weren’t reeling. Afterward, I asked her to dinner, and we agreed to meet at seven. When I got home, I told Lydia it was over.”

  He paused, laughed a little, drew deep on the cigarette. “Just over. I wasn’t kind about it, wasn’t cruel. The fact was, she’d simply ceased to exist for me. All I could think of was that at seven I’d see Julie again.”

  “Was Julie involved with anyone at that time?”

  “She’d been seeing Michael Ford. The press played it up, but it wasn’t serious. Two weeks after we met, we moved in together. Quietly, or as quietly as we were able to.”

  “You met her family?”

  “Yes, that was important to her. It was a lot of work for me to bring Jamie around. She was very protective of Julie. She didn’t trust me, thought Julie was just another fling. Hard to blame her,” he said with a jerk of his shoulders. “I’d had plenty.”

  “Did it bother you that Julie’s name was linked to a number of men at that time? Ford was just the latest.”

  “I didn’t think of it then.” Sam pulled the stub of the cigarette out of his mouth, crushed it out with a restrained violence that had Noah’s eyes narrowing. “It was only later, when things got out of control. Then I thought about it. Sometimes it was all I could think about. The men who’d had her, the men who wanted her. The men she wanted. She was pulling away from me, and I wanted to know who was going to take my place. Who the hell was she turning to when she was turning away from me? Lucas Manning.”

  Even after twenty years, saying the name scored his tongue. “I knew there was something between them.”

  “So you killed her to keep her.”

  The muscles in Sam’s jaws quivered once, and his eyes went blank. “That’s one theory.”

  Noah gave him a pleasant smile. “We’ll talk about the rest of the theories some other time. What was it like working with her on the movie?”

  “Julie?” Sam blinked, lifted a hand to rub it distractedly over his face.

  “Yes.” Noah continued in the same mild tone. He’d thrown Sam off rhythm, exactly as he’d intended. He wasn’t about to settle for well-rehearsed lines and perfect phrasing. “You were getting to know each other on two levels during the shoot. As lovers, and as actors. Let’s talk about what she was like as an actor.”

  “She was good. Solid.” Sam dropped his hands into his lap, then lifted them onto the table as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. “A natural. The term’s overused, but it applied to her. She didn’t have to work as hard as I did. She just felt it.”

  “Did that bother you? That she was better than you?”

  “I didn’t say she was better.” His hands stilled, and his gaze whipped up, two hot blue points. “We came at it from two different places, different schools. She had a phenomenal memory, and that helped her with lines. She never forgot a fucking line. But she tended to put herself into her director’s hands, almost naively trusting him to make it all come together. She didn’t know enough about the rest of the craft to risk input on angles, lighting, pacing.”

  “But you did,” Noah interrupted before Sam could fall back into a rhythm.

  “Yeah, I did. Midler and I went head-to-head plenty on that film, but we respected each other. I was sorry to hear he died a couple of years ago. He was a genius.”

  “And Julie trusted him.”

  “She practically worshiped him. The chance to work with him was the main reason she’d taken the part. And he knew how to showcase her, knew how to coax the best from her. She was like a sponge, soaking up the thoughts and feelings of her character, then pouring them out. I built the character, layer by layer. We made a good team.”

  “Julie won the New York Film Critics’ Award for her portrayal of Sarah in Summer Thunder. You were nominated but didn’t win. Did that cause any friction between you?”

  “I was thrilled for her. She was upset that I hadn’t won. She’d wanted it more than I had. We’d been married less than a year at that time. We were as close to royalty as you can get in that town. We were completely in love, completely happy, and riding the wave. She shared everything with me then, understood me as no one ever had.”

  “And the next year, when she was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Twilight’s Edge, and your movie got mixed reviews. How did that affect your relationship?”

  A muscle twitched under Sam’s left eye, but he continued to speak coolly. “She was pregnant. We concentrated on that. She wanted a healthy baby a lot more than she wanted a statue.”

  “And you? What did you want?”

  Sam smiled thinly. “I wanted everything. And for a while, that’s just what I had. What do you want, Brady?”

  “The story. From all the angles.” He leaned forward and