Angel Falls (16 page)

Bret’s face broke into a relieved smile. “That’d be great. Can I, Dad?”

Liam felt like a coward for taking the easy road, but he nodded. There was no use pretending he wasn’t relieved. He got to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a couple of dollar bills. “Here you go, but don’t be too long. We’ve got to get home.”

Bret snagged the money and fisted it. “’Kay.” Then he followed Mark out of the room.

At last Liam turned to Rosa. He could tell by the wary look in her dark eyes that she had been waiting for this moment.

She sat stiff as a fence post, her knees pressed together, her hands coiled in a ball in her lap. “It is bad,
sí
?”

He sat down beside her on the hard vinyl sofa. His bent knees cracked into the Formica coffee table. An old, dog-earred issue of
People
magazine slithered fanlike to the floor. Liam took a moment, trying to formulate his thoughts into words. In the end he said simply, “Her heart stopped.”

Rosa drew in a sharp breath and crossed herself.
“Dios mio.”

“They revived her easily—and quickly, which is important—”

“There must be something you can do. Some medicine—”

He gave her a sad smile. “Faith in medicine, Rosa?”

She couldn’t smile back. “What do we do?”

He’d known they’d circle around to this question, which was, after all, the beginning. “The only moment of hope in this whole damned mess came when we said Julian’s name.” He was surprised that his voice sounded so ordinary.

“
Sí
. Perhaps it is coincidence.”

“Once, maybe. Twice—no way. The crying was a response. I’m sure of it.”

“But we have said his name many times. I have told her the story of her marriage to that man so often I could say it in my sleep. Still, there is
nada
.”

Liam sighed. These were the issues that had kept him up all last night, tossing and turning sleeplessly in his lonely bed. They had followed him into the light, plaguing him all day.

The measure of a man. That was what it came down to. At least that was the cul-de-sac at the end of his thoughts. “We’re going to have to try something else, Rosa. Something a little more extreme. She’s not responding to our voices. And I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

He felt Rosa turn toward him, but he didn’t look at her. He stared instead at the hands in his lap, at the small gold wedding band he’d worn for ten years.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He heard the worry in her voice, the tiny, halting hitch in the middle of the sentence, and he knew that she knew what he was going to say. “I’m going to call Julian True and ask him to come see her. Talk to her.”

She gasped. “You cannot!”

He turned to her finally. Her cheeks were paper
white; her dark eyes looked like burn holes in a sheet. “You know I have no choice.”

She laughed. It was a brittle sound like the breaking of an antique glass Christmas ornament. “He is … dangerous.”

“You think he was physically violent to her?”

“No, no. Of course not. The danger is in how much she loves
—loved
him.”

Liam pretended not to be wounded by her mistake. “Do you think he still loves her?”

“He never did, I think.” She twisted around so they were face-to-face. “You do not have to do this. God will waken Mikaela if that is His plan. You need to take care of
su familia
. That man, he could ruin everything. Mikaela made her choice a long time ago. You do not have to do this, Liam.”

He wondered if she realized that she’d used his name. Strangely, that little intimacy comforted him as no touch ever could. “You and I, Rosa, we’re not kids. We know how easy it is to do the wrong thing. This is probably the clearest moment I’ve had in all my fifty years. I can call Julian and give my wife a chance at life. Or I can not call Julian and know that I was so afraid of losing Mikaela’s love that I let her die.”

Rosa’s eyes filled with tears.

“I won’t be able to look myself—or my children—in the eye if I let fear keep me from doing what’s right. I am going to call Julian True. There’s a phone number for his agent in the pillowcase.”

Rosa reached out, placed her hands on top of his. “Does she know, I wonder?” she said softly, gazing at
him through watery eyes. “Does my Mikita know how lucky she is to have you?”

Liam knew he shouldn’t ask it, but he couldn’t help himself. “Did she love me, Rosa?”

She squeezed his hands. “Of course.”

“Like she loved him?”

Rosa paused, and in that heartbeat’s hesitation, Liam saw the harrowing truth.
“Sí,”
she answered with a smile that was too bright, too fast.

Liam sighed. “Then I guess we have nothing to worry about.”

Beverly Hills. Two words, each unremarkable enough on its own, but like champagne and caviar, they combined to form the ultimate expression of the good life. In this pastel pocket of Los Angeles, everything was about fantasy; stardust from nearby Hollywood gilded even the mundane. Images of Beverly Hills were famous around the world: pink hotels with poolside phones, valet parking at the post offices, restaurant tables that couldn’t be bought for any amount of money—ah, but a whisper of fame could get you seated in an instant. It was a city where last names were unnecessary among the chosen few. Harrison. Goldie. Brad. Julian.

Even in the rarefied perfection of this most trimmed and tucked and glamorized of cities, Julian True was special. Not just a star, but a superstar, a nova who showed no sign of burning out.

He’d come to Hollywood like thousands of young men before him, with nothing more than a handsome
face and a dream. He’d wanted to be someone who mattered, and he knew it would happen. Things had always come easily to him—attention, women, invitations, everything—and he took what came easily.

Today he was flying high. That was the thing he loved most about fame: It gave a man wings. He eased off the accelerator. The Ferrari responded instantly, slowing down. He pulled up in front of a notoriously trendy new restaurant. Before he’d even reached for the door handle, a valet was there.

“Good afternoon, Mr. True,” said the boy—no doubt an actor.

Julian flashed him a smile. “Thanks, kid.” Without a backward glance, he headed for the front door, which also opened automatically at his arrival. “Good afternoon, Mr. True.”

The maître d’ was already there, smiling broadly. “Good afternoon, Mr. True. She is already at your table.”

“Thanks, Jean Paul. When the bill comes, add fifty bucks apiece for the valet and doorman, and a hundred for yourself.
People
magazine can afford it.”

“Merci.”

Julian followed Jean Paul to the table. He knew he was late, not that it mattered. People—especially reporters—were used to waiting for him.

He paused, looking around, searching for famous faces, power brokers, studio heads.

Unfortunately, it was that damn hinterland of time, after lunch but well before dinner. The place was almost deserted.

Too bad.

He was in the mood for a little schmoozing. Hell, he deserved it. Today’s screening of his new film,
The Bad Boys of C Company
, had gone better than he’d hoped. Better than anyone had hoped. Julian had earned his twenty million. He’d given the studio a surefire hit.

A hit. Two of the sweetest words possible.

He saw the reporter from
People
magazine—a woman (good), sitting at the restaurant’s best table. Clearly she’d told the maître d’ that she was here to meet Julian.

He moved easily through the restaurant, hearing the few scattered whispers of recognition. At the table, he stopped, “Heya, Sara Sandler.”

She stopped breathing, then started again, all at once, like a newborn baby. Color fanned up her cheeks. “Hi, Mr. True,” she answered, making a clear attempt to compose herself. She tucked in a few flyaway hairs, resettled her eyeglasses. “Thanks for meeting me.”

He gave her The Smile. “Call me Julian,” he said, settling down into the seat across from her. He stretched out one leg, plunking his booted foot on the settee beside her hip. He ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair and lit up a cigarette, watching her through a haze of smoke. “So, Sara, what is America dying to know about me?”

“D-Do you remind …
mind
if I record this?”

He laughed. “’Course not, darlin’. But I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention the smoking. It used to be smokers were sexy and dangerous, but in the
puritanical nineties, we just look stupid. Like we don’t have the self-control to quit a habit that has killed millions.” The smile he gave her was slow and intimate, designed to disarm. He’d learned a long time ago how to hook a woman and reel her in. It came as easily now as breathing. “Did you get a chance to see
Boys
?”

“It was
wonderful
.” She leaned forward, all schoolgirl earnestness.

“Why, thanks. That really means something to me.”

She struggled to tamp down a smile and reached into her briefcase, pulling out some papers and a notebook and pen. Then she took a deep breath and glanced up at him. “So, when did you know you wanted to be an actor?”

He laughed easily. It was a familiar question, one he answered all the time. This interview would be a breeze. He leaned toward her, gave her a conspiratorial look. “I’ll tell you a secret, Sara. I
never
wanted to be an actor. Acting—that’s a verb. It implies work. Actors spend the better part of their lives skulking around Broadway, learning their craft, and eating macaroni-and-cheese out of a box. But a movie star …” He settled back into the settee, gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. “Ah, now that’s a different thing entirely. Lightning in a jar. Fame is the greatest drug in the world. Everybody wants to be your friend. That’s what I wanted to be. I knew it the first time I saw how a star was treated.”

She didn’t seem to like that answer. “But you’re a great actor. All the reviewers say so.”

He was quiet for a moment, took a long drag off his cigarette, exhaled slowly. “I know what I am, darlin’, and it ain’t an actor. But you’re sweet as hell to say so.”

She glanced down at her notes. “Is Julian True your real name?”

Another familiar question. He gave her another Hollywood smile. “Nothing up on that movie screen is real, Sara,” he said softly, using her name again to seduce her. “And at the same time it’s as real as life. Everything I am, everything I’ve ever been is up there in Technicolor, forty feet wide. Nothing that came before matters.”

“That’s a nice way of saying ‘No comment.’”

“Is it?”

She wrote something down, then looked back up at him. “What about love—does that matter?”

“I’ve been married four times. I’d say it matters to me.”

“And divorced four times,” she responded, maintaining a steady gaze.

The question rolled off him like warm water. “I’m an incurable romantic, I guess. Just haven’t found the right woman. Maybe she’ll be reading this article. Now, what do you say we talk about my movie? We can get back to all this personal stuff later on … maybe over drinks?” He smiled, knowing there would be no later, no cozy pair of cocktails. The truth was, he didn’t have much to say about real life. It wasn’t the world he lived in.