High Fall (16 page)

“Not really. My stuffs still there, but I needed to get away. The guy I live with says I’m too hard to get along with, can you imagine that?” she demanded, keeping eye contact and a straight face. She could almost hear the laughs they’d have when they got back in the patrol car. “So I’m here for a while.”

Wycotte couldn’t resist the smallest of snorts before saying, “You’re certain you don’t wish to pursue the burglary complaint.”

“Certain. But thanks for coming.”

He turned toward the door. But Melchior didn’t move. His forehead was creased, his finger tapping against his equipment belt. “You said your boss obtained this apartment for you. Do you have some verification of that?”

Damn! Now she was moving onto thin ice. “To show that I’m not some vagrant in for the night?” she laughed, and pulled the lease from the scrapbook.

He glanced over it. “Dolly Uberhazy, you work for her?”

Kiernan nodded.

“In what capacity?”

Crystal-thin ice. She could take slow soft steps and hope to ease herself to the other side, or she could try it in one leap. If she miscalculated, she’d land in water up to the lump on her head. She leaped. “Background investigation on Lark Sondervoil. I’m an investigator.”

His face hardened. Behind him Wycotte stiffened. The air in the room felt prickly. Their stances, their expressions said:
You played us; you don’t get away with that.

“Driver’s license?”

She pulled it out of her wallet. “Look, if you have questions, call Dolly. She’ll be at home in L.A.”

“You have her number?”

“No. The studio would, of course. But you’re police, you can get it. Call her. I can’t spend the whole night on this.”

Now it was Melchior who hesitated. Wycotte moved by the door as if to say to his partner, “You brought this up, you handle it.”

Kiernan waited a beat, then offered, “Or I can have her call you in the morning.” When he didn’t reply, she chose between options—silence or sweeten the offer—and said, “She was here for this evening, so she’ll have gotten back to L.A. late.” How could the cop
not
go for the option of avoiding another cranky career woman in the middle of the night?

But, as if reading her, a knowing smile wafted across Melchior’s lips and disappeared. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate our protecting her property. I’ll give Ms. Uberhazy a call to confirm”—his tone reversing the meaning of the verb)—“her arrangement with our Ms. O’Shaughnessy here.”

D
OLLY
U
BERHAZY SMACKED ON
the bedside light and reached for the phone. She’d had to drop everything and drive to San Diego to see the stunt they’d paid a bundle for. And then there’d been that awful accident, and then those ghoulish dailies. No lunch, no dinner, other than those wonderful polenta-garlic rolls (the one good thing in the whole day), and she’d spent half the night trying to keep Bleeker and everyone on the location set from falling apart—and doing it in front of the police and the press. Then it had taken another three hours to drive home, what with the tie-up on the Santa Monica Freeway. She never should have taken the coast road. But she’d had plenty of time to think about that while she sat a mile from the Malibu turnoff, a foot behind an organic vegetable truck filled with cartons of greens and a shitload of, well, shit. Stunk like a fifty-million-dollar box-office flop. Like
Edge of Disaster
could smell, if she didn’t keep control of things. In the next lane was a carload of kids blasting their music so loud it felt like another earthquake. She could barely hear Bleeker whining over the cellular phone. Christ, it was bad enough to have the Sondervoil girl dead, without Cary Bleeker sniveling about keeping a low profile with the press—as if the press were going to give them a choice. As if she would leave to Bleeker a decision that could destroy the picture. He should have known that, as long as he’d been in the business. Too soon for a wave of publicity, he’d whined. By the time
Edge
opened, the public would be sick of hearing about it. Maybe so, maybe not. She glared at the phone. God, she hoped this wasn’t Bleeker again, not at three thirty in the morning. No, whatever Bleeker’s failings, the man wasn’t that stupid.

On the fourth ring she picked up the receiver. Whoever was calling had better have a damned good reason, but she’d learned long ago not to snap before she knew what she’d find between her teeth. Her tone was neutral as she said, “Yes?”

“This is Officer Melchior, San Diego Police Department. I’m sorry to have to wake you. Are you Ms. Dolly Uberhazy?”

“Yes?”

“Are you familiar with a Kiernan O’Shaughnessy?”

Who? … Don’t wake me up in the middle of the night to play guessing games!
she wanted to shout. “Why do you assume I am, officer?”

“She says you hired her.”

“She told you I hired her?” she repeated, tacitly demanding more information. In a business with egos bursting into bloom at every turn, she had made her way to senior vice-president by listening to the rants, forcing the ranters to explain more and more, a helluva lot more than they wanted to—and never exposing herself. She gave a little grin of amusement. For a woman in Hollywood, never exposing oneself was quite an accomplishment. But then to the boys in charge, there were men and there were women, and someplace in the murky area between, there were women studio executives.

“Ms. O’Shaughnessy is a private detective down here. She told us you hired her to do background on Lark Sondervoil, the stunt woman who went off the cliff, right?”

“Go on.”

“Ms. O’Shaughnessy told us you rented her an apartment.”

“Why did she tell you that, officer?”

“We got a call that a unit in the Salem Harbour Studios had been burgled. And when we got there, we found her in it. You rented that, is that right?”

“Officer, I am an executive with one of the busiest movie studios in L.A. I deal in a ton of paperwork. I can’t possibly remember what specific units I rent out of town or for whom. Perhaps if you describe this woman,” she said, buying time. If it had been any apartment but Lark Sondervoil’s, she’d have been off the phone and back to sleep by now. But she couldn’t afford to be sloppy about anything to do with Sondervoil. Sloppy was what she’d been when she’d agreed to have Sondervoil in the film at all. Or greedy. Or just plain stupid.

“Your name is on the lease.”

“Then chances are I did rent it.

“For Ms. O’Shaughnessy?”

“Describe her.”

She could hear a slight intake of breath from his end of the line, just enough to remind her that he wasn’t an underling but a policeman whom she might need to use later. Then he said, “She’s little, with short dark curly hair, probably in her thirties. I could check for you; we took down the data from her driver’s license.”

“No, no. Don’t trouble yourself, officer,” she muttered. She had heard enough. This housebreaker must be the woman who’d crashed the rushes. What did this woman know, and how had she gotten on the scent so fast? And how much of it involved the police? “Officer, you’ve got the lease, and you’ve apparently got Ms. O’Shaughnessy, but something is still bothering you. Just why is it you’ve called me in the middle of the night?” she asked, in the tone that had led more than one producer to believe that he was the one sane person on location that she had found to work with.

“Because, Ms. Uberhazy, she suggested we call you. According to her, you wouldn’t mind being woken up at this hour,” he said, with such clear triumph that she could have laughed.

She did emit a laugh, the same laugh she used with those producers. But Dolly Uberhazy wasn’t smiling. She knew more than she wanted to about the intrigues that were the ebb and flow of life on the set. She hadn’t heard the truth in so long, it could have been a nursery rhyme. But if this woman had broken into Lark’s apartment, there was more going on than she realized. Particularly when she was dealing with a woman who had the chutzpah to get the cops to make her introductions. “Well, officer, Ms. O’Shaughnessy is wrong. I’m no more delighted to be up at this hour than you are to be wasting your time on wild goose chases. I suspect I did hire the woman, but I still can’t say for sure. Could you leave that question open for twenty-four hours while I check into it? And Officer Melchior, would you impress that on her and have her call me? Right away.”

“You can count on that, ma’am.”

As she set down the phone, she smiled uneasily. She’d have Kiernan O’Shaughnessy up here before dinner. The woman might be a detective. But being a senior vice-president carried its own unwritten perks. She had her own ways of getting what she needed. And by the time O’Shaughnessy arrived on her doorstep, she would know what way to use.

I
T WAS RAINING.
S
HE
ought to close the windows at the head of the bed. Instead, Kiernan squeezed her eyes tighter shut against the dull morning light and pulled the comforter over her ear. Rain was nature’s way of saying “Sleep in.”

The rain was heavier. It couldn’t be rain; it must be sleet. But it smelled wonderful. Like roses. Eyes shut tight, she wriggled around under the covers until her nose was inches from the window. The roses must be growing out of the ocean. The sweet perfume wafted through her nasal passages into her lungs like a rosy sedative, leading her softly back into sleep.

Ezra let out a guttural moan. “Ez,” she grumbled. Tchernak wouldn’t have left without walking him. No, surely not. Even in the rosy sleet, he’d have taken him. “Hush, Ezra.”

The sleet rapped harder on the window. Next to her ear, Ezra barked. Her eyes shot open. “Whatsamatter, Ez?”

The rain rapped again. Not rain. Somebody rapping on the window—her
second
-floor window, over the boulders on the beach twenty feet below the house. She looked out through the slats in the headboard. Into a bouquet of pale orange roses.

Holding it, and himself perched precariously on the wrought-iron railing of the window box, was Trace Yarrow. The Pacific wind was mussing his curly black hair. His lapis blue eyes were gleaming, and there was a grin on his broad, tanned face. For an instant she thought he was Greg Gaige.

But Greg was light-haired. And Greg was dead.

Yarrow proffered the bouquet through the open window. It wasn’t raining, but the night fog hadn’t lifted yet. “Like some company? I could stand to get warmed up.”

“Yarrow?” she said, still sleep-dazed. “What the hell are you doing out there?”

“I’m propositioning you. Or didn’t I make myself clear?”

“I figured the exertion of getting up here had clouded your judgment. Since you’d brought the flowers, I was going to overlook your momentary tackiness.” Was her mother in the room in heaven, saying: “Who would have thought my Kiernan could handle any social situation?” Well, maybe not, considering the social encounter was taking place over her bed.

She squirmed into her robe, envisioning her mother complaining to her deceased friends: “I told her to wear a nightgown. Nice girls don’t sleep naked. Would she listen to me? Now, when she has a trespasser …”

She motioned Yarrow in and to the bathroom sink with the flowers. The surprise was wearing off, and she found herself wavering between amusement and a prickling of violation. Tchernak, she thought, wouldn’t waste time on amusement; fortunately he’d already be gone. And Ezra seemed to deem Yarrow an acceptable guest.

She needed to ask Yarrow something. What was it? Damn, she couldn’t think when she was still half asleep. Settling on one of the padded wicker lounges across the room, she said, “How did you find my address?”

“Nothing’s hidden from a guy who really wants to know. I called the Irish Wolfhound Society and said I was looking for a walkmate for my O’Toole.”

Kiernan laughed. Her glance rested on the clock. Nine thirty
A.M.
“Yarrow, I am charmed by the roses. And the Tarzanship. But I’ve got to leave for L.A. in half an hour.”

“Okay, okay. The offer of my body was just an extra. Are you going to L.A. to see Dolly?”

“How’d you know?”

“A guess. Bleeker’s still on the set here, so you’re not driving to L.A. for him. You should have taken me up on my offer.” Before she could protest, he held up a hand. “Would have given you something in common with Dolly.”

“You slept with Dolly Uberhazy?”

“No, no. Not me. I always made it a point to keep business and pleasure separate. You don’t sleep with sharks.” He sat on the other chair. “But the first couple of weeks on the
Companions
set, Dolly was gaga over some hunk there.”

“Who?”

Yarrow shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t think I knew then. My gags weren’t scheduled until the end of the second week, and then I got canned three days later. So I’m telling you what I heard—but on good authority—not what I saw. Anyway,
who
he was wasn’t the point. The funny part was Dolly carrying on like a teenager. I mean Dolly, for chrissake. The stories about her were worth the trip out there. One minute she’s shouting down the union rep, the next she’s fluttering her fan and making eyes.”

“This from a man who’s just scaled my wall with roses.”

“I just don’t want you going in with your eyes shut.”

“Yarrow, I don’t shut my eyes.”

“Ever?” He grinned.

She looked him in the eye. “Only when I sleep.”

“I’ll wait and see.” The grin faded from his face. “Look, I just want you to be prepared for the kind of people you’re dealing with. Dolly Uberhazy has elbowed her way to the top, over the bodies of guys who were bigger, louder, and better connected. She’s not about to admit that when she should have been paying attention on
Bad Companions,
she was making eyes at the hunk. Now she’s the one with the power. This is Hollywood. Everything’s magnified. Success is the sun and the moon, and failure’s a pit as deep and cold as the ocean. There are actors, directors, writers who would kill for Dolly’s approval. Literally. What’s running a stranger off the road compared to seeing your name in the movie trailer?”

She didn’t quite believe him, but she wasn’t clear enough to say why. And there was still that question she needed to ask him, something from last night. From Lark’s apartment. What?