Killing Lucas (4 page)

Chapter Four

“I don’t have to convince anyone that I love you.”—Lucas to Kiloran

K
iloran looked over the grounds outside her bedroom window, the lights from the house illuminating the yard just enough for her to make out Lucas and the puppy running around in the predawn. They had arrived last night, and this was the first she’d seen Lucas since. Not that the house was big, but he had done a great job of making himself scarce.

Other than telling her she had a “nice place” when they’d arrived, he hadn’t spoken to her since dinner at Tony and Haven’s the evening before, and even then it had been only enough to keep from sounding rude. Otherwise, he’d remained silent and hostile, though she wasn’t sure anyone else could see it. It was such a marked difference between this stranger and the man she had once known and loved.

She longed to talk to him to find out what was going on in that head of his. Too many years had passed since they had broken up, since Kiloran had done the only thing she knew would push him away. She had done it for his own good, done it to save him, but in the end what did it matter? This wasn’t the man she had known; this was an angry shell of a man and she helped to create him.
No good deed goes unpunished
kept playing through her head, but truthfully she had been selfish. She hadn’t been honest with him. She’d been scared and acted in such a way that he would run and never look back.

All in the name of keeping him
alive
.

But looking down at the man below, playing but showed no joy in it, Kiloran wondered if he was he really living or just trying to get through life? The Lucas she remembered had laughed at the little things. He had helped people and asked for nothing in return. But at dinner the night before, he’d clearly fought to stay pleasant. She assumed it had more to do with Haven and Tony’s daughter than anything else. Knowing he would otherwise have been rude and hateful made her ask the little girl to stay when her parents would have let her leave the table. She answered every starry-eyed question and promised to get autographs of Jocé’s favorite stars.

Without the tension between them, the evening would have been one out of a ’50s television show. A meal with family and friends around the dinner table. Only they didn’t leave as a loving couple, but hostile strangers. Lucas had spoken not one word on the ride home. Once he’d punched in the address into the GPS, he’d driven them back to her rental house at the other end of the state in silence.

Kiloran turned from the window and put a few items into her bag for the day. She was needed on the set early this morning. Tony had somehow convinced Lucas to accompany her, that the best thing for
this
was to make everyone believe tragedy had thrown them back together. That was Tony’s spin anyway. When the condo had blown sky high, they’d realized just how short life was,
blah, blah, blah
—Tony’s exact words.

“Are you almost ready?”

She screamed, dropping the shoes in her hands as she jumped. “I thought you were outside!”

“Obviously. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Lucas came into the room and picked up the shoes handing them to her. “I’ll take your bag.”

“You really don’t have to go with me, you know. No one would think anything about you not coming to the set all day. It’ll likely be boring as hell.”

“I have my laptop, and I have paperwork to catch up on. And Tony’s right; if we want to draw this asshole out, I need to be visible. And I would like to get this over with as soon as possible.” Throwing her bag over his shoulder, he walked out of the room.

Translation: He would like to get away from her as soon as possible. What had she thought would happen? Kiloran grabbed her script off the nightstand before following him down to his car. She could hear the puppy crying through the door of the bathroom Where Lucas had left him and threw caution to the wind.

When she got into the car, Lucas looked at her, dumbfounded. “Why did you bring the dog?”

“You said yourself the puppy needs a new crate. We can go get one on my lunch break. In the meanwhile, he can stay in my trailer with you all day. Keep you out of trouble.”

“Oh, because
I’m
known for getting in trouble?” And for the first time he smiled at her.

Don’t make a big deal of it, it’s just a smile.
But in truth it was more than that. It was a starting point. It was something. And that led to a feeling she hadn’t had in years. Hope.

Damn it.
She still, even after everything, had a way of making him forget anything but her. He was quite happy with his barriers just where he built them. With her on the outside. But if Lucas wasn’t careful, Kiloran would chisel away at the wall he was so proud of. But he was rather pleased that she brought the puppy with her, he figured the last thing she would want was the little guy under foot.

“You really need a name for this guy, you know. You can’t keep calling him
dog
.”

“I was thinking Monsta.”

“You were thinking about calling this cutie Monster?”

“No,
Monst-ah
. As in the green Monstah.”

“You want to name your puppy after the green wall at Fenway Park? Don’t you think that’s a wee bit obsessive?” She giggled. “Why not
beaah
, or
hawt dog
?”

“For an actress, your Boston accent is pretty horrid, you know.”

“I’m working on it. If you’re interested in naming the little guy after the Red Sox, why not just name him Fenway?”

Fenway? Why hadn’t he thought of that? Damn, the name was perfect—but did he want her naming his dog? “I’ll think about it.”

She sighed. She rubbed the bulldog’s ears and let her head fall back. “You won’t think about it because I came up with the name. Why are we doing this? No one will believe we’re back together. You don’t even like me—hell, you
hate
me. How are you going to pretend you love me? Just drop me at the gate, and let’s forget this stupid plan.”

“I don’t have to convince anyone that I love you, just that I’m interested.”

“But you aren’t.”

“I’ll pretend. We’re going to do this because we need to get this guy off the street so no one else gets hurt. Then you can go on and live a normal life again, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time.”

Silence filled the car for the next five miles. When he was about to reach for the radio to fill the awkward quiet, she spoke.

“I’ve been saving up.” Her voice seemed distant, and Lucas wondered if she knew she was even talking out loud. He stole a glance, but she seemed a million miles away. She looked so vulnerable with the morning sun reflecting off her auburn hair. “I hope very soon I can just disappear, fall off the map, and no one can find me. I even bought a house in Canada, in the middle of nowhere. Off the grid. You would love it; solar and wind powered. Totally green. No one knows about it, not my manger, accountant, or even my assistant. I paid cash for the land and slowly have been having it built. No one person is working on it. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“You’re going to let this maniac win.”

“
No
, I’m going to disappear and hope he just stops looking for me.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Kiloran. He’ll do everything in his power to find you again. And when that doesn’t work, he’ll just switch his attentions to someone else, maybe someone who looks like you. You’ve been lucky none of the attacks have been directed at you. But if you disappear without finding out who this is, that next woman may not be so lucky.”

“I can’t keep this up. I’ve been dealing with it for so long. I want a normal life. I want to stop being scared.”

Lucas grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. No one, not even Kiloran, deserved to be this terrified. “We will find this asshole. I promise.”

“I am so tired.”

“Well, you don’t have to do it alone now.”

“Luc, you said last night that you doubted that I was sorry.”

“Stop.”

“Please know I am sorry but not for the reason you think. I’m sorry that I hurt you, and I should have pushed you away long before I did, long before either of us fell in love—”

“Stop.”

“But—”

Slamming on the breaks he turned to her, grabbing her face. “You’ll never know what seeing you in
our bed
with another man did to me, so don’t ever compare your feelings with what mine were.”

“But it wasn’t what it appeared, Lucas—”

“It was
exactly
how it appeared. Don’t mention it again. It’s not a subject open for discussion, and it’s not something I can think about if we’re going to make this work. Do I make myself clear?”

He slammed his fist into the steering wheel.
Damn it.
Only a honk from behind kept Lucas from jumping out of the car and away from this woman who could still, after everything, hurt him. He had done an amazing job convincing himself he was over her. But after the last twenty-four hours he knew only one thing: he wasn’t anywhere near over anything.

Hostile silence reigned for the rest of the ride. She seemed to understand it was best to remain quiet with his temper still too close to boiling to be safe. But Lucas didn’t miss the anxious way she kept wringing her hands in her lap. If he were a bigger man, he’d care about her discomfort, or consider there might be more to the story after all. But if that were the case, all she would have had to do was say no to his proposal. That would have been enough to get the point across.

The truth of it was that he had been good enough to fuck but not to marry. He wasn’t what the great movie star had needed.

Pulling into the makeshift movie lot, Kiloran talked them through security. Although thankful not to have to stand around arguing with a rent-a-cop, it meant Lucas had to have a good chat with the head of security. They needed to be made aware of the situation. What if she was bringing him here under duress? They couldn’t do their job if they were as in the dark about her stalker as he had been all those years ago.

His anger resurfaced when they walked into the area filled with the stars’ trailers. As they approached, Kiloran’s door—and everyone else’s—was wide open, unlocked and welcoming any crazy yahoo to come on in and have a seat. Lucas added that to his mental list of issues that needed to be addressed. Amazed at the lack of security, including Kiloran’s lack of bodyguard protection, he redoubled his conviction to get this crackpot and fast.

Looking around the small trailer, he couldn’t help but notice the photos of them taped to her mirror. She hadn’t pulled those out to impress him or make others think that they were back together. She hadn’t been here since before the police station. And no one could have foreseen Tony’s crazy plan, let alone have believed anyone, least of all Lucas, would go along with it. So what did that mean? So many emotions swirled through him, some too complex to pin point. But as he looked, a keen sense of loss washed over him, for once without the bitterness that usually came with it. Just a sense of sadness for what once was.

“I’d forgotten about this day.” He indicated to the photo at the top taken at a wine festival they had gone to with a cousin of his.

She reached up and brushed the photo with a gentleness that bothered him. “It’s my favorite picture of us.”

Unable to look at the photo or her, he took a seat on the sofa at the back of the trailer and opened his laptop, leaving her to run her lines and prepare for the day. But the images of that day kept running through his head. His cousin Alec, a well-respected photographer, had asked them to come with him. He’d wanted company while he took photographs for the festival. And, he’d admitted, a good picture of Kiloran would make him a mint. Though Lucas had been leery—he had hated the attention she garnered everywhere they went—she’d agreed, loving the idea of getting out of the city for a weekend.

The day had been amazing. Probably why Lucas had forced himself to forget about it. Only a handful of people had recognized her in her big floppy hat and glasses, and they were respectful of her privacy. And as much as Alec had claimed he’d needed photos of Kiloran, the ones he had taken hadn’t ever ended up in print. Except one for the Wine Festivals advertisement the next year, and that was at Kiloran’s request. She’d insisted that if her face would help promote an amazing event, she wanted to help.

But it was the photo of the two of them that had been his favorite too. Taken when neither had been aware anyone was watching, she was looking up at him with a smile, holding her hat as the wind tried to blow it off her head, and he smiling down at her with a look of pure love no one could miss it. It was the picture Lucas had hoped to use to announce their engagement.

“Sorry, Kiloran, I couldn’t get out of bed today.” Nancy, Kiloran’s assistant for years, bustled in, breaking through his musings.

Taking her seat in front of the makeup mirror, she looked at the middle-aged woman with a smile. “It’s been one of those mornings, I think. You remember Lucas, don’t you?”

Nancy turned and although she tried to hide her shock, she didn’t quite manage it. “If it isn’t Lucas Sherman! Aren’t you a blast from the past.” She looked between the two of them questioning, eyebrows raised and mouth open in surprise.

“We’ve decided to get to know one another again. See if there isn’t a second chance for us.” Kiloran’s voice held a hint of hope, and he wondered for a second if it was real. He didn’t have much time to think on it, though.