Lovers and Strangers (5 page)

Twenty-five years ago, on a hot summer night in August, his older brother Eric had jumped to his death from the balcony above the apartment, ending his own life at the age of twenty-four. Jack had never forgotten the sight of Eric's lifeless body, lying bent and broken on the concrete. And he'd never forgiven himself for his part in what had happened that awful night. If it wasn't for him, Eric would still be alive today.

He sighed and leaned a shoulder against the window frame. The Wilshire Arms apartment building had been a luxurious mansion at one time, built, or so he'd heard, by a wealthy family, way back before the stock market crash of '29. Despite numerous changes and remodeling over the years, it still retained a whisper of its former glamour and allure. The architecture was predominately Spanish, with lots of arched doorways, small balconies and wrought iron railings. The sun-washed pink walls and faded turquoise trim on the eaves were pure Art Deco. The fanciful turret showed a hint of Moorish influence. And the courtyard, full of hibiscus and other lush, flowering plants, was a slice of the tropics.

It would be easy to let yourself be lulled by the sleepy charm of the place, Jack thought, easy to forget the odd, and often tragic, history of the building. It was cursed, some said, and when he was in a black mood, Jack almost believed it.

Eric's untimely death hadn't been the first to occur at the Wilshire Arms. Back in 1930, a young Hollywood starlet's body had been found floating facedown in the swimming pool. The pool had eventually been cemented over but the outline of where it had been was still visible if you knew where to look.

Rumor had it that the ghost of the unfortunate starlet haunted the Wilshire Arms. But, then again, rumor also whispered that the young actress had merely been an early victim of the ghost. Whoever the ghost was—or had been—she wasn't content to float through the halls of the Wilshire Arms like an ordinary spirit. She appeared to her victims in a mirror. Specifically, the mirror in 1-G.

It was anchored to a wall in the living room behind him, in exactly the same spot it had occupied, he supposed, since the mansion had been built. It was a large, heavy mirror, four feet wide by five feet tall, framed in ornate Victorian pewter. Several people who should have known better swore they had seen the ghost of a woman reflected in its depths.

She supposedly appeared in a long, pale evening gown, stared and smiled, then disappeared again. Irina Markova, a retired makeup artist who'd lived in the Wilshire Arms since the forties, swore she'd seen the ghost on the night she'd entered into a passionate affair with Errol Flynn. One of Eric's old roommates had said he'd seen her just before he landed a juicy role on a hit soap opera. And there had been a beautiful, waiflike young woman, one who'd been around a lot that fateful summer, who said she'd seen the image in the mirror at a party one night. In fact, lots of people who had partied at the Wilshire Arms back in those days claimed to have seen her. But there had been an unhealthy amount of drugs and alcohol at those parties and people had seen lots of things that weren't really there.

In any case, Jack had never seen the lady in the mirror. He didn't believe in ghosts, except for the ones he carried around inside him.

Speaking of which,
he thought, grimacing,
that script isn't going to rewrite itself.

He flexed his shoulder, preparing to push himself away from the window frame and go back inside, when his attention was caught by someone moving in the shadows in the courtyard. He leaned closer to the window, trying to see who it was. Almost everyone in the building worked during the day, and those who didn't went to school or had auditions or acting classes of some kind. Only Irina Markova, who lived on the first floor, and Carl Mueller, the building superintendent, were normally around at this time of day. Anyone else was definitely suspicious, especially anyone who appeared to be loitering in the shadows. Jack was debating the folly of getting involved when the trespasser stepped into the full sunlight.

It was the little cocktail waitress from Flynn's. She of the timid demeanor and the unexpectedly fiery eyes.

She'd come back to his table last Friday night, long after he'd thought she must have turned tail and run out the back door of the bar, never to return again. Her manner had been stiff and aloof as she served him his nachos and beer, and she'd returned his polite smile of thanks with a lifted chin and narrowed eyes.

He'd puzzled over that for a while, as he sat there eating his nachos, feeling ill-used and wondering just what in the hell had happened to gratitude. It only took a few minutes of discreet observation to realize it wasn't personal; she was treating all her male customers with the same detached coolness. Which puzzled him even more—until he caught a glance between her and one of the other cocktail waitresses. The glance was questioning on one side, approving on the other, and Jack suddenly realized what was going on.

He'd seen that same expression—or an approximation of it, anyway—on the face of the other cocktail waitress when some bozo stepped out of line. During her sojourn in the kitchen, Little Miss Innocence must have gotten a lesson in dealing with the overeager males of the species.

Well,
he thought with a mental shrug,
she couldn't have a better teacher.

The other waitress was sexy and sassy, with a quick, easy smile and a confident manner that said, very clearly, "You can look all you want, fellas, but don't touch." He'd seen her in Flynn's before, though she'd never happened to serve him. She had one of those double-hinged Southern names and she lived in the apartment across the courtyard from his, with a roommate whose name he couldn't bring to mind at the moment. They were both actress wanna-be's, rushing off to auditions during the day and waiting tables at night. Rumor had it that they'd both gone to Yale, met in the drama department, and decided to head for California together to seek stardom and bright lights.

He wondered if Miss Innocence was an actress, too. Or a Yale graduate. Neither possibility seemed very likely to him. Young women from moneyed families and posh Ivy League schools were usually self-assured, if not downright arrogant. And actresses were, at the very least, proficient at pretending to a self-confidence they might lack in real life. Unless he was very much mistaken, Miss Innocence didn't have what it took to confront and conquer the wolves of Hollywood—no matter how many lessons her friend provided.

He watched her now, as she walked purposefully across the length of the courtyard toward the large cork bulletin board fastened to the wall just inside the wrought iron gate. She stood in front of it for a moment, a stack of bright neon pink paper in the crook of one arm, her head tilted as she studied the hodgepodge of notices and announcements. Then, turning first to put her papers down on a nearby patio table, she began to rearrange things, straightening them into neat rows as she cleared a space. That done, she tacked up one of her bright pink flyers right in the middle of the bulletin board.

Politics or religion? Jack wondered, just as the shrill whistle of the teakettle demanded his attention.

He ignored it for a moment, continuing to watch her. She gave a satisfied little nod and turned away from the bulletin board, picking up her papers as she passed them. After skirting a tub of flowering hibiscus, she entered one of the two doors that led from the courtyard into the hallway.

She could access all of the first floor apartments from the ground floor hallway. Or, rather, all of the mail slots on the front doors of the apartments. As he carefully poured boiling water over the fresh coffee grounds, he mentally pictured her making her way down the hall, pausing at each door to slip her flyer—he was sure that's what she was doing—into the mail slots. And then, somehow, he was standing just inside his own front door, the coffee forgotten, wrestling with the urge to open it and catch her in the act, as it were, when a soft knock interrupted his internal struggle.

Why was she knocking?
he wondered, suddenly changing his mind about opening the door. He didn't need the distraction of her presence. He certainly didn't want whatever she was selling. And he really should get back in the kitchen and finish brewing his coffee before it was ruined.

And then his mail slot opened, and a piece of neon pink paper went fluttering toward the floor, and he changed his mind again. He grabbed the flyer with one hand, scooping it up before it hit the floor, and yanked the door open with the other, just as she was horning away.

Startled, she whirled around to face him. "Oh, you're in," she said inanely. Her voice was low and sweet and he could hear a hint of nerves under the soft, drawn out vowels of the South. "When you didn't answer right away I thought..." She straightened her shoulders under the plain white blouse she wore. "I thought you must be out."

And you're wishing I had been, aren't you, Angel?
"So, what are you selling?" He glanced down at the flyer in his hand and then back up at her. "Government reform or personal salvation?"

She followed his gaze, looking down at the paper in his hand. The sight of his fingers, long, blunt-tipped, with fine dark hairs along their backs, was strangely unsettling. "Neither." She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it, and clutched the sheaf of flyers more closely to her breast. "It's, ah... a business announcement, I guess you could say. But that's not why I stopped by. Not entirely." She cleared her throat. "My name is Faith McCray, Mr. Shannon, and the rea—"

"Jack," he corrected.

She looked up a him blankly.

"My name is Jack."

"Yes, well... Jack. The reason I stopped is—" she forced herself to look directly into his eyes, steeling herself for whatever she might see there "—I wanted to apologize."

Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Apologize?"

"For Friday night at Flynn's. I was very rude."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "You were only trying to be nice, and instead of thanking you for coming to my rescue, I overreacted and got angry. I do that sometimes when I'm upset." She shrugged uncomfortably and glanced away, unconsciously trying to hide the faint blush that warmed her cheeks. "Or embarrassed."

"Would you get angry or embarrassed if I invited you in for a cup of coffee?" Jack asked, resisting the urge to look behind him to see who'd uttered the words.

She looked up at him uncertainly. "Coffee?"

"I'm in the middle of brewing a fresh pot."

"Well, I..."

He was more than a head taller than she was and pounds heavier. His jeans were faded to nearly white at the seams and his faded black T-shirt was ripped at the neck. His feet were bare. He needed a haircut and he hadn't shaved. A tattoo of a fierce looking bird of prey decorated his right bicep. All in all, she thought, he looked bad-tempered and dangerous. She'd have to be crazy to accept his invitation.

His mouth quirked up at one corner as he read her expression. "The coffee will be fresh, Angel. But I promise, I won't be."

She studied him for a moment longer. He wasn't looking at her as if she were nothing now. There was no hint of disgust or pity in his eyes. No ulterior motive, either, as far as she could see.

"Well?" he said, trying to sound as if it didn't matter to him one way or another what her answer was. And wondering why it did. "Are you coming in for that coffee or not?"

Why, he's lonely,
she thought,
and there's something sad way at the back of his eyes.
Faith knew all about lonely. She knew about sorrow, too. "All right," she said with a slight nod. "I think I'd like that."

Jack stepped back, tacitly inviting her into his apartment.

Faith stepped over the threshold.

"Come on in." He gestured down the hall toward the apartment's interior with the hand that still held her flyer and pushed the front door closed with the other.

The door shut with a sharp click, sealing them together inside the apartment. "Living room's straight ahead," he said following her. "Make yourself comfortable while I see if I can dig up a couple of clean mugs."

Faith smiled and hoped she didn't look as nervous as she felt. With one notable exception, which didn't really count, she'd never been alone with a man in his apartment before. It was a little strange. And kind of scary. And very exciting. And... messy, she decided, looking around her with avid interest.

There was a long brown leather sofa against one wall, one end piled high with unfolded laundry. A perfectly plain pine coffee table sat in front of it, covered with untidy stacks of newspapers and magazines that spilled over onto the carpet. A small portable television and a VCR sat opposite the sofa, perched atop a pyramid of cardboard boxes. The components of what looked to her like a brand-new, state-of-the-art audio system were tucked into the built-in bookshelves among piles of books, CDs and videotapes stacked every which way.

From where she was standing, Faith could see through a wide, graceful archway into the dining area. It was equally bare, containing only a kitchen table and two metal-legged chairs. The Formica tabletop held a typewriter, an open cardboard box with several folders stacked around it, and an overflowing ashtray. The hardwood floor was littered with crumpled balls of paper and an empty pack of cigarettes. Other than a huge elaborate mirror hanging in the living room, there was nothing on the walls. There were no framed photographs. No plants. No curtains to soften the slatted wooden shutters all the apartments had. No warmth or personality of any kind.
Are all single men's apartments like this?
she wondered.