Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (10 page)

Ignoring Craig, she put her arms about Webb's neck, kissing him lightly. "Mmm!

Thanks again, darling, for being sweet enough to walk me all the way here! And be sure to give my love to Carol, won't you? Tell her I loved the party ..."

His yellow-gold eyes looked like mirrors with sunshine reflecting off them.

"It was a real pleasure, sweetheart. And I'll be sure to tell Caro." He disengaged her arms with more controlled force than was really necessary. "Hyatt? Nice meeting you. See you around, Annie."

Webb had already started walking downhill when she realized that Craig was holding open the door of the black Mercedes for her.

Unshed tears that she could never let escape made her throat and her eyes ache.

"Anne-get in, will you! Damn, do you have to make a public spectacle of yourself?

And a fool of me? I don't know what's been going on, but you'd better have a bloody good explanation. Your father and I have been waiting for you since last night."

She slammed the car door behind her, watching, without wanting to, Webb walking away from her, wondering, without wanting to, what might have happened between them if Craig hadn't chosen the wrong moment to appear.

His fury fed hers. Hypocrite! "I don't know what in hell you've been trying to prove, Anne! But I tell you .. ."

She had some satisfactions at least, in turning to look at him; blanking out his angry face with the newly learned hardness of her eyes as she said, coldly and distinctly,

"Don't, Craig! I don't want to hear, and I don't owe you or my father any explanations.

Anything."

WEBB PASSED THE MAN in the snowplow again on his way downhill; but this time there was no friendly wave, just a glance from under the visor of the cap that shadowed most of the man's face. Well, that made sense. He was an outsider, an intruder. This was Anne Reardon Hyatt's hometown, and she was back where she belonged, behind those electronically operated gates and the high walls. A good place for her. It was surprising that Reardon and her straitlaced husband let her run loose at all.

Well, she was Hyatt's problem, and her father's-not his, thank God! Not likely that they'd run into each other again, ever; and it was just as well. Because if he'd known from the beginning who she was he might have been tempted ... forget it! Forget Anne, forget Reardon-forget even the bittersweet memory of Ria. He had things to do and places to go, and he didn't need anything or anybody to hold him back.

Long, angry strides took him to the bottom of the hill and the hotel loomed up in front of him; and there, surprisingly, Harris waited-all muffled up in his expensive ski clothes. Harris was with Mike and a couple of the other guys in the company, and they were all watching him. Talk stopped, a certain stiffness grew in all of them as they waited for him.

A sense of premonition plucked at the suddenly tautened strings of his nerves. What the hell was going on?

Harris spoke first, his voice unusually tense. "Webb-for Christ's sake! We were almost ready to send out a search party! I tried your room, and when you weren't there I began to wonder if ..." Voice dropping, but with a certain urgency underlying it, Harris demanded, "Where's Anne?"

"I saw her safely to her door. What the hell's going on?"

None of the others answered. They continued to look at him woodenly. Harris Phelps sighed impatiently, his pale-gray eyes swiveling from face to face as if in warning before they rested on Webb.

"There's been trouble. That damn fool Grady tried to kill Carol; thank God she had the wits and the strength to fight him off! And then we found Tanya ..."

Shit! Why in hell dIdn't Harris come to the point, instead of standing there staring at him accusingly? Accusing him of what, for Christ's sake? All of his barely tamped-down anger and frustration looked for a focal point, and Webb's voice showed it, as he said with dangerous, deceptive softness, "Suppose you get to the point, Phelps?"

"For God's sake-let's go inside!" Harris Phelps said abruptly. "This is no place for explanations. Carol's been in hysterics, she's been asking for you. I think I've got Tanya under control-the girl's got a practical streak, for all her belligerence, and she's been remarkably silent-almost as if she was afraid ..."

"Telephone, Miss Anne."

Anne snatched at the instrument as if it had been a lifeline, ignoring the faintly disapproving tone in Mrs. Preakness's formal, New England voice.

She'd avoided a confrontation with Craig by remaining stonily silent when he tried to question her and jumping out of the car almost as soon as he'd parked it, to walk stiffly to her room like a recalcitrant child. There was still her father to face, but she would get through that too. Wait for the royal summons. But all she was really doing was waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for some contact with the reality of the outside world to remind her she was still alive and living in the twentieth century.

"Hello?" Why did her heart plummet, after soaring and pounding only instants before, when she heard Harris Phelps's worried voice?

"Anne? I had quite a time getting through to you." His voice sounded cautious. And then, falsely cheerful. "But I didn't want to leave without saying good-bye."

"Leave?" She hoped her voice didn't sound too shocked. "But I thought you had another performance .. ."

"Had. Yes ... But unfortunately-listen, Anne, I don't see why you shouldn't know!

There's been a great deal of unpleasantness, and Carol's in no state to go on.

Webb's with her, soothing her, right now. It's funny, but no matter how hard those two pretend to hate each other, when it comes to a crisis, well .. ."

She listened, feeling herself turning slowly to ice while he told her.

Ted Grady. had burst into Carol's bedroom with a gun, threatening to kill her. But he had turned it on himself and managed to shoot away half his jaw and still live when Carol had wrestled with him. And Tanya, found beaten up and close to unconsciousness in her room-not saying what had happened or who was responsible. Webb? Not Webb-Enough reason for the cast of Bad Blood to get out of town fast, with the surprising cooperation of the local chief of police, who had whisked the unfortunate Grady off to the hospital.

"Anne? Are you still there? I hope I haven't upset you, but I felt that you had a right to know. I had hoped I could see you again .. ." Harris sounded almost diffident.

Webb was with Carol. "Comforting" her. What happened between Webb and Tanya?

Anne wondered. Had he merely needed Anne as an alibi, when he'd come looking for her ... after Tanya ... Stop it! Don't think that way! Don't give way! There was more to be faced before she could escape-as she would, and must.

First the light, polite words to Harris Phelps. She sent her love to Carol, no message for Webb, who neither deserved nor needed any. And reassured Harris that they might just run into each other in Europe sometime. Hadn't she mentioned that she planned to be leaving for France next week?

Words. Smoke screen to hide emotions. Harris couldn't see the paleness of her face nor sense the churning mixture of rage and humiliation that made her pulse pound in her temples.

But when she put down the telephone, Anne felt strangely calm. "Empty" was a word she might think, but wouldn't let herself feel. When the phone rang again almost immediately, she could feel detachedly proud of herself because there wasn't a

'tremor in her voice when she answered it.

"Your father will be in his study, Miss Anne, when it's convenient for you to see him."

Mrs. Preakness had a cool, aseptic voice that matched the appearance of the woman herself. She never seemed to grow any older-and yet, as far back as Anne could remember, she had always been there, part of the rigidly controlled order of life at Deepwood. Deep freeze. Her mother, so long ago, whispering "How I dislike that-that creature! She's a robot."

Well, I'm not! I'll make him understand that. Deliberately, Anne gave herself time to comb her hair and put on some makeup. She was better off now that she had somes pecific goal to battle for, something tangible to face. And no, she wouldn't think about Webb now. Maybe later, as a learning experience. And Webb and Carol could play their cheating, teasing games with each other, tearing each other apart, for all she cared. She wasn't playing any longer.

"That bastard! He's dangerous-he was going to kill me, the sick, rotten ... does either of you understand that? Do you know what I've been through? I want him put away, I tell you-how can I feel safe again after this?"

Carol Cochran's emerald-green eyes were bright with fury and incipient hysteria, and her face was taut white except for the crimson lower lip she kept biting.

She looked from Harris Phelps to Webb, who lit a cigarette and handed it to her silently. Damn Webb! It had always infuriated her that she could never really tell what Webb was thinking. She was used to being sure of her men, but she never had been of Webb.

Harris said smoothly, "You don't have to worry about Grady; haven't I already assured you of that? He'll be in the hospital for a long time, and we'll get an injunction against him to see he doesn't try to come near you again. And don't forget, Bad Blood opens on Broadway in two weeks. It's going to establish you as a dramatic actress, Carol. You mustn't let yourself look back. And I promise you, there'll be no publicity arising out of this nasty incident. The chief of police has been remarkably understanding and cooperative, and we're all free to go as soon as we can be ready to leave."

He saw the way Carol was watching Webb, and rose to leave them together with a mental shrug as his mind prepared the press releases he would put out. He'd already talked to Webb, who had as much at stake in the success of the playas anyone else.

An engagement, "leaked" to the press, was in order. It would put a stop to a lot of things, and explain Ted Grady's jealousy if the story of his attempt on Carol's life did get out.

H there were certain fleeting regrets in the back of his mind, Harris Phelps put them away for the moment. When he left the room, neither Carol nor Webb noticed that he had gone.

"Webb .. ." Carol was suddenly a child needing comfort; she put her hand out, her ringed fingers clutching at his. "I really was scared, you know! It didn't seem real at first ... no one believed me when I said how insanely jealous he was! He wanted to lock me up and keep me to himself. And then, when he burst into my room waving that gun in my face, I suddenly thought, 'He's going to kill me; the bastard really means it. I'm going to die.' Oh damn! Why can't I stop thinking about it?"

It wasn't theatrics now; she had been genuinely terrified and was still shaking, in spite of the tranquilizers.

"You're going to stop thinking about it, though. You've always had guts, Caro. And you'll always fight back, even when you're cornered. You fought him off, didn't you?"

"You're damn right I did!" Carol tossed back her mane of hair, her voice suddenly strengthening. "And I always will fight back, too."

Folds of her negligee fell back, revealing full white breasts. Familiar. Safe ground.

They knew each other so well, Caro and he. Almost as well as if they'd been married for years. There was no need for questions or answers between them, only need itself and an assuagement of thought for the moment.

Much later, with Carol sleeping off the belated effects of the pills she had taken, Webb went back to his own room to finish packing. He felt suddenly tired. Drained is more like it, he reflected caustically as he began to jam clothes into a suitcase, deliberately closing his thoughts to traces of Anne, scattered all over the room the maid hadn't cleaned yet-long blonde hair on the pillow, still-damp towels on the bathroom floor. Forget her! Anne Reardon Hyatt was a complication he didn't need in his life. It was a damn good thing her old man had turned up when he did. Everything was back in perspective again, and all he had to worry about now was waiting for the Broadway opening of Bad Blood-and his "engagement" to Carol.

"Just in case the incident with Grady leaks out," Harris had said. "You understand, I'm sure. You and Carol-the public wil I love it. And it'll explain Grady's jealous rage.

Naturally"-Harris had paused delicately, fingers brushing his mustache -"Anne mustn't be involved in any way. I'm sure I don't need to explain why .. ."

Reardon. What had brought Reardon home to Deepwood? Harris Phelps mulled over the question. In some ways it was too bad Reardon had turned up-and that Webb Carnahan should have been the one to meet Anne first. Anne was out of his class; she was the kind of woman who didn't indulge in affairs and one-night stands. Harris wondered if she'd go back to her husband now. A rather sarcastic smile curled one corner of his mouth. Hyatt had been a fool to let her go, he mused, and he'd be more of a fool if he didn't take her back. Pity or not, there was the inescapable fact that she was Dick Reardon's daughter, and perhaps the man's only weak spot.

Anne knew better herself. Her father, a shadowy figure who passed briefly in and out of her life at long intervals, had no weaknesses that could make her see him as human. There were times, she remembered, when she had wondered if he was indeed her father. How could such a cold, passionless man have actually made love to her mother and begotten a child? Perhaps he had sent a surrogate in his place.

Perhaps (and this was one of her favorite fantasies) she had been adopted.

"Father," she had been taught to call him dutifully; but she could not recall one occasion when he had shown any real emotion towards her, nor touched her, nor even smiled at her. He was a face she remembered more from rare photographs than from life, a voice she heard most often over the telephone, unreadable eyes that always seemed to be weighing or judging her in some way, so that when they met she was invariably tongue-tied and stuttered her replies to his polite inquiries.

Before she could bring herself to knock at the study door, Anne had to take a deep breath, deliberately willing herself to be calm, to remember not to start twisting her fingers together once she was in his presence. All this formality-God, it's ridiculous! I wonder what he'd do if I burst into the room and flung my arms around his neck and kissed him? The thought was so outrageous it almost made her giggle.