Private Scandals (43 page)

Deanna used all her willpower not to shift from foot to foot. “I am being still.”

“You’re vibrating like a spring.”

“Sorry.” Deanna took a long, steadying breath. “I guess I’m nervous.”

“The bride-to-be,” Cassie recited as she walked back in with a Palmcorder blocking her face. “Deanna Reynolds, the reigning queen of daytime TV, has chosen an elegant gown of . . .”

“Italian silk,” the seamstress prompted. “With touches of Irish lace and a sea of freshwater pearls.”

“Exquisite,” Cassie said soberly. “And tell us, Miss Reynolds—” with an expert’s touch, she zoomed in on Deanna’s face—“how do you feel on this exciting occasion?”

“Terrified.” She crossed her eyes. If the fitting took five minutes over the allotted hour, she’d be making up time all
week. “And partially insane. Other than that I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

“If you’ll just stand perfectly still, I’ll do a little circle around so that our viewers can get the full effect.” Cassie sidestepped, panned back. “This’ll go in my growing library of life behind
Deanna’s Hour.
”

Deanna felt her smile stiffen. “Do you have a lot of tape?”

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Simon pulling what’s left of his hair out. Margaret tossing spitballs. You racing for the elevator.”

Beneath the sparkling bodice, Deanna’s heart thudded thickly. “I guess I’ve never paid much attention. So many cameras around. You always keep that at hand, don’t you?”

“You never know what historical, or humiliating, moment you might capture.”

Someone had captured her, Deanna remembered, while she’d slept at her desk. Coming to work, going from, shopping, playing with Fran’s baby in the park.

They’d captured her unconscious in the studio beside Angela’s body.

Cassie, who was in and out of the office dozens of times a day. Cassie, who knew every detail of Deanna’s schedule. Cassie, who had dated one of the studio camera operators.

“Turn it off, Cassie.”

“One more second.”

“Turn it off.” Her voice sharpened, and Deanna set her teeth to steady it.

“Sorry.” Obviously baffled, Cassie lowered the camera. “I guess I got carried away.”

“It’s all right. I’m just edgy.” Deanna managed to smile again. It was ridiculous, she told herself. It was insane even to speculate that Cassie would be capable of murder.

“It’s your first day back.” Cassie touched her hand and Deanna had to force herself not to jerk away. “God knows it was a madhouse around here after the show with all those calls coming in about Kate Lowell. Why don’t you give
yourself a break after you’ve finished the fitting, and go home? I can reschedule the rest of the afternoon’s business.”

“I think that’s a good idea.” She spoke slowly over the erratic thud of her heart. “I’ve got a lot of things to deal with at home.”

Cassie’s mouth thinned. “I didn’t mean you should jump out of one madhouse into another. You’re not going to get any work done there, with all those painters and carpenters slogging away. I think—” She saw that Deanna’s eyes had focused behind her and turned. “Jeff.” Her mouth softened at the admiration on his face. “She looks fabulous, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. Really.” He glanced at the camera Cassie held. “You got pictures?”

“Sure. Capture the moment. Listen, unless it’s a crisis, hold it off, will you? This is a momentous occasion. Dee’s going home early.”

“Oh, good idea. Finn called, Deanna. He said to tell you he had a meeting and he’d see you at home. He thought he might get there by four.”

“Well, that’s lucky. Maybe I’ll beat him there.”

“Not if you don’t hold still,” the seamstress muttered.

But it was barely three-thirty when Deanna slipped into her shoes and grabbed her briefcase. “Cassie, can you call Tim?”

“Already done. He should be waiting downstairs.”

“Thanks.” She stopped by the desk, feeling ashamed and foolish about her earlier thoughts. “I’m sorry about before, Cassie. The camera business.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Cassie zipped open one of the daily letters that heaped on her desk. “I know I’m a nuisance.” She chuckled. “I like being a nuisance with it. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Don’t stay late.”

More at ease, Deanna walked to the elevator, checking her watch as she punched the Down button. With any luck, she
could surprise Finn by arriving first. It wouldn’t take much effort, she knew, to persuade him to fix some blackened chicken and pasta. She was in the mood for something spicy to cap off her first day back in harness.

She could deal with a mountain of paperwork and phone calls there. Then, if she scheduled a break, she could slink into something designed to drive Finn crazy.

They’d have dinner late. Very late, she decided, and swung out of the elevator.

Maybe she’d wrap a few last-minute Christmas gifts, or talk Finn into baking some cookies. She could run a couple of the new segment ideas by him.

The flash of sunlight had her reaching automatically for her tinted glasses. Slipping them on, she climbed into the back of the waiting limo.

“Hi, Tim.” She closed her eyes and stretched. The limo was beautifully warm.

“Hi, Miss Reynolds.”

“Turned out to be a beautiful day.” Out of habit, she reached for the bottle of chilled juice that was always stocked for her. She looked up idly at the back of her driver. Despite the car’s warmth, he was huddled inside his coat, his cap tipped low.

“Sure did.”

Sipping the juice, she flipped open her briefcase. She set the file neatly labeled “Wedding Plans” aside and reached for the daily correspondence Cassie had culled for her to read. She’d always considered the drive to and from the office part of the workday. In this case, she had to make up the time she’d taken with the fitting, and for knocking off early.

But by the third letter, the words were blurring. There was no excuse for being so tired so early in the day. Annoyed, she slid her fingers under her glasses to rub her eyes clear. But they blurred all the more, as if she’d swabbed them with oil. Her head spun once, sickly, and her arm fell heavily to the seat beside her.

So tired, she thought. So hot. As if in slow motion, she tried to shrug out of her coat. The papers fluttered to the
floor, and the effort of reaching for them only increased the dizziness.

“Tim.” She leaned forward, pressed a hand against the back of the front seat. He didn’t answer, but the word had sounded dim and far away to her own ears. As she struggled to focus on him the half-empty bottle of juice slipped from her numbed fingers.

“Something’s wrong,” she tried to tell him as she slid bonelessly to the plushly carpeted floor of the car. “Something’s very wrong.”

But he didn’t answer. She imagined herself falling through the floor of the limo and into a dark, bottomless pit.

D
eanna dreamed she was swimming up through red-tinted clouds, slowly, sluggishly pulling herself toward the surface, where a faint, white light glowed through the misty layers. She moaned as she struggled. Not from pain but nausea that rolled up, burning in her throat.

In defense, she kept her eyes closed, taking long, deep breaths and willing the sickness back. Drops of clammy sweat pearled on her skin so that her thin silk blouse clung nastily to her arms and back.

When the worst had passed, she opened her eyes cautiously.

She had been in the car, she remembered. Tim had been driving her home and she’d become ill. But she wasn’t home now. Hospital? she wondered dully when she let her eyes cautiously open. The room was softly lit with delicate violets trailing up the wallpaper. A white ceiling fan gently stirred the air with a whispering sound of blades. A glossy mahogany bureau held a collection of pretty, colored bottles and pots. A magnificent poinsettia and a miniature blue spruce decorated with silver bells added seasonal flair.

Hospital? she thought again. Groggily, she tried to sit up. Her head spun again, hideously, shooting that fist of nausea
back into her stomach. Her vision doubled. When she tried to bring her hand to her face, it felt weighted down. For a moment she could only lie still, fighting back the sickness. She saw that the room was a box, a closed, windowless box. Like a coffin.

A spear of panic sliced through the shock. She reared up, shouting, stumbling drunkenly from the bed. Staggering to a wall, she ran her fingers over the delicate floral wallpaper in a dizzy search for an opening. Trapped. She wheeled around, eyes wide. Trapped.

She saw then what was on the wall over the bed. It was enough to crush the bubbling hysteria. A huge photograph smiled sassily down at her. For several stunned moments Deanna stared at Deanna. Slowly, with the sound of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears, she scanned the rest of the room.

No, there were no doors, no windows, just flowers, bowers of them, wall to wall. But there were other photographs. Dozens of pictures of her were lined on the side walls. Candid shots, magazine covers, press photos stood cheek by jowl against the dainty wallpaper.

“Oh God. Oh God.” She heard the whimpering panic in her own voice and bit down fiercely on her lip.

Looking away from her own images, her eyes glassy with shock, she stared at the refectory table, its snowy white runner stiff with starch as a backdrop for silver candle holders, glossy white tapers. Dozens of little treasures had been arranged there: an earring she’d lost months before, a tube of lipstick, a silk scarf Simon had given her one Christmas, a glove of supple red leather—one of a pair that had disappeared the winter before.

There was more. She eased closer, straining against the tidal wave of fear as she studied the collection. A memo she’d handwritten to Jeff, a lock of ebony hair wrapped in gold cord, other photographs of her, always of her, in elegant and ornate frames. The shoes she’d been wearing in the limo were there as well, along with her jacket, neatly folded.

The place was like a shrine, she realized with a shudder. The sound in her throat was feral and frightened. There was a television in the corner, a shelf of leather-bound albums. And most terrifying, cameras bracketed the upper corners of the room. The pinpoints of their red lights beamed like tiny eyes.

She stumbled back, fear soaring like a slickly coated bird. Her gaze sliced from one camera to the other.

“You’re watching me.” She fought back the terror in her voice. “I know you are. You can’t keep me here. They’ll look. You know they’ll find me. They’re probably looking already.”

She looked down at her wrist to check the time, but saw that her watch was gone. How long? she wondered frantically. It might have been minutes, or days, since she’d passed out in the car.

The car. Her breath began to hitch. “Tim.” She pressed her lips together until the ache snapped through the need to weep. “Tim, you have to let me go. I’ll try to help you. I promise that. I’ll do whatever I can. Please, come in here, talk to me.”

As though only her invitation had been required, a section of the wall slid open. In reflex, Deanna surged forward, only to bite back a moan of despair as her head spun in sickening circles from the drug. Still, she straightened her shoulders and hoped that she hid the worst of her fear.

“Tim,” she began, then only stared in confusion.

“Welcome home, Deanna.”

His face flushed with shy pleasure, Jeff stepped into the room. He carried a silver tray on which rode a wineglass, a china plate of herbed pasta and a single red rosebud.

“I hope you like the room.” In his unhurried and efficient way, he set the tray on the bureau. “It took a long time for me to get it just right. I didn’t want you to be just comfortable. I wanted you to be happy. I know there’s no view.” He turned toward her, eyes too bright though apology quavered in his voice. “But it’s safer this way. No one will bother us when we’re in here.”

“Jeff.” Calm, she ordered herself. She had to stay calm. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Yes I can. I’ve planned it all carefully. I’ve had years to work it out. Why don’t you sit down, Dee? You’re probably feeling a little groggy, and I want you to be comfortable while you eat.”

He stepped forward, and though she braced, he didn’t touch her.

“Later,” he continued, “after you understand everything, you’ll feel a lot better. You just need time.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her cheek, but drew it away again as if he didn’t want to frighten her.

“Please try to relax. You never let yourself relax. I know you might be a little afraid right now, but it’s going to be all right. If you fight me, I’ll have to . . .” Because he couldn’t bear to say the words, he slipped a hypo out of his pocket. “I don’t want to.” Her instant recoil had him pushing the needle out of sight again. “Really, I don’t. And you wouldn’t be able to get away.”

Smiling again, he moved a table and chair closer to the bed. “You need to eat,” he said pleasantly. “You always worried me when it came to taking care of yourself. All those hurried or skipped meals. But I’ll take good care of you. Sit down, Deanna.”

She could refuse, she thought. She could scream and rant and threaten. And for what? She’d known Jeff, or thought she’d known him, for years. He could be stubborn, she reminded herself. But she’d always been able to reason with him.

“I am hungry,” she told him, and hoped her stomach wouldn’t rebel. “You’ll talk to me while I eat? Explain things to me?” She gave him her best interviewer’s smile.

“Yes.” The smile burned across his face like a fever. “I thought you might be angry at first.”

“I’m not angry. I’m afraid.”

“I’d never hurt you.” He took one of her limp hands in his and squeezed lightly. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I know you might be thinking about getting past me, Deanna.
Getting through the panel. But you can’t. I’m really very strong, and you’re still weak from the drug. No matter what you do, you’ll still be locked in. Sit down.”

As if in a dream, she did as he told her. She wanted to run, but even as the thought communicated from brain to body, her legs folded. How could she run when she could barely stand? The drug was still in charge of her system. It was precisely the kind of detail he would have thought of. Precisely the kind of detail that had made him such an invaluable part of her team.

“It’s wrong to keep me here, Jeff.”

“No, it’s not.” He set the tray on the table in front of her. “I’ve thought about it for a long, long time. And this is for the best. For you. I’m always thinking of you. Later on, we can travel together. I’ve been looking into villas in the south of France. I think you’d like it there.” He touched her then, just a brushing caress on her shoulder. Beneath her blouse her skin crawled. “I love you so much.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me? You could have talked to me about the way you felt.”

“I couldn’t. At first I thought it was just because I was shy, but then I realized that it was all like a plan. A life plan. Yours and mine.”

Anxious to explain, he pulled up another chair. As he leaned forward, his glasses slid down his nose. While her vision blurred, then cleared, she watched him shove them up again—an old habit, once an endearing one, that now chilled her blood.

“There were things you needed to do, experiences—and men—you had to get out of your system before we could be together. I understood that, Dee. I never blamed you for Finn. It hurt me.” Resting his hands on his knees, he let out a sigh. “But I didn’t blame you. And I couldn’t blame him.” His face brightened again. “How could I when I knew how perfect you were? The first time I saw you on TV, I couldn’t get my breath. It scared me a little. You were looking right at me, into me. I’ll never forget it. You see, I was so lonely before. An only child. I grew up in this house. You’re not
eating, Deanna. I wish you would.”

Obediently, she picked up her fork. He wanted to talk. Seemed eager to. The best way to escape, she calculated, was to understand. “You told me you grew up in Iowa.”

“That’s where my mother took me later. My mother was wild.” The apology crept back into his voice. “She would never listen to anyone, never obey the rules. So naturally, Uncle Matthew had to punish her. He was older, you see. He was head of the family. He’d keep her in this room, trying to make her see that there were proper ways to do things, and improper ways.” His face changed as he spoke, tightening around the mouth and eyes, growing somehow older, sterner. “But my mother never learned, no matter how hard my uncle tried to teach her. She ran away and got pregnant. When I was six, they took her away. She had a breakdown, and I came to live with Uncle Matthew. There was no one else to take me in, you see. And it was his family duty.”

Deanna choked down a bite of pasta. It stuck like paste in her throat, but she was afraid to try the wine. He could have drugged it, she thought, like the bottle of juice. “I’m sorry, Jeff, about your mother.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged it off like a snake shedding skin. His face smoothed out again like a sheet stroked with careful hands. “She didn’t love me. No one’s ever loved me but Uncle Matthew. And you. It’s just wine, Dee. Your favorite kind.” Grinning at the joke, he picked up the glass and sipped to show her. “I didn’t put anything in it. I didn’t have to, because you’re here now. With me.”

Drugged or not, she avoided the wine, unsure how it would mix with the drugs in her system. “What happened to your mother?”

“She had dementia. She died. Is your dinner all right? I know pasta’s your favorite.”

“It’s fine.” Deanna slipped another bite through her stiff lips. “How old were you when she died?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, I was happy here, with my uncle.” It made him nervous to talk about his mother, so he
didn’t. “He was a great man. Strong and good. He hardly ever had to punish me, because I was good, too. I wasn’t a trial to him, like my mother was. We took care of each other.” He spoke quickly now, fresh excitement blooming. “He was proud of me. I studied hard and I didn’t hang out with other kids. I didn’t need them. I mean, all they wanted to do was ride in fast cars and listen to loud music and fight with their parents. I had respect. And I never forgot things like cleaning my room or brushing my teeth. Uncle Matthew always told me I didn’t need anybody but family. And he was the only family I had. Then, when he died, there was you. So I knew it was right.”

“Jeff.” Deanna used all her skills to keep the conversation flowing, to steer it in the direction she wanted. “Do you think your uncle would approve of what you’re doing now?”

“Oh, absolutely.” He beamed, his face sunny and innocent and terrifying. “He talks to me all the time, up here.” He tapped his head, winked. “He told me to be patient, to wait until the time was right. You know when I first started sending you letters?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I dreamed about Uncle Matthew for the first time then. Only it wasn’t like a dream. It was so real. He told me I had to court you, the way a gentleman would. That I had to be patient. He always said that good things take time. He told me that I would have to wait, and that I had to look out for you. Men are supposed to cherish their women, to protect them. People have forgotten that. No one seems to cherish anyone anymore.”

“Is that why you killed Angela, Jeff? To protect me?”

“I planned that for months.” He leaned back again, rested one bent leg across his knee. Conversations with Deanna had always been a high point of his life. And this, he thought, was the very best. “You didn’t know that I let her think I was taking Lew’s place.”

“Lew’s? Lew McNeil’s?”

“After I killed him—”

“Lew.” Her fork rattled against the china when it slipped through her fingers. “You killed Lew.”

“He betrayed you. I had to punish him. And he used Simon. Until I started to work with you, I never really had friends. Simon’s my friend. I was going to kill him, too, but I realized he’d been used. It wasn’t really his fault, was it?”

“No.” She said it quickly, punctuating the word by laying her hand over Jeff’s. “No, Jeff, it wasn’t Simon’s fault. I care very much about Simon. I wouldn’t want you to hurt him.”

“That’s what I thought.” He grinned, a child praised by an indulgent adult. “You see, I know you so well, Deanna. I know everything about you. Your family, your friends. Your favorite foods and colors. Where you like to shop. I know everything you’re thinking. It’s as though I were right inside your head. Or you’re inside mine,” he added slowly. “Sometimes I’d think you were inside mine. I knew you wanted Angela to go away. And I knew you’d never hurt her yourself. You’re too gentle, too kind.” He turned his hand over to squeeze hers. “So I did it for you. I arranged to meet her in the parking lot at CBC. She sent her driver away, just like I’d told her to. I let her in, took her down to the studio. I’d told her that I had copied papers from the office. Story ideas, guests, plans for remotes. She was going to buy them from me. Only she didn’t tell me you were coming.” Incredibly, his bottom lip poked out in a pout. “She lied to me about that.”