Taking Chances (40 page)

Matty answered on the fourth ring. ‘Oh hi, Michael,’ she said, disguising the surprise she must have felt. ‘Ellen’s not here, I’m afraid. She’s gone over to take a look at one of the sets.’

Michael was still looking at Robbie. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch up with her later.’

As he rang off he could see that Robbie’s disappointment was almost as great as his own. ‘I know,’ he suggested, after telling Robbie where she was, ‘how about we go and take a look at the sets too?’

Robbie looked undecided. He was obviously having a difficult time with this. ‘Will it be like the outer-space one we saw with all those monsters?’ he said.

‘Not really,’ Michael answered, ‘but we don’t want to frighten Gran, do we?’

Robbie grinned, then with Spot barrelling along happily at his heels, he went off to get dressed.

An hour later the three of them, and Spot, were heading along Melrose towards Paramount. Clodagh, thoroughly approving of their mission, had forgiven them for being heathens and was getting as excited as Robbie at the possibility they might bump into the famous Richard Conway.

Michael was quiet as Robbie and his mother chattered on, steering the car through the traffic and trying to deal with what was going on inside him. He knew how much Robbie’s visit was going to mean to Ellen, how much it meant to him too. They were still a family, albeit fractured right now, but maybe they were going to find a way of putting it back together. He had to remember that there was a chance the child was his, and even if it wasn’t Ellen was still his wife. It was the way he wanted it to stay. The very idea of divorce was unthinkable, it simply wasn’t an option, not when he loved her this much. He just had to come to terms with what had happened, and
why
it had happened, and, like she said, take some responsibility himself.

‘OK, wait here,’ he said, pulling the car into the parking lot. ‘I’ll just go and check she’s still here, and see if there’s any construction going on. If there is we might need some hard hats.’

He’d visited the soundstage several times before, so
knew
his way through the maze of buildings and alleyways that finally led to the sets for
Rachel’s Story
. A couple of trucks were parked outside, backs open as huge blocks of scenery and set dressing were transported in through the vast soundproofed doors. There was a lot of hammering going on inside, a radio blasting and builders and electricians swarming over scaffolding and along the gantries. Spotting a couple of the line producers in conference with the designer and art director, he skirted a disorderly pile of foliage and started heading their way.

‘Is Ellen here?’ he asked one of them as they turned to greet him.

‘Yeah, at least she was five minutes ago,’ he answered. ‘She was over at the hostage set. Do you know where it is?’

Michael nodded, thanked him and walked off in the direction of a newspaper office. As he recalled, the hostage set was behind it. He was right, and from the look of it, as he rounded one of the walls, it was pretty near complete. There had been a lot of discussion about this set, as no-one actually knew where Rachel had been held during her three days in captivity, so it had been up to Tom and the designers to create something plausible. Since Tom had interviewed a number of ex-hostages in Colombia, he’d had a better idea than most of the kind of conditions she could have been held in, and since it wasn’t a guerilla kidnapping they’d dispensed with the idea of a remote forest camp or mountain village. What they’d opted for was apparently more in keeping with a cartel-style kidnapping, a room in a large old house, with boarded-up windows, an old wooden bed and a menacing network of overhead beams.

It was odd how even the air in the set was giving off a vibe that was chilling. He knew there was still much more dressing to come, mirrors flecked with mould, chains on the bed, dingy paintings, cracked china, an
incongruously
cheerful rug, but already he was getting a sense of how it was going to look – and worse, how it must have felt.

He stood looking at it for some time, very quiet, and still, allowing himself to be drawn into the ambient menace. After a while he could almost hear the distant echoes of Rachel’s screams. It was as though they were coming out of the walls, pulling him in to her nightmare, guiding him with silent, agonized cries to the terror she had known as she was raped and beaten, tossed from one man to the next, punched so hard in the face that her nose was broken and her teeth knocked loose. He felt his hands tighten at his sides, his muscles tense, as though there were something he could do to stop it. But it was over, finished, locked in the past, a brutal, irreversible moment in time.

His eyes remained on the bed as he considered again how it must have been for Chambers. But that kind of anguish was impossible to imagine. It was no surprise the man wanted revenge, because, God knew, if it had happened to Ellen there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make those responsible pay for their crime. But still the killers lived, not only at liberty, but no doubt in some kind of perverted glory for sending one American to hell everlasting, while the other remained in hell on earth.

He turned away, knowing that whatever personal issues he and Chambers might have, he was right not to have let them get in the way of the film. This story needed to be told, those who had committed the rape and murder had to face justice.

As he walked away he was still bound in his thoughts, so affected by the last few minutes that he was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him. Gradually the sound of workmen began to reach him, as a distant square of daylight popped in over a graffiti-covered wall. He glanced off to his right, to a set that was almost lost in darkness. Then, without really knowing
why
, he felt his whole body turning slowly to ice. Maybe it was because of the shadow, or maybe it was because of the strangeness of his thoughts, whatever it was, it was a moment before he could really connect with what he was seeing. When he did so, his head started to spin and emotions sprang through his chest that shut down his breath. It seemed like an eternity that he was held there, looking at Ellen, so lost in the depth of Chambers’s embrace that she hadn’t even noticed Michael’s presence.

He continued to watch her, bound by the refusal to believe, yet compelled by the fact that he must. His heartbeat was starting to pound – he felt his life falling apart. He wanted to reach out, tear them apart, stop whatever was between them from happening. But it was too late for that, she was carrying Chambers’s child, so without uttering a word he turned and walked quietly away.

Chapter 18

AS ELLEN PULLED
back from Tom’s arms she could feel her cheeks warming with colour. She looked up into his face and smiled, awkwardly, even shyly, then laughing she said, ‘I guess it was me who needed that. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ he told her, in the droll, self-mocking way he so often assumed.

Ellen laughed again. She’d intended the hug to be a comfort to him, but when he had put his arms around her she’d realized just how much she had needed it too. It had gone on perhaps a little longer than either of them had intended, but there had been such a warmth to it, such a shared yet unspoken understanding, that neither had been in a hurry to let go. It was the first physical contact they’d had since the night they’d made love, and though she still couldn’t deny how attractive she found him, there wasn’t a moment’s doubt in her mind that the arms she really wanted to hold her were Michael’s. She missed him so much, and some days, like today, were much harder to bear than others.

Glancing quickly around she said, ‘I should be going. I’ve got a plan for this evening that I really hope is going to work out.’

His handsome face showed yet more irony. ‘Then I wish you luck,’ he responded.

Ellen knew it was a mask, one he hid behind rather
than
let anyone see the anguish, or sadness, he was feeling. Or perhaps it was anger he was disguising, fury even, at the still unfinished business in Colombia. Though she didn’t imagine he ever forgot it, seeing the hostage set had to have been the most brutal of reminders, and with the shoot date coming so close, he was surely thinking, wondering, how effective the movie would be. Would it be enough to bring Rachel’s killers to justice, and in turn would that be enough for him?

Ellen hoped to God it would be, for the last thing she wanted was to see him returning to Colombia to try once again to take his revenge on the men who had destroyed his and Rachel’s lives. Though she could certainly understand his need to do that, it wasn’t the answer, for if he killed Molina and the Zapata brothers he would be allowed no future other than behind the bars of some godawful Colombian jail. However, one thing was for certain, he needed some closure on this or he was never going to get on with his life.

‘Come on, I’ll walk you to your car,’ he said, starting back towards the newspaper office and general chaos that was going on beyond.

‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked, falling in beside him.

‘Me?’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘I don’t know. I’ll probably catch a movie, or go over some of the stuff our estimable star is testing me with.’

Ellen smiled, for Richard Conway’s attempt to get inside Tom’s head for the purposes of his role wasn’t an exercise that Tom was enjoying. ‘Sandy not around?’ she said.

He stopped to pick up a wrench that one of the builders had just dropped. ‘She flew over to New York yesterday,’ he answered, passing the wrench over. ‘One of her clients is auditioning for some Broadway show next week, she’s gone to lend some moral support. I
think
she’s got other business while she’s there, so she doesn’t reckon on being back until the end of the week.’

‘She’s coming back here?’ Ellen said, standing aside as a couple of drapers carried past a ladder. ‘How’s she managing to be out of London for so long?’

Tom glanced at her with comically raised brows and Ellen laughed.

‘So there is something between you two?’ she said.

‘We’re good friends,’ he answered.

Though she longed to know more, she reined in her curiosity, sensing it wouldn’t really be welcome. And why would it be when his love life was none of her business, nor was it a subject she’d be entirely comfortable discussing. Though she had to confess that she wouldn’t be too happy to learn that he was getting it on with Sandy, for despite Sandy’s recent morph into a reasonable and sane individual, she certainly wasn’t Ellen’s idea of the kind of woman Tom needed.

‘Looks like Joe and the others left already,’ she said, referring to the designer and line producers. ‘I needed to speak to him, but I’ll call him later. Are you going to be there for the press call tomorrow?’

Tom grinned. ‘Can you see Michael letting me get out of it?’ he responded.

Ellen laughed. ‘And no more should he,’ she replied. ‘You’re a major bonus in the publicity package, whether you like it or not. People are going to want to see you every bit as much as they’re going to want to see Richard Conway.’

‘I think that might be overdoing it a bit,’ he commented. ‘For a start he’s younger and better-looking.’

‘Younger maybe,’ she teased. ‘And you don’t have a manager who’s a royal pain in the butt.’

They’d reached her car by now and as she opened the door to get in, she said, ‘Why don’t you give Matty a call? I don’t think she’s doing anything later, maybe you could take in a movie together.’

He shrugged. ‘OK, I might do that,’ he answered.

Ellen looked up into his warm grey eyes and was fleetingly tempted to hug him again, for no other reason than she was feeling horribly anxious about her plans for the evening, and a squeeze from Tom might just help bolster her nerve.

As she pulled out of the parking lot a few minutes later a quick glance in her mirror showed him walking back towards the sound stage. Her heart sank, as she didn’t want to think about him returning to the set and trying to deal with everything it must be evoking. It was why she had called him earlier and asked him to meet her there, so that she could be around when he first saw the re-creation of Rachel’s final surroundings.

Though he’d hidden it well she knew it had shaken him deeply, but that was probably nothing to what he was going to feel when it came to the re-enactment of what had happened in that room. There had been extremely long and detailed discussions on how those scenes were going to be handled, discussions that Tom hadn’t always taken part in, preferring to leave it to Vic Warren to decide. God, this had to be a difficult time for him, and Ellen could only feel dismayed at herself for depriving him of the one friendship he could probably really do with right now, the one with Michael.

But she was about to try and do something about that, for the way she and Michael were going on couldn’t be allowed to continue.

Pulling down her sun-visor to block out the dazzling afternoon sun, she motored on for a while, swinging the car up onto Sunset, then continuing until she reached Chalet Gourmet, a pricey and exclusive grocery store not far from the Director’s Guild. Despite being a Sunday, there were still precious few spaces in the parking lot and the guy in the car behind was so close on her tail that she was tempted to slam on her brakes just to annoy him. He’d been with her almost since she’d left
the
studio, and it seemed he was keen on staying there. She hated being hassled like this, but rather than get into a fight, she pulled over to let him pass. As he came up alongside her she was sorely tempted to give him the finger, but there were so many crazies in this town it probably wouldn’t be wise, especially not as he was slowing right down.

Looking over at him she saw that he was like a hundred other Latinos who drove that kind of old Betsy, with rusted paintwork, balding tyres and no tax or insurance. What the hell he was doing in the parking lot of a place like Chalet Gourmet had to be a whole other story, except in his deluded state he was obviously trying to pick her up. She glared at him, then felt her skin crawl at the smile he gave back. It was a smile that was missing teeth and conveying lechery in such a repugnant way that she actually shivered. Men like that were so loathsome they should be locked up just for existing.