Текст книги "Hollywood Dirt"
Автор книги: Alessandra Torre
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
CHAPTER 19
I’d had a variety of jobs since my graduation from Quincy High. Fresh out, my new diploma stuffed in a drawer, it was Davis Video Rental. That was in the early Cole Masten days, when he was a twenty-five year old playing sexy high school quarterbacks who dated the nerdy girl and made her popular. I spent my days alphabetizing titles, catching sticky-fingered teens and watching movies on the twenty-seven inch mounted in the store’s upper corner. Each night, I’d bring home a couple of titles and watch more. By the time I’d worked through the entire Comedy and Drama section, Horror and Classic, I put in my notice. Life was too short for Sci-Fi or Western.
After Davis Rental, I drove down to Tallahassee. Applied at a handful of restaurants and bars, striking out until I found a Moe’s with a flirtatious manager who hired me on the spot. I struggled a little there. It wasn’t the restaurant or the stoners I worked with. It was the students, each ding of the door bringing in a fresh wave of individuals who were doing something, going somewhere. Each new face was a subtle point to the invisible sign on my chest that said UNDERACHIEVER in big bubbly letters. Prior to that job, my lack of continuing education, my lack of a life plan… it had never bothered me. I didn’t apply to colleges because I wasn’t really interested in them, didn’t have a childhood dream of leaving Quincy to become a marine biologist or whatever it was that high-schoolers were supposed to want. I liked to read and watch movies. I loved to cook and work in the garden. Before that job in Tallahassee, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with those simple pleasures. But for some reason, with that job, those students… I felt like less of a person each day that I walked in those double doors. And then one day, sitting in the parking lot before my shift, I couldn’t do it anymore. I just started up my truck and drove back home.
After that, I stuck to the county limits. Got the Holden job and moved in, grew roots through my soles and into the plantation’s dirt. I blocked out the images of smiling student faces and focused on the simple things I loved. And slowly but surely, the happiness creeped back in. And around that time, Scott Thompson started coming by. Once he won my heart, there wasn’t much thought about plans or college or Life Outside of Quincy. Love did that to you. Sucked you in and blurred out everything else.
It was after Scott that I started thinking about leaving. It wasn’t so much that life in Quincy felt inadequate, and it wasn’t the shame that I’d felt at Moe’s. It was more that, after my experience with him, I wanted something different. I wanted to be someone different, someone without scorn, someone without a past.
Someone with a future.
CHAPTER 20
Justin Hitchins got the call when on Sunset Boulevard, leaving The Coffee Bean with a double espresso, one wheat bagel with light cream cheese, and a container of sliced strawberries. He stopped his step into the crowded street, moving back two paces, until he was safely out of harm’s way, in between two parallel-parked cars. He reached for his cell, almost dropped everything, then glanced around, carefully depositing the espresso on the hood of the black Mercedes to his right. Digging in his pocket, he answered the cell a moment before it went to voicemail.
“Morning.”
“This guy’s a fucking lunatic,” Cole Masten hissed, his voice at whisper level.
“He’s what you wanted. Did you see the dossier I emailed over with his list of cases? He’s never lost—”
“We are going to the airport right now, Justin.” There was a muffled bump across the line. “He wants me to go to Quincy now, to get out of LA. And call the production company—we’re keeping the original timeline, no delays on filming.”
Not an entirely bad plan, seeing the path his employer’s life had taken recently, but Justin swallowed that opinion in light of more pressing issues. “You’re going to the airport right now?” He would need to call the scout, see if Cole’s house was ready for occupancy, see if their local restaurants had a list of approved meals, see if… his mind jumped hurdles, moved through crowds, and had a minor panic attack all in the three seconds it took Cole Masten to respond.
“Yes, right now. I told you… insane.”
“Why are you whispering?” The Cole he knew—had worked for over thirteen years—stood straight and ordered. He hadn’t ever heard a whisper out of the man unless it was printed in a script.
“You meet the guy and tell me you aren’t going to hide in a plane restroom and whisper when you complain about him.”
Justin smiled at the visual. “Okay, when are you landing?”
He didn’t hear the response. It was drowned out by a loud horn, typical in Los Angeles, the accompanying screech of tires another norm. He turned his head, saw the Range Rover swerve, saw the blur of bright white and Xenon headlights slam into the back of the black Mercedes and realized, several moments too late, what was about to happen.
The Range Rover slammed the parked Mercedes forward, not far, but enough to collide with the minivan parked before it, Justin Hitchins a soft cushion in between the two vehicles.
The espresso sloshed up and out in the air, his cell flew from his hand, and Justin Hitchins’ world went black.
CHAPTER 21
The call went dead in Cole’s hand. He glanced down at the cell, the plane dipping, his hand bracing the wall for support, and cursed. Damn service. He pocketed the phone and opened the door, stepping out into the jet’s short hall, a bedroom to the left, seating to the right. In one of the chairs, Brad DeLuca spoke into a phone. Apparently his service worked just fine at forty thousand feet.
He stepped forward, settling into a chair across from the attorney. Justin would handle it, would have everything ready by the time they touched down. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He was just thinking about coming down to Quincy and escaping the madness of Hollywood. Maybe he needed the kick in the ass to get him there. He felt better already, every minute putting more distance between him and Nadia. Felt better with this freak of nature next to him. The man was terrifying, but he was in his corner, fighting for him. He would rip out the throat of Nadia’s puny lawsuit and eat it for breakfast. Cole relaxed against the back of the seat.
“Have you called Quincy?” Brad DeLuca spoke from beside him, and Cole swiveled his seat to face the man.
“My assistant is handling it. They’ll be ready for us.”
“I’m not staying, just dropping you off. I’ve got to get back home.” The man glanced at his watch. “I’ll call you when I land tonight. Pick up the phone. We’ll game plan then, and I’ll have a response filed with Nadia’s team by the morning.”
“Okay.” He flipped his cell against his leg and looked at the man. “This all you do? Divorces?”
DeLuca nodded. “That’s it.”
“Dismal job. Ripping apart marriages.”
The man grinned. “That depends. For me, my divorce was the best thing that ever happened. I lost a mistake and ended up marrying my soulmate. You can waste your life away, tied to the wrong spouse. Divorce can right at least one of our wrongs.”
Cole laughed. “So you’re Replacement Cupid? Steering husbands away from one mistake and on to their next?”
The man smiled. “One day you’ll thank me.”
Cole looked away. “It’s Nadia Smith. Not many women can hold a candle to that.”
“Stop thinking of her as Nadia Smith. She’s not a shrine you pray to; she’s a woman. I love my wife more than life itself, but she has flaws. If Nadia and you were perfect together, she wouldn’t have fucked another guy and served you divorce papers. You will move on from this. You will be stronger after this.”
It sounded like a crock of shit. A brutal crock of shit. It’d been a long time since anyone, other than Justin or Nadia, spoke to him without carefully selected undertones. Cole shifted in his seat and wished they’d gone by his house first. He’d have liked to shower and change, grab some clothes. No matter. First thing, upon landing, he’d find something else to wear, just to tide him over until Justin arrived. His assistant knew what to do, would catch a flight in with a month’s worth of outfits. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and rolled his neck. Maybe he’d have Justin get him a massage in Quincy. Better yet, book a full day tomorrow at a spa.
DeLuca got on the phone, and Cole reclined back in his seat, closing his eyes and trying to push the thought of Nadia from his mind. She’d looked beautiful, standing in the hotel. Beautiful and unaffected. He hadn’t expected that. It hurt, even more than the papers, even more than what he’d seen in their bathroom. It made it all worse than just an affair or a fight or cheating. It meant that Nadia could walk away from their years together without hesitation. He’d looked through the divorce paperwork. It was too detailed, too tight, to be thrown together in the last week. She had been planning this. That was what made his chest tight. And what made his head hurt was how oblivious he’d been to the entire thing. How disconnected had they been that he hadn’t seen any signs? That he’d thought they were great when they’d been on the brink of disaster?
And then for Nadia to bring up The Fortune Bottle. In the moment when they should have been discussing their love, their relationship, their lives—his movie was what she brought up, what she cared about, fought for. He suddenly remembered scattered comments from Nadia about the movie, her request to be an executive producer, her transfer of funds last month “just moving stuff around.” He groaned and leaned forward, holding his head in his hands.
“Hey.” DeLuca looked up from his phone. “Stop stressing.”
“I’m thinking back on the last few months… I think she’s been setting me up for this.”
“It’s my job to worry now. It’s your job to stay in Quincy, follow my rules, and make a movie that kicks ass.”
“Okay.” Cole leaned back and huffed out a breath.
He could do that. Sitting back and letting others take care of things, have them worry about things, those were things he was used to. He could lick his wounds in Quincy, avoid temptation, and make a movie.
Easy.
CHAPTER 22
The moment that all hell broke loose, I was in my bathing suit, my butt resting in four inches of cold water, my feet propped up on the edge of the bright blue kiddie pool.
“You’re going to burn.” Ben made the comment from underneath three layers of sunblock, one cowboy hat, and linen pants.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” he said with the grave sincerity of a eulogy. “I watched you. You didn’t put on any sunscreen.”
“I never wear sunscreen.” I scooped up some water and drizzled it over my thighs.
“You do realize that the sun is literally aging you right before my eyes.”
“You do realize that this is Georgia and not the Wild West and that you look absolutely ridiculous in a cowboy hat, right?” I flicked my hand at him and water sprayed, his pale body squirming away, his metal folding chair tipping sideways on the grass. I laughed, dipping both hands in the water and taking advantage of his struggle to stand, getting him as wet as possible from my position in the pool.
“Stop!” he shrieked, his bare feet finally gripping onto the grass and standing.
I laughed. “Fine, pretty boy. No more splashing.” I held up my hands in peace and smirked as he picked up the overturned chair and moved it to a safer place.
We were in the front yard of my house, in the shade of the big live oak; yet, even submerged in water, it was still hot. The Holdens had a pool, a big giant thing behind their house. With them in Tennessee, we could have swum there, but that just didn’t feel right. I had done it once or twice in the last six years but had looked over my shoulder the entire time, worried that the Holdens would magically transport two thousand miles and catch me. The kiddie pool worked just fine for me, and it didn’t come with a side of trepidation.
From the back porch, we heard Ben’s phone ring, loud and shrill in the quiet afternoon. He craned his neck back at it and sighed heavily.
“Just let it go,” I urged. “It’s Saturday. No emergencies to deal with.”
Like I knew he would, he hefted out of the chair and ran toward it.
Thank God he had.
CHAPTER 23
The first oddity, when the jet touched down on the dusty runway, was that there was no one there. Well, there was someone there. One lone airport employee who stood on the tarmac and gawked, his hands tucked in his front pocket, his mouth doing everything but offering to help with their bags. Granted, they didn’t have any bags. But this man didn’t know that. DeLuca stepped off the plane, shook the man’s hand, and introduced himself. Cole followed suit, the man’s eyes widening underneath a decade of dirt and sun. “You’re that movie star,” he said in surprise.
Cole nodded and flashed a smile. He couldn’t help it; it had become, since entering this business, so ingrained, so automatic, that it was as if he had no control of it. But there were no cameras here, no screaming crowds of fans, no need to display a megawatt smile to this country bumpkin. DeLuca looked at him strangely.
“So… ah… what are you guys doing in Quincy? Got engine trouble?” The man glanced at the gleaming aircraft, one that had barely had the runway clearance to land on their strip.
“No. Has my assistant not called?” Cole dug in his pocket for his phone. No texts from Justin. Strange. Normally, after this link of time, he’d have an itinerary, hotel confirmations, the name of his driver. He held up the phone. Two bars of service. Pressed the power button and hit restart. Damn Verizon.
“Uh, nobody’s called us,” the man said slowly, glancing toward the dimly lit building. Us. So maybe there’d been more than just him guiding their giant death trap safely to the ground. Reassuring.
“Has my car arrived?” A question he knew the answer to, even as it fell from his lips. Behind the man was a large gravel lot holding only two vehicles. Neither one looked capable of air conditioning, much less a private driver. Where was security? Justin had had hours of flight time to prepare. This shouldn’t have been difficult, and he should have, at the very least, texted Cole an update. So many mistakes, from an assistant who didn’t make mistakes, and Cole felt the first flick of worry uncoil in his stomach. He dialed Justin’s number and held the phone to his ear, DeLuca’s phone sounded, the man turning away.
It rang eleven times. After four, he was irritated. After seven, he grew worried. When the man’s voicemail finally picked up, he was panicked. He didn’t leave a voicemail, just hung up the phone and locked it. From behind him, DeLuca rejoined them, his big hand falling heavily on Cole’s shoulder. “Bad news,” the attorney said. “Your assistant has been in an accident. TMZ posted the news an hour ago. He’s alive, but pretty beat up.”
Another crack in a sinking ship. And Justin… Justin was his glue, the constant, the only friend who Cole could name with ease. He’s alive… but pretty beat up. Cole took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face. “Okay. Let’s head back.”
“No.” The order in the man’s voice caught him by surprise.
“I need to see him—in the hospital; he’s been with me for years,” Cole protested. Thirteen years, to be precise. Two more than the dead ringtones in his ear. A long time. Before Nadia, before the trio of Oscars, before his fame hit ridiculous heights. He needed to go to him. He should leave this dust-filled sauna and return to his city of clean hands, cool air and luxury. What kind of city had an airport like this?
Not city. He corrected himself. Town. That had been the draw of it all. A sleepy town, filled to the brim with millionaires. Come to think of it, they probably didn’t even have a spa. The tightness in his back grew worse.
“You’re not going anywhere. The LA hospital is going to be a zoo filled with paps waiting to see that pretty face of yours. You’ll turn the whole thing into a circus, and he’s not awake right now anyway, isn’t going to be able to talk to you for a while.”
“What happened?”
“He was the side effect of a car accident. Was on foot and got pinned between two cars.” DeLuca’s voice softened.
Cole looked away, his eyes running into the airport handler, who still stood there, his head tilted, catching every word. He let out a loud breath. DeLuca was right. Going to the hospital would be a disaster. He’d send flowers, maybe a strippergram, would have Justi—his brain hiccupped on the realization that his right hand was suddenly gone, the man who did everything, greased all joints, made all arrangements. Gone. In a hospital three thousand miles away with his focus on his own life, no longer on Cole’s. He staggered a little in place, DeLuca’s hand reaching out and gripping his shoulder, holding him up.
Ten minutes later, they were in a borrowed truck, rattling away from the airport.
Cole held up a hand against the sun, which blared in at an uncomfortable angle. The window was open, the dirty, hot air sweeping in and over him, and he reached to raise it, chuckling a little at the foreign feel of an actual window crank in his hand.
DeLuca held the phone away from his mouth. “I’m tracking down the local Envision contact now.” They rounded a tight turn, and Cole gripped the handle firmly, looking around for a seatbelt. Nothing.
“Bennington Payne?” DeLuca barked into the phone. “Where are you right now?”
CHAPTER 24
When Ben answered the phone, I relaxed my arms, lying fully back in the kiddie pool, my head propped up against the edge, a folded towel acting as a pillow.
Ben’s linen pants wandered my way, his cell against his ear, the other hand pressed against his free ear, as if he were in a rock concert and not the middle of nowhere. He was probably getting poor reception. I closed one eye and half-squinted his way, the nosy half of me eavesdropping.
“Ummm… Quincy?” He said the city as if it was a question.
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
I opened both eyes when he did the frantic snapping waving thing at me. I sat up and raised my eyebrows, waiting for more.
“Yes sir. But… now? I thought that—okay. Yes sir.” I wondered how many ‘yes sirs’ this conversation was going to involve. Wondered how I was supposed to piece any of this together when all I had were half sentences full of Ben stammering.
“What’s your address?” That question was aimed at me, a loud whisper further soundproofed by his hand atop the receiver.
I told him, this change in the conversation certainly taking a turn toward Interesting. Ben repeated it into the phone, then—with a final ‘yes sir’—ended the call.
I didn’t think a man could be paler than my sweet vampire, but oh… oh… one can. I watched his face lose all color, the push of his cell into his pants pocket a fumbling, awkward movement.
“What’s happening?” I demanded, making the effort to stand, my bathing suit leaking thin streams down my legs.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing dramatically. He looked at me, my worn black bathing suit, then down at the kiddie pool, as if some answer lay in its bright blue depths, then back at the house, his rental car parked at an odd angle underneath the dogwood tree, then back at me.
“Cole Masten is here.”
“Where?” Here was a very particular location. And I knew, for a fact, that he wasn’t here here. Yet, with an almost sinking certainty, my address just blindly passed over, I suddenly realized that here here was an eminent possibility, and I stepped out of the kiddie pool quickly, crossing the dry grass, until I stood right in front of Ben.
“Where?” I repeated with enough aggression for him to start.
“In Quincy. Just left the airport. That was his attorney. He wanted to know where I was, is bringing Cole here now, said something about his assistant being in the hospital.” The words came out in a mad rush, as if they wouldn’t be true if spoken fast enough, and I stepped back a step just to get away from their stench. “How far away is the airport?”
I closed my eyes, tried to think. “Five. Maybe ten minutes. Holy shit.” I glanced back down at my bathing suit, thought about my house, the dirty dishes in the sink, my tampon box on top of the toilet, the remnants of Ben’s and my mani-pedi party still on the coffee table, mail scattered on the table… this was bad. I took off running, the white-linen-panted gay close on my water-pruned heels.
“See, the Thompson family is one of the original forty-three. That was really the root of the problem. Summer is a sweet girl and all, but she just doesn’t have the family background, the rearing to handle difficult times with grace. That was the problem. You know the girl has no father. That should tell you something right there.”
“Marilyn, she has a father. He lives in Connecticut, that’s what Betty Anne says. He has some flesh-eating disorder where he can’t be around other people. That’s why they moved here.”
“That has got to be the most idiotic thing you have ever said. No, she doesn’t have a father. He ran off when Francis was pregnant with Summer; that’s the real story.”
