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Cara leaped up by Marnie. She set her arm around the woman’s shoulders.
“Don’t you dare come for my precious daughter!” she cried.
There was no way that she wasn’t getting some attention and play out of this. Who knew who might be out there? Another job could be on the line. That producer could see how dedicated they were.
“I know his every evil thought! He will never get by us!” Marnie cried. She was grinning, and that smile of hers seemed to draw an even larger crowd. Yes, it was all play.
All fun.
And Cara had to get in on it, big-time.
“Indeed, we will smite you. I warn you again—touch my daughter, you evil thing, and we will see that you rot in hell forever!”
The Blood-bone character looked at her. She could have sworn that beneath the black mask, the man smiled.
He raised his sword...
Cara pushed past Marnie.
“Don’t you dare!”
But his sword was poised.
And it came down. Again and again.
Cara really didn’t know what hit her. At first, there was nothing, and then there was an incredible burst of pain. The kind of pain that brought brilliant stars bursting before her eyes, that brought a sea of darkness, black sweeping away the tiny bursts of light...
She gasped.
She felt something trickling on her.
Felt herself falling...
She heard Marnie scream, felt Marnie’s arms go around her.
Theater, it was all theater, all show...
But it wasn’t.
Blood-bone was gone, swooping his way back into the crowd.
Cara was bleeding; her grasp on Marnie was weakening.
“No, no, no, stay with me, Cara. I love you, my friend, stay with me,” Marnie ordered.
But Cara knew that she could not.
Comic Con. It was a comic convention.
And Cara had just never imagined that—for her, at least—she could be so very right.
That it could be, quite literally, where old stars came to die!
1 (#u724cccf6-3c78-580e-ab40-d5f9fb45c036)
Bryan McFadden could always feel her, of course. As soon as she decided to grace him with her presence.
Yes.
She was there again.
Watching him, his every move.
He pretended that he didn’t see her. He also did his best to hide a smile.
She wanted something, of course. Or he was due for a lecture, a long litany on how to live his life.
He’d been splitting logs outside his cabin when he’d first become aware that she was there; he continued to chop firewood. If she was going to haunt him because she wanted something, she was bloody well going to have to do so with more than a bunch of her dramatic sighs.
He paused for a moment; the sun was riding in the sky on a beautiful day. The mountains and valleys of Virginia were, in Bryan’s mind, the most beautiful places in the world to be. Here, right at the base of the Shenandoah Mountain, he could enjoy both.
This place had been—as long as he could remember—a haven. He and his brothers, Bruce and Brodie, had always been able to go a little wild out here. They’d never been bad kids, but they had been full of energy and ready to run, climb, fish, swim and love the rugged beauty of the land.
The family cabin was just a weekend retreat.
Home was DC, near the National Theatre, a half-dozen other theaters and easy access to the casting agents who were closer to their parents—Hamish and Maeve McFadden—than any blood relative might expect to be.
Though he and his brothers had long ago left their boyhoods behind, they had managed to stay in the same basic area. And, mainly because each of them had joined a branch of the service—Bryan, the navy; Bruce, the marines; and Brodie, the army—they had maintained the manor house close to a river in Northern Virginia where they had actually grown up.
He was heading back there in the morning. His time here—used to reflect on his choices regarding the future—was at an end. He wasn’t sure he was feeling more certain any one course was right above the others. Bruce and Brodie were coming in the following week; it was time for them to really decide what they were going to do.
As kids, they had quarreled and squabbled. Tumbled on the ground and tussled now and then—and stood ferociously against anyone who insulted one of them or dared to speak ill of their parents.
But life had gotten hard—and made them close.
They were all pretty sure they could work together; they’d talk it out for the final decision in the weeks to come.
Of course, she was still watching him. Still waiting for a response.
She sighed again. Maeve McFadden was certainly an example of the word diva. Not so much in a bad way—she had an ego, but not the kind with which to hurt others. She was passionate, she was demonstrative; she didn’t just “talk with her hands,” she talked with her arms, with her whole body.
But if she wanted something now, she was going to have to talk to him.
With words.
Finally, she did. She rather wafted over and leaned against the wood rail fence that surrounded the little cabin and the area with the chopping block where he was working.
“Bryan McFadden, you’re ignoring me!” She pouted.
“And it’s not working, eh?” he asked, but he smiled at her—she was his mom, and he did love her.
She smiled back and then plunged right in.
“Her name is Marnie, and she really needs help. My friend Cara—Cara Barton, I know you must remember her. She was one of the stars of that yummy vampire show, Dark Harbor, and before that, we were both way younger and in a Christmas romantic comedy together. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is this—Cara was tragically cut down. And now Marnie needs your help. I’m not sure she knows it yet, but Cara has told me. And poor Cara! She’s dead. Most horrifically and dreadfully dead.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t you dare tell me that dead is dead—dreadful or otherwise. She was murdered. Viciously murdered by a sword-wielding villain. Well, someone in a costume. But... Oh, Bryan. It was horrid, quite horrid—you must have heard about it on TV or in the news online!”
“Nope,” he told his mother.
“How could you have missed the news?” Maeve demanded. “Oh, I do hate to say it, but Cara is far more famous now in death than she was in life.”
“I come out here to enjoy the mountains and scenery, Mom. Not watch TV.”
“The news would be on your phone.”
“News is on anywhere, Mother, if you look for it.”
“All right then, I’ll tell you about it. Comic Con—West Hollywood.”
“I thought the big comic cons were in San Diego. Maybe New York.”
“Comic cons are all the rage—they are cropping up everywhere,” Maeve informed him. “And this—Oh, son... Horrible, horrible, horrible. Cara was my good friend. Okay, so imagine this. The cast of Dark Harbor is lined up at a booth. People are flocking over to them for signed pictures. There’s a Blood-bone character whipping his sword around—at first, all to the delight of the crowd. Then he walks up to the Dark Harbor cast booth and starts off as if he’s performing with them—and then he brought his sword down, slashing poor Cara to death, right across her throat!”
“In the middle of a crowd of people, some costumed character slashes a woman to death and walks away?” Bryan demanded, incredulous.
“Well, that’s just it. People thought it was a performance. Cara fell dead, the others began to realize it—people were clapping, thinking it was just an impromptu show done very well. Blood-bone walked off... The cast began to scream. Cops came, but by then, the killer was gone. From what I understand, it was a zoo.”
“But no one noticed a masked man in costume?”
“Well, of course, they did. They gathered up at least twenty Blood-bones—you know, conference attendees in Blood-bone costumes—but they don’t believe that the killer was any of the men, or the one woman, with whom they spoke. They couldn’t find a Blood-bone with actual blood on him or a lighted sword that was really a sword. Don’t you understand? Someone is going to get away with this. Bryan, you have to do something.”
“Mom, at the moment, I’m not a cop.”
“Don’t be silly, darling, I know that. And if you had stayed on the force, you’d be a Virginia cop, anyway. However, you did get your PI license.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So you need to get out to California and help Marnie Davante. Please.”
“Mom, you know that I’m supposed to be meeting with your other sons next week. They’ll be back by then.”
“I know where they are,” Maeve said indignantly. “Brodie took a temp job as a bodyguard for that chain store CEO, and he’s still in China somewhere. Bruce was helping out a friend who is with the Texas Rangers.”
“Right. But we’re due to get together and decide if we do want to form an investigation company.”
“That would be in the near future. You need to help Marnie now.”
“Mom, I have no ins with the West Hollywood Police or even the California State Police. I’m sure they would resent—”
“Please.”
“Mom, again, I’m not in Hollywood. I’m sure there are very capable police out there. Your friend isn’t being threatened—she’s already dead. I’m not sure—”
“It’s Marnie! Cara is terribly worried about Marnie.”
Bryan stopped pretending that he could continue chopping wood. He leaned on the ax and looked at the ghost of his mother.
“Does Marnie know that she needs my help?”
“How could she?”
“Come on then, what do you want out of me?”
“Someone who is invested in the horrible thing that happened—and in Marnie—believes that a dead woman is out there trying to help solve her own murder. Please, Bryan. It’s you—you need to help. You were just working with that FBI friend of yours, helping track down that missing child. And you said that he knows Adam—my friend Adam Harrison? Well, my friend and dad’s friend. I think your father knew Adam first.”
“Yes, I was working with a friend named Jackson Crow, and we were lucky—we found the missing child.” He didn’t mention that his old friend was with a special unit of the FBI, or that he’d suggested that Bryan might be just right for that unit.
He could only hope that she didn’t know that her old friend Adam Harrison had actually created the unit.
“How is Adam? Such a dear man.”
Hopefully, she hadn’t seen Adam since she’d...
He could never think the word died.
Maybe because she was his mother, and he did love her.
And maybe because she had never really gone anywhere.
“And you—all three of my boys—still at odds and ends, taking on various odd jobs.”
“Good jobs, Mom. We help people. You should be a happy camper. All three of us served our time in the military and went through college. And yes, in the last year or so we have taken on some strange jobs, but they’ve been good ones, jobs that help people.”
“And here’s someone who needs help. Yes, I hope, eventually, you and your brothers are going to get together. You’re looking to form a company. I do like that idea. You want to know what to do with your life? You’re doing quite nicely at the helping people thing, and this—this!—would be an important part of that. I mean, you broke my heart when you completely ignored the fact that your father and I were known for our extreme talents and absolute love of live theater. And you didn’t even want to head in the direction of film. I must say, I created—I created!—three of the most handsome men one could ever want to imagine, and you’ve no interest in using that beauty to a good—to a paying—end.”
“Mother,” Bryan said, “I believe you and Dad did emphasize that in life, looks mean nothing, that the heart and soul of a man or a woman matter most.”
Here she was, giving him a pitch about helping someone.
And she was still brokenhearted she hadn’t produced a single actor among them.
“Yes, well, of course,” Maeve said, sweeping back a long, curling strand of her dark hair. “Looks do not matter. Heart and soul and kindness and compassion. Things like that matter most with everyone you meet. Seriously, of course, decency—it’s a total given. But I have these three strapping lads! Strapping, I say—tall, dark and absolutely, stunningly handsome—and not one of you chose to use such wondrous good looks.”
“Mother, you don’t think you might be a little prejudiced on that?”
He moved past her to fetch another piece of wood.
