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“I can’t afford to—”
“Listen, you’re being offered a per diem and three times scale. Mr. Welting said it was an emergency. They’re willing to pay what they need to get you to take over the part.”
Mallory did some fast figuring and realized that even though she didn’t celebrate Christmas or put any stock in it, she was getting a genuine holiday present with this job. She could last at least two months on that money, even without working at the restaurant. “I guess I can’t refuse. But I’ll have to contact the restaurant and see what I can work out with them.”
“Good.” Elaine looked very relieved. “I knew you’d do it.”
The stage door opened abruptly, and for a moment the storm invaded the narrow hallway with pouring rain and a cold wind that curled around Mallory’s bare legs. Then a man ducked inside, a blur of dark clothes and height. The stranger. He’d come back, and for a second her heart lurched with the idea that he was the attorney Elaine had told her about.
But as he turned and brushed at his raincoat, then skimmed off a dark fedora he was wearing, she knew how wrong she’d been. He might be tall, but he was totally bald and more slight, with a pallor to his complexion that was in sharp contrast to the black coat. He could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy, with a narrow, furrowed face that looked devoid of any tendency to humor.
He spotted Elaine and headed right for her. “Ms. Bowers,” he said in a clipped voice that was tinged by a nasal quality. “I am sorry for the slight delay.”
“No problem, Mr. Welting,” Elaine said as the man stopped in front of her. “It gave me a chance to fill Mallory in on what you need.”
“Excellent,” he murmured, turning to look at Mallory.
Pale blue eyes, under bushy gray brows, narrowed, as the man pointedly stared at her with no hint of apology. His gaze traveled over her in what would have been a suggestive way if there had been any sexual overtones to it. But there were none. His scrutiny was cold and calculating, and as emotion free as the stranger’s gaze had earlier been emotion laden.
“You will do just fine,” he finally murmured, then gave her an oddly formal partial bow. “I am Henry Welting, representing Mr. Saxon Mills. It is a pleasure meeting you, Ms. King.”
She wished she could say the same, but the man made her skin crawl. “Elaine was just explaining your job offer to me.”
“Did she outline the financial aspects of the offer?”
“We went through all of it,” Elaine said quickly.
“And it’s satisfactory?” he said, never looking away from Mallory.
“Yes, it’s satisfactory,” Mallory said.
“Good. I would hate to haggle over a few dollars.”
The pay wasn’t exactly a “few dollars” to Mallory, but to a man wearing obviously expensive, hand-tailored clothes, the money was probably a pittance. “She also mentioned a per diem.”
“Yes, of course. Since it’s not in this area, we thought it best to offer you that.” He stared at her without blinking as he lifted one eyebrow slightly. “Since you are basically alone in the world, we didn’t feel that there would be any problem with relocating for the two weeks. There won’t be, will there?”
She was taken aback by his statement about her personal life, but said simply, “No problem at all.”
“Then you accept the offer?”
She didn’t like this man, but she didn’t have to like him to do the job. “Yes, I’ll take the job.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Mr. Mills will be very pleased. The contracts will be at Ms. Bowers’s office tomorrow morning at nine for signatures.” He reached into the inside pocket of his trench coat with his free hand and took out an envelope that he offered to Mallory. “These are instructions to be followed to the letter.”
She took the thin envelope and glanced at her name typed neatly on the front. “And the script?” she asked, looking back at Mr. Welting.
“That will all be given to you when you report for work.”
“But, I—”
He kept speaking as if she hadn’t said a thing. “It is very important that you follow the instructions exactly. You are to report to Mr. Mills at his home at precisely six o’clock tomorrow evening.”
“His home?”
“Mr. Mills is taking care of this personally, and he seldom leaves his home anymore. When you meet with him, he will explain everything to you.”
“Is there anything else?”
He slipped his hat back on. “You are to discuss this with no one until you see Mr. Mills. Anything else you might need to know is in the envelope.” He stared at her for a long, awkward moment before he said, “What is it they say in the theater for good luck, Ms. King? Break a leg?”
It took Mallory aback to hear that phrase for the second time in the last few hours. “Thanks,” she murmured at the same time Sara came back out of the dressing room with another actress. Both were dressed in dark raincoats, and Sara was carrying Mallory’s umbrella. As she headed down the hallway, Sara accidentally bumped Mr. Welting on his arm.
The man jerked back and glared at her. “Sorry,” Sara muttered. Then with a “We’ll be right back” to Mallory, she and the other girl headed for the stage entrance.
As the two of them stepped out into the storm and the door shut behind them, Mr. Welting said, “I think that’s all that’s needed here. My driver is waiting for me.” He inclined his head to Mallory. “Thank you for agreeing to help Mr. Mills. I know he will be very appreciative of it.” He glanced at Elaine. “Thank you for taking care of this so expeditiously, Ms. Bowers.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
With a fleeting look back at Mallory, he turned and headed for the doors. Without glancing back, he pushed back the metal barrier and stepped out into the night. Then he was gone and the door closed with a creaking moan.
Mallory exhaled and leaned back against the wall as she stared at the door. “Boy, he’s strange. It’s a night for meeting strange people.”
“Forget about him. You don’t have to deal with him anymore. I’ll take care of any other business things that come up.”
Mallory looked back at Elaine. “It all seems so odd, doesn’t it?”
“Listen, I can understand if you’re a bit uneasy about this, but I can assure you, I checked this all out. Henry Welting does a number of things for Saxon Mills, both professionally and personally. He’s been on retainer for the man for over fifteen years. The offer’s very legitimate. I wouldn’t let you do it if I thought there was anything shady about it.”
“Sure, of course,” Mallory murmured, then looked back at the door as it flew open, and the girl who had left with Sara rushed back into the hallway. Her face was as white as a sheet, and rain dripped from her hair and her drenched clothes.
“Call an ambulance!” she gasped.
Mallory stood straight. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sara. She—” The girl was beginning to shake all over. “She…she was in front of me, crossing the street, and a car…it hit her.” She swiped at her face with a trembling hand. “I think she’s dead.”
December 22
The fury of the storm let up for little more than half a day before it came back again in earnest. At five the next afternoon, Mallory was driving north on an all-but-deserted two-lane road. Wind shook her small car, and rain beat relentlessly against the oxidized blue paint.
The rolling hills that formed the valley and were covered with vineyards on either side of the road were almost obliterated by the storm and the shadows of the coming night. Mallory sat forward, straining to make out the wooden road signs through the rain and the slapping of the windshield wipers.
The written directions she had been given were simple enough. They just hadn’t mentioned how to cope with what seemed like a hurricane.
Mallory gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers ached, and no matter how intently she tried to focus her thoughts, she couldn’t forget the horror of last night. The moments after her friend’s accident had been filled with total confusion—flashing lights, sirens and Sara laying on the asphalt, her arms and legs askew at unnatural angles, her blood from a massive head wound mingling with the rain on the pavement.
No one had seen the car until it ran Sara down, and no one knew what happened to it afterward. Hit-and-run. And it had left Sara alive…but just barely. When she’d been taken to the hospital, they’d found compound fractures of her forearm and thigh. By far the most serious injury had been the head wound. She’d undergone emergency surgery in the small hours of the morning to relieve pressure on her brain and the doctors were guardedly optimistic.
Mallory had stayed until morning, when Sara’s parents arrived. They had been devastated, and when Mallory was leaving, they were sitting on either side of their unconscious daughter, holding her hands, talking softly to her, encouraging her to come back to them.
For one fleeting moment, Mallory had almost felt envious of poor Sara. Mallory had never known her father. He’d walked out on her mother before Mallory had been born. And the memories of her mother were vague, distorted remembrances of a five-year-old child. Dark hair, a soft voice, eyes touched with a sadness that never quite disappeared. Nothing substantial.
And Mallory knew if she was in the bed instead of Sara, no one would be crying for her. She had no one. Henry Welting had said she was “basically alone,” but the reality was, she was completely alone. Just as alone as she was on this road right now. She couldn’t see any lights, and only a handful of cars had passed her since she left Napa.
Her headlights cut into the darkness and rain, and she caught a glimpse of a sign ahead. As she slowed, she could barely make out dark lettering on an old-fashioned wooden road sign—Reece Place. With a sigh of relief, she made the left turn onto an even-narrower road that angled upward. A canopy of ancient trees on either side bent under the force of the wind and rain.
The road curved to the left and Mallory shifted to a lower gear to negotiate it, but even so, she felt the tires on the car spin for a second before they caught traction again. Yet before she could get the car fully under control, the road cut sharply to the right and as the car went into the curve, Mallory knew she wasn’t going to make it.
In that split second, the car began to drift sideways on the slick pavement. Mallory felt the loss of control, the futility of pressing on the brakes and turning the wheel. She felt the stunning terror of knowing she could die. She felt sadness for what might have been, a sadness she had never let herself feel before.
Then the impact came. The car hit something solid, stopping with a bone-jarring suddenness, and the seat belt bit into her shoulder as Mallory felt her head jerk sideways.
Then it was all over. With the engine dead, the car tilted to the right, sinking slowly into the soft shoulder of the road. Finally it settled, and Mallory was thankful to be alive. The windshield wipers kept trying to clear the glass of the sheeting rain. The headlights were at a skewed angle, shooting up into the night, and the strength of the storm made the car shudder.
She slowly released her grip on the steering wheel, fumbled with the safety belt, then sank back into the seat. Looking to her right, she could make out the dark smear of grass and leaves pressed against the window. She might have survived, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. She glanced at the dash clock. She had twenty minutes to get to Saxon Mills’s house. There was no way she could make it.
“Merry Christmas to me,” she muttered, feeling as if this gift of a job had been snatched right out of her grasp.
She closed her eyes, trying to figure out what to do. She didn’t have any idea how far she’d have to walk through the storm to get to Mills Way. But if she sat here and waited for help, there was no guarantee anyone would come along tonight.
She looked out at the night and faced her options. She could feel the wind pushing at the car, and the rain seemed to be even heavier now. She turned off the headlights, then switched the key to the accessory position and flipped on the radio.
The strains of country music filled the confines of the small car, and for a while Mallory waited. But when the weather forecast came on, she reached to turn up the volume.
“And now for the Bay Area forecast. After a long drought that has forced water rationing for the past two years, the city is being deluged by a storm coming from the north, bringing torrential rain, winds gusting to forty miles an hour and temperatures in the midforties. Flooding has been reported in the low areas of the city, and mud slides have closed several roads leading into the valleys to the east and into Mill Valley to the north. With only scattered gaps in the weather front, the forecast is for a cold and very wet holiday season.”
Mallory reached for the radio button and turned it off. A miserable twenty-four hours was getting worse by the minute. Sara’s accident, the restaurant giving her no guarantee she could get her old job when she got back in two weeks, and now the job with Saxon Mills, which was dissolving right before her eyes.
She glanced at the dash clock. She had fifteen minutes to get to the meeting. Fifteen minutes. She sat forward and snapped on the headlights again. She could barely make out the fact that she was half on and half off the road. That road lead to Mills Way, and Mills Way led to Saxon Mills’s house. In the next second, she made up her mind.
She wasn’t going to let the Mills job go that easily. She had a raincoat, an umbrella and shoes that wouldn’t be any worse if they got wet. No, the umbrella was gone. She could remember it lying on the road near Sara, torn and flattened. She pushed that thought out of her mind.
She had a hood on her raincoat, and it didn’t matter what she looked like for the interview. Saxon Mills would just have to understand. As long as she made it. She turned the key, leaving it in the ignition, then tugged her hood up over her hair. Hesitating for only a moment as wind again shook the car, she faced the fact that walking was her only chance of salvaging anything with Saxon Mills.
She took her wallet out of her purse, shoved the purse under the front seat and tucked the wallet in her coat pocket. Then she pushed the door open against the wind and scrambled out. Her feet struck the edge of the pavement, and she levered herself up, ignoring the rain stinging her face until she was on her feet. Then the force of the wind snatched the door out of her grasp and slammed it with a resounding crack.
As Mallory turned, her feet slipped on the slick ground and she grabbed at the car to steady herself. She turned her back against the wind to look up the road ahead of her, then started off. But she hadn’t taken more than two steps on the asphalt when she heard the roar of an engine behind her.
Filled with relief that someone had come, she spun around, and the hood of her coat was wrenched off her hair by the wind. As the headlights blinded her, and the squeal of brakes filled the air along with the scent of burning rubber, the relief was changed to fear in a single heartbeat. The car was coming right at her.
CHAPTER TWO
Everything happened so quickly. There were blinding lights, the squeal of brakes and horror surging within her. As if the world had been reduced to slow motion, Mallory saw the headlights dip down from the force of the brakes grabbing the pavement, then, miraculously, the car stopped, inches from the back of her car, not from her.
She heard the engine throbbing, and the smell of burned rubber was in the air. Relief swelled up inside her as she realized the driver hadn’t been heading for her. The things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had left her nerves raw.
Mallory gulped air into her tight lungs and rubbed her trembling hands on her raincoat, almost giddy from relief. As she fumbled with her hood, trying to tug it back over her now-soaked hair, she heard a car door slam and saw movement. A hulking shadow emerged from the idling car, then came toward her.
The driver cut in front of the headlights, and Mallory could make out a tall man in a dark coat, carrying an umbrella. He strode directly for her. Nerves that were painfully jittery tingled as she was struck by how vulnerable she was on a dark, deserted road, at night, alone, with no protection at all.
By the time the idea of getting back in her car and locking the door had formed, the man was right in front of her. She pushed her hands into her pockets and curled them into tight fists to stop their trembling, while she carefully watched the stranger silhouetted in the headlights.
“What in the hell’s going on?” The voice that came out of the stormy night was rough, deep and angry. “I didn’t see you until I was almost on you!”
“I missed the curve, and the car…it went out of control. That’s where it ended up.”
“Did you hit something?” he asked, his body partially blocking the lights. The darkness seemed to surround the man, and the driving rain blurred everything.
“I lost control, and the car fishtailed. It sank in the mud on the shoulder.” She found herself talking quickly, as nervousness grew in her. “It’s stuck, and I thought I might just as well walk for help than sit here in the storm. I didn’t think anyone would be coming this way.”
“Where did you think you were walking to on this road?”
“I was looking for Mills Way.”
He took a step closer to her, and she had to fight the urge to match that step backward to keep what buffer she could between them. “Mills Way?”
Cold rain found its way under her collar and trickled down her back, sending a chill through her. “Yes, I’m supposed to be meeting someone who lives on that road.”
“Saxon Mills.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement.
“How did—?”
“There’s only one house on that road.” The man shifted, and the headlights shone directly on her once again. Although she couldn’t see his eyes or even his expression, she knew he was staring at her…hard. She had a flashing memory of the man at the theater the night before and how thankful she’d been that she hadn’t met him on a dark, deserted road.
The chill in her deepened. Her thoughts were going off on tangents that made no sense, and she narrowed her eyes against the glare. “I just want to get to that road.”
“I could have killed you,” he finally muttered.
Mallory felt her chest tighten, the memory of Sara lying on the rainy street so vivid that she ached. She’d been through too much, and her imagination was running wild in the most horrible way tonight. She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and hunched her shoulders a bit as the rain beat down. “It’s my fault. I never thought—”
“You should have put on your hazard lights. Anyone coming around that curve could plow right into your car.”
“I didn’t think about that, either.” The temperature felt as if it had dropped ten degrees in the last few minutes. “I just need to get to Saxon Mills’s home. Is there any way you could take me to a pay phone or to a house where I could call from?”
She didn’t expect him to say, “I can take you all the way to Mills’s estate.”
As soon as he agreed, Mallory realized it hadn’t been the smartest thing to say to a total stranger—offering to get into his car and drive off into the night. She tried to backtrack a bit. “It might be better if I stay with my car, and you can call a garage to come and pull me out of the mud.”
“You can do that, but I’m afraid this isn’t the city. There’s no garage that would be open now. But if you want to wait here, I’ll call when I get to a phone and maybe you’ll get lucky. If not, lock the doors and someone will be here in the morning.”
Mallory had taken care of herself since she was barely a teenager, and maybe she hadn’t made the best decisions in the world, but she had often survived on her instinct. And right now her instinct for survival told her to take the ride, thank the man, get to Mills’s house and try to salvage the job if she could. “I don’t want to wait here all night,” she admitted. “I’ll take the ride.”
“Then put on your emergency lights and let’s get going.”
Mallory didn’t have to be told twice. She went to her car, opened the door, reached inside, pushed the button for the emergency lights, and they began to flash brilliant yellow into the rain and night. She closed the door, and as she turned, she stumbled on the slippery ground.
The man had her by the upper arm in the next second, his strong fingers pressing through the cotton of her soaked raincoat and steadying her. Mallory felt as if one of the bolts of lightning had shot through her at the contact, then he was urging her toward his car. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, close to her side.
