Comfort Object (44 page)

No. Not tonight.

I just really wasn't up for it. I hoped it wasn't something Jeremy would want. After Jeremy and Jessamine did their presenting duties and Mason picked up yet another Best Actor award, I leaned over to Jeremy and told him I was tired.

“It's not even nine o'clock,” he said. “And there are more parties after this.”

“Do I have to go?”

He frowned and looked away from me. “Yes, you do. If you like, you can go back to the hotel awhile and rest. But it's going to be a long night,” he said, glancing over at Jessamine and Mason.

I got the hint.

He put me in a car outside the theater. “I'll tell Kyle to meet you there. But you'll only have an hour or two.”

“Okay.” I slid across to hunch against the other side. I wanted to curl up into a ball, but my dress was already wrinkled enough. I watched the bustle of Beverly Hills as we crawled through downtown, through brightly lit streets with all the beautiful people walking around. The hotel was nearby, and I was relieved to get upstairs to the room and collapse on the couch. Just a few moments later, there was a knock on the door and I stood up to let Kyle in.

But it wasn't Kyle.

The scowling woman in the doorway shoved a gun against my forehead and pushed me backward into the room.

“Lock the fucking door,” she said, pressing the gun to my temple now. I hadn't ever in my life had a gun pressed to my head. I had never felt anything that felt so close to cold, hard death.

“It…it locks automatically,” I stammered.

“The chain, you little bitch. No one's coming in until I tell you the things I need to say.”

I turned to her. She was in her forties, heavyset, with nondescript eyes and drab, graying blonde hair. She wore a floor-length gown that looked like a bridesmaid's dress. She took in my dress with a malevolent chuckle.

“I don't know what my husband sees in a skinny, ugly bitch like you. That hair, ugh. You can tell it's fake, that awful red.”

I shied away as she reached for a handful of my hair and pulled it. I clenched my teeth and swallowed a yelp of pain. I stared at the gun clutched in her other hand and felt nausea twist in my stomach. A
gun
. This was really happening. My mind raced through scenarios and outcomes, and none of them were good. Her finger was on the trigger, and it was shaking.
Talk to her.

“I didn't—I had no idea Jeremy was married, I swear,” I said. “I'll…I'll just go. I'll get my things. I'll leave him alone. I don't want to break up anybody's home.”

“Go?” She laughed in a terrible voice. “You wish!” She shoved me away, wrenching my hair. I stumbled, and for a sickening moment the edge of my vision turned black.
Jeremy, I need you now. Help me
. I righted myself and turned to her. The gun was still trained on me, with both hands now. She gestured with a jerk of the weapon. “Sit down. Over on the couch. There's only one way you're going to go, and it's going to be in a way that's going to make it so you can't come sneaking back. Jeremy's always had a thing for the young ones. I love him, but he's not been the most faithful husband around.”

“Men,” I said, walking slowly to the sofa. “They always think with their dicks.”

“You should know, running around to movie sets across the world with him. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you really think that? Did he fuck you? Did he fuck you every day and every night? Did you like it, you nasty little home wrecker? You know he was only using you, right? Jeremy loves me. I'm his
wife
!”

You're his
stalker, I wanted to scream at her.
And he hates you!

“They'll know,” I said slowly. “If you harm me. They'll know you did it. Because you're his wife.”

She laughed. “Maybe they will, but as you know, Jeremy is a very rich man. He'll use his money to get me off, and we'll be together again while you're rotting in your grave.”

I stared at her. I had no idea what to do, no idea what to say. I just knew I didn't want to die, not this way. My heart leaped as a knock sounded at the door, but I realized just as quickly that Kyle couldn't be endangered too.

“I don't know who that is,” I said. “Just housekeeping.”

He knocked again. “Nell, it's me, let me in.”

The woman looked around frantically. I thought of jumping up and kicking the gun from her hand while she was distracted, as I'd seen Jeremy do in his action movies. With my luck I'd kick it right into my own face as it fired. I sat still on the couch.

“He'll go away,” I reassured her. “This issue is between you and me. And I swear, I
swear
, I am going to leave your husband. I was actually planning to go back to school. On the East Coast. Far away from where he lives.”

“Where
we
live,” she said through clenched teeth. She nudged me into the bedroom with the gun at my temple. Once inside, she clamped a meaty hand over my mouth. Hot, clammy flesh, cold metal. “Not one sound, you fucking bitch.”

* * *

I pushed my way through the drunk, chattering groups in the ballroom, searching for a quiet place to take Kyle's call. I crossed the lobby and ducked behind a coatroom.

“Tell me again. Slowly. Where is Nell?”

“I was calling to ask you that. So you put her in the car?”

I stared at the swirls in the carpet, eyes unfocusing and refocusing. My heart pounded in my chest.
Move
. I headed for the door.

“Jeremy, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I'm here. Yes. I put her in the car.” My fingers felt numb, and my palm was suddenly slick with sweat. I grasped the phone more tightly and hailed the driver with the other hand. “She should be there. Maybe she's somewhere else in the hotel—”

“I've looked everywhere in the hotel.”

“Well, call the fucking police!” I said, climbing into the car. I barked the name of the hotel at the driver.

“I called them.”

“Look around again. Where the fuck were you when she got there?”

“I was in the car, trying to get to the hotel! Why didn't you wait for me to get there before you sent her? Or call me to pick her up?”

“She was tired,” I said.
She was tired of playing the game, and I was tired of watching her
. “Did you check the gym? The bar? The restaurant? The elevators?”

“Jeremy, I checked everywhere. Security is looking. She's not anywhere here. Maybe—”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe she left.”

I bit my lip. It was a possibility. One I didn't want to think about, but better than the other possibility…

“Check the room again.”

“I checked. I knocked three times, but there was no answer—”

“Just go in. Maybe she's sleeping.”

“I left the key in my tuxedo jacket.”

I cursed, noticing the black garment beside me on the seat.

“Knock again. Knock until she answers, or get security up there.” I swallowed; my mouth suddenly dry.

I heard Kyle knock, and to my relief, I heard the door open and the clink of the chain catching.

“Put her on the phone, Kyle.”

“Take the chain off,” I heard Kyle say, and I heard Nell's soft refusal.

“Put her on the phone. Give her the phone! I want to talk to her.”

Then I heard the sound of wood crashing and shots from a gun.

“Kyle! Kyle!” I yelled, but there was only terrible silence after that.

* * *

I cradled Nell in a private room at the hospital while she made her statement to the police. I tucked the blanket around her more tightly from time to time to distract myself from the terrible story she was telling them. No matter how close I held her, she still shivered in my arms. Underneath the hospital blanket, blood stained her ivory dress. Not her blood. Kyle's.

After everything we'd done, all the people I'd hired, all the police and private investigators, Leslie Gray had waltzed into the hotel room by knocking on the door. Nell let her in, thinking it was Kyle. It was too simple to believe.

“She had a gun,” Nell said. “I wanted to run, but I was afraid she would shoot me. I was too scared to try to get away.”

“No one expected you to get away,” I said quietly. “That only works in the movies, not in real life.”

“I tried to keep her talking, but she only got angrier. She said she was your wife and that I was a home wrecker…and a lot of other things.”

I knew. I'd seen it all on her Web sites, on the many letters she sent the last several weeks.

“She had her finger on the trigger.” Her voice quavered, and she snuggled closer to me. She nudged her head under my chin. I stroked her hair and thought about how close I'd come to losing her. “She was going to kill me. She just had some things to say first.”

“Thank goodness,” I said. “It bought us some time. She always was very verbose in her ravings.”

“When Kyle knocked, she freaked out. She didn't know what to do. She started acting really erratic…and when Kyle knocked the second time—”

That part I knew already. Kyle had broken in, and Leslie Gray had shot Kyle as he'd wrestled the gun from her, and then he had shot her. Fatally. Kyle was originally from Texas. He was good with a gun.

“It's okay. It's okay,” I said as she cried. “Kyle's going to be okay.”