Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream (17 page)

‘They’re the management company who run this resort,’ Amber explained smoothly. ‘They rented out the whole place to Starlite for the duration of the shoot. Starlite is the production team behind the Jack Kane movie.’

‘So they put in a clause saying absolutely no visitors?’ Holly challenged. ‘They turn this place into a fortress?’

‘You got it,’ Owen said, directing his next remark at me and Macy. ‘Hey, guys, tell these people they can’t be here. They have to leave.’

‘You have to leave,’ I echoed with a sigh. ‘I already warned you about the security up here.’

‘OK, so your dad called me.’ Grace took no notice. ‘He said something bad had happened with Orlando.’

My face told her it was true.

‘So Grace called me and we jumped in my car and drove over,’ Holly added. ‘Looks like it’s a good thing we did.’

‘Come for a drive with us,’ Grace suggested as Owen used his phone to call for reinforcements. We linked arms and walked towards the parking lot, with Holly and Macy following close behind.

‘Call off the gorilla!’ Holly yelled at Amber over her shoulder. ‘We’re out of here.’

Holly drove up a single-track road marked by thin orange poles. It led past the old silver-mine workings to the summit and she muttered as she went that Xcel would take over the entire mountain range if they thought there was a profit in it. A snowplough had been through but the surface of the road and the hairpin bends were still treacherous. Below us, the chairlift cables radiated from the terminal by the hotel, linked by steel towers that strode up the mountain, ending in smaller terminals dotted across the jagged north face. Ahead was the conical peak of the county’s highest mountain.

‘So how?’ Grace sat with me in the back seat, with Macy up front alongside Holly. ‘How and exactly why did Orlando leave you stranded without a ride home?’

‘That was the problem. We had no clue why he did it,’ Macy said, in a hurry to answer for me as usual. ‘He didn’t say a word – not even a phone call or a text. His truck was gone. That’s all we knew.’

‘Tania?’ Grace prompted.

‘Macy’s right. But I told Dad we each had a room, so not to worry.’

‘He worried,’ Holly muttered, gripping the wheel as the back wheels spun and skidded. ‘And, Tania, your dad is Mister Cool, so when he stresses, we know there’s a problem.’

‘And this morning – did you see Orlando?’ Grace always stays focused and calm, cutting to the quick.

‘I did, and let’s just say it was close to being the worst moment of my life.’

‘That bad, huh? Why, what did he say?’ Holly reached the end of the track and parked on an overlook. We were way above the ski slopes, surrounded by a thin white mist that crept down from the summit.

‘Nothing. That was what was so awful. He was with Gwen and I don’t even know if he recognized me.’

‘You’re kidding – of course he knew you.’ Though Holly sounded confident, it was obvious from the quick glance she gave me that she was ready to freak out.

‘No, really. He looked at me in a total daze.’

‘So he was hungover.’

‘No,’ I insisted. ‘It was like there was no one there. He just did whatever Gwen told him.’

Grace listened carefully, staring out of the window at the creeping mist. ‘What you’re saying is that Orlando’s under Gwen’s control, the same way I was with Ezra?’

I nodded. ‘And Holly with Channing. You were like zombies with empty spaces where your brains should be.’

We shivered as the mist seemed to seep into the car.

‘I can’t get rid of those memories,’ Grace confessed. ‘I still have nightmares – the feeling of being trapped. I mean, I truly thought Ezra was some kind of god. worshipped him, would have done anything he wanted, even thrown myself down the mountain for him. And I’m sure I spouted lots of weird stuff when I was under his control.’

‘Yeah – about daring to step outside the narrow limits most of us live our lives by, to let your mind expand and embrace the spiritual world. You said of all that,’ Holly reminded her.

‘You too, Holly. After you went walking in the wilderness with Channing and almost froze to death, you were exactly the same. Totally spaced out. We thought we’d lost you for ever.’

‘God, it sounds like you were both brainwashed!’ Macy gasped.

‘That’s how they work,’ I explained. ‘Dark angels – they make you fall in love with them and then they control you for all time.’

‘And let me get this straight – they’re spirits; they have no physical presence?’

‘They can shape-shift and take human form, but no, they’re not human.’ They’re carved masks hanging on a wall that come to life when you pass. They’re beasts of the forest painted on a chapel wall, wolves and bears, dogs with slavering jaws. ‘They’re the most powerful force for evil you can get.’

‘So what are we waiting for?’ Holly asked as she switched the engine on. ‘We have to drive back to the lodge and get Orlando out of here before it’s too late.’

‘Owen tells me you had a problem with hotel security,’ Charlie said at the entrance to the Carlsbad Lodge parking lot. He was still dressed in the red jacket and Oakley shades he’d worn to rehearse an action sequence on the ski lift. When he’d seen Holly’s car come down off the mountain he emerged from the lodge and waited by the barrier with Owen the Viking barman. He totally ignored Macy, I noticed.

Both Holly and Grace made the usual mistake and underwent five seconds of shock and awe that they were face to face with a megastar.

‘No,’ he corrected. ‘Tell them, Tania.’

‘This is Charlie Speke. He’s Jack’s stunt double.’

‘So yeah, actually we do have a problem.’ Holly recovered first and leaned out of the driver’s window. ‘I’m Holly Randle. That’s Grace Montrose in the back. We drove over from Bitterroot to see Tania but they wouldn’t let us through the door.’

‘No big deal – security issue solved!’ Charlie announced as he produced two name tags with an official Xcel logo printed along the top. Mr Fix-it filled in the spaces with the two names Holly had just given him. ‘You all want to come and have lunch?’

I wasn’t sure, so I turned to the others.

‘Lunch is in the bar where Owen works,’ Charlie added. ‘Everyone will be there.’

‘Including Orlando and Gwen?’ Grace checked.

‘There’s been a problem with Gwen’s position as make-up artist so I can’t swear to that.’ He turned to the barman. ‘Owen, did you see a tall, dark-haired guy, aged about eighteen, and my kid sister – a small girl with curly fair hair?’

Owen nodded. ‘They ordered chicken Caesar salad.’

‘Cool – we’ll have lunch with them,’ Holly decided.

But she wasn’t the first out of the car – it was Macy, dressed for the weather in cute fur-lined suede boots, skinny jeans and a big cream sweater with a black zigzag pattern. And it wasn’t Charlie she made a bee line for – it was Owen with the long blond hair, blue eyes and serious muscles.

‘Babe, if you’re the one serving the drinks, I’m there ahead of you,’ she said with fluttering eyelashes and comedy femme fatale voice that made Owen grin. She sashayed across the parking lot, making the most of her compact, curvy body to keep her new friend’s attention glued to her slim waist and toned butt. Watch out, Charlie – this is payback time!

We followed, and I found myself strung out with nervous anxiety that I was about to see Orlando and Gwen together again.

‘Macy doesn’t waste any time,’ Charlie commented as he held open the door.

I managed to smile and explain to Grace the situation between him and Macy. ‘Until last night she hung on every word Charlie said. She stuck to him like glue. It was true love.’

‘Wow, it’s hard to keep up,’ Grace observed, walking ahead while I hung back to look at Charlie to see if there was even a tinge of regret about Macy.

He held my gaze. ‘I spoke to Gwen earlier,’ he said, quietly changing the subject. ‘I’m having second thoughts; maybe it’s better if you two don’t take lunch together.’

This irritated me. Don’t push me around, I thought. ‘I wasn’t thinking about eating,’ I told Charlie abruptly. Then straight away I regretted it. ‘Thanks for getting badges for Holly and Grace. They drove over from Bitterroot to make sure I was OK.’

‘They heard about the situation with Orlando? Listen, this isn’t easy for Gwen either.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

But Charlie was determined. He stopped me in the entrance to Owen’s bar. ‘I know my sister. She’s not the type who sets out deliberately to wreck relationships.’

‘She did a pretty good job here,’ I pointed out, anxiously scanning the busy room.

Charlie shook his head. ‘Gwen told me Orlando made the first move.’

‘Really, I can’t listen to this.’ I felt sick. And anyway, how did you even start to tell someone that their sister came from the dark side, that she’d been possessed by a devil and wasn’t human any more? I broke away and tried to catch up with Grace and Holly, who had located Orlando and Gwen drinking coffee in a quiet corner of the bar.

Orlando saw them and instead of ignoring them as I expected, he smiled then stood up to beckon them across. It seemed his old energy was back. ‘How do you do it?’ He pointed to the pass Holly wore around her neck. ‘Those things are like gold dust.’

‘Hey, how are you doing?’ Holly sat down at their table, leaving room for me and Grace.

‘Good,’ he told her, smiling at Grace and giving me an awkward, apologetic shrug. Back to normal, except that nothing was or ever could be normal until I’d got him away from his dark angel. ‘By the way, this is Gwen. She’s been working for Starlite in make-up. Gwen, meet Holly and Grace, friends of mine from Bitterroot.’

I stared at him, then at Gwen. What was going on here? Where was the empty zombie look, the seismic disconnect of first thing this morning? I mean, we could have been a normal bunch of buddies catching up over a coffee.

Grace and Holly were obviously wondering the same thing. Where was the dark angel influence I’d warned them about?

While Grace took her time to study Gwen’s calm, delicate features, Holly forged ahead. ‘So, Orlando, we were worried about you.’

He spread his palms, gave another casual, self-effacing shrug.

‘You’re OK?’

Before Orlando could answer, Gwen got up from the table. ‘I’ll leave you guys to talk,’ she said quietly before melting diplomatically into the background.

‘Is this about me and Gwen?’ He asked Holly the direct question. There was still no sign of his nightmare on the mountain when he’d followed his new lover’s siren voice. No – he was sitting with legs wide apart, leaning back in his chair, inviting Holly and Grace to ask him any question they wanted.

‘It’s more about you and Tania,’ Holly said. ‘Orlando, what the hell happened in New York?’

He shook his head and rocked his chair forward, his hair falling across his forehead. ‘Nothing happened. Tania and I just reached the end of the road.’

‘As simple as that?’ Holly’s mother-tiger instinct kicked in and she sprang to defend me against the lame phrases he was beginning to spout. End of the road. Going separate ways. Moving on. ‘Do you know what this is doing to Tania? Have you any idea how much you’ve hurt her?’

For the first time Orlando grew defensive. ‘I told her I couldn’t be there for her. I warned her she’d have to let go of the dark angel stuff.’

‘Like she has a choice!’ Holly snorted. ‘Tania doesn’t choose to hear what she hears, see what she sees. Think about it, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I’m thinking, and what I know is, she’d rather use her psychic powers than work at her relationship with me.’

Now this was weird. You always imagine you’d love to have a friend like Holly to fight your corner – ballsy and totally on your side – but when it actually happens you get a surreal feeling that you’re not there, you don’t exist.

Grace could sense that this was happening to me. ‘Tania is sitting here,’ she reminded them coolly. ‘And anyway, Holly, we’re not interested in poking around in what happened in New York. Orlando, we just want to check you and Tania are both OK.’

‘Do I look OK?’

Grace studied his untroubled expression. ‘Yeah, but I guess that’s the problem,’ she said slowly. ‘Somehow you look too OK, considering you just split from your long-term girlfriend.’

Orlando shrugged and stood up. ‘Then I guess I can’t win.’ He set off to find Gwen but stopped to share one last thought. ‘Forget about me and focus on Tania,’ he advised Grace and Holly. ‘She just tried and failed to get Gwen thrown off this movie. If you ask me, she’s the one who needs your help.’

‘His eyes are clear and focused.’ Holly began the checklist of reasons not to believe that Orlando was in danger. ‘All his reactions – coordination, balance, they worked perfectly.’

‘No memory gaps,’ Grace added. ‘No mention of weird spiritual stuff.’

‘So I imagined it,’ I muttered. We’d stayed at the table after Orlando had left. Over by the bar Macy was still busy working her magic on Owen while a lot of the production crew were finishing their lunch and leaving for the afternoon’s filming.

‘We’re not saying we don’t believe you,’ Grace assured me. ‘But we do have to check out all the possible reasons for the way Orlando acted last night.’

‘And again this morning.’ I told them how he’d collapsed in front of me, how Gwen had taken total control. ‘And don’t tell me he was hungover,’ I pleaded.

There was an awkward silence while Holly and Grace exchanged worried looks. ‘Really, he wasn’t!’

‘So now he’s back to normal,’ Holly pointed out. ‘That didn’t happen to either me or Grace. And remember Oliver – the kid on Black Rock? Once the dark angels got their claws into him, he was totally zombified.’

I nodded. I was the one who’d found Oliver’s body amongst the burned roots of a redwood tree. The fire service had carried the corpse down from Black Rock and informed his mother. Zoran Brancusi had denied any knowledge of how he’d died. But I’d been there and I knew.

‘I guess they got smarter,’ Grace said with a hint of uncertainty. ‘Gwen moves in on Orlando and starts her mind-control games, makes him walk away from the only girl he’s ever loved but at the same time she doesn’t turn him into a total weirdo, so it’s not obvious to outsiders what’s happening. See what I mean – they fine-tuned their technique.’