Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream (21 page)

A boy swimmer drowns. It is his time to die. He rests with the skulls in the West Point graveyard. Another swimmer plunges to find the first boy but rises to the surface empty-handed. Water streams from his handsome features. A broad, strong, big-jawed face, with the head thrust back and blond hair trailing in the water. He is a member of the New Dawn Community on the western shore of Turner Lake. His name is Jarrold Nixon
.

Ryan’s second bodyguard also walked by without acknowledging me, but I knew beyond doubt who he was.

Wolf man Jarrold crawls through the thorn bushes towards his lair. I follow. His amber eyes entice me in. He rears on to his hind legs and roars. With one swift move he has me between his jaws.

Now I was beyond doubt – dark forces from Central Park and Turner Lake were gathering on Carlsbad. The past was becoming present and there was no escape.

A third man took his key and heard Amber announce his room number – 313. He followed Weller and Jarrold towards the elevator.

I see only his eyes and the bird mask he wears, the black feathered cloak. He hovers over me.

I see his physical perfection, hear his charming, educated voice telling me that his name is Daniel.

There is smoke in the air. Black Rock is alight. The forest burns. Wild horses gallop around an arena and break through the fence. My dark angel appears surrounded by smoke and flames. A horse rears, he falls under her hooves, his skull smashed. Blood stains the rock
.

‘Daniel,’ I whispered as the third man entered the lift. He was resurrected – the underworld god of Zoran Brancusi’s Heavenly Bodies party, always beautiful and damned.

‘Saturday’s party isn’t themed around Christmas the way you might expect,’ Macy explained as we sat in the chairlift on our way to the silver mine.

It was a two-person gondola and she sat opposite me. Every time the wind blew and the gondola swayed, I closed my eyes and gripped the safety rail.

‘Ryan has decided a Christmas theme is way too obvious so he’s sent for costumes from the Starlite back list. His guys are going to fly them in all the way from a warehouse in New Mexico. How much fun is that?’

Letting her chat on, I stared down at the snow. It was over an hour since Daniel, Weller and Jarrold had checked in but my heart was still pounding and my mouth was dry.

‘Owen and I want to share a theme – do something different so we stand out from the crowd. He has to work behind the bar but all the Xcel staff will be in costume as well as the Starlite team. Really, I can’t wait.’

As the gondola jerked and came to a halt near the old mine, Macy jumped out ahead of me. She was about to run to join the technical team setting up for the morning’s filming when she had second thoughts and waited while I stepped down from the lift. ‘Did something bad happen?’ she asked as the empty chair jerked, rocked then set off again.

I nodded, but this wasn’t the time to explain about the bodyguards. My heart was beating too fast and it was all I could do to keep the lid on the panic that kept on rising.

‘Sorry, I should have asked sooner,’ Macy sighed. ‘I could see you weren’t doing well at breakfast.’

‘It’s cool. I’m still working out what to do to get Orlando out of here.’

‘No, really – I’m sorry. I get an idea in my head and I run with it. Right now I can’t seem to think of anything or anyone except Owen.’

‘I noticed,’ I said with a wry smile as she linked arms and walked me away from the movie set. ‘But really, what do you actually know about him?’

‘Nothing, and I don’t give a damn. Stupid, huh?’

‘Or brave.’ What did I know? Only that the single thing that stops most of us from acting the way Macy did is the fear of rejection.

‘My problem is, I don’t know how to live my life any differently. I guess it’s the way I’m wired.’ There was a long pause as we walked up the mountain between some snow-laden redwoods, then Macy eased her arm out of mine and stopped to gaze down into a steep-sided, sparkling white valley. ‘If you want to know the truth, my life is crappy right now,’ she confessed. ‘I don’t have anyone – no long-term relationship, no family to lean on.’

‘It won’t always be like this,’ I said. ‘You’ll find someone to love. Everyone does.’

‘That’s so true. I found Owen.’

I held back from pointing out that her twenty-four-hour relationship with the good-looking barman hardly ticked the long-term box. ‘See, guys are attracted to you – you’re smart and cute, and one thing you definitely do is stand out from the crowd.’

‘Owen is a fascinating guy,’ Macy insisted. ‘He likes to work out, that’s obvious. But I did find out another side to him. He studies American history, he reads classic literature and guess what – he’s been to acting college in New York. When he was thirteen years old he auditioned for a part in a Spielberg movie.’

‘I hope he makes it,’ I said, standing back from the ledge. I admit that I felt scared for her as she talked herself into believing in her latest boyfriend.

‘He only took this bar job because he knew they were shooting a movie here. He figured he could get himself noticed. That was a smart move. He knows you have to be in the right place at the right time. It’s the secret to success.’

‘Macy, don’t go any further,’ I warned. A cold wind blew from behind and pushed her closer to the edge.

She laughed and spread her arms wide. ‘Imagine if we could fly!’

‘Step back.’

‘Whoo! Like an eagle soaring over the mountains.’

The wind caught her and tipped her forward. I lunged, grabbed her arm and dragged her back. ‘Let’s go,’ I insisted.

That morning Larry shot the final scenes between Jack and Angela. I shadowed Lucy in her role of assistant director, handing out rewritten scripts to the actors and crew.

‘This is the last change we need to make,’ Larry instructed. ‘Jack, you stagger out of the mine with the gunshot wound to your left shoulder. No dialogue here – we took it out. But you see Angela ready to climb into the ski lift. She realizes you’re still alive, aims her gun and fires. You take a second bullet. We get you in close up then fade.’

‘Am I dead?’ Jack asked, flipping through the next few pages of his script. ‘Christ, no – I survive. I’m a man of steel.’

‘Let’s not waste time,’ Larry snapped. ‘Charlie, stand by. We need you for the next action sequence.’

You could have cut the tension with a knife as Jack went through the motions – stagger out of the mine with right arm clutching left shoulder, drop to knees as Angela fires gun, fall sideways into snow.

‘Cut!’ Larry called as the fake blood flowed.

And that was all that Jack needed to do: stagger, clutch, drop, fall. His work for the day was over.

‘They got me out of bed at six thirty for this!’ he muttered as a driver picked him up and drove him down the rough mountain track to the hotel.

After that, Charlie took over, swinging into action as the cameras rolled. First he raised himself from the blood-soaked ground then staggered on towards the gondola, where Angela Taraska’s body double aimed her by-now empty gun. Realizing she was out of bullets, Charlie grabbed the back of the gondola as it set off down the mountain. Angela’s stand-in leaned out and bludgeoned Charlie’s hands with the gun. He clung on, was raised from the ground and dangled from the lift, swinging himself up and into the gondola, where he and the Angela double fought to the finish.

I saw the gondola rock violently and held my breath as Charlie was almost thrown out. He was left dangling a second time, and again he swung himself back in. This time he overpowered his opponent, forced the gun out of her hand then shoved her clean out of the gondola. She screamed as she lost her grip. I watched her fall.

‘Cut!’ Larry yelled.

We broke for lunch and trooped down to the hotel restaurant, which was crowded with all the people I dreaded seeing. Top of my list were Orlando and Gwen, though Weller, Daniel and Jarrold came a close second. Ryan James’s dark angel bodyguards were playing slot machines in a bay by the entrance.

Daniel turned and gave me the smile that I remembered from Black Rock - easy and alluring. I recoiled as if I’d walked into a blast of scorching hot air.

Jarrold kept his back turned but looked ready to spring into action at any small signal from their boss, who was holding court at a table in the centre of the room. Ryan was dressed in grey sweats, straight from a workout in the gym, calling for his favourites to join him.

‘Natalia, sit beside me here. You know about the party on Saturday, right? You get to dress up in any costume from the Oscar-winning movie
Carnival
– crinolined gowns, beautiful seventeenth-century hats and masks. Just ask and it’s yours!’

I watched Natalia slip into her grateful, gracious mode. She smiled, tilted her head, rolled her eyes and batted her lashes at Ryan, ignoring a whispered remark from Jack when he sat down heavily at the same table.

‘I said, why not go as yourself?’ Jack repeated. ‘Wear the red dress the paparazzi went crazy for at last year’s Oscars – slashed to the thigh, maximum exposure.’

Ryan moved the muscles in his face that still worked enough to show disapproval. ‘That’s not fancy dress.’

‘Sure it is,’ Jack sneered. ‘Everything my wife pours herself into for the cameras qualifies as fancy dress. You think she looks this good in private?’

‘Ignore him,’ Natalia told Ryan. ‘That’s just Jack’s weird sense of humour.’

‘Yeah, go ahead and ignore me, Ryan.’ Leaning back in his chair, Jack pulled his fingers, cracking the knuckles one by one. ‘Everyone else does.’

The chair wobbled dangerously and he had to jerk forward and catch the edge of the table to stop himself from tipping backwards and sprawling across the floor. I was surprised how fast his reactions were when it mattered.

Jack grinned then leaned forward confidentially. ‘I’ll let you into a secret, Ryan. Natalia ignores me so successfully that she neglected to tell me she filed for divorce.’

People close enough to hear this remark took sudden, sharp intakes of breath. Ryan instinctively turned to his bodyguards. Natalia sat without any visible reaction.

‘What?’ Jack mocked. ‘Come on, it’s a no-brainer.’

‘Not now,’ Natalia protested quietly.

‘Am I spoiling someone’s lunch? Did I break the rules and say out loud what people have known for ever?’ He scraped his chair back from the table and stood on it, spreading his arms to make a public declaration. ‘Natalia and I have split. She filed for divorce. It’s official!’

The scraping of the chair set my nerves on edge. I noticed Jarrold and Weller approach Jack while Daniel made sure that no one else came into the restaurant. Gwen, who had been hovering by the door with Orlando, asked to leave but Daniel blocked her exit.

‘OK, guys!’ Ryan waited for Jarrold and Weller to take up position on either side of Jack’s chair. ‘Everyone in this room is an employee of Starlite and you all signed a confidentiality clause in your contract. That means nothing gets out beyond these four walls. Nothing!’

‘Yeah, like I said – ignore me,’ Jack laughed, pushing against Jarrold as he jumped down from the chair. ‘It must be last night’s whisky doing the talking.’

Jarrold took a step back then blocked Jack’s intended route out through the French doors into a festive courtyard decked with baubles, lights and a tableau depicting a Christmas sleigh pulled by fake reindeer. A nod from Ryan brought my Central Park thug forward, leaving Jack with no place to turn. The only thing left for him to do, other than punch his way out, was walk with the bodyguards towards the main exit, where Daniel held the door open to allow them through

‘OK, the show’s over,’ Ryan insisted as the tension broke and a low babble of voices filled the silence. ‘Remember, no leaks to the press, and nobody goes on Facebook or Twitter to inform their buddies.’

‘And now we have work to do,’ Larry announced. ‘Lucy, I need Rocky and the extras back on the mountain, ready to start shooting in thirty minutes.’

‘I’m out of here.’ I whispered to Macy that I needed fresh air but I had to pass within five paces of where Gwen and Orlando stood, steeling myself to walk out of the restaurant under their hostile gaze, through the lobby and along the driveway towards the ski-lift terminal.

A strong wind blew, light snow was falling as I climbed the steel steps to the platform and waited for the next gondola to arrive. I looked at my watch. One forty-five p.m. That gave me fifteen minutes to make it to the overlook and my planned meeting with Grace and Holly.

T
he sudden switch of temperature made me shiver as I waited for the gondola. I’d come out of the warm hotel into minus ten degrees and now back into the artificial warmth of the glass and steel terminal, all the time looking over my shoulder to make sure that no one was following me.

In fact, I was so busy checking the empty slopes behind me that at first I didn’t notice Rocky Seaton sitting on the bench by the window, quietly minding his own business. He was wearing a black knitted hat and a blue padded jacket with a thick paperback jammed into one pocket.

‘Up here at ten thousand feet the wind cuts right through you,’ he observed. ‘I hope you’re wearing layers.’

‘Yes, thanks – I’m good.’

‘Only, you look to me like you’re freezing.’

‘I’m cool.’

‘In case you’re wondering, the operator discovered a fault on the bullwheel,’ Rocky explained as I looked in vain for a gondola. ‘He switched off the motor and went to find an engineer.’

‘That’s not good,’ I sighed. Another look at my watch told me I now had only five minutes to make it to Carlsbad overlook.

‘Don’t worry – they’ll wait for you, whoever they are.’ Rocky had considered things for a while then took a stab at the reason I was leaning out of the door watching anxiously for the engineer. ‘Anyway, it pays to keep your boyfriend waiting occasionally.’

‘I’m not meeting my boyfriend,’ I protested, relieved to see two businesslike figures hurrying up the hill.

‘No? Aren’t you with the kid who got the internship when we were shooting in New York – the tall, dark guy?’