Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream (28 page)

Nowheresville turned out to be Darwen, Idaho, so at least Macy hadn’t lied about the state. But everything else was pure fabrication.

For a start, both her parents were alive and well.

It turned out that two months earlier Macy stole her mom’s credit card and ran away from home, school and an entire family of mother and father, three grandparents, one sister, an aunt and two cousins all living together in a small town off the beaten track. Her mother reported her missing, the police traced her usage of ATMs and card payments through her home state then in New York. Her phone company provided records of calls and texts. It wasn’t long before they tracked down the runaway to her expensive Fifth Avenue hotel.

Her mom flew up to New York on the fifteenth of December, just a couple of days before Orlando and I ran into her in Central Park. Mrs Osmond had pleaded with her and begged her daughter to come home. Macy had told her no, she was already enrolled on a course at a film school and she loved New York – no way was she going back to hicksville.

‘None of what she told me was true.’ This was the stark fact I was left with after Macy died. Everything shifted and settled into unfamiliar patterns, reshaping the grief I felt over her loss. ‘The life she described – her mom’s driving phobia, the cancer diagnosis – was total fantasy.’

‘So why not cancel the credit card?’ logical Grace asked. ‘The Osmonds must have known that without money Macy would have had to go home.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Holly pointed out a few ways Macy could have survived without her mom’s card – none of them strictly legal, all of them dangerous. ‘I guess that’s what the family was afraid of. That’s why they had to go on funding her.’

‘You know, Tania, back there when I first met Macy I didn’t like the girl,’ Holly confessed. ‘She didn’t seem like a good person for you to hang out with.’

‘Me neither,’ Grace admitted. ‘I wasn’t certain but deep down inside I thought maybe she came from the wrong side – from the dark angels. Something about the way you two met – just before the mugging, when all the bad stuff started to happen.’

‘Too much of a coincidence,’ Holly said. ‘She drops her bag and draws Orlando away, leaving you all alone. It could’ve been a conspiracy.’

I shook my head and sighed. ‘Well, it turns out you were both wrong. And so was I. To me she seemed genuine. Sucker that I am, I believed her when she told me she was in contact with her mom through a medium.’

‘And you felt sorry about all the bad stuff she said had happened,’ Grace realized. ‘Me too, once I got over my suspicions. I thought the red hair, the piercings, the mascara could all be ways to cover up the big hurt of losing her mom.’

‘In a way they still were,’ Holly said. ‘It was just a different kind of hurt. There’s a label for fantasists like Macy – bipolar. But then again, Grace, what do I know? You’re the one who’s training to be a shrink.’

‘And she still died out there on the mountain because of it,’ I murmured. Nothing took away from the tragedy of Macy falling into the hands of the dark angels or the guilt I felt that I hadn’t been able to help her, or the fear that squeezed my heart.

By dusk the snowstorm blew itself out. The clouds lifted and the white peak of Carlsbad glittered under a full moon and a million van Gogh stars.

Orlando! I stared at the sky and it felt like a hole had been carved out in my chest in the place where my heart should be. I remembered that once, long ago, there had been a special, loving place for Orlando and me under the starry night sky.

Later, down in the bar, life-stranded-by-a-snowstorm-in-a-five-star-hotel went on as before. Owen served drinks to Charlie, Orlando and Gwen. Ryan and Larry talked schedules and money. After she put the kids to bed, Natalia came down to join them.

‘It’s like Macy never existed,’ Grace said sadly.

Holly and I agreed. ‘One thing we can say for sure is that Owen doesn’t miss her,’ Holly muttered.

‘Plus, he’s going to get away with murder,’ I added. ‘We know he brainwashed Macy to do what she did, but no one will believe us.’

‘They didn’t see the look on his face when he appeared at the top of those steps,’ Holly reminded us.

‘Or hear him laugh, or watch him lash out at us.’ Grace swirled the Coke in the bottom of her glass.

‘Who could we tell?’ Holly wondered out loud. ‘Ryan? Larry? Charlie? No, there’s no one here we can trust. And now that the dark angels don’t have Macy to spy on us, who are they planning to use in her place?’

‘Maybe they won’t even bother to find out what we know about Gwen,’ I suggested. ‘They believe they’ve got way more power than we do, and Macy’s death proves it. Besides, they only have to hang on for another twenty-four hours.’

‘Until the party?’

‘Yes. Then it’s end game.’

Orlando, why won’t you listen to me? My inner voice grew stronger and louder. Please believe me. Leave Gwen and come back to me.

His back was turned and I gazed at his broad shoulders, the curl of his dark hair on the nape of his neck as I forecast the next day’s events.

‘There will be a dance, some kind of ceremony or ritual to smooth the way for Orlando. Gwen will be the temptress. She’ll look spectacular. He won’t be able to resist.’ I was surprised how calm I sounded as I said this – maybe it was exhaustion and the shock of what had happened to Macy. Anyway, my words floated across the table without drawing any reassurances from Holly and Grace, and meanwhile we all saw Jack stride into the crowded room.

‘Uh oh.’ Grace saw him head straight for the bar, lean across it and demand a drink from Owen.

Owen raised his eyebrows and turned to Charlie to check with him if it was OK to serve Jack. Jack took angry exception to the delay.

‘What does it have to do with him!’ he yelled, so loud that Larry and Ryan broke off their conversation with Natalia and the whole room fell silent. ‘What is he – my nanny?’

While everyone else froze, something brought me to my feet and took me across the room to where Jack stood. I did it without thinking, only feeling that I needed to protect him.

‘Whisky!’ Jack lunged and tried to snatch the bottle of Jack Daniels from Owen. I held him back. Owen flashed me a menacing look and I sensed the army at his side made up of a thousand lost souls.

The mirror behind the bar melts and morphs into an enormous wall of water cascading over a rock face, down into a dark whirlpool that threatens to drag me under
.

I blinked, fought the dark vision and reopened my eyes.

With a cynical grin Owen let Jack take the bottle. Charlie did nothing, only watched me and my reaction as Jack raised the whisky to his lips.

‘Jack, don’t,’ I protested. Further along the bar, Ryan had broken away from Larry and Natalia and was heading our way. ‘You don’t need this,’ I told Jack. ‘You’re not drinking any more, remember.’

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Jarrold and Weller had shown up. Weller smiled and raised his glass to Jack, drank his shot then slid the empty glass across the bar for a refill. Again I glimpsed the waterfall, the whirlpool and souls being dragged into a dark vortex.

Jack still had the bottle raised to his lips. His head was tilted back and he looked at me from under hooded lids.

‘You take that drink and you lose it all,’ I reminded him. Kids, career – everything.

He could smell the alcohol, practically taste it by the time Ryan arrived. But still he hadn’t downed a drop.

‘That’s it, you crossed the line,’ the movie mogul declared. He spoke with total authority, confident that no sane person would dare to cross him. ‘You already had your final warning, Jack.’

Slowly Jack lowered the bottle without taking a drink.

‘He didn’t cross it,’ I argued. ‘OK so he thought about it but he didn’t actually do it.’

Ryan made a gesture to bat me away with the back of his hand. ‘I saw you with my own eyes, Jack. And you do this in front of your wife. You break a promise to me, to Larry, to her—’

‘He didn’t!’ I insisted.

Ryan shook his head. ‘We finish this movie without you, Jack,’ he said, firmly closing the book once and for all. ‘You’re off the payroll. Consider yourself fired.’

Rocky Seaton was the only person in the bar who came across to Jack. All the others – the hangers-on, the good-time drinking buddies, the girls he’d slept with – every single one turned their backs.

‘You know what you need to do, Jack? You need to speak with your lawyers,’ Rocky advised quietly. ‘Get them to check the small print.’

For the longest time Jack didn’t reply. It looked to me like he was going to go for the Jack Daniels after all, but then he pulled back. ‘Hey, man, if you want to keep your job with Ryan you don’t want to be seen talking to me,’ he warned with a show of bravado that didn’t hide his inner panic. The bottle still stood on the bar within easy reach.

‘OK, so Ryan owns Starlite, but in terms of your actual contract there’s still a good chance the organization can’t fire you for no good reason,’ Rocky said.

‘How many reasons do they need?’ Charlie muttered – his first comment of the evening. He’d split away from Gwen and Orlando and now he picked up the bottle and thrust it into Rocky’s face. ‘You know as well as anyone here how many times Jack failed to show up, how often he forgot his lines and fell over in front of the camera.’

Rocky kept calm and outstared Charlie. ‘Jack gets fired, so do you,’ he pointed out. ‘Remember, Jack is the goose who lays your golden egg. So if I were you, Charlie, I’d be out there fighting to have him reinstated.’

As Charlie laughed and brushed him off, Rocky blocked him with a grand-standing, in-your-face speech intended to draw maximum attention. ‘And just in case you figure you can fill the shoes of the movie actor who’s been nominated for three best-actor Oscars and won one for his role in
Reluctant Hero
, the highest-grossing movie of the decade, I’m here to tell you, no way.’ Rocky paused to enjoy Charlie’s building fury, then he went on. ‘The fact is, Jack has as much acting talent in his little finger as you, Charlie Speke, have in your entire over-pumped, fake-tanned, surgically enhanced body.’

It was too much – Charlie lost it and hit out at Rocky, who sidestepped so that Charlie swung off balance then stumbled against Weller, who set him back on his feet and mumbled something in his ear. Charlie drew a deep breath then unclenched his fists.

Rocky shook his head and turned back to Jack. ‘Don’t cave in without a fight, buddy. Get the lawyers to read through your contract,’ he said again, loud enough for Ryan to hear. ‘So blacklist me too,’ he told him, staring his all-powerful employer in the face as he strode away.

‘He’s right,’ I told Jack. I walked him out of the bar into the reception lobby, where I sat him down on the big cowhide sofa. His hands were shaking badly and his whole body had slumped. ‘Ryan can’t do this to you.’

‘In this industry Ryan James is God,’ he muttered. ‘He can do anything he wants. Anyway I don’t give a crap about my career. I’m done with all that.’

‘No, don’t talk that way. You’re good. Your fans love you.’

‘
Was
good,’ he contradicted. ‘Did love me. Past tense. I was as good as the script and the director let me be, back in the day. What is it – eight, nine years since I was offered a role I really wanted to play? Ever since then, I’ve taken any crap they threw my way.’

‘If that’s true, I agree with you – don’t do it any more.’ Talking to Jack, I waited to see his head come up again and his shoulders to go back. After all, there were other things to fight for. ‘Either that, or hold out for a worthwhile project.’

He looked up at me and laughed at my naivety. ‘You’re a good kid, Tania. I really do like you.’

‘Yeah well, just don’t offer me a part in your next blockbuster movie,’ I shot back at him.

‘Why – because your boyfriend would get the wrong idea?’ Seeing my smile fade, he apologized. ‘I forgot – no boyfriend. I guess you hate Gwen Speke as much as I hate her brother.’

‘Which brings me to my point,’ I told Jack. ‘Charlie. I used to really like him. He acted like a guy who would help out in a crisis.’

‘Mister Sensible.’

‘Yeah. And reliable too. I thought his heart was in the right place.’

‘But not any more?’

‘No.’ I’d wavered after the incident in Charlie’s room and finally changed my mind about him over the Adam emergency. ‘It was after Adam got lost,’ I confessed. ‘I kept asking myself, why didn’t Charlie do a better job of taking care of him?’

‘You’re asking me?’ Memory of the incident brought Jack up to a sitting position. ‘You saw – if I could’ve got my hands on the guy I’d have killed him.’

‘So what if he lost Adam on purpose?’ I suggested without really knowing where I was going with this.

Jack shook his head. ‘That doesn’t add up, not after the way Charlie wormed his way into Natalia’s good books. He wouldn’t want to lose face with her.’

‘He’d know she would blame him if anything bad happened to Adam?’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘But did she?’ I reminded him.

‘No. As it turns out, I’m the bad guy and he’s still flavour of the month.’

‘Exactly. So if I gave you one big reason why Charlie would lose your son out there on the ski slope, would you at least hear me out?’ This was it – I was about to break new ground with Jack.

‘Go ahead,’ he muttered, giving me his full attention.

‘There’s a whole world we don’t normally think about,’ I began slowly, expecting a flare up of cynicism from world weary Jack. ‘It’s a spiritual thing – dead souls out there in the ether, trying to communicate with the living. Some of them are good, some evil. No, wait – just give me a chance to explain.’

He’d broken in with a sigh and a grunt then made as if to get up off the couch. But something made him change his mind and he sank back down. ‘This had better be good.’

‘I have a psychic gift,’ I explained. ‘It all happened because I was born in a house where a baby girl died in a fire. She was called Aimee. At the moment my mom gave birth to me, Aimee’s spirit entered my body. We’re twinned souls. I hear and see her whenever I’m in my room. Her mom is called Maia. She was my first good angel, before Zenaida and now your boy, Adam. My gift gives me contact with a reality that most people don’t see.’