Darkling I Listen (7 page)

"We need to talk." He took a hard grip on her arm and ushered her through the café door, which jangled with what looked like big brass Christmas bells. The farmers glanced around. A waitress sitting at a table and staring up at a small black-and-white television anchored near the ceiling, shifted in her chair and turned, her face brightening.

"Hey, Mr. Carlyle. You want a menu?"

"Just coffee, Janet. Thanks." He gave Alyson a sharp shove into the booth seat, then slid into the seat, across from her. His eyes were piercing, his jaw clenched, as were his fists. He looked on the verge of exploding. But then, he always did. It was what made him so appealing to the female masses. He was a man on the edge. Dangerous.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" he demanded before she could totally collect her sensibilities.

"Nothing like getting right to the point, is there?" She attempted to smile, and failed. Clearing her throat, she extended her hand across the table and did her best to recall all the pat words and phrases she had rehearsed in preparation for this moment. "How do you do, Mr. Carlyle. I'm Alyson James. I'm greatly honored to meet you at long last. I'm a huge fan, of course…
"

He ignored her hand.

"I apologize for the earlier
fiasco.
It was stupid of me. I'm usually smarter than that."

He still ignored her hand.

"Just for revenge you could stake me out spread-eagled on the courthouse lawn and subject me to twenty-four hours of Sheriff Dillman's good humor." Curling her arm back into her lap, she sank deeper into the booth. "You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?"

"No." He shook his head, spilling strands of dark brown hair over his brow.

Janet ambled to their table with a cup of black coffee in each hand. Dishes rattled as she placed them,
then
dug into her pocket for a handful of individual creamers. She sized up Alyson speculatively before turning her attention on
Brandon
. "How's your aunt Bernice, Mr. Carlyle? Any improvement at all?"

Brandon
turned his blue eyes up to Janet and smiled. The woman's face went a little slack, and color crept up her neck. "No improvement, Janet. Thanks for your concern. I'll tell her you asked about her."

"Henry dropped in earlier. On his way to Doc's office. Mentioned you had a little trouble at your place earlier. Everything okay now?" Her gaze shifted again to Alyson.

The flush had crept over Janet's cheeks.

"Everything's fine," Carlyle assured her.

Nodding, Janet withdrew a check from her pocket and slid it onto the table, facedown. "If you need anything, Mr. Carlyle, just let me know." She turned away, glanced once over her shoulder before wandering across the room to see to the pair of farmers.

"It's obvious the people of this town think very highly of you—aside from the sheriff, of course." Alyson reached for a couple of creamers and did her best to focus on something other than the fact that he still looked as if he fully intended to reach across the table and choke her. Lord, why couldn't she ignore the idiotic thrills shooting from one throbbing nerve to the other? "I suppose that's not surprising, since you were born here. Still, small towns have a way of being very narrow-minded when it comes to scandal. You must have encountered some resistance when you returned here after your release from prison."

"Who do you work for?" he asked, nudging his coffee aside.

"I told you—"

"You're lying."

"I want—"

"What do you want? Or rather, how much?"

She blinked, frowned, and forced herself to focus on his sharp eyes again. "Sorry. I don't follow you."

"What's it going to cost me for you to drive out of this town and forget you saw me here?"

"Ah." She poured a stream of sugar into the beige coffee. "You think I'm into blackmail." She stirred the beverage with a spoon. "Don't get your BYDs in a twist, Carlyle. Your bank account doesn't interest me. Neither does your body, as gorgeous as it may be. I'm not
Anticipating
, if that has you worried. I have more interesting things to do with my life than tag along after narcissistic movie stars and besiege them with gooey love letters."

"Like climbing trees in order to take photographs of them." His gaze cut to the Discount Drug sack. He grabbed it before she could react, and dumped it out on the table, spilling the contents in a heap. His face grew dark at the sight of the yellow and black envelope. Ripping it open, he spread the photos, all filled with his image, across the table. Anger radiated from him like shock waves. His hands opened and closed. Then he began to collect them and tear them into minuscule pieces while she watched.

What could she say? Nothing, of course. He had every right to be angry. Every right to rip his images into shreds. And he did a good job of it, much to her great disappointment. Jaw locked, the muscles of his face so tense that its every angle and hollow were exaggerated, Carlyle purposefully tore each and every photo of his face down the middle, right between his exceptional blue eyes, as if he were a psychopath intent on the mutilation of some hated enemy—or a man intent on self-destruction.

When the photos lay in a pile like discarded confetti, he reached for the negatives and lighter in hand, touched the flame to the dark strips one by one, watching as they curled and melted.

Finally, he pocketed the lighter and sat back, pleased with himself. Smug.

Doing her best to relax and to keep her focus, Alyson sipped her coffee, decided it needed more sugar, and reached for the dispenser. "You know, your attempt to camouflage your identity by becoming Mick Warner from
Dark Night in Jericho
is ridiculous. There isn't anyone, aside from a few tribes of Zulus on the African plains, who hasn't seen that movie at least a dozen times. Still one of Blockbuster's most rented videos. The poster of you in black leather pants, shirtless, and wailing into a microphone is still selling fifteen years later. Sexy. So was Mick Warner."

He said nothing, just stared at her so coldly she expected her coffee to ice over.

Alyson sipped her coffee again and tried to keep her hand from shaking. Still, the cup clattered against the saucer as she set it down. "Funny. Or maybe it's not so funny. Your life has mirrored Mick Warner's. He was a rock star whose career was nearly destroyed by drugs. You're a movie star whose career began to erode because of your alcoholism. But, unlike you, Mick didn't bury himself away in B.F.E. after he hit rock bottom. He overcame the obstacles that life threw in his path. I think that's why the moviegoers loved him so. He represented everyone who ever found
himself
beaten down by life and circumstance. He rallied. Like Rocky Balboa. An underdog who fought his way back to win the hearts of all disbelievers."

"Only to have a fan blow out his brains in the end," Carlyle pointed out in a monotone, his expression unchanging. "Life's a bitch, and then you die."

"Another parallel. Someone who calls herself Anticipating is sending you love letters. And you're afraid that if you crawl out of this town, she's going to put a bullet in your head."

"Obviously I don't have to crawl out of this town for her to put a bullet in my head. She's here already. Somewhere." His eyes cut to the front window, as if expecting to find Anticipating peering in at him through the tinted glass.

"And you don't want to end up like Mick Warner, bleeding to death on a dark, rain-slick street, Technicolor life fading to black and white as he dies." Narrowing her eyes, Alyson added, "Or maybe you really don't care if your existence fades to black and white. Maybe your only concern is for your aunt and uncle, and how your death would affect them."

His brows drew together. "I won't talk about my family."

"What will you talk about?"

"Nothing. Not to you."

"I can help you. If you let me."

"That's a lot of bull crap. No one does anyone a favor without getting something in return."

"I never said I didn't want something in return." She reached for her purse. He tensed, and for an instant looked as if he might bolt. But something kept him from it. Perverse curiosity, perhaps.

She dug into her big, deep bag and withdrew the hardcover book with his photograph on the cover. She slid it across the table, next to his forgotten cup of coffee. An expression of surprise momentarily replaced his stony anger as he stared at it, his face at first turning bloodless, then as dark red as it had in Sheriff Dillman's company.

Brandon Carlyle

HOLLYWOOD
HELLION

an

Unauthorized Biography

Alyson frowned, a sick realization spreading through her chest. "You haven't seen it? You didn't know…
?"

He swallowed and closed his eyes tight for a moment, shook his head.

She took a deep breath and sank back against the booth. "It's been number-one on the
New York Times
bestseller list for the last eight weeks. I can't believe no one told you. Your agent—"

"Is going to die," he said through his teeth as he reached for the book, as cautious as if it were a pipe bomb.

"Your manager—"

"Gone. All gone. Fired them. Mildred's next." He flipped through the pages, his expression growing darker. Alyson wondered if he was reading the interview with his mother, how Cara slaved and sacrificed so that her son could become the world's most recognizable face, only to have him disown her, ignore her as if she were a nonentity.

"I'm sorry. It isn't very pretty," she told him, turning her gaze to the pair of farmers who were slowly moving toward the door.

The sympathy she felt for Carlyle annoyed her. She had always reasoned that if people in high places were stupid enough to wreck it all with bad behavior, they deserved to drown in the muck of rotten publicity. The country, indeed the entire world, had elevated Brandon Carlyle to something just short of the Pope after the release of
Jericho
.
They had made him the highest-paid actor in
Hollywood
. In return, he had smashed their fantasies, not to mention their respect, by scandal and, ultimately, crime.

"This is neither the time nor the place to submerse
yourself
in a lot of b.s. that is probably untrue anyway. Besides, I want to be across town when you explode. I really don't care to pick little pieces of you out of my hair."

He didn't look up, just continued to turn the pages, his expression shifting from simmering fury to disbelief to shock. His lips thinned and pulled back from his teeth as he growled, "Bitch. Lousy, stinking bitch."

Leaning toward him, Alyson lowered her voice. "Don't get mad, get even. There's nothing wrong with standing up for
yourself
. If this book is all a lie, then say so."

With effort, he forced his gaze from the book and back on her. "What are you getting at?"

"My reason for coming here. To help you write your own book. An autobiography. Carlyle on Carlyle."

"What makes you think you can write a book?"

"I'm published. Freelance stuff mostly. I can provide you with copies of some of my articles." She shrugged and mentally bolstered herself for the next lie. "I need a break. Pitching ideas to
Reader's Digest
just isn't cutting it anymore. I help you. You help me. We both get something out of this."

"Why should I use you? There are a hundred other established authors who would happily take this on, and they already have a track record in the business."

"And they'll take control. Steal your thunder. My name and reputation can't get in the way of what you have to say."

His eyes narrowed. "And if I say no?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you think?"

"You blow my cover. That's blackmail."

She smiled. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

«
^
»

T
he rush of anger that had ignited in him when he first saw
the book, settled someplace deep inside him as
Brandon
looked hard into Alyson James's eyes. Wide eyes. Shadowed by dark lashes, even darker than her hair, which was a blend of rich brown and red. The scratch on her pale cheek stood out in contrast and had begun to scab over.

There was something much more troubling snapping at him than anger over the unauthorized biography. He felt compelled to listen to what Alyson James had to say. He wanted to trust her. He didn't want to think that if he told her to stick her proposal, she would walk out the door and announce to the world that Brandon Carlyle had taken up residence in a logging mill community where the harvesting of sweet potatoes was celebrated as reverently as Christmas. And he sure as hell didn't want to consider that she might be Anticipating. Perhaps in that deep canvas bag of hers, formerly tucked beneath the twisted speculation about his life in hardcover, was a Glock 9 mm with a loaded clip—sixteen bullets with his name engraved on each.

"Of course it would mean your trusting me," she said, her long fingers bothering the spoon near her cup and saucer. "Might do you good, actually. The purging, I mean. Imagine regurgitating all the garbage you've had to swallow over the years. Be a little like getting your stomach pumped after eating a can of bad
Vienna
sausages. Think how much better you'll feel."

"And what do you get out of it?" he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear her admit it.

"Money and acclaim, of course. I'm not so altruistic as to do it for nothing. Being associated with a book that will blow the lid off the bestseller lists
will
open doors for me."

"Not to mention get your pretty face on
Late Night with David Letterman."

She raised her eyebrows and tipped her head. One corner of her mouth lifted. Not a smile, exactly. "You think I'm pretty, huh? That's quite a compliment, coming from you."

"Yeah, well, don't get carried away. I've seen a lot of pretty faces, and they were usually attached to big trouble. Let me rephrase. They were
always
attached to trouble. Trouble is the last thing I need right now."

"Do you intend to hibernate in Ticky Creek forever? Don't you entertain the thought of at least attempting a resurrection of your career?" She shook her head, and her fine, arched brows drew together. "You're a brilliant talent, Carlyle. I can't see you wasting your life growing hay and watching afternoon reruns of
Ma and Pa Kettle Do
Hawaii
."

"You're hardly in a position to speculate on my emotional fulfillment. You don't know me."

Her gaze shifted to the book under his hands, and her expression became hard. "I know what I've read. That you're a self-centered
egomaniac
who drinks too much, emotionally abuses his mother, and spends his nights cavorting with S&M porn queens. You get off on whips and bondage, and occasionally experiment in bestiality. All evidence points to your raping and murdering Emerald Marcella, and the only reason you got off with manslaughter was that the District Attorney owed your mother a favor—Cara to the rescue once again, despite having been used and so heartlessly tossed aside when you no longer needed her influence to get you movie roles."

He almost laughed at the ridiculous accusations, but her expression and the steely intensity in her hazel eyes told him that she was dead serious. Cold nausea rolled inside him. Fear clamped around his throat—as suffocating as it had been the morning he woke up in a hospital emergency room to learn that Emerald Marcella was dead. First there had been the despair over Emerald's death—which had quickly become terror over how the news would affect his already tarnished reputation.

His image on the book jacket glared up at him, his own eyes, angry and razor sharp, mocking him. "That's sick. That's just … sick." He gave a short laugh and rubbed one hand over his forehead, which had begun to sweat. He wanted like hell to howl at the absurdity of it all, but his throat remained closed so tightly he could hardly breathe.

"Jesus, I thought the nightmare of rumor and speculation after Emerald's death left me impervious to shock and humiliation. I buried myself in obscurity to avoid confronting the nastiness of people who get their jollies eviscerating celebrities. Now here it is again. Lies. Sick, perverted
lies
spewed by so-called acquaintances who're simply using a book to grab their fifteen minutes of fame."

The woman across from him frowned and leaned toward him. Her eyes were no longer accusatory, but showed concern. She reached across the table and laid her hand on his, the contact like a warm shock to his raw senses. The touch traveled up his arm and slammed into his chest.

"Carlyle, are you all right? You look like—"

"Can't breathe." He waved her away, jerked from her touch, and slid out of the booth, swaying to his feet and focusing on the distant door emblazoned "Gents." He wondered if he'd make it that far before he vomited on the Dime
A
Cup's floor.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Janet hovering near the cash register, a pencil tucked behind one ear, her fists planted on her ample hips as she watched him cross the room.

"You okay, Mr. Carlyle?"

He ignored her, slammed his hands against the bathroom door, and shoved it open, enclosing himself in the six-by-six space with yellow walls of unfinished pine and air that smelled of sickeningly sweet strawberry-scented Glade.

Sinking back against the door and closing his eyes, Brandon did his best to force down the disgust and panic rising in his throat, not to mention the anger—the explosive fury that came from total helplessness.

How the hell was he supposed to defend himself? How could he shout to the world that he didn't murder Emerald Marcella when he couldn't remember anything beyond his car sliding out of control on a dark, rain-slick highway?

How the hell had he gotten out of his car before it plowed through a guardrail and rolled a hundred feet to the bottom of a cliff?

And as far as all the other accusations: Bestiality? Whips and bondage? What kind of sick minds sat around and thought up that kind of perversion?

Moving to the sink, he turned on the water, cupped his hands beneath it, and splashed his face until the shock of the cold water evened out his breathing. Alyson James was right. The reflection staring back at him from the mirror belonged to Mick Warner, hero of
Dark Night in
Jericho
:
bone-weary, disillusioned, stressed-out drug addict with long, unkempt hair, unshaven jaw, and eyes red and swollen from lack of sleep and substance abuse.

During one of Mick's more memorable scenes, he had excused his bad behavior by replying to the question "What kind of satisfaction do you get from killing yourself with drugs?" with "When life gets too difficult, we have to have someplace to go."

For Mick, that had been shooting up heroin. For Brandon Carlyle, his place of escape had been booze. After the booze had come Ticky Creek. As long as he didn't know about the ugly stuff that was being said about him, he could pretend it didn't exist.

But reality had just clubbed him between the eyes again, first in the form of a maniac who called herself Anticipating, then of a beautiful stranger with a Nikon camera and a telephoto lens who could be Anticipating, as far as he knew. Instead of using an Uzi to do him in, she would simply point her camera at him and fire. Her arrival in Ticky Creek was a harsh and sobering reminder that Brandon Carlyle, movie star and big-time fuckup, could run but couldn't hide forever from his past. And with her came the brutal monster of innuendo and false accusations in the form of an unauthorized biography that portrayed him as some kind of sicko.

He splashed his face again, and watched as the water ran in beads down his cheeks. Frown lines etched his forehead. Grooves bracketed his mouth. Mildred was right. His prime had come and gone. Soon he would be relegated to second-billing character roles—if he was lucky. With the publication of that book, he'd be lucky to get anything outside of porn work.

Thinking of Alyson James, he grew angry again. Despite the fact she had sexy eyes and a mouth that would tempt a monk, she was just like the smut rakers in that book: a vulture eager to pick his bones of the last shred of meat in order to make a buck. He'd tell her to get lost. But how the hell was he going to do that without risking her blowing his cover? Money, of course. Although she claimed she wasn't interested in his bank account, she'd change her mind fast enough if he offered her a few hundred grand. Get her and her satin thong panties the hell out of Dodge before her plump lips and bedroom eyes encouraged another awakening in his jeans.

Brandon
turned off the water and dried his face and hands on a brown paper towel. He took a deep breath and slowly released it, counted backward from ten, forced the tension squeezing his temples to relax. Everything was going to be fine. He'd pull out all the stops if he had to, in order to get Alyson James out of his life. He hadn't met a woman yet who couldn't be bought and manipulated by money and charm. Then he'd decide how to deal with the book.

At the door of the "Gents," he hesitated. Alyson still sat in the booth, staring down into her coffee cup. Janet was pointing a remote control at the TV and flipping through channels while someone in the kitchen began humming the theme from
Jeopardy!
A customer had entered the restaurant during his sojourn in the toilet and sat with her back to him, her arms clasping a big straw purse to her breast as she studied a menu.

As he crossed the room, Alyson looked toward him, her expression concerned.

Alex Trebek's face filled the TV screen as Janet shouted for Carolyn to hurry or she was going to miss her show.

The customer rose from her chair and turned toward him in one fluid motion. The menu flew one direction as her purse hit the floor with an odd, heavy clatter. Her hands like claws, she flew at him, lips pulled back from her teeth.

"Bastard!"

The woman hit him with the force of a Dallas Cowboy tackle. He flew back, sprawled across a table, crashing salt and pepper shakers and a sugar dispenser to the floor. She crawled on top of him, dishwater blond hair streaming wildly around her head, her fists swinging at his face as he attempted to deflect the blows.

"You can't do that to me!" she screamed. "I'll show you you can't use me and get away with it. Stinking liar!"

Janet hooked one big arm around the woman's waist, hoisted her into the air, and flung her away. She landed on the floor on her backside, knees splayed, skirt hiked to the tops of her thighs, revealing a flash of yellow nylon panties.

Carolyn ran out the front door, yelling at Sheriff Dillman, who was harassing the carnies lined up along the curb.

Alyson positioned herself between Brandon and his attacker, her arms stretched out before her and her palms up; she looked a little like a harassed traffic control officer. She glanced over her shoulder at
Brandon
as he rolled off the table and onto his feet, one hand clutching his chest where the lunatic had hit him with the force of a battering ram. He bent over, hands on his thighs, as he tried to get his breathing back to normal.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes wide with concern. He nodded, unable to get enough air in his lungs to respond.

The woman slowly raised her face to glare at him through her hair. Then recognition struck him.

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "Mitsy?"

Showing her teeth, she raised one hand and shot him the finger.

Janet grabbed Mitsy by one arm and hauled her to her feet just as Dillman and Carolyn entered. Carolyn jabbed her finger toward Mitsy, declaring, "She assaulted him, Sheriff."

Mitsy scrambled across the room and snatched her purse
off
the floor as
Dillman,
his gaze still locked on
Brandon
, slid a toothpick into his mouth, then thumbed his sister toward the door.

"Get lost," he told her. "I'll deal with you later."

She hustled out of the café, brass bells clattering her exit. "She's crazy,"
Brandon
said to Dillman as he finally got his breath back.

"I wouldn't go so far as to call her crazy, exactly." Jack gave a short laugh and tongued the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "She sure
don't
think a lot of you, does she? Then again, who does?"

"Maybe I'll press charges against her."

"You don't want to do that, Carlyle, I promise you. You think you're in hot water with me now, you just make more trouble for my little sister, and I'll haul your ass back to Corcoran myself."

Brandon
moved toward Dillman. Alyson stepped between them and locked one forearm across
Brandon
's chest, her legs braced in her attempt to push him back. He looked around her and pointed one finger in Dillman's face.

"You keep her away from me and away from my family. If she so much as sneezes in a threatening manner, I'll go over your head and see she's put away for the rest of her life."