Dying to Have Her (29 page)

He started with Serena’s bedroom, searching everywhere, under the bed, through the closet, the bath, behind the curtain. Her bedroom took up most of the right side of the house; opposite it, across the hall, was a library. No bath, no closet, nowhere for anyone to hide. It was empty.

Back in the living room, it was easy to see as well that no one could hide there. He went to the back family area where the plate-glass windows and sliding doors led to the pool area.

Bill appeared from the other side of the house, where he had searched the two guest rooms. Staring at Liam, he shook his head.

Serena was standing in the entry.

“Let’s hear this message,” Liam said.

She walked to the answering machine and hit the Play button. A mechanical voice came on.
“One new message.”

The voice that came on was Melinda Guelph’s. “Serena, Serena, pick up. It’s me, your sister. I know you’re there, screening your calls.” There was a silence. “All right, fine. Don’t speak to me.”

There was a click.

The mechanical voice came on again.

“End of final message.”

She stared at the machine incredulously. “I swear to you that there were messages. The caller phoned a few times, breathed without speaking, and hung up. And the voice came on, repeating the valentine and saying that the killer was in the house!”

Ricardo appeared at the still open front door, winded. He shook his head. “Nothing in the yard.”

“I’m telling you—” Serena began.

“Can these messages be canceled from somewhere else?” Bill asked gently.

“Sure. You can erase the whole thing if you call in from anywhere else with the code.”

“Well, then, we’ll trace the calls to your house,” he told her. “We’ll get in some fingerprint people and make sure that no one did slip in here. And we’ll pull phone records. We’ll get on it right away.”

“Do you need Serena?” Liam asked.

“Sure. She’s going to have to file a complaint, make a statement—”

“All right. Let’s get to it all fast. I’m going to take her out of here tonight.”

Serena stared at him. “You think that I’m going crazy, imagining things that didn’t happen.”

“I never said that,” Liam told her curtly.

“No, you’re saying that no one was ever really inside my house, but I should leave it?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Bill, can you get started as quickly as possible?”

“Sure.”

It was two hours before the paperwork had been filled out.

He chafed with impatience the entire time, even though he knew the procedure, knew the kind of time that it took.

The fingerprint experts arrived to check the phone, the doors, and other areas of the house. They would be there for some time. Liam doubted that they would find anything because he didn’t think that anyone had been in the house. The call had been made either to scare Serena or to lure her outside.

There was no sign of forced entry, of course. Serena had left the door wide open. There was no sign of anything. Just Serena’s statement about what had occurred.

The tape was pulled from her machine to be analyzed. Perhaps something could still be drawn from it by the experts. Her incoming calls would be traced.

When she had signed the last sheet of paper, Liam told Serena, “Go get your things.”

“There can’t be anyone here now. The place is crawling with cops,” she told him stiffly.

“We’re getting out of here tonight,” he told her.

“That doesn’t make any sense—”

“I don’t want an argument. I want to get you out of here.”

“Liam—”

“You do what I say, or I walk,” he told her.

“What?” she said incredulously. She tried to smooth back a lock of tousled hair, raising her chin.

“I believe that you were hired to follow me.”

“You do what I say, or I walk,” he repeated.

He could hear her teeth grinding. All right, so he probably hadn’t handled the situation really well.

“Walk. You’re good at that, aren’t you?” she snapped.

They were in the hallway, away from the others. “Don’t be a little fool,” he told her. “We’re talking about your life here. I’m doing my damned best to preserve it.”

“Liam—”

“Do you really want to be alone? Or take a chance with some other hired asshole who doesn’t know squat?”

She could be regal when she wanted. She drew herself up to a great height. “I’ll get some things together,” she said smoothly. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll know once we’re there.”

“But I need to go to work tomorrow—”

“You’ll go to work.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t tell me.”

“I don’t want anyone to know. Anyone.”

“I’m going to have to call my sister back. I don’t want her to think that I’m ignoring her—”

“We’ll call your sister. We won’t tell her where you are. Get your stuff.”

Ten minutes later they were in his car, driving.

“We’re going to your place?”

He nodded. “Any objections?”

“No … I guess not.”

She remained silent as they drove. He tried to keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t.

“Serena, dammit, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

“You’ve told me that.”

“There might have been someone out there, waiting.”

“There might have been someone in the house.”

“Bill checked out the house.”

“He might have missed a closet—”

“He wouldn’t have.”

“All right, fine. Will you quit telling me how stupid I was if I admit it?”

“There could have been someone in the yard. The call could have been a ruse, just to get you outside.”

“I know.”

“You went tearing out into the darkness—”

“I know, dammit. I was scared!”

He fell silent. Again, he tried to stay that way.

“If you’re locked in again somewhere, you have to stay locked in, do you hear me?”

“Yes. I can’t possibly miss hearing you!” she retorted angrily. Then she added, “I don’t think a bodyguard is hired to scream at the body he’s supposed to be guarding.

“Like I said, hired help can quit.”

“I don’t want you to quit. I do want you to stop behaving like a dictator. I’ll try never to be so stupid again in the future, but then, I’m an actress, and I know your opinion of that.”

“I don’t have a bad opinion of actors and actresses,” he said. “Just the way they run their lives at times. As if the real world is never as important as what’s written in the press, or shown on tape and celluloid.” He cut himself off; he had yelled a lot and had behaved badly. He was angry. Still tense, still wound up.

And still afraid.

They reached his house. His front yard was totally illuminated. No one could hide near the front door, or on the tiled entry porch.

He exited the car, coming around for her. She was already out of the vehicle. “May I take your bag, Miss McCormack?” he asked politely.

“I have it, thank you. We actresses are capable of carrying our own bags. And guess what? I’ve even made coffee over an open fire. I simply don’t like sleeping with bugs and dirt. Okay?”

She preceded him to the house, then realized that he had the key. He opened the door, ushered her in, and keyed his alarm.

She stood in the living room for a moment.

He wondered if she was thinking about the last time she’d been here. He was thinking about that day himself.

He’d left …

He’d been far too involved with her. In love. Hell, he’d found himself stopping at jewelry store windows, staring at the diamonds, wondering if he could afford a stone that would be right for her, wondering if she would even consider marriage, and if they could make it, him a cop, her appearing frequently on magazine covers, in the news, here and there, with this guy, that guy, …

Jealous?

Yeah, he supposed.

“Well, where do you want me?” she said at last.

“Take my room. I’ll stay out here.”

She walked away. He heard the door close.

The night was cool, and he decided to build a fire. Just when he really got the blaze going, Serena reappeared. She had showered; her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her hair was brushed out, long, glistening, the red highlights enhanced by the glow of the fire.

“May I use your phone? I want to call my sister.”

She expected his answer to be yes, and so she started for the phone by the sofa. “Wait,” he told her. “Use my cellular.”

The tight white line of her mouth informed him of what she thought about his doubts regarding her sister and brother-in-law.

She accepted the phone from him, her fingers brushing his. She was wearing that robe with the deep V again. He wondered if she had anything on beneath it.

She started dialing. “Don’t tell anyone where you are. Anyone.”

She didn’t reply. She finished dialing and listened. He could hear her sister’s answering machine picking up.

“Melinda, it’s me. I really wasn’t there. I—I’m not at home. I’ll try to get you again in the morning. I’m going in to work, early.”

She hung up and handed the phone back to him. “Thanks,” she said, and turned around and started back for the bedroom.

“Hey,” he said, calling after her.

“What?” she turned back.

“Can I get you anything? Of course, you know where everything is. If you want anything …”

“Thanks, I don’t.” She walked on into his room. Again he heard the door shut.

He sank down on the couch and watched the flames, determined to put his thoughts in order.

Eliminate the impossible …

Nothing was impossible with the phone calls. The way technology was these days, her number would have been easy to obtain. Anyone could have Serena’s code to her phone. Anyone with the code could erase the messages from anywhere.

He heard the door open again. She appeared before him in the living room. Her eyes were wide, beautiful, truly amazing. Her hair was loose.

That V …

“Are you staying up all night? Don’t you ever sleep?”

“I was going to take the couch,” Liam told her. “It’s a dictator’s kind of bed. I didn’t think that you were particularly fond of me this evening.”

“You are a dictator.”

“I’m not really a dictator.”

She arched a brow.

“Dammit, Serena, I was scared.”

“Don’t you understand? I was scared as well.”

“And you’re scared now? Is that why you’re asking me where I’m sleeping? Do you want me in there? Someone to hold while you’re afraid?”

“Now you’re being a stupid fool
and
a dictator,” she told him.

“Oh, yeah?”

She kept staring at him.

“Do I always have to ask you?” she said quietly. “Would you consider … coming in? Never mind. Don’t answer.”

Sometime in the night, Serena heard a phone ringing. She struggled halfway up.

Liam, at her side, turned. “It’s the cell. It’s on the nightstand, next to you.”

“Here,” she murmured.

“Just answer it. Say hello.”

She did.

Silence greeted her. Then a soft click.

Serena looked at Liam. “Someone knows where I am,” she told Liam.

He took the phone from her, smoothed back her tousled hair. “Yeah, they know you’re safe. With me.” He pushed a button, showing the Caller I.D. Sharon’s number appeared. “It was just a friend,” he told Serena softly. He set the phone by his own side of the bed and put an arm around Serena, pulling her close.

“You are safe,” he told her.

“With my richly paid bodyguard.”

He ran his fingers through her hair, staring into the night. He had his .38 within arm’s reach.

“Get some sleep,” he told her.

Amesbury, taping people’s secret fantasies and dirty
l
ittle secrets. Things that happened on the set, and Amesbury was never on the set …

There was more than one person involved.

All he had to do was make
one
of them crack.

M
ORNING CAME, ANOTHER DAY.

He came in, closing the door, startling the killer. “You idiot!” he said.

“Idiot?” The killer was dumbfounded “But you said that you needed
—”

“Idiot! You don’t think when you do things. My God, if this can be traced—”

“I knew what I was doing. It was safe, trust me. You said you needed an opportunity—”

“Bullshit! You’re scary, you’re dangerous!”

He wanted to kill the killer. His own creation.

His fingers were twitching. He looked around the room, as if he were looking for … something. A weapon?

Then his name was called.

He wagged a finger. “We’ll talk later!”

Talk …

The killer was afraid.

Serena’s sound sleep was interrupted when Liam bolted straight up beside her. She tensed, instantly alarmed by the suddenness of his movement.

He stared at her. “The alarm on your house didn’t go off.”

“Pardon?”

“Your alarm didn’t go off. Did you turn it on when you came home?”

The way he was staring at her, she was certain that he doubted she had.

“Yes, I turned the alarm on.”

“You’re certain—”

“You can ask Bill.”

He sighed. “Serena, how could Bill know that you turned the alarm on? He had to have been on the outside.”

“He told me to lock up and turn the alarm on. The same way that you do. He stepped out, and I did just that.”

“Then why didn’t it go off?”

“A malfunction?”

“We’ll have to call the alarm company,” he said. He swore. “I knew I should have had you change that lock when you told me your sister had lost the key.”

“She was out in the wild when she lost the key!”

“If there was no malfunction in the alarm, and there was someone in your house, they must have entered with a key.”

“Great. I’ll change the locks,” she said. “Will the police have finished with the house by now?”

“Yes.”

She had the feeling that he didn’t think the police had found anything and that even having them look for fingerprints and a possible entry had been an exercise in futility.

She was too tired to argue. She managed to squint at her watch. It wasn’t yet six. She put her head back down on the pillow.