The Fiance Thief (12 page)

Even though she had him pegged as the type who kept his doors locked everywhere he went, she was pleasantly surprised to discover that the car was open. Bad manners, she suspected, to lock up your possessions at a house full of rich people and guarded by a security man. While she was trying to decide between the typewriter and one of her suitcases, she heard a car pull up and saw it park two spots away from Alec’s. She had finally decided to try carrying both, and was lifting the typewriter out of the trunk when she heard a voice shout, “Wait. Let me give you a hand.”

The voice sounded familiar. She turned, nearly losing the typewriter in the process, and feasted her eyes on Josh, the redeeming spot in an otherwise terrible movie about teenagers and the teachers who try to civilize them. “You’re Josh,” she said. “From
Looking In On the Outside.”

He swung the satchel he carried onto his back, then took the typewriter from her hands. He said, “I can’t believe you saw that movie. It grossed around fifty dollars.”

She leaned against the open trunk. “I review movies for a living, so unfortunately I can’t claim to have been a paying customer.”

“Fortunately,” he told her.

“You don’t have to feel embarrassed about your performance. You really stood out in that movie.” She started to close the trunk but he stopped her.

“Do you want some help carrying in the rest of this stuff?” he asked, peering in at the other suitcases.

“Oh, no, that’s okay, really. Alec will get it.”

“Who’s Alec?”

“He’s my ed…um, my fiancé.”

He grinned at her. “Are you sure?”

“Fairly sure,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember your real name.”

“Roger Walker. And you’re?”

“Claire Morgan.”

“Oh, Miranda’s friend.”

Claire wondered if Christine and company had made some sort of announcement to that effect. Step right up and see Miranda’s chump of a friend. She pointed in the direction of the pool, still clogged up with poor relations. “A lot of people are there, if you want to socialize. I don’t see Miranda anywhere.”

“Oh, I do,” he said. He pointed beyond the pool, down to the rolling pasture and the man-made pond. Claire squinted mightily, but without her glasses, she couldn’t see anything more than a group of random little blurs, walking around as if in one mass.

“Where’s your fiancé?” he asked.

“I don’t know. He went to find Miranda, to talk to her about doing an interview for the paper we work for. But if he isn’t out there with her, I don’t know where he is.”

Roger looked toward the field again. “There’s a guy with brown hair and a white shirt trailing around after the group, bouncing from here and there to try to get closer to Miranda.”

“That’s him,” Claire said.

Roger smiled at her. She saw that although playing a teenager had been a bit of a stretch for him, he was still a good couple of years younger than she was. “Are you going to the pool?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. I think I’m just going to go rest until dinner,” she said.

She walked around to the front door, with Roger following her. “I guess I should check in with Mrs. Craig and find out where I’m staying,” he said.

“Do you know the Craigs?” she asked.

“I met them once a few months ago,” he said. “Miranda had them flown to Hollywood to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and I tagged along.”

It clicked in Claire’s mind then. This was the actor Miranda had been seeing, the one who was going to try to fly down to join them. She didn’t mean to be so blunt, but she blurted it out anyway. “So you’re Miranda’s boyfriend, then?”

He blushed, his neck turning red first, then his cheeks. “I wouldn’t say that. The papers write it that way sometimes, but then the next week they’ll print a picture of her partying the night away with a real actor.”

He seemed so sweet. What a shame he had to have fallen into Miranda’s clutches. But at least his being here would keep her away from Alec, that little voice chimed.

She tried to make him feel better. “You’re a real actor. You’re going to be in some great movies someday.”

Roger blushed again. “Well, thanks.”

“No, really,” Claire continued. “Someday Miranda will be the one the press barely notices, and you’ll be the one photographed with all of the hottest young starlets.” Realizing after the fact that he might be offended at any criticism of Miranda, she backtracked. “I mean, not that your success has to come from Miranda’s failure. There’s room at the top for both of you, I’m sure.”

“I understand,” he said, smiling. His brown eyes crinkled at the edges, and a sudden breeze whipped his longish blond hair.

“I’d better get back to my room,” she said, “And let you find yours.” She opened the door and walked back downstairs, Roger following her with the typewriter. At her room, she peeked in to see if Alec was there. Of course not. She wondered if he’d had any luck catching up to the elusive and flighty Miranda, and hoped, perversely, that he hadn’t.

Claire set her suitcase down by the door and took the typewriter from Roger. “Listen, it was very nice meeting you.”

“It was nice meeting you, too, Claire. It’s been a long time since I’ve run into anybody who thought I was an okay actor. That made me feel good.” He smiled in such a deliberately charming way that she knew that smile must be his trademark, his ticket to becoming a future heartthrob. “I hope I see you later.”

“I hope so, too,” she said.

“And your fiance,” he said.

“Oh, of course,” Claire said. “I can’t wait for you to meet Alec.” They said goodbye, and she heard him lope up the stairs. After she closed the door, Claire laid her suitcase on the bed and took out the demure floral dress she’d planned to wear to dinner. Shaking it out in front of her, her eye was caught by the dress that was packed beneath it in the suitcase. This was the red number Allie had convinced her to buy and forced her to pack, the dress Claire had sworn would go straight to some charity group before it ever appeared on her body. It was the last one on the rack, a perfect fit, and on sale—all factors that made Allie claim Claire was fated to own this dress. She’d argued and protested, but now she was coming around. Not only was she meant to own this dress, she decided, she was meant to wear it tonight.

She was reapplying her makeup in the bathroom when Alec stormed back into the room. He stuck his head into the bathroom, saw the T-shirt and jeans she had changed into and said, “Are you wearing that?”

“I am now, but I won’t be for dinner, if that’s what you’re asking. How was your afternoon?”

He reached over her head to grab a towel, wiping his face with it before speaking again. Claire had never seen the calm and cool Alec break a sweat before, but on him it looked good. His cheeks were flushed, and the color in his face highlighted the crystal blue of his eyes.

“First of all,” he said, “I had to pursue Ms. Miranda all the way out to a cow pasture, ducking and weaving the
cows’ calling cards all the while. Then I still couldn’t get anywhere near her to ask her a question. I got to talk to her publicist, who so graciously agreed to add our paper to the list of a thousand or so that get press releases about Miranda’s movies. Then I got to talk to her personal trainer, who wanted to find out all the details of my workout routine. Then I came up against the psychic, who said that my heart was in a battle with my mind, and it would not be resolved until I let my heart win.”

“People pay a lot of money to learn that stuff,” Claire said. “The day wasn’t wasted, after all.”

He leaned close to her as she tried to put her mascara on with a hand that was just beginning to ever so slightly shake. “I don’t care about my heart,” Alec whispered to her. “I care about getting Miranda to say something I can take back to my paper.”

Claire recapped the mascara. Alec was standing in front of the vanity drawer, and she reached past him to try to retrieve her brush. “Do you mind?” she said. “I’ve got to finish getting ready.”

“You’d better hurry up in here,” he said. “I’ve got to shower and dress. You didn’t happen to bring the suitcases in, did you?”

“No, just one of mine and my typewriter,” she said, as he left the bathroom. “A very nice young man helped me out.” She heard the door shut. “And he was very cute, too,” she added, but he was gone.

E
DDIE, OF EDDIE’S GARAGE
and Parts Shop, was in the middle of his umpteenth explanation of how exactly Lissa’s car had been totaled on the airport highway while being towed by him, Eddie, who had never had so much as a fender bender in all of his life.

“See, that merging lane right there where the Waffle House is, that’s new. And some old fellow didn’t realize
that you’re supposed to let the merging traffic merge. So there I was…”

“Merging,” Lissa supplied.

“Exactly—when he just sideswiped your car, then knocked it clear off the back of my truck. The old fellow didn’t have a scratch on him, thank goodness. It’s just a miracle it didn’t hit anybody else, either. It went into that ditch, like an eight ball heading for the pocket.”

Scott, who had been faking sleep in the chair next to Lissa, sat up and winked at her. “Maybe you had to be there.”

Ignoring him, Lissa said, “The important thing to me, Mr. Eddie, is that I have something to drive. When will my car be ready?”

“Oh, not till tomorrow or the next day at least.”

Lissa tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “My friend and I have to get somewhere.”

Eddie shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, Miss. I’m as sorry as I can be about your car.”

Lissa turned to Scott. “What do you think?”

“We could call a cab.”

“Scott, do you have any idea how far we are from Loudon? A new pair of shoes or a social-occasion dress is one thing, but I can’t put a hundred-dollar taxi ride on the paper’s expense account.” She looked at her watch. She knew Hank wouldn’t have gone back home before the cook-off. “I’ll get us a ride.” She asked Eddie for his phone.

Hank answered on the first ring. “Hank,” Lissa said.

“Lissa, is that you? Thank heavens. You’ve got to come immediately. All the copy’s been lost, and Mick and I are trying to recreate it. Be here as soon as you can.”

“I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number.” She hung up and looked around the dingy garage. Outside she could see rows of cars, as though the lot were some giant auto graveyard, and Eddie, the undertaker.

“Do any of those cars run?” she asked Eddie.

He looked insulted. “Of course some of em run. Why just the other day, I took out that spiffy little 71 Maverick. Purred like a kitten when its exhaust pipe wasn’t smoking.”

Lissa turned her charm up as much as she could, considering the material she had to work with. “Mr. Eddie,” she said, letting her voice rise to a feminine Southern inflection at the end. “I’m sure you aren’t in the habit of lending out your valuable vehicles. But my friend and I really have to get somewhere as quickly as possible. Do you think you could maybe lend us a car?” He looked dubious, and she added quickly, “It doesn’t have to be the Maverick.”

“Well, I don’t know. Where do you have to get that’s so all-fired important?”

Figuring she owed him at least some explanation, Lissa quickly invented one. “My friend here has been engaged to my sister since they were kids, practically. He’s a very important scientist, and he’s been on a research trip to the rain forest. He was in the jungle when he got her Dear John letter. She’s at my parents’ in Loudon, and we’ve just got to get to her.”

If she wasn’t mistaken, there were tears in Eddie’s eyes. Even Scott looked moved. Eddie reached into a drawer and took out a set of keys. “Go ahead,” he said. “Take the Maverick. And keep it as long as it takes for her to say yes. Your car ain’t going anywhere.”

Wasn’t that the truth, Lissa thought, as she blew Eddie a kiss and grabbed her suitcase from the trunk of her demolished car.

7

S
HE WAS STILL
in there. Why did every woman in the world, even one as unique as Claire, spend half her life in the bathroom? That would be an interesting topic for an expose. He’d buy a copy of any paper willing to tackle that one.

He chose a crisp white cotton shirt and another pair of khakis—one that hadn’t made the trek through the pasture. He picked out a funky-looking Art Deco tie—one his sister had bought him for Christmas. The directive was casual, but Alec didn’t feel right about working without a tie. And this was work—make no mistake about it.

His clothes chosen, he sat down on the bed. Something had been bugging him about the story Claire had told him. He’d stuck to his promise not to mention it—after all, wouldn’t that have been the way to get into Miranda’s good graces? But he couldn’t let it go.

He rummaged through his suitcase for his address book, then knocked on the bathroom door. “When are you getting out of there?”

“When I’m good and ready,” she yelled back through the closed door.

He had time to make his phone call, then. He found the number for Maureen Daniels, Trent’s mother, punched in his calling card number and waited for her to answer. She was the same sweet woman he remembered, crazy about her son. That was why, even though Trent Daniels’s star
had faded in Hollywood, Alec always made sure the paper mentioned his latest straight-to-video release.

They chatted for a few minutes, then Alec said, “Maureen, this is awkward for me to bring up, since I know you don’t gossip. But it seems like Trent told me something once about Miranda Craig trying to get his attention by doing something to an actress in a play.”

“It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” she asked him. “Such a sweet-looking girl. But she joked about it once to him, that she was responsible for that girl missing the play. He thought it was just fun, until he found out the girl really had gotten trapped in the mountains overnight. He asked the girl about it, but she shut up.”

“Is that so?” Alec asked.

“And—” the woman lowered her voice, “—she made a pass at him, if you know what I mean. He was good enough to turn down, trying to protect her reputation.”