The Fiance Thief (21 page)

She was finally going to get to Miranda Craig’s house. She’d get an intimate peek at the life-style of Ridgeville’s most celebrated citizen. She’d toss out amusing bons mots to those who would appreciate her for the witty and sophisticated woman she was. And Scott would get to see Claire. Suddenly that didn’t sound so appealing.

“So I guess you’re really eager to get there, huh?” Lissa said.

“To see Claire? Oh, yeah. That’ll be great.” The words came out in a total monotone, and Scott rested his chin on his hand and stared at the boat floor. Then he seemed to brighten a little, and he looked up at her. “Say, you don’t think that Claire and this guy she went with…”

Lissa sighed. “Not a chance.”

After a couple of minutes, Andy pulled up to boat dock in back of rambling, comfortable home. He dumped the fish into an outside cooler, then ushered them into the house, hollering as he walked in, “Company, Mary Sue.”

Mary Sue was a trim, twinkly version of Andy himself. They introduced themselves, but Lissa found it hard to keep her mind on the introductions with the comforting, peppery aroma of fried chicken wafting through the air. Having eaten only cheese and grapes all day, Lissa forgot all about her recent conversion to vegetarianism as her stomach gave an audible growl. Scott’s stomach echoed the cry.

“You kids are starving,” Mary Sue said. “Stay for dinner.”

“I told them I’d give them a run out to the Craigs’ house,” Andy told his wife. “They’re going to a party there.”

Mary Sue put her hands on her hips. “Not without eating something first they aren’t.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Milton. We couldn’t possibly,” Lissa said. She tried to make herself sound convincing. Had they gone all this way and struggled so hard just to give it all up for a home-cooked meal? Besides, she reminded herself, she owed it to Claire to see whether there was anything left between her and her old boyfriend. She hadn’t dragged him down from New York City just so she herself could have her way with him.

“Come look at what all I’ve cooked,” Mary Sue said, motioning them to follow her into the large kitchen. There on the countertop was fried chicken, plus a serving bowl full of creamy mashed potatoes and a platter of flaky oversize biscuits. A pecan pie sat next to the biscuits. Lissa felt Scott tremble a little beside her.

“You’ve got to stay and help us eat some of this food. I always forget I’m cooking for just the two of us, and most of it will wind up going to the cats.” She got some plates down from the cabinet. “We wouldn’t be eating so late, except that Andy’s been out on the boat all day. I know dinner’s over for the Craigs. You won’t be getting a thing to eat.”

“Nothing to eat,” Scott echoed.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll dig up some hors d’oeuvres,” Lissa said, taking Scott by the elbow and digging her nails into him slightly.

Mary Sue sighed and looked away from them, looking as disappointed as Lissa’s kindergarten teacher had once been when she refused to join the clean plate club. She folded her arms across her chest. “Andy, I won’t let you drive them down the road until they’ve had a decent meal.”

“Oh, no, we can’t,” Lissa said.

“Why don’t you put a little something away first, then head down there?” the woman asked.

“Yeah,” Scott said. “Why don’t we put a little something away first, then head down there?”

Lissa narrowed her eyes at him while keeping an apparent smile on her face for the benefit of the Miltons. “Maybe you’re right,” she said sweetly. “It’s very kind of you to think about us. Is there a place where we could freshen up for dinner?”

She and Scott were directed toward the bathroom at the end of the hall, and they shambled off toward it.

“After you,” Scott said.

Lissa motioned for him to be quiet, and pulled open a couple of doors near the bathroom till she found one that opened onto a flight of stairs. She motioned for him to follow her as she crept down the stairs and out of the basement through a side door.

“We’ll walk there. Miranda’s house is just three-quarters of a mile down the road that way,” she said, pointing to her right.

Scott frowned. “No, it’s three-quarters of a mile down the road that way,” he said, pointing left. “Listen, since we’re not sure, let’s go in there and eat some fried chicken and wait on Mr. Milton.”

Lissa shook her head furiously. “Did you see how slowly everything moves in there? We’d still be on dessert and coffee when everyone was packing up and going back to California.” Poor thing—he did look hungry, and she patted him on the shoulder for encouragement. “I’m sure they’ll be heavy hors d’oeuvres.” She started up the driveway, Scott behind her, and he followed her without comment as they turned right up the road.

Forty minutes later, they had seen nothing resembling Miranda Craig’s home. They looked at each other, then turned and walked left, trudging onward past the Miltons’ inviting home. Evening turned to night as they kept up a pace that would have been the envy of any power walker in the mall, but the road only seemed to get longer and more uninhabited the farther they walked.

“Do you see any signs of life?” Scott asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do. A wall.” As they walked toward the entrance, a collection of voices carried to them. Lissa thought them disturbingly familiar voices. She ducked down, and motioned for Scott to follow. Lissa crept along the wall until she came to a place where she could see. She looked, then looked again. It seemed to be Mick and Hank, with two strange women, all of them
standing outside of Hank’s car and arguing with a man in a security guard’s uniform.

“I’m telling you, there’s an emergency on the paper he’s got to know about,” she heard Hank yell.

“Who are those guys?” Scott whispered.

“Not my fan club, that’s for sure,” Lissa said back. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to let them in.”

She crept a little closer to get a better angle on the situation. Everyone was out of the car, Mick and Hank and a cute girl in a short skirt gesturing wildly, an older woman hanging back with a smile on her face. The security guard was standing in front of them, shaking his head no. The gate behind him was shut tight.

She gestured to Scott, and he crouched down beside her. “Here’s what we can do,” she whispered. “We can go plead our case with Dudley Doright. Or we can go over the wall.”

He looked up at the wall, then at the tree next to it.

“I’ll lift you over, then I’ll climb up this tree and hop over that way. Are you ready?” he asked her.

“Ready,” she said, putting her foot in his hand. “Do you know what, Scott?” she whispered before he lifted her up. “As much as I never really wanted to be one, this makes me feel like a real reporter.”

“G
OT IT
,” the hairdresser said, snagging the last tangle out of Claire’s hair.

“Ouch,” she said, and thought she saw Miranda smirk a little beside her.

“Thick hair tangles up for no reason,” the hairdresser said sympathetically. “If you don’t want tangles, you should have hair like Miranda’s. It’s so thin that it’s barely there.”

“Could we get these people off the set please?” Miranda yelled, swatting away the makeup artist who’d bent down to give her one more look.

“Touchy,” the hairdresser muttered as she walked away.

They were seated in the summer den, finally ready to do the joint interview Miranda had promised Christine. Although Miranda had greeted Alec warmly at dinner, she’d been edgy and short with Claire. Fortunately, they hadn’t had to sit at her table, although that didn’t ease the tension between Alec and Claire. He said Miranda’s foul mood was because she was finally facing her envy of Claire. Claire thought it was because she sensed that the new, assertive Claire wasn’t going to let her get away with trying to steal another fiancé, even a fake one.

Christine signaled for silence, and those gathered to watch the taping quickly quieted. Chris was there, looking eager and impatient. Larry and Roger were standing along one wall, Alec near them.

Christine began. “Most little girls have best friends, but for many of them that lineup changes from time to time. You two were always inseparable. Miranda, can you tell us what made you want to be Claire’s friend?”

“She was smart,” Miranda said, with a glance toward Claire that Claire read as, See, aren’t I being nice to you? Miranda continued, “She was pretty. And she always listened to me.”

“Did everything you told me to do,” Claire filled in.

“That’s right,” Miranda said, then realized what she’d agreed to. “Oh, you know, I might have been sort of bossy, the way little girls are.”

Claire nodded her agreement. Christine’s eyebrows knitted together in a frown, and she looked at her notes.

“Tell me, was there ever any competition between the two of you?”

“Not really,” Claire said, figuring she could play straight person for at least one or two questions. “I was into books, and she was into sports, so we were never competitive that way.”

“And then, I’m not competitive anyway. I’m one of those people who does best in harmonious, cooperative situations,” Miranda added.

That didn’t even come from Miranda’s head, Claire thought. “I’m afraid she’s playing down some essential parts of her personality,” she said. “Miranda is one of the most competitive people I know.”

“How so?” Christine asked.

How could she resist an opening like this? “Once when we were playing Monopoly, she hit me over the head when I got Park Place. She got to be Donald Trump that day, that’s for sure.” She turned to watch Miranda’s expression. “And then there was a play, in college, and Miranda really wanted the role. She wanted it so badly that she…” Her former friend’s face turned ashen, and she gaped for air like a fish. Claire felt a tinge of triumph before she looked across at Alec. He turned away, plainly disgusted by what she was about to do. Didn’t he understand that this was her only means of getting back at Miranda? Back at her for what? She could practically hear his voice in her head. For flirting with him because she felt insecure? For constantly trying to prove that she was better than Claire? That wasn’t something to get back at someone for; that was something that should inspire pity and compassion.

“She wanted it so badly that?” Christine prompted.

“Oh,” Claire said, coming out of her reverie. She looked into Miranda’s eyes and said, “That she was devastated when she actually played the role, and I wound up getting a better review for the part she’d abandoned.”

“I see.” Christine went on to another question, and Miranda’s eyes offered up silent gratitude to Claire. She looked at Alec, who smiled back.

“So were you two ever competitive over stage roles?” Christine asked.

“No,” Claire said. “I didn’t act in college, except for that once. And before that, I never tried to compete with
her for the roles she wanted. It just wasn’t that important to me.” As she said it, she realized she was saying it not because she was trying to be self-serving, but because she now knew that had been a
key
issue of her friendship with Miranda. She hadn’t wanted to undermine Miranda’s confidence on things that were important to her. She had cared about Miranda’s feelings enough to watch what she said and did around her. If Miranda had never learned those particular lessons of friendship, she had still been an important part of Claire’s life.

She mulled all this over, continuing to lob back easy answers to Christine’s questions, joining in with Miranda where it seemed appropriate. Miranda made a sign with her hands and said, “Can we take a break?”

“Cut,” someone yelled as Miranda got up and stretched. “I’m going to get a cola.” She turned to Claire. “Do you want one?”

“I’d like that, thanks,” Claire said, knowing how difficult it was for the other woman to put herself out after getting used to having her own whims catered to every second of the day. It was just a soda, but it was a start.

As she walked out of the room, almost everyone there, with the exception of Alec, offered to retrieve the soda for her, but she waved them away. “I need a walk,” she said.

Claire stayed where she was, eyeing Alec on his side of the room. When Christine stepped away from the camera, Alec came over and sat beside her, taking her hand in his.

“You’re holding my hand?” she asked. “Come on, for what I did, I deserve better than that.”

“How about this?” He kissed her then, and all the sounds and distractions in the room faded. She broke off the kiss to look at him, brushing a curly lock away from his forehead.

“I didn’t just do it because you wanted me to,” she said.

“Believe me, I know,” Alec told her. “I don’t expect that at any time during our lives together you’re going to do something just because I want you to.”

“During our lives together?” Claire asked. “Don’t you mean during our phony engagement?”

He tapped the sapphire ring. “About that phony engagement. Let’s make it real.”

“How? By blowing on the stone and saying Abracadabra?”

“No. By swearing to love each other for the rest of our lives,” he said, holding her close.

“Alec, I swear.”

It was a wonderful moment, one she would have liked to have savored, but it was interrupted by Miranda’s indignant voice saying, “Will you look at what I found in the hallway?” and by a flat, emotionless voice, saying “Claire.”

She looked up to see Miranda in front of her, cola apparently forgotten, throwing her hands around and looking like she was on the verge of a hysterical fit. There, beside Miranda, as though he’d materialized in the many times she’d seen him that way in her dreams, stood Scott Granville. There was no leap of emotions on seeing him, no pains in her heart. Face-to-face with him again, she couldn’t imagine why she’d spent so many years making herself miserable because of him.

It appeared that Miranda wasn’t going to take charge of the situation, and Claire didn’t want to. Instead, she said, “Hello, Scott. I’d like you to meet my fiance, Alec Mason.”

Alec stood and shook hands as though meeting her and Miranda’s mutual ex-love in Miranda’s house was the most natural thing in the world. “What brings you out this way, Scott?”