Falling Star (7 page)

Seeing her agent this way reminded Natalie of
meeting Geoff Marner years before. Her initial reaction to the
brash Australian three years her junior had not been good. He'd
seemed like a New Yorker in Aussie camouflage: loud-voiced, prone
to big movements, somehow managing to take up a great deal of
space. He was very tall—she guessed about 6 foot 4—and lean, with
light brown hair and bright hazel eyes.

But over time she'd come to trust him
completely. Whoever her news director of the moment, Geoff's
ability to manage him was spot on. He was, she realized, the only
person besides Ruth she could always count on.

"So what was the victory?" she asked.

He loped over to his desk. "Sorry." He began
unknotting his tie. "I'm too sweaty to keep wearing this shirt."
Geoff stripped it off and tossed it in a desk drawer, talking all
the while. "Finally settled with one of the studios. Got my client
the share of the gross they'd promised, then reneged on when his
movie was a hit. Twenty mil."

Which no doubt more than justified the
enormous retainer the client was paying Dewey, Climer. Natalie
conducted a careful study of Geoff as he stood half naked at his
desk, rummaging in another drawer for a laundered shirt.
He's a
real stud
, she decided, at that moment more admiring of his
well-muscled, lightly haired chest than of his legal prowess.
The man actually has pecs
. Unlike Miles, for example, who'd
gone more than a little soft. Of course, Miles was almost twenty
years older.

Which realization reminded her just how
thoroughly she'd explored her husband's body the prior night.
Briefly she shut her eyes. What an idiot she'd been to sleep with
him. In the hours since his disappearance, she hadn't heard a peep
out of him.

"So what's up?" Geoff asked suddenly. She
felt his eyes on her, keen, appraising. "Were you awake half the
night worrying about that little 8 point 3 mishap?"

Natalie grimaced.
You're partly right. I
was up half the night
.

Geoff, returned to proper office attire,
relieved her of the bag of sandwiches she'd brought, then steered
her to an upholstered wing chair, seating himself in its mate. He
poked his nose in the bag. "Really, Nats, don't give it another
thought." He handed her a mountain of a sandwich wrapped in waxed
paper. "But clearly something's up. Talk to me."

Natalie surveyed her sandwich, then dropped
it on a side table. She threw up her hands. "Tony told me he's not
planning to pick up the option on my contract." She still couldn't
quite believe it, even as she said it aloud.

Geoff frowned and let his own sandwich drop
onto his lap. "What did he say exactly?"

"Exactly that. That the ratings aren't what
they should be. He cited the May sweep." She couldn't bring herself
to tell Geoff the rest of what Tony had said, which on some primal
level she'd found even more disturbing.
Did it ever occur to you
that maybe your judgment isn't what it used to be? Maybe you've
gotten a little soft from all those years behind the anchor
desk.
After all, agents made judgment calls on clients, too.
What if Geoff agreed she was too old to be marketable and wanted to
dump her as well?

"Remind me when your contract's up?"

"October fourth."

Geoff was silent for a time, squinting into
the middle distance. "Well," he said eventually, "it's not what I
like to hear, but my bet is he's only trying to scare us. He used
the same tactic in Dallas with the main male anchor, who's still
there, mind you."

Natalie felt a surge of reassurance.
"Really?" Then, as quickly, her optimism faded. "But did the guy
have to take a cut?"

Geoff nodded. "He's down by a third."

Great. "So this comes down to money?"

"At least in part. I'm fairly sure Scoppio
has an incentive deal. If he gets the ratings up and the budget
down within some set period, he gets a bonus. He had a similar deal
in Dallas."

"And he did get the Dallas station to number
one."

"He's gotten every news department he's ever
headed to number one."

Natalie knew that. Tony's reputation was
legendary, or notorious, depending on point of view. "And he's done
it the same way everywhere. By doing outrageous news. And cutting
heads."

"Only the most expensive heads." Geoff
smiled. "like yours." He bit into his pickle. "The bottom line is
Tony's new to KXLA and wants to make his mark. And the easiest way
to do that is to change who's on the air."

"Standard procedure."

"Two can play at that game. It's clear what
we have to do." Geoff leaned back in his chair and crossed his
ankle over his knee. "Show Scoppio how highly you're regarded in
this town."

"By getting me another offer?"

"He won't want you going across the street
and taking viewers with you."

Natalie pondered anchoring at another
station. After fourteen years at KXLA, she regarded every other
shop in town as the competition. She couldn't imagine working at
any of them.

"Even if you want to stay at KXLA," Geoff
continued, "another offer puts you in a stronger bargaining
position."

"And what if I don't get any other
offers?"

"Unlikely. But then of course it would be
tougher."

Geoff bent forward and went seriously to work
on his mound of sourdough bread, salami, and swiss cheese, while
Natalie mulled over an idea that had taken root in her brain since
her meeting with Tony. "I've been thinking I'd like to do more
anchoring from the field," she told Geoff. "You know, next Monday I
could anchor the show from the collapsed part of the 210. 'Where
are we one week later' kind of thing. It's always good for the
numbers."

"Terrific." He grabbed a paper napkin and
wiped his mouth. "But, Nats, don't let yourself get caught up in
every tenth of a ratings point."

She threw back her head and stared at the
ceiling. "It's hard not to."

"Granted." He eyed her keenly. "So are you
really all right?"

"I'm fine." Which was a lie but she'd never
discussed her personal life with Geoff and she wasn't going to
start when it was at such a humiliating ebb. It was all part of
maintaining the facade of competence and success, in front of
agents as well as news directors.

And viewers. And almost everyone else she
could think of.

He nodded, then crumpled his sandwich
wrapping and tossed it basketball style into a trash bin across his
office. "There is something else," he said, and the unexpected
somberness of his tone arrested her attention. "I wasn't going to
mention it, but now I want to give you a heads-up." He paused and
met her eyes. "I spoke with Berta this morning. Just after she hung
up from Miles's attorney."

Natalie stared at Geoff, the air around her
seeming to still. Berta Powers, her personal attorney, also from
Dewey, Climer, would handle the divorce. If there was one. "Miles's
attorney called Berta this morning?"

Just hours after Miles left our bed?

Geoff stared down at his hands. "Natalie,
Miles is going to file."

"What?"

"He's going to file." He paused. "For
divorce."

Odd, miscellaneous things snapped into focus.
Dust motes in the air. A slice of tomato poking out of her
untouched sandwich. Geoff leaning closer to look into her face.

Miles was filing for divorce. She was
getting divorced
. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She struggled to gather her wits.
"It's just ... I know I should have expected this, but—"

Miles was still warm from our bed when he
gave his attorney the nod. Let's move. Full speed ahead. I'm ready
to dump her now.

"There's more." Geoff paused. "He's going for
half the community property."

"
What
?"

Geoff just shook his head, his mouth set in a
grim line.

She was stupefied. "What about the
prenup?"

Geoff frowned. "This is the first I've heard
of a prenup."

"Well, there is one." Of course there was a
prenuptial agreement. Natalie's attorney at the time had
insisted.

"There's no copy in Berta's file," Geoff
said.

"I have one in my safe-deposit box."

"Good. Then get a copy to Berta and she'll
take it from there."

"I can't believe Miles is claiming there's no
prenup." The gall of him. Concocting bald-faced lies. How did he
think that would ever stand up? All she had to do was get the
document out of the bank.

Then another thought leaped to mind. A
terrifying notion she couldn't believe was true. Yet ... Miles was
claiming there was no prenup? She sprang up, knocking her sandwich
to the Persian carpet, bread and sprouts and tomatoes collecting in
a soggy pile. "I've got to go." She grabbed her purse and strode
out of Geoff s office, then began running when she hit the hall.
She glanced back once to see Geoff in his doorway staring after
her, concern and bewilderment on his face.

It didn't take her long to get to the bank,
or to fill out the paperwork to get inside her safe-deposit box.
The clerk buzzed Natalie into the sanctum sanctorum where the boxes
were located, a maze of narrow alleys that seemed to double back on
themselves.

"Here we are," the clerk said cheerfully. She
selected a key from a massive ring and poked it into one box's
master keyhole. Natalie entered its mate, and the door swung
open.

Inside the box was a jumble of documents,
licenses, bonds, records: all the paperwork paraphernalia that
defined a modern life. Natalie didn't find the prenup on her first
hasty pass, so carried the box to an empty room and dumped its
contents on the table.

Ten minutes passed.

It's not here
.

By this time she was flat-out scared. She
forced herself to do another, more methodical search, then returned
the box to its metallic slot and went looking for the clerk.

"All done, Miss Daniels?"

"Actually, no. I can't find what I'm looking
for." Natalie kept her voice steady. "Will you check my file? I'm
trying to remember whether my husband has access to—"

"Oh, yes, he does." The clerk nodded
cheerily. "In fact, it's so funny you're here now because he was
here this morning. Of course I remember because he's sort of"—she
giggled—"Mr. Natalie Daniels."

Natalie felt as though the wind had been
knocked out of her. "He was here this morning?"

"Oh, yes. He was very charming."

"He had a key to the box?"

"Yes. On his key ring. He … Miss
Daniels?"

Natalie was out the door and on the street.
The enormity of Miles's perfidy struck her like a physical
blow.

That's why he came to the house last
night. Not to talk. Not to see me. But to get the key to the
safe-deposit box, the one he knows I keep in the study. So he could
steal the prenup
.

She threw herself in the Mercedes and tore
off in the direction of Wilshire Boulevard.

He used me. He used me to get inside the
house. It didn't mean a damn thing to him that we made love. He
just wanted me to fall asleep so he could get the key, and figured,
"Hell, may as well get laid while I'm here."

She drove like a woman possessed, dodging and
weaving through the midday traffic, fuming at all the people going
shopping and to school and back to their offices after lunch,
living normal lives.

I won't let him get away with it . . .

At Barrington she turned right and sped
north, racing like a bullet through a just-red light at San Vicente
Boulevard. A woman wheeling a stroller did a fast backward step to
the curb, and Natalie had a fleeting image of the woman's face
contorted in shock and anger. Left on Sunset, faster still, making
very good time as she headed toward the coast, careening right
around the corner at Pacific Coast Highway, tires screeching on
asphalt Other drivers honked their horns and screamed at her out
their windows.

I don't give a flyer!
Natalie silently
screamed back.
I can't let him lie and cheat. And now steal
…

Pacific Coast Highway was a blur, the ocean
side lined with deceptively simple multimillion-dollar houses that
ran together in hazy pastel as she whirred past. From the road she
was actually seeing the backs of the properties; their grander
facades fronted the beach, one of the most exclusive stretches of
sand in the world.

How in the world did Miles get the money to
buy here?

Then she remembered. Of course. No doubt
after selling the pilot for
Forget Maui
, he leveraged
himself up the wazoo to get his hands on a Malibu beach house. That
was just like Miles. He believed in living large. He believed he
deserved it.

And he thinks he deserves even more of mine.
Even after I supported him for twelve years while he wrote the damn
thing!

She located the beige clapboard house and
made an angry left onto its gravelly driveway, parking behind a
brand-spanking-new red Porsche. So the bastard was home.

She jabbed at the doorbell till her finger
stung. Nothing. "Miles!" She kicked at the door, leaving scuff
marks on the fresh navy blue paint. "I know you're in there, you
lousy scum! Open up!"

Still nothing. He was skulking around inside,
no doubt, pretending not to hear her. So what else was new?

She stood, panting. Then she went back to the
driveway and surveyed the house. Beige clapboard, one story, lots
of windows. She snorted. Typical three-million-dollar Malibu beach
house.

Still being remodeled, she could tell from
the debris abandoned on the beachfront deck. Apparently the work
crew hadn't finished the fireplace yet. They'd left a mound of gray
stones, cut into rectangular chunks.

She walked over and picked one up. It felt
good in her hand. Heavy. Slowly she returned to the driveway and
studied the house.