“I think, maybe, we need some distance for a while to sort things out,” Parker said. “I’ve always thought of myself as a man who could take care of the people he loved. But with you … I guess you don’t want that protection, and … I’m not cut out for the passive role.”
She pulled back to look at him. “You’re not passive—”
“Dixie, I don’t expect an ordinary relationship for us. It didn’t start that way, and there’s not an ordinary bone in your body. But I can’t continue with you. Not until I come to grips with the danger you draw constantly into your life.”
“I guess I don’t think of it as danger.”
“No, you never do.” He kissed her forehead, pressed his lips there for several seconds. Then gruffly, “I don’t have to leave tonight. I know you just lost a friend.”
She didn’t want him to leave. But she wouldn’t want him to leave tomorrow, either, or the next day.
“It’s okay. But … when will I see you?”
“I’ll call.”
Dixie sat on the porch with Mud and watched Parker’s taillights disappear beyond the gate. Tears she’d been fighting to suppress spilled over and flooded her cheeks.
Mud licked them away.
Technically, with Joanna’s stalker gone, Dixie was relieved of Sarina duty. But she didn’t relish spending the day alone. She called Belle just after dawn.
“Any reason I shouldn’t pick up the kid, spend today kicking around town as usual?”
“At your rates? Eggert’s on a plane headed for Australia. The job’s finished.”
“But Joanna’s film won’t finish shooting until tonight. And Sarina’s bright enough to get in trouble on her own.” Dixie had already decided to stay on the job, with or without pay. But if Richards, Blackmon & Drake could be pressed into paying the freight, why not let them?
Belle’s pen tapped a steady rhythm as she considered it.
“Okay. I haven’t had a chance yet to tell Joanna about Eggert. But keep Sarina away from Duncan’s studio until Marty Ahrens has a chance to soften Joanna up on the subject of her apprenticeship.”
“Would I do otherwise?” Not with the Illusions festival starting today.
Dixie carried the phone to the bathroom. Her eyes looked like two burn holes in a mattress, and her body felt as if she’d been holding up the house all night. A few good SF films might just take her mind off her miseries. Besides, Rashly had ordered her to stay out of his way while he followed up on the Avenging Angels suspect list.
There was no answer at the Four Seasons Hotel suite. Sarina had probably slipped out early, determined to attend the festival and expecting Dixie to argue. Pointing the Porsche toward Rice University campus, where Illusions was being held, Dixie placed a call to Rashly.
“Any news on the names I gave you? The Foxworths? The Thomases? Regan Salles?”
“If you’d turned over that information earlier, Flannigan, we’d already have checked them out.”
And maybe Brenda wouldn’t be dead.
“I didn’t have any information. I was just poking around.”
“You knew Coombs threatened Benson.”
“Defendants threaten prosecutors, Rash. And Brenda wasn’t sexually violated. Did he have an alibi for last night?”
“He was settled in with a tall whiskey and an X-rated video when we picked him up for questioning.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Yeah. ‘Talk to my lawyer.’”
“Nobody ever said Coombs was stupid, just mean as a cold snake.”
“Doesn’t mean he murdered your friend.”
“No.” But she’d rather suspect Lawrence Coombs than anyone else on her list. That cigarette could’ve been dropped anytime.
“What about the scarf she was strangled with? It had a distinctive pattern.” Red apples on pale green silk. “And Brenda doesn’t wear scarves.” But the scarf
had
seemed familiar.
“Maybe it was the sister’s. Haven’t located her yet.” Dixie
heard the clunk of Rashly’s pipe on an ashtray. “But your friend Benson was in this vigilante business up to her eyebrows, Flannigan.”
“Okay. I can picture Brenda going after Coombs. Even Carrera—
if that’s
what happened with Carrera—but the Ingles murder, no way.”
“The ME said the blows didn’t kill Ingles. Had a weak heart.”
“Not weak enough to keep him from beating Ramirez to death and raping his niece.” Dixie had reached the campus. “Gotta go, Rash.”
She disconnected and scanned a sea of cars. Not a chance of parking close to the Media Center.
Sarina stood at the open door of the Media Center Theater, frowning at the crush of students inside. Codswallop! Not even standing room. She’d expected the early showing of
Night Freaks
to be prime-seat, center-center, enveloped in sounds and effects, alone at last with the best. Uncredible that so many people jumped bed at dawn to see an obscure flick. This festival had drawn more film students than any L.A. seminar she’d attended.
Now what? Most of the booths weren’t set up yet. After the check-in and opening speeches, the movie was
it
, the only game going until the ten o’clock panels started.
“Looks like we’ll have to hike over to Hamman Hall, pretty lady,” drawled a sexy male voice behind her. “Hear they’re setting up to show some outtakes from the
X-Files.”
An old guy, maybe thirty-five, forty, but with eyes like the deep Pacific on a clear day. Actor, probably.
Sarina examined the list of presentations. “
X-Files
is not listed on the schedule until tonight.”
“The folks producing this shindig must’ve scrambled around after realizing what a turnout they had. Usually, Hamman Hall is reserved for live theater and chamber music, but it handles film all right in a pinch. Don’t know about you, but I’m not standing around twiddling my thumbs for two hours.”
He strolled toward the door.
“Wait! I’ll walk with you.” The map showed Hamman Hall as a tiny block all the way across the campus. This guy seemed to know where he was going.
He wasn’t dressed like an actor, at least not an out-of-work actor. More GQ—cashmere pants, blue turtleneck sweater, tweed blazer, and the shiniest black shoes Sarina had ever seen. Producer? Agent? Too important to wear a name tag. Talent scout, maybe. Whatever, introducing him to Alroy Duncan might make her some points.
“You’re Southern,” she guessed. “Does that make you from around here?” South Carolina had its own film culture taking shape. He could be South Carolina gentry, the way he carried himself, slow-talking, easy-walking.
“Born and bred, as they say, right here in Houston.”
“Is there as much filmmaking going on in Texas as we hear about on the coast?”
“At least.”
He took her arm to lead her around the curb. His touch sent a shiver of expectation through her. She’d never been heavy into dating, too busy carving a niche. Boys usually fell into two categories, super-stud melonheads and gifted gay-cats. Neither was date-mate status. An older man might be interesting.
They came to a student cafeteria, and she suggested they grab a muffin. She’d missed breakfast again.
“No time, if we want to catch the opening credits.”
“On
X-Files?
Show me five minutes, any episode, I’ll quote the credits. Verbatim.”
He smiled and veered toward the cafeteria, his hand on her elbow. The tingle stayed when he dropped his hand.
She scooped up a muffin and bottled water.
“Never watched it, myself,” he said.
“Unpossible. You’re missing the
Twilight Zone
of the nineties. Low on effects, but high on story.”
He insisted on paying, even though he hadn’t picked up anything for himself. Guy her age would
not
have paid. Dating an older man could be interesting, all right.
They’d crossed half the campus, according to her map. Not many students wandering around. Classes already in progress.
“What’s your take on crash-and-burn? I’m past that, myself, but pyrotechnics is its own trip. Set the string just right, perfect combo of pop and sizzle. Stand back, flick the Bic, and glory in the fireworks. Can anything be more intense?”
“You, pretty lady, are intense. Ten minutes we’ve been talking, and I’ve felt more heat than from my fireplace on a cold night.”
“Isn’t fire what it’s all about? You start out, you don’t know quite what to do or how to do it, but you
must
perform. And that’s when the sweetest work is done. When the fire goes out, that’s when you start mimicking what’s gone before. That’s when I hope I have guts enough to quit.”
They’d reached a quiet brick building. Sarina didn’t see any students, unless they were all inside taking up the good seats.
He opened the glass door for her. Old guys did things like that. The lobby was empty.
“Where is everyone? Are you sure this is the right building?”
“Absolutely. They’re probably still sorting out the equipment downstairs. Come on.”
He led the way down a stairwell to a door marked
REHEARSAL ROOM A.
Sarina could hear the hum of a furnace but little else.
He opened the rehearsal-room door. When she looked in—nobody there, a sofa, some chairs—his hand clamped the back of her neck like a vise.
A canopy of ancient live oaks shuddered in a brisk, cold wind blowing from the north. A fine February day ahead, the weatherman promised. Yet already a fresh bank of rain clouds the color of mold were rolling in from the north, looking as ill-natured as Dixie felt after the previous night’s tragedy.
Pushing through the Media Center door with her cane, she instantly entered an alien world: colorful, noisy, smelling of urethane and crackling with activity. Every square inch was crawling with life, workshop organizers attending to last-minute details, vendors setting up displays. Dixie was glad not to have the stalker to worry about.
From the look of the crowd, every movie enthusiast within a hundred miles had attended the festival, many of them cloaked in anonymity provided by elaborate costumes. A nine-foot silver-skinned humanoid, hairless head skimming the ceiling, picked his way through the crowd. If Sarina were inside such a garb, Dixie would never find her.
Mesmerized, she bumped into a tentacled green blob with six eyes.
Belle had once talked Dixie into dressing for a Halloween party. At a rental agency, she’d found racks of Scarlett O’Hara, Raggedy Ann, and Wicked Witch of the West trappings, but nothing to compare with what she saw here.
Muscling through the line, she bought a day pass and received a six-page listing of vendors, films, workshops, locations of off-campus screenings, events planned for the three-day weekend, and a map of the campus.
She noticed a sign announcing a showing of
Night Freaks.
The auditorium door was shut, the feature already in progress. Sarina would likely be inside.
Stepping into the darkened theater, Dixie blinked, disoriented, then waited by the entrance for her eyes to adjust. On the screen, opening credits rolled across grainy black-and-white images. Splashes of green suggested someone had filmed the action through an infrared lens. Disco music established the period as the seventies.
Dixie searched the throng of furred, feathered, scaly creatures for a thatch of strawberry-frosted blond hair, but the lighting was inadequate to distinguish color even a few seats away. She fished out her penlight and played its meager beam down the aisle and across the rows. Receiving only minor curses, she muttered “Sorry” after each, and knew five minutes later that Sarina wasn’t in the audience.
Gimping outside again, her leg already aching, she eyed the maze of vendor tables and pushed on. With a start, she recognized ahead of her the silver hair and hesitant gait of Alan Kemp. As she watched, Kemp stopped at a vendor table and addressed a woman sitting behind it. Plump, sprightly, about fifty years old, she was reading a document. At Kemp’s approach, the woman removed her reading glasses, laid aside the document, and stood up to shake hands.
Dixie sauntered up to Kemp’s side. “You’re the last person I’d expect to find at this conference.”
Kemp frowned, obviously as surprised as she was.
“Ms. Flannigan?” His eyes flickered to the manuscript lying on the table.
Dixie strained to make out the words printed on the cover.
“Mr. Kemps screenplay,” the woman said, gesturing at the manuscript. “A good one, as far as I’ve read.”
“Actually, I came to Houston to attend this conference,” Kemp said, invoking his phony European accent. “Professor Pendercall has been kind enough to entertain the possibility of helping me obtain the interest of a Hollywood producer. Joanna would play the lead.”
The plump woman’s eyebrows shot up. “With your cousin in the tide role, you’d stand a better chance of finding backers.”
“So far I haven’t found the right moment to ask her,” Kemp admitted.
Meaning he hadn’t found the guts, Dixie thought. But that cleared up the nagging question of why he was in town.
“Have you seen Sarina here this morning? We were supposed to meet at the hotel. I guess she got impatient.”
“No,” Kemp said. “If I run into her, I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
Dixie excused herself and hobbled back into the main aisle. According to the map, the Stoned Toad Productions booth was on the far side of the lobby. Sarina would certainly hook up with Alroy Duncan. Dixie melted into a crowd heading in that direction.
She found the effects tech seated in front of a computer, surrounded by costumed spectators. As he tapped a keyboard, images on a giant, wall-mounted monitor mutated, multiplied, and shattered into molten chrome.
“Every creature we’ve ever created,” Duncan was saying, “is stored on disk in interchangeable parts.”
Dixie wedged between two spectators and positioned herself at his elbow.
“Seen Sarina yet?” she asked, just loud enough for Duncan to hear.
He glanced up. “Sarina? No—” Then he amended, “Yes! I was carrying in boxes, and she was going out the other door.”
“Out? Where?”
Duncan scratched his beard and shrugged, his attention back on his work. “Can’t say. Had a guy with her.”