Soft Focus (21 page)

“Please,” she said tightly. “Come back to the car. We don't want to get in the way of their art, do we?”

He hesitated, but to her profound relief, he asked no questions. “No, sure wouldn't want to get in the way of art,” he said.

At that moment, the actor draped over the wheel stirred and raised his head. His features were hidden behind the mask of phony blood that covered his head and face.

“Hey, a woman,” he called out cheerfully. “We can use her in the shot. How about it? Wanna be in pictures, lady?”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to tell him that she was not interested in taking up an acting career. But she stopped when she saw that the photographer had set down his camera. He took a step toward the light stand.

“Touch my equipment and I'll have you arrested,” he yelled at Jack.

Jack gazed back over his shoulder. “I'm not going to touch your stuff. We'll give you a few minutes to finish the shot.”

“We're gonna finish this, all right.” He broke into a run, charging toward Jack. “Come on, Benny.”

Benny scrambled out of the van and started after his pal.

“Jack,” Elizabeth screamed. “Behind you.”

Jack had already whirled around to face the two men rushing toward him.

The cameraman reached Jack and swung a fist in a short, brutal arc. Jack sidestepped the punch. The artfully bloodied actor grabbed his arm and pulled him off balance.

Jack went easily to the ground. Too easily, Elizabeth realized. He took the actor with him. The other man hit the pavement hard. Jack landed on top.

“Hold him.” The cameraman danced agitatedly around the pair. “Hold him, goddammit.”

Elizabeth ran toward the van.

“Stay back,” Jack shouted at her.

She kept moving toward her goal. She got her first good look at the cameraman's face when she went past him. She saw that the bill of his cap and the deep shadows had concealed the ski mask he wore.

The cameraman lashed out at Jack with a booted foot. Jack rolled off the actor, who took the blow in his ribs.

“Shit,” the actor screamed, clutching at his side. “Shit.”

Elizabeth saw that Jack was back on his feet, closing with the cameraman. She reached the nearest light stand and seized the spindly metal upright.

“My lights,” the actor shouted. He sounded more alarmed now than he had when he took the kick that had been meant for Jack. “Don't touch my lights.”

She yanked at the metal stand. The light fixture mounted on top wobbled and crashed to the ground, exploding on contact with the pavement. A length of metal came free in her hand. She swung it in a wide arc as she turned back to the mêlée.

The actor screamed, an agonized, keening sound that echoed forever.

“My lights.”

Elizabeth ignored him. She saw Jack turn aside from a heavy blow that glanced off his shoulder. He stuck out a foot, grabbed the cameraman's wrist, and tugged.

The cameraman flew forward, landing on his belly with a hoarse grunt. Jack started toward him.

The actor was screaming curses at Elizabeth. She turned and saw him lunge toward her. She swung the light stand again, catching him on his arm.

“Put down my stuff, you bitch.”

He tried to grab the length of metal out of her hands. She skittered backward, wielding the upright as if it were a long sword.

“Don't touch her,” Jack shouted at the actor.

He turned away from the cameraman and launched himself at the actor.

The cameraman lurched to his feet. Apparently concluding that he'd had enough, he dashed for the driver's side of the van.

“Wait for me, goddammit.” Abandoning the attempt to recover the light stand, the actor halted in midcourse, whirled around, and barreled toward the passenger side of the van.

Jack grabbed him as he shot past.

“No, no,
no
.” The actor's artificially bloodied features crumpled in grotesque despair. He did not even struggle in Jack's grasp.

The van's engine roared to life. The headlights flashed. Wheels screeched on the pavement. The vehicle careened off into the night, rear doors clanging.

“Bastard.” The actor sagged. “Lousy, stinking bastard.”

A stark silence descended on the scene. Elizabeth stood frozen on the white line. She looked at Jack.

“Are you all right?” he asked tersely.

“Yes.” She realized she still held the length of metal. It was quivering in her grasp. Very carefully she carried it to the side of the road and set it down. “Yes, I'm all right. What about you?”

“I'm fine.” He looked at his captive. “You want to tell me
what the hell that was all about? Or shall I just go ahead and call the cops.”

“Huh?” The actor squinted through his mask of fake blood. “Cops?”

“That was the next thing on my to-do list,” Jack said.

“But he said there wouldn't be any cops.” The actor sounded aggrieved now. “He said this was one of those white-collar crime gigs. He said nobody ever called the cops if things went wrong.”

“What, exactly, went wrong?” Jack asked.

The actor looked sullen. “I dunno. Ollie offered me five hundred cash if I would give him a hand tonight. Now look what's happened. The light's ruined. It'll cost a hell of a lot more than five hundred to replace.”

Elizabeth walked slowly forward. “What's Ollie's last name?”

“Dunno. He just goes by Ollie.”

“What's he do for a living?” Jack asked.

“He's a stuntman. Got kicked outta the big studios for drinking on the job.”

Elizabeth stopped next to Jack. “What's your name?” she asked gently.

“Benny. Benny Cooper.” Benny searched her face. “It was just supposed to be a warnin', see? That's all. We were just supposed to rough him up a little and tell him to pack his bags and get outta town.”

“That's it?” Jack asked. “That was the whole message? Leave town?”

“Yeah.” Benny heaved a deep sigh. “But it all went wrong. Ollie said nobody would call the cops if it did.”

Jack smiled coldly. “This is your lucky day, Benny. Ollie was right.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Jack parked the car in the drive and cut the ignition. Elizabeth made no move to get out. She sat gazing blankly through the windshield.

“Another warning,” she said. “Do you think this one was also from Vicky Bellamy and Dawson Holland?”

“Maybe.” Jack did not open his door either. He sat beside her, staring pensively at the front door.

“Maybe we should have called the cops, Jack.”

“If we do,” he said very neutrally, “this whole thing will blow up in our faces. Everyone involved will disappear. We can probably kiss off any chance of finding Tyler Page or the crystal.”

“True.”

“Not much the police could do about what happened tonight, anyway,” he continued in a judicious tone. “Except let us file a report.”

“By the time we did that and got an officer out to investigate, it's highly unlikely that there would be any evidence left anyway.”

“True,” he agreed.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

“Amazing how two intelligent people like us can sit here in the middle of the night and rationalize not going to the police in what is obviously a clear-cut case of assault,” Elizabeth said eventually.

Jack opened the car door. “We didn't get to be hotshot CEOs for nothing.”

ELIZABETH PULLED UP THE COLLAR OF HER
white robe, opened the glass slider, and stepped out into the night. The well-chilled air made her catch her breath. Words like
clean
and
fresh
and
invigorating
took on new meaning at this altitude, she thought.

She looked toward the hot tub. There was enough moonlight for her to see Jack. He reclined on one of the benches, arms stretched out along the curved sides of the tub. The water swirled around his chest. His head was back, his eyes closed.

“Are you sure you're all right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Thanks to you. Nice trick with the lights. Certainly got Benny's attention. We were lucky.”

“How's that?”

“Ollie and Benny are obviously just a couple of small-time guys connected to the small-time film business, not professional rent-a-thugs.” Jack touched his ribs.

“You're sure you don't want to go to the emergency room?”

He grunted in disgust. “I'm sure.”

“Thank goodness you've studied the martial arts.”

“My father signed me up for lessons when I was eight years old. Larry said that he got signed up at about that age, too. I wouldn't be surprised if Hayden was also sent off to a martial arts instructor at the age of eight. Dad tended to do things in a very methodical way. I've kept up with my instruction over the years. For the exercise. Never actually used the moves for real until tonight.”

“I wonder if Hayden is getting any warnings,” Elizabeth mused.

“That,” Jack said slowly, “is an excellent question. There is, of course, another possibility.”

“What?”

“He may be the one who sent those two after me tonight. Maybe he's got his own plan to cut down the competition.”

“Don't look now, but your paranoia is showing.”

“Huh.”

“Jack, pay attention. Read my lips. If you don't believe that scene of me walking into the hotel room to meet with Tyler Page, you can't take the scene of Hayden going into that room seriously, either.”

Jack closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the edge of the tub again. “The fact that you're not involved doesn't mean that Hayden isn't.”

“You're letting your personal feelings get in the way of sound logic. If Hayden was involved in a conspiracy with Tyler Page, why would he hang around the Mirror Springs Resort? He'd take Soft Focus and catch the next flight to Amsterdam or Berlin or the Middle East.”

“Revenge is no fun if your target doesn't know you pulled it off.”

“Hayden had nothing to do with the theft.” She sat down on the edge of the tub and dangled her bare feet in the
warm water. “He's here for the same reason we are. The auction.”

“You can't be certain of that,” Jack said.

“Yes, I can. On the day he arrived, and again the other night at The Mirror, while you were carrying out high-level negotiations in the men's room, he suggested that I use the Aurora Fund to back him instead of you when the bidding started.”

Jack slitted his eyes. “Son of a bitch. Why didn't you tell me?”

She shrugged. “I didn't want to add any more fuel to the fire that's already burning between you two.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jack said again. “You should have told me.”

“I made an executive decision.”

“Damn it, Elizabeth—”

“The point is,” she said firmly, “he wouldn't have approached me like that if he wasn't here for the auction. I'm telling you, he didn't steal the specimen. He's here to bid on it.”

Jack looked as though he wanted to argue the point, but he changed tactics instead. “Last Tuesday night, the night Hayden took you to dinner and told you he'd heard the rumors about Soft Focus, did he tell you
how
he'd gotten the news?”

“To tell you the truth, I was so stunned by the possibility that Soft Focus was gone that I'm not sure I picked up all the details.” She summoned up a mental image of her dinner with Hayden. “But now that I think about it, I'm almost certain he just said something about having received an anonymous phone call.”

“Not exactly original. I'm surprised he didn't come up with something a little more high-tech, like a mysterious E-mail message or a fax.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Actually, when you stop and think about it, a call from a pay phone is still the simplest, surest way of delivering a message that you want the recipient to get. And it's easy enough to disguise a voice.”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him. “Earlier this evening you suggested that we sit down with everything we've got and try to put the pieces together. I think that's a good idea.”

“So do I. But not tonight. I need some sleep before I tackle that project.”

“Me, too.”

He settled deeper into the water. “Are you going to just sit there twiddling your toes in the water, or are you going to get into the tub?”

“Would you answer a question before I decide?”

“As long as it does not involve extensive use of logic or rational thinking. I'm not at my best at the moment.”

“It's a simple question.” She paused to gather her nerve. “Earlier, before we ran into those two thugs on the road, you said that you didn't buy the video of me joining Hayden and Tyler Page in that hotel. You said you didn't put any credence in it because it could have been faked by any number of people.”

“So?”

“But you were not so quick to dismiss the possibility that Hayden and Page might have gotten together to conspire in that hotel room.”

“So?” he said again.

This was getting painful, Elizabeth thought. But she could not stop now. “So I was just wondering why you found it easy to throw out the evidence against me?”

“The only motive you would have for arranging the theft of Soft Focus would be revenge.”

It was her turn, she realized. “So?”

“Elaborate, carefully plotted revenge involving coconspirators and extensive cover-ups and a lot of outright lies is not your style.”

“Oh.” She pondered that briefly. “What is my style?”

He opened his eyes and gave her a fleeting grin that showed some of his excellent teeth. “Toe-to-toe and to the point is your style. Ice water in my face in a fancy restaurant is your style. Calling me an egg-sucking SOB in front of a hundred people is your style.”

She groaned. “I'm never going to live that down, am I?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Do you think my style of revenge is sort of boring and predictable?”

“Nothing about you is boring.”

“But predictable?” she pressed.

“Only in the most attractive way,” he assured her.

“I suppose I'll have to be satisfied with that.” She studied him closely. In the darkness it was impossible to see beneath the surface of the foaming water. “Are you wearing a swimsuit this time?”

“Funny you should mention that.”

“You're not wearing one, are you?”

“When it comes to some things, I, too, have a tendency to be predictable.”

“But never boring,” she said softly.

She untied the sash of her robe and let the garment fall from her shoulders. When the cold air wrapped itself around her bare skin she sucked in her breath and quickly slipped into the hot water.

Jack smiled slowly as she sat down beside him on the submerged bench. “You've given up wearing swimsuits in hot tubs, I see.”

She put a hand on his bare thigh. “I wouldn't want to become too predictable.”

She traced a slow, circular pattern slowly up the inside of his leg.

He captured her hand and raised it above the surface to his mouth. He watched her through half-closed eyes as he kissed her wet fingers. She saw the dark hunger in him, and her insides were suddenly hotter than the water in the tub.

He bit gently down on her thumb, then nibbled a bit on her knuckles. She sighed softly and settled closer against him. Very deliberately he drew her palm back beneath the churning water and curved her fingers around him.

He was fully aroused, taut and hard. Gently she tightened her grasp. A shudder went through him.

“The most predictable thing around here is my response to you,” he whispered against her lips. “Just like the sunrise.”

She opened her mouth for him. He drank deep. After a time she decided to try his own tactic against him. She sank her teeth into his lower lip. He endured the gentle assault for a moment and then groaned, muttered something unintelligible, and pulled her across his legs. He kissed her deeply, with a thoroughness that sent delicious little shock waves through her.

She twisted against him and stroked him slowly, digging her nails gently into his damp shoulders. Beneath her hip she could feel his fierce reaction to her touch. He was straining against her thigh.

His hand slid down her spine to the cleft of her buttocks, and then his fingers were between her legs. When he prodded her gently open with his thumb and forefinger, a surge of exultant energy zapped through her. The liquid heat welled up inside. Irresistible. Unstoppable. Too late she realized the climax had taken her by surprise.

“Jack.”

“Don't fight it.” He kissed her throat and forged deeper. “There's plenty more where it's coming from.”

The strident jangle of an alarm bell cut into a dream of endless hallways and crisscrossing corridors that ended in blank walls.

The alarm was unnecessary, an annoying distraction that only made everything worse.

She did not need the shrill ringing to warn her of the danger. She was all too well aware that they were both in jeopardy. She had to concentrate. She had to think clearly, logically. How was she supposed to do that with that bloody bell going off in her ear?

Elizabeth came awake abruptly, blinked at the dull sheen of a cloudy sky visible through the windows. She groped for the telephone, found it, got it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“My, my, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Louise said cheerfully.

“Save the cutesy stuff, Louise. I'm not in the mood.” She felt Jack slide one leg between her calves and tighten his arm around her.
Get a grip. It was just a dream
. “What have you got for me?”

“I'm not sure yet,” Louise admitted. “Probably nothing. But I talked to a couple of people who know some people who have covered the film festival circuit for years. There are film festivals everywhere these days. Used to be just places like Cannes and Santa Fe, but now every town that's got a theater holds a festival.”

“Could you get to the point, Louise?”

“Sure. Point is Dawson Holland has hung on the fringes
of the film crowd for years. Likes to sleep with aspiring actresses. Still does, even though he's married again.”

“What?” Elizabeth sat up very quickly against the pillows. “He sleeps around, even though he's married to Vicky Bellamy?”

“Yep. But no one special. Different woman every time. What can I say? The guy likes to get laid. But he doesn't seem to get serious about any of the ladies who engage his affections for an evening of fun and frolic. Faithful in his fashion, you could say.”

“To Vicky?”

“For the past eighteen months, at any rate,” Louise agreed.

“They've only been married for a year and a half?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hmm.” Elizabeth wondered if Vicky knew or cared about the other women. “Anything else on Holland?”

“Uh-huh.” Louise paused for effect. “He was married twice before he met Vicky Bellamy.”

“I know that much. Not all that unusual, especially in his crowd.”

“Ah, but do you know that he's a widower twice over?” Louise said softly.

Elizabeth saw that Jack was watching her intently. He had caught the drift of the conversation.

“Natural causes?” Elizabeth asked carefully.

“Nope. Car accidents. The first wife was killed nearly twenty years ago. The second one went off a cliff eight years ago. And here's the really interesting part. Holland inherited a lot of money both times. The first wife left him several thousand shares of high-tech stock that coincidentally took a huge jump in the months just before she died.”

“What about the second wife?”

“Oddly enough,” Louise said dryly, “he had taken out a very large insurance policy on her shortly before her death.”

Elizabeth tightened her grip on the phone. “Was there an investigation?”

“Sure. According to my source, the insurance company sent out an investigator, but he couldn't prove anything. The company paid off.”