Authors: Mary Jane Clark
A
nastasia had asked Piper to come to her room to learn how to operate the small video camera.
“It’s easy. You just push this and it will start recording,” she said, pointing to the
RECORD
button.
“I think I can handle that,” said Piper. Her outward confidence belied the doubt she was beginning to feel. If Kyle Quigley really was doing what Anastasia thought he was, he could be dangerous if he felt threatened.
“Just go in there and act as you would when going for any facial,” said Anastasia. “The camera will do all the work. When he brings up the sleep treatment, try to get him to talk about it as much as possible.”
Piper took the camera from Anastasia. “Okay, how do I install this in my purse?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Anastasia. “No point in putting a hole in your bag. Use mine. It’s camera-ready.”
Piper pulled her wallet and room key card from her purse and transferred them to Anastasia’s black leather hobo bag. She wished she had the small spray can of mace that she’d promised her father she’d carry, but it had been confiscated by airline security in Newark.
Her father. Piper tried to push him out of her mind. She didn’t even want to consider how he would react when he learned what she was doing. Jack either. But when she told them—
if
she told them—the meeting with Kyle Quigley would be in the past.
A
fter changing into a peach-colored smock given to her by one of the attendants in the skin-care center, Piper settled down in the waiting area outside Kyle’s treatment room. She picked up a magazine and paged through it, but she couldn’t concentrate.
“Piper?”
She looked up at the powerfully built man standing in the doorway. “Yes?”
“Hi. I’m Kyle. Come on in.”
As she rose from her chair, Piper suddenly realized she’d forgotten to turn on the video camera. She felt her pulse quicken and her face begin to grow hot.
Idiot. What are you going to do now?
She followed Kyle into the treatment room.
Stay calm
, she told herself.
Stay calm.
“Is everything all right, Piper?” asked Kyle. “You look worried. This isn’t going to hurt a bit, you know.”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.” She managed to smile. “I was just thinking about something else.”
Kyle gestured to the table. “Climb up and we’ll get started.”
Think of something. Now.
As she approached the table, she began to cough. “Hold on a sec,” she said. “Let me get something to suck on.”
With her back to Kyle, blocking his view of what she was doing, Piper put Anastasia’s bag on the counter, pointing the end of it, where the opening was, at the massage table. She reached into the bag and felt the camera. Now she had to hit the
RECORD
button.
“Sorry. I can’t find a thing in this purse,” she said, stalling.
“Not to worry,” said Kyle. “You’re my last appointment for the day. I don’t have any pressure about time.”
Her fingers groped over the surface of the camera. She felt the button and pushed.
“Okay, all set,” said Piper, turning around. She climbed up and lay on the table. Kyle switched on a bright light and positioned it over her face.
“So what do you do, Piper?”
“Well, on the good days, I act,” she said, pretending to be sucking on a lozenge.
Kyle smiled. “As you probably know, we get a lot of actresses here.”
“I know,” said Piper. She deliberately didn’t mention the name of the actress at the pool. “But I came here because I was asked to make Jillian Abernathy’s wedding cake.”
“I’m confused,” said Kyle. “I thought you said you were an actress.”
“I am,” said Piper. “But let’s just say there’s a lot of downtime between acting gigs.” She faked a cough.
He finished studying her pores. “Your skin looks great, Piper,” he said. “There’s virtually no sun damage.”
“Thanks. That’s because I hate to go out in it.”
“I wish everyone felt that way,” said Kyle as he pushed aside the lamp. “So many people come in here after they’ve ruined their skin by baking in the sun. Then they want me to wave a magic wand and make it disappear.”
“Well, I have heard you can perform miracles,” said Piper.
Kyle smiled. “Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”
“I was talking to someone at the pool. She was raving about some sort of sleep treatments you give.”
Kyle reached for a container of cleansing cream. He scooped some out and smoothed it all over Piper’s face and neck.
“That feels great,” she said, completely creeped out. “You have such a nice touch.”
“We’ll just leave this on for a minute or two,” said Kyle. “To give it time to dissolve dirt and oils.” He returned the cap to its container.
“Can you tell me about the sleep treatment?” asked Piper. “Would there be a benefit for me?”
“You don’t really need one, Piper,” answered Kyle. “Your skin is flawless.”
“Really?” asked Piper. “I’m only twenty-seven, but look at those lines at the corners of my eyes.”
Kyle looked. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “There’s nothing there. You don’t need a sleep treatment.”
That wasn’t at all the answer Piper expected.
S
he left the center with smooth, clear skin and a case of utter confusion. Was Anastasia wrong? Was Kyle just what he appeared to be? Was he a well-trained and talented medical aesthetician with nothing to hide?
Anastasia was supposed to meet Piper for dinner. She was going to be disappointed when she heard that Kyle hadn’t suggested the sleep treatments. In fact, he’d adamantly said that Piper wasn’t a candidate. Maybe Anastasia’s friend had been wrong in her suspicions. Maybe the black-and-blue mark on the movie star’s leg had been the result of her bumping into something and she simply didn’t remember. Maybe Anastasia was chasing a story that didn’t exist.
J
ack couldn’t keep himself from checking Piper’s Facebook page.
FUN AUDITION THIS MORNING!
KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED FOR ME!
Normally, if Jack read that post, he would have picked up the phone right away and called her. He loved sharing her happy news of any acting success. He also loved being there for her when the acting breaks weren’t coming her way. Bottom line? Good or bad, he loved her.
While he had taken the bartender’s advice, hanging tough and not calling her, Jack didn’t feel all that triumphant. Instead he just felt disappointed and worried that she hadn’t called him either.
One of them was going to have to be the bigger person and make the first move. Jack was almost ready to cave.
A
fter throwing the used sheets and towels into the laundry bin and making up the massage table for the next day, Kyle went to the cabinet. Concealed by lotion bottles, his camera sat on the shelf with its eye exposed. It was trained on the table. He took it down, picked out the disc, and inserted another before replacing the camera in its hiding spot.
The moment Kyle had seen the bag Piper was carrying, he knew he’d seen it before. That Anastasia Wilcox who came in last week asking about the sleep treatment, the one with the short, dark hair whom he’d told she wasn’t a candidate, had the same bag—black leather with a purple drawstring. At first Kyle wrote it off to coincidence. Many women owned the same purse. Manufacturers made hundreds of them.
But when Piper asked about the sleep treatment, he became alarmed. She had flawless skin. Even though Kyle knew from experience that many women asked for treatments they didn’t need, Piper’s request was ludicrous.
Maybe he was wrong. But he had learned to trust his instincts. His gut told him that something wasn’t right. It had killed him not to encourage Piper to take the treatment. Young, blond, and beautiful, she was the perfect embodiment of his desires. But he couldn’t take the chance.
What if Piper Donovan and the Wilcox woman were trying to trap him? What if they suspected what he’d been doing and were trying to catch him in the act? If he was found out, the professional reputation he’d worked so hard to establish would be ruined. Even worse, he’d face a stiff prison sentence.
He had to find out what was going on.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 11 . . . FOUR DAYS UNTIL THE WEDDING
P
iper had a headache. She and Anastasia had ordered martinis, and afterward they’d shared a bottle of wine and finished with amaretto cordials. Even as she drank, Piper knew she would pay for it in the morning. And right on cue, the dull throb began as soon as she opened her eyes.
She swallowed some ibuprofen along with a glass of water, then lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. Her mind went over what had happened—or not happened—in Kyle Quigley’s massage room.
Anastasia had been disappointed when she heard Piper’s account of what Kyle had said and done when Piper lay on the massage table. But she wasn’t deterred in her belief that Kyle was doing something disgustingly wrong. She said she had another way she was going to try to go at him.
Rolling over onto her stomach, Piper was glad to be out of the whole thing. She’d helped Anastasia as much as she could. Now she had to get in gear on the wedding cake. The layers could be made by the nuns on Thursday, and she would then decorate the cake the following day so all would be perfect for the Saturday wedding.
Piper was thrilled that Jillian didn’t want peach-colored flowers. She preferred an all-white cake, on the outside at least. The couple had decided they wanted to go with the original dense pumpkin-bread recipe for their cake. One, it tasted delicious. Two, they were planning to put little cards at each place setting explaining the story of the cloistered convent and its dependence on the sale of its pumpkin bread for survival. They hoped to increase awareness that would spur sales after the wedding.
Piper was sketching the flowers for the cake when her phone rang. She looked down at the lit-up BlackBerry. It was Gabe.
“Hey, doll, good news. They loved you at the audition yesterday. They want you to come for a callback this afternoon. If you get it, they’re planning to shoot on Thursday or Friday.”
“Thursday or Friday
this
week?” asked Piper, thinking about the wedding cake that had to be decorated on Friday.
“Yeah, kid. Isn’t that great?” The agent didn’t wait for Piper’s answer. “It looks like something could be breaking for you.”
T
he phone call was sobering. Anastasia’s editor told her that she should be ready to pack up and leave Elysium at any time.
“Vernon Abernathy is on the warpath, Anastasia. Our publisher is a golf buddy of his, and Abernathy has been demanding to know who Anastasia Fernands is.”
“He didn’t tell him, did he?” she asked.
“No, but Abernathy is in a rage about those pictures you took. He says his lawyers tell him he can sue us, because there’s a no-cameras policy at Elysium.”
“
Can
he sue?” asked Anastasia.
“Of course. This is America. I guess his lawyers can do anything they want. Whether they’d win or not is another story. The point is, you should know that your time at Elysium is almost over and act accordingly.”
L
ingering over her morning coffee, Anastasia kept her eyes trained on the entrance to the dining room. Finally she decided that it was stupid to wait any longer. The actress might not even be coming down to breakfast.
Getting up from the table, she pondered the situation. If there was any chance to get what she needed to show that Kyle Quigley was a predator, the actress was it. Anastasia had to persuade her to go in with the hidden camera while she had a sleep treatment.
That was a lot to ask. But she would make an emotional, moral, and professional appeal to the actress. This guy had to be stopped. The actress would be using her professional skills to catch him. And, as a bonus, she might even get some publicity out of it.
Anastasia walked into the lobby, went to one of the house phones, and asked to be connected to the actress’s room.
“We have no one registered under that name,” said the operator.
Of course,
thought Anastasia as she hung up. The actress hadn’t registered under her own name.
Anastasia was undeterred. She
had
to find her.
P
iper rode to the callback audition full of excitement and anticipation. She returned to Elysium crestfallen. The callback was a disaster.
She’d been stiff with nerves. She repeatedly flubbed the copy they gave her to read and failed miserably in the improvisation she was asked to perform with the male actors who’d also been chosen to return. As she walked out, her face was flushed with embarrassment.
What was the matter with her? How could she do so well one day and then be such a mess the next? Why couldn’t she just relax and remember that most of this was out of her control? How could she be so prepared yet feel so uncomfortable? All she had to do was be herself and show that she was capable. That was easy, wasn’t it?
As all these questions churned in her head, she felt the familiar survival instinct kick in.
That happened. It’s over. Just keep going.
So, with tears in her eyes, Piper slipped into the Town Car and headed back to the spa.
W
hen she reached the safety of her suite, she flopped down on the bed, feeling discouraged and frustrated. Then she thought of Wendy and Esperanza. Piper realized she should be incredibly grateful that her problems were so relatively small.
She knew it was ridiculous to let herself get so down. So she hadn’t nailed the callback. There would be others. At least now she wouldn’t have to worry about having to balance the commercial shoot with making the wedding cake.
She lay on her back for a while, looking up at the ceiling. This wasn’t going to make her feel any better, lying around and wallowing in self-pity. She should get up, put on her bathing suit, and go down to the pool. Swimming some laps—
that
would make her feel better. Then she could finish the final cake sketch and take it over to Jillian later for approval.
T
he actress was at the pool. Piper spotted her right away, and she considered going over and sitting next to her.
Piper grabbed a towel from the cabana and walked toward the actress. The actress smiled at her. Piper was emboldened.
“Is this chair taken?” she asked.
“No, go right ahead,” said the actress. “I could use some company.”
Piper draped the towel on the lounge chair, took the sunscreen from her bag, and slathered herself with it. Adjusting her straw hat, she stretched out and heaved a long sigh.
“Rough day?” said the actress.
“I just came from a terrible callback,” said Piper.
“You’re an actress?”
“Yes,” said Piper. “I’m trying to be.”
“It’s a tough business. Brutal sometimes,” said the actress. “It took me years of suffering rejection after rejection, and then I got a supporting role in a sitcom, which led to a spin-off of my character in a show of her own. Before I knew it, I was being offered movie parts.”
Piper nodded. “I loved that show,” she said. “I watched it pretty much all through middle school.”
“Ouch,” said the actress. “I suddenly feel so old. Although I shouldn’t say ‘suddenly.’ ”
“Please, you’re not old,” Piper protested.
“Thanks, kiddo. But let’s face it, I’m in the ‘character actor’ years. And I’m not ever going to get the kind of parts I used to, no matter what magic they work on me here to make me look younger.”
Piper wasn’t sure what to say. The actress was speaking the truth.
“Here’s what I try to remember,” the actress continued. “Everything’s bad until it’s good. If this is what you really want, then you just have to hang in there until you get to the good times.”
Piper considered her words. “I guess I really have no other choice,” she said. “Acting is what I’ve wanted since I was a little kid. I can’t even imagine giving it up.”
“You have your answer, then,” said the actress. “Just keep at it, day by day. Follow all your leads, continue your acting classes, go for every audition you can. Suddenly it will reach critical mass and you’ll catch a lucky break.”
Piper brightened. “Thanks for that,” she said. “I needed it.”
“You’re welcome,” said the actress. She dug into her bag and pulled out a pad and pen. “Here’s my e-mail address. Feel free to stay in touch and let me know how you’re progressing.”
As Piper took the piece of paper, the actress looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get going.”
“Well, again, thanks so much,” said Piper, smiling up at her. “I really appreciate it.”