Death by Sudoku (2 page)

In the end, she stuck with the hat and sunglasses. They covered her hair and about half her face. She’d met a lot of people as a Hollywood publicist, and sometimes it seemed to Liza that you couldn’t throw a stone in Southern California without hitting a movie person.

Liza sidestepped the general rush of the toddlers and their parents for the baggage-claim area. She’d brought everything she needed for the day in her carry-on. That left her free to chart a lone course along the airport’s ground-floor concourse. Now her sunglasses seemed like a better idea, what with the bright light streaming in through the huge windows and bouncing off the vaulted ceiling high above. She headed for the main terminal entrance. Will Singleton, the sudoku maven who’d coaxed her down from her Northwest getaway for this tournament, was supposed to meet her at the statue of John Wayne.

After the noise, two-plus hours stuck on the flight, sleep deprivation, and, of course, her young admirer tugging on her hair, Liza shouldn’t have been surprised at the ache pounding away in the space between her eyes. She wanted an aspirin and a nap—in that order. At least Liza knew she could use some quiet time before tackling the sudoku tournament’s qualification round. She’d need it. Will was famed for his tricky number puzzles. She fully intended to bring a prizewinner’s trophy back with her on the evening’s flight home.

In between? She smiled, despite the weight dragging at her shoulder. She had a good book and a blank notebook, and she’d probably have enough downtime to use them both. Liza shrugged the strap of her carry-on bag to a more comfortable position. It was heavier than usual. She had all her essentials handy, including a change of clothes and a kit if she decided to stay overnight.

At last Liza reached the nine-foot bronze memorial to Hollywood’s biggest cowboy. She slowly turned, glancing around for Will or one of his minions when a pair of hands descended over her eyes.

Uh-oh.

This wasn’t Will. For one thing, he’d have to reach
up
to try that trick on Liza. Besides, neither he nor any of the tournament staff knew her at all well enough to try anything like this.

Above all, she had played enough peekaboo this morning as it was.

The instincts of a childhood spent with a big brother who lived to pick on her, honed in adulthood by expensive Hollywood self-defense classes, kicked in. A sharp backward jab from Liza’s elbow brought a gasp from her accoster. Her hands rose, easily brushing away his loosened grip. Her bag dropped to the floor as she swung round, fists in position to finish him off—then she froze.

She recognized her victim.

“Derrick?”

Derrick Robbins stood in a half crouch, both hands over his solar plexus, his handsome face twisted in pain as he tried to breathe. His complexion was a bit too red, then a bit too white, as the blow did what it was designed to do. It had knocked all the air out of his lungs for a moment.

Derrick’s arms wildly semaphored for a second as he struggled for breath. His forehead unknotted and his color got better. But he had to suck in a little more air before he was able to make his reply.

“You know, the same thing happened when I tried that trick on a stunt woman who worked on my show,” he finally wheezed. “I just didn’t expect a knockout punch from a publicist.”

“Soon to be
former
publicist,” Liza reminded him. “Count yourself lucky. Michelle Markson would probably be carving trophies off you by now. You’d be ahead of the game if you still had both ears. Or perhaps she’d be looking elsewhere for her pound of flesh . . .”

Derrick shuddered at the mention of Liza’s former partner, and possibly at the thought of her likely retribution. “It’s unlucky to speak of the undead—whether you speak well or ill.”

Liza had to stifle a smile at the actor’s reaction. Her boss, Michelle Markson, had established herself as the female warlord of Hollywood publicity. Phrases like “hard-charging” and “take no prisoners” tended to crop up in descriptions of her style of doing business. With her media savvy and connections, Michelle could build a Hollywood career—or wreck it—with one well-planted blind item.

Working with Michelle had been good for Liza. She’d learned a great deal, had gained the skills to make her way in Tinseltown, had risen to the position of partner, but she had also earned the reputation as the human face of the partnership. People liked Liza—probably because Liza liked people. Perhaps the greatest proof of her people skills was the way she’d remained on good terms with Michelle even when she’d pulled up stakes, leaving the Hollywood rat race to return home to Maiden’s Bay up in Oregon. When her life had turned upside down, Liza had opted for a less-stressful place to live out her next few years.

Right now, Derrick was looking like he wanted to send her back there.

The star gingerly rubbed his stomach. “That blow strikes me as a bit of overkill.”

“Overreaction, maybe,” Liza admitted. “I’m a bit on edge lately. I’ve got—well, I don’t know what to call him. Stalker is a bit too harsh. Persistent, geeky hanger-on is too mild. Secret admirer is all wrong—I can’t take a step without running into him. Anyway, he’s starting to get on my nerves. I’ve been working this freelance gig up in Oregon, and I started the same day as this young computer tech. We went out for a new-kids lunch a few times, but now he’s decided it’s love, or fate, or something. He can’t keep his eyes off me.”

“Oh,” Derrick said. “My.”

“Yeah, exactly.” She sighed. “I’m trying to figure out how to discourage him without hurting him.”

“That jab in the gut hurt plenty, just so you know,” Derrick said.

“Sorry about that.” Liza grinned at her victim. “Announce yourself next time, and you’ll get a more appropriate welcome. When you decided to go for the element of surprise, you made me think you might be Hank . . . and you know what happened. See, lately, he’s been nerving himself up to try a PDA.”

“A Public Display of Affection, eh?” Derrick said. “Why are you being so gentle with him—why? He sounds downright stalkerish to me.”

“I don’t think he’s trying to be a stalker. It’s more like he’s got a case of stunning social ineptitude. I’m afraid Hank veers between the silly stuff you’d expect to see in junior high and the kind of insane grand gestures he’s read about in relationship books. He sent me a candygram the other day to celebrate national ‘Be a Pal Day.’ I’ve never heard of such a holiday, and I didn’t even know they still sold candygrams.”

“Hmm, I begin to see what was behind Liza’s Dreaded Elbow of Death,” Derrick said. “Not to mention why you’d prefer to take a relaxing break in sunny Orange County doing sudoku than staying holed up in your coastal paradise.”

“And how do you know what I’m doing here?” Liza asked.

His sky blue eyes met hers with a cat-who-ate-the-canary twinkle. “Will Singleton is stuck handling some last-minute logistics for the tournament, so he asked me to pick you up. Your cover’s blown, Liza K.”

For a second, Liza stood openmouthed. Derrick’s casual comment had done as effective a job of robbing her of words—and air—as her elbow had done on him.

Omigod!
she thought.
He knows about Liza K! He knows everything!

Liza K was the name she’d been using in her other life—her new life, as she preferred to call it. The dissolution of her marriage and her disillusion with the movie business had sent her back to her hometown. Coming to Maiden’s Bay, she’d discovered real life, real people . . . and a real problem: earning a living.

Luckily, Liza also had some real friends, people she’d known since childhood. One of them was Ava Barnes, who’d gone into journalism and emerged as the managing editor of the
Oregon Daily
. She knew Liza was a sudoku whiz, and Ava also knew that more and more readers were playing the numbers game. She’d offered Liza a paying gig as the paper’s resident sudoku expert, creating puzzles and writing a column with tips on finding solutions. The results had been better than Liza had dreamed. Now she faced the likelihood of national syndication and a revenue stream that would let her really leave Markson Associates behind.

Liza had long ago realized that Hollywood was a place that preferred car chases to certain intellectual pursuits. Which was fine, as far as it went, for most of Tinseltown. Film people loved to make fun of Bill Gates and the other technonerds up in Seattle and Redmond. So her ability with numbers and logic put Liza’s credibility with the whole movie community at risk. Hollywood was famous for its disdain for bright women who didn’t camouflage their intellectual abilities in public.

If the movers and shakers in The Business discovered that one of their top spinmeistresses was a closet übergeek up in Oregon, it would clash with the glamour of the world’s film capital. Celebrities, fashion stars, and studio heads wanted their advisors to be smart, of course, but sudoku was the wrong kind of smart.

In fact, it was up there with braces, thick glasses, and a PhD as a Hollywood buzzkill.

And now, after keeping her sudoku life a secret for so long, this former television star was talking to her as if it were common knowledge.

Derrick Robbins responded to her look of shock with a grin that made him look like an oversized leprechaun. “Hey, maybe I only played a spy on TV, but still, ve haff vays . . .”

He relented, laughing. “Liza, I’ve been a sudoku junkie for years now. Maybe it was all those seasons as a cryptographer on
Spycraft
, but I really got into codes and puzzles. Long before it was popular in the States, I’d have sudoku imported from the British papers and from Japan. And let’s face it, the American sudoku world is still pretty small. I began to have suspicions when an Oregon paper started featuring a Liza K who wrote about sudoku right after you moved up there. Then I read your work, and I knew. You write like you talk—charmingly. Your secret was mine.”

Derrick shrugged. “Of course, having Will ask me to pick you up kind of blew things wide open.” He grinned again. “I was delighted to learn you’d be here. But I warn you now”—his grin broadened—“I’m here to win.”

Liza smiled right back at him. “So am I.”

Derrick picked up Liza’s bag, which had flown to the foot of the pedestal supporting John Wayne’s statue. He glanced up at the statue’s bronze features. “You know, the Duke essentially played himself for something like fifty years.” The actor shook his head as he offered the bag to Liza.

Liza understood. Derrick’s career had started when he was a teenager, playing beautiful but troubled boys on the cusp of manhood. Then he’d gone on to play beautiful but troubled young men. The camera loved him, but in an unusual way. Liza had seen studios test thousands of ordinary-looking (usually extremely skinny) people to find the tiny minority that appeared beautiful on the screen. In real life, Derrick was a handsome guy with a bit of the leprechaun to him. But somehow, the camera made his features seem more delicate—more vulnerable.

That had worked against Derrick as he grew older. In Hollywood, beautiful, troubled people in midlife stayed strictly behind the cameras—usually in rehab. But he’d come back in a big way as the beautiful but quirkily brilliant cryptographer on
Spycraft
. The series had run for eight seasons, and Derrick’s oddball character had moved from the background to become one of the show’s stalwart stars. The producers had gone through two supposed female leads and one male one. None of them could outshine Derrick. By season four, Derrick and the black woman who played the tough-as-nails spymaster ended up with top billing and the highest pay.

Markson Associates had been brought in to boost the climactic final season, and Liza had been struck by the way Derrick managed to blend total professionalism with fun. Since
Spycraft
had wrapped last year, though, she hadn’t heard much about Derrick—a bad sign. “What kind of scripts are you getting?” she asked as she settled her bag on her shoulder.

“Apparently, the world has decided that it’s time for me to go against type. I’m being asked to play villains, psychos, and sickos. A spy movie, a couple of murder mysteries, and a lot of horror flicks.” Derrick shook his head and shuddered theatrically. “I do
not
intend to become my generation’s Tony Perkins.”

That was enough to end that discussion. They headed outside, and Derrick led the way to the passenger loading area. “How was your flight?”

“Crowded and loud. Over a hundred kids yelling about visiting with a talking mouse and complaining about their inner ears.” Liza couldn’t help her rueful smile. “And there was a charming young man sitting next to me. Pity he was a few decades too young, had only four teeth, and drooled. But he was quite the flirt despite the handicap. I almost lost my heart to him—not to mention a good bit of my hair. I’m still fighting the pain of flying at thirty thousand feet and one hundred and sixty decibels.” She paused to rub her forehead, hoping it would soothe the remnant of her headache away. While she massaged her brow, she looked around and spotted their target. “Nice car. Do you live in the area? Is it yours?”

“Nah. Will and Company arranged the limo,” Derrick said. “I’m still up in Santa Barbara. Came down on my private jet.”

“Of course you did,” Liza muttered. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Derrick’s response was diplomatic. “Well, you’ll have some time to recover. You’re in the third round of the tournament. I’m in the first.” He gave her another Cheshire-cat grin. “I’m glad you’ll have the downtime. I want you in your best form before I take you out in the finals.”

Liza wasn’t sure whether to be amused or annoyed at his confidence that they would both meet in the final round.

Of course, she could hardly take offense when she felt the same way.

The driver of the car was alert, standing by the open door of the black Mercedes. Liza surrendered her bag and allowed herself to be handed inside. Back home, she’d have walked the distance to the airport hotel. Still, she couldn’t complain about a little pampering and she had always enjoyed Derrick Robbins’s droll conversation.