Seidel, Kathleen Gilles (38 page)

Only Alicia had never gotten home. Evie, whoever she might have been, had gotten a very different sort of call.

Jill turned the page of the notebook.

Don't talk.

They were the same raw, startling words as before, Alicia's handwriting again hurried and irregular. Then came Bix's answer.

Chas said you wanted to stay.

It was another dialogue, notes they had written back and forth, perhaps while they were on the plane.

Alicia—
Yes. But the screen test. He said I couldn't miss that. But I should have stayed. This is a mistake.

Bix—
What have I done that you don't trust me?

Alicia—
It's not you I don't trust. It's me. Bill or someone can take me home.

Bix—
My brother asked me to see his wife home. I can do that.

Alicia—
No.

Bix—
How can we be in the same family if we can't trust ourselves to be alone?

Alicia had no answer to that. She must have flipped the notebook closed, tucked it back into her purse and snapped the clasp shut, almost certainly among the last acts she had performed on earth.

Jill reread their dialogue, the meaning becoming clear. As yet there had been no physical intimacy. Jill was sure of that. These two bright, gifted people, who must have longed for each other so keenly, had not slipped into physical sin. But now they were going back to California without Charles, and he had asked Bix to drive Alicia to an empty house. The two of them would be alone, a continent away from Charles, from Virginia, from all the traditions that sustained them. Bix believed that he could do it, that he could escort his sister-in-law as surely and safely as if she were nothing more than his brother's wife. Alicia doubted her own resolve.

Slowly Jill repacked the purse and took it downstairs. The rain had let up for the moment although the sky was still heavy. She went down the lane, across the county blacktop, and around the stand of cedars to the long, low building that housed Randy's chickens. She found Doug on one of the wooden walkways between the rows of stacked chicken cages. He was on his knees, tinkering with the conveyor belt that caught the newly laid eggs. She held the purse so Doug could see it. His brows drew together for a moment, then he understood what it was. They went toward Randy's little office. The hens stirred as they passed, clucking irritably.

As soon as the office door closed, Jill handed Doug the notebook. She watched him as he read the dialogue. When he looked up, his eyes were distant and troubled.

Just as Bix's eyes must have been.

"Do you think they wrote this on the plane?" she asked.

He nodded. "Charles said he drove them to the airport and waited until the plane took off. They wouldn't have talked about this in the waiting room with him there."

"What do you think would have happened that night?"

"Nothing. Bix wouldn't have. Not with Charles's wife. Not ever."

He was certain, but how could he know what Bix would have done? All he was saying was that
he
wouldn't have.

She spoke calmly. "They didn't know what would happen, so we can't possibly know. What I wonder"—she took the notebook back—"is whether or not Charles saw this."

Doug drew back, startled at the thought. "He couldn't have. The way he talks about them... he couldn't have known. He wouldn't have gone through the purse. Remember what Gran said. If it was too painful for her, think what it would have been like for him."

Jill did not agree. For all of Marie Ringling's brisk and unemotional manner, Jill suspected that her emotions were keener, more intense than those of her dramatically grief-stricken son. "He says he's an intuitive actor. If he's as intuitive as he says, he had to have some sense of what was going on."

"But he has remained so loyal to their memories."

Jill no longer believed the picture of the steadfast, long-suffering Charles. "I think we need to go talk to him."

"You aren't going to show him the purse, are you?"

"Why not?"

Doug blinked at her crisp tone. "Because it would—" He stopped, as if sensing that Jill didn't want to hear this. "There's no point in needlessly humiliating anyone. Let's take the notebook out and pretend we haven't seen it. It's not like it tells us anything about the movie—and that's what we're supposed to be interested in, the movie."

He said a few quick words to Randy, and they set off for Winchester. They disagreed on how to handle Charles. Jill, as much as she hated confrontation, was in favor of sticking the purse under Charles's nose and waiting for a reaction. She hoped to startle him into honesty. Doug, on the other hand, wanted to make it easy on him.

"This was his wife," Doug argued. "She died on the day she was carrying this purse."

Jill was not going to quarrel about this. It was his family. She gave in.

So when they arrived in Winchester, Doug spoke gently. "Sit down, Uncle Charles. We have something you may want to see although it might be painful."

Jill was watching Charles carefully. She could feel the actor's mask failing into place. She had seen this preparatory moment before, the blankness, the waiting. She had seen it in Payne, in Susannah, in countless others whose skills, although perhaps not better than Charles's, were sharper.

And indeed, Charles's reaction was an elegantly understated grief. He touched the purse, remembering the green dress Alicia had died in, how she had worn her hair that day, how—

Jill felt a tiny spurt of anger. This man knew things that he wasn't telling. She was sure of that. Here she was, not knowing if the father she had always adored had lied to her, had stolen from the dead. Here she hardly knew what kind of person her father was... and this man would not tell her the truth. And Doug, this was so important to him. It was as if finding Bix's lost script was going to help him find a script to replace the lost one that had detailed his own life.

She forced herself to calm down.
Anger won't get us anywhere; it accomplishes nothing; it never does.
These words were almost a mantra for her.

Her troubled image of Cass was not Charles's problem. It wasn't fair of her to expect him to help her. But Doug was another matter. Charles did have some responsibilities there.

She looked at Doug. He was sitting on a low stool in front of Charles's chair, sitting forward, his hands between his knees, listening, listening sincerely. No wonder he had been so good with players.

He wasn't Bix. Bix was an intriguer, Doug was not. If Bix were Tom Sawyer—clever, controlling, crafty—then Doug was Huck Finn—open, endlessly good-hearted.

How she loved him.

So, for his sake, she was going to do something she didn't think she had ever done before, not even on the playground of her grammar school; she was going to break a confidence.

She sat down across from Charles and waited for a moment when she could break in. "Charles, let me tell you why I'm interested in
Weary Hearts.
Have you heard of an actor named Payne Bartlett?"

Charles nodded, untroubled by the seeming change of subject. "He's the son of Graham Bartlett and Gloria Upham, isn't he? A fine young actor."

"He's interested in remaking
Weary Hearts."

She had her eyes on Charles, watching a quickening interest flash across his face. She heard Doug's sudden intake of breath, but she didn't dare glance at him. She was too amazed by what she was seeing in Charles's face.

He liked the idea. With the swift instinct he had always claimed to have, he approved.

He was sitting forward now, looking at Jill with more vigor in his eyes than she had ever seen. For a moment it was like looking at Booth, a man capable of leadership and action. "Which version does he want to do?"

"I don't know." Jill knew that she was making Payne's plans sound more definite than they were. "He hasn't heard anything about the script we're looking for."

"But he'd want to play Phillip, wouldn't he? He'd want to be Bix, not me."

"If he goes to all the trouble of producing the movie, then he would almost surely want to play the lead." Jill's "almost surely" was a lie. There was absolutely no question that Payne would cast himself in the lead.

"But he's wrong for that part." Charles was shaking his head. "He's too big. He's built like me. That was the whole point. Bix was a born cavalry man, and I was not, but I was the one who joined. No, no, he'd have to play me."

Jill didn't answer. Physical credibility would never stop Payne from taking the lead in his own first production.

"He'd be good as me, wouldn't he?" Charles was on his feet, pacing the room, a nervous energy about him that Jill had never seen. "I liked him in
Mountain Ash,
better than when he was doing comedy in that thing last year. How are his horse skills?"

Something was happening here. Jill was bewildered by Charles's enthusiasm. Having played Booth was his entire identity. It was everything in his life; it was even the lens through which he viewed his wife and brother, best able to remember them as Phillip and Mary Deas. So why would he want the movie remade? Wouldn't that be sacrilege?

Apparently not. Clearly he wanted this to happen. She could not imagine why. All she could do was answer the question he asked about Payne's horse skills. "We were in a Pony Club together as children although I don't know what he's done since then. But I'm sure he'd work very hard."

"That might not be enough. He'll have to be very good to play me right."

Charles was acting as if it were all settled, that Payne was going to remake the movie, taking Charles's former part. "I still think he'll probably want to play Phillip," Jill cautioned. "He'll want to be the lead."

"Of course, of course." He waved his hand, dismissing her objection. "Don't forget. In the first version, I—"

He stopped.

Jill stared. What was he saying? "In the first version, was Booth... were you the main character?"

The actor's mask fell back into place, shuttering his face. The energy was gone. He was again the languid, elderly gentleman. "My dear, I have told you. I never paid attention to the script as a whole."

CHAPTER 16

"This is incredible." The front door was hardly closed when Jill started to speak. "I don't believe it. Is it possible that Bix had Booth as the lead? You said you wish there'd been more about him, about—"

She stopped, horrified.

Doug was angry with her. There was no doubt about it. His jaw was rigid, his brows lowered, the only movement in his face the snapping of his bright eyes. He was furious.

All thoughts about movies and lead characters and remakes drained out of her. This was so awful. How could he be mad at her? What had she done?

She knew. She had not told him about Payne. She hadn't even thought; not speaking had been so automatic. She covered her face with her hands; she couldn't even speak. Dear God, please don't let him be angry with me. Please. Please. Please.

"Jill, what's wrong?" She felt his hands close around her shoulders. She looked up at him. They were standing so close that the whole world was his eyes; she could see nothing else, just the deep-set crystal blue, the low dark brows. But the anger had gone. She had reacted so strongly; shock had drive his anger away. He was gravely concerned. "What is it? Are you all right?"

She stepped back, embarrassed, almost ashamed. She had overreacted. More than overreacted. She had fallen apart. But his anger had surprised her. If she had had a chance to prepare herself, to arm herself... but she had been caught blind... and by him.

She pushed down the flurries of rats' feet. She had been wrong, but she could make amends. She would get everything out in the open so that he would never get angry again. "There's more. My father optioned the right to remake the movie. The only reason Payne's interested in remaking it is that Cass was... and that's also the only reason I came out here." She wanted to be sure he knew everything. "The story you told me in L.A. was the most unbelievable thing I'd ever heard, but then I found out the one thing that made it a little more believable—that Cass must have known of some reason to remake the movie."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He didn't react to the news about Cass's owning the rights. Her keeping a secret was what mattered to him. "Have I given you any reason not to trust me?"

Those were almost the same words Bix had written to Alicia. "No, no. It's just that Payne asked me not to say anything. If it got out that he was interested, then—" She stopped. Doug would not have run to
Entertainment Tonight
with the news. "I keep my promises. I don't betray my friends. If someone asks me to keep a secret, I do."

"So why now?"

"Because we're stuck. We know about Bix and Alicia, but we aren't any closer to knowing what was in that first script than we were days ago. Charles is lying to us, and I don't know how else to make him talk."

And because this is important to you. I'm starting to understand that you have to find out about this before you can do anything else with your life. I want to help you. For the first time, the very first time, I sacrificed one friend to another. This probably won't hurt Payne, but even if it were to, I still would do it because you're more important to me than he is. You're more than a friend. I love you.

Until she met him, Jill had never understood what it meant to love a man. Friendship was all she had known. Friendship was her biggest dream.

Haltingly she tried to explain. These were things that had to be said. "When you don't have a family, you have to create your own. That's what my friends are for me, and it works because the strong prop up the weak, the orderly help the chaotic, the joyful ease the way of the gloomy. But it's not as clear as in a family—there's no center, no roster of who belongs and who doesn't. So you have to have a code, and—"

She quit. He didn't get it. According to the terms by which she lived, in her emotional currency, she had done something important. Never before had she chosen a lover over a friend. But Doug didn't understand. He couldn't. All this had always been easy for him. He had a family, a wonderful, wonderful family who loved each other. She could explain and explain and explain, and even if he understood intellectually, it would be like a literal translation of a poem: the magic would be lost.