Seven
Billie felt the weight of suspicion as she led the police commissioner and two homicide detectives into the library. They’d stared at her as if she’d pulled the trigger herself, even though she’d already been through this when the body was found.
“Sahara, this is Police Commissioner Murtaugh and Detectives Julian and Fisher. Gentlemen, Sahara Travis. Ring if you need me,” she said, and left the room.
Sahara waved them toward a long leather sofa.
“Please have a seat. Commissioner. Detectives. This is Brendan McQueen, my bodyguard, and Lucy Benton, my personal assistant.”
Sahara was vividly aware of where Brendan was in reference to where she was sitting and was grateful for his presence, something she hadn’t expected to feel.
“First let me say how sorry we are for your loss,” the commissioner said.
Well aware that the police commissioner did not attend crime scenes or make these kinds of calls, Sahara knew he was here solely because of her fame.
“Thank you,” she said, and then eyed the detectives. “I assume you’re working my mother’s case, so can you tell me what you know? Are there any suspects? Does anyone know where my father is?”
Fisher was pushing thirty and wore his light brown hair in a ponytail. He looked enough like Adam Levine of Maroon 5 that they could have been brothers.
Julian was a handsome thirtysomething local, born and raised in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
Fisher spoke first. “At this time, we don’t have any suspects, and we’re waiting on the autopsy report. We have a BOLO out on your father, that means—”
“I know what it means,” Sahara said. “Be on the lookout. So are you looking at him as a possible suspect?”
The trio of men looked at each other and then back at her.
“If I may be so bold, you don’t seem to be grieving much for your mother’s death,” Commissioner Murtaugh said.
Sahara crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.
“I was not particularly welcome here and have not been home in fifteen years. It’s horrible, how she died. But it’s not like we were a part of each other’s lives.”
Fisher frowned. “Short of seeming callous, we’d be lying if we said you weren’t a person of interest in this case. You must know that you’re their heir. You stand to inherit nearly a million dollars from your mother’s death.”
This was exactly what Sahara had been waiting for—an accusation based on inheritance. It was so damn easy to blame a family member and close a messy case instead of looking into their business. She stood abruptly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am the highest paid actress in Hollywood right now. I have ten times a million dollars just in my checking account. I own the penthouse in The Magnolia in downtown Hollywood, and according to Forbes, counting investments and endorsements, I’m worth more than five hundred million dollars. So I don’t mean to sound callous, but you’d look absurd to even pretend to pin this on me over a measly million-dollar inheritance. Just so you know, Brendan is here as my bodyguard for a reason. There have been three attempts already made on my life back home. One woman is dead, having eaten some food meant for me that had been poisoned. The elevator to my penthouse was sabotaged and dropped twenty-five floors. I escaped by a fluke.”
Brendan interrupted. “The third attempt was made to her private jet, and there is another body there to add to the count. A mechanic found in a Dumpster. I received a message after we landed that the men I had check it out after we left did find a bomb. Her plane would never have cleared the runway before it exploded.”
Lucy gasped. “What? Are you serious! I didn’t know that!”
Sahara sighed. “Sorry. I forgot to talk to you about it. I didn’t find out until we had landed, and then there was all the mess about getting through the airport.”
“We’ll certainly take all that into account, Miss Travis, but we’re still obliged to investigate all possible leads, which means I’ll have to ask you some questions. Let’s start with the circumstances around your leaving New Orleans. Why did you not come home at any point in the last fifteen years?” Fisher asked.
“Because when I graduated high school, my parents gave me an old car and five hundred dollars, and told me they’d done their part to raise me and to leave, so I did.”
Murtaugh frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the charming couple I knew.”
“I guess you had to be me,” Sahara said. “Unfortunately, I can’t help you find your killer because I know nothing about the last fifteen years of their lives, and I am here only because Leopold is missing and the responsibility of burying her is left to me.”
“You call your father by his first name?”
“At their request, yes, and I also called my mother Katarina. Like I said, you had to be me. Is there anything else?”
“Who besides you stands to inherit?”
“No one I know of,” Sahara said. “You should talk to their lawyer. If he’s still practicing, it’s Chappy Farraday.”
“We already did. You’re the only one mentioned in the will. Do you have extended family?”
Sahara shook her head. “There’s no other family that I’m aware of.”
The phone rang on the desk and the detectives looked to her, waiting for her to answer it.
“Billie will get it,” Sahara said. “Is there anything more?”
“Not at this time,” Fisher said. “You’ll be staying here for a while, I assume?”
“Unless the killer takes me out, in which case someone will be burying me, too.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Brendan said.
“Then we’ll be leaving. Again, my condolences,” Murtaugh said.
“Thank you,” Sahara said, and rang for Billie, who showed them to the door.
Their footsteps were still audible when Sahara spoke.
“I’m so damn tired I want to crawl in bed and sleep until tomorrow, but I think I’ll just go change my clothes. I have a horrible, horrible feeling that front doorbell will be ringing off the wall within a couple of hours.”
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“People will be coming to gawk at a movie star with the pretense of paying their respects, and then they will all go home and say, ‘She looks prettier on screen than she does in person.’”
“Don’t say that,” Lucy said. “I’ll come up with you. I’ll fix your hair and help you dress.”
Sahara’s shoulders slumped as she gazed at the both of them.
“I know what you’re thinking. That I am a coldhearted bitch for not caring about Katarina being gone, but that could not be further from the truth. It’s this house. It’s them. This brings back too many ugly memories.”
The phone rang again.
Sahara was trying not to cry. She turned to Lucy. “Well, if you’re going to help me, then come on. Billie won’t be able to put them off much longer.”
Brendan had an urge to hug her as they left the library, but he stifled it. Tonight he was going to do some background research on the Travis family. There had to be an answer somewhere in their past that would make sense of what was happening. And he wasn’t so sure anymore that what was happening to Sahara had anything to do with her being an actress. It was starting to seem more to do with her being Leopold and Katarina Travis’s daughter.
* * *
Will Sherman and his work crew finished installing the security system just after the visitors started to arrive. They’d explained the system to both Billie and Sahara, as well as Brendan, showing them how to arm and disarm. At Sahara’s instructions, Brendan told them to send the bill to Harold Warner and gave them the address in LA.
Billie set up the formal living room, the one they called the white room, for Sahara to receive the guests, and people began coming and going most of the day. They were all good friends of the Travises and considerably more distraught than she was, but she was cognizant of what was expected and dressed to match the white and gold furnishings, wearing a white strapless sundress with a gold bib necklace that looked like it had been looted from an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb.
She’d thanked Lucy twice for having the foresight to get dressier clothes, even though she’d told her not to. The gold sandals she’d picked out had a strap across the toes and open backs, leaving the healing area of her foot unencumbered. Her long black hair was loose and in a controlled curl around her face. Her lips were a dark, vivid red, the startling contrast she intended to the white-and-gold room.
Brendan had changed into light-colored slacks and a white, short-sleeve shirt hanging loose outside his pants. It accentuated his tan to perfection. She knew there was a pistol at his waist beneath the shirt, but he looked damn good, like he belonged in the islands somewhere, though she wasn’t about to tell him.
She wouldn’t have to—the women who’d come to pay their respects were mutely telling him how hot he was in a myriad of ways. Sidelong glances, outright flirting and what seemed like an epidemic of hot flashes. She’d never seen so many women of a certain age fanning themselves at one time in an already air-conditioned room.
Lucy was in the back of the room, a silent witness to this part of the ritual of burying a loved one. Sahara knew she was there—available if needed.
The women were obviously enamored being in the company of such a famous star, but there were a few who’d known her most of her life and kept referring to all the times Katarina and Leopold had taken her out into social situations to insinuate themselves into her personal space.
“Oh, Sahara, darling, do you remember that New Year’s Eve when Katarina dressed you up like an angel for her masquerade ball? You sat on a little gold throne and sprinkled gold dust on the dancers as they passed by you.”
Sahara remembered being so tired that she’d fallen asleep sitting up, and Katarina had slapped her so hard after everyone left that her lip bled.
“Yes, ma’am. I remember,” she said.
“Is it true someone is trying to kill you, too?” another woman asked.
She just nodded. They wanted the gory details, and she wasn’t going there.
“That’s awful. Just awful. Do you think the man trying to kill you got angry because he failed, and killed poor Katarina out of spite?”
Sahara was appalled that anyone would insinuate it was her fault Katarina was dead and was struggling with a way to answer without screaming at her when Billie came in with a tea trolley of petit fours and cold drinks, left it against the wall and pushed out the trolley that was already empty. It was the third trolley in four hours.
The elegant, blue-haired dowager sitting in a chair nearest to Sahara looked straight at Brendan and lifted her empty glass, then tapped it gently on the arm of her chair.
Sahara flinched.
The bitch. She knows Brendan is not staff.
Without saying a word, Sahara got up and took the glass out of her hand and refilled it from the trolley, then carried it back and put it directly in her hands with a fresh napkin to catch the condensation.
“I didn’t intend for you to wait on me, dear. I thought staff would—”
“There is no staff in this room, Mrs. Haley. Just the man keeping me alive and the lady who makes my world a simpler place to be.”
Lucy felt a little teary. She hadn’t expected that kind of acknowledgment.
Brendan swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat and kept his gaze on the view through the windows. He’d paid little attention to what was being said in the room, but he was touched that once again Sahara had taken offense on his behalf.
The blue-haired dowager smiled, but it never reached her eyes.
“I see... Well, then. I want you to know how much I thought of Katarina. We lunched together at least two or three times a month, and there wasn’t a time when your name didn’t come up. She was so proud of your accomplishments, as was Leopold.”
“Really? I had no idea,” Sahara said, and knew if she didn’t get a break she was going to come undone.
She glanced up at Lucy, unaware of the desperation on her face, but Lucy saw it.
All of a sudden she was coming toward Sahara from the back of the room in a purposeful stride.
“Sahara, I am so sorry to interrupt, but there’s a call for you that you have to take.” She gave her phone to Sahara as if the call was on hold, then she turned to the half-dozen women who’d already been there an hour past proper, and shrugged as if all of this was out of anyone’s control. “Ladies, may I be your escort out while Sahara takes her call?”
They all immediately stood as Sahara got up to leave the room.
“Of course. Our sympathies. We’ll see you at the service. If I can help, please don’t hesitate to call,” the blue-haired lady said.
Sahara heard them all and kept smiling and nodding as they gathered up their things.
“My apologies, ladies. Duty calls,” she said, and glanced once at Brendan, who followed her out of the room. But instead of going upstairs, she headed straight for the kitchen.
She was trembling and didn’t even know it until she stumbled. All of a sudden she was in his arms and the weight of her world was now on his shoulders. She covered her face, trying to stop the tears.
“Just cry, damn it,” he said gruffly, and so she did.
Billie saw them coming into the kitchen.
“Is she hurt?”
“No, ma’am. Just had enough.”
“This way,” Billie said, and led them to four small rooms at the back of the house where she lived. “Put her on the sofa,” she said, and pulled aside an afghan as Brendan put her down.
Billie passed her a handful of tissues while Brendan pulled down the window shades.
“Sorry, but it’s necessary right now.”
Billie brushed the hair from Sahara’s forehead and then leaned over and kissed the side of her cheek.
“I am so sorry, my sweet baby. I’m sorry I let Leopold ever have you. I thought I was doing the right thing by knowing of the luxury in which you would live while I was close by to care for you, but I was wrong, and I’m sorry that you’ve had to live the past fifteen years alone. I should have been a stronger woman for you. For my girl.”
Brendan turned away. The more he was around Sahara Travis, the more he saw the woman beneath the star. The hell of it was, he was attracted to her in a way he’d never been to a client before. She was a constant surprise, smart as a whip, sexy as hell, and there was a huge part of her that broke his heart.
Sahara scooted over to make room for Billie and then wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and sobbed.
* * *
Lucy reclaimed her phone, but the phone calls to the house continued up until the dinner hour. She took down all the names and messages and in turn thanked them on behalf of Miss Travis, and then in proper Southern fashion, at the dinner hour the calls immediately ceased. In the South, there was, after all, a time and a place for everything and this was no exception.
Dinner was cooking at the Travis mansion, and the four people in residence were all in the kitchen behind curtained windows helping with the preparation.
Sahara was back in shorts and a T-shirt, her eyes still a little red from crying, but barefoot without the bandage and focused on making a pot of Cajun rice. Lucy was setting the table, and Billie was stirring a pot of gumbo that had been cooking all afternoon. Even Brendan had been given a task and was holding his own as a bartender, making predinner martinis for the cooks. It was one of his easier gigs.
Finally, Billie announced that dinner was served and insisted they sit. She brought the plates of food to the table, still steaming, and then finally her own.
“It is a blessing to have all of you here with me,” Billie said. “Enjoy.”
And so they did, eating with thanks for the company and the food. Nothing was said about the murder or why Sahara had come home, until they were beginning to clean up.
“I’m not entertaining company again,” Sahara said. “They can call me whatever they choose...uppity, rude, unfeeling, but it’s their fault. I have never been asked so many rude questions at once in my life. I don’t have to do it, so I won’t.”
“Works for me,” Lucy said.
“I’m on your side,” Brendan said. “You don’t know how close I came to searching every woman who paid a call. I was already going to warn you that if the procession continued, that’s what was going to happen.”
Billie grinned. “I would have loved to see that happen.”
Sahara shook her head. “It would have been the height of rudeness and talked about for years.”
Brendan grinned as Sahara continued.
“Anyway, Lucy, whoever calls wanting to come over tomorrow, the answer is no. Tell them I’ve taken to my bed out of grief, or else I’m busy organizing the funeral service—which is the truth. It’s not a job I want, but the only way I’d get out of this is if Leopold shows up to do it, and that’s something I don’t want to face.”
Billie furrowed her brow. “I can’t imagine what’s happened to him. He would never leave Katarina behind like this. It’s not like him at all.”
“Has there been a ransom call? Anything to suggest he was kidnapped?” Brendan asked.
Sahara’s eyes widened. “I’d never thought of that.”
“The police also asked that, but so far the answer is no,” Billie said.
There were a few moments of silence.
“So, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Lucy asked.
“Figure out what to do with Katarina. There’s a family mausoleum, so I know where she’ll be interred. I guess I’ll have to speak to whoever is pastor now at their church.”
“We’ll need to get the grounds done,” Billie added. “I’ll contact the landscaper we use.”
“What about that crime scene tape?” Sahara asked.
“I’d guess the whole scene has been released by now, but I’ll find out if it can be removed before I call the landscapers,” Billie said.
Lucy had been rudely staring at Brendan through most of dinner when she suddenly cried out.
“I just now figured out why you looked familiar when we met. You look like Channing Tatum...older and a whole lot taller, but there’s something about the shape of your face that reminds me of him.”
“Since I’m older, it would be a fairer assessment to say he looks like me,” Brendan said.
Lucy grinned. “I guess you’re right.”
Sahara had first noticed that, too, but no longer thought about it. Brendan was himself and like no one else she’d ever known.
“Does anyone want dessert?” Billie asked.
“Not me. Not tonight,” Sahara said.
“I’m good,” Brendan said.
“No, thank you,” Lucy said.
“Then I’ll just make some coffee while I clean up. It will be done soon, and if anyone wants a cup, you’ll know where it is.”
A clock in the library began striking the hour. Ten chimes. Ten o’clock.
Sahara was too wired to watch television, but when she began to help clean up, Billie ran them all out of the kitchen.
“This is my world. Out you go...all of you.”
Lucy sighed. “Sahara, if you won’t be needing me anymore, I think I’ll go to bed. I’m exhausted.”
Sahara turned and hugged her.
“What’s that for?” Lucy asked.
“For saving me from the blue-haired bitch today.”
“Oh, right,” Lucy said, and grinned.
“Sleep well,” Sahara said.
“Thanks,” Lucy said, then pulled out her phone and began checking her messages as she walked away.
Sahara glanced at Brendan, suddenly wishing for a change of scenery. If only they were both at a cocktail party where they could flirt all night and wind up together in bed. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea...
“So, Mr. McQueen,” she began with a smile, “I know where the music is playing on Beale Street.”
“Maybe another time,” Brendan said.
She shrugged, knowing it was impossible—knowing she’d said it in jest.
“Then I’m going to head upstairs and take myself a long hot bubble bath, and I’m not coming out until the ends of my fingers are all puckered up and my bones have melted away.”
He saw the flash in her eyes and the way she’d arched her back just a little as she turned toward the stairs. That was a blow-to-the-gut come-on, and she’d done it on purpose. She just wanted to play, but sex wasn’t a game to him.
He followed her up, making sure to keep his distance, but keep her in sight. Right now, she felt caged up and restless, and he didn’t trust her any farther than he could throw her.
Sahara wanted him, but she already knew he wasn’t the messing-around kind. She rolled her eyes at what she’d just said, chiding herself for teasing him. She wasn’t like that and she didn’t want him thinking it, either. She hit the door with the flat of her hand and disappeared inside.
Brendan walked in a few minutes behind her to give her some privacy, but he still caught a glimpse of one bare butt cheek and a long bare leg as she disappeared into the bathroom. Every stitch of clothes she’d had on was on the floor by the bed.
He took a deep breath and shoved a hand through his hair.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, and stretched out on his bed, turned on the TV and turned up the volume.
He didn’t want to hear the water running. He didn’t want to hear the silence. He didn’t want to think about that long sleek body slick with bubbles and growing more and more mellow from the heat, so he got up and ran downstairs to let Billie know he was setting the security alarm.
As instructed, Will Sherman and his crew had installed a security panel in the foyer and one in the hall upstairs. Brendan ran back upstairs and set it from the hall, adding one more way to keep her safe.
* * *
Sahara fell asleep on her belly with one arm hanging off the side of the bed. Her voluptuous mouth was puckered slightly, as if waiting for a kiss.
Brendan could have watched her like that all night, but instead he locked their bedroom door, then took his gun to the bathroom with him while he showered. Normally, he slept in the nude, but when on the job, he always slept in a pair of gym shorts.
He left the door open as he showered and shaved so he could hear any movement in the adjoining room, and left the night-light on in the bathroom when he came out. The last thing he did was put his gun beside his pillow before he turned out the lights.
Sahara was on her side now, rolled up as tight as she could be, with the covers pulled up beneath her chin.
He frowned. That was too reminiscent of the way a frightened child slept. He’d seen it too many times, in too many war-torn countries. He couldn’t help but wonder if being back here had resurrected old ghosts. He couldn’t do anything about unsettled spirits, but he could make sure no living, breathing people messed with her again.