17
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it.
The pickup bounced along the road, or what was left of it, as we journeyed further from humanity. Cracks fractured the surface of the road like an earthquake had once been felt here.
“Where are we?” I asked Marc.
“On the edge of the Los Padres National Forest.”
Mountains loomed on the horizon like sentinels, watchful and reassuring. We’d passed through a small town ten minutes earlier called New Cuyama. There was nothing to it. Just a few roads and dusty, grassy plains all around, although the houses were well kept.
The words ‘middle of nowhere’ came to mind, but if this was nowhere it wasn’t as bad as most people thought. The landscape was sparse, with lots of low, scrubby bushes and fields of grass that were browner in color than green. We weren’t in the desert but it felt like at any moment we would find ourselves there, and everything looked parched. Instead of feeling harsh, the sheer nothingness held a quiet beauty.
As we drove further, we became surrounded by a canopy of trees. They were gnarled and twisted, arching over us in unusual directions.
It was a dramatic setting, and one I could see as the backdrop for an old Western movie.
Marc slowed the car as we came to a rustic white fence on our right. He pulled off the road where the fence parted and a small wooden bridge lay across a creek bed. We drove through a copse of trees and then out the other side.
“Oh,” I breathed.
Beyond us lay a single-lane gravel road leading up to a house. Except ‘house’ wasn’t quite the right word.
“You’ve brought me to a ranch.”
Marc didn’t say anything and kept driving toward the single-level building. It was positioned high on a ridge, with the mountains behind it and grassy plains surrounding us in all directions.
I could imagine a real estate agent selling it as a ‘private retreat’.
I loved it.
We continued toward the house and I admired the architecture. It appeared recent but had been built in an early Californian Mission style. A series of archways in the center led to a covered walkway and the stucco walls were finished in a light brown color to match the surroundings. On either side, two small extensions were made of natural stone, and in one of them a wooden door welcomed us.
Marc stopped in front of it. There didn’t appear to be any garaging, just lots and lots of space. I climbed out of the truck and ogled the view.
I heard the driver’s door shut and the gravel crunch beneath Marc’s feet as he came to stand beside me.
“How did you find this place?” I asked eventually.
“I own it.”
“What?” I swung around to face him and grimaced, trying to ignore the pain. “Do you live here?”
Marc glanced at my shoulder, then returned his eyes to the horizon. “I have a condo in LA. This stays empty a lot of the time.”
“Shame. It’s so peaceful.”
“My mother thinks it’s barren.”
My eyebrows rose at the mention of his mother. That was possibly the first piece of personal information he’d ever volunteered. I wasn’t sure if our earlier conversation in the car had changed things or if it was the effect of me being in his territory.
“It’s not barren. It’s absolutely breathtaking.”
“I had a hunch you might like it.”
“I like it. But isn’t it a risk bringing me here if it’s yours?”
He shook his head. “It’s not in my name. My parents bought it for me. Nobody will think to look for us here. At least not in the time it takes you to get better.”
How interesting. I wondered about his relationship with his mother. That she would buy him a place she didn’t like suggested she loved him very much and understood and accepted him despite their differences. Or maybe I was romanticizing it and she had protested the property purchase but his father had bought it anyway.
I already knew who Marc’s parents were. His father was a successful Hollywood director who focused on science fiction movies, and his mother was a lesser-known set designer. For all Marc’s cutting criticism of my Hollywood lifestyle, unlike me he’d been raised to it. I wondered if that had something to do with his derision.
I could feel him watching me as I continued to survey the view. If he expected me to make a cutting remark about how he came to own this house, then I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He’d trusted me enough to bring me here, so I wasn’t about to make a mockery of it.
“I’d love to go hiking here,” I said, gazing longingly at the wilderness.
“Thought you might.”
It wasn’t a surprise he knew I liked hiking. I’d done a number of charitable hikes during my modeling career, which would be on public record.
“Why haven’t you done it lately?”
I bit my lip. I’d been about to say ‘Duncan’ but thought the better of it. “Not enough time,” I said instead, which was somewhat true.
“Come on.”
I followed him to the front door. A few potted plants that looked like they could handle the sun sat either side of the entrance. I resisted reaching out and running my palm along the wall. The stones were all different shapes and colors and I loved how earthy the house was.
Marc opened the door and led me inside. The foyer was small compared to my Hollywood mansion but it was a lot more homely. The walls had been plastered inside too, and matching textured tiles stretched in every direction. Above us was a beautiful wooden cathedral ceiling.
Marc led me into an archway off the foyer and we stepped into a living area. The ceiling here was even higher. An Indian-inspired rug in a rich red lay in front of a stone fireplace and a series of wooden windows, with an arched one in the middle, overlooked the mountains.
I exhaled a long breath. And I thought I was going to be a prisoner for the next few weeks. This felt more like going on holiday to some sort of exclusive retreat.
“I’ll show you the kitchen. It should already be full of food.”
I turned and followed him in the opposite direction into a modest kitchen area. In keeping with the existing decor, it was wooden with a tiled floor and granite countertops. An island bench sat in the center of the room with a couple of chairs tucked under it.
After that, he led me to my bedroom, which was off the main living area. It was its own wing, with a generous-sized room with stone-colored carpet and its own fireplace.
“Bathroom’s through there,” he said, gesturing to a door to our left. “I’ll go grab your bags, then I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait.”
He stopped in the doorway and waited for me to speak.
“Are you leaving me here?” I hated myself the minute I said it. It made me sound scared. Or maybe just lonely.
“I’m the bedroom down the hall off the kitchen. The security crew will be in a self-contained studio down the other end of the house, so you’ll have your privacy.”
I nodded and watched him go. When I was alone, I crossed the room and sat on the bed. It was a king with an intricate patchwork quilt. I wondered if his mother had helped decorate the place, seeing as she was a set designer. Everything was so immaculate.
Tired from the journey and my injury, I lay down and within moments was asleep.
*
I awoke later to the smell of garlic. It took me a second to remember where I was. I blinked a few times, registering the unusual ceiling above me.
I used my good arm to sit up slowly. It was dark outside and a bedside lamp had been switched on. It cast a soft glow around the room that didn’t quite reach the recesses of the tall ceiling.
I noticed some bags had been left at the foot of my bed. They weren’t mine, or at least they hadn’t been twenty-four hours earlier. Everything had been destroyed in the fire so I assumed my stylist had been instructed to prepare some essentials for me.
I ignored the bags and walked out the door, across the living area and into the hall. And stopped.
Up ahead, I could see Marc in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure who else I’d thought it would be. It’s not like I’d have hired help out here given the circumstances. But I hadn’t expected Marc to prepare dinner for me either. I also hadn’t anticipated the man could cook. Judging by the enticing infusion of garlic, herbs and what I suspected was chicken, he knew what he was doing.
I took another step toward the kitchen, but paused again. He was chopping ingredients with the same intensity he did everything else—like it was the only thing that mattered in the world. The light over the island bench highlighted his muscled olive forearms. He stepped away from the counter and went to the sink to rinse the knife, which was when I noticed he was barefoot.
I sucked in a breath. They’re feet, Lena, get over it, I told myself. But for some reason, I couldn’t. Seeing Marc like this—so casual and obviously in his element—felt like an invasion of his privacy.
I took a step backward, torn between joining him and returning to my room.
I jolted at the sound of his deep voice. “I know you like the dark, but there’s no food over there.” He returned to the counter and continued chopping more vegetables, not bothering to look up.
Damn him and his freaky investigative senses.
Reluctantly, I walked into the room and climbed onto one of the stools at the island bench. “What’s for dinner?”
“Chicken paella.”
My stomach gurgled in anticipation and I was glad the bubbling pan on the cooktop covered the noise.
“It smells wonderful,” I said.
He picked up the chopping board and went over to the pan. “Better than hospital food. I’d offer you a glass of wine but I’m assuming you’re smart enough to take your painkillers so that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Isn’t wine a painkiller?”
He shot me a look so dark I wanted to shiver. It made no sense that his disapproval could make my body respond like that. I cleared my throat. “But I’d love a drink of water.”
Within moments he’d pushed a glass of water in front of me, and returned to stir the rice in the pan.
“So let’s get this over with then,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You wanted details. I’ll give you details. Not all of them, but enough.”
“OK,” I said. It was a start.
“The guy you saw on my computer screen, Martin Campbell. Until the fire, he was looking like a good suspect.”
“Why do you say ‘until the fire’?”
“We need to determine whether the fire and the other incidents are connected.”
“But it’s possible?”
“I’m not an arson specialist, but we’re looking into it.”
“We’re?”
Marc stopped stirring the pan. “You didn’t think I did everything on my own, did you?”
“I don’t know. Possibly,” I admitted. I wouldn’t have put him past it with his ultra-competent air.
“Just like you’ve got a team of people, so do I, Lena. An assistant, an offsider and other specialist consultants.”
I wondered why I’d never considered it before. Maybe because I couldn’t imagine him managing people, but now wasn’t the time to ponder that. “So what now?”
“As I said before, the fire could be a separate incident, but the more we learn about Campbell, the more reason we have to pursue him as a suspect.”
“Why?”
Marc set down the spoon and walked back to lean against the island bench. I forced myself to keep my eyes on his instead of the taut muscles running along his arms.
“After his relationship ended five years ago, his ex took out a restraining order. I think you saw that.”
I nodded.
“Well there’s been no further complaints or charges on his record, but after some digging we’ve uncovered a history of unhealthy workplace behavior.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. Unfortunately none of the women ever made a formal complaint, but there have been four we’ve been able to identify so far as having issues with him. One claimed he cornered her in the parking lot after work and tried to force himself on her. She managed to get away and the next day when she returned to work intending to report it, he was gone.”
“Gone?”
“He didn’t turn up to work. He claimed a member of his family was ill and he had to leave the state to care for them. Our enquiries show no record of him in LA for the next five months, but we weren’t able to find him elsewhere in the country either, which sets off alarm bells. He definitely didn’t leave the States. We would have been able to track that.”
“So where did he go?”
“To ground. There’s lots of possibilities. Maybe he used a different identity for that period of time, we don’t know yet. When he returned, he continued to work as a grip on a few more productions without incident.”
I frowned, trying to recall if I remembered him on-set. Grips were part of the lighting and rigging crew responsible for setting the rigging points for the lights and other heavy things. It was possible he’d been there but had done all the setup before I arrived to do my takes.
“Then came a series of reported incidents about twelve months after that,” Marc continued. “One of the hair and make-up crew on a production claimed she found him loitering in a female star’s trailer on several occasions.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that for the moment. Then, on that same production, he was found having sex with a female member of the production crew. It was consensual, but after the production wound up, she disappeared.”
I gripped the glass tighter. “She went missing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, surely Campbell’s an obvious suspect?”
“That’s what the detective investigating the case thought, too, but he was never able to come up with anything—including the whereabouts of the woman. She’s still missing after three years.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I told you it wasn’t pretty. There’s one more thing. Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes.” No, but I wasn’t going to back down now.
Marc’s eyes searched mine like he was still questioning how much he should tell me. “He’s worked on the last six films you’ve starred in.”
I stared at him, the cold water suddenly feeling out of place in my empty stomach.
“So you mean he’s been stalking me for . . .” I paused to consider how far back the last six films took me. “Over three years.”
“Potentially.”
The stool scraped on the tiles as I stood up.
“I told you it’s better you let me handle things.”
I shook my head and paced the kitchen. “No. No, it’s definitely not. You know why? Because one of those productions was in Africa. You know that, right? The sicko got himself on the crew for that and followed me across continents.”
“It looks that way, yes.”
I kept pacing. “Then surely there’s some evidence of his infatuation with me?” I demanded. “Please tell me you’ve found something.”
“The next step is to apply for a search warrant, but only the cops can do that, so I’ve turned it over to them.”
I stopped pacing. “But the press—”
“Will stay out of it,” he said firmly. “I trust the guys who are working on this to keep it confidential. The only issue is procedures take time. I’ve given them plenty of probable cause, so there’s every likelihood they’ll get access to search his premises, but it won’t happen tomorrow. That’s the compromise with using someone like me.”
I bit off a cutting comment on his relationship management skills, because for once, he didn’t deserve it. He’d been true to his word and given me the details of the investigation like I asked.
With a weary sigh, I sat back down on the stool. “At least I’m safe here.”
“You are.” His gaze lingered on mine before he turned back to the pan.
For how long, I wanted to ask, but didn’t.