Nineteen
Billie was in her room lying down when Sahara came looking for her. She saw the darkened room and the wet cloth over her mother’s eyes and remembered.
Migraines.
“Mama, do you need anything?” she whispered. “Did you take your pill?”
“Yes, took it. Need nothing,” Billie whispered.
“Then you rest,” Sahara said, and pulled a coverlet up over her mother’s shoulders and backed out of the bedroom straight into Brendan. She closed the door and turned around.
“Migraine,” she said softly. “She took her medicine. She’ll have to sleep it off.”
They slipped out of her rooms, then back through the short hallway to the kitchen.
“So, we’re on our own tonight. Let me see what’s already thawed and in the refrigerator,” she said, and opened the door.
“I’m good with omelets,” Brendan said. “We can make them without making too much noise and making Billie’s misery worse.”
Sahara looked at him then, leaning against the counter with his hands stuffed in his pockets, watching her with that calm, steady gaze.
“Brendan McQueen, that might have been the kindest, most thoughtful comment I’ve ever heard. Have I ever mentioned how very much I love you?”
He smiled. “Not nearly enough.”
“Then I will do better,” she said. “Now, there are lots of things here we can put in an omelet, but you need to tell me what you don’t want in it.”
“You can skip the onions,” he said.
“Good call,” she said, and began pulling out ham, cheese and eggs.
But when she reached for the jar of sliced jalapeños and a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, he whistled softly.
“Now we’re talking,” he said, as he saw the spicy condiments she was accumulating.
She shrugged. “What can I say. I was raised on Cajun and Creole cooking. Sliced bread, bagels and English muffins are in the bread box. You pick what you want to eat with yours. I’d like a toasted English muffin with mine.”
She began breaking eggs into a bowl, but he couldn’t bring himself to move, and the longer he watched the tall, leggy beauty, the movie star she’d become began disappearing before his eyes.
This was the real Sahara, the child who was bartered to a vain and hateful couple for a better place to live—the girl who fell beneath the cracks and crawled out of them on her own.
The love he had for her swelled to the point of pain. Whatever fate had in store, he would not be the one to doubt and betray her again.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat and went to the bread box. By the time she was turning omelets out onto their plates, he had a plate of toasted bread and muffins on the table, as well as the butter and peach preserves he’d gotten from the refrigerator.
“I didn’t make coffee,” Sahara said, as she carried their plates to the table.
“I’ll take a Pepsi,” he said.
She danced a little two-step on her way to the refrigerator.
“And I choose ginger ale.”
He got the glasses and iced them while she got the bottles of soda. He watched her pouring ginger ale into her glass, then quickly take that first sip to get the full effect of the fizz. Another facet of the real Sahara was revealed, seeing such simple joy.
They ate together as if they’d been doing it for years, talking about the charade they intended to play out.
“What if he doesn’t take the bait?” Sahara said. “We’ll have given the media more fodder to relay false news.”
“It’s the chance we take, but if you want to call this off, I’m good with that. If you’re having second thoughts, all you have to do is say so.”
She shook her head. “No. I want this over. I want to do it.”
“Okay, then,” he said.
They finished their dinner and cleaned up the kitchen as quietly as they could, then went up to bed.
“I’m going to call Lucy and make sure she arrived safely,” Sahara said.
“And I have a few emails to return,” Brendan said.
“Turning down more jobs because of me?” she asked.
“Turning down jobs is part of my job. I can’t ever take them all, and don’t sweat it. I’m right where I want to be.”
She blew him a kiss, then plopped down on the bed and reached for her phone. Just having it back made her feel connected to normalcy again.
She made the call to Lucy, expecting her to answer on the second or third ring just as she always did, and then frowned when the call went to voice mail.
“Uh...Lucy, it’s me. I wanted to make sure you got back okay and to tell you I have my old phone again and it works...so let me know what’s going on when you get a chance.” Then she disconnected.
“She didn’t answer?” Brendan asked.
Sahara shook her head, frowning.
“Don’t worry,” Brendan said. “All kinds of reasons why. Remember the time difference, too.”
“You’re right,” Sahara said, and stretched out on the bed. “Will it bother you if I watch TV?”
“Not a bit,” he said, and went back to work.
* * *
Lucy was in bed when her cell began to vibrate, but she ignored it for the glorious climax washing through her and the sweaty man inside her.
“You like that, baby?”
“Oh my God, yes, yes,” she moaned.
He grinned and drove deeper and harder.
Their little orgy lasted until well into the morning. Wiley slipped out of their bed and left her sleeping so he could get home in time to shower and clean up for work. He would have liked to stay, but at least she was back. She was his life.
* * *
Lucy woke up the next morning, sad that Wiley was gone, but glad to be home. When she picked up her phone to check messages, she remembered the call from last night and was shocked to see it was from Sahara’s phone. She listened to the voice mail and then sent her a quick text.
Sorry I didn’t hear your call last night. I was so tired I went to bed early. Glad you have your phone back. I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on from this end, and say hello to Billie for me.
She put in a call to Adam at The Magnolia to let him know what she’d been sent home to do, and then called Harold out of courtesy. Then she got up to shower and dress. Today would be hectic, to say the least.
* * *
Lucy’s text arrived midmorning on Sahara’s phone, leaving her relieved. She was in the foyer with her mother, who was letting in the cleaning crew. Except for what she called a drug hangover and exhaustion, Billie felt better.
The crew barely made it over the threshold before Brendan lined them up and, one at a time, did a complete pat down. Then he went through the cleaning supplies they brought in before he let them go.
It was the first time the cleaning crew had been there since Sahara Travis’s arrival, and they were intimidated by the presence of a woman of such fame and the bodyguard with her. But it was Billie who got their attention when she lit into them for doing shoddy work.
“Just because there’s no traffic in and out of certain rooms in the house does not mean I want dirt, spiders and rodents setting up house there!” she said. “Mr. Travis’s office was a disgrace.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re sorry, ma’am. We’ll be more thorough,” they said, speaking over each other.
“See that you are. This time I’ll be checking every room in this house when you’re gone, and if it’s not up to my standards, your boss will hear about it. If Mr. Brendan is satisfied with you, then you’re free to go.”
“They’re good,” Brendan said.
They scattered to the different floors to do their jobs, heads ducked in embarrassment by the dressing-down they’d been given.
* * *
Sahara stayed silent until they had dispersed, and then she shared her news.
“Lucy’s fine. She just went to bed early, and she said to tell Billie hello.”
Billie smiled. “She’s a sweet girl. I enjoyed her company.”
“Yes, she is.” But Sahara was eyeing her mother closely. “Mama, why don’t you go rest while they’re here?”
“Oh, they’ll be here for hours. I can’t lie down that long. Besides, the ground-floor crew always starts in my rooms.”
“Well, after they’re gone, you can lie down if you want. There’s no one left to tell you what to do here. It’s basically your house now. Live it like you own it,” Brendan said.
Billie paused a moment, then slowly smiled. “I never thought of it like that, but you’re right. There’s no one expecting anything out of me anymore, is there?”
“Certainly not us,” Sahara said, and hugged her.
“What about lunch?” Billie said.
“What did you always do on cleaning day?” Sahara asked.
“I picked up food to go from wherever they wanted.”
“So today, when you feel like it, you pick up food from wherever you want it. I would give anything to be able to get it for you, but I don’t dare,” Sahara said.
Billie patted her daughter’s cheek. “I don’t want you taking any kind of chance. And I will get some food later...for all of us. I have a debit card from the household account. I’ll use it like I always do. As soon as they’re through in my place, I believe I will lie down for a bit, but don’t let me oversleep. If I’m still asleep around eleven, wake me up. Getting food during the noon hour takes forever.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do that,” Sahara said.
Billie left them on their own.
“Now what are we going to do, since the house has been invaded?” Sahara asked.
“We don’t have enough privacy for what I had in mind,” Brendan said.
She laughed. “You are outrageous.”
“So I’ve been told. Anyway, we’ll just go where they’re not, and if they come in, we’ll move.”
* * *
Bubba had been up for hours. He had a headache from overindulging in liquor last night but was ready for this shit to be over with. He’d already been to Baton Rouge and back again and was all decked out with a rental car and a magnetic sign he’d stolen from a car there. He was wearing a uniform of sorts. Khaki slacks, a navy blue double-breasted blazer and a navy-colored cap. Posing as a courier was a good way to get the door open, and then he’d shoot as many as he had to, to get to Sahara.
He was all hyped up as he turned the corner and headed up their street, only to see two vans from a cleaning service parked in the front drive.
“Well, hell,” he muttered.
They’d be in there for hours, which meant this wasn’t happening today, and maybe this was a sign. Mama had always been big on signs, so today wasn’t meant to be.
* * *
The hours dragged throughout the day. By the time they finally had the house back to themselves, it was late. They opted for sandwiches and cheesecake from the freezer for dinner, and again Billie chose an early time to retire. It was barely past 8:00 p.m. when she got ready to leave the kitchen.
“I’ve had all of this day I care to observe,” Billie said. “If you two don’t need anything more, I think I’ll go to bed.”
“If we need anything, we’ll get it ourselves. Good night, Mama,” Sahara said, as she hugged her. “Sleep well.”
“You, too,” Billie said, and left to go to her rooms.
Brendan and Sahara left the kitchen hand in hand, walking toward the stairs.
“Movie marathon?” Brendan asked, as they reached the staircase.
“A marathon for sure,” Sahara said.
He grinned. “Damn, woman, but I do like how you think.”
She ran her finger down the inside of his arm as she leaned closer, whispering near his ear, “It’s because I love you, and I love this pretty skin and all these muscles, and the way you laugh, and the way you say my name when you come. I just can’t seem to get enough.”
The smile died on his face as he swept her up in his arms.
“Hang on,” he said gruffly. “I’m about to go up a flight of stairs faster than I’ve ever done before.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and did what she’d been told.
Once he reached the upstairs landing, he paused long enough to set the security alarm. Moments later they were in the bedroom tearing off their clothes. He locked the door. She stretched out on the bed.
The marathon was on.
* * *
Bubba was parked at the far end of the block watching lights turning off inside the house. He already knew there were motion detector lights all over the grounds and wondered what would happen if he were to get caught under one, but he was afraid to find out. He needed to survive this unidentified and unscathed, or all of his effort would have been for nothing. So he put his car in gear and drove away. Tomorrow he would put the signs back on the rental car and arrive at the gates as a courier.
He was about six blocks from home when he began hearing sirens and looked up in the rearview mirror at the fire truck behind him. He pulled over and stopped to let it pass, and moments later had to pull over for a second one.
“Damn,” he said, wondering where they were going.
It wasn’t until he drove three more blocks that he began to panic. Flames were shooting up into the sky a good twenty feet above the rooftops. Someone’s house was on fire. Someone close to where he lived.
He accelerated, his heart pounding, feeling like he needed to pee. He turned the last block and saw fire trucks and police cars everywhere, including the building with the flames shooting through the roof.
He pulled over to the curb to park and jumped out running.
His neighbors were on their porches. He could hear them calling out as he ran past.
“Sorry, man!”
“If you need a place to stay—”
And then a cop stopped him from going any farther.
“Let me go!” Bubba cried. “That’s my home!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s gone,” the cop said.
Bubba sank to his knees in shock.
“It’s a sign. I see it, Mama, but it’s too late to turn back.”
He rocked back on his heels and watched in silence as the apartment building was engulfed in flames. He was still there, watching the fire crew dousing out hot spots, when the sun came up.
* * *
Brendan was asleep when his cell phone rang. He rolled over, reaching toward the nightstand, answering without bothering to look at caller ID.
“Hello?”
“McQueen, this is Detective Fisher. The commissioner gave us the go-ahead. If you’re still up for all this, we have it set up for this morning before eleven, so be prepared for a break-in. Our guy is one of the undercover officers. He’s about five-ten, stocky build and has long blond hair. He’ll be in jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His gun will have blanks. Detective Julian is on his way over there bringing you a gun with blanks and some balloons of fake blood to tape to your body. You’ll both need to look all shot up if this is going to be convincing. Our cops and the ambulance will arrive a couple of minutes after the security alarm goes off and take you and all the fake evidence away.”
“Remember to tell them they need to let me out at that alley,” Brendan said.
“Yes, they know. We’ve gone over it with everyone twice. The killer’s body will supposedly go straight to the morgue and you to the hospital, but no one will know which hospital, so when you don’t show up at one, they’ll all assume you’re somewhere else. That’s as good as we’ve got.”
“Much appreciated,” Brendan said.
“What’s happening?” Sahara said.
Brendan was already up and grabbing his pants and a shirt.
“The commissioner went for it. The break-in is happening at eleven.”
“Today?”
“Yes, ma’am, and Detective Julian is on his way over here with props. Get dressed.”
She flew out of bed and ran into the bathroom, then came out a couple of minutes later with her hair brushed and tied back, and ran to find a pair of shorts and a T-shirt as Brendan slipped his gun in the holster, then went out into the hall to turn off the alarm on the security system.
“I’m ready,” she said, as she came running out of the bedroom.
He looked at her feet and frowned. “Did you run out of shoes to wear?”
She poked him on the arm and headed toward the stairs with him beside her.
Billie came out of the kitchen wiping her hands and was surprised to see them already up and in the hall.
“Detective Julian just buzzed the gate. What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’ll tell her. We’ll be back here,” she said, and pulled her mother into the formal living room.
“Not out of sight,” Brendan said.
“No, just here beneath the arch, okay?” Then, as the doorbell rang, she began explaining to her mother what was happening.
Satisfied with their location, Brendan answered the door.
“Good morning,” Detective Julian said. “Are you ready for your close-up?”
Brendan’s smile was a shade on the grim side. None of this was funny to him.
“Come in.”
Julian glanced at Sahara and tried not to stare, but it was confounding to be up close and personal with a woman of such fame.
“Good morning, Miss Travis. Miss Billie.”
“Morning,” Sahara said.
Billie shook her head and walked off.
“She’s not happy about this,” Sahara said, as she moved closer to Brendan.
“None of us are,” he said. “So, Detective, show me what you brought.”
“I have orders to do this right, so peel off your shirt,” Julian said.
Brendan pulled the shirt over his head, revealing a rock-hard six-pack and massive shoulders.
“Damn,” Julian said, eyeing Brendan’s bare chest and then the size of the fake blood packs he had. “These are balloons filled with tomato ketchup for blood. Real fake blood from movie sets stains a lot of stuff, so we didn’t go there, and we’re not using the squibs they use during filming to make them detonate to look like a gunshot, since no one is going to see it go down except the ones in on the ruse.”
“Then how will we bust them open?” Sahara asked.
“He can bust the ones on his chest. You can bust the ones I tape on his back before he lies down.”
“Awesome,” she said, watching as Julian taped two bags to Brendan’s chest and then three across the back of his shoulders, then handed him a handgun.
“This one is loaded with blanks. It’ll make all the noise you need to make. You answer the doorbell. Everything needs to happen just here in the foyer. You’re too good to be tricked into letting someone get all the way into the house.”
“But the gates...you have to be buzzed in. How does he get through the gates?” Sahara asked.
“He will have a remote that reads the gate code, then bypasses the system in place,” Brendan said.
She was horrified. “What keeps everyone from having something like that? What good are doors and locks if technology continues to find a way to bypass human safety just for the sake of being able to do it?”
“I know. It makes our jobs harder, too, but the good part about one of those things is they’re not cheap, and the average thief doesn’t have access to that kind of thing,” Julian said.
She was beginning to realize that being safe was no longer a choice, just a state of mind.
Brendan could see she was rattled.
“Don’t think about it right now,” he said. “We need to concentrate on today.”
“Yes. I’m fine,” she said, not wanting him to know how this had unnerved her.
“Okay, that’s it for me,” Julian said, as he taped down the last bag on Brendan’s back. “Remember, set your security alarm, but don’t lock the front door. That way when he comes in, it’ll still set off the alarm.”
“Will do,” Brendan said, and let Julian out, closed the door, then set the security alarm from the panel in the niche.
He glanced at the time.
“It’s almost 9:00 a.m. We have time to do breakfast before all this starts, and I need to remove padlocks so I can get back into the house.”
Sahara walked into his arms. “This sets the trap, doesn’t it?”
“Almost as good as some of the rescue missions I’ve been in on,” he said.
“And this time you’re rescuing me. God, I hope this works.”
“It’s an open invitation he won’t be able to resist. If he thinks you and Billie are alone in this house, he’ll come. He needs to gloat. He needs to tell you why this is happening.”
“If this is Sutton, I cannot tell you how pissed and hurt I’m going to be.”
“Well, he’s going to be hurting more than you before I’m through with him, so hang on to that thought, my love.”
“I am so tired of this house. All we do is eat, sleep and dig through Leopold’s ugly life.”
“And make mad, crazy love,” he said softly, then brushed a kiss across her lips.
“You are the saving grace in the madness,” she said. “I don’t know what Billie and I need to do as this goes down, but we need to be told.”
“A lot of panic and screaming, and more crying when the cops come.”
Then they heard Billie calling them.
“Breakfast is ready, I do believe,” Brendan said. “Don’t want to make the cook mad. Let’s hustle.”
Billie was carrying pancakes to the table when they walked in.
“Honey, would you pour coffee?” she asked.
“Yes, Mama,” Sahara said, and went after the carafe.
“Brendan, would you please get the bacon?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and picked up the plate of hot, crispy bacon sitting on the warming shelf.
They all sat down together, served themselves from the platters of food and began buttering and pouring syrup, then passing it around.
“Mama, when all this stuff starts happening here this morning, you and I are going to have a part in the charade.”
Billie frowned. “What do I have to do?”
“Just a little bit of acting. We’re going to scream and cry and be believably upset when the cops arrive. We’ll be the only people still upright, so you can just go in and out of the doorway as if you were watching for the cops, and I may be visible from the doorway, down on my knees beside Brendan’s body.”
Brendan paused as he was about to take another bite.
“That’s good directing, honey.”
“Plenty of experience,” she said, and winked at her mother.
“If it would save Sahara, I’d dance naked in the street,” Billie said, which made the other two laugh.
Billie blushed, but she was giggling a little, too.
As soon as they finished, Brendan went upstairs to leave his gun in the room and slipped the one loaded with blanks into the holster. He pulled out one of his rifles, checked the scope and then loaded it while Sahara watched. When he was finished, instead of putting it away like everything else, he left it lying on the bed.
Sahara looked back as they were leaving the room.
“You’re going to leave it out?”
“I need to be able to get to it quickly.”
She shuddered. He put his arm around her as they moved toward the stairs. She was beginning to panic, and he knew it.
“I love you, baby.”
With four simple words, he centered her world. She looked at him and felt the blessing.
“I love you, too, Brendan McQueen.”
They went straight to the butler’s pantry, opened the secret passage and walked down the stairs.
Brendan unlocked the padlock in the house, then Sahara stood at one end of the wisteria tunnel, watching as he ran to unlock the other.
When they were as ready as they were going to be, the three of them sat down in the white room, the one nearest to the foyer.
Billie waited with her hands folded, her head down as if in prayer. Sahara sat beside her, waiting, and Brendan stood at the window, watching.
Time felt heavy. It wasn’t passing, it was dragging its feet.
Sahara watched him, taking her cue from his body language. Then all of a sudden it changed as he turned away from the window and pulled his gun.
“He just opened the gates.”
Billie’s head came up as Sahara slid to the edge of her seat, ready to play her part.
They jumped when the alarm suddenly went off in a shrill, siren-like scream that echoed what Sahara was feeling.
Brendan bolted out of the room as the intruder came over the threshold. With the alarm still shrieking, they began to trade shots.
Sahara ran into the foyer with Billie behind her, both screaming as they ran.
The intruder gave them both a thumbs-up, staggered backward against the doorjamb to pop the balloons on his back and then stumbled forward, bursting the ones taped over his heart, as he dropped to the floor.
Sahara hit the ones taped to Brendan’s shoulders with her fists as he broke the ones on his chest, and then he staggered toward the open doorway before sprawling awkwardly where he fell, the gun lying loosely in his palm. Blood was spreading across the center of his chest while the balloons on his shoulders began pooling more on the floor beneath his body.
“Scream, Mama,” Sahara said, and then let out an ear-shattering scream while Billie sidestepped the body in the doorway, screaming as she ran.
The continuing shriek of the alarm added to the panic as people on both sides of the streets came running out of their houses. Even traffic on the street outside the property was slowing down as the shriek of the security alarm blasted the area. Once people realized they could see bodies just inside the open door, the phones came out capturing video and sound, and the stories began to spread.
“I hear sirens,” Sahara said, as she dropped to her knees beside Brendan.
He gave her hand a quick squeeze but said nothing.
Billie was standing in the doorway, crying and wringing her hands, and then ran back inside. Soon the cops came flying through the open gates. When Billie ran back outside, Sahara ran with her, her hands and shirt covered in Brendan’s blood.
The drama of what went down was already on social media before the ambulance arrived.
Cops set up a perimeter to keep people away from the gates while others came out of cruisers with their guns drawn. They piled into the house and didn’t come out.
When the ambulances arrived, a couple of cops led them inside.
The undercover cop who’d portrayed the killer was photographed lying in the pool of blood, then photographed from every angle, while Brendan was loaded onto a gurney and taken out to a waiting ambulance. It took eight men to get him down the stairs. The moment they had him loaded, they drove away with lights flashing and sirens screaming. Only then did Billie shut off the security alarm.
* * *
The moment the ambulance began driving away, Brendan was off the gurney and getting ready to jump out.
“You okay, buddy?” one of the paramedics asked.
Brendan gave him a thumbs-up, bracing himself as the ambulance took a quick right turn.
“Almost there. Get ready,” the driver shouted.
As it began to slow down, Brendan moved to the back of the ambulance. Then he felt it braking.
“Now!” the driver cried.
Brendan opened a door and jumped down on the run. An EMT grabbed at the door as it swung back; Brendan was already in the alley. He reached the veil of vines in seconds, pushed them aside and hit the door with his shoulder. It swung inward on silent hinges. He began to breathe easier knowing he was back on Travis property and safely hidden inside the tunnel. He paused long enough to padlock the door, then ran back through the tunnel and into the house.
He replaced the last padlock, then stripped off his shirt and began pulling off the balloons from his body and rolling them up in the shirt before going upstairs.
He could hear voices from all of the cops still in the front of the house and hoped that they stayed there. He didn’t want anyone to know there was a secret passage in this house.
He found plastic bags in the butler’s pantry, dumped the bloody shirt and everything else inside it, slipped through the kitchen to the garbage can in the utility room and then went the back way up the servants’ stairs to the second floor. Sahara hadn’t been out of his sight since that day in the emergency room, and he didn’t like the distance between them now. He paused to send her a text.
Upstairs. Now.
Then he slipped into their bedroom and quietly closed the door.