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Ten years ago Nina had given up the hope of becoming a successful actress one day and had joined the guild for extras, the background people who worked on a day-by-day basis. Arriving at 5 A.M., she’d spent all day on the set of a film about a revolution and had been one of the hundreds of extras who held up banners. The set was in the desert near Palm Springs, and it had been mercilessly hot.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Mom,” Nina said, trying to keep her tone even.

“Why not go? Three hundred thousand dollars is pretty good money. I’ll go with you. I wouldn’t mind getting an in-person look at good old Robert Nicholas Powell again.”

Nina looked at her mother. The hair that, like her own, had once been a natural deep red was now dyed a bright fire-engine shade and looked harsh against Muriel’s face. Years of smoking had left deep lines around her lips and cheeks, and her skin was mottled with brown spots. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned forward on the couch, her two hands encircling the glass.

It was hard to visualize the beautiful woman who at one time had been one of those rarities, an actress who worked steadily. She had talent, Nina thought bitterly, not like me. And now look at her!

Don’t you go into all that again, Nina warned herself. It’s the end of the day, and you’re hot and fed up with everything. “Mom, I’m going to shower and get into something comfortable,” she said. “I’ll join you for a glass of wine when I get dressed.”

“Take the three hundred thousand.” Her mother spat the words out at her. “Use it to buy me my own condo. You don’t want me living with you any more than I want to be here.”

Muriel had followed Nina to California after the acting jobs became fewer and fewer in New York. A year earlier, she had barely escaped being burned to death when her carelessly dropped cigarette had ignited the carpet in the living room of her apartment in a two-family house in Los Angeles. The people who owned the house where she had rented had refused to let her return after the damage to the apartment was repaired. “The same thing could happen in the middle of the night,” the owner told Nina. “I’m not taking any more chances.”

Her mother had been living with Nina for almost a year now. Now she, too, worked as an extra, but too often did not feel up to responding to a potential job.

I can’t take it much longer, Nina thought as she closed and locked the door of her bedroom. In her mother’s present frame of mind, it would not be unusual for her to follow Nina in to continue the discussion about the letter from the producer.

The room was cool and inviting. White walls, polished floors with white throw rugs on either side of the bed, narrow apple-green draperies at the windows. The white bedspread was accentuated by apple-green and white pillows. The four-poster bed and matching dresser were left over from her ten-year marriage to a mildly successful actor who had turned out to be a serial cheat. It was better that they had not had any children.

They’d been divorced for three years. I’m ready to find someone else, Nina thought. But I can’t while I’m stuck with my mother. Who knows? I still look good. If I go on that program I might be able to parlay it into getting back into real acting, or even one of those reality shows. I can be a mad housewife with the best of them.

What would it be like to see Claire and Regina and Alison again? We were such kids, Nina thought. We were all so scared. The cops kept twisting what we were saying. Mom gave the performance of the year when she was asked if it was true that she had been seriously dating Powell before he met Betsy. “I was dating at least three people at that time,” she said. “He was one of them.”

That’s not the way I heard it, Nina thought grimly. Her mother blamed her for introducing Betsy to Powell. She blamed me, and blamed me, and blamed me, Nina thought. It was all I ever heard from her. I ruined her life.

Muriel had turned down the part that would have made her a star because Powell didn’t want her to be locked into a contract when they got married. Those were the exact words he used: “When we get married.”

She’d thrown them at Nina often enough over the years.

Nina felt the white-hot anger that those memories evoked wash over her. She thought of the night of the Graduation Gala. Her mother had refused to come to the party. “I should be living in that house,” she had said.

Betsy had made a point of seeking Nina out. “Where is your mother?” she had asked. “Or is she still a sore loser about Rob?”

I’m glad no one heard her ask me that question that night, Nina thought. It wouldn’t have looked good when Robert Powell discovered his wife’s body the next morning. But at that moment, if I had had that pillow, I would gladly have held it over her face.

I had much too much to drink that night. I don’t even remember going to bed. I don’t think I showed it, because no one mentioned it, including that nosy housekeeper who said that she thought Alison was drunk.

When she and the others got there Powell was collapsed on the floor, and the housekeeper pulled the pillow from Betsy’s face.

Her mother was turning the handle of the door. “I want to talk to you,” she called. “I want you to go on that program.”

With a supreme effort Nina managed not to show how angry she was as she called back, “Mom, I’m stepping into the shower. It’s all right. I am going to accept that offer. I’ll be able to get you your own place.”

Before I kill you, she added silently. And then wondered again what else she hadn’t remembered about the night Betsy Powell was suffocated.

8

The agreements to participate in the reenactment of the events of the Graduation Gala had trickled in to Laurie’s office one by one. The last of them had taken nearly two weeks, and it was from Nina Craig. The letter stated that she had consulted a lawyer and there were additional conditions she felt were appropriate. Robert Powell should put in escrow two hundred fifty thousand dollars for each of the four graduates, and it should be a net sum to each of them. Fisher Blake Studios must also offer fifty thousand net to the graduates. “Both Mr. Powell and Fisher Blake can well afford to compensate us fairly,” Nina had written. “And now that I have contacted my longtime childhood friends, I realize that we have all suffered emotional damage from being in the Powell home the night Betsy Bonner Powell lost her life. I believe by once again exposing ourselves to the glare of publicity, we are surrendering our hard-earned anonymity, for which we should receive appropriate compensation.”

Dismayed, Laurie reread the letter. “To net them that much money will mean we’d just about have to double what we’re paying them,” she said.

“I don’t think Brett will go for it.” Jerry Klein’s flat tone did not match the disappointment that came over his face. He had signed for the certified letter from Ms. Nina Craig and carried it into Laurie’s office.

“He’s got to go along with it,” Laurie said. “And I think he will. He’s been talking the series up, and he won’t want to pull back now.”

“Well he won’t be happy about it.” The worried expression on Jerry’s face deepened. “Laurie, I hope you haven’t put yourself out on a limb with this Under Suspicion idea.”

“I hope not, too.” Laurie looked out the window toward the Rockefeller Center skating rink. It was a warm day for early April, and there were few skaters on the ice. Soon the rink would be gone, and the area it covered would be filled with tables and chairs for outside dining.

Once in a while Greg and I used to have dinner out there, she thought as a wave of longing for him swept over her. She knew why it had come at this moment. The show was about closure. Even though she had no intention of revealing her concern to either Jerry or Grace, she knew Jerry was right. After becoming openly enthusiastic about the project, her boss, Brett Young, would probably rather double the price he had agreed to pay the participants than back out.