He’d just met her at the airport.
This was their first date. Neither of them knew where this was going.
It was still hard for Max to believe that Gordon White Eagle had committed suicide. The story had been fodder for the news outlets and celebrity sites. Psychiatrists and psychologists were interviewed ad nauseam, explaining that there was a grandiose type of personality that, when faced with the hard cold reality of prison or an end to fame or fortune, chose suicide. Apparently, it was a common solution for egomaniacal sociopaths.
And there was Gordon White Eagle’s life, neatly tied up in a bow.
Talia had sued him for divorce. Since the moment she’d been picked up by the DPS outside the Sonic Drive-In across the freeway from the outlet mall—she’d been waiting for a taxi to come get her—Talia had been uncooperative with the police. She’d canceled the baby from Africa, moved in with Jerry briefly, then moved back out the following week. Jerry had retained one of the best defense lawyers in LA—which was saying something. He was charged with several counts, running the gamut from embezzlement, to conspiracy to commit murder, to accessory to murder. Jerry swore he had been framed, and his lawyer had asserted to Max that Jerry would not spend one day in prison. Max believed him.
It looked like Talia would soon be charged with conspiracy to commit murder as well. Her lawyer was not as good as Jerry’s, but they played golf together.
Since Talia and Jerry wouldn’t be getting their hands on Max’s estate, Max had enough money to buy the one thing he desired most, the best divorce lawyer in LA. Scratch that: the best divorce lawyer in the world.
Max had been let out of his contract for the three remaining V.A.M.Pyre films. The young up-and-coming heartthrob, Dylan Harris, had been signed in Max’s place.
He hadn’t fought the studio. The only thing he really felt was relief. If he was going to continue on as an actor, he didn’t want to be hamstrung by a part like Starker in V.A.M.Pyre.
Max had talked about his career with his psychotherapist, though. The psychotherapist, like his lawyer, was the best money could buy, and Max needed the best to untangle the snarl of strange thoughts, hallucinations, and night terrors Gordon White Eagle had planted in his mind.
“Look,” Tess said. “The Oscars.” She led him to an open beach bar and they took a couple of stools where they could see the television set.
Max glanced at the television set, but he felt like a bystander. At one time in his life, acting had been challenging and enjoyable. He had eaten, drank, and slept acting. And then it had morphed into celebrity, which had siphoned off the good parts of being an actor and left only the bad.
He’d loved acting.
Screenplays still managed to make their way to his door. Recently, Max had found himself thinking how he would play a certain scene, how he would develop a character that interested him. He was through with vampires. But there were some roles he found himself excited to contemplate. The kinds of roles that could get him nominated for an Oscar.
Max ignored the drinks, the beer, the parasols and olives, the smell of alcohol on the patrons’ breaths.
If he even considered drinking alcohol, if he considered taking the meds he used to take, he would feel the ripping inside his gut.
It was the one positive thing Gordon White Eagle had ever done for him. The sensory deprivation therapy had indeed worked.
Gordon White Eagle would have reminded him of that, had he been alive.
May he rest in peace.
A blonde from Entertainment Tonight was color commenting on the red carpet, buttonholing actors male and female and asking, “Who are you wearing?” The Hollywood stars made small talk with the interviewers, posed for the cameras, and moved on.
“Maybe we’ll see Dave,” Max said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. He asked if he could give it a shot, and I said sure.”
“But that’s—”
“What? Fraud?”
“I don’t know what it is,” said Tess. “You’re not up for anything this year?”
“The crap I’ve been in? No. Vampire epics don’t get you Oscar nominations.”
“So it’s no big deal? He just does a quick interview on the red carpet and sits in the audience.”
“Listen.”
The young blonde interviewer cried out, “It’s Max Conroy! Max, you’re looking great.”
“Thanks. I’m feeling great.” Dave had his chin tucked into his neck and was careful not to look head-on into the cameras. But Max thought that unnecessary. He really did look like Max Conroy.
More than I do.
“I bet you’re happy to be back here, after everything that happened. Even if you weren’t nominated this year.”
“It’s good to be alive,” Dave quipped.
“Well, enjoy the show!”
“I will.”
He walked farther up the red carpet, then out of the shot.
“I still don’t know why you let him do that,” Tess said. “What a glory hound.”
“He thought he could pull it off. It’s kind of a high-wire act, but I think he did.”
Suddenly, there was a loud bang. It came from inside the television, from offscreen, but dust and debris filtered back, and the video went haywire.
There were screams.
Fractured video. Blackness.
Then. . .
The feed was restored. Dust everywhere. People and debris scattered. The blonde who had interviewed the actors on the red carpet cried out, “Who was it? Who was it?”
Max and Tess stayed in the bar.
The bartender turned to cable news.
It took them twenty minutes to play the tape in full. But Max was patient.
It showed Dave Finley as Max Conroy walking up the red carpet. Suddenly, a woman wearing a tuxedo darted onto the carpet and grabbed Conroy, hugging him to her chest. There was something—a bubble of some sort—strapped tightly to her body.
It would turn out to be a suicide bomb.
They fell to the carpet—pressed into the carpet. Some people ran toward them, some pulled back, some stayed where they were, shocked.
Fortunately, most of the concussion from the explosion discharged into the red carpet—into the floor.
Two people in the crowd were killed instantly. Many others were injured, mostly by flying body parts and shrapnel from the bomb.
It was amazing that so few were seriously injured.
The man known as Max Conroy, and his attacker, were killed instantly.
TESS WAS QUIET. Max felt sick inside. They left the bar and walked on the beach, this time with the full moon over their shoulders. Warm down here in the subtropics, even in February. The waves came in. Endless waves, washing onto this beach, and onto the beach far north of here—in LA.
Max had suspected that Shaun wouldn’t give up. He’d suspected she was going to try again. He’d gone as far as to hire a security firm.
But you didn’t hire one for Dave.
How could he have known what would happen?
He didn’t.
That could have been me, Max thought.
Instead, it was Dave Finley.
“You knew,” Tess said.
“No. I didn’t.”
Tess stared at him.
“I thought at some point she would get to me. I never imagined she’d do it on the red carpet at the Oscars.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
She held his gaze. There was still a question in her eyes. He didn’t blame her. It looked bad.
Either she would believe he was the kind of man who would set his best friend up to be killed in his place, or she would not. He knew he couldn’t sway her—she was too smart for that.