split, when she’d been an emotional wreck, Jeffrey had insisted that he needed all the exercise equipment they kept in their personal gym, and she’d been too tired to fight him for something so trivial. She had just wanted to move on, had been desperate to start a new life.
And now, with snow falling, running the country roads was out, and she wished she had the damned treadmill instead of a cardio workout tape from the nineties.
She finished her routine, somehow managing to work up a sweat. The housewives were over, and she had the remote in her hand to click off the television when the lead story for one of those entertainment “news” shows flashed on the screen and she found herself staring at Shelly Bonaventure’s smiling face while the announcer, in a cheery voice, said, “And now the latest news on Shelly Bonaventure’s suicide.” A slide show of Shelly’s life, from the time she was a toddler until her most recent red carpet appearance, rolled over the screen. Kacey hated to admit it, but Heather was right: she and Shelly Bonaventure did look a little alike. During the quick biography, the announcer mentioned that Shelly had spent the first five years of her life in Helena, Montana, before the family moved to Southern California.
“Huh.” So the B-level actress was born in the same city as Kacey and had Montana roots. Not exactly an earth-shattering coincidence. Just because they looked alike and came from the same area, there was no reason to make anything of it. The situation was a little odd, maybe, and even possibly a bit disturbing, but really, it was just coincidence.
“And though the case has been ruled a suicide, there is still one Los Angeles detective who isn’t quite convinced,” the announcer said. The screen flashed to a handsome black man in a crisp suit and sunglasses. He was standing outside, palm trees visible in the background. The announcer’s voice continued, “Veteran detective Jonas Hayes has been with the LAPD for over fifteen years.”
A reporter appeared on the screen with the policeman. “Detective Hayes, could you comment on the ruling that Shelly Bonaventure’s death was a suicide?”
Hayes’s face turned into a scowl. “No.”
“A reliable source quoted you as saying you weren’t convinced that she took her own life.”
“No comment.”
“But, Detective Hayes,” the reporter insisted, chasing after the much taller man as he strode toward a parking lot of cars. “Is it possible that her death was a homicide?”
Hayes’s broad shoulders, under the expensive weave of his jacket, visibly stiffened. He turned slowly, pinning the reporter beneath his shaded glare. Very slowly he said, “As with all investigations, Shelly Bonaventure’s case will remain open until all the facts are in.”
“So there’s a chance of foul play?” the reporter replied, pushing.
Unlocking his car door remotely, Hayes shrugged. “Isn’t there always ‘a chance’?” he asked rhetorically, then slid behind the wheel of his vehicle.
The final frame was of taillights as his SUV blended into the thick Southern California traffic, and the screen returned to the hosts of the show.
“So I guess nothing’s conclusive,” the blond anchor said. “You know, Shelly was found much like Marilyn Monroe was half a century ago. The similarities in their deaths are really bizarre.” With that the camera panned to a large black-and-white head shot of Marilyn Monroe, which morphed into a montage of pictures of the iconic blonde and ended with an interior black-and-white shot of the death scene, her bedroom within her Brentwood bungalow.
“Trash TV,” Kacey muttered because of the exploitive edge to the segment.
And yet, possibly because of the morbidity of the report, she experienced a chill crawling up her spine, and she glanced to the window and the darkness outside.
She remembered the depths of her own despair, the fear in those frightening moments when her own life had been threatened, when she was certain she would die, when she stared into the face of evil.
For a split second, she remembered those horrid last words spoken by the man who had meant to run a knife through her heart. She shuddered, his last words, which had been snarled as he staggered away, reverberating through her mind.
His vile prediction had meant nothing, the ramblings of a deranged man whose psychosis and deadly intentions had somehow been trained on her.
Shaking off the memory, she forced her attention to the television screen.
The hostess of the show, a blonde who appeared to be a human version of a Barbie doll, mentioned Shelly’s acting credits, rumored lovers, and reiterated the fact that though her death was ruled a suicide, detectives at the LAPD “hadn’t ruled out the possibility of foul play.”
Wide-eyed, glossy lipstick perfect, the hostess went on to the possibility of a conspiracy with her cohost, a younger, hipper man in a dark suit, with spiked hair.
Kacey clicked off the television.
On her way to the bathroom for a quick shower, she started peeling off her workout clothes and was naked once she reached the small room. Inside, she turned on the water and hit the play button on her radio before stepping into the old claw-foot tub and drawing the curtain closed.
Hot water pulsed against her skin, and she felt the tension of the day start to ease from her muscles. Lathering, she washed, humming to a song by Katy Perry and forcing her mind away from Trace O’Halleran, where it had wandered whenever she had a free minute to herself, which, today, in the midst of flu season and appointments all day, hadn’t happened often.
In those few minutes, though, she’d found herself wondering about him, about Eli’s mother, and the unknown Miss Wallis, his “girlfriend” according to his son.
“Forget it,” she said aloud, twisting off the tap. He wasn’t even her type. She’d never been one to go for the backwoods, rugged alpha male in battered jeans, a beat-up jacket, who lacked a razor.
“Oh, stop!” she muttered under her breath, disgusted with the turn of her thoughts. Maybe she spent too many hours with her own thoughts when she was alone. It could just be time to rethink the issue of owning a dog.
So O’Halleran was the most handsome cowboy she’d met. So he seemed dedicated to his child. So her own biological clock was ticking like crazy, so loudly that she avoided the maternity wing in the hospital. So what?
The old pipes groaned. She heard over the DJ’s chatter on the radio a noise that didn’t seem to belong in the house. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around her as she stepped out of the tub, listening hard.
Nothing.
Was someone in the house?
Or was the sound only her imagination?
Still dripping, her heart pounding a little, she toweled off quickly and snagged her robe from its hook on the back of the bathroom door. Shoving her arms down the thick terry sleeves, she strained her ears, hearing nothing. Cinching the robe around her waist, she moved cautiously into the hallway.
Nothing looked or sounded out of the ordinary.
Her heart flew to her throat, and she walked stealthily along the hallway toward the noise.
She rounded the corner and was starting for the kitchen when the sound, a deep grating noise, erupted nearby. She spun around, her eyes wildly searching the darkened dining room, her heart a drum.
“Oh, God!” She staggered back, a scream rising in her throat just as she recognized the blackened hand for what it was — a weathered, leafless branch of the shrubbery on the east side of the house.
She sank down hard on a kitchen chair, drained, her vivid imagination and her deep-seated fears getting the best of her. She was a doctor, a professional, trained to be calm in emergencies, and yet a stupid tree branch had
