“You could become a star, darling.”
She promptly removed her feet from his lap and drew her knees to her chest. “Forget it,” she insisted. She might have been down that road, but she’d turned back.
He gestured toward Jason Kane’s latest floral offering. “Am I wrong or is Mr. Kane still in hot pursuit?”
“So it seems.”
“Would it be so terrible seeing your face on the cover of all the soap opera publications? Would it offend your sensibilities to be envied by several million women because you get something they all want—namely, me.”
“I already have you.”
He leered at her suggestively. “Who knows, a couple of love scenes with you, and I might go straight.”
She scowled at him. “I know for a fact that sexier women than I have tried and failed. Besides, you and Neil have a better relationship than most heterosexual couples I know. Why would I want to interfere with that?”
“The challenge, of course.” He regarded her speculatively. “Unless you’d prefer the challenge of getting Jason Kane’s pants off, something I hear is not all that difficult, by the way. Be careful with that one, dollface. He’s wicked.”
Callie prayed she wasn’t blushing, since that very idea had crossed her mind a time or two over lunch. The reaction had stunned her. She’d been pretty much convinced that all men were lower than slime ever since her divorce. Not that she intended to admit that Jason Kane had stirred any sort of response at all, especially to a man who would use it against her every chance he got. Badgering and blabbing were two of Terry’s less attractive traits.
“I am not interested in getting anybody’s pants off,” she said adamantly. “And aren’t we getting a little far off the subject?”
“Which is?”
“What to do about my mother.”
“I thought that was what we were talking about. If you become a rich, successful star, you’ll be able to set your mother up with twenty-four-hour companions, if that’s what she needs. You’ll be able to hire some big burly guy to run the farm.”
Terry seemed unduly fascinated by the latter. Callie shook her head. “You are such a fraud. I can’t imagine how Neil puts up with you.”
“That’s personal, darling. Now, come on, say you’ll at least give serious consideration to Jason Kane’s offer. If I have to do one more love scene with Penelope Frogface—”
“Her name is Frontier,” Callie chided.
“Whatever. She wears too damned much Giorgio. One of these days I’m going to start sneezing and never stop. They’ll have to close down the set and have it fumigated before I’ll go back to work. It’s up to you to save us all from that.”
“It is not up to me to do any such thing.”
“Besides that, a good friend would want to help out,” he added slyly.
Callie eyed him warily. “With what?” she asked, certain that the subject had slipped away from excessive perfume.
“I seem to be getting these odd little notes,” he confided with an air of mystery.
“Fan mail?”
His expression turned rueful. “Not exactly. My fans love me.”
Something in his voice alerted her that this was more serious than he was pretending with all of these enigmatic hints. “Terry, exactly what’s in these notes?”
He hesitated so long, Callie doubted it was just for dramatic effect. He seemed almost frightened to describe the notes aloud. “Terry?”
“I suppose someone totally paranoid might call them threats,” he conceded eventually.
Callie stared at him. “Threats? What kind of threats? Dear heaven, have you told the police?”
“Darling, first of all, I am not that paranoid yet. Second, I couldn’t possibly tell the police and risk the publicity.”
Since Callie had never heard of an actor being averse to publicity, she guessed that these threats must have something to do with Terry’s relationship with Neil. “Is someone threatening to reveal that you’re gay?”
“It’s nothing as overt as that,” he admitted. “But it sure is pointing in that direction. I mean, what else could it be?”
“And you think someone on the show is behind them?”
“It has to be. The notes keep turning up in my dressing room with no postage, even though they’re usually stuck in with the fan mail.” He looked vaguely shaken by the implications.
Callie thought of the file cabinet that had inexplicably fallen during her one scene on the show. “Terry, is it possible when that file cabinet fell it was no accident?”
The question shook him visibly. The color drained from his face. “Of course not,” he denied a little too heatedly. “I’m sure someone just tripped and knocked it over.”
“Who?” Callie asked reasonably. “No one admitted to it.”
“With the director carrying on the way he was, would you admit you’d caused an entire scene to be reshot?”
“No, I suppose not, but what if—”
“Forget it. The letters are probably nothing.”
“Then why did you bring them up?”
“Why else? To get you to take the job,” he said airily. His expression sobered. “Of course, just in case I’m wrong, you really would be doing me a huge favor if you came to work on the show and helped me figure out who’s behind this.”
It seemed everyone had new career plans for her. “I’m a stockbroker, not a private eye,” she reminded him.
“But you’d be playing a cop,” he said, as if that automatically would give her the requisite investigative skills. Terry had long since blurred the distinction between reality and fiction.
Callie groaned. She could tell he was dead serious about this. She wanted to help him, she really did.
“Terry, I’m having enough trouble with my own life without worrying about the little blips shaking up your serenity. If you think this is serious, you have to tell a real cop, not some pseudo-cop being played by a pseudo-actress.”
“Sweetie, I know your problems are real, but at least you have a solution right in front of you.” He plucked a business card out of his pocket and held it out. “The
