Lily's Homecoming Under Fire Read online

  “Let’s stay inside.” It was a little nippy out there, but it wasn’t the fall weather that sent a chill through me. I poured kibble into a bowl for Marlowe and filled another bowl with water. When I bent over, I was rewarded with a sharp pain that skittered up my spine. Probably a casualty of one of the wrestling matches I’d had with the marshal. I sat down on the sofa in the small sitting area in my suite. “Over here, okay? I’m too sore to sit in one of those wooden chairs.”

  Austin nodded as he opened the basket and pulled out a thermal pot of coffee. He found two large mugs in a cupboard above the sink and filled them. The aroma sliced like a knife through the fog in my head.

  “Black?” Austin asked, holding out a mug.

  “I’ll take it any way I can get it,” I replied, reaching for the steamy brew. He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, come on, how old are you? Twelve?”

  “Sometimes our subconscious mind takes advantage of us in an unguarded moment.” The smirk spread into a wide grin that was hard to resist. I shook my head, and then returned the smile.

  “In your dreams,” I murmured as I sipped my coffee.

  How old is he really? I wondered. Thirtyish was my best guess. There were a few of the tell-tale lines that come with age around his brown eyes that were flecked with gold. Who knows how time affects a man who routinely deals with incidents like the one I survived last night.

  Austin caught me scanning his face and smiled. That made the gold flecks in his eyes dance. He took a swig of his coffee and then set it down on the table in front of me. The table looked like three polished tree stumps that had been shoved together. After living in Hollywood for more than a decade, I’d forgotten how much they love wood in all its knotty glory around here.

  Austin sauntered back to the table and pulled more items from the basket—muffins, fruit, and ham so smoky I could smell it from here. He’d set his Stetson on a table near the door when he came into the room. Once he’d dropped the rest of my luggage and locked the door, he’d also taken off a fleece-lined suede bomber jacket and hung it on a nearby hook. The hunter green t-shirt he wore underneath the jacket clung to his body. I tried not to stare at it or his well-fitting jeans as he stood at the kitchen table.

  “Where’s your star, Marshal?”

  “I’m not on duty. I arrested the bad guys, so I get a day off.”

  “You did? I heard them take off, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but I knew where they were going—a cabin not far from where they went after you. I would have arrested them earlier, but I wanted to find out what they were doing. They were way too busy for a couple of guys just here to kick back, visit the wineries, and enjoy the fall colors. Besides, one of them is a wanted fugitive which is why I tracked him here in the first place.” He sat down next to me and handed me a plate of food.

  “So, what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “The fugitive I picked up is wanted for murder. Not one, but several. All of them carried out quietly and professionally without the hitch he ran into last night.”

  “How is it possible that a guy like that is running around free?”

  “He’s a pro. No one even knew who he was until law enforcement picked him up in Texas on a speeding violation. They found an unregistered firearm in his car, took him into custody, and charged him with a minor offense. He skipped out before his court appearance. When they ran the gun through ballistics, they got a match to a couple of unsolved shootings. The name he gave to the police was a fake, but they had a mug shot and his prints. The FBI was hunting for someone who fit his description, and that turned his arrest warrant issued in Texas into a national problem for him. Long story short, the U.S. Marshal Service was assigned to bring him in when his prints turned up in the Bay Area on the body of a woman. The husband caved when the police questioned him and admitted he’d hired Aldon Kutchner to kill his wife.”

  “This is fascinating, I admit,” I said as I tore off a tiny bite of ham for Marlowe who was begging in a polite way. He could beg all he wanted and wouldn’t get any more. The ham was delicious, and I was ravenous. “I don’t have a husband. Never have. I can’t think of anyone in real life I’ve ticked off enough to put out a hit on me. My character died that way, but I can’t believe a crazed fan would have the kind of money it would take to hire a pro. I got plenty of hate mail over the years from people who confused my character with me, but no one ever came after me.”

  “Someone decided to kill off your character in Not Another Day.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a soap fan?”

  “No, but after last night my boss, Rikki Havens, ran a background check on you. She sent me the report this morning. Who decided to have a hitman kill the Andra Weis character you played for years?”

  “I don’t know. I figured it was a publicity stunt or they wanted to bring in a younger vixen to cause trouble. Maybe my agent pushed too hard to get me more money when my contract came up for renewal, and they bumped me off rather than give me a raise. To be honest, I was sick of the role and hopeful I could land something else.” I sighed. “That didn’t happen, so here I am.”

  “Was your agent okay with your plan to leave Hollywood?”

  “How personal is the information in that report?” I asked.

  “You’re a public figure and so is your agent. The breakup wasn’t long ago, and it got plenty of media play. The husband I mentioned who put out the hit on his wife did it because she asked for a divorce. Some men don’t handle rejection well.”

  “Tony and I were done long before we made it official. That I couldn’t get him to be straightforward about what happened to my character in Not Another Day was part of a bigger problem in our relationship. Agents hustle the truth all the time. I got tired of being hustled. Tony Allen can handle rejection—it’s in the job description for Hollywood agents. Besides, it wasn’t more than a couple of weeks before he was seen out on the town with Paramount Pictures latest ‘it girl,’ Elle Keenan. Fast work unless he was already wooing her before we called it quits. Wasn’t his new conquest in the report your boss dug up overnight?” I stabbed a bite of cantaloupe on my plate and shoved it into my mouth.

  “It sounds like it’s been a rough year,” Austin said. When I glanced at him, he was peering at me the way he had last night. I squirmed a little under his scrutiny. I must look like hell since I hadn’t put on makeup or done my hair. Then he shook his head and spoke again.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Tony Allen’s a damn fool. Elle Keenan may be younger, but I heard her do an interview and she couldn’t put two words together without giggling or saying something ridiculous. Too plastic, too. There wasn’t anything natural about her.” Austin reached over and tucked a loose curl behind my ear. “Want more coffee?”

  “Please. More ham, too, if there’s any left.” All I need is to pile on a few more pounds, but what the heck. I wasn’t going to be standing in front of a camera that adds ten pounds, so I have a little leeway.

  “More ham and coffee coming right up!” Austin beamed another of those amazing smiles, and I felt myself relax. He exuded confidence—even moved in a way that somehow made me feel everything was going to turn out all right.

  “If Tony Allen’s upset with me at all, it’s not about the end of our affair, it’s because I canned him as my agent. I’m not the first one of his clients to dump him. In fact, he’s had almost as bad a year as me.”

  “I’ll ask Rikki’s investigators to check him out a little more. If he blames you for the bad year he’s had, revenge could be a motive. He hasn’t taken out any life insurance on you, has he?”

  “The studio, yes, but not Tony—at least as far as I know.” I tried to remember if I’d ever signed anything he put in front of me without reading it thoroughly. No. I never trusted him that much even when I was his “it girl.”

  “I’m glad you caught up with those maniacs who shot at me. Can’t you rough them up, and get them to tell you who hired them? What if they have me mixed up with someone else?”

  “Roughing them up will only give their lawyers wiggle room to get the charges against them dismissed based on a procedural error or a violation of their rights. I don’t want to give them that option. ‘Lawyer’ was the first word out of their mouths, so we’ll do what we can, but we won’t get much.”

  “Can’t you get one of them to rat out the other one?”

  “The authorities will try, but these rats may be more scared of each other than they are of going to prison. The fact that a member of law enforcement was tailing them and witnessed their attempt to kill you might make a deal more appealing. Even when things move without a hitch in the criminal justice system, it takes time.” Austin handed me more coffee and then sat down and divided the remaining ham between us. “Time’s not on our side until we figure this out. I don’t believe this was a case of mistaken identity, Lily. Nor do I believe it’s over.” I gulped when I saw the darkness enter his eyes as if he was looking inward—was it into his past or my future?

  “It would be foolish to try again, wouldn’t it?”

  “It’s a given that whoever’s behind hiring someone to kill you is a fool. Whatever problem you pose for someone—a problem that person believes murder will solve—hasn’t gone away. I know you told your old friend last night that you’ve come home. Why?”

  3 Aunt Lettie’s Legacy

  “My aunt, Letitia Morgan, died, and left me her home. It’s where I grew up once my parents decided I’d inherited too many of the ‘black sheep’ genes from the Bankhead branch of the family. That’s Bankhead as in Hollywood gossip columnist, Tallulah Bankhead. She mortified her fine, upstanding old Alabama family by going to Hollywood back in the day. I’d just turned twelve when my mother and her new husband, Edward Callahan, shipped me out west.”

  “I’ll bet you were a handful even at twelve.” The twinkle had returned to Austin’s eyes, and that tantalizing grin was on his lips again, too. He was sitting a little closer to me now, or maybe I’d just become more aware of his presence. When I reached for my plate, his hand brushed mine, sending a little charge through me. I responded to his comment before I lost my train of thought.

  “I was a miserable little bitch, I confess. I didn’t like Callahan or the idea that my mother had become involved with another man so soon after she and my father divorced. He made it clear that adopting me soon after he married my mother was a grand gesture. Changing my name didn’t make me feel any better. If anything, it further alienated my father who was already done with us, or so it seemed. I couldn’t understand most of what was going on around me, but I was miserable and did my best to make everyone pay. I ditched school and mouthed off when I did go to class. They suspended me. I ran away, and the police found me sitting at a bus station on my way to my dad’s house. Not that he’d invited me there.” I shrugged.

  “That only went on for a few months before I’d ‘embarrassed them for the last time,’ as my parents put it and called Aunt Lettie. My mother was pregnant at the time, so she probably didn’t feel like wrestling with me. Still, I don’t believe my acting out brought more shame on my parents than they did. At the time, I didn’t get what it meant when my half-sister was born as a ‘preemie’—six months into their marriage. A nine-pound preemie Aunt Lettie told me years later when I was wondering for the zillionth time what I’d done to warrant rejection.”

  “You don’t have to explain family dysfunction to me. I lived on and off with grandparents while my parents tried to make up their minds about whether they wanted to be married or not. I guess we’re both lucky we had someone willing to play back-up for our parents’ screw ups.”

  “You’re fortunate to be so clear that it was their screw up and not yours.”

  “I didn’t have anyone telling me I was destined to become a black sheep if that’s what you mean, but kids always find a reason to blame themselves. My parents made it obvious to everyone we knew that their relationship was a problem. It sounds like yours tried harder to keep their marital problems behind closed doors. That was probably easier to do once they got rid of a mouthy twelve-year-old who might have wondered out loud about a nine-pound preemie if she’d been there when the baby was born.”

  “Well, they weren’t in any hurry for me to return. Maybe I was a reminder to Mom and her new husband that their happy home was built on a less than solid foundation. In any case, Aunt Lettie was wonderful. I felt loved, and I appreciated her nonjudgmental, free-spirited approach to life. She wasn’t quite like Auntie Mame in the movie, but I did have an interesting, unconventional life. I’ll miss her.” I sipped my coffee, lost for a moment in the sorrow about Aunt Lettie’s passing. Dodging bullets had interrupted my grieving. “I was shocked that she died so suddenly.”

  “Was there anything dodgy about her death?” Austin asked as he shoved things around on the tree stump coffee table to put up his long legs. Marlowe took that as an invitation to have a seat on his lap. Austin patted Marlowe’s little head, and then looked at me waiting for me to answer his question.

  “Not according to her lawyer. Franklin Everett says she had a heart condition and died from a heart attack. I didn’t get back here often, given my filming schedule, but Aunt Lettie paid me regular visits. When I saw her a few weeks ago, she seemed to be her usual boundless bundle of energy. I was down about the sudden change in my circumstances, although I didn’t tell her how bad things were.” My eyes flicked toward Austin as I confessed yet another embarrassing fact about myself. He nodded as though he understood. “Maybe she sensed it, or maybe she was sicker than she let on. She suggested I return home and try my hand in local and regional theater. There are plenty of opportunities in wine country and the Bay Area to perform live.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, and it felt too much like giving up. I don’t know, maybe like I was being sent packing to Aunt Lettie again. Here I am, now—about to take possession of Lettie’s house and the acre or so it sits on. I don’t know what else she left me in her Will. A consortium runs the Calla Lily Vineyards and Winery, so I don’t know what that means for me. I presume that’ll all be clear after the reading of the Will today.”

  “Do me a favor, okay?” I raised an eyebrow, wondering what Austin had in mind.

  “I will if I can, sure.” I searched his face waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “Ask your aunt’s lawyer what happens to your inheritance if someone kills you.”

  “You don’t mince words, do you?”

  “I’m trying to get through to you. If no one in Hollywood is angry with you, then you need to consider another possibility. Not everyone may be as eager as Officer Denny Saunders was last night to welcome you home.”

  “That’s as ridiculous as the idea that Tony Allen hired someone to bump me off. Aunt Lettie made sure I didn’t get into the kind of trouble here that I caused in Montgomery. I don’t even remember giving anyone a hard time. I made friends right away. That’s one reason I decided to stay here even when my parents made a couple of superficial gestures at reconciliation.”

  “Which is why I want you to find out who else stands to inherit Aunt Lettie’s property if you’re out of the picture. Given the value of property in this area, you’re inheriting much more than a few black sheep genes—if such a thing even exists. The house and land alone must be worth millions, Lily. If she also left you a share in the vineyards and winery, you’ve just become a very wealthy woman. Money is right up there with revenge and love gone wrong as a motive for murder.”

  “I wasn’t involved in the business side of things, but I heard Aunt Lettie talking about it all the time. It’s a tough business, so I never thought of Aunt Lettie as rich. I loved the vineyards growing up. They’re magical. Aunt Lettie and I wandered through them, taking in the gorgeous views of the countryside. We’d take a picnic lunch out there. My friends and I would put on shows for Aunt Lettie and her friends. It’s hard to describe how enchanting I found the vines beautifully spaced in symmetrical rows, with their grapes hanging in luscious bunches. I suppose that’s why she changed the name soon after I arrived. Calla Lily—the flower—is a nickname Aunt Lettie gave me. It’s short for Lillian Callahan.” I teared up recalling those wonderful sunny days with Aunt Lettie.

  “I can’t believe she’s dead and someone’s trying to kill me. What am I going to do?” It all suddenly seemed to be too much, and a sob escaped despite my best efforts to choke it back.

  Austin reached out, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward him. I leaned sideways and put my head on his shoulder as he slid an arm around me. Marlowe climbed into my lap and got as close to my face as he could. As if trying to figure out what was wrong and fix it, the sweet little guy put his paws on my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and gave me a nudge with his tiny nose. I pulled him close and gave him a smooch which set his tail wagging. With a woof, he bounded from my lap. After a romp and a roll, he was back and so delighted that I couldn’t help smiling.

  “This isn’t easy, I know. I’m sorry this is happening to you. Let’s find out what’s going on, okay? I’ll try to choose my words more carefully.”

  “I don’t think there’s a nice way to say someone wants me dead. If he doesn’t bring it up at the reading of the Will this afternoon, I’ll ask Franklin Everett who gets what in the event of my untimely death.” That got my blood boiling. Anger has always worked for me as an antidote to self-pity and loss. “I suppose I should ask him about having an autopsy done on my aunt, too, before she’s laid to rest. When he called me in LA, we settled on a time to meet, and Franklin said he’d make a reservation at the resort. I was so shaken by his call, that I didn’t even ask who’d discovered Aunt Lettie’s body. There must be a report detailing the circumstances surrounding her death, right?” I sat up straight and wriggled free of Austin’s arm, although I held onto his hand for a few seconds longer as I placed it on the sofa between us.