“You know he had a gun?” Bridget demanded.
Just as Bridget spoke, Marnie saw that a man was running down Barham, coming their way.
McFadden. He managed to run in a suit without looking ridiculous. For some reason that made Marnie resent him just a little bit more.
Apparently he had been there. Somewhere near, watching over her. He had gone after the man trying to break in—and he knew the man had been carrying a gun.
She looked away from him and stared at Sophie Manning. “So what do you suggest? What do you propose I do? What are you planning to do for my safety? Can you leave a patrol car here—or a cop, one who is more than welcome inside. I love coffee and I have tons and tons of it.”
“And tea,” Bridget offered. “She loves tea, too. But, Marnie, your bedroom is all...glass. You’ll have to stay at my place.”
The detectives weren’t giving her their full attention anymore. They were watching as Bryan McFadden came jogging up—leaping over the little white picket fence—to join them.
He had something wrapped up in his hand, which he offered to Detective Vining.
“Bullet casing—haven’t found where the bullet itself lodged. I’ll get on it in the morning,” McFadden told the cop.
“Oh.” Bridget clutched tightly to Marnie, looking as if she was about to have the vapors or pass out or do something very melodramatic—but real.
“Hey!” Marnie caught her cousin, but Bryan McFadden had already reached out. Bridget looked at him with adoring eyes.
“I’m—I’m all right!” she said. She found her feet and her own strength.
“I’ll stay here tonight,” Manning said. “In the living room.”
“Detective,” Vining began sternly.
“Just for tonight. Maybe Miss Davante will need to stay somewhere else for a while, as we search for Cara Barton’s killer. Maybe...”
“Sophie,” Vining said firmly. “You can’t.”
He stopped speaking, looking at Marnie. “We can keep a patrol car out here for a few days. We’ll investigate the situation fully.”
“Yes,” Manning said. “We’ll investigate, but what if Mr. McFadden hadn’t taken it on himself to look after Miss Davante? He was on the would-be home invader in a matter of moments.”
“Sophie,” Vining said, and his tone was a little sharp. And Marnie understood, of course.
Police funds were limited. She couldn’t expect full-time protection services from them.
“It’s fine. I’ll stay out in the car,” McFadden said. He shrugged. “I won’t cost the taxpayers a thing.”
“You are not staying outside!” Bridget insisted. “Marnie is moving over into my side of the property, and you may have the couch, Bryan. Is it all right if I call you Bryan?”
“Of course,” McFadden said.
Manning was looking at him. “I can and will stay tonight. I’m off duty, and I don’t intend to put in overtime. After tonight, you can do whatever you need so that you can come on guard duty full-time.”
“Yes,” Marnie said. “I mean, no... I mean, I don’t think I need anyone twenty-four hours a day. I have things to do, people with whom I must meet...”
“That would make staying alive a good thing, wouldn’t it?” McFadden asked her. He turned to Manning. “Thank you for helping out,” he said.
“I’ll get crime scene people working on locating that bullet,” Vining told McFadden. “You’ll have to let the techs know where you were. If you’d like to see the crime scene at the convention hall, meet me tomorrow morning?”
McFadden nodded.
He looked at Marnie, his eyes seeming to catch hers as strange beats of time went by.
“Good night, Miss Davante. And, Miss Davante,” he said, smiling as he looked at Bridget, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Then McFadden turned and walked back toward his car.
“Well, it wasn’t late, but now it is. We probably should try to get some sleep,” Bridget said.
Marnie knew that she needed sleep. She had an appointment in the afternoon with a Mr. Seth Smith of the Wexler Realty Group to find out if she was going to be able to rent the old Abernathy Theater in Burbank. It was old, it was beautiful and it was right off I-5. That made it easy to reach. It also had parking; if she could offer free parking, that would be an incredible boon. And, personally—even though on the old Tonight Show Johnny Carson had made fun of it—she loved Burbank. It had families and homes and still had some shops and boutiques that were family or individually owned. It had Dark Delicacies, one of the best bookshops ever.
Yes, sleep would be good. And he was gone—Bryan McFadden, who had somehow managed to tip her whole world, entered her bloodstream, encourage delusion and...possibly saved her life!
It suddenly hit her that she was so very vulnerable. It felt wrong.
“Okay,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “Detective Manning, thank you so much. I admit to being very frightened this evening. We don’t know if we did just have a run-of-the-mill home invasion, but run-of-the-mill or not—he might have killed me. I am alive. We can move over to Bridget’s for tonight, and in the morning get the glass fixed and an alarm system installed. So...”
“Let’s head on in,” the detective said.
It felt a bit ludicrous that Sophie was the brave cop and Marnie was the frightened victim; Sophie was about five foot four and Marnie towered over her by almost six inches. But one look at Sophie Manning, and—while she was extremely attractive—it was evident that she was confident, fit and ready to face whatever came her way.
Detective Vining waved them off. “I’ll be here until the crime scene people finish up. You’ve signed the incident report... Go get some sleep. Manning, I don’t want to see you until at least noon tomorrow, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Manning said.
When they were inside, Bridget said, “Tea? Yes, tea. It’s always good. Maybe wine would be better. Or, what the hell, a shot of whiskey!”
Sophie laughed. “I’ll stick with tea. In fact, coffee might be best for me.”
Bridget’s half of the duplex was the same as Marnie’s, except that it was reversed. As Bridget brewed a pot of tea, Sophie and Marnie sat at the barstools. The detective told them she’d always wanted to be a cop—her dad had been on the force. She’d lost him recently to cancer, but he had seen her go through the police academy and he’d seen her rise to rank of detective.
Marnie and Bridget explained how they had both been only children, cousins just about the exact same age.
While Bridget talked away about how she’d always created stories and then asked Marnie to act them out with invisible costars, Marnie found herself zoning out a bit and looking around.
She should have been terrified an armed assailant was going to try to break in again.
But she was more afraid, she realized, that she’d see the ghost of Cara Barton.
She did not.
Sophie asked her curiously about her plans for the future.
Marnie returned her attention to Sophie and Bridget and smiled. “Well, I’d been feeling pressured to do a revamp of Dark Harbor. Vince Carlton really seemed to want to make it happen, and he had the right people in place, but...well, I would only have done it because it meant so much to the rest of the cast. I’ve been saving for years to open my own theater for kids. I mean, some kids, the ones with aggressive stage moms, have a chance at getting into the movies. I want a venue for the kids who need a different kind of opportunity—right here, in Hollywood. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with film—but my dream is for kids like Bridget and me. Those who want to grow up to do things other than be movie stars. To write, to design, to become fabricators and create fairies and monsters...”
She broke off, shrugging.
“Anyway, that’s my plan. I’m seeing a man tomorrow about renting the space I want. And from there...”
“No more Dark Harbor,” Sophie said, sighing. “Have to admit—I loved the show!”
“Thanks. Hopefully, it will remain a classic. And, hopefully, we will all—the remaining cast members—continue to survive on syndication!”