Cara was dead.
“You have to be very, very careful,” Cara said.
“Yes,” Bryan said very softly. He didn’t turn. He looked at Marnie and smiled gravely.
“To the new show!” Malcolm said. “And,” he added, “our way to do a real tribute to Cara Barton.”
*
Roberta Alan couldn’t believe that—especially with his parents—Bryan had no desire to act.
“I think it’s a passion for some people and not others,” he told her. He wanted to draw her out. He couldn’t help but believe, no matter how improbable, Cara had been killed by someone here, someone close to it all. At the very least he could start ruling people out.
Yet it made no sense. They all seemed to really want the show—except for Marnie.
And now he knew Jeremy Highsmith wanted it only on certain terms.
He tried to imagine each of them finding out how to hire a killer. Then deciding the killer had to be killed. He tried to imagine each of them dressed up in a Blood-bone costume, luring the hired killer to Marnie’s backyard—and shooting to kill.
Roberta was a lovely young woman. She was as thin as a whippet; she was a runner, she had told him. It had nothing to do with the Hollywood demands of perfection.
“Frankly, I haven’t been doing that much lately. I have been looking forward to this show starting up again. Not that everything is terrible. I don’t mean that at all. In a way, after a show like Dark Harbor, we’re seen forever as that one character, and casting directors hesitate when looking at us, even if we were popular. Because new shows want to create new characters. Think of the amount of actors you’ve seen in series who seem to disappear right after. But I did just shoot a great commercial for a fast-food chain. It will air right around Halloween. See—that’s what I mean. Although it won’t say I’m Sonia Zeta from Dark Harbor, a lot of the audience will know me as that—cool and freaky around Halloween.”
“I’ll bet it’s a great commercial.”
Roberta laughed, smiling at him, placing a hand on the top of his. “You are so polite. So wonderful... Marnie is lucky. You know, I was truly a fan of both your parents. There’s an old war movie your dad was in—”
“High Time for Heroes,” Bryan said. “World War II movie. He played a soldier stuck behind enemy lines. It’s one of my favorites. And one of his. He was in the military when he was young and served in Southeast Asia. The role meant a lot to him.”
“He was so wonderful in it. And I’ve heard he was a nice guy, too. I guess that’s why they raised you to be okay.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Alan,” he said.
She was flirting with him.
Whether she was yesterday’s news or not, she was still a stunning woman. The only thing wrong with Roberta was the fact that she seemed constantly on edge. Yes, a whippet—nervous over any little noise.
“You’re quite welcome. So,” she said, peeking around him at Marnie, “I guess you all have become very good friends.”
Marnie heard. She glanced quickly at Bryan and then looked at Roberta. “Yes,” she said, much to Bryan’s surprise. She spoke with a smile, sharing a confidence with her friend. “I’m sleeping with him.”
Roberta laughed softly. “Bravo!”
For a moment it was as if Bryan wasn’t between them—wasn’t there at all.
“Does he have brothers?” Roberta asked.
Marnie told her, “Two of them! Bruce and Brodie.”
“You’ve got to bring them out here,” Roberta said, speaking to Bryan again.
“He can try,” Marnie assured her.
Malcom—to Roberta’s other side—said something and she turned to answer him.
Bryan looked at Marnie, smiling curiously. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I wasn’t even technically correct,” she said. “I’ve slept with you. I can’t say that I’ve been sleeping with you, but...I was hoping it would continue.”
“You are forever a surprise,” he told her. “And beautifully honest.”
“Oh, see! At least something good has come of this,” Cara’s ghost announced.
Bryan had forgotten she was behind them.
“Your parents would be delighted,” Cara said.
“Dear Lord, will this lunch ever end?” he muttered.
But he was finding the lunch interesting. It gave him a chance to observe them all interacting with each other.
None of them seemed likely suspects and yet... Now Bridget was deep in conversation with Vince Carlton. She had a good job, but if Bryan understood it correctly, she worked for the production company that did sci-fi series, but she wasn’t entirely locked-in—as long as she wasn’t on another project at the time, she could take a contract to work on the new Dark Harbor scripts.
Bridget appeared happy. Whether Dark Harbor ever arose again or not, she’d made a good contact.
“Hey, did you have the salmon mousse?” Roberta asked. “It’s wonderful!”
“Not a salmon kind of guy,” he said.
“Really? More a meat-and-potatoes man?”
“Actually, I love a lot of seafood. Just not salmon,” he told her.
“Sushi?”
“You bet.”
Malcolm Dangerfield stood. “Guys, this has been great. I do hope we get to be a family. But duty calls. I have an appointment in an hour. Gotta head out.”
That was the cue. Everyone stood.
“I just have to see that incredible graveyard one more time,” Grayson said, looking hopefully at Vince Carlton. “I’m imagining what might be—if that’s okay?”
“Certainly,” Vince Carlton said. “We’re just a few feet away. No harm in a walk-through that way.”
Malcolm begged off, and he headed out to his waiting limo.
The rest of them trailed after Vince again.
Cara Barton came along with them, hanging close to Bryan—so close that he felt a ghostly arm entwined with his.
“There’s something I can show you, I think. Hang on,” Vince said.
He took off, leaving them at the entrance to the cemetery set.
Bryan was certain Vince went to speak to one of the technicians working in the studio.
The waiting group was right at the edge of the set.
Look one way, the world was real-life, with the cameras and lights and rigging and false walls.
Look the other, and it was pure fantasy, eerie and almost real.
In that direction, they stared at the headstones, the mausoleums, weeping angels and cherubs and gargoyles and more.
“Now,” he heard Vince Carlton cry.
A fog rolled up in the cemetery. Slowly, creeping up from the ground, creating a gray mist all around the gravestones.
“Fabulous, right?” Vince said. “Oh, can you imagine the ghost of our matriarch, just standing there, watching sadly there...hoping to make contact with her children?”
“Yes, I can just imagine,” Cara’s ghost said softly. “Who will play me?”
Interesting question.
Marnie had heard her. She voiced it aloud.
“Who will play Cara’s part?”
“Oh, here’s what is so really wonderful!” Vince answered. “Cara!”
There was a stunned silence.
“The wonders of modern technology,” he said. “I’ve gone through footage of old shows. I’ve found places where I can pull bits and pieces to really have Cara out here—on film, I mean. And then we have a stunt double for certain scenes. You’ve seen it done in other shows with wonderful actors we’ve lost—Star Wars, for one!”
“She would love it,” Jeremy Highsmith said.
“I believe she would,” Roberta added.
There was a natural moment of silence.
A real tribute to Cara.
“I do love it! One way or the other...make it happen, make it happen!” Cara’s ghost announced to those who could hear.
Bryan glanced at Marnie.
She had heard.
She was smiling—but she did not respond.
*
The ghost of Cara Barton disappeared while they were still on the cemetery set. As they left, Marnie carefully looked, but no matter how she searched around tombs and stones—through the eerie rise of fog—she couldn’t see Cara anymore.