(The cleansing hadn’t lasted long.)
After getting showered, she met Kiko in the computer room, having decided to follow up on those links about Lane Tomlinson, Lee’s brother.
“Crap,” she said, clicking back to the search engine’s home page when she saw that there was nothing worth noting. “Sometimes I think the only thing that’s going to give us the big lead is another murder.”
“Don’t jinx anyone.” Kiko was settled at a smaller table, ramrod straight with his back brace. “But…okay, I’ve thought about that, too, especially if the copycat killer starts getting cocky and careless. That’s when we could get a break.”
“Man, I’d hate to rely on another woman getting killed.”
Her cell phone rang. When she looked at the screen to find Jacqueline Ashley’s name listed, Dawn’s blood pressure shot up.
They’re calling me a throwback, Jac had said that day in the hospital before taking off her ball cap and revealing blond hair just like Eva’s, forcing Dawn to focus on a face that seemed to conjure her dead mother’s.
Jac had been excited, yet wary, about Dawn’s reaction to the makeover. They say that, even though I don’t look exactly like her, I remind them of your mom….
Mom. Dawn had only known her from pictures: giddy wedding photos of Eva’s ill-advised marriage to everyday-average Frank. Publicity stills of a rising movie goddess. The crime-scene photo tinted with blood.
Now, as the phone rang again, Matt’s betrayal from last night lent new life to the Eva bitterness, snaking into the old fear and confusion Dawn had nurtured year after year.
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word….
“What’s wrong?” Kiko asked.
Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird….
“Jac.” The name was nothing more than a painful croak.
Kiko bounded over to Dawn. “Aren’t you going to answer?”
When Dawn didn’t make a move to do so, he grabbed the phone.
Immediately, he began chirping away, happy as can be. Dawn recalled that Jac had sort of made her feel that way, too, once upon a time before this whole makeover thing.
She needed to stop freaking out. For the last time, Jac was Jac and nothing more. Hell, if that wasn’t true, The Voice would’ve stepped in already, pinpointing Jacqueline Ashley as a masquerading vamp.
Feeling her sanity whirling down a black hole, Dawn fought back, holding out her hand to Kiko for the phone. When he didn’t give it to her right away, she tugged it from him.
“Party,” Kiko said sotto voce. “She wants you to go out tonight, you lucky dog.”
“Hey,” Dawn said to Jac. She kept looking at Kiko, as if he was some kind of stabilizing force that would keep her from gurgling down the drain.
“There you are.” Jac’s voice, bright and sunny. “I was thinking you were avoiding me.”
“Been real busy, that’s all.”
“Tell me about it. Buccaneer boot camp just ended, but we’ll be shooting at the studio now. Maybe I’ll get some time to start fencing at Dipak’s again. We’ll have to do that soon, before I go on location, all right? Boot camp made me a lot better. And wait ’til I tell you about all the gossip. Dawn, do you know that movie people actually call each other ‘darling’? I can’t get over that.”
“You will.”
All the golly-gee-whiz talk drove home that Jac really was a small-town girl who’d come to Hollywood via some modeling contest. Or…
Dawn stopped. Even Breisi had said the starlet was only a Tinseltown carbon copy of Eva and no more. Breisi, the steadiest person Dawn knew. So why was Dawn still thinking the worst?
“What are you up to tonight?” Jac asked.
“Work.”
Kiko shot Dawn a look, probably knowing she was making excuses not to see Jac again. He’d crawled back into his chair, leaning on an elbow propped on a bigger table, lovestruck and all Bye Bye Birdie–ish.
“You work too much.” Jac laughed. “I’m going to kidnap you. There’s a party Paul Aspen is throwing, and I’m not really comfortable enough with the cast yet to show up by myself.”
Paul Aspen, prince of the heartland. In twenty years, he’d be remembered as an actor who built his fortune on flag-waving movies, but he had recently branched out. Hushed gossip said that his worst vice was “deflowering” young girls on the set and off, but Joe and Phyllis Matinee didn’t know that.
“Be my bodyguard?” Jac added kiddingly.
“Industry parties aren’t really my scene.”
Kiko lightly hit her.
“Wait, Jac.” She held the phone to her shoulder.
“Call back,” Kiko said.
Slightly annoyed, Dawn returned, then promised the actress she’d get back to her in a few minutes. A weight dropped off Dawn as she hung up.
Wow, she could breathe again.
But Kiko robbed her of that real quick. “You should go.”
“Why’s that?”