Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 7



She is in the movie, in Otherworld, wearing some sparkling gold fantasy of a dress, walking through the arches of the balcony of the round oceanfront ballroom, with the shimmering waves crashing below.

Someone is following her, stepping in and out of the arches just behind her, staying tantalizingly out of sight, but she can feel his presence as an aching longing in her entire body....

She wakes suddenly, with flickering candlelight all around her, to find herself in a huge canopy bed. She gasps as someone steps from the shadows...a gorgeous, haunted figure...

Robbie Anderson, as preternaturally stunning as he appeared in the film. He moves to her and bends to kiss her, running his fingers down her arms with a touch like fire, then suddenly lifting her hands to pin her wrists above her head, and stares down into her eyes. He is no longer a teenager, but older, more demanding, though every bit as beautiful. He moves on top of her, opening her mouth under his, opening her legs with his hips to rock against her, rubbing the ramrod bulge of him against her, slow and teasing, as his right hand caresses her breasts until moans are coming out of her throat as the feel of him excites her into madness, and she arches her back, urging him inside her.... “Please...”

She opens her eyes to look up into his golden gaze...

And then suddenly the face above hers is not Robbie’s but the Elven face of Johnny Love.

* * *

Barrie gasped awake, for real this time. Her heart was pounding, and she felt...well, disturbed. Her phone was vibrating on her night table.

She had every intention of ignoring it, but then she remembered Brodie had promised to check into the case files on Johnny Love’s death.

She grabbed for the phone.

“Brodie?” she mumbled.

There was a slight pause. “Brodie?” a man asked roughly on the other end.

A familiar voice. She couldn’t place it at first yet, oddly, found herself blushing. And then she realized who it was.

“Townsend?” she said, and sat up, pulling the covers around her as if he could see her. “What are you... What do you want?”

There was nothing but silence on the other end. Mick—or whoever the caller was—had hung up.

She set her phone down and leaned back on her pillows, looking across the room at the poster of the three Otherworld actors on her wall. And she shivered, hugging herself, remembering her dream.

* * *

It was already late afternoon when Barrie hit the freeway, crawling with the rest of the traffic toward downtown.

There was no sign of Mick Townsend at the newspaper office. A blessing; she wouldn’t have to avoid him. She still felt off balance after her dream, and she didn’t want to face his keen scrutiny. And if he had been the one to call and wake her? What did that mean? How had he even gotten her number?

She checked in with her editor, and then dashed out of the newsroom and headed straight for the coroner’s office. Brandt had not been picking up his phone, and she was impatient to get the coroner’s report on Johnny Love; she was sure that Tony would pull it for her.

But in his office, Brandt just shook his head at her request. “I can’t get you the L.A. coroner’s report on Johnny Love because there isn’t one.”

She stared at him. “It was stolen?”

“There never was one. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Johnny Love died in Los Angeles. I just got finished telling Brodie the same thing—he said he was checking into it for you.”

“But...Johnny died at the— I mean, everyone says he died at the Chateau Marmont,” she said.

“That’ll teach you not to believe what you read on the Net,” he said, sounding annoyingly like her father for a moment.

“Where did he die, then?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” After a long beat, he added, “I’d be happy to look into it, but it’s a big country. That is, if he even died in this country. It would help if I had some idea where to start.”

“I’m on it,” Barrie told him. “Thanks, Tony.”

She left him, feeling in a state of shock.

* * *

Back in her car, Barrie reached for her phone to call Alessande, but she knew that at Alessande’s age—over a hundred years now—she wasn’t big on phones, and when the call went straight to voice mail Barrie decided to drive up into the canyon to see her in person.

Alessande Salisbury was Elven and almost a neighbor, the way such things were measured in L.A. She lived in Laurel Canyon, maybe two miles from the House of the Rising Sun, in a rustic dwelling that looked like a cabin from the outside but was actually a rather luxurious and sophisticated setup inside, with arching bay windows, solar panels and a state-of-the-art kitchen. Alessande was a bit of a recluse but had become a good friend of all three of the Keeper cousins, since she’d saved Sailor’s life, or helped to, when Sailor had recently come under attack by a shape-shifter who had been infecting Elven actresses with an ancient disease.

Barrie parked in the drive outside the cabin, and when no one responded to her knock at the front door, she circled the house toward the garden in the back. A witch’s dream, it was stocked with spiky, feathery, fragrant herbs that could cure or curse any mortal or Other with whatever remedy or malady you would care to name. The sun was setting over the hills, and a whispery wind rustled through the old-growth trees, wind chimes tinkled from somewhere in the garden, and it was all so private it could have been unsettling, if Barrie weren’t so well acquainted with the house and its owner by now.

As she wound her way through the lush growth, she spotted Alessande on her knees and digging, attacking what looked like a stubborn and unnervingly human-looking bit of root. As occupied as she seemed to be, she threw the trowel down, brushed off her hands and stood to face Barrie before Barrie could say a word in greeting. Being Elven, Alessande was typically stunning, and she towered over Barrie: six feet tall with white-blond hair and green eyes, and a knockout figure, both voluptuous and athletic. And she didn’t look a day over thirty, much less the hundred and six Sailor claimed she was. Barrie wondered sometimes how anyone could possibly mistake her for human, even with beauty being as commonplace as it was in L.A.

She gave Barrie a warm hug—awkward as that was given their height difference: nearly a foot between them. As she pulled back, she looked serenely unsurprised to see Barrie, had probably sensed her as soon as Barrie had the thought to drive up to see her. The Ancients were in possession of a psychic sensitivity more characteristic of witches than Others.

And even as Barrie thought it, Alessande gave her a probing look. “You’re looking rather radiant today. Is there something new in your life?”

Barrie was about to answer an automatic “no” when Alessande added, “Or someone, maybe?”

Barrie felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair. “No,” she lied. “I don’t know wh-what you mean.”

Alessande raised her eyebrows, but to Barrie’s relief, she dropped the subject. “You’re late,” she said instead, lifting her hair from her neck. “I’ve been wrestling with that mandrake for an hour. Let’s sit and have some tea.”

Barrie followed her onto the semi-enclosed patio with a sweeping view of the sinking sun. A frosty glass pitcher of iced tea was already waiting on a mosaic-topped table with two glasses and a plate of decadent-looking cakes. Barrie reached for one and sniffed it suspiciously; she was sure there were all kinds of herbs in them.

Alessande smiled her cat smile. “Oh, go ahead, you’ll like them.”

Barrie bit into an explosion of chocolate and berry deliciousness. Whatever its healing properties, the cake was also loaded with sugar, more proof that Alessande had seen her coming.

Alessande sat and poured them both tall glasses of rosily glowing tea. She pushed one glass toward Barrie and got straight down to business. “Sailor told me you’re looking for information on the death of Johnny Love, and I’ve been looking into it.”

“You’re an angel,” Barrie said, meaning it. “Thank you.”

Alessande nodded distractedly. “You’re very welcome, but there’s actually a troubling dearth of knowledge about this incident, given that it’s one of the most notorious celebrity deaths of the end of the century.” She had a way of talking that made history sound long and vibrant—not surprising, considering her age and relationship to time. She continued, serenely and seriously.

“No Elven I spoke with seems to know anything about what happened to him. There was no Elven Keeper I can track who had anything to do with the investigation into the death or the autopsy.” Pale as she was, her lovely face was shadowed. “It is extremely troubling. It’s almost as if...wherever Johnny died, there were no other Elven in the vicinity at all.”

“That is strange,” Barrie murmured, and reached for another cake. There was nothing about the case that wasn’t strange.

“I can only think that very powerful Others were involved in this cover-up. They would have to be, to circumvent the Elven Council so completely.”

Barrie frowned, frustrated. That was no help in narrowing suspects down. In Hollywood, power was the coin of the realm.

“What do I do, Alessande?” she asked.

“I think any paperwork you’ll be able to find on the case will be completely false,” the beautiful Elven said soberly. “You must find direct witnesses. People who knew Johnny. People or Others who were actually there at the time, who can tell you their story.”

Barrie nodded, feeling a rush of excitement. She knew exactly where to start.

“I’m thinking Declan Wainwright,” she said aloud.

Alessande smiled. “I’m thinking you’re right.”

* * *

Sailor’s fiancé owned two clubs on Sunset, which in that zip code pretty much constituted a dynasty. One club was completely “out” and legit, a popular hangout for the mainstream mortal population of Los Angeles and a popular destination for tourists wanting a taste of the “real” L.A. The other club was grungy and edgy, showcasing up-and-coming underground bands and sometimes popular bands who wanted to get back to their down and dirty roots. And after after hours...that club opened by invitation only, to Others only.

At least technically speaking.

The truth was, though, that there was a certain segment of the human population of L.A. that just knew about the Others.

Artists are a different breed from ordinary mortals. They push the boundaries of society and civilization. It was not an accident that for centuries actors had not been allowed to be buried in hallowed ground.

Just as in the segregated past white patrons had sought out the jazz clubs of Harlem, just as people from all walks of life had risked arrest to have the speakeasy experience in the Roaring Twenties, there was today a small slice of humanity that sensed the presence of Others and sought to learn more about them.

The denizens of L.A. were especially apt to seek out the edgy, the bizarre, the occult, the outré, and artists had a long history of possessing a heightened sense of non-rational forces. And there was no earthly secret more outré and non-rational and exciting than the Otherworld. So, for as long as there had been artists and Others, they had been commingling. And those humans who knew of the Others, while not bound by any official Code of Silence, were surprisingly good at keeping the Others’ existence secret, much as members of the film and music communities were surprisingly discreet about keeping the non-mainstream sexual preferences of film stars and other celebrities private. There were lots of open secrets in Hollywood, secrets that by mutual understanding stayed in Hollywood.

The existence of the Others was a more closely guarded secret even than sexuality, and through the years humans who had tried to break the silence had been silenced themselves, through blackmail, threats and sometimes even death.

So, the edgy and hidden nature of the Others-only clubs was a powerful draw for humans who were aware of the Others. Declan’s underground club made a fortune in admissions from humans in the know who were willing to pay top dollar for the Other experience.

It occurred to Barrie that Mayo would have been one of them, and she made a mental note to ask Declan about him as she stormed the club after a stop at home to change into a VLBD (very little black dress) and her tallest heels, the outfit accented by a complicated necklace, an industrial-looking metal chain assemblage of copper and steel and glass, for edge.

* * *

The doorman, one of L.A.’s supertall leprechauns, knew her and lifted the velvet rope, waving her past the line. Inside the black box of a club she braced herself against the assault of sound and started to wend her way across the crowded, atmospherically misty floor in the direction of the bar. The manager’s office was behind a spiral stairway, which led upstairs to a green room.

Barrie was an avid dancer and loved dance clubs in any form, but it always did her heart good to see Others mixing so happily and in such numbers. Now, as she looked out over the floor she saw vampires dancing with Elven, weres dancing with shifters, everyone having a great time, just as it should be. Beats the hell out of interspecies war, that’s for sure, she thought.

As she moved to the pulse of the music and assessed the crowd, she got her share of appreciative looks from the males of every species, which she casually ignored. But then she caught sight of a tall Elven—well, okay, “tall Elven” was redundant—watching her from the sidelines with an intense enough look that she paused mid-stride before she looked away. She knew never to lock eyes with an Elven. They could read minds if they held your gaze. In a solid eye lock, you could read theirs as well, a disturbingly intimate thing. Barrie kept moving, but it was surprisingly hard not to look back at him. She didn’t generally go for Elven; they were too uniformly gorgeous and...blond for her liking. But there was something about the quiet intensity of the one who had been watching her that made her think for a moment of Johnny Love and her disturbing—and disturbingly erotic—dream last night.

She shook her head almost violently to rid herself of the thought and was thankful to spot Declan casually leaning across the bar to speak to one of the bartenders.

He turned as she approached, as if sensing her presence. He was a striking Englishman of forty, with gorgeous cheekbones and raven-black hair, a taut swimmer’s body and an impatient energy that often read as arrogance. Barrie would never have called him that, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly.

“Cousin,” Declan greeted her, and kissed her English-style, on both cheeks. “Sailor said you might be storming the gates tonight.”

“I need to know about the Pack,” she told him, without any further pleasantries. Declan was a shifter Keeper; she didn’t need to p-ssyfoot around. He nodded and put his hand to her elbow to steer her into the office behind the bar, shutting the door behind them. The music still throbbed through the walls, but now they didn’t have to shout—or risk being overheard. Barrie got right to it. “Did you know them?”

Declan looked conflicted. “I knew them about as much as anyone was allowed to get to know them at the time, which, truly, was not much. I’ve been in the business a long time, and I’ll tell you, love, I’ve never seen anyone quite like those three. One by one they were charismatic, to be sure, but together? It was a whole other level of star power. And they knew it. And they used it.”

Barrie picked up on his ambiguous tone. “Used it...and pissed people off, you mean?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Barrie felt cold. “Enough to kill them? Or one of them, anyway?”

Declan smiled wryly. “Ah, we’re back to that, are we? ‘Who Killed Johnny Love?’” he asked with ironic emphasis. “Who killed Kurt, who killed Jim, who killed Janis, Jimi... There’s always a conspiracy when stars die young.”

“You don’t believe it, then.”

Declan spread his hands. “I believe that Johnny had enough destruction in him to finish himself off all on his own.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. She trusted him, and his steady skepticism gave her pause. Best not to go off half-cocked, after all.

“He didn’t die in L.A., you know,” she said, and she saw a brief jolt of surprise—or something—in his eyes.

“That I did not,” he said. “Where, then?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

His face was neutral. “I heard the same thing everyone did, I imagine. It was an overdose at the Chateau. If that’s not the case, it’s news to me.”

Then he twitched and reached for his pocket to pull out a phone. He checked a message, and his face tightened. He glanced to Barrie.

“Could I just sit you down for about ten minutes? I have a drummer passed out up there and...”

“Oh, no,” Barrie said in outraged sympathy. Artists. Universal flakes. “Don’t worry about me. Go. Good luck.”

He escorted her out of the office and back into the main room where he found her a barstool. He nodded to the bartender, who had the shaggy-around-the-edges look of a were, and indicated Barrie’s drinks were on him.

He started off, then turned back to her and stepped close to her so she would hear him but no one else could. “Barrie...be careful on this one. It’s dangerous territory you’re treading into. A whole studio lot full of skeletons that a lot of people won’t want unburied.”

Even with the raucous, jostling crowd around her, Barrie felt a shiver. “I’ll be careful,” she promised him. But as a Keeper he knew as well as anyone what the job was—which was whatever it had to be.

As the bartender turned toward her, she shouted over the music for a vodka tonic, then sat on the stool watching the dancers and brooding over what Declan had said.

The band finished its set to cheers, and recorded music came up over the speakers for the break. It was a classic funk tune Barrie loved, and she found herself looking around the room for potential partners.

And even as she thought it, she saw the Elven who’d noticed her as she came in heading purposefully toward her.

He stopped in front of her, towering and blond, and smiled. “Want to?” he asked, not quite shouting over the din.

Normally she would have been up on her feet in a second, especially for such a danceable song, but something about the Elven, his intensity, made her hesitate. Then she put her hand in his, and he led her out onto the floor.

He was a surprisingly fabulous dancer. Not many Elven really were; it was hard to compress all that height into the economy of movement that’s such a pillar of good partner dancing. Barrie had always considered herself lucky that shifters were in general the best dancers of the Others; their natural talent at mimicry extended to physical movement. But this Elven was doing fine, more than fine, and she found herself relaxing into his expert lead. He was comfortable enough with himself to play around with the song, and she found herself laughing as she alternately followed and challenged him.

And then their eyes locked.

They were looking deep into each other’s eyes, and try as she might Barrie couldn’t look away. She felt fire through her whole body, and an almost paralyzing desire—not just desire but a longing so powerful she couldn’t breathe....

Then she realized something was wrong.

The Elven was looking straight into her eyes and she wasn’t reading his thoughts.

And then she understood. The being in front of her wasn’t Elven at all.

She stopped still on the dance floor, jostled from all sides by the crowd, and forced the words out. “What are you playing at, shifter?”

She saw the jolt in his eyes, and before he could flee, she grabbed his wrist and held on.

She was unnerved by the strength of the shift; she had to focus her whole being on keeping hold of him until he began to shimmer....

And then Barrie jolted back in shock as the Elven resolved himself...

...into Mick Townsend.

For a moment she was more stunned than angry. First that Mick was a shifter at all, and second—she’d never seen a shifter duplicate an Elven, or any other Other, so well. But the anger came soon enough—anger at herself for not having seen it, anger at him for being so good at it. Not only had she not picked up that the Elven was a shifter, much less Mick, she’d never picked up that Mick was a shifter at all. It was an appalling failure on her part. She felt shame, humiliation and white-hot rage.

She turned and pushed her way off the dance floor. He followed her. “Gryffald, wait!”

Barrie darted through the dancers, but he was fast. He caught up with her at the door to the back hall and grabbed her arm, and she spun to face him in a fury. “Wait for what? So you can shift into a were or a leprechaun and trick me all over again?”

“I wasn’t trying to trick you.”

“What were you trying to do, then?”

“At the moment I was trying to dance with you.”

That silenced her, at least momentarily. The dance had been really good, she had to admit. Which she didn’t want to think about. She wanted to stay mad and storm off.

But there was one thing she needed to know, and that kept her there out of pure professional curiosity.

“How do you do it?” she asked grudgingly.

He seemed startled at the question, but he knew what she meant because he grinned. “Years and years of practice.”

She felt another flare of resentment. “Well, now you have proof of how good you are. You fooled a shifter Keeper.”

“I fool everyone,” he said. “Is that why you’re mad?” He suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her into the back hall and out the exit door.

The quiet of the alley was deafening after the din of the club; Barrie was disoriented. Mick held her wrist, a maddeningly erotic touch, and forced her to face him. “Barrie, almost no one ever knows I’m a shifter.”

It was probably the first time he’d ever said her first name, and she had to admit that it gave her a little thrill. But that disappeared as she registered what he’d said after her name.

“You’re passing?” she asked in sheer disbelief. Of course, all Others were passing as far as humans were concerned, but she rarely came across an Other who was trying to pass as human to other Others. It was startling, it was unnerving, it seemed... Shifty was what it was.

“Most of the time,” he admitted. “I don’t usually reveal myself to anyone at all,” he added.

That struck her as odd, in a strangely thrilling way. “Then...why me?” she managed.

“I wanted you to know,” he told her, and a thick silence fell between them.

Barrie found it unnerving and had to move away from him to look out at the cars cruising by on Sunset at the end of the alley. He moved up behind her, but thankfully not as close as he had been.

“I thought it would make it easier for you to agree to team up with me if you knew I was an Other.”

She glanced at him. She didn’t want to admit it, but of course he was right on the money; she had virtually decided against doing any kind of work with him at all because it would be so hard not to break the Code.

“I do feel like an idiot for not seeing it,” she said.

He suddenly grinned at her. “Hey, I’ve been doing it for so long even I forget I can shift sometimes.”

In spite of herself, she laughed. She was still mad at him, but too curious to walk away. She looked at him quizzically. “But I don’t understand. Why? Why would you want to hide it?”

It was his turn to step away, his face darkening even in the shadows of the alley. “You’re a shifter Keeper. I don’t have to tell you about the excesses of my kind. Being a shifter makes it easy to fool people. It makes you think you’re powerful when really you’re just conning people, taking advantage of their trust.”

Barrie knew too well what he meant. Shifters were very much like actors: born chameleons and tricksters. It was their very nature to be inconstant.

Mick continued, and his voice had an edge; he sounded haunted.

“There have been things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. When I quit—some of the other stuff, I realized if I were really going to start over, I had to...not shift. I wanted to experience my life as just one person. So, I set out learning how to do that, to just be myself.” He smiled ruefully. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Barrie was moved by that; it took a lot of guts and commitment not to abuse the power that shifting offered. It was a brave thing to do...and a lonely one, too. She felt herself melting, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Well, you haven’t lost the talent. That was a pretty damn good imitation of an Elven,” she said grudgingly.

He smiled slightly. “What gave me away?”

“Looking at me the way you did,” she answered automatically, and then blushed, suddenly remembering their moment on the dance floor, remembering how very thoroughly he had looked at her, how his look had stopped her dead with a feeling of desire so strong it had taken her breath away. It did it again now.

“I couldn’t read your thoughts,” she managed to say. “That’s how I knew.”

“You couldn’t read my thoughts?”

Barrie couldn’t speak. The truth was, she had been able to read his thoughts at that moment—all too well. Just not in an Elven way.

Mick looked down at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Elven or not, and his voice was suddenly husky. “I’m glad that much came through, anyway.”

She moved away from him, trying to keep her head. “You have been following me, haven’t you?”

“Well, maybe a little.”

“A little? How do you follow someone a little?”

“Barrie,” he said, and again she felt that thrill at the sound of his voice speaking her name. “I’ve been up front with you, haven’t I? I’ve said that I want to work together, that I think we should team up.”

“Why are you so keen to work together?”

He looked at her steadily. “Because no one cares as much as you do about that kid who died. And no one will work harder to do right by him.”

She felt a little shaky, as if somehow he’d looked directly into her heart, and she had to turn away. “How do you know that?”

“I’m a shifter, aren’t I? Even if I’m not living as one, I keep my hand in. You’re the newest shifter Keeper. I watch these things.”

She nodded distractedly; it made sense.

“And knowing you a little now...” He touched her face briefly, but the touch shivered through her. “I’d have to be blind or an idiot not to see that you care.”

All kinds of unwanted feelings were welling up inside her, and she found herself dangerously close to tears. She stepped back from him abruptly to break the connection.

“So, if we were going to work together,” she said, making sure not to indicate any kind of commitment or anything, “where were you thinking of starting?”

“Johnny Love,” he said instantly.

“What about him?” she asked, maybe a little too quickly herself.

“He’s the center of all of this.” He paced in the alley, as if unable to contain his urgency. “There’s a fifteen-year-old mystery about his death.... A talented young shifter is killed while playing Johnny for the sexual pleasure of the producer of the original movie who is planning to remake that movie. And both the shifter and the producer are killed with the same exotic drug cocktail that killed Johnny.... It’s the obvious center of the investigation.” He stopped his manic circling and turned to face her. “If we want to know what’s happening now, we have to start with the past. So, we have to find out what really happened to Johnny Love.”

Barrie felt a different kind of thrill now, because of course it was exactly what she had been thinking.

“And how would you want to proceed on that?” she asked coolly.

“Johnny didn’t die in L.A.”

Barrie felt dazed with shock. He knows. How does he know? Aloud she blustered, “And I suppose you know where he did die.”

“Catalina,” Mick said with absolute certainty, and Barrie stared at him, stupefied. He’d already tracked down the real place of death. Catalina was an island just off the coast, a resort oasis and the setting of the final scenes of Otherworld. Even as he said it, it had the ring of truth. She tried to focus through her excitement and gather the facts.

“How...how do you know that?”

“Sources,” Mick said. “And I think we should go out there and find out what really happened to him. Now. Tonight.”

Barrie knew she had no choice but to go with him if she wanted to be in on this case.

“All right,” she said, forgetting all about waiting to talk to Declan. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The car the valet brought was a stunning silver Bentley, so polished and shining Barrie could see her own reflection in the hood, an unbelievably classy classic car. And way too nice for a reporter’s car.

As the valet ran to open the passenger door for her, she was roiling with envy and suspicion and desire.

Who is this guy?

As she dropped into the passenger seat, she had a momentary flash that she was doing exactly what she’d just promised Declan she wouldn’t do.

Oh, come on, he’s a coworker, she told herself. Even so, as Mick stood outside the car and tipped the valet, she took out her phone and texted both her cousins using code to let them know where she would be.

Mick went back to the trunk before getting into the car, and when he dropped behind the wheel he was carrying a coat, which he handed to her. “Not that I want you to cover those legs for any reason, but you’ll need this out on the water,” he said, and she blushed, pleased with the compliment and surprised at his thoughtfulness.

The coast road was gorgeous under an almost full moon as they drove down PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, toward Marina del Rey where the ferry to Catalina docked.

Catalina was a small island off the coast, home of the town of Avalon, created as a resort in the 1920s. Barrie thought back to the last scene of Otherworld; Catalina had stood in for the fictional island depicted as the heart of the Otherworld kingdom. That part of the story was totally make-believe. There were certainly Others on Catalina, but not a large population, and they tended to be reclusive, mostly weres who wanted the wide-open spaces the island offered or who had a taste for bison, which roamed there in herds. Elven hated Catalina because of the water. Elven had a pathological dread of water; it was often lethal to them—a fact the movie never went into.

Barrie felt a stir of significance at that last thought, but before she could pursue it, Mick spoke, looking out the windshield at the almost-full moon.

“Weres will be out on the prowl any minute,” he joked, and she laughed and realized how comfortable it was to be with someone who just knew, who she didn’t have to hide things from or struggle to keep the Code.

Her romantic history wasn’t exactly a disaster, but she’d never been in love, real love, either, and it had started to feel like she was missing out on a rather large and essential part of life.

She wasn’t like some Keepers who thought intermarriage between mortals and Keepers, or marriage between species, should be banned. That attitude smacked of miscegenation, and there were always couples—not many, but some—who could make it work. It just seemed to her a sensible policy to keep a professional distance from the species she was entrusted to protect.

But it was hard living between two worlds. It was hard to date Others because she knew their foibles too well, and they were, after all, a whole different species. And it was hard to date mortals because she couldn’t talk about her life’s work without breaking the Code. If she were ever to find that...One, then she would of course tell him everything about who she was and what she did, without reservation. The trouble was, she hadn’t found him yet. Or he hadn’t found her. And she was getting a little tired of waiting.

She envied her cousins, who seemed to have found their soul mates so easily. Rhiannon and Sailor hadn’t even been back in town for six months before they’d run straight into the loves of their lives: Rhiannon wasn’t having any trouble at all making it work with an Elven, and Sailor’s fiancé, Declan, was a Keeper himself, as well as entrenched in the entertainment business, a perfect match.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Mick said beside her, and Barrie jumped...then reddened. She couldn’t very well tell him.

“Oh, I was just...wondering why Johnny was out on Catalina after the movie was wrapped.” And then she realized what had been bothering her about it. “He was Elven. They hate water. Of course he’d tolerate it for the movie, actors do whatever it takes. But why would he ever voluntarily be on the island after they’d wrapped?”

Mick’s face tightened, but he didn’t answer; they’d arrived at the ferry dock, and the dark water of the Pacific spread out before them like a velvety carpet. “We’ll have to hustle to make that last boat.” He veered into a parking space and parked.

* * *

The boat to the island was a high-speed catamaran, and the trip was about an hour over the water. And of course in the grand old resort tradition, the party got started on the boat.

Barrie hadn’t been out to Avalon in a long time, and she’d forgotten how luxe the night ferry was. The music was classic forties jazz, and the bar was cozy, with big wide couches and club chairs to sink into, and a sweeping Art Deco bar. Mick ordered perfect icy martinis and they found a booth against the wide windows looking out on the moonlit sea, a stunning view of dark ocean and receding city lights.

It was so romantic, in fact, that she had a sudden suspicion that he was just getting her out on the boat—and out to the island—to seduce her. She was immediately mortified for thinking it...and more...for wanting it.

She refocused herself on business. “Why do you think Johnny was out on the island?” she asked again.

Mick was lounging very enticingly against the booth and looking at her in a most distracting way.

“Maybe he liked the area. Or maybe he’d gotten to know someone out there.”

“A lover, you mean. Was he gay?” she asked abruptly. There had been all kinds of stories of Johnny and various starlets, but in Hollywood being seen in female company was hardly proof of sexual preference. “I mean, I always wondered. The three of them, the Pack, were so close.”

Now Mick glanced away. “I’m not sure who’d be able to answer that. I’m not sure Johnny knew himself. He was sixteen. That age, you’re still finding yourself, and it’s not easy when you can have whatever and whoever you want, anytime you want it. And of course when drugs are involved, the boundaries are even less clear.” He stared out the window at the ocean sparkling under the moon. “He may never have had a chance to really know.”

Barrie was truly impressed, even moved, by his insight. “You know a lot about him.” She felt like a total slacker herself; she couldn’t believe how much information he’d come up with. But it wasn’t information, really, it was a sense Mick seemed to have about Johnny, an empathy, as if he understood him.

Mick shrugged. “I’ve been interviewing everyone I could find who would talk. It’s not easy. A lot of people claimed to know him and really had no clue. But that’s all part of the legend, too, letting everyone think what they want to think of you—or sometimes, with actors, actually being what people want.”

She said what she had been thinking earlier. “Acting is a lot like shifting, I guess.”

“Exactly,” he said bleakly.

Barrie pushed her martini away and got out her notepad. In a homicide investigation, reconstructing the victim’s last day was key. But that was exactly what was maddening about the whole case. “We’ve got two big problems. One, this all happened fifteen years ago. Two, all the witnesses are celebrities. Hard to get to. I mean, listen, this is the witness—and suspect—list.” She read from her notes. “Travis Branson, DJ, Robbie Anderson—if anyone could ever find him. The director of photography is dead, heart attack five years ago....” She went on through her list, naming several other big-name actors who had played roles in the film.

“Darius Simonides,” Mick added.

“Darius?” Barrie looked at him in surprise. Darius was a senior agent for the huge Global Artists Agency, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

“He repped all three of the Pack,” he said. “He still reps DJ.”

“Darius I can get to,” she said with a rush of excitement. “He’s my cousin Sailor’s godfather.” It was exactly what Alessande had counseled her to do: find people who were actually there, who could tell the real story.

Mick was silent for a moment. “You know, it’s like you just said—all those guys on that list are hard to get to. Maybe we should start with someone who would know everything but would be more willing to talk to us.”

Barrie felt a stirring of significance. “Like who?”

“The opposite end of the totem pole. Below the line. An assistant, a gaffer, or best boy or production assistant. Someone who would really be in the know, but not obvious.”

Barrie stared at him, realizing. “You already found someone, didn’t you.”

“Well...”

She gritted her teeth. “Just tell me,” she said.

He gave her an apologetic smile. “I was lucky on my source. I figured—like you said—none of the above-the-line people would want to talk to a lowly journalist, so I started at the bottom.”

She stared at him. “That’s a great idea,” she said reluctantly, kicking herself that she hadn’t thought of it herself.

He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Production assistants, especially—they’re treated so badly, most of the time. They like to be asked.”

She frowned at him. “How do you know so much about the business?”

He hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone, but I worked my way up on the entertainment beat.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh, no, you were a Harvey?”

He mock-grimaced. “If you tell anyone, you’re dead.”

She put a hand to her mouth to stop giggling. “Your secret’s safe with me—if you behave yourself,” she teased, but instantly got serious again. “So, who are we going out there to talk to?”

Barrie wasn’t sure he even realized he was doing it, but he leaned forward and kept his voice low, so he couldn’t be overheard. “This PA told me about an actor who lives on the island. Not a pro, but a local fisherman who showed up for a casting call for islanders as extras, and he ended up with a role because he had such a great look.”

Barrie remembered the fisherman from the movie; he’d played the small but pivotal role of a ship’s captain who helped the Pack by hiding them from their human pursuers.

“He was good,” she said. “And what about him?”

“I’m not sure, but he was in some of the last scenes of the movie with Johnny. The PA said we should talk to him.”

* * *

The boat was nearing the dock, and the two of them went up on deck with quite a few of the rest of the passengers to watch the approach into the crescent-shaped harbor. The lights of the town sparkled in uneven rows leading up the hill, and the boats in the harbor were lit up as well, with brilliant strings of lights, a fairy-tale picture. Barrie was glad to have Mick’s coat, a soft, dark cashmere thing that swallowed her up and smelled deliciously of some faint cologne—and even more deliciously of Mick.

She gazed out over the water at the circular white facade of the Avalon Ballroom, a former casino, now ballroom and movie palace. It looked like a giant wedding cake towering over the water, and she was acutely aware of how fabulously elegant it was inside; she’d actually been there for ballroom dance events, but never with someone who would make the romance complete....

And those are thoughts that are only going to get you in trouble, she warned herself. This is work. That’s all.

She forced herself toward thoughts of the case, the film, the mystery of Johnny Love.

As she and Mick debarked along the long diagonal slant of the ramp with the other passengers, it did feel exactly as if they were descending into the film. Catalina was an Otherworld of its own, a setting out of time.

The feeling continued as she walked beside Mick along the main street of town, with its old-fashioned streetlamps and upscale boutiques and open-air bars and restaurants, where couples sat at candlelit tables, sipping wine and gazing into each other’s eyes.

She had just seen the movie, and it was an odd thing, traveling along the same streets that the young actors had strolled in the film. It was a feeling you often got, living in L.A.—so often there was a sense of déjà vu from coming across a location that was familiar from a favorite movie. It added to the fantasy world aspect of Hollywood; much more than merely romantic, it was hallucinatory, intoxicating.

And to be walking along these romantic streets with someone who was gorgeous enough to be in a movie himself...it was all very unsettling.

Mick glanced at her as if he knew what she was thinking and said, “It would be nice to come here not for work.”

She cleared her throat. “Where does this captain live?”

He gave her a smile that was not quite a smile and gestured to a path leading down to a smaller harbor.

The fisherman lived on his own trawler, exactly as he had for the movie, although she was pretty sure the boat in the movie had been a newer, cleaned-up version. The captain was waiting for them on the well-worn deck, smoking a pipe and looking out over the shimmering water. Just as it was startling to walk onto a street you knew from a movie, it was always startling to meet someone who you knew from on-screen. The fisherman looked not that much older than he had in Otherworld, really, and he had the same authentic salt-of-the-earth energy that he’d brought to the role; she understood perfectly why he’d been cast.

Mick introduced the fisherman as Captain Livingston, and said Barrie was a colleague.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she told him honestly. “My cousins and I loved you in the movie.”

Captain Livingston nodded thanks without speaking, and glanced at Mick.

“We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice,” Mick said.

“Come downstairs and we’ll talk,” the captain said curtly, and turned to go through a door. Mick and Barrie followed him downstairs into the main cabin, a comfortable, masculine room with carefully stored nautical equipment and carved built-in furniture pieces, and a small galley separated from the rest of the room by a storage counter. Outside the wide windows other boats bobbed gently in the rippling current, and the moon stippled the dark water with blue light.

“I can offer you tea, or there’s whiskey,” the captain said in his brusque way.

“Tea would be wonderful, but I can get it for all of us,” she offered. The captain looked her over, and nodded shortly.

She stepped into the galley. There were already mugs set out on the counter, and a kettle was on the burner. She poured tea as out in the main room Mick told the captain, “Steve Price said you might talk to us about the last few days on Otherworld.”

The old fisherman puffed on his pipe. “Depends on what you want to know.”

“We think that a false story was put out about Johnny Love’s death,” Mick said, getting right to the point. “You were on set those last few days before Johnny died. Your scenes with him were some of the last shots of the movie. So, we thought you might know, or have some idea, anyway.”

The old man took his time answering. She brought out the mugs of tea and a plastic bear filled with honey, and handed them around, and it was still some time before the captain actually spoke.

“Most of what they all said about that Johnny Love was false,” he finally said.

Barrie was about to jump in and ask him why, but Mick touched her leg and shook his head very slightly, and she kept silent. The old man sat in his chair, and she felt her body subtly swaying in the softly creaking boat, until finally he spoke again.

“Everyone called those three boys spoiled and arrogant, but it wasn’t so. Not Johnny, anyway. I didn’t know beans about acting, but he was always willing to help me out, explain what the bigger fish were saying. He went over all my scenes with me, practiced with me, talked over what everything meant. And as an actor he was up there with the greats. It’s a crime what happened to him.”

The way he said it, Barrie had to ask, “What did happen to him?”

The old man looked at her with eyes as dark as the water outside them. “I don’t rightly know, but it’s not what they say. Johnny Love died before they ever finished that movie,” the old fisherman said flatly.

Barrie gasped. She looked to Mick, who looked grim—but not exactly surprised, she noted.

He knew, she thought.

She forced herself to focus on the old man. “Please. Please tell us.”

The captain gazed into space, and the very air seemed to change around them as he remembered. “We were down to the last few days of filming. Then one morning Johnny never showed up for a call. It was our last scene together. No one knew what the problem was, but all the bigwigs were in an uproar. Everyone was scrambling. And finally toward the end of the day they had me shoot my scenes with someone else standing in. When you look at that last scene, you can see we were never shot together. Well, it’s because Johnny wasn’t there at all.”

Barrie was feeling distinctly disoriented. She’d just seen the movie. “But Johnny is in those scenes...” she said weakly.

“They did it with computers,” the fisherman said flatly. “And then they filmed the last scenes on a closed set, with only the director, cameraman and the actors.”

Barrie was aware it could be done; it had been done in other movies where a lead actor had died before the end of principal photography. Editing techniques and digital animation and special effects being what they were, there was very little that couldn’t be fixed in film. But the very thought of it, of what it meant...

She stammered, “You never said anything, all these years....”

“Didn’t want anything more to do with it—ever.” The captain’s face was dark. “Those movie people are always playing a big game on everyone else. Thinking they’re putting something over on us by mocking something that’s real. But I’m not blind. I know what’s out there in the night. I know some people aren’t what they seem.”

Barrie felt a chill. She also understood why the old man had been cast: he had a power that just resonated, in person and on-screen. Mick was being very silent beside her, and she glanced over to him—and was unnerved by the look she saw on his face. Either angry or disturbed or both, she couldn’t tell, but something had come over him.

He didn’t seem inclined to speak, either, so she swallowed and turned back to the captain. She spoke carefully. “Do you think someone...hurt Johnny?”

“Hurt him?” The old man looked at her directly.

“Killed him,” she whispered.

The captain’s eyes turned bleak. “I couldn’t say. But someone was up to no good, and they ruined that kid.” He looked defensive and defiant, and his voice trembled as he spoke. “He was just a kid, and he was a good kid, no matter what anyone says.”

Barrie leaned forward and put her hands on his. “I believe you.”

* * *

Barrie and Mick left the boat in silence, with Barrie tendering their thanks and appreciation to the captain. Mick was still in that strange silence, brooding, sunk into himself.

“You knew.” She confronted him once they reached the boardwalk, out of earshot of the boat. He looked for a moment caught.

“I didn’t know,” he countered. “I’d heard something—”

“From one of your sources,” she said in total disbelief. Does he ever tell the truth? Ever? She felt faint, even sick.

“I’d heard about the closed set. There could have been any number of reasons why Mayo and Branson closed off the set for the last scenes. The captain isn’t an Other, so of course he didn’t know everything that was going on. There was a whole other level of reality that was being kept from him.”

“They didn’t keep it from him very well.” She recalled the old man’s eyes as he’d stated, I know some people aren’t what they seem. She was fairly certain that he knew there were more things in heaven and earth than most people dreamed of.

Mick was silent, maybe knowing there was nothing he could say to her right then that would calm her. The water rippled behind them, a lulling and yet somehow ominous sound.

“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” she demanded.

Mick looked at her but didn’t speak.

He knows too much, she thought. He wants too much. I don’t know why he cares about this...the way he does.

She was suddenly acutely aware that they were completely alone on the pier. There might have been any number of people out on the boats tied up in their slips all around them, but no one was visible. She was out on an island in the middle of the night with a shifter, one of the least reliable beings on the planet, and suddenly she doubted every single thing he’d ever said to her. More than that, she was afraid. And she didn’t like that feeling at all.

“All right,” she said, and managed to keep her voice from shaking. “I’m going home now.”

As she turned on her heel he caught her wrist, and she gasped. She swiveled around to face him, her heart in her throat, and he looked at her. “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, barely audible.

And then he was pulling her forward and his mouth was on hers, and she felt herself turn to liquid at the touch of his lips, melting and burning and freezing all at once as she kissed him back, and felt the warmth of him and the smell of him enfold her....

She pulled back with a gasp, staring at him.

“Barrie,” he said, his voice thick, and she knew in the core of her that whether she trusted him or not, whether he was telling the truth or not, if she let him pull her forward, she would be lost for all time. Then she jerked her arms away from him and fled, running all the way back to the ferry dock, not turning around until the boat back to the mainland was in sight. She paused, panting, staring back into the dark....

He hadn’t followed her.

And despite everything, she wished he had.