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  "Oh. You didn't hear?" Fred ran his hand over the desk again searching for more eraser crumbs. "Motorcycle accident. Hit and run up in Laurel Canyon."

  "Dead?" Ellie asked, goosebumps stood up on her arms.

  "Well, brain dead. He's on life support while the family fights over who has the right to unplug him."

  "When did this happen?"

  Fred glanced at the ceiling again. "Um, I'm not sure, month ago? Six weeks?"

  Ellie lurched to her feet, sure that she had a crucial piece of information. "I've got to go."

  "What?" Fred asked, alarmed at her sudden departure.

  "I don't think Pam was the first victim."

  Chapter 32

  Despite George's arguments to the contrary, Asher headed back to the hotel after lunch. Wandering around his friend's big, old mansion did nothing for his state of mind. It reminded him of his party days and Sharon's aspirations. His hand ached. He felt broken in a number of ways. He didn't want to be where he was but couldn't think of any better place to be. Everything seemed to be conspiring to make his day worse. The cab crawled through afternoon traffic out of town back to the hotel. It felt like they caught every red light. Even in the hotel, he had to wait a unreasonably long time for an elevator.

  Shuffling down the hall, he found a thick manila envelope on the floor in front of his door. Dreading the contents, he scooped it up, let himself in, then tossed it on the bed. He managed to shower one-handed. Drying off was almost as difficult. Dressing tested his patience to the limit. Lack of sleep and pain were combining into a very rocky stomach. There were too many things banging around in his brain for him to sleep. He reached for the TV remote and changed his mind. If he saw that commercial, it would break his heart.

  Reluctantly, he opened the package. It was a script. A handwritten note said it was from a film student. He had written the main character with Asher in mind because he was his mom's favorite actor. Asher smiled. Eureka, a gentle diversion.

  He settled on the bed with a pencil and the script. The first page told him how young the writer was. By the dialog on the fifth page, he knew the script was unworkable. He noted corrections and suggestions in the margins and trudged through it. People helped him when he was just starting out, time for him to pay back. He needed every drop of karma he could score.

  A scratching at the door startled him out of a wild fight scene. The writer obviously didn't realize the technical difficulties behind his flying, exploding shoot-em-up. He was trying to sort out how to tweak the action to make it affordable as he opened the door. A woman in a low cut blouse, leather skirt and knee-high boots lounged against the doorframe.

  "Larissa? This is a surprise." His mind started into overdrive with the implications.

  She sashayed past him without an invitation. "I thought you were dead. Then I saw your commercial. Always was a sucker for chaps." Her voice was low and rough, too much booze and cigarettes.

  She toured the small room, every movement an overblown runway pose. He remembered that she pretended to be a model. Her hair was dyed blonde, brittle and ragged. Stick-thin elbows and knobby knees, she was worn down thin, looking more like a cancer patient than a clothes horse. Leathery skin crinkled at her eyes and mouth in folds that had nothing to do with laughter. Her last visit had precipitated a visit to the ER and another round of rehab for him. As he looked at her now, she had all the appeal of week-old leftovers that turn up at the back of the fridge.

  "How did you find me?"

  She invaded his space, leaned against him and spoke into his face. "Saw you on the news. Thought we should get reacquainted."

  She smelled of beer. He folded his arms, forming a barrier. "I’ve got no drugs, no booze and no interest, Larissa."

  She ground her hips against him. "I think I feel a little interest."

  Asher pushed her away.

  "Don’t tell me you jumped the fence?"

  "Get out." He headed for the door.

  She pulled him back, grabbed his face and kissed him roughly. Asher took her by the shoulders and forcibly moved her away. Her clothes stank of cigarette smoke and spent cologne. Feeling contaminated, he wiped his mouth.

  "You did. You switched sides on me."

  "Just because I don’t want to screw you doesn’t mean I’m gay."

  She draped herself across the bed. Asher assumed she meant it to be sexy. Her skirt rode up to show bruises on her thigh. He wondered if she was tricking.

  She picked up the script. "What’s this?"

  "Student film. It’s a little rough, but it has possibilities."

  "Student?" She tossed the script across the room. "Your agent sucks."

  Asher leaned against the wall opposite the foot of the bed. "I want you to leave, Larissa."

  She opened her purse and pulled out a small bag of pills. Flashing a nicotine-stained smile, she dangled the bag at him. "I brought presents. In memory of Paulie."

  Asher's vision narrowed down to a couple of brightly colored capsules hanging in midair. Tears welled up against his will as a powerful craving crashed down on him like a ten foot wave. If he took a couple, he could check out for just a little while. It had been such a bad couple of days.

  "You should go," he whispered, his brain forcing words out of a recalcitrant mouth.

  The pills did a little dance, and he was oddly aware that her fingernails were dirty.

  "You were always so generous. And you look like you need a little vacation," she said.

  Asher practically ran to the door and pulled it open. "Go!"

  Larissa lounged on the bed, pouting. "You don’t really mean that."

  "Go, or I’ll call the manager and have you thrown out."

  She rolled off the bed and stomped out. "You are no fun anymore!"

  Asher closed the door, locked it, and put the chain on. He slumped against it breathing heavily. She probably hadn't gotten to the elevator yet. If he ran out now and called to her...

  Chapter 33

  Asher took a spoonful from the mountain of ice cream in the sink shaped container. Nuts, sprinkles, hot fudge, caramel, strawberries and whipped cream covered the pyramid of five different flavors of ice cream. He had been so relieved that the 24-hour diner still existed. He could recall many happy times here.

  George sat across from him with a cup of coffee. "I’m proud of you, Ash."

  "I wanted them."

  "But you said no."

  "This time."

  "That’s all that counts. Now. Today."

  Despite George's reassuring words, he felt anxious. The other bloody shoe needed to drop. Each step forward had been punished with inconceivable losses. He gulped down a heaping spoonful of ice cream against the ache in his throat.

  "Thanks for coming. I feel like I'm being really high maintenance right now."

  George helped himself to the ice cream mountain. "For the record, I’ll always take a help-me-stay-clean call. If I get one I’m-so-high-I-can’t-find-my-feet call, I’ll have you locked up again."

  Asher smiled around the spoon in his mouth. "Thank you."

  George scraped up a spoonful of just fudge and whipped cream. "You know, I can probably pull some strings..."

  Asher put a hand on his arm. "George, I really appreciate the offer. But I’m not sure if I’m ready."

  George snorted. "Cut the melodrama boy, you were born ready." He spooned up more ice cream and made a face. "Next time no mint chip, it taints the whole thing."

  Asher dragged his spoon through a puddle of butterscotch. "Ellie said I should cut back on the sugar."

  George gave him a happy smile. "How's that going?"

  "We've had a couple meals together."

  "But you'll see her again?" Now his smile was coaxing.

  "You think it's a good idea?"

  "The best. And staying away from Larissa is a good idea, too."

  "I mean to. You know, George, the past couple times I went off the wagon, she was around."

  George's eyebrows shot
up. "No way! Do you think she's working for Scott? Did you ask her about him?"

  Asher shook his head. "I was so surprised to see her. And then I had to get her out of the room. I didn't think about Scott."

  When George's phone rang, Asher looked around for their waitress. He made eye contact and held up his coffee cup. There wasn't going to be any sleep for him tonight. He was much too jangled.

  "He's right here with me," George said.

  Asher turned his full attention on George. There was a very short list of people who might be looking for him.

  "Yeah, we've been here about a half hour." George started to get up, then stopped and sat back down heavily. "Right. I drove. I'll bring him right down."

  Asher closed his eyes. "Now what?"

  "Larissa's dead."

  "No." Asher shook his head. "No! I just..." He looked at George, who had a worried frown on his face. "No, please don't tell me you think I did this."

  "Ash." He looked away. "The police think you're the last one to see her alive."

  * * *

  "What was she doing in your room?" Smythe snapped. They were back in the tiny room. She stood by the mirror, arms folded around a file, every line of her slender body reflecting anger.

  "She's sort of a relative," Asher said, looking at Bledsoe and back to her.

  "How sort of?"

  "My late ex-brother-in-law's widow. Is that redundant?"

  Bledsoe sat across from him, notebook open on the table. "We get it."

  "What was she doing in your room?" Smythe repeated.

  Asher shook his head. "I don't know. Come to reminisce I think. She brought pills. Said it was in memory of Paul."

  "Valerie's brother." Bledsoe made a note.

  "Yes."

  "Why bring him up now?"

  "Um. I don't know. It's the only thing we have in common. Him and getting high."

  "And did you?" Smythe's question held a world of hurt in it.

  "No. I wanted to." He ran his hand through his hair and let his head fall onto his crossed arms. "I threw her out and called George. He's safe. He came and got me and took me to the diner."

  "Hmm." Smythe stared at him.

  "You want me to pee in a cup again?"

  She slammed the file down on the table. "The pills were cut with sulfuric acid. If you took any you'd be dead now. Like your friend."

  Asher blinked open-mouthed at her. Sulfuric acid. That was a very bad way to die. And if Larissa took the pills, it meant she wasn't the one trying to kill him.

  Bledsoe flipped to a new page in his notebook. "Who would want Larissa dead?"

  "I don't see any of those people anymore. I'm not supposed to. They all still..." He cradled the cast in his left hand and hugged it close to his chest. His brain was so fogged with fatigue he could barely think. "She wasn't there the night everyone else died. She was Paul's wife. Val and Paul died."

  "But not you and Scott," Bledsoe said.

  Asher heard the implied accusation, but the detective's brown eyes regarded him blandly. "When I woke up in the hospital, Denny told me Scott was dead."

  "He isn't." Smythe pulled out a chair and sat next to Bledsoe. Her curly hair contrasted wildly with her partner's retreating hairline.

  Asher looked from Smythe to Bledsoe trying to figure out what they wanted. "I know. I haven't seen him since then. That night. When Val died."

  "Are you angry that Larissa didn't die that night?" Bledsoe asked.

  "What?" Asher stared at him in shock. "They weren't my drugs. It wasn't my fault. I nearly died. Why would you think I planned it?"

  "How many times have you overdosed?" Smythe asked.

  "That's just my own stupidity," Asher spat back. His breath came fast. "Sometimes I went too far, but I never took anyone with me. I would never hurt anyone."

  Smythe glared at him, nostrils flaring. Bledsoe cleared his throat pointedly and paged through his notes. "Back to Scott White. Do you think he was living with Larissa? We found men's clothing in her apartment."

  "It wouldn't surprise me," Asher admitted.

  "Why is that?"

  "Scottie always took whatever he wanted. My stuff, gifts I gave to Val, whatever. He was a magpie always snatching shiny things. He stole from my friends. Took props from sets. Denny hired a guy just to watch him. Sleeping with Paul's wife might mean something to him."

  "Did it mean something to you?" Smythe asked.

  Asher closed his eyes and counted to ten. "I don't recall ever sleeping with Larissa."

  "But you don't deny that it might have happened."

  He looked at her. The heat of her anger was sizzling off her like gas fumes, invisible and unmistakable. There was a deep pain driving that anger, and it flared up whenever they circled around to his drug-induced, irresponsible behavior. This was too personal, and she didn't know him well enough to care that deeply. He had a sudden revelation. Someone she loved had failed her, because of drugs, and she'd never been able to lay it to rest. And then it hit him—this must be the way Denny felt. A little bit of understanding trickled in, and his own anger deflated.

  "It's easy to be stupid when you're high," he said calmly. "You do things you wouldn't normally and sometimes you don't remember. So, yeah. It is possible that I slept with Larissa. But not during the two years I've been sober."

  Smythe gave him a tight nod and leaned back in her chair.

  Bledsoe tapped the table with his pen. "All that theft was never prosecuted? Never reported?"

  "I usually found out later, after someone else had taken care of it. I had one foot down the rabbit hole during that time. I cranked out a couple of movies back to back, and I wasn't in very good shape."

  "Too many drugs?" Smythe asked, her eyes as sharp as her tongue.

  Asher squashed his anger back down. "No. We shot this jungle thing in Indonesia, and I got Dengue Fever. I was laid up awhile, and it delayed the filming and set back production dates on the one coming up. People were trying to squeeze too much in. I kind of bottomed out." He gave an exaggerated shrug. "But that's not what you need to know."

  "With Larissa dead, I doubt Scott will be going back to her place. Where would he go?"

  Asher scrunched down in the chair, stretching his legs out under the table. He tried to drag up every possible memory of the time. "Val and the boys grew up on the streets. They were all about working the system. Scott was always cooking up some scheme."

  "Like having a movie star marry his sister?" Smythe asked.

  He stared at her, mouth open, unable to respond for a minute. "I never thought of it that way. She was a very sweet person."

  "Of course she was sweet to you. Her brother was emptying your pockets."

  "Huh." He rubbed his fingers together; they were ice cold. The air conditioning was too high in the little room. "Yeah, you're right. I gave him anything he wanted until Fred shut me down. Thank God for Fred."

  "And that pissed him off?"

  "I guess. All that happened just before I left for Bali. So I was out of the country when Scott found out he'd been cut off."

  Smythe shot a look at Bledsoe. "And when did the overdose happen?"

  "Hmm. After Bali I was in Poland? Or was it Hungary? Really beautiful village, like you walked into the Middle Ages. It was a demon possession and monks thing, I think. Good people on that one. Really good food. It was just me and Val in the middle of nowhere. That shoot went like clockwork. One of the smoothest I've ever worked on. Wrapped on time. Then we came back to L.A. for the talk show rounds. Overdose happened right after we got home.

  Bledsoe jotted down a full page of notes.

  "Did that help?" Asher asked. He looked at Smythe. The anger in her eyes had faded.

  Bledsoe shut his notebook and pocketed it. "Just out of curiosity, how'd you get that scar?" he asked, pointing at Asher's thumb.

  "Group therapy melee, someone bit me."

  Smythe snorted a laugh. "Is there anything you've done that hasn't gone wrong?"

  * *
*

  On the cab ride back to the hotel, Asher's thoughts circled until he thought his head would burst. He tried to sort through it again, to find any kind of sense to it. Kill him or discredit him. Was that the goal here? For all the effort expended, discredit didn't seem like enough. But who would benefit from his death? He was sure he hadn't seen Scott in all this time. So why would he come out of the woodwork to try to kill him now?

  It was possible Scott had some brain damage from all the drug use. Maybe he had cooked up a taste for avenging his sister's death. Although the drugs had been Paul's, so Asher wasn't even responsible for that. Scott was a thief, a mooch and a lowlife. It seemed a bit of a stretch to pin a murder conspiracy on him. Who did that leave?

  He thought about the people he'd worked with, but decided that wasn't the right pool to draw from. Employees? He thought through the bodyguards, drivers and gofers he'd had over the years, but couldn't find a defining incident that would provoke this kind of revenge. Although after dealing with Detective Smythe's anger, he wondered if there was an old wrong festering somewhere. Was it possible that someone was blaming him for something he might not have done? His fatigue-blunted wits thought that sounded brilliant.

  Chapter 34

  Sleep came swiftly. His exhausted body crashed as soon as he hit the mattress. When he woke, early the next morning, the pain and grief were waiting for him. He busied himself with working out the mundane tasks one-handed—showering, shaving, brushing his teeth. The phone rang just as Asher left the bathroom. His muscles tightened as he answered it, but it was only the front desk. Ellie was downstairs. She wanted to treat him to breakfast.

  Looking through the closet, he could almost feel Sharon behind him casting aspersions on his collection of motley. That turned his mood melancholy. For all her faults, she was a dynamic influence during a very difficult time of his life. He'd had bad luck with women in general. Every one of them had left him, either through divorce or death. Except maybe Ellie. He was hesitant to let that thought linger. Right now, he was just too battered and lonely to let himself dwell on the possibilities. He turned his focus back to the measly selection of clothes he'd recently acquired.