MERYL SAWYER grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the only child of a single mother. She gives her mother credit for her love of books and encouraging her to write. When Meryl was in the third grade her birthday gift was an ancient Underwood with the E key missing. That didn’t stop Meryl! She wrote stories and went back and put in the E with a pencil. She’s been writing ever since—first on a typewriter, then a word processor, then a computer.

When Meryl finally decided to get serious about writing—by serious she meant wanting to see her work in print—Meryl attended the Writers Program at UCLA. She had graduated from UCLA years earlier but this time she returned to study writing. There Meryl was fortunate to meet Colleen McCullough, author of The Thornbirds. She was on tour and one of Meryl’s instructors threw a cocktail party to introduce Colleen to some aspiring writers. Colleen was unbelievably warm and charming and helpful. “Write what you like to read,” she told the students. Meryl had always wanted to be a female Sidney Sheldon—so that’s the direction she took.

Meryl completed a novel, attended seminars, met an agent and had offers from four different publishers within two months of finishing the book. That’s not every author’s experience, but it happened that way for Meryl. She jokingly says, “I thought I would be famous by Friday—Saturday at the very latest. Here I am eighteen years later. Not famous but successful, and more importantly, happy.”

One thing all Meryl’s books have in common is animals. Her canine buddies have even helped Meryl’s career. They have spent countless hours under her desk while she was writing.

Meryl loves to hear from readers. She may be reached on the web.

Play Dead

Meryl Sawyer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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PROLOGUE

“ANDY,” CALLED HAYLEY before she remembered he was gone. She walked out onto the third-floor balcony and gazed at the water as the breeze off the bay ruffled her hair. It was way too soon to leave, she decided, but her loft seemed so empty.

She’d been lonely for a long time, she realized with an ache too deep for tears. It was reflected in her paintings, or so she’d been told. Ian never lied. Why would he? Ian Barrington had been the first person to recognize her talent and offer to sell her paintings in his gallery. Hayley’s earlier works had portrayed her happy outlook on life.

But in the two years since she’d secretly begun selling her art, Hayley’s life had taken an abrupt turn. The familiar sadness, the melancholy seeped through her each day. Betrayal and death changed you radically, she reflected. She thought of her parents and her heart contracted with an overwhelming sense of loss.

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” she said out loud, watching a boat passing by. The guys on the deck were wildly waving to get her attention.

She knew what they saw: a young woman dressed in a short skirt and sleeveless blouse. Her brown hair was streaked with copper highlights, making her look more like the beach bunny she’d been in her teens than the artist she was today.

Maybe she should cut her hair short and stop streaking it. What would it feel like to have short hair? For as long as she could recall, Hayley had worn her hair long. The style made the hazel-green eyes that dominated her face appear larger than they actually were.

The needs, the longings for a past that would never come again nagged at her. Time for a change, Hayley reminded herself. In another few weeks, her life would move in a different direction. This would be a great opportunity for a new hairstyle. The fresh start she’d been planning.

She checked her watch. It was too early to leave. She’d already packed her purse that doubled as a backpack with the few things she would need. She’d placed her treasured set of paint brushes in their wooden box and wrapped it in the shorts and T-shirts she planned to wear.

She realized how much she was counting on her life making a dramatic change. How much she was looking forward to the future. Once she altered the course of her life, there would be no going back.

Bring-bring. From the loft’s studio behind her, Hayley heard the sound of the telephone. She decided not to answer; let the machine pick up. She wasn’t in the mood to talk.

A shaky voice came through her machine. “H-Hayley, are you … you there?”

Hayley charged back into the loft, recognizing the anguished tone of her friend Lindsey Fulton. She was stunned Lindsey was phoning. She never called.

Hayley snatched the receiver from the cradle, saying breathlessly, “I’m here. I’m here. What’s happening?”

“Hayley,” her friend said, her voice choked with tears. “Oh, Hayley.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I—I’m at a payphone,” replied Lindsey, sobbing now. “I’ve got to get away. Now! I can’t waste a second.”

This was the call Hayley had been expecting—and dreading—for so long. Why now? she silently asked. The timing couldn’t be worse. Hayley was just hours from changing the course of her own life. It didn’t matter, she decided in the next instant. All that counted was saving her friend.

Hayley suddenly realized how she could help her friend while getting a fresh start. The perfect solution, she decided. “Lindsey, listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”

WHAT WAS TAKING SO LONG? Hayley Fordham had been in Gulliver’s for over two hours, no doubt slurping down cosmos. Didn’t she know the hunt was on? Didn’t she realize time was running out, trickling away like the last grains of sand in an hourglass? Couldn’t she sense this evening was different from all previous nights in her life?

Of course not. The bitch was clueless—as usual.

Hiding at a safe distance, concealed by the trees and the Dumpsters at the back of the trendy restaurant’s parking lot, was boring as hell. While the waiting was a total downer, the building anticipation was as heady as a powerful narcotic. Exhilarating. Arousing. The sensation transported the predator to an unimagined height of excitement. Annihilating an unsuspecting victim—just the thought of it—ignited a thrill so profound that it rivaled sex.

Wait.

Just wait. Hayley’s charmed life—all thirty-three years of it—was almost over. Charmed? Damned was more like it. She would get what she deserved—in spades.

The killer took stock of the surrounding area, sensing more than seeing the objects nearby and ignoring the rank smell coming from the Dumpster. Death belonged to the night. It always had, always would. Darkness provided a natural shield, especially a moonless night like this. Victims could easily be tailed without the stalker being detected or questioned.

In the light of day, someone from the nearby office building would have spotted a person hunkered down behind the Dumpsters, but not at night. As an extra precaution, the predator had smashed the nearest security light with a rock. There was a security camera at the back door of the restaurant. A quick squirt of Pam ensured nothing but blurry images would be recorded. There hadn’t been time to do more than destroy the one light, but then extra precautions hadn’t been necessary. Lady Luck had smiled, bringing Hayley to this restaurant and having her park in the rear—in the shroud of shadows cast by the line of tall, dense shrubs that separated the parking area from the office buildings behind it.

With a deafening roar and whoosh of air, a jet streaked into the sky from John Wayne Airport, which was opposite the restaurant. Convenient. Very convenient. The killer hadn’t planned it but Hayley’s destination tonight had been perfect. The noise from the airport would add to the confusion, the terror.

A gloss-black limousine pulled up to the rear of the restaurant, its engine purring almost inaudibly. Since Gulliver’s faced the busy street across from Orange County’s airport, the back entrance was the only way in or out of the restaurant except for the fire exits used only in emergencies. With the stretch limo blocking the view, it was impossible to tell who was leaving. Or was someone arriving?

Not some celebrity. The OC had a smattering of them—nothing like L.A. But the Newport Beach area was filled with people who had money up the wazoo to use a limo at an upscale restaurant like Gulliver’s, which was well known for its bar scene. The limo drove into the night and disappeared from view.

The predator waited and waited. A few groups of people trickled out of Gulliver’s. A couple so hot for each other that they almost did it on the hood of his Corvette was mildly distracting, but time ticked on and on. Finally a slim woman with shoulder-length hair emerged, stood on the walkway exit and glanced around warily.

The air shifted with a sense of hushed expectancy. Something seemed to be … off. Had she sensed … danger?

“No way,” the killer whispered. Nothing was wrong. Things were going according to plan. Then why was Hayley just standing there? She usually sauntered along oblivious to everyone around her, glistening brown hair streaked with copper bobbing on her shoulders. Hayley couldn’t be waiting for a valet. Gulliver’s was a self-parking facility.

Noise exploded from the Acapulco restaurant at the far end of the lot it shared with Gulliver’s. A bunch of guys barely out of their teens staggered through the double doors from the Mexican cantina, revealing they’d consumed enough tequila to make them rowdy.

They’d better get to their cars and get outta Dodge in a hurry or—hell, who cared? Killing innocent bystanders wasn’t the goal, but collateral damage had been factored into this scheme.

Hayley hesitated, gazing at the group. They were too far away for her to be concerned about them, but the killer thought she might be feeling threatened by something. It showed in the slump of her shoulders and in the way she hurried toward her car. Never underestimate women’s intuition. She might have sensed death lurking in the shadows.

Her older model Beamer was parked at the rear of the lot like a black toad, which had made this job a piece of cake. The dark area wouldn’t be safe in most cities, but this was Newport Beach. Women felt secure here, and most of the time they were.

Most of the time.

Tonight an ominous undercurrent of danger and death filled the balmy night air. A cunning person could pick up on it the way some animals had realized a tsunami was heading their way. Even the predator’s bones could sense the danger and the sensation heightened the anticipation.

Hayley seemed to fumble with the door lock. Was she drunk? It wasn’t like her. From this far away and with the lack of light, it was difficult to tell much about the snotty bitch.

Get on with it already.

Hayley opened the door and slid into the car. The interior light illuminated her shimmering hair for a second. The killer couldn’t help smiling. This would be the last time anyone would admire that shiny mane.

The killer eased around to the back side of the Dumpster for protection and flipped the metal lid backward to act as a shield. A full minute passed. The killer risked a peek around the protective corner of the Dumpster. What in hell was Hayley doing?

The interior light in her car was off. A faint blue glow came from the dashboard. She appeared to be leaning forward, fooling with something. The GPS? Was she programming in her next destination?

“Hayley, your next stop is hell.”

A convertible pulled up and a noisy group of guys, already half in the bag, vaulted to the pavement without opening the car doors. Get inside, the killer silently warned. They hustled toward the entrance and the driver sped away to find a parking spot. Lucky for him, the guy headed for the open spaces behind the adjacent Mexican restaurant.

Lethal silence. A second later a supersonic crackling—KA-BOOM!

The explosion knocked the Dumpster sideways like an eardrum-splitting hatchet blow. The impact of the detonation assaulted every lobe in the killer’s brain and blackness eclipsed everything for a few seconds.

“Aw, shit!”

Debris rained down, pummeling the Dumpster lid with shrapnel-like objects. They bounced off the sturdy metal and crashed to the ground nearby. The acrid smell of smoke and burning rubber roiled through the air like a noxious fog. Jolted by the shock wave, nearly a hundred car alarms shrieked simultaneously.

Ears ringing, the killer ventured a look and saw the orange-red inferno that had been Hayley Fordham’s BMW. Flames shot out in all directions and lit up the darkness while a cloud of white smoke mushroomed skyward.

Hayley would be reduced to ashes in seconds by the inferno. What remained of her. No doubt the explosion had sent body parts flying. There were something like twenty bones in the human skull. Hayley’s head was now in twenty million pieces. The fire would incinerate anything else.

Identifying Hayley Fordham would be a bitch. The killer had foreseen this. Hayley’s rear license plate had been removed and scorched with a cigarette lighter, then tossed into the shrubbery behind her car to make it appear that it had been blown off during the explosion. The police would know exactly who had died in the car bombing.

Panicked, hysterical people stampeded out of Gulliver’s, screaming and holding up cell phones to photograph the geyser of smoke and flames. Others were yelling at 9-1-1 operators. No doubt the emergency switchboard was lit up like the fourth of July.

To the killer, the sounds were muffled, as if they were coming from underwater. Should have used earplugs. Even if the chaos couldn’t be fully heard, it was exciting. It made the waiting, the planning worthwhile.

Windows were shattered in the cars parked nearby. Some had suffered major damage from the flying debris. Windows and doors in both restaurants had been blown inward by the force of the blast. The destruction was mind-blowing. Worse than expected.

Who knew? Excitement like a live wire arced through the killer. Inching along in the shadows to where the rental car was parked behind the three-story office building to protect it from the explosion, the killer couldn’t resist a smile of self-congratulation.

Hayley Fordham was dead. What a trip! Everything had gone exactly as planned.

CHAPTER ONE

TRENT FORDHAM took the turn off Pacific Coast Highway in his Porsche at nearly one hundred miles per hour. It was after two in the morning, so no cars were around. He rarely had the opportunity to see what his baby would do. He floored it and the needle shot up to one-twenty.

“Slow down,” screeched Courtney from the seat beside him. “You’ll get another ticket.”

His wife was right, he silently conceded. He could not afford to be stopped tonight. It might result in a sobriety test. Not that he’d been drinking … but it was best to be cautious. After all, he was now a CEO of a company. Not a major player—yet—but he was well on his way up the ladder of success. Another speeding ticket was the last thing he needed.

He eased off the accelerator to an audible sigh of relief from his wife and watched the needle drop. They drove in silence—what was there to say?—up to the gated entrance to their exclusive community. He slowed, expecting Jerome, the night guard, to wave as they passed. Instead, the guard signaled for him to stop.

“What’s up?” Trent asked.

“The police are waiting for you.”

“Why?” He wasn’t worried; this had to be some mix-up.

Jerome shrugged. “Wouldn’t say.” He shrugged again, his voice apologetic. “I had to let them in.”

“Of course.” Trent tried to sound unfazed, but a yellow flag of caution shot up in his brain. “Thanks for the heads up.” That’s why he tipped the guards handsomely at Christmas—just for times like this.

He roared through the ornate, twenty-foot-tall gates. He sped by mansions lit up like national monuments. What was going on? he wondered silently.

“It can’t be Timmy. The Scouts would have called my cell or yours. Something’s wrong at Surf’s Up,” Courtney said, sounding only slightly worried.

“No way,” Trent told her. “Security would have contacted me.” His mind was whirling like one of those dervishes he’d read about. Why would the police be waiting for him in the middle of the night?

He stopped at the small park area. The green belt had created open space between mansions that took up most of each lot, leaving little grassy areas. During the day, nannies would be there with children and maids walking neighborhood dogs would be strolling along the meandering flagstone paths.

“What are you doing?” Courtney cried.

Trent turned off the sports car and climbed out, saying, “That was pretty awesome shit we were smoking. I want to hide my jacket in the trunk. It probably reeks.”

“You were smoking,” Courtney said, “with your buddies. I—”

Trent tuned her out. Courtney should talk! She was high on pain pills. All day; every day. He shared a spliff or two with the guys on weekends only.

Bile had risen in his throat; he needed air. He tossed the jacket into the trunk and looked up at the stars. He forced himself to inhale a few deep, calming breaths. The Milky Way slipped in and out, back and forth like a kaleidoscope. He tried lowering his head, then sucking in more air. Better, but not much.

“Oh, my God!” Courtney cried her voice high-pitched. “Maybe something did happen to Timmy. They might not have been able to reach our cells. You know, a tower outage or something.”

Trent stood up and rushed back to the driver’s side. Their son was with the Boy Scouts at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park for something called a Roar and Snore sleepover. The kids stayed up half the night to watch the lions feed, then they slept in tents.

A thought hit him, kind of wobbly, fading away almost before he could grasp it. The Scouts required all sorts of emergency information before they took the kids anywhere. He was as sure as he could be when he was this mellow that nothing had happened to his son. “Don’t worry, honey. Timmy is fine.”

“I hope so.”

“Unless,” he said as he put the Porsche into gear, “they caught him with dope again.”

“Impossible! You know he’s being bullied. Those kids planted it in his backpack. None of those little monsters are Scouts.”

“Right. So you said.” Trent wasn’t buying that bridge. He’d been Timmy’s age not so long ago. True, his son was just eleven and Trent had been older before he’d first experimented. But today’s kids were getting into trouble at a younger age.

The problem with Timothy Grant Fordham wasn’t experimenting with drugs. His son was a wimp. How could he grow up in a family who made a fortune from surf and skateboard equipment and not even be able to ride a boogie board? Timmy only used his skateboard when Trent insisted.

The kid should be a surfer or least a skateboard champ, the way Trent had been at the same age, if his mother didn’t do her best to make him a sissy. The kid wanted piano lessons. Now whose idea was that? Courtney’s. She was a frustrated singer who’d sung backup for a local band before he’d met her. She had music in her blood and claimed Timmy did, as well.

Trent rounded the corner and forced his mind back to the problem. The police cruiser was parked right in front of his house, which, like all the other houses around, was still lit up even though it was well after midnight.

Maybe Timmy had been caught with drugs again. Perhaps the Scout leaders had found his stash and called the police. The Scouts did not like having their name dragged through the muck, so it seemed unlikely that they had called the cops.

Then he noticed the panda car belonged to the Costa Mesa police. Newport Beach patrol cars had ocean blue stylized italic lettering on the sides. Very beachy—for cop cars. Timmy was in San Diego County. If there’d been a problem, the Newport Beach police would have contacted him. Wouldn’t they? They lived in Newport, not the lower-middle-class Costa Mesa where Trent had grown up. It bordered Newport but was worlds away financially, socially.

Trent pulled to a stop in his driveway near the rear of the police car and got out. A uniformed officer stepped out of the driver’s side of the cruiser while a man in a sports jacket emerged from the passenger side.

“Mr. Fordham?” asked the officer.

“Yes?” Keep it together, Trent warned himself. “Is something the matter?”

“Could we go inside?” This from the suit. Trent assumed he was a detective.

Trent leaned into the Porsche, turned off the ignition and switched off the headlights. Courtney was already out of the car and waiting near him. Tears clouded her dark eyes. She cried so damn easily. Once he’d found it touching. Now was not the time to bawl. Something was really wrong. He needed to be firing on all cylinders, which he wasn’t, thanks to the heavy-duty shit he’d shared with his buddies earlier.

“T-Timmy.” Courtney’s lips quivered around the kid’s name. “My son …” Tears gushed and Trent put his arm around her, knowing the meds she took often triggered crying jags. She collapsed against him, sobbing softly.

“Mrs. Fordham, this isn’t about your son.”

Courtney lifted her head. “Really? Timmy’s all right?”

“As far as I know,” the detective assured her.

There was something ominous about the way the man responded. It was as if the guy thought they should know why he was there. Trent was nervous, which was unusual when he was high. He sucked in a deep breath and held it in his lungs to clear his head. He let it out slowly so no one would notice.

They walked up the flagstone path to the massive double doors that led into the house. For a second, Trent wondered what they thought. The place was impressive, he had to admit, but it wasn’t anything compared with the Pelican Point mansion where they’d attended the party tonight. Trent hoped to move there—just as soon as his parents’ estate went through probate and he received his share.

If the economy tanked any more, he’d need the money from the estate to keep the company his father started afloat. And pay the mortgage on this house. The cops probably didn’t envy him. No doubt they were glad they didn’t have this overhead.

Trent unlocked the door and disarmed the security system. The cloying scent of too many roses bombarded his nostrils. Courtney insisted on having five dozen white roses arranged in a crystal vase in the entry hall each week even though he’d told her to cut back. Above the spacious marble entry a vaulted ceiling rose to the second floor. Dead in the center of the foyer was the spectacular floral arrangement on an antique table.

He took Courtney’s hand and led the group into the spacious living room that was rarely used. He punched the control panel on the wall to make the low-level lighting in the room brighter.

Trent settled Courtney on one of three sofas that faced a fireplace befitting a castle. The men took chairs nearby. The detective settled back, but the uniformed officer teetered on the edge of the silk chair that some fancy decorator had found, as if the officer believed his gabardine slacks would snag the delicate fabric.

Courtney suddenly began to sob loudly. Now what? Trent wondered.

“Honey, they said Timmy is okay. Stop crying.”

“Th-this … is b-bad news. I—I can tell.”

“Now, Courtney—”

“I’m afraid your wife is correct,” the detective said in a level voice.

The words were like a shard of glass entering Trent’s spongy brain. This reminded him of the night a little over a year ago when he’d received the telephone call that his father’s plane had crashed, killing Trent’s father and stepmother. Allison’s death was no loss, but Trent had been devastated that his father—his idol—was no longer around to guide him.

“I understand you’re next of kin to Hayley Fordham.”

It took a second for the words to register. He’d always thought of Hayley as “the step,” never his next of anything, but he realized the death of his father and Hayley’s mother meant that he was Hayley’s closest relative except for her aunt Meg.

“Oh, no,” wailed Courtney. “Has Hayley been in an accident?”

Trent didn’t have much use for his stepsister beyond her value as a designer for Surf’s Up. That role had taken on greater significance when Hayley’s mother Allison had been killed with Trent’s father in the plane crash.

He had to admit Hayley had been instrumental in aligning their company with Mixed Martial Arts. Illegal in many states, MMA—the human equivalent of cockfighting—was the fastest growing sport in America. Hayley had picked up on this multibillion dollar business and designed a line of clothes for The Wrath to wear. The Wrath was National MMA champion and one scary dude, but he was to MMA what Tony Hawk was to skateboarding. The MMA line kept the bucks rolling in just when surfboards were tanking, another victim of cheap Asian imports and a nosediving economy.

Trent might not care for his stepsister, but he admired her business sense. His wife was another story. Courtney adored Hayley. An artist-to-artist thing, he supposed.

“What’s happened?” Even as he asked the question, Trent knew this couldn’t be a simple accident. A telephone call would have done the trick. His skin prickled with anxiety as reality began to penetrate his usually sharp mind.

“I’m afraid,” the detective began in that same irritatingly level tone, “she’s been killed.”

“Oh, my God! No!” Courtney jumped to her feet. “Tell me it isn’t true.”

Trent pulled her back down beside him. Breath gushed from his lungs in short bursts. His mind struggled to get a grip on what he’d just been told. Her death changed—everything. For the better, he had to admit.

“Her car was blown up by a bomb at about eight o’clock this evening,” the uniformed officer informed them in a voice barely loud enough to be heard over Courtney’s sobs.

“What? That’s terrible—a tragedy.” Trent shaded the truth. He’d be a hell of a lot richer with Hayley out of the way. “Car bombs happen in the Middle East, not Newport Beach.” He tried to keep his mind off the money, adding, “Besides, who would want to kill Hayley?”

“DEAR LORD, WHAT IS the world coming to?” Meg Amboy asked the nurse who’d brought her breakfast just after dawn. Along with it came her medication and the morning paper. “Did you see there was a car bombing right here in Newport Beach last night?”

“Umm-hmmm,” the middle-aged woman with a chest like the prow of a battleship responded. “It was out by the airport. That’s Costa Mesa.”

Meg noticed the nurse had dismissed the incident as if it had happened on another planet. Typical attitude around Twelve Acres. The staff had been trained to be elitist. Newport had money and cachet while Costa Mesa, which bordered on Newport, was decidedly middle class with an area that could only be termed a barrio. Meg knew most of the help in the kitchen and the housekeepers lived in Costa Mesa or just beyond in Santa Ana.

Meg prided herself on not being a snob. True, she spent her money on the best assisted-living facility she could afford because she knew she didn’t have much longer to live. But she remembered with fondness growing up poor and earning her own way. Making a fortune with no one’s help.

The battleship nurse, whose name Meg always failed to remember even though Meg had been at Twelve Acres for two years, left. Meg went back to the paper, content to read it until it was time to go downstairs for a second cup of coffee with Conrad Hollister. After they’d finished, she would walk beside his wheelchair to their morning game of bridge.

“Conrad,” she whispered and lowered the paper. She stared out at the craggy shoreline framed by her huge window. The rampartlike bluffs had been weathered by wind and the unrelenting surf. Now scrims of early morning mist clung to the shore. Short trees bowed by the elements stooped like hunchback sentinels along the tops of the bluffs where mansions were perched.

12 След.

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