Mercedes-Benz sedan maneuvered silently up to a set of iron gates rising upward to twelve feet. A man, standing more than half that height, appeared seemingly from nowhere and tapped on the tinted glass on the driver’s side of the vehicle. The chauffeur pushed a button, lowering the window, and extended a printed invitation.
The guard’s sharp gaze swept over the square of vellum, then shifted as he tried catching a glimpse of the woman sitting on the rear seat. His gaze did not falter at the same time he raised a small, palm-size cellular phone to his ear.
“Cole,” he said quietly into the receiver. The gates opened and the Mercedes-Benz eased forward up an ascending, curvilinear driveway.
Regina Cole stared out the window, noting a series of gardens, a guest house, and a tennis court. The driveway ended ata
porte cochere
. Beyond were two more welcoming areas: a covered courtyard with scrolled gates, and an open courtyard with statuary and more gardens. She knew every inch of the house. Designed with the features of a Tuscany villa, it fused the grandeur and comfort afforded a man of Harold Jordan’s station.
She had come to the sprawling mansion six months ago, spending a week under twenty-foot high ceilings and lazing around the Olympic-size swimming pool with the Pacific Ocean as the backdrop. Harold Jordan had summoned her and award-winning director Oscar Spencer to his home to discuss the film he decided to finance—a discussion which lasted only an hour.
Harold had invited her back more than half a dozen times during the filming of the virtually unknown artistic masterpiece,
Silent Witness
, but she had deftly sidestepped each request with a preconceived, rehearsed declination. There was something about the thrice-married producer which made it impossible for her to relax in his presence. At forty-nine, he was thirty-two years her senior. However, their age difference had not stopped him from pursuing her with the craftiness of Machiavelli.
This evening was different. Harold had summoned everyone who had had anything to do with the production of
Silent Witness
to his home to celebrate the film’s eleven Academy Award nominations. She still had five months before she turned eighteen, yet she had garnered a Best Actress nomination for her first film.
The news had numbed her for hours. Then she had picked up the telephone in the sparsely furnished Los Angeles apartment she shared with another actress and called her parents in Florida. Hearing their drawling Southern cadence reminded her of how far she was from home, and despite her joy she felt more alone than she had ever been in her young life. She had wanted her parents and the other members of her family present when she shared her jubilation, not strangers; she needed people around her whom she loved, and who made her feel safe.
And there were times when she did not feel safe, despite sharing the apartment with another young woman and hiring drivers to take her everywhere. Years of therapy helped her cope with her fears, but hadn’t eradicated them entirely. It was only on the set, in character, that she was no longer Regina Cole, but whoever her character was. It was then she no longer feared close, dark spaces. It was then she could breathe without a suffocating darkness crushing her body and her mind. And it was then that she could look out at the audience and smile, because she was completely free of the demons who attacked swiftly, silently, and without warning.
The car stopped at the entrance to the Jordan residence and a white-jacketed valet opened the rear door. The young man extended a tanned hand and Regina laid her slender fingers on his palm. His gaze widened appreciably as she placed one black, silk-shod, sling strap-sandaled foot on the terra-cotta path, then the other. Smooth, incredibly long legs were displayed under a body-hugging black dress in a stretch knit with a wide neckline and cap sleeves.
His mouth went suddenly dry as he