One of Those Malibu Nights by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

mouth. “Is that
really
why you’re here?”
    He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Why else, baby?” he said, as she slid into his arms and began to kiss him. Properly this time. None of that cold shoulder stuff. Just real kissing, like two people in love.
    Fifteen minutes later as they drove through the gates at Cinecittà, Sunny quickly reapplied her lipstick and combed her hair. “Do I look okay?” she asked.
    Mac’s eyes were warm with love. She looked flushed and sparkly, a woman ready to make love and not at all businesslike.
    “You look beautiful,” he said.
    Cinecittà Studios were famous for the years it took to film
Cleopatra
, the Taylor-Burton epic in the early sixties, and for the even more famous love affair between the two stars. Now they were more often used for smaller films, though many of the old sets remained standing.
    Sunny’s client, a young actor by the name of Eddie Grimes, was making a sci-fi epic produced by the eminent Renato Manzini that, it seemed to Mac, could easily have been made anywhere on the planet. Still, he guessed Rome was as good a place to make a sci-fi as Hollywood or Mars, and the sets were certainly stupendous.
    Still, jet lag was taking its toll. He sank a couple of espressos for sustenance, lounging in a chair in the shade while Sunny chatted to Eddie, making a few notes in the yellow legal pad she always carried.
    He fell asleep in the cab on the way back to the hotel, leaning dopily against her as the tiny elevator whisked them slowly upward. In their room, he didn’t even bother to complain about Sunny’s clothes strewn about. He took a quick shower, flopped onto the bed and dropped off the edge of the world into a black abyss of sleep.
    So much for romance, Sunny thought tenderly, as she watched him.
    She caught him on the rebound though, a couple of hours later. She stretched her long naked body next to his, his hand reached out for her and he turned his face to hers, breathing in the scent of her, his mouth searching for hers.
    “This,” he whispered, his arms gripping her close, “is what I came to Rome for. I can’t do without you, Sunny.”

C HAPTER 10
    Mac’s assistant, Roddy Kruger, age thirty-five, short bleached-blond hair, good-looking, gay and very popular, was staying at the Malibu house babysitting Pirate. He was sitting on the deck on an old metal lounger from Wal-Mart, which was about in keeping with the rest of the furnishings in Mac’s home, a Diet Coke in one hand, the L.A. Times sports section in the other.
    Every now and then he would glance up from the newspaper to check the Perrin house down the beach. Mac had filled him in on the events and put him in charge of the Allie Ray case, though “case” was hardly the correct term for finding out who was following her, and the anonymous letter writer was more of a problem. Allie had sent Mac a couple of the letters and they were not at all happy about them.Still, Roddy was a longtime fan and the thought that he was working for the star gave him a distinct buzz. There was no activity at the Perrin house though, and he went back to his newspaper.
    Half an hour later he glanced at the bright blue rubber-encased diver’s watch, waterproof to a depth of three hundred feet, that Mac had given him the previous Christmas. It looked like a piece of junk but he knew it had cost a small fortune, and since he was an avid surfer, he loved it. It was time to polish the Prius. Those pesky seagulls were constantly flying overhead and their droppings could take the paint off a car in no time flat. Twice a day, had been Mac’s instructions, and Roddy was conscientious about it because he knew how much Mac loved his customized car. Even more than the black Dodge Ram that had gotten the same treatment, and that had been his previous passion, but now, like most of Hollywood, Mac and Sunny were passionate about ecology.
    Malibu Colony might be a beachy suburb grown rich but it still retained its old-world