Genuine Lies

Anna—according to Anna— who had made Eve look like a queen in
Lady Love.
Anna whohad made her sparkle in
Paradise Found.
There had been no mention, as there had been in Kinsky’s and Marilyn Day’s interviews that it had been Eve who had given Anna her first real break by insisting that she be used as costume designer on
Lady Love.
    The lack of gratitude reminded Julia of Drake.
    It was beginning to rain when Julia sighed and climbed from the car. It was a fast, thin rain that looked as though it could go on for days. Like Anna, she thought as she dashed to the front door. Julia would have preferred to close the door on that particular tape as she would close the door against the chilling rain.
    But as she searched out her keys, she knew that whatever her personal feelings, she would review the tape. If Anna came across as catty, spoiled, and ungrateful in the book, she had no one to blame but herself.
    Wondering if she should make pork chops or chicken for dinner, Julia opened the door, and the scent of wet, crushed flowers poured out. The living room, which had been neat if not orderly, was now a jumble of overturned tables, broken lamps, torn cushions. In the moment it took her mind to register what her eyes were seeing, she stood, briefcase clutched in one hand, keys in the other. Then she dropped them both and walked through the destruction of what she had tried to make home.
    Every room was the same—broken glass, overturned furniture. Pictures had been torn off the wall. Drawers had been broken. In the kitchen, boxes and bottles had been yanked out of cupboards so that their contents made an unappetizing stew on the tiled floor.
    She turned and fled upstairs. In her room her clothes were strewn around the floor. The mattress had been dragged partially off the bed, the linens in torn and tangled knots. The contents of her dresser were scattered on top of it.
    But it was Brandon’s room that snapped the control she was desperately trying to cling to. Her child’s room had been invaded, his toys, his clothes, his books, pawed through. Juliapicked up the top of his Batman pajamas, and balling them in her hands, went to the phone.
    “Miss Benedict’s residence.”
    “Travers. I need Eve.”
    Travers answered that demand with a snort. “Miss Benedict’s at the studio. I expect her around seven.”
    “You get in touch with her now. Someone’s broken into the guest house and trashed it. I’ll give her an hour before I call the police myself.” She hung up on Travers’s squawking questions.
    Her hands were shaking. That was good, she decided. It was anger, and she didn’t mind shaking with anger. She wanted to hold on to it, it and every other vicious emotion that pounded through her.
    Very deliberately she went downstairs again, walking over the wreckage of the living room. She crouched in front of a section of wainscoting and pressed the hidden mechanism as Eve had showed her. The panel slid open, revealing the safe inside. Julia spun the dial, mentally reciting the combination. When it was open, she took inventory of the contents. Her tapes, her notes, the few boxes of jewelry. Satisfied, she closed it again, then went to the rain-splattered window to wait.
    Thirty minutes later, Julia watched Paul’s Studebaker slide to a halt. His face was set and expressionless when she met him at the door. “What the hell’s going on?”
    “Travers called you?”
    “Yes, she called me—which is something you neglected to do.”
    “It didn’t occur to me.”
    He was silent until he’d worked past the anger her remark caused. “Obviously. What’s this about another break-in?”
    “See for yourself.” She stepped aside so that he could walk in ahead of her. Seeing it again brought on a fresh, red rage. It took everything she had to whip it down. Her fingers linked together until the knuckles were white. “First guess is that someone was upset when they couldn’t find the tapes, anddecided to tear the place up until they did.” She nudged some broken crockery aside with her foot. “They didn’t.”
    Fury, and the coppery flavor of fear in the back of his throat, had him whirling on her. His eyes were a blazing blue that had her backing up a step before she stiffened her spine. “Is that all you can think of?”
    “It’s the only reason,” she said. “I don’t know anyone who would do this because of a personal grudge.”
    He shook his head, struggling to ignore the twisting of his gut when