Genuine Lies

methodical way she tried to study and absorb each name, put a face, a personality with it.
    Alan Breezewater. Middle-aged, balding, a successful broker.
    Marjorie Breezewater. His pleasant wife who enjoyed a ripping game of bridge.
    Carmine Delinka. A boxing promoter with delusions of grandeur.
    Helene Fitzhugh-Pryce. A London divorcee returning from a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive.
    Donald Frances. A young, upwardly mobile ad executive.
    Susan Frances. Donald’s attractive, British-born wife who’s working her way up in television production.
    Matthew John Frances. Their five-year-old son, excited about visiting his grandparents.
    Charlene Gray. Julia yawned, shook her brain clear and tried to concentrate. Charlene Gray.
    “Oh, God.”
    “What is it?” Paul was already at her shoulder, fighting back the urge to snatch the sheet from her hand. “Charlie Gray.”
    Scowling, Frank looked up from his own sheet. The whites of his eyes were streaked with red. “I thought he was dead.”
    “He is. He committed suicide in the late forties. But he had a child, a baby. Eve told me she didn’t know what had happened to it.”
    Paul had already homed in on the name. “Charlene Gray. I think it’s a little late to think of coincidence. How do we find her?”
    “Give me a couple of hours.” Frank took the sheet andtwo slices of cold bacon with him and headed for the door. “I’ll call you.”
    “Charlie Gray,” Julia murmured. “Eve cared very deeply for him, but he cared more. Too much more. She broke his heart when she married Michael Torrent. He gave her rubies, and her first screen test. He was her first lover.” The chill shivered down her arms. “Oh, God, Paul, could his child have killed Eve?”
    “If he’d had a daughter, how old would she be now?”
    Julia circled her fingers over her temples. “Early to mid-fifties.” Her motion stopped. “Paul, you don’t seriously believe—”
    “Do you have a picture of him?”
    Her hands were beginning to shake. And it was excitement. “Yes, Eve gave me hundreds of snapshots and studio stills. Lincoln has everything.”
    Paul started to pick up the phone, then let out an oath. “Wait.” He turned to the shelf along the wall, running his fingers along the titles of video cassettes.
“Desperate Lives,”
he murmured. “Eve’s first picture—starring Michael Torrent and Charles Gray.” He gave Julia’s hand a quick squeeze. “Let’s watch a movie, baby.”
    “Yeah.” She managed to smile. “But hold the popcorn.”
    She held her breath as well as he took Eve’s tape out of the machine, slipped in the copy of the old movie. Muttering to himself, he fast-forwarded through the FBI warning, the opening titles.
    Eve was in the first scene, strutting her way down a sidewalk that was supposed to be New York. A flirty hat was perched over one eye. The camera zoomed in, caught that young, vibrant face, then panned down as Eve bent, swiveled, then ran a finger slowly up the seam of her stocking.
    “She was a star from the first reel,” Julia said. “And she knew it.”
    “Tell you what. We’ll watch this all the way through on our honeymoon.” “On our—”
    “We’ll get into that later.” While Julia was trying todecide if she’d just received a proposal, Paul zipped through the film. “I want a close-up. Come on, Charlie. There.” On the single triumphant word he hit the freeze. Charlie Gray, his hair slicked back, his mouth quirked in a self-deprecating grin, looked back at them.
    “Oh, my God, Paul.” Julia’s fingers dug into his shoulder like wires. “She has his eyes.”
    Mouth grim, Paul flicked off the set. “Let’s go talk to Travers.”
    Dorothy Travers shuffled from room to room in the empty house, chasing dust, polishing glass, building hate.
    Anthony Kincade had killed any chance she might have had for believing in a healthy relationship with a man. So she had focused all her love on two people. Her poor son who still called her Mommy, and Eve.
    There hadn’t been anything sexual in her love for Eve. She’d been done with sex before Kincade had been done with her. Eve had been sister, mother, daughter to her. Though Travers was fond of her own family, having Eve cut out of her life left her with such pain she could tolerate it only by coating it with bitterness.
    When she saw Julia walk into the house, she lurched forward, hands extended and curled like claws. “Murdering bitch. I’ll kill you for showing your face