River’s End

better.” His hands stilled, and his gaze whipped up, two hot blue points. “We came at it from two different places, different schools. She had a phenomenal memory, and that helped her with lines. She never forgot a fucking line. But she tended to put herself into her director’s hands, almost naively trusting him to make it all come together. She didn’t know enough about the rest of the craft to risk input on angles, lighting, pacing.”
    “But you did,” Noah interrupted before Sam could fall back into a rhythm.
    “Yeah, I did. Midler and I went head-to-head plenty on that film, but we respected each other. I was sorry to hear he died a couple of years ago. He was a genius.”
    “And Julie trusted him.”
    “She practically worshiped him. The chance to work with him was the main reason she’d taken the part. And he knew how to showcase her, knew how to coax the best from her. She was like a sponge, soaking up the thoughts and feelings of her character, then pouring them out. I built the character, layer by layer. We made a good team.”
    “Julie won the New York Film Critics’ Award for her portrayal of Sarah in Summer Thunder. You were nominated but didn’t win. Did that cause any friction between you?”
    “I was thrilled for her. She was upset that I hadn’t won. She’d wanted it more than I had. We’d been married less than a year at that time. We were as close to royalty as you can get in that town. We were completely in love, completely happy, and riding the wave. She shared everything with me then, understood me as no one ever had.”
    “And the next year, when she was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Twilight’s Edge, and your movie got mixed reviews. How did that affect your relationship?”
    A muscle twitched under Sam’s left eye, but he continued to speak coolly. “She was pregnant. We concentrated on that. She wanted a healthy baby a lot more than she wanted a statue.”
    “And you? What did you want?”
    Sam smiled thinly. “I wanted everything. And for a while, that’s just what I had. What do you want, Brady?”
    “The story. From all the angles.” He leaned forward and switched off the tape recorder. “I’m heading back to L.A.,” he continued as he began to pack his briefcase. “I’ll be talking to Jamie Melbourne tomorrow.”
    He noted the way Sam’s fingers jerked and curled on the table. “Is there anything you want me to pass along to her?”
    “She won’t take anything from me but my death. She’ll be getting that soon enough. She was jealous of Julie,” he said in a rush, and had Noah pausing. “Julie could never see it, or never wanted to admit it. but Jamie had plenty of built-up jealousy over Julie’s looks, her success, her style. She played the devoted sister, but if she’d had the chance, if she’d had the talent, she’d have knocked Julie aside, stepped over her and taken her place.”
    “Her place with you?”
    “She settled for Melbourne, music agent with no talent of his own. She played second lead to Julie all her life. When Julie was dead, Jamie finally got the spotlight.”
    “Is that another theory?”
    “If she hadn’t tagged on to Julie, she’d still be running that lodge up in Washington. You think she’d have a big house, her business, her pussy-whipped husband if Julie hadn’t cleared the way?”
    Oh, there was resentment here, bitterness that had brewed for more than two decades. “Why should that matter to you?”
    “She’s kept me in here, made damn sure I didn’t get a decent shot at parole these last five years. Made it her goddamn mission to keep me inside. And all the while she
    ’s still sucking up what Julie left behind. You talk to her, Brady, you have a nice chat with her, and you ask her if she wasn’t the one who talked Julie into filing for divorce. If she wasn’t the one who pushed it all over the edge. And if she wasn’t the one who built her whole fucking big-time business off her dead sister’s back.”
    The minute his plane took off. Noah ordered a beer and opened his laptop. He wanted to get his thoughts and impressions into words while they were still fresh, and he wanted to get home, spread his notes out around him, start making calls, setting up interviews.
    The rush of anticipation racing through his blood was a familiar sensation and told him he was committed now. There was no going back. The endless stream of research, digging, backtracking and puzzling didn’t intimidate