River’s End

abusive. In my opinion, his addiction to drugs and alcohol didn’t spark this abuse, it simply uncovered it.”
    There was a bitterness still toward Tanner, Noah thought, every bit as ripe as Tanner’s was toward him. “Did she confide in you?”
    “To an extent.” He lifted the fingers of one hand off the arm of the chair, then dropped them again, like a pianist hitting keys. “She wasn’t a whiner. I admit, I pressed her to talk to me, and we’d grown close during the filming, remained friends afterward. I knew she was troubled. At first she made excuses for him, then she stopped. Ultimately, she told me, in confidence, that she’d filed for divorce to snap him out of it, to force him to get help.”
    “Did you and Tanner ever discuss it?”
    Manning’s lips twisted into a smile. Wry and experienced. “He had a reputation for having a violent temper, for causing scenes. My career had just taken off, and I intended to be in it for the long haul. I avoided him. I’m not of the school that believes any press is good press, and I didn’t want to see headlines splashed around gloating that Tanner and Manning had brawled over MacBride.”
    “Instead they gloated that Manning and MacBride were an item.”
    “There was nothing I could do about that. One of the reasons I agreed to this interview was to set the record straight about my relationship with Julie.”
    “Then I have to ask, Why haven’t you set the record straight before now? You’ve refused to discuss her in interviews since her death.”
    “I set the record straight.” Manning angled his head slightly, lowered his chin. It was an aggressive stance with those storm-cloud eyes just narrowed. “In court,” he continued. “Under oath. But the media, the masses were never really satisfied. For some the idea of scandal, of illicit sex, was as much of a fascination as murder. I refused to play into it, to demean Julie that way.”
    Maybe, Noah mused. Or maybe the mystery of it gave your rocketing career one more boost. “And now?”
    “Now you’re going to write the book. Rumors around this town are that it’ll be the definitive work on the Julie MacBride murder.” He smiled thinly. “I’m sure you know that.”
    “There are a lot of rumors around this town,” Noah said equably. “I let my agent worry about that end of it. I just do the work.”
    “Lydia said you were sharp. You’re going to write the book,” he repeated. “I’m part of the story. So I’ll answer the questions I’ve refused to answer for the last twenty years. Julie and I were never lovers. Tanner and I never fought over her. The fact is, I’d have been delighted if both of those misconceptions had been true. The morning I heard what had happened to her remains the worst day of my life.”
    “How did you hear?”
    “David Melbourne called me. Julie’s family wanted to block as much media as possible, and he knew the minute the press got wind of it, they’d start hammering me for comments, interviews, statements. Of course he was right,” Manning murmured.
    “It was early. The call woke me. My private number. Julie had my private number.”
    He closed his eyes and pain flickered over his face. “He said, ‘Lucas, I have terrible, terrible news.’ I remember exactly how his voice broke, the grief in it. ‘Julie’s dead. Oh God. God, Julie’s dead. Sam killed her.’ “
    He opened his eyes again, emotion rushing into them. “I didn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. It was like a bad dream, or worse, worse, some scene I’d be forced to play over and over again. I’d just seen her the day before. She’d been beautiful and alive, excited about a script she’d just read. Then David told me she was dead.”
    “Were you in love with her, Mr. Manning?”
    “Completely.”
    Manning gave him two full hours. Noah had miles of tape, reams of notes. He believed part of Manning’s interview had been calculated, rehearsed. Timing, phrasing, pause and impact. But in it there was truth.
    And with truth there was progress.
    He decided to celebrate by meeting Mike at an off-the-strip bar called Rumors for a couple of drinks.
    “She’s giving me the eye.” Mike rolled his own watering eyes to the left and muttered into his pilsner.
    “Which eye?”
    “The eye, you know. The blonde in the short skirt.”
    Noah considered his order of nachos. The energy from a good day’s work bubbled under the surface of his skin and conversely helped him relax. “There are one