"How did he get it?" Heath moved closer, to the end of the bed.

"I don't think he knew who sent it. He wanted me to tell him who'd mailed it."

"And who was running the blackmail operation?" Heath asked.

"I thought it might be the dead guy, Zackary Logan."

"But that wasn't good enough?"

"They wanted the name of a live person." He slowly opened his good eye; the other remained a slit. "It wasn't Rubio who scared me. It was the little one. He looked like he was going to perform a tango any moment."

"Luis?" Heath asked.

The train tooted. "You know him?"

"Oh, yes." Heath nodded.

"He kept smoking like Bette Davis, then he'd lean over me and press the cigarette into my leg and hold it there. He enjoyed it."

"Is your doctor reliable? Is he going to show up?" I asked.

He rubbed the tips of his forefinger and thumb together indicating cash. That didn't make me feel confident.

"While Rubio beat me," he continued, "and the other one burned me, Parson sat on his bed, howling like an animal, demanding I tell him who did this to his little girl."

"Did he mean who killed her? Or who videoed her having s.e.x with you?" Heath asked.

"I don't know."

"They could be one and the same," I said.

"Or not," Heath countered.

The doorbell chimed.

"My doctor." Ryan said. "I told you."

"Remember," I warned. "If he asks what happened, you tell him you got beat up. That's all you know."

"I love it when she mothers me," Ryan said to Heath, who repressed a smile.

I hurried downstairs and looked through the peephole. It was the doctor, all right. I opened the door and stepped back. A seedy cliche wearing an Armani suit, Italian loafers, and sporting a Rolex strolled in. Even his medical bag had a Gucci racing strip down the middle of it.

"You're kidding," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" He peered over gold-wire gla.s.ses at me.

"Nothing. Ryan's been badly beaten. You can't just throw pills at him. He's up here." I started up the stairs.

"Drunk?" He followed me.

"Not now."

In the bedroom he peered down at Ryan. "You've had some going over." He set his bag on the floor and leaned over him. "His right eye will have to be looked at."

His sterile-looking hands felt Ryan's abdomen and ribs. The Rolex gleamed. The train's guardrail went up.

"Pain?" the doctor asked.

"Ribs." Ryan groaned.

"He could have a punctured lung." He studied Ryan's legs. "Your attackers burned you?"

"Yes," I answered for Ryan.

Now he peered at me as if I were another wound he had to fix. "Odd thing for them to do."

"Ryan's a lucky man." Heath shifted his weight.

The doctor's shady eyes turned skeptical. "Extremely lucky."

"This is luck?" Ryan burbled.

"I only ask to know whether I may be implicating myself in something ... that could be a ... problem."

"You aren't," I a.s.sured him. "Ryan's a drunk. You're not responsible for what he can or can't remember." Hearing my words aloud, I knew I'd just demeaned my friend and the beating he had taken. But at the same time, I had to make sure he was taken care of.

"Well, I can't treat him here. He must be hospitalized."

"But under your care and no publicity," Heath said.

The doctor looked over his gla.s.ses at Heath. "Who are you?"

"I'm none of your business." Heath casually pulled open his jacket, showing him the holstered Colt on his belt.

He nodded submissively. "Under my care and no publicity. It's what I get paid the big bucks for. I'll call a private ambulance service I've used successfully in the past." Taking out his cell, he dialed and issued orders. When he'd finished, he smiled obsequiously at me. "Sorry about your mother. I attended to her often, especially in her later years. If you ever need anything else... ." He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a pristine white engraved card.

How could one person be so clean and sleazy at the same time? This was the first man I had met lately whom I was completely sure my mother had not gone to bed with.

"I'll be taking him to St. John's in Santa Monica. He'll be in the VIP wing, if I can get him in." He punched in another number.

"That's not good enough," I said. "Make sure you get him in the VIP wing. It's what you get paid the big bucks for."

Another obsequious smirk. "Touche." He made arrangements for Ryan in the VIP wing and then disconnected.

"Would you two mind waiting downstairs?" Ryan asked the doctor and Heath.

"Of course not." The doctor picked up his bag and slipped out of the room.

Heath went with him.

After they had both gone, Ryan beckoned me with a finger, and I leaned close. "He's not right for you, Diana."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're from the world of the arts." He winced in pain. "You're creative. He's a fixer. That's what you called him, remember?"

"You said he was a good guy."

"But not for you."

I stroked his face. "Don't worry. I like men who have a way with words."

"Yeah. But how many words?"

Heath's voice cut through the room. "The ambulance is here."

Making a face at Ryan, I reached over and turned off the train.

Heath and I watched the ambulance leave with Ryan, and the doctor followed in his white Bentley. Then we locked the house and went down to the beach.

Not talking, we stood feeling the cold wind on our faces. The houses overlooking the ocean were dark. My neighbors were away or sleeping; secure their multi-alarm systems would keep them safe. I looked toward my house. In the dim moonlight I could see that Kiki, the majordomo of Malibu, had found someone to board up the shattered gla.s.s doors. And now my house, my home, my tiny oasis appeared as abandoned and as dilapidated as Parson's movie theater.

A bone-deep sorrow flooded me, and I didn't want to go home. I wanted to run away, putting as much distance as I could between myself and the dead and the wounded in my life.

"You must be tired," Heath said.

"Yes. Also hyper."

"You're running on adrenalin. I could use a drink. You wouldn't want to offer me one, would you?"

"What do you really want?" I confronted him, clasping my arms around myself against the cold.

"You want an honest answer, or one of my very believable lies?" The wind blew his hair back from his high forehead and he hunched his shoulders.

"Honesty would be refreshing."

He thought a moment, then said "I want to f.u.c.k your brains out."

I could feel his dark eyes moving over me, and my body responding as if his hands were on my flesh.

"I don't have any brains left."

"Then another part of your anatomy... ."

I laughed.

"That was nice."

"What?"

"Your laughter. I'm not a total cretin. We could have dinner before we ..."

I turned away and started walking toward my house.

"Is that a 'yes,' a 'no,' or a 'maybe' to any of the above?" he yelled after me.

"I'll fix you a drink and dinner. Then we'll see," I shouted back.

I still didn't know what to make of him, but I did know Heath could help me run away from my ghosts. At least for one night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

My house smelled of damp raw wood. The TV chattered from the kitchen-Kiki's guys must've left it on for me. My boarded-up living room looked dark even with the lamps turned on. Heath peered at the only objects that shined with any life-Colin's Oscars and the nameplate on my mother's urn.

"Would you like to hold one of Colin's Oscars? Most people do."

"No." He turned his bruised chin toward me. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw line. "I want to hold what's real and present." He took my hand and I felt a wonderful surge of pa.s.sion rush through me. Was that all it took? Hands touching? How Jane Austen of me. It had been a long time since I felt this kind of desire.

I pulled away. He followed me into the kitchen.

I opened the cupboard near the sink. "Booze and red wine." I spoke over the TV noise.

He picked up the remote and clicked it off. "If you're leaving the TV on so a prowler will think you're home, it won't fool him."

"I leave it on because I'm alone. The white wine is in the fridge."

He leaned against the wall. "You don't strike me as a woman who'd be afraid to be alone."

"I'm not afraid. But the silence wears on me." I pushed my hair back from my face.

He nodded, and by his expression I knew he understood. Then he rubbed his hands together and announced "I'm hungry. Are you?"

"Starving."

He opened my freezer. This was a man who could make himself at home. He took out one the many frozen meals I'd just bought. "Lean Cuisine? Isn't that an oxymoron?" He tossed the frozen box back into the freezer and opened the fridge. "You got eggs." He took out the carton and peered in. "Four eggs. It's a start."

Smiling, I thought of how talkative men become when they're trying to seduce you. Even the strong silent ones.

"I want you to know that I'm not usually attracted to very beautiful women," he announced.