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  My stomach spasmed. “No.” Will and I knew there would be rumors about him and Suzanne. If there weren't, the studio would probably start them.

  “So you didn't see this photograph?”

  “No. No comment. Bye now. Nice sharing vicious rumors with you.”

  I couldn't push through the crowd and get away from them. Where was the car, for God's sake?

  “The photograph, Maggie.” A pushy, little bald man from Channel Five was shoving a microphone in my face. “It was in all the papers. Will and Suzanne Purcell. Very cozy. You didn't see it?”

  I shoved him aside, pushing him back into the cameraman. I saw my car finally, and I ran and shut myself inside.

  It wasn't until we were gliding through the green woods near home that I began to relax. The nerve of those insensitive bastards! It wasn't the first time I had clashed with a reporter. It had happened in Rome and once in Los Angeles. What happened to privacy? I asked myself. Who do they think they are?

  I wished Will were home right now. In the car with me.

  Oh, Will, forget about being a big movie star. Let's just disappear and be nobodies for the rest of our lives.

  Will and Suzanne. The picture. Could it possibly be true? No, I didn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. I felt that I knew Will by now. I was sure that I did. The picture was just more paparazzi crap. It wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last.

  In the car, I dismissed the thought. But it came back to me when I went to bed that night. It kept me awake through the witching hours, two and three in the morning.

  Will and Suzanne Purcell.

  No!

  Damn the paparazzi anyway.

  CHAPTER 63

  THERE WERE NO paparazzi for this particular moment.

  SCENE: Ellie's bathroom. Beautiful morning light everywhere. Ellie is soaking in a tin tub, covered with thick suds, occasionally brushing them aside so she can look at her stomach. North enters, looking concerned.

  CUT TO: Ellie's reaction. She looks at her husband with shame. North kneels next to the tub. He's not like most men. He understands the way his wife thinks.

  NORTH: Why have you been avoiding me, Ellie? Ever since our baby, you won't let me come near you. This isn't the way we wanted it.

  ELLIE: ’Cause I'm not pretty now. That's why. (She begins to cry.) I'm never going to be pretty again. That baby ruined my body. It's made me an old woman.

  NORTH: Nineteen isn't old. You're as pretty as ever. You're my beautiful wife. (He starts to brush away the mounds of suds.) You're Ellie, and that will never change.

  ELLIE: Don't! Please … oh North, please.

  NORTH: Hush. (He swipes away the suds, revealing her breasts.) See, you're very pretty. You're so pretty, I almost can't stand it.

  ELLIE: I'm swollen, like a suckling pig. I ache and I feel old, even if I'm not.

  NORTH: (Picking up a washcloth and tenderly caressing her body with it, his hand hidden by the suds as it goes beneath her breasts): Not here, you're not. Or here … Or especially here.

  CUT TO: Ellie's reaction. She is obviously excited by his touch. She smiles, and the smile is beautiful. Ellie is as beautiful as North says she is.

  NORTH (Continuing to caress): My beauty. My Ellie.

  ELLIE (Breathing hard): Am I still? Am I?

  NORTH: Yes, you are. You always will be. I told you that, and it will never change. Even when you do become an old woman.

  CLOSE UP: Ellie and North kiss, more and more passionately. Suddenly the room is extremely steamy.

  CAMERA: Moves down to show the bathwater moving as North's hidden hand gets more and more agitated.

  “Cut!” Michael Lenox Caputo's voice knifed through the stillness of the scene. “Great take. Wrap it. I have to go masturbate now!”

  Neither Will nor Suzanne Purcell stopped though. The technicians kept their cameras rolling, and would soon have film of the two stars that they could sell to any of the tabloid TV shows.

  Will and Suzanne seemed to notice nothing around them. She had stepped out of the tub and, naked, unashamed, was laughing and pulling at his belt. He picked her up and, mouth on hers, in a kiss no patron of Primrose would ever see, carried her to his trailer. Will slammed the door behind him with his foot.

  The werewolf of Perth.

  CHAPTER 64

  “WHAT HAPPENS NOW?” Will asked. Principal shooting on Primrose was finished; only editing and dubbing remained to be done.

  He and Suzanne were walking together on the dusty plain. He hadn't meant to get involved, but as they say, shit happens. Suzanne was truly one of the most beautiful women in the world, and Will had always appreciated the very best.

  “I go back to California, you become Mr. Maggie Bradford, just like you were.”

  Will blinked. The words stung. “And what we had out here?” he asked Suzanne.

  “We had some fine times, didn't we? You're good, Will. One of the best.”

  “One of?” He snorted out a laugh. “You're beautiful and you're a comedienne.”

  Suzanne laughed as well. “Yes, I have a brain, Will. Oh, sweetheart. I've had the best! Actors, other athletes, ski bums. But you are very good. No worry there.”

  He could feel ancient demons. Roused from sleep, they began to claw upward, from the pit of his stomach to his brain. Jesus, he hated to lose. He couldn't bear failure.

  “This picture will make me a star,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “Then I won't be ‘Mr. Maggie Bradford.’ ”

  “I made you the star,” Suzanne Purcell said. “Don't forget that. You really shouldn't let this insane business get to you anyway. It can, you know.”

  Destroy her, he thought. But not now. Take it easy, Will. Go slow. You learned your lesson in Rio.

  He kept silent. They turned back toward the hotel. “One last time?” he asked.

  Suzanne grinned and reached for him. “Now that's the proper spirit. Your room or mine?”

  “Yours,” he said. “We'll use your toys.”

  Suzanne Purcell had no idea how she had gotten herself into this mess. She felt as though she were having an out-of-body experience.

  The moment she'd stepped into her hotel room, Will had hit her from behind. Not that she could tell what had happened at first. She'd felt a hard wallop between her shoulder blades. Then the blue shag rug seemed to be rushing up at her face. She hit the floor hard, and lost consciousness.

  And she awoke like this.

  He'd tied her with jump ropes that she used as part of her exercise routine. He'd gagged her with her own bra, and more rope.

  Then he'd put her in the bathtub.

  That was when it started to get bad, unbelievably bad.

  He cut both her wrists and watched her blood flow into the tub and down the drain.

  He just sat there and watched her bleed.

  Suzanne struggled wildly against the ropes, and made strange, muffled sounds.

  She had tried to scream, but the gag was too tight. Finally, she decided to plead with Will—using her eyes.

  “Oh, I see,” he finally spoke to her. “Now you want to talk things through. You probably even want to take back some of those nasty remarks you made outside? Am I right, Suzy? You see, I have a brain too.”

  She nodded her head as best she could. She was losing a lot of blood, and she was starting to feel woozy—as if she might pass out.

  “I know this isn't an authentic suicide, but it's like one. The next best thing,” Will said. “It's fascinating to watch someone die. You can't imagine. Your eyes are amazing to watch right now. About a thousand thoughts coursing through your brain, right? You can't believe that you, the great Suzanne Purcell, are about to die. It's too weird, right? Your life can't just end like this, right? It's all in your eyes, Suzanne. Extraordinary.”

  Will suddenly stopped talking.

  He just watched her—bleed. It was definitely like a suicide. Like his father's.

  When Michael Caputo came to Suzanne's hotel the following mo
rning, he wanted to wish her a safe trip home, and thought, maybe, he might get lucky. Suzanne didn't answer the house phone or respond to his knock.

  He finally got the manager to open her door. Drugs, he thought. Damn her. Why did nearly every beautiful woman have to be a head case?

  He found Suzanne naked and badly cut, unconscious but still alive. She was handcuffed to the hotel bed. It would be half a year before she could act in another movie, and her close-ups would never be the same.

  Suzanne swore to Caputo, and then to the police, that it hadn't been Will. She would say no more than that. She wouldn't press charges.

  Not a word to anybody.

  He had scared her that badly. She believed that Will was capable of murder, of anything.

  BOOK FOUR

  Dark Side of the Moon

  CHAPTER 65

  I AM NOT a murderer.

  I never murdered anyone. Or so I've begun to tell myself, over and over again.

  As we entered the courthouse everyone was staring at me, and I couldn't catch my breath. I felt I must be going mad. Maybe I am.

  Policemen from the prison, as well as my faithful cadre of expensive lawyers, had me surrounded, penned in, claustrophobic. I remembered how it had been in the crawl space under the house at West Point. All the horror stories seemed to be coming together.

  It was pouring, and hundreds of people, mostly with black umbrellas, but a few with blue and red ones, had turned out to catch a glimpse of the so-called famous murderess.

  It destroyed me to know that my children would see me like this—in handcuffs, wearing my scarlet M.

  We marched into the courthouse and upstairs to a room where Judge Andrew Sussman was waiting. The judge was a large man, about six foot six, with a salt-and-pepper beard that he allowed to grow in wild and bushy. He was probably in his mid-forties, and reminded me of a rabbi. That was a good sign; it made me think that he would be just and fair. That was all I wanted.

  Justice. Fairness. The American way, right?

  Judge Sussman was holding the formal murder indictment in a solemn-looking black folder. My lawyers had told me what to expect—but I couldn't get used to it.

  What in the name of God was I doing here? How could this be happening to me?

  I wasn't the bad person in all of this—I was the victim. How could I be on trial for murder?

  The press who would be covering the murder trial were already in the courtroom. Not one, but several artists were on hand to draw versions of the way I looked today. How goddamn artistic!

  I stood with my chief attorney, Nathan Bailford, in front of the bench. This couldn't be happening to me. None of it seemed real.

  “Good morning,” Judge Sussman said in a civil tone, as though I'd come about a parking ticket, or a violation of the Bedford town code on keeping the grass cut short at the curbside around my house.

  “Good morning, Your Honor.” I was surprised that I could speak so confidently, that I could get the words out, that I could be civil too.

  Judge Sussman held up the black folder for me to see.

  “Mrs. Bradford, I have here the indictment from the grand jury. You've seen it?” he asked. He talked plainly and simply, as though I were a young child, but accused of something very serious.

  “Yes, I have, Your Honor.”

  “You've read it, and had time to discuss the indictment with Mr. Bailford or your other attorneys?” he asked next.

  “We've talked about the indictment.”

  “You understand the charge against you? That you are accused of the murder of your husband, Will Shepherd?”

  “I've read the indictment. I understand the charge against me.”

  He nodded, like I was a good student, or an especially good defendant. “And do you plead guilty, or not guilty, to the charge of murder?”

  I looked him square in the eye. I knew it didn't matter, but I needed to do this anyway.

  “I am not guilty of murder. I plead not guilty.”

  CHAPTER 66

  NEW YORK CITY. Central Park. Will and I had been married for nearly a year.

  “Maggie, can you see anything? I can't see a damn thing. Too many bloody trees in this bloody park.”

  Will, Jennie, and I were sitting in the fuzzy-gray darkness of a stretch limousine. Nervously, Will lit a cigarette, the match flaring blue and gold, lighting his face. He raked his fingers back through his thick curls.

  How pale he is. Tired. Scared, I thought as I watched him. This is his World Cup all over again, isn't it? He needs to prove something tonight. Well, I can understand that.

  “What are they doing at the head of this blasted, interminable line?”

  “I can't see,” I told him. “Clearing away pedestrians, I suspect.”

  “See how popular your movie's going to be?” Jennie added support.

  The limo was stuck, engine idling, at the Columbus Circle entrance to the park. We were fifth in a shadowed row of Rollses, Bentleys, and Lincolns bearing dignitaries, the producer/director, and the stars.

  Finally, the caravan began to move, making its way down Central Park South, then onto Seventh Avenue and across Fifty-fourth Street to the Ziegfeld Theatre, and the world premiere of Primrose.

  With each turn of the limo, Will's anxiety increased; his hand, when I took it to comfort him, was sweaty, and as soon as he finished his cigarette he lit another. He rarely smoked, but tonight he couldn't seem to stop. He wasn't himself.

  “It'll be all right,” I said. “It's just pregame jitters.”

  “All right? In fifteen minutes the critics are going to watch me on the screen, thirty feet tall, nowhere to hide, saying ‘Top of the Morning, Ellie. That's a wonderful name for your horse. You take care of her, girl, just as you would your very own child.’ ”

  “It's just a story, Will. People want it to sound like that. They want to escape from real life sometimes.”

  “Not the New York critics. They'll see it for the abominable shit it is, see me for the fake I am, and—poof—there goes my short-lived acting career.”

  “No way,” Jennie told him.

  “Way,” Will joked with her at least.

  The caravan stopped. Suddenly there were chubby, hairy fingers rapping at the limousine's side window. I recognized a chubby hairy face and released the door lock. “Trouble,” I whispered, “always comes in pairs.”

  “Caputo!” Will grinned as the director squeezed his wide body into the backseat.

  “They're going to crucify us,” Caputo said, his face mournful. “I just know it. My instincts are always right. Aren't my instincts right, Will? Comes from growing up in Brooklyn. People from Brooklyn have great instincts.”

  He was so comically miserable I had to laugh.

  “People are expecting big things from this film,” Caputo said. “As well they should for fifty mil—but Will and I both know they're getting sheep shit. Australian sheep shit. Not even the good stuff.”

  Will laughed at the director's humor, which was nearly as dark as his own.

  “Where's your wife?” I asked. “She doesn't seem to have had any more luck calming you down than I've had with Will.”

  “Eleanor's in the car ahead of us with my saintly mother. They can't stand me when I get meshuga like this. They kicked me out of my own car. So I'm here. Somebody's got to take me to the theater.”

  I opened the car door, and pulled Jennie along with me.

  “Where are you going?” Will asked.

  “To join Eleanor, and Michael's mother. You two artistes deserve to be alone together.”

  CHAPTER 67

  I REJOINED WILL when we reached the Ziegfeld, and we got through the searchlights, the screaming crowds, the reporters, the studio executives, and settled ourselves into our seats of honor.

  Neither Jennie nor I had ever been to a world premiere. It was actually great fun. Everyone looked so wonderfully inappropriate in their tuxes, dark suits, and party gowns—just to go see a movie.

  In
about fifteen minutes, the picture started and the credits rolled. WILL SHEPHERD. There his name was, as large as Suzanne Purcell's. Even before the title appeared the crowd applauded, and I heard Will grunt. I'm not sure whether it was from fear or pleasure.

  Then the movie started, and I was caught up in the gorgeous shots of the American West. Nestor Keresty had seen beauty in the landscape that I had not and had made his art come alive on the screen.

  Will delivered the foal, carried it to his young wife (she looks closer to thirty than nineteen, I noted with satisfaction), and delivered his dreaded line.

  The audience was quiet. No one snickered. Will finally relaxed in the seat beside me. Jennie flashed him a thumbs-up. “See?” she whispered. “Told you so.”

  The movie went on for a little more than two hours. It was fast-paced, hokey, lush, romantic. I found myself enjoying it—until North came up on Ellie in the tub and began to wash her.

  The way Will looked at her was the way he looked at me when we made love. It didn't look as though he were acting; it was desire in his eyes, lust. His hand disappeared under the suds, but I sensed, just by the way his arm moved, what he was really doing.

  My heart clutched. Suddenly I couldn't breathe. I had to sit up very straight in my theater seat.

  They've been to bed together, I thought, and a dull ache spread through my body. I remembered the rumors in the press, and Will's firm denial of them. They were lovers off-screen, weren't they? Oh please, don't let that be true.

  I made myself look at Will then. He was watching the screen intently, his mouth half open—reliving it!

  When the interminable love scene finished, Will leaned over and tenderly kissed my cheek. “I was acting, Maggie,” he whispered. “I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. Maybe I am an actor.”

  I sighed, breathed deeply, and began to feel a little better. Yes, maybe Will was an actor, after all.

  CHAPTER 68

  THE GLITZY PREMIERE party for Primrose was held privately upstairs at the Russian Tea Room on Fifty-seventh Street. A hundred or more people came over to shake Will's hand and tell him how superb he was. He recognized none of them, and only acknowledged their praise with an abstracted nod.