Celebrity in Death (In Death #34)(41)

“You’d think,” he muttered. “It doesn’t have anything to do with K.T.,” he insisted. “We were done, over—finished before Marlo and I even met.”

“But K.T. didn’t want it to be done, over, finished,” Eve prompted.

His tone, his face hardened. “That was her problem.”

“She made it yours.”

“She was a pain in the ass, okay? A serious pain in the ass even before she found out Marlo and I were together. It just got uglier once she found out we were.”

“When was that?”

“A couple of weeks ago, I guess. She went to Marlo’s trailer, got in her face about it, told Marlo a bunch of crap about me, how I was just using her, and how she—I mean K.T. and me—how we were still making it. We weren’t. We did some publicity, some photo shoots where we were in character. That’s just part of the job, but we weren’t seeing each other. In fact, it got to the point were I could barely stand to do a scene with her.”

“Did that confrontation cause friction between you and Marlo?”

“No. Marlo didn’t buy in to K.T.’s bullshit.”

“But it upset you,” Eve pressed.

“Yeah. Okay. When Marlo told me, I got pissed. And okay, I got into K.T.’s face about it. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve listened to Marlo and just let it go, but I didn’t. I told K.T. to kiss it, and stay the hell out of my personal business. To stay away from Marlo off the set. She tried to play me, telling me how Julian and Marlo were screwing around. How I could ask him; he’d tell me.”

The temper showed now, in his face, his body, his voice. “I told her she was pathetic. And hell, it was like a flashback, with her screaming and crying and threatening to ruin my life, my career. All I did was make it worse.”

“Define worse.”

“Marlo and I got this loft. It belongs to a buddy of mine, outside the business. He’s away for a couple months, and we’re using it. We’ve been careful, using disguises to come and go, keeping it quiet.”

“Because of Harris?”

“No. Well, that, too. But the suits and the publicity machine really want to play up the Eve/Roarke/Marlo/Julian angle.” He managed a wan smile. “Just not as sexy if Eve and McNab are hooked up.”

“You’re putting me off, Matthew.”

Now his grin came quick, easy. “See? Marlo and I are team players. And the fact is, this project’s a big break for me. We decided to keep it private—for that, and because we wanted it to be. It’s easy to get caught up in that machine, then you’re hearing or reading about how you’re this or that, or she’s doing whatever. We just want a chance to see where this goes without the hype and the circus. I know a lot of people figure it’s just Hollywood, and actors hit up for shagfests instead of the real. But it feels real with Marlo. The first time I met her … I’ve never felt about anybody like this. We just want a chance. So we’ve been keeping it quiet for us, for the project.”

“K.T. found out about the loft.”

“I guess we got a little careless. I know it seems stupid, putting on a wig or dressing up just to go home—and it is. But at first it was fun, too. But I guess we slipped up somewhere. Coming to the end of the project, thinking we were nearly there. She must’ve followed me. It’s the only thing we could figure because she knew all about the loft. And she said …”

His color came up, and he lifted his drink, gulped some down. “She said she had pictures. That she’d made a vid of the two of us. In bed.”

“From inside the loft?”

“She said she found my swipe and code when she broke into my trailer. How she’d cloned it. And she hired this private investigator to set up a camera in the bedroom, over the closet. Maybe she was blowing smoke, maybe not. But she knew stuff about the loft, the colors, the setup. And when we checked out the security discs, there were a couple of blank areas on two separate days.”

“That must’ve been upsetting.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you could call it upsetting.” His hand fisted on the table, then relaxed, reached for his drink again. “I wanted to kick her ass, okay? I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but I wanted to hurt her. But I didn’t. You know what she said?”

“I’m all ears,” Eve told him.

“She said I had to dump Marlo—and make it a hard dump. And I had to pick up with her where we left off, only she’d be calling the shots. She wanted a big media announcement on how we’d fallen in love on the set. Who does that?” he demanded. “Who wants somebody who doesn’t want them?”

“And if you refused?”

“She was going to put the video on the ’Net. And she had guys lined up who’d talk about how Marlo had sex with them—all kinds of weird sex.”

The anger seemed to drain out of him, and he said, quietly, “I think she’d lost her mind. I swear to God, I think she’d just lost her f**king mind.”

“When did she give you the ultimatum?”

“God.” He scrubbed at his face. “The day she was killed. That morning. I said I didn’t believe her. She said I was making a fool of her, making her a joke, and nobody got away with that. She said she’d give me a preview that night, so I could see she had the goods.”