Shadows At Sunset

And it never would be if Jilly had anything to say about it. It was one of the few things temporarily beyond her father’s greedy reach. Jackson Dean Meyer and his mother had had a falling out, and while Julia Meyer hadn’t been able to deed La Casa de Sombras to her three grandchildren outright, she’d still managed to keep Jackson away from it. It belonged to the three of them, Jilly, Dean and Rachel-Ann, for as long as even one of them wanted to live there. The moment the last one moved out it would revert to Jackson, and he’d have it torn down.

He’d been trying to get them out for years. Threats, bribery, anger had made Dean and Rachel-Ann waver. But Jilly was made of sterner stuff than that, and she’d kept the others firm.

Coltrane punched in a row of numbers on the security keypad by the door, too fast for Jilly to read them, then pushed the door open, holding it for her. She walked past him, too close again, and gave him her cool, dismissive smile. “Thanks for your help, but I can take it from here.”

“The elevator won’t come without the security code,” he said. “We’re on the thirty-first floor, it’s a hell of a long walk down, and when you get to the basement you’ll find the door is locked and you’ll just have to climb back up again. Besides, there’s the little problem of the parking garage.”

“I’ve got my cell phone—I can call a taxi.”

“You’ll still have to come back here for your car sooner or later. Unless you want to just go buy a new one with Daddy’s money.”

His easygoing contempt startled her, and she glared at him. “I’m surprised you don’t know that I don’t live off my daddy’s money, as you so sweetly put it. Maybe you’re not as involved in his affairs as Dean thought.”

Coltrane simply smiled. “It’s your choice, Jilly. You want to spend the night wandering up and down thirty-one flights of stairs, or do you want my help?”

Being trapped in a stairwell seemed vastly superior to being stuck with Coltrane in one of the bronze, art deco elevators Jackson had brought to the Meyer Building, but she wasn’t about to say so.

“Call the elevator,” she said, resigned. She was back in the tumbrel again, heading toward Madame La Guillotine.

He punched another rapid set of numbers on the keypad, and the doors opened immediately. She had no idea why the elevator would already be on their floor, but she wasn’t about to ask. It was going to be hard enough to step into that bronze cage with her brother’s nemesis.

She didn’t like heights, she didn’t like enclosed spaces, and she certainly didn’t like men like Coltrane. Tall, gorgeous, self-assured men who knew just how intimidating they could be. It was a subtle, sexual intimidation, the worst sort, and Jilly was usually invulnerable to that sort of thing. But for some reason she still didn’t want to get in the enclosed cage with him.

She had no choice. He waited, watching her, and she could no longer see the expression in his eyes. She walked into the elevator, hearing the jeering crowds of the angry peasants. He followed her in, and the doors slid shut with a subtle hiss, as Jilly steeled herself to ride to her doom.

2

Jackson Meyer’s daughter was scared shitless of him. It was a fascinating realization, and Coltrane wished he knew a way to slow the rapid descent of the elevator, to stall it completely, anything to keep her with him for just a little bit longer.

He’d watched her while she slept, absolutely astonished at how far off the mark he’d been about her. He’d let his opinion of Dean influence his expectations about Meyer’s other children; that, and stories he’d heard about Rachel-Ann’s voracious appetite for drugs and sex. He’d assumed Jilly Meyer would be cut from the same self-indulgent, self-destructive cloth. He hadn’t met Rachel-Ann yet but Jilly was as different from Dean Meyer as he could have possibly imagined.

In a land of California blondes she was dark, with an unfashionable mane of thick brown hair, a big, strong body and endless legs. She was no delicate flower—she had a physical presence that was both aggressive and arousing, even as she tried to make herself disappear into the corner of the elevator. He wondered if she was scared of heights or of him.

He wouldn’t have thought she’d have the sense to be frightened of him. He’d done his absolute best to present himself as a laid-back and easygoing, slightly unscrupulous Southern Californian. No one had the faintest idea how dangerous he really could be.

Except for Jilly Meyer, who looked like she wanted the floor of the elevator to swallow her up. Her linen was rumpled, her hair was tangled, and she looked sleepy, wary and hostile. It really was an irresistible combination.

He allowed himself the brief, graphic fantasy of slamming his hand against the emergency stop button, shoving her against the elevator wall and pulling up that too short skirt of hers. Those long, strong legs would wrap around his hips quite nicely, he could brace her against the wall while he fucked her, and she’d stop looking at him like she wondered whether he was a scorpion who’d wandered in from the desert. By then she’d know that was exactly what he was.

The doors slid open on the basement level with an audible sigh, and Coltrane’s fantasy vanished, unfulfilled. He punched in the garage code and the door buzzed. He pushed it open, and she walked through, brushing past him, and he wondered if she was going to take off in a run. He might enjoy stopping her.

But she was too well-bred for that. She held out her slim, strong hand to him. Silver rings, he noticed. Elegant and plain. And he took it, touching her for the first time.

His hand swallowed hers, and he used just enough pressure so that she couldn’t keep ignoring him. She glanced up at him through her thick lashes. “I’m not biologically equipped for a pissing contest, Mr. Coltrane,” she murmured.

He released her hand. “Where are we going for dinner?”

“I have no idea where you’re going. I’m going home.”

“Can you cook?”

“Not for you.”

He was baiting her deliberately, to annoy her. He still wasn’t quite sure why he wanted to—she was easy to get to. Far easier to get on her nerves than to seduce her.

Or maybe not. He intended to find out.

There was only a handful of cars in the deserted garage. He wondered whether she owned the red BMW convertible or the Mercedes. And then he saw the classic Corvette—1966, he guessed, lovingly restored, a piece of art as close to an antique as Los Angeles could boast.

He didn’t make the mistake of touching her again, he simply starting walking toward the car, knowing she was going in that direction. “Nice Corvette,” he said.

She cast a wary glance up at him. “What makes you think it’s mine?”

“It suits you. Are you going to let me drive it?”

He might just as well have suggested they act out his elevator fantasy. “Absolutely not!”

“She’d be safe with me. I know how to drive—I’ve had a lot of experience. I’m good with a stick shift. I’d take it slow, I wouldn’t strip her gears.”

Her expression was priceless. “Mr. Coltrane, if you drove her with the same deftness that you’re using in coming on to me then she’d stall out before you could even put her into gear,” she said. “You’re not driving my car or me. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” he drawled. A week, he figured. A week before she’d lie down for him, two weeks for the car. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a ride home.”

“Where’s your car?”

“In the shop. I was supposed to take one of the company cars but I got distracted up there and forgot to get the keys.”

“You can go back up and get them.”

He shook his head. “The door has a time lock. Once the last person leaves no one can get in until morning.”

“What the hell does my father keep up there, the Fort Knox gold?” she said irritably.

“Just private files. Your father’s involved in some highly complex, sensitive business arrangements. It wouldn’t do for just anyone to walk in and have access to them.”

“Just anyone like his daughter? Who’s obviously far too simpleminded to understand the great big complexity of his sensitive business affairs,” she mocked him.

He ignored that. “I live near Brentwood. It’s not that far out of your way.”

“How do you know where I’m going?”

“You said you were going home. You live in that old mausoleum on Sunset with your brother and sister. I’m right on your way.”

“Call a taxi.”

“My cell phone’s dead.”

“Use mine.” She was rummaging in her purse now, obviously determined to get rid of him. A moment later she pulled out a phone, holding it out to him.

“Why do I make you so uncomfortable?” he said, making no effort to take it.

“You don’t,” she said. “I have a date.”

Two lies, he thought, and she wasn’t very good at lying. Unlike the rest of her family. Dean Meyer seemed almost oblivious to the truth, whereas his father used it as he saw fit, mostly to manipulate people.

But Jilly Meyer couldn’t lie with a straight face, and that was oddly, stupidly endearing. Coltrane wasn’t about to let that weaken his resolve.

“Then you’ll probably want to go home and change before your big night out, and my apartment’s on your way,” he said in his most reasonable voice.

“Get in the damned car.” She shoved her phone back into her purse and headed around toward the driver’s side. He wondered whether she’d chicken out, try to drive off without unlocking the passenger door to let him in. She wouldn’t get far—the garage doors wouldn’t open without the right code.

But she slid behind the wheel, leaned over and unlocked the door, pulling back when he climbed in beside her. The Corvette was beautifully restored, perfectly maintained, and he had a sudden moment of sheer acquisitiveness. He wanted this car.

He didn’t want a car exactly like this. He could afford to buy what he wanted on the exorbitant salary Jackson Meyer was currently paying him, and in L.A. you could find anything for a price. He didn’t want a 1966 Corvette. He wanted the one that belonged to Jilly Meyer.

She was strapping the metal-buckled seat belt across her lap, and she threw him a pointed look, but he made no effort to find his. “I like to live dangerously,” he said. Her short skirt had hiked up even higher in the low-slung cockpit of the car, but he’d decided the time for ogling was past. She’d gotten the initial message, he could back off now. At least for the time being.

He didn’t even waste a glance at his Range Rover. Sooner or later she’d see it, but he didn’t know whether she’d figure out it was his. Probably not—he was doing far too good a job at rattling her. She wouldn’t notice any details.

She drove like a bat out of hell, another surprise, though he expected the squealing tires and tight corners were a protest against his unwanted presence. The moment the garage doors opened she was off like Mario Andretti, racing into the busy streets of L.A. with a complete disregard for life and limb. He gripped the soft leather seat beneath him surreptitiously, keeping a bland expression on his face.

She knew how to drive the ’Vette, he had to grant her that. She wove in and out of traffic, zip-ping around corners, accelerating when he least expected it, avoiding fender benders and pedestrians and cops with equal élan. It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching for the steering wheel, from voicing a feeble protest. She was out to scare him with her driving, and she was doing a good job of it.

She’d grown up in L.A., learned to drive on the freeways and the boulevards; she knew what she was doing. She was getting back at him for intimidating her.

She didn’t even waste her time glancing at him during her wild ride through the city streets. She didn’t need to. She was focused, concentrating on her driving with an almost gleeful energy, and he simply gripped the seat tighter and said nothing, wishing to hell he’d put on the seat belt.

She pulled up in front of his apartment building with a screech of tires, going from fifty to zero in a matter of seconds, and he had no choice but to put his hand on the dashboard to stop his certain journey through the windshield. She turned and gave him a demure smile, all sweet innocence, the triumph gleaming in her brown eyes. “You’re home.”

He kept his expression bland. “If that was supposed to scare me you’ve made your first mistake. I like living dangerously.”

“Hardly my first mistake,” she muttered. “You’re home,” she said again, pointedly. “Goodbye.”

“And what about your brother?”

“What about him?” she said warily.

“Don’t you want to know what your father has planned for him? Isn’t that why you came to see him?”

“What does my father have planned for him?”

“Tomorrow night. Dinner. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“I’m busy.”

“Cancel it. You know perfectly well your brother comes first. You have that codependent look to you.” He was pushing just a little too far, but he sensed she could take it. He needed to keep her angry, interested, willing to fight.

“I’ll meet you.”

“And miss my chance to see the legendary La Casa de Sombras? I’ll pick you up.”

“If you’re interested in famous Hollywood houses you can always take one of those bus tours. La Casa de Sombras used to be on most of them.”

“Including the one that takes you to all the famous scandal sites? I think I’d rather see it with a guided tour from its owner.”

“Dean’s one of the owners. Treat him well and maybe he’ll invite you over.”

“I’m not exactly Dean’s type,” he said.

“You’re not mine, either.”

“And what is your type? I wouldn’t have thought Alan Dunbar would have been the kind of man you’d marry.”

She’d obviously forgotten he’d have access to all of Meyer’s legal affairs, including her divorce settlement. “I think I’ve had enough of you for now,” she said in a deceptively even tone.

“For now,” he agreed, opening the door and sliding his long legs out. “I’ll be there at seven.”

She gunned the motor, speeding away into the oncoming traffic without looking, the passenger door slamming shut of its own volition. He stood beneath the towering palm tree, watching her go.

Unable to decide whether it was the car or the woman he wanted more. And which one he intended to keep.

He shrugged. Probably neither. After almost a year things were finally moving into high gear, and he was more than ready. Breaking Jilly Meyer’s stubborn, defensive attitude would simply be the icing on the cake.

He’d been planning on working through Rachel-Ann, seducing her first while he worked on bringing down the rest of the Meyer family. She was the most notoriously vulnerable, but in the time he’d been in L.A. she’d been noticeably absent, honeymooning with husband number three, going through a quickie divorce, disappearing on retreats and binges and detox outings. He’d never even seen her from a distance. At thirty-three she was still beautiful, they told him, and she’d be easy prey.

But maybe he wanted the challenge of Jilly. The indefinable treat of Jilly Meyer, the family outcast. Or maybe she’d just be a delicious side dish on the banquet table of truth and revenge.

But first he needed to get close to them. To Meyer’s three disparate children. He glanced up at the expensive, upscale apartment building where he’d lived for the past year, surrounded by upscale wheelers and dealers as soulless as he was.

Maybe it was time for a touch of arson.

It was all Jilly could do to make it through the five-minute drive to La Casa. She sped up the long, overgrown driveway, gravel spurting beneath her tires, and slammed to a stop inside one of the bays of the seven-car garage. Her hands were shaking when she turned off the motor, and she sat there, seat belt still fastened, her eyes closed as she tried to will the tension from her body.

She’d screwed things up royally. It was all fine and good to arm herself for a confrontation with the old man, but she’d let the gorgon slough her off, then reenacted some damned fairy tale by falling asleep, letting her father escape scot-free. She should have known—she’d been awake half the night before, worrying about Dean and how she’d deal with her father. She never did well without enough sleep.

And she’d let that goddamned man rile her. He was everything Dean said he was—smooth, gorgeous, so damned sure of himself she wanted to smack him. And Coltrane was dead wrong—part of the problem was that he was exactly Dean’s type. Unfortunately he didn’t seem to share Dean’s sexual orientation, which would have made things a lot easier. Then he wouldn’t have been coming on to her like she was Julia Roberts. He’d already be involved in a bitch-fest with Dean, and she could have just stayed out of the entire mess.

She leaned forward, resting her head on the leather-covered steering wheel. She didn’t want to deal with this. She was so tired of taking care of everyone, taking care of this house that was falling down around her. The house that she loved with complete abandon.

It was late. Everything was still and silent around the legendary La Casa de Sombras—even the supposed ghosts were quiet. Dean was either off somewhere or lost in the glow of his computer screen, and God only knew what Rachel-Ann might be doing. She’d been back from treatment for three months, and it was usually around that benchmark she began to slip. She’d been out almost every night, coming back early and sober and silent. If she was home tonight there was a good chance she’d want someone to pick on, and Dean had a talent for making himself unavailable.

Jilly climbed out of the car, suppressing a sigh. She could handle this. She was the one who was mercifully free of addictions and needs and runaway emotions. She was strong, a survivor, and she could hold the others together when they needed holding.

She yanked down the heavy wooden door on the garage bay, wondering why she bothered when the locks were too rusted to work and the keys were long gone. If the house itself hadn’t kept demanding so much money she would have invested in an automatic garage door opener. Dean had two cars, neither of which ran terribly well, and Rachel-Ann had her BMW, not to mention the rusting hulk of the Dusenberg that had once belonged to Brenda de Lorillard’s doomed lover, and the cost of equipping the entire building with automatic openers was prohibitive, especially considering that the wood framing was in a state of rot.

Jilly started up the gravel pathway to the house, letting the blessed stillness wash over her. There was something to be said for lack of money. The estate was so overgrown that the palm trees provided soundproofing from the city that surrounded them, making it an oasis of peace and safety—a perfect sanctuary. At least, until Rachel-Ann went off the wagon.

There were only a few lights burning in the house as Jilly climbed up the wide, flagstoned terrace, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d have the place to herself, at least for a few hours. That was all she needed, a little time to think through what had happened, to devise a new plan to help Dean.

In the meantime she was starving. She headed straight back to the huge old kitchen. She sat down at the twelve-foot-long wooden table and ate two containers of yogurt with a silver serrated grapefruit spoon from Tiffany’s, then followed it with a peanut butter sandwich on a cracked Limoges dessert plate. She’d have to go food shopping tomorrow—there wasn’t much left. Rachel-Ann seemed to subsist on sweets when she was clean and sober, and Dean was always on some strange diet or other. Which didn’t keep the two of them from suddenly emptying the refrigerator and cupboards of anything remotely interesting when the mood struck them.

Jilly set her plate in the old iron sink, then headed toward the back of the house where her brother kept his separate apartments.

She knocked, but there was no answer. Pushing the door open, she was, as always, assaulted by the room. Dean had claimed the servants’ wing because it was relatively unadorned with the Mediterranean kitsch that flowed through the rest of the house. He’d had the walls knocked down, everything painted white and then buffed into a glaring, glossy sheen. The furniture was sparse and modern, and Dean lay facedown on the bed. The only light in the room came from the computer monitors—Dean always had at least two going at a time.

She moved quietly to his side, looking down at him tenderly. Dean had his air-conditioning unit on high, but she didn’t make the mistake of turning it down, nor would she be fool enough to touch the computers. She simply covered him with a blanket, wishing things were different, even if she wasn’t quite sure what she’d change.

She left him in his sterile, frozen cocoon, moving back into the dark, decaying warmth of La Casa de Sombras. The House of Shadows. Except that it sometimes seemed as if Dean’s stark, white room held the most shadows of all.

3

Zachariah Redemption Coltrane was a child of the sixties, born in the middle of that turbulent decade. His name had been an albatross around his neck until he was thirteen, and yet it had been the least of the various crosses he’d had to bear. At age thirteen and a half he’d been almost six feet tall, everyone he cared about was dead, and he’d taken off into the world he’d already learned was cruel and hostile, changing his name to Zack. That is, when he bothered to use his real name at all.

Odd, how some family histories were straightforward and others seemed like the stuff of legends. From his great-aunt Esther’s bitter-toned stories to his father’s whiskey-soaked reminiscences, he could never tell what was truth and what was fantasy. How his mother had died, or what her real name was. He only knew her as Ananda, and his memories were of light and laughter and the sweet, acrid scent of marijuana floating in the air. They’d lived in a castle, he thought, and there had been dragons and danger and his mother was a lost princess.

But that was before she’d been murdered.

He couldn’t really remember a time when he hadn’t lived in that dreary little house in Indiana with his drunken, defeated father and his tart-tongued great-aunt. Couldn’t really remember the magical place, or the princess who’d been his laughing mother. And no one would ever tell him about her.

Great-Aunt Esther had died first, eaten up by cancer. His father had followed, breaking his neck in a drunken fall. And Coltrane had taken off before Social Services could get their hands on his rebellious, thirteen-year-old hide, bumming his way around the country as he grew into manhood.

He’d ended up with an education despite himself, more a fluke than a plan. Lawyers made money, lawyers manipulated the system, lawyers were the scum of the earth. It seemed a perfect career for him, once he got tired of living life on the edge.

He’d been in New Orleans, working as an assistant district attorney prosecuting the lowest of the low and doing a piss poor job of it, with no knowledge of his real past and no interest. He’d put it behind him, including the vague memories of his long-lost mother. He didn’t know what prompted him to pick up the magazine the first place—he had no interest in Southern California or haunted mansions or the excesses of the young and beautiful.

But for some reason he’d picked up L.A. Life, thumbing through the pictorial on scandal sites of the century, and he’d stopped at an old, grainy newspaper photo, staring at his mother’s face. Back in the 1960s, a ragtag band of Hollywood street people had been arrested for trespassing on the deserted grounds of La Casa de Sombras, and his mother had been one of them. He couldn’t tell if his father was in the photo or remember if he’d ever been in L.A.—it was his mother who’d stood out, young and luminous even in black and white.

No one had bothered to prosecute and the interlopers had simply gone back to make their home in the ruined mansion in true sixties communal brotherhood, thereby hastening the decline of the historic property and sending the wealthy neighbors into apoplexy. And the Ivy League dropout, whose family owned La Casa, joined them.