Charming Grace Read Free Page B

just turned forty-five and his hair’s falling out.”
    Noleene coughed or laughed. Hard to say which. “All that may be true. But he wants to meet you on your own terms, and then he thinks you’ll come around.”
    “The only way I’ll ‘come around’ is if he agrees to drop this project.”
    “Is it so bad to have a big movie star want to show the world how great your husband was?”
    “Yes. If people don’t own their memories, what do they have left?”
    Silence. When he didn’t answer, I shot a furtive glance at him. He frowned and kept his eyes on the mountains, but idly massaged the crude tattoo on his hand. “Some people would be happy to unload their memories,” he said.
    A pang of curiosity made me forget to clutch the shotgun. I let the barrel droop. A second later, he had my shotgun in his hands. The grab and snatch was so quick my fingertips tingled. I leapt to my feet, called him several lovely names, and ended with “Give it back,” which was pathetic.
    “You don’t know how sorry I am to have to do this.” He deftly snapped the shotgun open and reached for the shells. Only there were no shells. My face began to burn.
    “Hmmm,” he went. “Huntin’ movie stars with nothing but hot air. Might work. Who knows?”
    I spent a moment struggling to look defensive and appalled, then gave up. “My husband was killed by a man using a gun. Unless it was a matter of life and death, I would never point a loaded gun at another human being.” I paused. “Though Stone Senterra doesn’t qualify as human .”
    “Matter of opinion. No harm done.” Noleene held the gun out.
    I took it, sat back down, and faced forward, embarrassed. “Where is Sir Dumb-a-lot hiding? Tell him to come out.”
    Noleene raised a hand and signaled someone in the woods. The laurel thicket began to shake wildly. A tall, handsome, thick-necked bruiser plowed out of hiding and climbed up to the roadside. He had the well-preserved skin of a California tanning bed, a skull cap of receding brown hair clipped in a Caesar, and an aging, bodybuilder physique encapsulated in the kind of pin-striped suit that comes with its own fleet of Jaguars. The eager, Fred-Flintstone-Wilma-I’m-home expression on his face almost made me hesitate out of kindness. Almost .
    I stood, jammed the empty shotgun into my shoulder, and pointed it at Stone Senterra’s head. “You’re dead,” I called calmly. “You movie-making sonuvabitch.”
    Senterra threw up both hands and stepped back. An unlucky placement of one lustrous, reptile-skinned cowboy boot on some loose gravel sent him sprawling. He flailed his arms in a desperate effort to right the laws of physics, but it didn’t work.
    Stone Senterra went back into the laurel faster than he’d come out, feet in the air and ass first.
    I lowered the shotgun. Limbs rustled high in a fir tree across the road. A camo-suited man leaned out of the tree enough to wave at me. “Got it! Beautiful!” He peered at a nearby cluster of pines. “Ramone, did you get it, too?” The top branches of the pine rattled. The man named Ramone poked his head out, grinning. “ Si ! Perfect!” Both men waved at me.
    I nodded grimly then pivoted to meet the eyes of Stone Senterra’s betrayed bodyguard. Boone Noleene stood up slowly, staring at the thicket where his employer had disappeared into the mountain equivalent of quicksand. His only show of shock was a sardonic lift of dark, winged brows and an intense expression of disbelief, which he turned on me in a way that made heat rise in my face.
    “Photographers,” I explained. “From The National Enquirer . Mr. Noleene, you have your spies, but I have mine, too. I wasn’t sure what Stone was up to, today, so I set up a situation that would work to my advantage either way. If he’d driven up in a limo I’d have pulled the shotgun salute on him just the same, hoping he’d give the tabloid guys something to photograph. It worked like a charm. He’s just as stupid