The Chase and the Catch

Brilliant sunlight shot daggers of pain into John’s eyes and he fumbled for his sunglasses with one hand, blocking with the other, as if, somehow, a single leather-gloved hand would do any good against the assault. Snow had fallen the previous night, and everything gleamed with the lustre of freshly polished silver. The parking lot was a postcard-worthy image of pristine white surfaces surrounded by burdened evergreen branches and puff-capped fence posts—the kind of scene that a year prior would have found John dragging out his tablet, inspired into tapping words about flush-cheeked kiddies or curiously joyful rodents. Now the view just made him want to growl about delays and inconveniences. “Did you call ahead?” John adjusted his sunglasses, flipped up his collar, and thumbed at the dash of the car. “Yeah. No flight delays. Pop the trunk, will you?” When his sister didn’t react, John tilted his head and sighed. “What?” She didn’t hesitate, but then Jenna never did. With everyone in his life still treating him like he was going to explode into a million shards of anxiety every time he opened his mouth, Jenna could be counted on to speak when she felt like she needed to. And even the times when she just damn well wanted to. “You don’t have to do this.” “Actually, no, I really do.” He worked up a smile. “I mean, I could drive, but the weather’s kind of shitty and it would take me something like thirty-five hours.” “I don’t mean the flying and you know it.” Jenna snagged his jacket when John reached for the door handle. “You don’t have to run off and do this. The writing will come back to you when you’re ready. Since when does a person trade poetry and romance for scribbling down some guy’s autobiography?” John held up a finger. “Biography. My perspective. An autobiography would be—” “What the f**k ever. Don’t change the subject. Let’s just say that this does end up being a good thing for your career.” She caught his gaze when he looked up with another smile and pursed her lips. “It won’t be. But regardless. Why do you have to go down there? Why can’t you do it like a normal twenty-first century human being and use Skype? Or you know, the telephone? Why do you have to be a billion miles away from home? I can’t be the only one who thinks this isn’t the smartest idea you’ve ever come up with. You haven’t exactly been…” She tapped her temple. “Well.” John rolled his eyes and drew a snort of disgust through his nostrils in the extended, too loud way that he knew drove her crazy. Jenna’s grip tightened into a fist. “Seriously. I’ve done some research on this guy, John—” “Really?” John feigned absolute shock. “Me too! Weird…” “I’m just not sure you’ve thought this all the way through. The guy can be an asshole. Self-centered, pompous—” He disengaged Jenna’s fingers from his coat, placed her hand on the seat, and patted the back of it. “I’m sure his fans would disagree. As a matter of fact, most of them would have you drawn and quartered for even daring to think such a thing.” “I couldn’t give a single f**k about any of his fans.” Her fingertips began to play a beat on the vinyl seat. “I care about you. And you already feel bad enough without immersing yourself into the life of a narcissist—” John whistled through his teeth. “Harsh.” “Read the blogs.” John rolled his eyes and snapped the handle of the door. The onslaught of cold air was immediate. A good thing, John decided. It would get him out of the car that much faster if Jenna was shivering like a Chihuahua. “I’ve read the blogs. And I’ve read his Twitter and stalked his Tumblr and, and, and. He’s interesting. There’s a good story hidden behind that damn mask he’s been wearing for the last decade, and I want to be the one to dig it out.” “You write romance—” “No.” John drew himself out of the car and then turned back to lock up their eyes. “I write. Plain and simple. Now, please, pop the trunk. Because if I miss this flight due to the fact that you’re holding my luggage hostage, I swear to God that I will make you pay for the next one. First class, nonetheless.” He shut the door with a solid swing and walked to the back of the car to wait for the latch to release. The sound of the trunk popping was almost simultaneous with the clunk of the driver’s door opening. “You call every day,” Jenna said, rounding the car, the high heels of her boots managing to click soundly even through the layer of snow. “I mean every f*****g day.” John dragged two suitcases out of the car and nodded at the open trunk. “I will. Get that for me, please?” She ignored the trunk to worry her hands against one another. “And take your medication.” “I haven’t been on meds for weeks now.” It was somewhat of a lie, but John soothed himself with the thought that the statement was mostly true. He still took the sleeping pills, but the antidepressants were gone. Thank f**k. “By doctor’s orders or your own?” Jenna’s glare was colder than the wind. John leaned forward, kissed Jenna on the cheek, and turned towards the glass doors of the airport. “Be good, Jen. And get back in the car before you freeze to death. Mom would kill you if she saw you out here in that jacket.” “I can park,” Jenna called. “Come in and sit with you?” “No time.” He kicked the silver disc that would operate the automatic door. “Flight’s probably already boarding.” He slipped through the half-open door. “Drive safe.” “And what do I do if Sam calls?” John bit back the reaction to tell Jenna she could invent new ways to penetrate the man with large, unforgiving objects, and pass them on to Sam in graphic detail. Instead: “He won’t.” “But if he does?” “He won’t.” She was still standing beside the open trunk when he turned to walk away. She was worried. They all were: his agent, his parents, and his friends; her husband Mark, and probably both their terriers and their entire tank of fish. Not that he could blame them. It hadn’t been a good year. He’d always been able to use his writing to get him away from his problems, a retreat of sorts, where he could work things out in his head before having to deal with them. So, when the words had abandoned him, be it in retaliation for the pills he’d taken too frequently, or because his brain was too busy focusing on the images of horror that kept playing through it, John had thought he was going to lose his mind. Confusion had become depression. Panic escalated into obsessive-compulsive behaviour. He was no longer ‘that crazy writer.’ He was just f*****g crazy. “But this is writing,” John mumbled, staring at the flight board and trying to make his eyes focus on the words that would tell him where to go. “It’s still writing.” After all, what biography wasn’t spiced a bit here and there? Perspective was everything. And if Mr. Parker Chase—actor-extraordinaire, supposed-charmer, but potentially more-of-an-egotistical-d**k-than-his-agent-would-like-anyone-to-know—was willing to let John be the one to offer that perspective, then it didn’t matter that the story wasn’t fiction. Or romance. Or even working its way towards a happy ending. He could live with the compromise just to be at it again. For the time being, at least. * * * * “Can I give you some assistance?” John startled and turned his eyes away from the tray he’d been fighting and up into the aisle. A pretty attendant smiled patiently, her perfect white teeth all but glowing in the overhead lighting that John had attempted again and again, each time as unsuccessful as the previous one, to get to shine without glare on his laptop screen. “I can’t get the thingy to go back up,” he said, trying for apologetic and ending up far closer to the side of whiny. He cringed back in his chair when the attendant reached forward. “I mean, I can get it up. I just can’t get it to stay there.” A chuckled snort sounded from the row behind him and John frowned. He looked at the attendant, saw her smirk, and heard his own words in his head again. He closed his eyes and ran his palm over his face. “I mean the tray thing. I can’t get the tray to stay up.” “Yes, sir.” She pushed the tray in place and smiled. “That should do it then. If you could just fasten your seatbelt…” John shot her a one-finger gun with a sideways smile. “That one I can do.” He made an elaborate show of clicking the belt closed, grinned at her “Excellent,” and once again slumped back in his seat. Then, as an afterthought, he shoved his fist over the back of his chair and gave the snorter behind him the finger. If he was lucky, the man wouldn’t be a line-backer with a talent for martial arts; if he wasn’t, oh well. His pride deserved the retribution. * * * * You said there’d be a car? John pressed send on the text and looked around the airport for something he might have missed the first thirty times he’d looked. He’d gained three hours on the flight, a concept that registered on his phone and his laptop just fine, but that didn’t do a damn thing for his body. Five hours in a plane was still five hours in a plane, and though the sun was just starting to think about setting, in John’s head it was nine P.M. Most days, by that time, he’d already be dropping Zolpidem on his tongue and washing it down with half a glass of Merlot. John’s phone buzzed and he lowered his eyes to the screen. Thats what email said. Is there an info desk you can check with? The tsk that John answered his agent’s text with was loud enough to make three other people in the airport turn to look at him. Nancy was good, for the most part. But her abilities could be attributed to her people skills, and her ease of convincing people that she was telling the truth and could be trusted. Her British charm, Nancy would always say. When it came to life outside of her bubble, however, most times Nancy didn’t have a clue. Where do you think I am? Hamilton?! This is LA ffs. And it’s an airport not a travel agency. They don’t know s**t about my ride. He could visualize the expression that Nancy wore on her face when he received her reply: Dont be rude John. Give me a sec. Ill call. Rude, John thought, snarling at his phone, would be calling Nancy up and going off on a tirade about “how dare they this” and “how dare they that” and “did they know who”; it was not using the word “s**t” or a risqué acronym in a text message. But no matter how appealing the concept of ranting his importance to someone would be at that moment, he wasn’t that kind of guy. Nor would he ever pull that crap on Nancy even if he was. It would be like yelling at his grandmother. Just give me the address, John typed. I’ll get a cab. If he thought for even a moment that he could figure out the spider web that was driving in Los Angeles, he’d rent a car. But the map of the parking lot was frightening enough to effectively quash that idea before it started to grow. Besides, he’d only barely started driving again, and every once in a while, he still had to pull over and breathe through the shakes. And that was on good old-fashioned, straight Canadian highways with two-way traffic and nice long merging lanes. While he waited for Nancy’s reply, John wandered back and forth in front of the doors that ran between the terminal and the parking area, praying in silence that he wasn’t drawing the attention of airport security. When he’d first arrived, the lane had been crawling with vehicles, but most of the people had come and gone. It’s not like he would have missed a vehicle waiting for him, even if the driver was enough of a dumbass to have not brought a sign. The only explanation was that someone, somewhere, had mixed up the terminals, and that was simply ridiculous as the airline he was travelling with only flew into one of them. He glanced down at his silent phone, blew a long breath of annoyance, and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Food would be good. Coffee would be fantastic. Alcohol would be even better. Did he dare wander? When his phone finally buzzed again, John’s relief was all encompassing. He lit the screen, opened the envelope, and frowned. I’m not sure if I find your impatience flattering or annoying. John’s stomach fluttered. He swallowed. He didn’t recognize the number, but it only made sense that it had to be Parker. It could have been one of the man’s dignitaries, but surely they wouldn’t have phrased a reply to sound so condescending. John’s fingers flew over the tiny keyboard. Who is this? The phone pinged at the same time a black Lincoln pulled out in front of the doors and stopped. Remember how we’re all told as children that there’s no such thing as a stupid question? That was a lie. I hope you’re smarter in person. With more force than required, John thumbed the display button of his phone and turned off the screen. Really? Really? He rubbed his palm over his lips and chin, craned his neck to the right, then to the left, and resisted the urge to take out his sudden spike of anger on the phone. Trying to replace it while being stuck in another country would be difficult. It would be costly, at the very least. Definitely not worth the moment of satisfaction. The driver of the Lincoln flipped over a white placard and stared at John through the glass doors with bored professionalism. Yep. It was his driver all right. ‘Liege’ in tall gold scroll shone off the sign. And wasn’t that the image of overdone, John thought. Marker on paper would have worked just as well. Especially for someone as stupid as he apparently was. He stared at the blacked-out windows of the vehicle and narrowed his eyes. God help the man if Parker waited in the car. * * * * John did everything in his power to hide his reaction to the house. He’d anticipated big. He thought he’d been prepared for the wealth. But seeing it close up was more overwhelming than expected. Stairs on both sides of the circled flagstone driveway led up to the front entrance of a massive grey brick villa-styled home that John estimated somewhere around thirty-thousand square feet, if the building wasn’t deeper than it looked. Six pillars graced the tiled front porch, holding up a balcony that jutted out from the second level. The balcony was protected by a traditional poured concrete railing, a feature that also ran the entire length of the roofline over the third level. Tall arched windows reflected fading sunlight, long decorative grasses swayed with evening breezes, and the setting was so quiet, it felt oppressive. He waved away the driver when the man went to pull his luggage out of the trunk, just as he’d waved the man away at the airport. “I’m no celebrity,” John had said. “I’m just here to do a job like everybody else.” Besides, he could move two suitcases. The damn things came with wheels, after all. The driver didn’t follow John up the stairs to the double doors of the entrance but spoke softly into the Bluetooth propped over one ear. When the latch of the door jangled, John’s heart skittered into an anxious fret. He forced a swallow down a dry throat as the wood popped away from the frame. Gone was the anger over the snarky text. The apprehension over the possibility that Parker Chase was a pompous ass had flitted off into the atmosphere to frolic with John’s missing confidence. In an instant he was no longer the published author about to start a job for a prolific peer, he was an anxious fan boy about to come face-to-face with an idol. He looked up from the slowly appearing marble flooring and into the watery, judging eyes of a man who was somewhere between sixty and nine-hundred years old. The man wore a knee-length white apron, tied over a crisp, blue, fully buttoned dress shirt and black pants. Highly polished shoes, as black as the man’s no-way-is-that-colour-still-his-natural-hue hair, finished the outfit. “Mr. Liege, I presume?” The man’s voice was apathetic, but professional. John nodded while he mused possibilities—Butler? Servant? Father? Resident vampire?—and let go of one suitcase to stick out his right hand. “I sure am. Pleasure to meet you…” “Indeed.” The man looked down at the suitcase John had dropped. “Will you need assistance with that?” John let his hand fall to his side. Butler then. At least, John decided, that’s what he was going to think of the man as. “I won’t.” Fabric shuffled as the butler turned away, speaking over his shoulder, “Follow me, please. I’ll show you to the guest room. Mr. Chase has held dinner until your arrival, so it would be most appreciated if you could tend to yourself and meet me back down here in the foyer at your earliest convenience.” He stopped, waited for John to take the hint and reacquire the suitcase, and then continued. “We were not advised of any dietary restrictions, so we took none into account. I trust that will be acceptable.” The words were statements, not questions, but John nodded anyway, his eyes travelling over the foyer in mute fascination. Two spindled staircases flanked each side of the entrance, leading to first the second, then a third level, with tangles of twisted scrolls and forged leaves. At the end of each staircase, dangling ivy plants hung in the corners, long enough that their farthest-reaching ends brushed the floor. Planters had been placed on various steps, each one offset on the opposing staircase by an exact replica of itself, and the greenery mixed with the marble gave the space an almost Romanesque feel. Above it all, set into the ceiling, was a stained-glass skylight of varying shades of blues and greens. John had no doubt that when the sun was high, the entire room would seem as if it were under water. They didn’t take the stairs, walking instead between both sets, towards the back of the house. “This is a beautiful home,” John said. “Have you worked here for long?” “That would depend on your definition of the word long.” The butler directed John to the right, and past a series of floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the backyard. “If you walk the opposite length of this hallway, past the sitting room, and to the far left, you will locate the library. It has been requested that any work you wish to do outside of the guest room should be done there. Otherwise…” The butler stopped, levered a handle on a door and then nodded inside, “this is where you will spend the majority of your time.” “I see.” John eyed the man as he walked past and into the room. “You’re not going to be locking the door from the outside or anything, right? Or sneaking in to leave stacks of paper on a side table whilst I sleep?” He set his suitcases on the bed, silently gleeful over the way they sank into the lush surface, then turned back to the butler and grinned. “Should I be keeping a close eye on my knees?” The man didn’t crack a smile. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand Canadian humour.” John lifted an eyebrow. “And I can’t understand if you mean that as a joke or not.” “Very good, sir.” The butler nodded. “If there’s nothing else then, I’ll see to dinner and watch for your return.” “There is.” John sat down on the side of the bed, shifting his weight to bounce the mattress a few times. He widened his smile when the man sighed. “I’ll need your name, please. As you already have mine. And I’d like you to call me John, not sir. In typical Canuck fashion, I’ve even phrased that to make it seem as though it’s a request instead of the demand that I mean it as.” The silence that settled over the room was even heavier than the stillness John had felt in the front yard. Odd, somehow. John had imagined wild parties and lots of music. Cocaine and champagne. Parker Chase was the actor who’d brought hard-core sexuality into mainstream Hollywood. So where were all the long-legged models and the strung-out musicians? Sure, he’d read that Parker was somewhat reclusive, but he’d assumed that had more to do with what Parker was trying to hide from public eyes—farm animal fetishes or some damn thing. On the contrary, the house seemed painfully quiet. Lonely, even. “Come on,” John prompted. “Don’t make me call you Jeeves.” The butler surprised John by using his elbow to nudge the door shut. The moment it latched, the butler locked their gazes and lifted his chin. “I don’t agree with this.” He held up his hand, stopping John’s comment when John attempted to reply. “It’s not you. Or your writing, or what you do, or any of the self-deprecating ideas that tend to come to a discriminating mind when it is disagreed with. My reasons are my reasons because of what I know and how I know them, and they are no concern of yours. What is your concern, is that you should not be here. Not now, not ever. Not you. Do yourself a favour, Mr. Liege, and go home. Forget about this project. Forget about Parker Chase altogether.” John leaned forward, frowning. “I don’t understand…” “I don’t expect you to.” The man clasped his hands in front of him and took a deep breath. “I also have no doubt you’ll completely disregard what I’ve just told you. That you’ll think I’m crazy. Because you have something to prove, or something to work through, or whatever it is that made you the perfect pawn in the first place. But I beg you to ask yourself something. There are a million authors out there. Have you stopped and asked yourself why it was you that Mr. Chase chose? What a romance writer could possibly have to offer a man who scoffs at the concepts of fidelity and monogamy? Mark my words, Mr. Liege—you are here for his amusement, not for either of your careers.” The butler grasped the handle of the door, turned his back, and as he was drawing the door open, something in John’s guts finally woke back up. “Hey.” John stood. “Wait.” The only thing John got for his effort was a sideways glance over a shoulder. John gritted his teeth. He stepped forward quickly. “Please. Wait.” “I have dinner to finish, Mr. Liege. Please make yourself comfortable and then come back to the—” John caught the butler’s wrist and tugged the man back around to face him. “Damn it, Jeeves, wait!” He expected retribution for the hold; he didn’t expect the quirk of a smile on the man’s face. “Are you really going to call me that, then?” “Only if I don’t tell me your name.” John let go and patted the butler’s sleeve flat. “And thank you. For your words. I don’t know what’s behind them, but I have no doubt that you have your reasons for needing to speak them. I appreciate your candour and your respect. I also love the fact that you have balls the size of cantaloupes to not only dare say it here, right in the man’s own house, but to someone that’s going to spend a great deal of time talking to him in private. That takes a lot of guts.” “I am not afraid of Parker Chase, Mr. Liege.” John twisted his lips and frowned. “Oh?” “No. I have nothing to lose, you see. I don’t even make his radar.” The man nodded and began to walk again. “And the name is Anson. William Anson.” The grin found John’s face before speech found his tongue, so William was halfway down the hall before John replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, William.” William waved over his shoulder. “You too, John.”