Long, Lean, and Lethal Read online

  Long, Lean, and Lethal

  Heather Graham

  To Lance Taubold and Rich Devin, for all the extraordinary things you do,

  and for being

  the extraordinary friends you are.

  My love and thanks, always.

  To Greg Marx for all the help and the great times—thanks to you, too.

  And finally, to the inimitable Janet Leigh—a tremendous actress, talented author, and an incredibly gracious lady.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  A Biography of Heather Graham

  Prologue

  THE SHOWER SCENE …

  The shower scene, oh, yes, it had been on his mind forever!

  He loved films of all kinds, but most of all, he loved suspense—when the slightest look could signal fear, aggression …

  Or terror.

  He was a student par excellence of the genre. He knew the names of all the actors, the directors. He especially loved the “master,” the one man he considered to be the best of all time: Alfred Hitchcock.

  He knew how the shower scene should be done. He had learned by studying the master. Angle by angle. Each movement of the camera. He had been so close to seeing it done right again … so close. There were so many times when he had known just how a similar scene should go.

  Close … never quite there.

  The original shower scene, as known by the movie-going public, had been made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic triumph in the celluloid murder of beautiful, young—not entirely innocent—Janet Leigh. Yes—as known to any who studied the art—it had been in the master’s classic movie Psycho, a film now part of popular culture, taught in every film school, shown in every history about Hollywood, further exhibited in theme parks on both coasts.

  Ah, yes … the shower scene. His favorite of all time.

  Such genius.

  Filmed in black and white, the classic scene had elicited a gripping terror unlike any awakened before. Taking a shower had never been the same. Following the original release of the movie, hundreds of thousands of women who lived alone or traveled on their own had been driven to taking cautious sponge baths—with the doors to their bedrooms open, their eyes peeled on the point of entry.

  She stood in the shower. Just like Janet Leigh in the movie, she was a vulnerable beauty. She was tall, lithe, supple, both sensually lean and curved. Her hair was darkened by the water to a dark blond, wet and clean, it gleamed down her back. Eyes closed, she tilted her face to the spray of the water, and with her head thrown back, the length of her hair waved just over the curve of her buttocks.

  The water pelted her, washing away all dirt, all guilt.

  The shower curtain was nearly transparent. It enhanced each movement she made. To the beauty bathing, there was no sense of imminent danger. Just the feel of a cool shower on a hot day, a delicious feel, the simple goodness of being clean.

  The killer moved closer.

  The audience would know. An audience would want to shout out. Warn her.

  If there was an audience.

  Naturally, the killer wielded a knife. A knife was necessary for a shower scene. Death was not so simple, so sudden, so clean, with a knife. It glittered, even in shadow, catching what light could be found. It drew the eye, caused the heart to stop. It gave so much pain … and yet also a hint of hope. If one could escape the blade … if the knife struck the wrong places …

  Then there was the sound of a knife. Yes, the sound itself was enough to create a sense of gnawing nails-on-a-chalkboard terror.

  There she was, so beautiful behind the transparent curtain. Head tilted, form perfect, lush. Like the Janet Leigh character, she wasn’t at all an innocent. But an audience would care about her. Because she was just so vulnerable.

  “Now!”

  Was the whisper real? A director’s softly spoken command. Did it hover on the air? All that could be heard was the pelting of the water. A good director knew exactly when the moment came to strike, when the knowing and the anticipation had been drawn out just long enough …

  Did she know yet? Did she sense the coming danger?

  The stalker moved in silence against that pounding spray of water.

  Closer, closer … approaching the shower, the transparent curtain. The curtain that gave away so much of the beauty and vulnerability of the victim …

  Then suddenly, forcefully, the curtain was wrenched back.

  Water, dripping down her body. Sleek, sensual.

  The victim …

  At last … knowing.

  She screamed as her eyes flew open and she spun toward the intruder. They were huge eyes, wide, the color deep and lustrous. They were purely beautiful, glorious, stunned, disbelieving, shocked.

  Terrified!

  Oh, yes, terrified!

  She knew, of course.

  Now she knew.

  Because she was aware of the shower scene. She knew, she had seen, and of course, anticipation was half of fear.

  Anticipation …

  And she saw …

  The knife …

  She screamed again. What could she do against the horror of the knife? The wicked blade, long and gleaming, held high over her head …

  She screamed again, and again, and again.

  After all …

  It was the ultimate shower scene.

  Chapter 1

  THE TAP ON JENNIFER’S door in the morning usually meant the arrival of a script.

  Except that it was Friday, and scripts didn’t usually arrive on Friday—unless it was a rewrite for the scenes they were doing today. Certainly they’d had more rewrites lately than seemed humanly possible.

  She opened the door to her dressing room. A thin white envelope lay there, with nothing but her name on it. She looked down the hall, but it was empty. In fact, the entire fifth floor of the building seemed to be empty at the moment. She felt a chill.

  That was ridiculous, she told herself. Though she tended to be earlier than the other actors with morning calls, she knew that some crew members arrived as early as she did, and it wasn’t that early at all anymore. Just a little more than an hour and they should be on the set in full costume and makeup.

  Still …

  She stepped back into her dressing room, closed the door—and locked it. Sinking into the chair in front of her dressing table, she slipped open the envelope, wondering why she felt so tense.

  There was a brief note inside. “Jen, please be advised we need you to stay next Friday night—filming a short scene after private rehearsals. Hush-hush set. Secret twists in plot! Love and kisses, your favorite producer, Andy Larkin.”

  Next Friday night. Great. Andy apparently believed she had no outside life. He was more or less right, of course. And actually, at the moment she was looking forward to more work, to avoid going home.

  Deep in thought, she almost jumped at the next tapping at her door. Then she laughed.

  Idiot, someone is knocking! Why on God’s earth am I so nervous? I’m tired and worried, and that’s that.

  “Jen? Jen, you in there?” She heard her doorknob rattling along with the sound of Doug Henson’s voice. She jumped up and opened the door.
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br />   “Hey, gorgeous.”

  “Hey, yourself, gorgeous.” He was gorgeous. A tall, blue-eyed blond who worked out in the California sun. So gorgeous he should have been an actor instead of a writer. They’d tried to use him on the show a few times. He hated acting, though, and the directors had basically given up—unless it was a beach scene in which someone just had to stand there being good-looking. But though Doug hated acting, he loved writing. Not so much this kind of writing. Soap operas made him crazy—changing everything ten times at the whim of the producer, director, or even the actors on occasion, but it was a good income, and allowed him to work on his great American novel in his spare time.

  “What’s going on, Doug? Why am I working next Friday night?”

  “Plot twist,” he told her.

  “Obviously. What’s it twisting to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  He walked on in, helped himself to the coffee brewing in her pot. “You know, your stuff is always so much better than the dreck on the set.” He inhaled deeply. “Cinnamon, eh? Macadamia nut?”

  “Hazelnut, with a touch of cinnamon,” she replied briefly, getting back to the point. “Doug, pay attention here. How come you don’t know?”

  “There are eight writers on this show, you are aware.”

  “Yes, but you’re all supposed to know what one another is doing. To keep the plot in order, making sense.”

  He sighed, sinking onto the sofa in front of the dressing table, running his fingers through his impossibly blond hair. “When, my love, has this plot ever made sense? Think about it. Last year Randy Rock was caught in an explosion and fire, killed, and buried—and he came back last week.”

  “Entirely possible,” Jennifer defended. “He couldn’t be identified, the wrong man was buried—”

  “He ran around with terrible amnesia, had affairs all over the place—probably sired a half dozen children, no one has told me yet—and reappeared looking devastatingly the same after plastic surgery.”

  “It could have happened.”

  “Only on Valentine Valley—isn’t that what our promos say?”

  “What’s happening next?”

  “Anything!” Doug muttered. He leaned back with a dramatic sigh. “Andy Larkin’s character was thrown off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean and eaten by a shark. And he came back.”

  “It worked in Pinocchio.”

  “That was a whale. This was a shark. What, somehow the teeth of a great white missed him?”

  She laughed. “You wrote his return—”

  “And did a darned good job of it!” Doug said proudly, then grimaced. “Actually, that one was simple. He came back because they just thought that he’d been eaten by the killer shark that had taken three lives in the Pacific, but he hadn’t been touched by the shark at all. He’d swum beneath the surface, come up beneath a different boat—”

  “Had an affair with the woman on board, because he had amnesia, too.”

  “Naturally—he had to have an affair.”

  “Well, but you see, it did all make sense, because he wasn’t really eaten by the shark,” Jennifer said. “However, now, Doug,” she began, her voice warning, “tell me what’s happening. And quit making fun of us.”

  He opened his eyes, sat up straighter, and looked at her guiltily. “Sorry, Jen. I’m not really mocking anyone. I think you guys are really the best actors and actresses out there—you have to be, you make people believe all this stuff. And by God, you people get things in one take all the time. I was over on the set for that new studio psycho-thriller the other day, and you wouldn’t believe it. Fifteen takes to get one little scene right.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I do appreciate it,” she said, smiling and meaning it. Soap stars took some taunting as “professionals.” But they did work hard, and it was nice to hear a compliment.

  “It does look as if it’s going to be a good movie, though. Very scary.”

  “Really?” she murmured. Her heart did a little flutter. She’d been offered a role in the movie. “Small but important,” her agent had said. Supposedly, the offer was still on the table.

  “The director is that fellow who did the low-budget teen flick last year that made all the money. He’s a huge Hitchcock fan, and believes that the psychology of fear is much greater than a bucket of guts and gore.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. The director is Hugh Tanenbaum, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “And isn’t he good friends with Jim Novac?” Jim was one of the directors on the staff of their soap, Valentine Valley.

  “Yeah, that’s why I was over there. Jim wanted me to see what they were doing.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m assuming so that I can see how psychological terror is done.”

  “You’re a soap writer.”

  “I assure you,” he protested with smooth indignity, “I’m a writer, not a ‘soap’ writer. No adjectives, please!”

  “I’m sorry, really sorry,” she apologized quickly, hiding a smile. He was so serious about his work. “You’re a writer, a wonderful one. A no-adjective, wonderful writer. But, I still don’t get it. Never mind, I do get it, I’m afraid. The plot line is going to twist into a really scary suspense-type thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Doug! Would you quit that and tell me the truth?”

  “I can’t tell you, Jen, because I really don’t know.”

  She studied his face for a long moment and frowned. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Cross my heart.”

  “You’re not writing the scene? You must be. You do most of my scenes—”

  “I am writing the scene. I just haven’t been told what I’m writing. It’s all hush-hush.”

  “Oh, come on, Doug. Even we silly actors know that there’s a ‘bible,’ the plot structure for the year, and that all you boys and girls do the writing each week by the bible.”

  He shook his head firmly. “The bible says ‘plot thickens, terror menaces Valentine Valley, details to be decided.’”

  She stared at him, frustrated. He was telling the truth.

  “Look, Jen, it’s just that we’re up against so much these days. They don’t dare let anything get out.” He sighed with tremendous patience. “I’m older than you. I admit I’m wearing rather well”—he grinned—“but that’s good clean living for you. You’re too young to remember the old days, I’m not. Once upon a time there was no cable, soaps did darn well. Now the folks at home can turn to us, or the cooking channel, or they can learn how to repair their house, garden—or how to speak French. Or they can turn to a prime-time movie in the afternoon. We have to protect our plot lines like Dobermans—it’s survival of the fittest!”

  “You’re ticked because they won’t tell you what you’re writing,” Jen observed with a smile.

  He grinned back. “You bet your ass. Can you believe that? They won’t trust me.”

  “Maybe they’re afraid your actress friends on the set will torture it out of you.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.” He brightened suddenly. “I can tell you some of next week’s general plot—until the end, of course.”

  “I can probably tell you about next week’s plot,” she murmured.

  “Ah, dear and alas,” he teased, his voice going very deep. “Do I detect a note of bitterness there?”

  “No. Of course not,” she lied. Turning, she pretended to fix the makeup on her counter.

  “So …” His voice trailed tauntingly. “You’re just thrilled to pieces that we’re bringing in Conar Markham? For a small fortune, I might add.”

  “It’s none of my business, is it?”

  “Actually, I’d imagine it is.”

  “Not really—”

  “He’s coming to Granger House—your home.”

  “It isn’t my home—it’s my mother’s house.”

  “A minor detail,” he said, and through the mirror s
he could see him waving a hand in the air. He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Let’s get down and dirty here. Tell me that you’re not just sick to death of hearing how wonderful Mr. Markham is.”

  Jen spun back to look at him. There was such a bright, teasing light in his eyes that she had to laugh. She put her finger in her mouth in a pretend gagging motion. “I shall throw up the minute I see him if I get any sicker!” she admitted, which caused Doug to burst into rich gales of laughter.

  Then his laughter faded, and the amusement left his eyes. “All of us are joking about it, of course, but Jen, don’t be upset. I know that Abby invited him, but …”

  His voice trailed off.

  “I’m not upset at all,” Jennifer lied. Her life had always been somewhat strange, but that was what happened if you were born the child of a living legend. Her mother had garnered two Oscars, three more nominations, and was still considered to be one of the most beautiful women alive. Jennifer had spent half her life trying not to live in California, and when she had graduated from school, the last thing in the world she had wanted to do was become an actress. Next to her mother, she had felt like an ugly duckling, and certainly an underachiever. She had tried so hard to be different. Yet no matter what her fame, fortune, or obligations, Abby had always been there for her daughter. Jennifer had been her mother’s priority all the time that she had been growing up. Not long after she had realized how much her rebellion and resentment had hurt her mother, Abby had gotten sick with Parkinson’s. She’d hidden it for a long time. Too long, Jennifer thought. They might have gotten help earlier. And now …

  “You really don’t feel, well, resentful at all?” Doug asked.

  Jennifer shook her head firmly. “He was Abby’s stepchild for a long time. They always had a relationship.”

  “And you don’t mind that.”

  She actually grinned. “I was kind of a brat as a child, I’m afraid.” She grinned and lifted her hands out. “I had a chip on my shoulder about this big. I was kind of cold to my mother on a frequent basis in those years, and I’m very sorry now—”

  “She adores you.”

  “I know it,” Jennifer said softly.