Claire McNab - The Dingo Dilemma

Ariana frowned. "Does it make sense to kill Darleen? She's the star of the show."

"There's three of them. As long as one dingo is left alive, the show can go on. Dingo thinks the story will be that Darkens stunt double has been murdered in mistake for her."

"If he's so sure this is going to happen," Ariana said, "why doesn't he blow the whistle on the scheme?"

"I asked him that. He says he can't because he'll be deported and have to leave Darleen to her fate. He's here on a working visa-dingo wrangling's a rare skill, so Dingo's not displacing any American-and he's applied for a green card. He passed the background check to get the visa, but any serious investigation will turn up Aussie drug convictions under another name. Blainey dropped a hint that he knows about Dingo's criminal record, so Dingo's sure Blainey will dob him in if he blabs."

Ariana asked what Dingo had to say about the blokes Phyllis Blake had chased off.

"He said he had no idea who they were, but I didn't believe him. He clammed up then and I couldn't get another word out of him, so I left."

"Quite a full day," she said.

"You're not wrong! And to top it off, a bugging. And Lonnie."

"Lonnie? There's a problem?"

He hadn't sworn me to secrecy, but I didn't feel right revealing he'd specifically asked me to quiz Pauline about her love-or otherwise-for him, so I said, "From the way Lonnie talks, he's very serious about his relationship with Pauline Feeney. I just wonder if he's riding for a fall."

"They do seem to make an odd couple," said Ariana, "but there've been stranger combinations that have worked. Unfortunately Pauline does have a reputation for loving and leaving, and she usually dates much younger men."

"Eye candy?"

Ariana grinned. "You're getting more LA every day."

"It's just that I overheard Melodie and Harriet talking about Pauline giving Brucie a job as a party motivator, and Harriet said something about eye candy."

"To provide glitz and glamour, event coordinators like Pauline provide A-list functions with a cast of beautiful people, usually models or actors. Sometimes they're paid, sometimes they do it for free drinks and the chance to rub shoulders with celebrities."

"If you ask me, Ariana, Brucie would be way out of his depth."

"Don't be so sure. You Aussies are endlessly entertaining."

"Do I entertain you?"

Her smile faded. "You do much more," she said quietly.

We looked at each other. "Can we go?" I asked.

I was silent as I drove up the winding streets to her house. When I stopped the car outside her front door, she said, "You're coming in?"

I nodded, then got out of the car feeling giddy with desire, but terrified I'd say or do something that would destroy the fragile link between us. Surely Natalie was in Ariana's thoughts. She was in mine.

Gussie greeted us with well-mannered enthusiasm. Ariana let her outside for a run, and stood with me at the front door watching Gussie ricochet around picking up scents.

After a while, Ariana said, "She has such an uncomplicated delight in simply living."

She called Gussie inside. Closing the front door behind us, she said, "You haven't spoken a word since we left the restaurant."

I gave her a rueful smile. "It's safer that way."

"Kylie, you can say anything to me."

"That I love you with all my heart? Can I say that?"

Ariana leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips, then stood, pliant, within the circle of my arms. "I trust you," she said.

When we'd made love before, Ariana's cool persona had vanished in a scorching passion that set us both ablaze. Tonight was different, and even more intoxicating. She was tender, gentle, unrelenting. I was drunk with sensation. A climax that would have exploded in minutes seemed to take hours-a spring coiled tighter and tighter until it seemed the sweetest agony I had ever felt.

As she played the music of my body, I played hers. We rose together in flight, a glorious culmination that went on and on, until I believed together we would die from joy.

We shared mind and body and spirit that night. Ariana said many things, but never once that she loved me. Still, it was enough.

"Giles! Where the hell are you?"

It was no fun being Giles, Earl Garfield's assistant director. In fact, it was no fun being anything around this poor excuse for a human being. His balding head shining and his gray ponytail flying, he whirled around to berate some underling. Garfield was the embodiment of every arrogant, dictatorial despot portrayed in fiction. In movies behavior like his was often funny. In reality it was teeth-grindingly unpleasant.

Darken was on the set, as in this scene she was to leap heroically through a window, sum up our perilous situation with one glance, then hurry to gnaw through the ropes that bound me to the chair. Next she was to rush to Timmy and release him from similar bondage.

She had a full entourage in attendance-Dingo O'Rourke, of course, but also a stunt trainer and his assistant, plus a groomer, who hurried forward after every take to brush Darleen's coat to gleaming perfection.

I had to admit that Darken was the most handsome dingo I'd encountered. In the wild they were thin and scruffy, with rough coats and mean expressions. Darken was sleek and seemed quite cheerful, although she did keep a wary eye on Earl Garfield as he stamped around swearing.

Between takes, I'd tried to strike up a conversation with Dingo, but all he said was, "Can't talk now."

Although it sounded glamorous, I was finding acting consisted of a lot of waiting around and not much action. I wished I'd brought a book to read. I'd also discovered that scenes were often shot out of order, so although Olive hadn't yet met Timmy after their decade-long separation, here she was tied up with her brother in a remote mountain cabin. I was a bit hazy about who the villains in the story were, but they had no hope against Darken, anyway.

With Julia Roberts as an audience, I'd dutifully learnt my lines. Although no one watching was likely to call me a crash-hot actor, I thought I did a fair job under the circumstances, which were trying to say the least. First, it was fiendishly hot under the glare of the lights; second, Earl Garfield was a truly detestable creature; and third, Dustin Jaeger was deeply unhappy with the script.

We got ready for yet another take. I was tied to the chair with trick ropes which would release when Darken rushed behind me to apparently gnaw through them. A couple of meters away, a woman in a pink smock was dabbing at a shine on Dustin's nose.

A voice shouted for quiet on the set. It was almost unnerving the way one moment people were dashing around, adjusting equipment and calling out to each other, then the next everyone was frozen in place and absolutely silent.

We had several lines of dialogue before Darken came to our rescue. The script had Olive speaking first. "Stone the crows, Timmy!" I cried. "What will happen to us? Fair dinkum, I'm scared!"

"Is it healthy fear you feel, or primal, blind panic?" Timmy inquired.

"Cut!" screamed the director. "Jesus, Dustin, stick to the script! Your line is 'Don't be frightened. Darken will find a way to help us.'"

Dustin looked aggrieved. "That's not how Timmy would express himself. It's not psychologically true to the existential element in his nature."

Earl Garfield made a crude suggestion as to where Timmy could put his existential element.

"Dustin's got a good vocabulary for a twelve-year-old," I said to the pink-smocked woman who had appeared with powder puff primed to eliminate any shiny spots on my face.

"Twelve? Dustin's fifteen if he's a day."

"Dinkum? He doesn't look that old."