Linda O. Johnston - Not a Moment Too Soon

But that was why she had become a therapist: To help the friends and strangers she wrote about through this kind of horror.

But what good was she if she couldn’t, in some manner, help the man she had once loved?

She racked her brain for something she’d learned to balance her own painful emotions and came up with nothing.

“Okay, Shauna,” Hunter said after a long moment. “I never wanted to believe your stories were real, but sometimes things in them seemed uncanny. So let’s work this through, just in case. We tried to fix the ending on your computer but couldn’t save changes. But we hadn’t done anything different from what was on the pages. The story says I start my own search for my daughter. What if, when I return to L.A., I turn it over to the police and stay out of it? If you wrote that into your story, could the changes be saved? Maybe that would fix the ending.” He grabbed his forehead with one of his large hands. “Listen to me,” he muttered. “Talk about buying into craziness…”

“Okay, let’s engage in ‘what ifs.’ You’ve already told the police, and that’s in the story, even though you mentioned your—your ex-wife—said, when she called the second time, that she’d heard from the kidnapper and he said not to involve the authorities. That doesn’t change the story. You could just let the police look for Andee. But that’s not logical for you. You’re a former cop, a private investigator, so of course you’d look for her, like the story says.”

“But what if I didn’t?” he insisted.

Shauna drew in a deep breath. “I’ve learned that even changing in a logical way what happens in real life from the way it’s written in my stories…well, I was never able to save the changes. And the ending always stayed the same.” She’d tried to speak matter-of-factly. It didn’t work. Her respiration increased, and tears closed her throat. She turned to study the now-blank computer screen.

“You’re talking about your father, aren’t you?”

Amazingly, Hunter’s voice was filled with sympathy. Surprised, she darted a glance toward him. This time, he took her hand.

She nodded, wanting to talk about it. Not wanting to talk about it. Not now.

She was relieved when the sound of the aircraft’s engines changed and its altitude decreased. The captain announced the final descent into Los Angeles. She used the distraction to pull her hand back, shut down her computer and start putting it away.

She was not sure whether to be glad or sorry this ride was nearly over. She sensed a truce between Hunter and her.

He still wouldn’t admit to believing her stories…exactly. Nor did he shove his disbelief in her face.

But how would things go in Los Angeles while he searched for Andee?

And when it was all over, and the ending of the story had come to pass?

He might be ambivalent now. But then he would hate her.

So, for now, she had to dredge up every nuance of her psychology classes, everything she’d learned, to help Hunter. And his ex-wife.

And herself.

For, despite everything she had told herself in the past seven years, being with Hunter now made clear one very important thing: she had never completely gotten over him.

Because it was summer, daylight still glowed when they arrived at Margo Masters’s home.

Shauna noticed right away that the light blue stucco house was larger than the others on its crowded residential block in Sunland, an area in the northern San Fernando Valley. It was the only one with a second floor. Had it had been added by Margo, or had she bought it that way?

Or had this been where Hunter, too, had lived when they were married?

That thought snatched all the charm she’d noticed from the home as she preceded Hunter along the winding front walk between patches of well-manicured lawn.

There hadn’t been a detailed description in her story of where the kidnapping occurred. But then, there never were great descriptions. Sometimes, she had to use intuition to determine the origin of the emotions that set her stories into play.

This time, because it had involved Hunter’s family, the origin had been obvious.

If only all connections with Hunter had been severed when he’d left. That was a laugh, after all those stories she’d written in the interim.

Hunter had driven them here in his sporty silver GTO, which he’d parked near LAX while away on business. Now Shauna waited while he stepped around her and rang the bell. Margo pulled the door open in less than a minute. Shauna recognized her. She’d looked the struggling actress up on the Internet after writing her story about Hunter’s marriage.

“Thank heavens you’re finally here,” she exclaimed, her low, throaty voice conveying simultaneously both relief and criticism. She glanced at Shauna without saying anything. “Oh, Hunter, it’s been terrible.” Tears glittered in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, that single word conveying both acknowledgment of her pain and the expression of his own. “Anything new?”

“Yes,” Margo wailed. “You need to control your assistant. And make sure that policeman he called doesn’t do anything to put Andee in worse danger—if it isn’t already too late.”

Shauna, inhaling the strong and probably expensive scent wafting around the woman, forced herself not to stare at her flawless beauty: high cheekbones, smooth skin, softly pouting lips, shoulder-length light brown hair shimmering with auburn highlights. She wore a short white shirt and slim black slacks. Margo wasn’t a tall woman, but even in her wired emotional state she held herself regally, and the movement of her hand as she motioned them inside was as graceful as a model’s.

Her eyes were pale brown. Shauna had no doubt that the way they’d been enhanced with makeup sometime earlier that day would have rendered them outstanding and gorgeous. But Margo’s crying had caused her makeup to run, turning her beauty fragile and sad.

Margo preceded them into her living room. Three men seated in the conversation area around a low, polished coffee table rose at their entrance. A woman, too.

Hunter made the first introductions. “Everyone, this is Shauna O’Leary. Shauna, you met Margo Masters at the door. This is Detective Arthur Banner.” He gestured toward one of the two men who’d been seated on chairs. “And Simon Wells.” Hunter pointed to the guy beside Banner.

Shauna knew that Simon was Hunter’s assistant at Strahm Solutions. He was not quite as tall as Hunter and barrel-chested, and had a brown mustache darker than the longish hair on his head. He wore a tweed sport jacket over a brown mock turtleneck. As he bowed his head in greeting, Shauna had the incongruous impression of old-world courtliness. If they’d been closer, she’d not have been surprised if he’d kissed her hand.

Arthur Banner, on the other hand, was tall, thin, reserved, and seemed to memorize everything about Shauna in a single, prolonged look with small but omniscient gray eyes. Hunter had told her about the police detective, whose nickname “Banger” was a joke, for he was trustworthy, an all-cop cop.

Margo had slipped past Hunter and now stood between the other two people in the room. “My friends BillieAnn Callahan and John Keenan Aitken,” she said, finishing the introductions. Not that Margo had said, but Shauna figured that BillieAnn and John were fellow actors. Though both were dressed casually, their self-possession suggested they awaited their next cue. BillieAnn was taller than Margo, but still resembled a pixie, with her short, wispy cap of dark brown hair around ears that protruded a little too much, pouty lips painted deep red with shiny gloss, and short, clingy blouse with flowing sleeves.