Pamela Anderson - Star Struck

They had awakened from a night of lovemaking and felt as clear and focused as the morning outside their widow. Jimi made them an extraspecial “breakfast,” as they would be separated for the first time since that night in Cabo. He was off to New York for the concert and she would join him after she wrapped shooting on Lifeguards.

It was a fresh new start, Star thought to herself as she showered and got ready to go to the set. Her mom’s last words came back to her once again. “Remember, it’s your choice who you are.”

Jimi was packing, getting ready for his trip when she came out of the bathroom.

“Jimi,” she said, coming up behind him and hugging him from the back. “I was saving it as a surprise, but I can’t wait. There’s something I want to tell you.”

“What is it, babe?” he said, turning to take her in his arms.

The doorbell rang.

“Who is that?” Jimi said. “The car’s not supposed to be here for another hour.”

“Don’t go,” Star said, her spider sense on full alert.

“Who is it?” Star whispered as Jimi tried to peer around the edge of the curtains in one of the front bedrooms.

“It’s the police,” Jimi said, drawing back suddenly from the window.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Star suggested as the two rushed to the back of the house.

“There’s four at the door and the street out front looks like the parking lot at the sheriff’s station.” He looked out back and saw the uniformed officers encircling the house.

“How did they get in?” Star said, wondering that the police were inside the gates. “No one has the code but you and me and…”

“Hank.”

“Not my own brother,” Star said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Did you give them the code?”

She shook her head.

“Well neither did I,” he said.

“What are we going to do?” Star said, as the tension of the past months built to the breaking point.

“Come with me,” he said, taking her hand.

The officer rang the bell for a third time, but still no answer.

“Maybe they’re still asleep,” his partner said, standing back from the door, his gun drawn.

“What’s happening?” the captain’s voice crackled through the officer’s walkie-talkie.

“No answer,” the officer replied. “Maybe they’re still asleep. The brother said they were partiers. What’s the next step?”

Before the captain had a chance to answer, the black Ferrari burst through the garage door, the wood panels exploding into splinters as the high-performance projectile rocketed down the drive, through the open gate, and down the street before any of the police on the scene had a chance to draw their service revolvers.

“Woo-hoo,” Star screamed as they tore up the canyon road, the police nowhere in sight. “Let’s go again.”

Jimi laughed in spite of the tension. He knew she was trying to cheer him up.

“Whatever happens, babe, it’s been the best ride of my life,” he said, taking her hand.

She kissed his knuckles.

“Where to?” he asked her as they rocketed toward Mulholland Drive, the legendary road that snaked along the ridge of the mountains that formed the northern border of the Los Angeles basin.

“Mexico,” she said with a shrug. “And then, who knows?”

“You got it,” he said, passing a car and nearly running an oncoming truck off a cliff as he continued to pick up speed.

Both were unaware that overhead the police they thought they’d left behind had taken to the air to keep them in sight. Unfortunately, the police weren’t the only ones who’d taken up the chase.

“And this just in,” Kurt Blanche said, reaching up to touch his earpiece in disbelief. “Police are involved in a high-speed chase in the canyon roads up from Malibu. And… are we sure?” he said, looking to the booth for further confirmation as L.A. was waking up to his morning news break-in on the network’s morning talk show. “Okay, we have confirmation, the fugitives being pursued are Star Wood Leigh and Jimi Deed, though it’s unclear yet why the police want them. We’ll keep you posted as the story develops.

By the time Kurt had finished the weather, he was coanchoring the national news with New York. News helicopters had joined the chase along with those from the L.A.P.D. and Sheriff’s Department.

Dozens of radio cars, police helicopters, as well as at least one chopper for each of the networks, had taken up the high-speed pursuit. Morning traffic reports took up the story and thousands, bound for work, called in sick from their cars and headed in the direction of the chase. Traffic arteries in and around the beach began to shut down as the curious poured into the area to get a closer look.

Across the country, work came to a standstill as people clustered in front of any available television set to see what would happen next. In fact, most everyone in the country knew about the chase before Star and Jimi did.

“So, do you think we should take the 405?” Jimi asked, running the light and making the turn onto Mulholland at full speed as cars spun out of control to avoid hitting them. “Traffic may not be as bad southbound.”

“I don’t know,” Star said, trying to find something to listen to on the disc changer. “The 405 is always a nightmare.”

Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day” came out of nowhere and she had to laugh at the irony. In so many ways, it really was a lovely day.

“What is this doing on here?” she giggled.

“I like all kinds of music,” Jimi said, reaching over to try to change the disc. He hit the wrong button, and the radio came on instead.

“The occupants of the car appear to be Star Wood Leigh and husband, Jimi Deed,” the announcer was saying.

“Fuck you, dude, her fucking last name is Deed!” Jimi shouted, taking up the gun in his lap and firing a shot at the radio but only blowing off the glove compartment door.

“Jimi, be careful with that,” Star said, turning up the volume for details.

“Police are closing in on the couple as they make their way toward the 405 on Mulholland Drive. Motorists are asked to avoid the area, as they are believed to be armed and dangerous.”

Jimi turned the wheel and spun the car, dangerously close to flipping it as he reversed course at such high speed and almost immediately rode head-on into a wall of police cars coming straight for them.

“Jimi, there’s something I should tell you!” Star screamed when it looked as though they were about to be plastered across the grille of an oncoming prowl car.

But at the last second, he turned onto a small paved road that swept them rapidly up into the hills above and momentarily away from their pursuers.

“Hang on a second, babe,” he said, maneuvering the car into the hills without losing speed.

“Okay,” she said, not wanting to distract him as they narrowly escaped death on each turn.

“Evidence has been uncovered linking the couple to the deaths of a series of photographers known in the entertainment business as paparazzi,” Kurt said earnestly to his viewers as voice-over to the airborne cameras following Star and Jimi’s progress into the hills. “The deaths in this country, Mexico, and possibly Paris had previously been thought to be unrelated, but…”

“Hold on, Kurt,” Cathy, the New York anchor, broke in. “I’m getting word that we have just acquired exclusive video that links the couple to the crimes. So we’re going to cut away to that for a moment and then we’ll come back to our live coverage of the Star chase.”

The chase squeezed into the corner of the frame as the scene from the balcony at the El Presidente suite in Cabo San Lucas filled the screen.

“On three? One, two, three.”