Read Playing Dead for Free Online

time he got home. He crept in, fearful of waking Viv. The last thing he wanted now was another argument. He was exhausted. Chloe was very demanding.
    In the lounge he found empty bottles and upturned bowls of nuts and nibbles that crunched under his feet as he walked. A thousand-dollar rug and she treats it like this , he thought. Nat King Cole was stuck singing ‘Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa’ over and over again. He went over and switched Nat off.
    Then he went through to the master bedroom. The coverlet was perfectly in place, the bed still made.
    Now what the hell?
    Had she gone out somewhere? He hoped not. She was a crazy driver in her too-visible red Corvette at the best of times – oh, and the arguments they’d had about that – but today she’d had a skinful. What he didn’t need was her wrapping her damned car around a tree and the press getting wind of her existence. She was just a nobody.
    He hurried along the hall, past the closed door of Frances’s room.
    That kid. Strange little fellow: he wanted to be an actor when he grew up like his dad, and Rick was flattered by that, but – for fuck’s sake – the kid didn’t have the talent; all he could manage was a few lines of amateurish mimicry. He would deter him from entering the industry if he could – do the kid a favour. Bad enough when you had that special touch of stardust; it was still hard, gruelling work all the way. But without it . . . Hollywood would break your heart. No doubt about that.
    He opened the bathroom door.
    Maybe she was ill? Puking up all that gin, no doubt. He heard water flowing.
    ‘Viv? Honey?’ he said softly.
    Through the half-open window the moon cast its silvery light into the room. He could see the bath filled to the brim and overflowing. Something was lolling in there, arms akimbo.
    Shit! Had she fallen asleep and fucking well drowned? How the hell were they going to hush that up if she had? He felt a spasm of fear at the thought. His career, his fabulous career, in ruins, and for a gormless whore he’d been stupid enough to get the hots for, and marry.
    He flicked on the light with a movement that was half panic, half anger, and fell back instantly.
    Vivienne was in the bath, but her head was above the water. Her eyes were open, but they weren’t going to see anything, ever again. There was a long gash across her forehead. Her face was a blanched, vacant mask. The water in the bath was bright red.
    He made a noise in his throat, horrified.
    No. She was just playing dead or something; he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
    But . . . it was true. He reached out, picked up one limp, cold hand. Felt for a pulse and found none.
    She was dead. Now how the fuck were they going to keep this quiet?
    He heard a movement. Letting out a half-strangled shriek, he turned and saw Frances standing silently in the hall, watching him.

Chapter 9
     
    1971
    Constantine Barolli’s estate on Long Island’s stylish Montauk peninsula would be a stunning location for Lucco Barolli’s marriage to Daniella Carlucci. The house itself was massive, clapboarded in soft duck-egg blue-and-white trim; it was fronted by huge decks and terraces that overlooked and led down onto the long white beach and into sand dunes thick with the billowing fronds of marram grass.
    Cara had told the men on the gate to expect Saul Jury at four, that he had business with her, and that they were to show him straight in; she’d be waiting in the waterfront lounge. The roar of the Atlantic breakers pounding the beach was a throaty, ominous counterpoint to her black mood.
    Saul Jury arrived promptly at the agreed time. He always did; with high-end clients you learned early on not to fuck around too much. Shame her husband hadn’t learned the same lesson, because Saul suspected that this was not a lady who’d take betrayal lightly; she didn’t have the look of a gentle, forgiving sort of girl.
    As he was shown in to the huge lounge with its big expanse of glass that