Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [164]
“It was all just a setup, for publicity to hike up the ratings. The show was in trouble and we needed to do something, anything to boost the market share. The dullards calling the shots at the station weren’t listening and I knew we were either gonna be canceled or I would be replaced. Trust me, Maggie, the writing was on the wall.”
She said it without too much emotion, as if she’d had no choice but to deceive everyone.
“Eve knew of a cabin owned by one of her clients that hadn’t been used for years, so I went there and hid out. The only people who knew where I was were Eve and Renee.”
“Renee?” Oh, God, this was beginning to sound bad. Really bad.
“That’s what I was talking about. Douse the light, will ya?”
Maggie switched off all the lamps as Mary Theresa hiked the strap of her bag to her shoulder.
“So Renee was in on this, too,” Maggie guessed, sick inside. As relieved as she was that her sister was alive and seemingly healthy, she couldn’t stand the callous way she spoke of their plot of deception.
“Because Eve had to stay here in town and make sure everything went according to plan, Renee did the running back and forth because no one knew she lived here or who she was. She even changed her name back to Warner to try and keep a lower profile. Anyway, the plan was that after there was a big stir and my name was a household word again then I…I was supposed to escape from my ‘captors’ and there would be this massive manhunt and no one would ever find out that Eve was behind it.”
“The police aren’t that stupid.”
“Sure they are.” Mary Theresa was heading down the stairs, her feet tripping rapidly over the familiar steps. “I’m an actress, for God’s sake, I could have convinced them that some mountain men had grabbed me and since I would be fine, the manhunt would slowly disintegrate.”
“But people would believe that there were men who…”
“So what? As I said, no one was supposed to be hurt.” She was walking toward the kitchen again. “I need a drink.”
“Why would Eve agree to do anything of the sort?” Maggie asked as they reentered the kitchen.
“Because I owed her money.” Mary Theresa reached into a darkened cupboard and pulled out a glass which she filled with water from the sink. “I’m in bad shape, Mag,” she confessed. “I owe everyone money and things were falling apart by the minute. Do you know what would have happened if the station changed the format of the program and I lost my job? Holy Christ, I’d be ruined! That would have been a disaster.”
“But—” Maggie’s head was swimming. “Renee’s dead, Mary Theresa. Dead.”
“I know.” She took a gulp of water. “Like I’m supposed to be. No wonder she insisted I write that suicide note and leave it in the trash to throw the police off. Can you believe it? Eve just left me up there. No phone. No electricity. A million miles from civilization. And I’m sure I was drugged. Eve was probably going to give me enough to kill me once she’d done away with Renee,” Mary Theresa said before taking a long swallow from her glass, then reaching into another cupboard and retrieving what, in the poor light, Maggie assumed was a vial of pills. “Christ, I’ve got a headache. The drugs weren’t part of the deal, you know. I was so damned tired all the time. I should have been suspicious, but I wasn’t. I think Eve had Renee give them to me so I wouldn’t get smart and try to escape. She even got rid of my car, the car that Renee and I took up and hid there.”
“The Jeep.”
“Yeah, no one could drive it because of my plates, so Renee used her black rig, but one day, because Eve supposedly had some kind of car trouble, she took the Blazer. When she didn’t return when she was supposed to, Renee decided to risk taking the Jeep. She took off and never came back.”
“There was black paint on the Jeep,” Maggie said, horrified. Eve Lawrence, a murderer? Over money? It didn’t seem to fit.
“Figures.” Mary Theresa, shaking, tossed back a handful of pills and swallowed them.
“What about those—the ones you’re taking now—if you’ve been on drugs,