LITMIR.BIZ

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inserted little plastic wedges to keep the doors open so the refrigerator wouldn’t get moldy and funky while it was unused.

      Sophia was going to be moldy and funky by the time they found her starved body next week. She had a phone for emergencies; she used it.

      “Grace? It’s me. Alex didn’t turn the refrigerator on.” Sophia felt betrayed. Her voice only sounded bitchy.

      “Sophie, sweetie, that’s not an emergency.” Grace spoke gently, like someone chiding a child and trying to encourage her at the same time. “You can handle that. You know how to flip a switch in a fuse box.”

      “I don’t even know where the fuse box is.”

      Grace sighed, and Sophia heard her exchange a few words with Alex. “It’s in the hall closet. I’ve gotta run now. Bye.”

      “Wait! Just hang on the line with me while I find the fuse box. What if the fuse doesn’t fix it?”

      “I don’t know. Then you’ll have to call a repairman, I guess.”

      “Call a repairman?” Sophia was aghast. “Where would I even find a repairman?”

      “There’s a phone on the wall in the kitchen. Mrs. MacDowell has a phone book sitting on the little stand underneath it.”

      Sophia looked around the 1980s time capsule of a kitchen. Sure enough, mounted on the wall was a phone, one with a handset and a curly cord hanging down. It was not decorated with a goose, but it was white, to fit in the decor.

      “Ohmigod, that’s an antique.”

      “I made sure it works. It’s a lot harder for paparazzi to tap an actual phone line than it would be for them to use a scanner to listen in to this phone call. You can call a repairman.”

      Sophia clenched her jaw against that lecturing tone. From the day her little sister had graduated from high school, Sophia had paid her to take care of details like this, treating her like a star’s personal assistant long before Sophia had been a star. Now Grace had decided to dump her.

      “And how am I supposed to pay for a repairman?”

      “You have a credit card. We put it in my name, but it’s yours.” Grace sounded almost sad. Pitying her, actually, with just a touch of impatience in her tone.

      Sophia felt her sister slipping away. “I can say my name is Grace, but I can’t change my face. How am I supposed to stay anonymous if a repairman shows up at the door?”

      “I don’t know, Sophie. Throw a dish towel over your head or something.”

      “You don’t care about me anymore.” Her voice should have broken in the middle of that sentence, because her heart was breaking, but the actor inside knew the line had been delivered in a continuous whine.

      “I love you, Sophie. You’ll figure something out. You’re super smart. You took care of me for years. This will be a piece of cake for you.”

      A piece of cake. That tone of voice...

      Oh, God, her sister sounded just like their mother. Ten years ago, Mom and Dad had been yanked away from them forever, killed in a pointless car accident. At nineteen, Sophia had become the legal guardian of Grace, who’d still had two years of high school left to go.

      Nothing had been a piece of cake. Sophia had quit college and moved back home so that Grace could finish high school in their hometown. Sophia had needed to make the life insurance last, paying the mortgage with it during Grace’s junior and senior years. She’d tried to supplement it with modeling jobs, but anything local only paid a pittance. For fifty dollars, she’d spent six hours gesturing toward a mattress with a smile on her face.

      It had really been her first acting job, because during the entire photo shoot, she’d had to act like she wasn’t mourning the theater scholarship at UCLA that she’d sacrificed. With a little sister to raise, making a mattress look desirable was as close as Sophia could come to show business.

      That first modeling job had been a success, eventually used nationwide, but Sophia hadn’t been paid one penny more. Her flat fifty-dollar fee had been spent on gas and groceries that same day. Grace had to be driven to school. Grace had to eat lunch in the cafeteria.

      Now Grace was embarking on her own happy life and leaving Sophia behind. It just seemed extra cruel that Grace would sound like Mom at this point.

      “I have to run,” her mother’s voice said. “I love you, Sophie. You can do this. Bye.”

      Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me. I miss you.

      The phone was silent.

      This afternoon, Sophia had only wanted to hide away and fall apart in private. Now, she was terrified to. If she started crying again, she would never, ever stop.

      She nearly ran to the hall closet and pushed aside the old coats and jackets to find the fuse box. They were all on, a neat row of black switches all pointing to the left. She flicked a few to the right, then left again. Then a few more. If she reset every one, then she would have to hit the one that worked the refrigerator.

      It made no difference. The refrigerator was still dead when she returned to the kitchen. The food was still thawing in the sink. Her life still sucked, only worse now, because now she missed her mother all over again. Grace sounded like Mom, and she’d left her like Mom. At least when Mom had died, she’d left the refrigerator running.

      What a terrible thing to think. Dear God, she hated herself.

      Then she laughed at the incredible low her self-pity could reach.

      Then she cried.

      Just as she’d known it would, once the crying started, it did not stop.

      I’m pregnant and I’m scared and I want my mother.

      Sophia sank to the kitchen floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and gave up.

      * * *

      Would he or wouldn’t he?

      Travis rode slowly, letting his mare cool down on her way to the barn while he debated with himself whether or not he’d told the sister he would check on the movie star tonight, specifically, or just check on her in general. He was bone-tired and hungry, but he had almost another mile to go before he could rest. Half a mile to the barn, quarter of a mile past that to his house. A movie star with an attitude was the last thing he wanted to deal with. Tomorrow would be soon enough to be neighborly and ask how she was settling in.

      The MacDowell house, or just the house, as everyone on a ranch traditionally called the owner’s residence, was closer to the barn than his own. As the mare walked on, the house’s white porch pillars came into view, always a pretty sight. The sunset tinted the sky pink and orange behind it. Mesquite trees were spaced evenly around it. The lights were on; Sophia Jackson was home.

      Then the lights went out.

      On again.

      What the hell?

      Lights started turning off and on, in an orderly manner, left to right across the building. Travis had been in the house often enough that he knew which window was the living room. Off, on. The dining room. The foyer.

      The mare chomped at her bit impatiently, picking up on his change in mood.

      “Yeah, girl. Go on.” He let the horse pick up her pace. Normally, he’d never let a horse hurry back to the barn; that was just sure to start a bad habit. But everything on the River Mack was his responsibility, including the house with its blinking lights, and its new resident.

      The lights came on and stayed on as he rode steadily toward the movie star that he was going to check on tonight, after all.

       Chapter Three

      Travis couldn’t ride his horse up to the front door

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