Twilight Hunger. Maggie Shayne

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      Morgan looked at the glowing blue screen of her computer—which had only escaped the notice of the estate lawyers because it had been with her at UCLA when her parents had been killed and the true state of their finances revealed. They were broke, and so far in debt Morgan could barely wrap her mind around the actual numbers. She hadn’t been able to make sense of it, at first. Her father was a successful director, her mother an actress who had reached her zenith a decade ago and had been doing smaller roles lately, but who had still seemed content with her life.

      Or so Morgan had thought. She soon learned she had been living in a bubble. The level of cocaine in her parents’ systems the night of the accident was so high the coroner wondered how they had even managed to drive.

      They’d been addicts, their entire lifestyle a lie.

      The house and everything in it had been sold to pay off a portion of their accumulated debt, and Morgan had to drop out of school. Her tuition had already been months overdue. And apparently her friends were as shallow as David had always tried to tell her they were, because once the truth came out, they had abandoned her like last year’s wardrobe, while those she had always considered beneath her seemed secretly amused by her troubles. The last few days on campus, she had found tabloid pages tacked to bulletin boards in every hall, screaming about the secret, drug-infested life of the famous couple who seemed to have had it all. The nightmare behind the fairy tale, and the poor little rich girl left to pick up the pieces.

      She had run from L.A. with her tail between her legs, with nowhere to go and nothing left besides the things she managed to take with her. She’d pulled into David’s driveway with nothing but her Maserati—the registration in her name, thank God—and the stuff she had crammed into its minuscule trunk. He was her last hope, and she had half expected him to turn away from her in disgust, just like all the rest.

      But he hadn’t turned away. He’d helped her sell the car, buy a modest used one and pocket the difference. When she said she needed a hideaway where she could go to lick her wounds, he told her she could use this place in Maine, free of charge, for as long as she needed to.

      Which wouldn’t be long, she thought silently. She had always intended to become a wildly successful screenwriter. It was just going to have to happen a bit sooner than she’d planned. David was a producer. He would help her make the right connections, maybe even produce her screenplay himself. He’d promised to give her a shot. Help her all he could.

      All she needed … was the material.

      “Morgan?” David’s voice jerked her away from the path her thoughts had been wandering. “Did you hear me? I asked, how’s the script coming?”

      She blinked at the blank computer screen. The blinking cursor. “Fine. Great. It’s coming great.” So great that she had decided to go exploring this ancient wreck of a house rather than continue the battle with the blank screen. The only key on her keyboard getting a steady workout was the one marked “delete.” She’d been producing garbage since she had arrived here. Garbage.

      “You know, it’s only natural you might have some trouble getting started,” David said. “Don’t push yourself. You’ve been through a lot. Your mind needs time to digest it all.”

      Morgan shrugged. “That’s not it,” she told him.

      “No?”

      “Of course not. It’s been six months. I’m completely over it.”

      “Completely over losing your parents, your fortune, your home, your education and what you thought was your identity?” He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I don’t think so.”

      “Well, I am. And to tell you the truth, finding out I was adopted explained a lot of things. I mean, you know my parents were never all that … involved.”

      “That was the cocaine, hon. Not the adoption. Not you.”

      She cleared her throat when it started to tighten up, gave herself a mental kick. “As for the rest of it … I’m going to get it all back, David. Everything I lost. And then some.”

      She heard the smile in his voice. “I don’t doubt it a bit.”

      “Neither do I,” she said, glancing again at the blank screen, feeling those doubts she’d denied nearly smothering her. Damn, why couldn’t writing a blockbuster script be as easy as she had always thought it would be? She used to watch films with the feeling that she could do better in her sleep.

      “So when can I expect the screenplay?” he asked.

      Licking her lips, she wished to God she knew. “A masterpiece takes time … and it’s … so unpredictable.”

      “I need a fall project. I’m saving a slot for you, Morgan. Three months. I need the material in three months. Can you do that? Write it over the summer and get it to me by September?”

      Lifting her chin, swallowing hard, she said, “Yes. I’ll have it finished by September. No problem.”

       Big problem.

      “Great,” David said. “You’re gonna be fine, Morgan. You can get through this.”

      “Of course I can.”

      “Do you need anything?”

      “No, no, I’m fine.”

      “Your funds still holding out?”

      She licked her lips, forced the lie out. She’d cleaned out her accounts on David’s advice, before the lawyers and creditors could get hold of her money, and she’d had the cash from the car. But while she had no rent here, there were other expenses. The phone, the electricity and she had to eat. Truth to tell, the money in her checking account was dwindling.

      “I’m fine,” she said again.

      “Good,” David said softly. “Good. You let me know if there’s anything you need.”

      “I will, David.”

      He was quiet for a moment. “How about your health?”

      Drawing a breath, she sighed. “You know how I hate being thought of as sickly.”

      “Did I say you were sickly?”

      “No.”

      “Well?”

      She pursed her lips. “The brisk clean air up here is working wonders on me,” she lied. What could she tell him? The truth? That it was cold and dreary and damp here, and that she resented having to think of a sixty-degree day in late April as a heat wave, when she would be basking in eighty-degree heat beside her parents’ pool, working on her tan by now, if she’d been home?

      But it did no good to wish for what she couldn’t have.

      “I ought to go, David,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. “If I’m going to have this done by fall, I ought to get at it.”

      “Okay, hon. You just call if you need anything.”

      “I will, David. Thanks.”

      Morgan СКАЧАТЬ