The Last Cheerleader
Successful L.A. literary agent Mary Beth Conahan has come a long way from her troubled past. But when Mary Beth's ex-husband and her bestselling author are killed, she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. And if that's not bad enough, an old friend–Lindy Van Court–shows up with troubles of her own.In high school, Lindy was everything Mary Beth was not: a cheerleader who dated and finally married Roger Van Court, the wealthiest boy in school. Now, however, Roger has thrown Lindy out of their pricey San Francisco home. She's living on the streets, denied access to her only child.Mary Beth can't turn her old friend away. But almost immediately their lives are threatened. Caught up in a series of terrifying events, Mary Beth will uncover more than she bargained for–a sinister plot and a heartbreaking secret that will change Mary Beth's life forever.
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Craig wasn’t hiding at all. He was right there on the floor, blood all around his head and slowly seeping along his body to his shoes.
In shock, I could barely think or move. I looked at the window, which was open. Cheap plastic curtains in a gaudy flower pattern were blowing in a lightly salty breeze that came off the ocean from this side of the motel. There were marks on the sill that seemed to be blood, marks that might have come from a killer, possibly escaping that way.
I knelt beside Craig, feeling for a pulse. I couldn’t find one anywhere. I touched his cheek. Still warm. He hadn’t been dead long.
Stroking his forehead, I couldn’t hold back tears. The poor guy never got the chance to get out of the hole he’d dug himself into. And we were so close to getting what he wanted.
I knelt there for a long moment, so staggered I wasn’t able to stand. I guess I noticed the draft, finally, that slammed the front door shut. Grasping the bathroom sink, I pulled myself up slowly and realized there was blood on my skirt and my knees.
I was still standing over Craig’s body, blood all over me, when the police banged on the front door and piled in. “Don’t move!” they ordered, guns pointed directly at me.
I didn’t even breathe.
Also by MEG O’BRIEN
CRIMSON RAIN
GATHERING LIES
SACRED TRUST
CRASHING DOWN
THE FINAL KILL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Sergeant Carlos A. Mendoza, Administrative Sergeant, El Segundo Police Department, El Segundo, California, for his unflagging assistance regarding police procedures in the El Segundo and Los Angeles area. Thanks for all the e-mails, and for being so quick to answer mine. If any errors remain, they are all mine.
Thanks again to my children and all my family for helping me in so many ways throughout the writing of my books. As I finish up number fifteen, it seems like just yesterday that I stood in that little health food store in Paradise, California, declaring, “I’m going to be a writer! I’ll give it five years, and if it doesn’t work out, I won’t have lost anything but five years.” I can’t believe no one laughed. At least, not to my face!
It actually took eight years before my first book was published, but who’s counting? From the birth in 1990 of Jessica (Jesse) James, my mystery series reporter, to The Last Cheerleader today, it’s been a great ride, and I hope it goes on forever.
I would also like to thank my good friend Cathy Landrum for her invaluable research assistance, my son, Greg, for his sharp editorial eye, and another good friend, Nancy Baker Jacobs, for all the phone calls, support and helpful ideas along the way. No author should be without someone with whom to bat ideas around!
I am also grateful for the loyal friendship of Alice Austin in North Wildwood, New Jersey, who found me through my book Crashing Down; Michelle and John Jaceks, good neighbors even when they’re off in their shiny new RV, and Bernice Cook, the smartest and dearest lady I know.
Last, but never least, I would like to thank Miranda Stecyk for being such a dream editor, and Dianne Moggy and Amy Moore-Benson for getting me started with MIRA—the best and brightest publishing house around.
“In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read; if they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.
—Will Rogers
“The only ‘ism’ Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.”
—Dorothy Parker
“I just want to tell y’all not to worry—them people in New York and Hollywood are not going to change me none.”
—Elvis Presley
When a train comes bearing down on one, there’s always a warning. The tracks shake and noise vibrates through them, like the sound of a thousand poor souls in hell. There’s a heavy smell of oil in the air, and if anyone is on those tracks—if they can’t get off, no matter how hard they try—there is also the dreadful, sickening scent of fear.
That’s the way it was for me with Tony. I’d loved him far too long and should have left him long ago. For three years I was on those tracks, and I heard and smelled all the warnings. I just couldn’t get off. I watched while he flirted with other women and didn’t show up on time, drank my coffee and never even brought me a bean. Tony didn’t spend much, and I always knew why. He held on to money as if it pained his palm to pull it out of his pocket. I tried to tell him that if you hold on to money like that it’ll just stop coming, that it’s like a cat, and if you pay too much attention it sticks its nose in the air and prances the other way. I told him he should be more generous, give some of it away, if only to a poor box at a church. I swore that it would always come back twofold, if not more.
Tony was horrified at that idea. He said he didn’t have “enough” to give away, and I always thought he felt the same way about love. He was terrified that if he gave that to someone, even himself, something terrible would happen. As if he’d wake one morning and find he wasn’t there anymore, that so much had been given away, there would be nothing left.
