Read the book: «Man Behind The Voice»

Chapter One

Six Months Later

Jackson MacAllister bolted upright in bed, his own shout echoing in the darkness of the hotel room.

Breathing heavily, he dragged his fingers through his hair, trying to calm the fierce pounding of his head.

The dream. It had come again—as it always did when he was tired or feeling under the weather.

Or recovering from a nasty concussion.

Wincing, Jack swung his legs over the edge of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. His body throbbed with the aftereffects of injuries he’d sustained on the job that day and the dregs of his dreams, causing his head to ache until he thought his skull would split with the pressure.

Standing, he padded into the bathroom. Under the harsh glare of the overhead light, he shook four aspirin from the bottle on the counter, then gulped them down with a glass of water from the tap.

Only then did he begin to relax.

Willing himself not to think of the dream or the woman who had seemed so real, so vulnerable, he moved to the windows. Pulling the heavy curtains aside, he peered down at the pre-dawn glow seeping over the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.

It had been nearly a week since the stunt car he’d been driving had flipped end-over-end during a staged high-speed chase for the film adaptation of the bestselling techno-thriller …Savage Justice. The scene had been choreographed and reshot three times in the first month of production, but since the director had spent only a quarter of a million dollars more than his budget had allotted, he’d decided to celebrate his good fortune by spending another fifty grand expanding the final chase scene.

Jack grimaced at the irony of the whole situation. Naturally, the director had decided that the footing showing Jack’s accident was “mar-r-r-velous”—as if Jack had planned to roll out of control and finish the take upside down next to a broken water hydrant. If Jack hadn’t immediately been rushed to the hospital, he would have grabbed the director by the collar, pinned him against a wall and chastised the man for moving a camera crew into the middle of the road—unannounced. As it was, Jack had still been in the emergency room when he’d received the news that the filming was finally—finally—over.

His anger at the director hadn’t eased with the announcement. If anything, Jack’s ire had increased—to the point where he’d made an effort to ignore the man so that he wouldn’t say anything politically incorrect. Jon Palermo might be an idiot, but his films were spectacular, and Jack enjoyed the creative freedom and lucrative budgets that came with a spot on Palermo’s crew. In the meantime, he planned to avoid Palermo.

Which was why Jack was booked on the next afternoon flight to Los Angeles. Once he’d returned to California he could put this whole miserable week behind him.

As if of its own volition, his mind quickly strayed away from all thoughts of Palermo to the nightmare that had awakened him.

Eleanor Rappaport. Why did the memories of that night, that woman, still continue to haunt him?

But even as he asked himself the question, he already knew. In the months since the accident, Jack had thought about Eleanor more than he would care to admit. He couldn’t seem to banish the image of her lying next to him, gripping his hand, and crying, “I can’t see!”

Again, the words shuddered through him like an icy finger touching his heart. He often found himself wondering what had happened in the intervening months. And if she’d ever regained her sight…

He shook his head as if to clear it of his thoughts, then regretted the action when a slicing pain shot through his head.

The time had come to put the memories of that night behind him, he told himself fiercely. After all, Eleanor Rappaport was a stranger to him. Other than those few minutes at the scene of the accident, he had never seen her again.

But he’d tried, a little voice reminded him. He’d brought a huge bouquet of daisies to the hospital where Eleanor had been taken, only to discover she’d been transferred to another facility.

Sighing, Jack stared out at the jewel-like glow of the historic buildings clustered around the glassy reflecting pool. Maybe the pressures of the job were to blame, but lately the dreams of that night plagued him even more. The details seemed sharper and Eleanor’s panic seemed that much more real.

If only he could assure himself that she was all right. If only he knew if she’d regained her sight. If he could see her one more time…

No. He couldn’t even think such a thing. She was a stranger to him. And those few moments they’d had together didn’t give him the right to interfere.

But she wouldn’t have to know.

The moment the thought raced through his head, he tried to push it aside, but it returned with even more force.

If he could somehow find her, he could tell at a glance if she was happy, healthy…

And whether or not she could see.

Again, he tried to bury the idea. He was out of his mind to even consider such a thing.

But he had the time.

And he needed to know.

Already he found himself making plans. Denver. If he could change his flight to Denver, he could—

No!

Again every logical bone Jack possessed insisted that he stop and think about the repercussions of such an action. Eleanor Rappaport was a stranger. He had no business barging into her life unannounced.

But another part of him, one that reacted on instinct, had taken control of his body. He was filled with impatience, a sudden hunger to see her again.

Numbly he turned, making his way to the closet. Slowly at first, then with greater urgency, he began throwing his belongings in his suitcase, banging drawers as he went.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

The door to the adjoining room squeaked open and a stoop-shouldered man glared at Jack.

Jack grimaced, realizing too late that he’d been making enough noise to wake Ira Sullivan, a fellow stuntman and mentor—known to his friends as One-Eye because of the patch he wore over his left eye, the result of a stunt-related accident that occurred years earlier.

“Denver!”

“Denver?” the man echoed incredulously. “What the hell for? I thought we were taking a four o’clock flight to L.A.”

“I’ve got to see someone there.”

“Who?”

“Eleanor Rappaport.”

One-Eye’s mouth gaped. He’d heard all about the accident and was clearly flabbergasted that Jack intended to see Eleanor again. He opened his mouth intending to argue, then closed it again.

“I’ll just gather my things. Heaven only knows what kind of trouble you could get into with that concussion. ’Pears to me you’re going to need someone to ride shotgun with you on this little adventure.”

“THERE YOU GO, Ms. Rappaport.” The bus driver’s rich-as-chocolate voice was accompanied by the squeal of brakes and the pungent scent of diesel fumes. “You be careful on your way home, y’hear? It’ll be slippery out there with all that rain.”

“Thanks, Burt.”

Eleanor awkwardly pushed herself to her feet, automatically smoothing the folds of her jumper over the protrusion of her stomach.

Two months. Two more months and she wouldn’t have to complete the odd contortion of movements it took to wriggle out of her seat and stand on a moving bus.

Finally gaining her balance, Eleanor automatically curled her hand around the iron bar overhead and made her way to the rear doors, her body leaning backward to adjust to the rocking of the vehicle.

Once she was positioned in front of the exit, she hooked an elbow around the vertical pole and used her free hand to unfold the red-tipped cane she’d slipped into her purse, taking great care not to bump the strident bicycle bell attached to the handle. Burt came unglued if she rang it on his bus. Something to do with the fact that he was an ex-police officer—go figure.

Looping her wrist through the strap, Eleanor clasped her coat more tightly around her neck, tapping her toe in an impatient tattoo as she waited for the city bus to come to a standstill. Not that she had anything important waiting for her when she arrived home. She merely hated waste—wasted time, wasted energy, wasted emotion.

Vainly she tried to shake off the impatience and frustration that invariably settled under her skin with bad weather. The smells of exhaust, damp earth and wet wool hung in the air around her, infiltrating her consciousness like mustard gas. The noise of raindrops splatting against the windows and drumming to the ground muted the sounds she’d become accustomed to absorbing on her ride home from work—the snore of Ed Mecham, who would sleep to the end of the line, the rustle of newspapers, the chatter of the Selma sisters who rode the number nine to mass each Wednesday and Friday. Calming sounds. Ritualistic sounds.

The thump of the doors roused her from her stupor, and she descended the steep steps, feeling carefully with her toe before stepping onto the curb. Once safe and sound, she hit the bicycle bell with her thumb, a signal to Burt Mescalero that he could drive on.

Behind her, the engine grumbled and whined, and a fine spray of water splashed the backs of her legs. Then she was alone.

Eleanor arched her neck to relieve it of the kink the muscles had developed after an hour huddled at the cramped food counter of The Flick Theatre, an establishment near old Larimer Square that was devoted to playing classic movies in their original, wide-screen format.

“Damn those gumdrops,” she said to herself, referring to a case of candies that had fallen down the back stairs, spilling cellophane-wrapped packages all over the storeroom floor. Eleanor had spent a half hour on her hands and knees picking them up. If not for that small disaster, she would have been home on one of Burt’s earlier runs. But…c’est la vie, as her mother would say. Everything happened for a reason.

Absolutely everything.

A sharp gust of cold air swirled around her ankles, and she huddled even tighter into the shelter of her coat. It was cold this evening. Too cold for the beginning of May, she decided, as she took three precise steps to the center of the sidewalk, turned right and began to count.

One, two, three, four…

She tapped her cane on the wet pavement ahead of her, seeking out the obstacles her eyes couldn’t see. Not clearly, anyhow. Sometimes she experienced hazy patches of gray or muted blotches of light. But for the most part her world was one of darkness. An inescapable darkness that would be her constant companion at least until the baby was born. And then…

She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about the corneal transplant surgery her ophthalmologist had proposed, not knowing whether such an operation would allow her to see as she once had or leave her fumbling in a world of light and shadows.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…

Everyone she knew said Eleanor had adjusted beautifully—her doctor, her mother, her co-workers. But Eleanor wasn’t so certain. Oh, she could find her way around town, perform her duties at work and live on her own. But sometimes, on nights like these, when she was angry and tired and out of sorts, she couldn’t help thinking that she was a poor sport in God’s little game of life. Perhaps if she hadn’t relied so heavily upon her sight as an artist, she might not have regarded the loss with such bitterness. She might have been able to “suffer with elegance” as her sister Blythe had once advised her to do.

As it happened, she couldn’t seem to resign herself to the fact that her identity had been shattered the moment her head had collided with the window frame of her car. The change in fortunes bothered the hell out of her, burning at the pit of her stomach whenever she allowed herself to think about it.

She’d been a good artist, dammit.

She’d been asked to have a show at the National Gallery.

And a partial return of her sight would never allow her to retain the finesse she’d once mastered.

Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…

Eleanor Rappaport’s boot heels rapped sharply against the pavement—and for a moment she thought she heard an accompanying set of footsteps behind her. Automatically she quickened her pace. It annoyed her how some people felt that her being blind was the same as being incompetent. She didn’t want help crossing the street, she didn’t want anyone leading her home like a stray puppy. She could do it herself.

But as she quickened her step, the sounds behind her increased their speed, echoing her own pace. Thinking whoever was behind her wanted to pass, she stopped and turned.

The noises stopped, as well.

The anger that had been building in her all day raged even hotter. She hated being made to appear a fool, almost as much as she hated being made to appear helpless.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

No answer. Only the sputter of the rain gurgling down a nearby gutter.

Eleanor squinted, blinking against the moisture dripping from her hair, down her face, off her dark glasses, hoping to catch a shadow, a shape. But the light was too poor to allow her even the haziest of images.

Shivering, she began to walk again, crossing the quiet street, moving as quickly as she could. She didn’t have the patience for such pranks. It was time she arrived home, out of the rain.

But after only a few steps she realized she’d lost count.

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Ringing the bell on her cane, she lifted her head calling out, “Minnie! Maude!”

As she waited for a response from her landladies, who were elderly, unmarried and avid game-show fanatics, a tightness closed around her throat and she paused, swallowing hard. For a moment the frustration closed in on her like a shroud. The same frustration that had dogged her since that night when she’d been pulled from the mangled wreckage of her car. While waiting for an ambulance, she’d focused on a stranger’s face. The red glow of flares had flickered over dark hair and even darker eyes. Then the colors had grown dim and died completely away, leaving her grasping at the hand of a stranger as she was plunged into nothingness.

Stop it! She didn’t want to remember that night. Not tonight.

Ringing the bell more stridently than before, Eleanor shouted, “Minnie—”

“Here, dear,” a sweet, old voice interrupted, providing Eleanor with the bearings she needed.

Minnie.

Since Eleanor’s grandmother had lived in this neighborhood before she’d died, Minnie and Maude Vanderbilt had been her dearest friends. They’d even been godmothers to Eleanor’s mother, and Eleanor had known them both as a child. She pictured Minnie as she’d been then. Short and plump with cotton-candy hair rinsed a pale shade of yellow. She was the perfect foil for her older sister, Maude, who was tall and reed thin and wore an array of different-colored wigs.

“My lands, you’re soaked to the skin, child. Maude’s not home right now, but I could fix you a cup of tea. Jeopardy! is about to start, and you can watch it with me as you dry out.”

Eleanor made her way toward the voice, but it was only when she encountered the rough, peeling paint of a picket fence that the tension building inside her breast eased.

Had someone really been following her? Dogging her steps? The hairs at her nape prickled in warning, but there were no sounds to substantiate the suspicion. Nothing that the rain didn’t completely obscure.