at me. “Dinner?”

“Um, sure,” I said.

“It’s too early for Martini’s,” Evelyn said. “You know I hate eating there before eight—”

“Didn’t invite you. Giving Dee a break.”

He waved me to the back door as she sputtered an obscenity-laden answer.

* * *

Jaxson

“Jackson,” he told the hostess. “With an x.”

Even now, ten years after his agent gave him the moniker, he felt silly saying it. Invariably, the other person frowned, not understanding. It wasn’t like saying “Brandy with an i.” Who the hell put an x in Jackson?

“J-A-X-S-O-N,” he said when the hostess’s brow knitted.

“And your first name, Mr. Jaxson?” she said as she wrote it down beside the reservation list. Before he could answer, her baby blues went double-wide. “Oh, my God. That Jaxson. I’m so sorry. I should have recognized—”

“That’s okay. Some days, I’m happy being anonymous. After No Holds Barred, I didn’t want to be recognized for months.”

Ba-dum-dum. A line he’d used a thousand times, and not worth a snicker, much less the guffaw the hostess gave it. That’s the hell of being famous. Everything that leaves your mouth is profoundly witty, profoundly charming, profoundly profound.

“Will your guest be joining you later?” the hostess asked as she led him through the darkened restaurant.

“She just got a casting call about an hour ago,” Jaxson said. “She might be late.”

The hostess smiled, nodded, promised to keep an eye out, all the time doubtless wondering which starlet Jaxson (Jackson…with an x) was bedding now. He almost felt guilty, as if he were robbing her of some bit of gossip she could sell or barter on the social market. No one would be joining him. There was no starlet. There was Melanie, a med student, but she was neck-deep in her internship and had no time—or patience—for media.

Instead, he ate lunch with the Washington Post. He plowed through his garlic fettuccine—screw the carbs—and finished up with a slice of chocolate cake—double-screw them. He wasn’t in L.A. today, so he didn’t need to play by L.A. rules.

After lunch he signed an autograph for the server and left her a twenty as a tip—more than his meal cost, but not so long ago he’d been waiting tables himself. Since he’d graduated from rehab, he had precious little to spend his money on. He might as well give a bit to someone who could use it.

Onto the street. Not much danger of being hounded for autographs here. This town might be small but, having attained a certain cachet in Hollywood circles, it saw stars quadruple his caliber every day.

Earlier, circling for a parking spot, he’d seen a conservation area. He could use the solitude, and the exercise after that meal.

He turned around, orienting himself, then spotted treetops to the east and set out.

He’d been trolling all day. Time for a West Coast hit, and this town seemed as likely as any. For hours he’d browsed the shops, tossed bills to the street performers, amused himself running through his options. Tourist, townie, celebrity…tourist, townie, celebrity. There was much to be said for each choice. And there was much to be said for not choosing at all, for simply targeting the first person who came into view.

The woman in Boston had been his first taste of the truly random. Set a trap and whoever falls for it, dies. The thrill of that still hadn’t left his bones. The power of it. Power over even his own conscience. It didn’t matter who’d walked through that stairwell door—an adolescent paper-boy, a pregnant woman, an old man—they would have died because that’s what he’d decided and he wouldn’t renege on the deal.

He’d been strolling the main street, savoring his options, when he’d seen the young man. He wasn’t the first actor to walk past. He wasn’t the biggest. But the young man tweaked a memory of sitting in a dentist’s office, flipping through an entertainment magazine. He’d been in there, this pretty-boy actor with the ridiculously spelled name. A chill of delicious déjà vu ran through him. Jaxson, model turned forgettable actor. Sharon Tate, model turned forgettable actress. Perfect.

He’d watched the young man, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, clean-shaven and polite, stepping aside for others, apologizing when he bumped a passerby, never disappointed when the object of his courtesy didn’t leap up and ask for an autograph.

Better and better. The portrait of Sharon Tate painted in Helter Skelter was of a good, sweet-natured girl, the antithesis of the spoiled starlet. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, but it mattered little