Living with the Dead - By Kelley Armstrong Page 0,53

a dull, common-looking girl.

And it was that description that jolted her memory so fast her fork fell, clattering against the plate, a chunk of cheesecake bouncing off. Robyn had seen this girl before.

When Robyn had started working for Portia, her first self-assigned task had been repairing her client’s image problem with the media. She would start by identifying those members of the paparazzi who took the most damaging photos of Portia. Then she’d train Portia how to be on the lookout for them. Presumably, once they realized they weren’t going to get a juicy photo, they’d go in search of less media-savvy targets, leaving only those paparazzi who didn’t mind selling photos of Portia helping in soup kitchens or attending charity events.

A lofty goal. And it proved how little Robyn had understood her new job. While there were tabloid photos Portia would rather not see, soup kitchen photos didn’t make tongues wag. As Oscar Wilde once said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. For the celebutante on the rise, rumor and innuendo were the helium that kept her fragile balloon afloat.

Understanding none of this, Robyn had doggedly pursued her course. She’d scoured back issues of the tabloids, digging up the worst pictures and noting the photographer. One name topped the list. Adele Morrissey.

Adele seemed to be able to find Portia anywhere, in any disguise, snapping pictures of her cuddling with a male stripper while all the other paparazzi waited at the charity function Portia was scheduled to attend. Unable to find identifying information on Adele, Robyn had asked Portia to point out the woman. Portia had laughed. She could barely remember the names of her house staff. She certainly wasn’t going to learn those of the paparazzi.

Undaunted, Robyn soon discovered why Adele Morrissey was able to snap photos, anywhere, anytime, undetected. Apparently the woman was a ghost. She didn’t exist in any records, and no one in the business seemed to know who she was.

Everyone presumed it was a pseudonym. Some speculated it was one of the more notorious paparazzi, using the fake name to shelter income from a bookie or third wife. Others were convinced it was a plant on Portia Kane’s own staff.

Eventually, Robyn gave up her hunt for Adele Morrissey. Even if she did manage to force Adele to cease and desist, she might actually be fired for ending Portia’s best source of exposure.

Still, Robyn would find herself scanning the crowds around Portia, ticking off the names of the photographers she knew, hoping to narrow it down and identify Adele, if only to satisfy her own curiosity.

Finally, Robyn thought she’d solved this particular mystery. Portia had been still dating Brock De Beers, who’d wanted her to stop seeing other guys. When an old flame returned from a year in Paris, Portia wanted to see him. Purely platonic—she really had been crazy about Brock. So she’d had Robyn arrange a secret lunch at an obscure diner near San Clemente.

Portia had insisted Robyn accompany her. She’d said she wanted to go over her schedule, but Robyn knew she just wanted company on the hour-long drive. Once there, Robyn sat across the restaurant, eating alone. Then she’d seen another, younger woman also eating alone.

It’d been a total fluke that Robyn noticed her at all. The girl had been reading a medical thriller by an author Robyn’s brother liked. Robyn always made a point of grabbing the author’s latest hardcover for the cash-strapped med student, so she’d noted it in her PDA and continued eating.

Later, when a photo of Portia eating with her ex appeared in True News, credited to Adele Morrissey, Robyn made no connection to the girl reading in the diner. But then, at a movie premiere, she’d seen the same young woman in the crowd.

Robyn had pointed her out to Portia, suggesting that might be Adele. Portia had laughed so hard she’d nearly choked.

“Does that look like an Adele to you?” she’d said as the girl bounced on her tiptoes, watching the limos arrive. “Anyone named Adele has got to be, what, fifty? That’s more of a Beth. No, Bethany. Mousy little Bethany.”

“But she was at the diner—”

“Well, she must have followed me, then. It’s just another pathetic groupie, studying what I wear, what I eat, how I walk, hoping to copy it and be like me. As if.”

It still bothered Robyn. But no photo by Adele Morrissey appeared after the movie premiere, and even if Robyn found Portia’s argument about