Read Online THE NEXT TO DIE by Kevin O'Brien - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kevin O'Brien
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a while.
But she kept replaying in her head that bizarre conversation with the room service waiter. She remembered what he’d said about Tony Katz receiving death threats: He told me these people were calling him at home, saying they were gonna kill him and expose him as being gay….
Amid all the hate mail pouring in after Dayle had made Survival Instincts , one note stood out. It wasn’t among her fan letters—or even in the mailbox at her apartment. She found this one inside her car.
They’d been shooting at the studio into the early evening, and it was dark when Dayle went to her green BMW, parked in its spot outside the soundstage. She unlocked the door. The interior light went on, and she saw the piece of paper taped to the steering wheel. The note was printed up by a computer. What it said made her heart stop: WHEN DAYLE SUTTON IS DEAD, EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT SHE WAS A LESBIAN DEGENERATE, AND THUS YOU WILL DIE .
She didn’t dare turn the key in the ignition. A police bomb squad came to inspect the car, but found nothing. Dayle had a couple of officers escort her home that night. It remained a mystery how someone could have snuck past studio security and broken into her locked car.
Dayle decided to start working her chauffeur full time, and had him doubling as her bodyguard. After a couple of weeks, the Survival Instincts backlash died down, and she forgot about that note. She had enough on her mind with career worries. Her box-office clout was slipping.
The good film roles were going to younger actresses. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but it still peeved her that—in her late thirties—she was considered by the moneymen as too old to play the romantic lead opposite Harrison Ford in one project—and Robert Redford in another vehicle.
She couldn’t lure the big-name leading men for films made by her own production company. The guys wanted top billing and too much money. So her recent on-screen lovers were mostly second-echelon stars—all fine actors, but somehow lacking the charisma for superstardom. If moviegoers didn’t see much chemistry between Dayle and her last few leading men, that was why.
Her leading men off screen weren’t much better. In fact, for someone selected six times by People magazine as one of The 50 Most Beautiful People, her love life was pretty abysmal. It seemed predestined.
She’d gone to a numerologist once—on a dare, an old Frenchwoman named Rene, who also did tarot readings. Rene must have dug up a few old magazine articles about her, because she accurately pegged Dayle as being an only child from a wealthy family. Perhaps she expected Dayle to be astonished when she pointed to the number nine on a chart, and declared in her thick accent: Dis is how old you are when your father leaves you .
Dayle nodded. Her parents’ divorce was mentioned in that Vanity Fair cover story a while back. The article covered practically everything Rene was “unearthing”: the years at a private boarding school, the need to escape through movies and books, the desire to pretend she was someone else that led to an interest in theater. You do not trust many people , Rene went on. People like you, but you push dem away. You don’t haff many close friends. I see walls dat you build. You are independent…cautious. You trust only yourself. You will not give up control. The relations in love —Rene shook her head and sighed. Dey are not so good. Maybe dis is because you need control? Or perhaps because of your caution?
Dayle didn’t remember Rene saying anything in particular that suddenly won her over. And maybe the old medium was merely conjecturing what might concern most single career women in their late thirties when she talked about Dayle’s fear of growing old alone, her ticking biological clock, and the whole this-is-your-last-chance business. But by the time Rene started flipping over the various tarot cards, Dayle was busy taking notes.
Her love cards always looked so
But she kept replaying in her head that bizarre conversation with the room service waiter. She remembered what he’d said about Tony Katz receiving death threats: He told me these people were calling him at home, saying they were gonna kill him and expose him as being gay….
Amid all the hate mail pouring in after Dayle had made Survival Instincts , one note stood out. It wasn’t among her fan letters—or even in the mailbox at her apartment. She found this one inside her car.
They’d been shooting at the studio into the early evening, and it was dark when Dayle went to her green BMW, parked in its spot outside the soundstage. She unlocked the door. The interior light went on, and she saw the piece of paper taped to the steering wheel. The note was printed up by a computer. What it said made her heart stop: WHEN DAYLE SUTTON IS DEAD, EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT SHE WAS A LESBIAN DEGENERATE, AND THUS YOU WILL DIE .
She didn’t dare turn the key in the ignition. A police bomb squad came to inspect the car, but found nothing. Dayle had a couple of officers escort her home that night. It remained a mystery how someone could have snuck past studio security and broken into her locked car.
Dayle decided to start working her chauffeur full time, and had him doubling as her bodyguard. After a couple of weeks, the Survival Instincts backlash died down, and she forgot about that note. She had enough on her mind with career worries. Her box-office clout was slipping.
The good film roles were going to younger actresses. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but it still peeved her that—in her late thirties—she was considered by the moneymen as too old to play the romantic lead opposite Harrison Ford in one project—and Robert Redford in another vehicle.
She couldn’t lure the big-name leading men for films made by her own production company. The guys wanted top billing and too much money. So her recent on-screen lovers were mostly second-echelon stars—all fine actors, but somehow lacking the charisma for superstardom. If moviegoers didn’t see much chemistry between Dayle and her last few leading men, that was why.
Her leading men off screen weren’t much better. In fact, for someone selected six times by People magazine as one of The 50 Most Beautiful People, her love life was pretty abysmal. It seemed predestined.
She’d gone to a numerologist once—on a dare, an old Frenchwoman named Rene, who also did tarot readings. Rene must have dug up a few old magazine articles about her, because she accurately pegged Dayle as being an only child from a wealthy family. Perhaps she expected Dayle to be astonished when she pointed to the number nine on a chart, and declared in her thick accent: Dis is how old you are when your father leaves you .
Dayle nodded. Her parents’ divorce was mentioned in that Vanity Fair cover story a while back. The article covered practically everything Rene was “unearthing”: the years at a private boarding school, the need to escape through movies and books, the desire to pretend she was someone else that led to an interest in theater. You do not trust many people , Rene went on. People like you, but you push dem away. You don’t haff many close friends. I see walls dat you build. You are independent…cautious. You trust only yourself. You will not give up control. The relations in love —Rene shook her head and sighed. Dey are not so good. Maybe dis is because you need control? Or perhaps because of your caution?
Dayle didn’t remember Rene saying anything in particular that suddenly won her over. And maybe the old medium was merely conjecturing what might concern most single career women in their late thirties when she talked about Dayle’s fear of growing old alone, her ticking biological clock, and the whole this-is-your-last-chance business. But by the time Rene started flipping over the various tarot cards, Dayle was busy taking notes.
Her love cards always looked so
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