Born To Be Wild Read online

  Born To Be Wild

  Catherine Coulter

  “Fast-paced.” – People

  “This terrific thriller will drag you into its chilling web of terror and not let go until the last paragraph…A ripping good read.” – The San Francisco Examiner

  “Catherine Coulter can always be counted on to write an exciting thriller.” – BookBrowser

  “Ms. Coulter is a one-of-a-kind author who knows how to hook her readers and keep them coming back for more.” – The Best Reviews

  “A good storyteller…Coulter always keeps the pace brisk.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Danger never felt so good.” – BookPage

  “Coulter takes readers on a chilling and suspenseful ride…taut, fast-paced, hard to put down.” – Cedar Rapids Gazette

  “A mind-bending mystery…intriguing.” – Publishers Weekly

  “Fast-paced, romantic…Coulter gets better and more cinematic with each of her suspenseful FBI adventures.” – Booklist

  “A dizzying dash involving kidnapping, near misses, murder, and a manhunt. Her readers are guaranteed a happy ending.” – The Sacramento Bee

  ***

  Dear Reader:

  Get yourself ready for Mary Lisa Beverly – a soap-opera phenom who's just won her third Daytime Emmy for her role as Sunday Cavendish on Born to Be Wild. She's fun and lovable and has lots of crazy friends, most of whom hang out at her house in the Colony, the famous gated community in Malibu. Unfortunately, there is one bad thing to poleax her champagne life – someone is trying to kill her.

  You'll meet Mary Lisa's family in Goddard Bay, Oregon. She's blessed with her father, cursed with her mother, and betwixt and between with her two nutzoid sisters.

  And how about guys? There aren't any hotties in L.A. of interest to Mary Lisa, but in Goddard Bay – there are District Attorney John Goddard and Chief of Police Jack Wolf. And guess what? Even in the boondocks, bad stuff can happen.

  Mary Lisa's best friends, Lou Lou Bollinger and Elizabeth Fargas, become embroiled in the baffling attempts on Mary Lisa's life in L.A., with unexpected results.

  I hope you laugh a lot with Born to Be Wild, root for Mary Lisa in all of her roles, and all in all, have a fine time with this book.

  Do let me know what you think. Write me at P.O. Box 17, Mill Valley, CA 94942, or e-mail me at [email protected]. Visit my website at www.catherinecoulter.com.

  Enjoy,

  Catherine Coulter

  Catherine Coulter

  Born To Be Wild

  Copyright © 2006 by Catherine Coulter.

  To my delightful niece

  Roxie DeAngelis:

  You light up the world.

  ONE

  Kodak Theater

  Los Angeles, California

  The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards

  Mary Lisa didn’t want to puke up the two Ritz crackers she’d eaten for dinner. She swallowed hard, tasted bile, swallowed again, and held herself very still. No way was she going to get sick on this beautiful dark green satin Valentino gown Signore Malo insisted she wear this special night. She put an Eclipse lozenge on her tongue, felt the burst of weird sharp flavor, and continued not to move a muscle.

  The applause slowly died as Christian Jules LeBlanc, who played Michael Baldwin on The Young and the Restless, walked off the stage beside Crystal Chappell, the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor clutched in his hand.

  Mary Lisa couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were all hitched up. Forever went by. And then another six hours passed before Eric Braeden and Melody Thomas Scott, the two major staple stars from Y &R, strolled onto the stage, so confident, so beautiful, so very sure of their place in the sun.

  Breath whooshed into her lungs. A good sign, surely, she was still alive. She felt Bernie’s hand clasp hers tighter, felt Lou Lou’s hand clutch her forearm. She could hear Elizabeth ’s sharp breathing behind her left shoulder.

  “And the nominees for this year’s Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series are…”

  I won’t win, I can’t win, how can I? I’ve won two times, it can’t happen again. I won’t vomit. Those two times were a fluke, a gift from God for something I must have done that I simply don’t remember. It’s all over. No more bursting sun. No one would vote for me again, not again. I’ll be stoic. I won’t get depressed. Those first two wins-the Nielsen ratings were skewed, everyone was fooled. But now they know the truth. Ohmigod, she just read out my name, she didn’t stumble over it, and that’s good. And she’s reading out the four other actresses, all of them splendid, all of them-Fact is, I’ve tanked. I’ll be out of a job, no, wait, I have a contract so they’ll have to kill me off slowly over the next six months until my contract is up, or they can whack me close up and fast right at the end. I’m not going to vomit.

  Clyde Dillard, Born to Be Wild’s producer, cupped her arm from the row behind her. And then Eric Braeden’s beautiful deep voice filled the vast auditorium. No man, no matter what age, looked finer in a tux than Eric Braeden.

  His lips moved. There was laughter. He must have made a clever remark, but Mary Lisa hadn’t heard it. She shook her head to stop the buzzing. His voice deepened. She heard him say in Moses’s voice, “And the winner for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series is”-pause, long, long pause, Eric, master that he was, stretching it out to infinity-“for the third year in a row”-third year in a row? No, impossible, he’s made a mistake, he’s going to correct himself now, say, I’m sorry, but I don’t have my glasses on, no, wait, he does have his glasses on, he does! An aneurysm then, he’s just blown something in his brain. No, wait, can it be? Really?-“Mary Lisa Beverly, as Sunday Cavendish, FOX, BORN TO BE WILD!”

  What?

  Suddenly there were hugs, shouts, screams, and applause from the cast of BTBW, rocking the auditorium around her. Then everyone else joined in, though understandably not with quite the same enthusiasm as the people on the show.

  Bernie Barlow, executive producer and head writer of BTBW, pulled her to her feet, hugged and kissed her. “You did it, sweetie, you did it, oh, this is the best thing. We’re golden, we’re on top, we can do anything. Anything!” He gave her a little push. “Go get it, babe, you deserve it, but be fast, time is running down.”

  And from Lou Lou, who was patting her shoulder, not wanting to disturb her hair or makeup, “You look gorgeous. Go get ’em, tiger.” Mary Lisa heard Elizabeth saying over and over, “I knew you’d get it, I knew you’d get it, you’re the best-”

  So many voices she knew congratulating her. Lou Lou lightly shoved Mary Lisa into the aisle.

  All the tension, the gut-knotting terror, the cannonball of nerves gripping her stomach, all of it disappeared in a flash. She’d won. She couldn’t believe it, but she had. She smiled hugely, right into the camera that was homed in on her face, and took her first step down the wide aisle. I won’t trip, I won’t trip, nice and easy now, shoulders straight, glide, glide. I’m a gazelle, smooth and graceful. My dress won’t fall down. I don’t look like an idiot, do I? I am an idiot, wearing these four-inch heels. No, a gazelle wouldn’t trip on her four-inch heels. They make the gazelle look awesome. Keep that smile. Oh my, oh my.

  The applause kept going, loud and sustained. This audience knew very well the last thing an actor or actress wanted was to have the applause die when there was another thirty feet or so to go before the stage. And there, overlaying all of it, the cacophony of hoots and whistles and cheers, and they were chanting her name-Mary Lisa, Mary Lisa, over and over again-most she recognized as the dulcet voices of the nineteen members of the BTBW cast, the directors, the stage manager, all the crew, the makeup and wardrobe people, all of them at full volume. Bless them. Thank you, God, thank you, God, I can’t
believe it, I just can’t believe it. Her smile became bigger as she approached Eric Braeden, whose smile, like Sean Connery’s, could fell a woman at fifty paces.

  He kissed her cheek, whispered in her ear, “You want to come over to Y &R?”

  She gave him a silly grin, and whispered back, “Only if I can marry you and have your baby,” to which he kissed her again, whispered against her cheek, “I’ll speak to Melody backstage, see what she thinks.” Then he formally placed the Emmy in her hands. She turned to hug Melody Thomas Scott, so very beautiful and talented, who was smiling at her, congratulating her, and then Mary Lisa stepped to the podium. She looked out across the overflowing Kodak Theater at the beautifully dressed people, all of them looking back at her. She nodded happily at the many faces she worked with daily, basked for an instant in the presence of all those great stars she’d watched over the years. She drew in a deep breath, raised the Emmy high, and thought, Damn, I’d sure like to thank three dozen people but there’s no time.

  “I am so happy at this moment, so proud and thankful to all the wonderful people I work with on Born to Be Wild, that if I weren’t wearing this tight dress I’d be clicking my four-inch heels together. Thank you, Bernie, Clyde, all our actors and actresses, our directors, the incredible makeup artists-all of you know who you are-thank all of you so very much.”

  She waved the Emmy, then carefully made her way back to her seat. She was so excited, her adrenaline level so high, she wouldn’t be surprised if it geysered out of the top of her head. She felt hands patting her, murmurs of Way to go! Congratulations! You deserve it. And then shushes because there were only two minutes left and Juliet Mills was quickly reading out the names of the Outstanding Drama Series.

  Then Steve Burton opened the envelope, studied it, and with perfect timing called out, “…And the winner is…BORN TO BE WILD, FOX, Bernard Barlow, Executive Producer and Head Writer.”

  Bernie’s face flushed scarlet, he was close to hyperventilating, and he was shaking. Mary Lisa knew he was feeling exactly what she’d felt. She hugged him. “You’re wonderful, Bernie, congratulations-but hurry, you’ve got one minute before they pull the plug on all the TV sets in the world.”

  Bernie made it to the stage in twenty seconds, accepted the Emmy after hugging Juliet Mills for a really long time (since he’d been in love with her for twenty years), accepted the Emmy from Steve Burton, saw the furiously blinking red light, and said into the microphone, “I’ve got the greatest group of writers in the universe, the most wonderful actors and actresses, and of course there are the countless experts who-” The red light blinked faster. “Thank you all from the bottom of my-”

  To those watching the Emmys on TV, no one really complained about being cut off since they knew what his final word was. But they’d have been wrong. The audience in the Kodak Theater heard “Thank you from the bottom of my tap-dancing feet.” And when they cut away to commercial, Bernie said, “This is for both Mary Lisa and me”-and he did a little jig.

  TWO

  Malibu, California

  Mary Lisa was minding her own business, wearing big Audrey Hepburn sunglasses that covered most of her face, tatty plumber jeans that would have showed off a lot of stomach if she hadn’t been wearing an equally tatty oversize Packers sweatshirt that pooled around her butt, and high-top sneakers. A Yankees baseball cap sat low on her head, her hair, too distinctive, as red as a violent sunset over the ocean, stuffed under the cap, unseen.

  She was fretting over the upcoming plotline: Should Sunday really go that far over the line to actually sleep with her weak, treacherous half sister’s sleazy husband? Tit for tat-her half sister, Susan, had gone over the line, hiring that bozo to terrorize Sunday, something Sunday knew her mother was actually behind, but the two of them were like evil twins-but still, actually sleep with Damian? That was the best revenge they could come up with?

  She immediately took back that stupid question. In the world of soaps there were no lines the writers wouldn’t cross. Well, maybe still a couple. On Y &R they’d cut off a budding interracial romance, and on another soap-she couldn’t remember which one-a mother and son very nearly slept together, barely avoiding a kinky Oedipus deal. Hmm, maybe they’d flinch too at a relationship between athletic Nurse Markham, at Community Hospital, and her rescue Saint Bernard. Not a good visual. She stopped, burst out laughing.

  Then she realized another reason she didn’t want her character, Sunday, to sleep with her half sister’s husband, maybe the real one. It was a case of art imitating life and it gave her indigestion. It had been three years since her sister Monica had married Mary Lisa’s ex-fiancé, Mark Bridges, and left her hollowed out with bone-deep humiliation, and a goodly dollop of rage. What a fool she’d been. At least it had been more than a year now since she’d wanted to smash Mark’s face.

  Art imitating life, she thought again, and crossed the road between the Malibu Library, one of her favorite places in Malibu, where the staff was efficient, friendly, and still talked about how Robert Downey Jr. had been hauled into the court right next door in shackles. It was the corner building in the Malibu Civic Center.

  Down the road a bit, across Civic Center Way, was the Malibu Country Mart, one of three small shopping centers in Malibu, all nearly within spitting distance of each other. It was only a block from Highway 1, or the Pacific Coast Highway, or simply PCH, as she’d learned to call it when she’d moved to the Colony in Malibu a year and a half before. She loved Malibu, not really a town, she’d tell visiting out-of-towners, but it was quite a place, loaded with movie stars and just plain rich folk who wanted privacy, a precious commodity, and they found it here because, she’d learned, most long-timers who worked here in Star Mecca didn’t really care if you were Jennifer Lopez or Godzilla.

  Malibu started out as a skinny strip of highway set between high bluffs on one side and the ocean on the other, until the cliffs receded making room for some scattered strip stores, inns on the water, lots of eateries, from Chinese to fat-heavy beach cuisine, the library and city hall, a small sheriff ’s station, and not much else except beautiful homes, outrageous sports cars, and truckloads of money. Besides the local high school, Malibu was home to Pepperdine University, just to the north, which had expanded to its current size in the early 1970s.

  It was in the mid eighties today, the hazy sun scorching gold overhead. She’d walked to the library to check out the newest Harry Potter, and had it tucked in her huge tote.

  Suddenly she saw a man duck into the shaded doorway of a small bagel shop-a paparazzo, a blight on the landscape, his camera at the ready. The paparazzi were everywhere, even in lovely private Malibu, the jerks. She’d bet the Baby Ruth in her tote it was Poker Hodges, her nemesis for years now. She called him Puker, ever since he’d caught her on film squeezing a roll of toilet paper at a local 24/7 six months ago and her photo had appeared in the Star the next week with some dumb caption that she thankfully couldn’t remember. That must have appealed to his perverted brain because she was now his main target. He’d tracked and stalked her to the extent that she’d managed to get a restraining order to keep him at least one hundred feet away from her. That had helped, up to a point, but he was still there, whenever she happened to look up. Was that bagel doorway one hundred feet away? No, she’d bet it was no more than eighty feet. She knew he was taking photos of her with a telephoto lens. But who cared? Who would publish them if no one could recognize who she was? And thus her cap and huge sunglasses. She ducked into Luther’s Army Salvage, caught by the sight of army combat boots piled high in a barrel. She looked through them but didn’t find her size. Then she saw the pile of pea green knit sleeveless T-shirts, perfect for workouts and running on the beach. None of the three older guys in the store gave her a second look. She bought three identical pea green T-shirts, paid cash, pulled one on in a cramped dressing room, and slipped out the side door, then ran the block to PCH. She looked back, didn’t see him. She turned right and ran at a steady pace on the side of
the highway, her tote banging against her side. When she reached Webb Way, she paused at the red light, then charged across just as the light was changing, the traffic on PCH still idled. All she had to do was keep up a nice fast pace until she reached the kiosk at the entrance of the Colony just three blocks away.

  No sooner had she gained the other side of Webb Way, right next to the Malibu Plaza, when she ran smack into an old woman pushing a grocery cart piled high with brightly colored afghans, all neatly folded. She apologized profusely, saw the woman eyeing her pea green T-shirt, reached into her store bag and pulled out another one. She thought the woman would kiss her, but she only nodded and gave her a stingy smile. Mary Lisa looked back to see the woman unbuttoning her ancient red blouse with its Peter Pan collar. She really didn’t want to see the woman wear the T-shirt, she really didn’t, not weighing two hundred plus pounds.

  Mary Lisa looked around and didn’t see Puker. Only another couple of blocks to go and she’d be safely through the gates into the sanctuary of the Colony. She began whistling, feeling quite fine, and found herself thinking again about where the writers were heading with the plot. She’d cornered head writer Bernie Barlow yesterday morning. “Listen, Bernie, Sunday doesn’t even like Damian. She knows he’s a jerk and a sleaze, that he’s a fake, she knows he married her half sister for her money, knows he’d like to finagle his way into her mother’s company. There’s no way Sunday would ever sleep with him, no matter the provocation.”

  Of course the writers never listened to the actors although they tried hard to pretend they did. Bernie patted her shoulder, nodded enthusiastically, and said, “Good, good,” but ended with, “Sweetie, Sunday sleeps with Damian for revenge against her half sister and her mother. It’s that straightforward, at least that’s the way it’ll appear for a couple of weeks, then-well, we’ll just have to wait and see.” She knew she should hang it up, stop pestering him about it, but where were they heading with this?