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Chapter Nine
“Why are you doing this?” Stacy asked, still not quite trusting her eyes.
Mandy sneered. “Because you’re nothing but a greedy, trashy whore. You slithered into this town, flashed your tits and ass, and stole everything I worked for. Everything I deserved.”
“I didn’t.” The accusation didn’t make any sense. She’d had her low moments, and, yes, even broken the law on a few occasions, but she’d never resorted to thievery. Ever.
Careful. Do NOT start an argument with the crazy bitch, her voice of reason counseled. Then her mouth took over. “That’s bullshit. I’ve never stolen anything in my life.” Crap.
Her quiet, mousy assistant slapped her across the face. “Liar! You think I don’t know what you are?”
She resisted the reflex to press her palm to her burning cheek. The slap felt and sounded odd, not quite skin-on-skin. She stared at Mandy’s hand and frowned. Her assistant wore thin latex gloves. Nausea swirled as she digested the significance of that information. No fingerprints. “W-what am I?”
“You’re a sociopath. You have no concern for the effects of your behavior on others. People are nothing but tools to you, and if they can’t help you further your own agenda, then you don’t even see them. Knowing that made everything easy for me.”
I’m the sociopath? “I don’t understand—”
“You assumed I was a pathetic, self-conscious wallflower, hoping to get a shred of excitement out of being your assistant, because that’s what I wanted you to think. But you’re wrong. I’m an actress, and a damn good one. Not that I needed to be, in your case. You were so ridiculously easy to fool. A little hair dye, some colored contacts, a crappy wardrobe, and I might as well have been invisible to you. You still don’t recognize me, do you?”
Stacy shook her head. “You’re…Mandy Waltrip, my assistant.”
The manic laugh Mandy let loose chilled her blood. “You really are stupid. I’m Amanda Walters. You and I attended the same acting classes, workshops, we even worked together once on a student film. And you know what? Everybody says I’m the better actress. Everybody.”
Amanda Walters? Stacy searched her memory, trying to put a face to the name. A vague picture of a perky, blond-haired, blue-eyed girl-next-door type formed in her mind. She compared the woman in front of her with the mental image. Yes, they could be the same woman.
“I auditioned for the part of Nichole in Vegas Vixens,” Mandy continued. “I met with the director, the producers…my agent told me the part was mine. There was one more girl they had to audition, as a favor to her agent, but that was just a formality. I’d won the role. I called my parents, my friends, everyone. They were all so happy and proud of me.” A tear trickled down Mandy’s cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Stacy said, cautiously. “I didn’t know.” There was no way they’d ever been in serious contention for the same part. Amanda Walters was Doris Day to her Marilyn Monroe. Except, of course, in this case Doris had a dark side.
“You stole it from me! I’m Nichole. I’m the good girl. You swooped in, seduced somebody who made the decisions, and took my part from me.”
Mandy’s voice pitched wildly as she spouted her accusations. But the good girl’s gun hand remained level and steady.
“I didn’t seduce anyone,” Stacy insisted. “I went in, I read, and I got the part. I didn’t even know who else was up for the role. And I can’t tell you how many times I thought I’d nailed an audition, been promised the part, only to get a call from my agent a few days later and learn it went to someone else. That’s all part of the Hollywood hazing.”
“No. It’s how you operate. You use sex to get what you want, and you don’t care who you hurt in the process.”
“I have a lot of flaws, Mandy, but I’ve never screwed my way into a job, or deliberately tried to screw anybody else out of one. That’s not the kind of woman I am.”
“Don’t make me laugh.” But Mandy wasn’t laughing, or crying anymore, for that matter. She was deadly calm again, her stony-faced, sitting-in-judgment expression all the scarier now that Stacy had glimpsed the freak show going on behind the facade. “You’re the kind of woman who works at a club like Deuces, stripping for money and leading men astray by appealing to their basest desires, so don’t even try to convince me you’re too moral for the casting couch, because we both know better. It’s completely twisted, you, playing the good girl on Vixens. America rooting for Nichole to keep her innocence despite all the sleazy behavior she’s surrounded by. Won’t the viewers be surprised to meet the real Nichole and discover she’s as sleazy as they come?”
No amount of arguing would change Mandy’s mind. She’d only succeed in riling her attacker. She needed a plan of action. Unfortunately, she couldn’t come up with any good options. A head-on assault would be suicide. Might as well put the gun in her mouth and pull the trigger herself. Even if she managed to surprise Mandy and, best-case scenario, knock her off her feet, between the side wound and her adversary’s strength, there was no way she’d succeed in overpowering and disarming her. She’d probably pass out during the struggle and that would be that.
All she could do was try appeasing her captor to buy more time.
“I’ll admit when I want something, I go after it with everything I’ve got, and my boundaries might not have always been where they should have. But I spoke to the press tonight and announced I used to strip here, so you win. Now everyone knows my past, what kind of choices I’ve made. You’ve helped me see the error of my ways. Believe me, Mandy, I’ve learned my lesson. Let’s talk about how to get us both what we deserve.”
Mandy didn’t blink. “I’m not here to teach you a lesson. That time has passed.” She stepped closer, so close Stacy smelled the woman’s Listerine breath. “And you’re going to get exactly what you deserve.”
That sounded bad.
“I’ll resign from the show,” she volunteered, voice desperate to her own ears, “just like you wanted. We’ll go to my place. I’ll write my resignation and e-mail it to my agent. Then I’ll disappear. I’ll never come between you and a role again.”
“No. You certainly won’t,” Mandy agreed, and stretched her lips into a wide, sharklike smile. She pressed the gun to Stacy’s forehead—right between her eyes. “But it’s too late to walk away. That offer came off the table the minute you spoke to the press and forced us into this little one-on-one conversation. Do you think I’m crazy? You’ve seen me. You know who I am. Turn around and climb over the railing.”
Blood rushed out of her head, leaving an echo chamber between her ears. “What?” Her numb lips had a hard time forming the word. The only thing on the other side of the railing was the lighting rig, which hung suspended from the ceiling and extended almost the entire length of the stage. Other than that, nothing but twenty-five feet of free fall stood between the platform and the stage below. “I can’t climb over the railing. I’ll fall.”
“That’s the idea. Everyone will think you jumped to your death.”
