Along Came A Prince Read online

  “Another person who figures into this mystery puzzle is Farrell Fontaine, who was the producer on this movie. Rumors circulated back then said he, too, was deeply in love with Audra and also was a very good friend of Mark Bennett. However this has never been substantiated by any credible source.

  “Enough time has passed now, over sixty years to be exact, and many of the original participants of this mystery are gone, so Audra Parker and Mark Bennett’s deaths will probably continue to be a mystery, except maybe to just a few.”

  Stacia flipped off the remote. She let her thoughts wander to Rob’s story about Audra and Mark. Mystery, he’d said, and Hal wouldn’t tell her anything. How did Helen Ashley Shores fit into this scenario? And now even a secret, locked-up journal had entered center stage.

  Hollywood truly was made up of the good, the bad and the ugly. But who would have thought the gossip capital of the world was really a hushed-up Hollywood Confidential?

  And how would all this affect the filming of the new London Affair, her career…and her?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Thank you so much, Mrs. Shores, for seeing me on such short notice,” Stacia said as they dined the next afternoon on her patio.

  “How about calling me Helen? Mrs. Shores is so impersonal, and it makes me feel as if I’m an old lady.”

  “The way you look, you certainly have many years before anyone can call you old.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say, Stacia, especially when I had almost no sleep last night. The reason is I debated most of the night about whether I should tell you what I know about Audra and Mark’s deaths.”

  Stacia noticed the tears gathering in Helen’s eyes. “You don’t have to –”

  “Telling it is reliving it, and it’s hard to go through everything again, but I think the tragic undertone may make your performance stronger. The storyline of the movie is heartbreaking, as you now know, but drama films back then usually were tear-jerkers, as they used to call them years ago. It may help you stay in character better realizing that fiction can sometimes spill over into reality.”

  “It’s really not necessary to...” Stacia let her voice trail off, as Helen didn’t seem to hear her and continued talking as if she were on an unstoppable mission.

  “I spoke with Hal this morning after I decided to tell you my story. If what I’m considering to do is really important to me, I like to talk things over with him first. You see, there’s probably only ten people altogether who knew the truth. Studio executives, the chief of police – people like that. Obviously, they’ve kept still all these years and refused to disclose what they know, which is a hard thing to find in Hollywood.”

  Yes, it is, Stacia agreed silently.

  “I only hope the money that can be made from tell-alls today doesn’t tempt one of them to come forward. With the publicity London Affair will generate, I’m sure some of the media will be digging around, although many who knew what happened are dead now. This cuts down the odds somewhat. I, myself, believe Audra and Mark should rest in peace.”

  “Were there any problems while you were shooting the picture?”

  “None that I can remember. This was my first movie role, and I was only nine, so I don’t know exactly. The trouble began about a week before the movie was set to premiere. The studio and Farrell Fontaine – he had power in those days – decided it would be a good idea to do a little promo work at a local theater. Farrell picked up Audra and me and drove us there. Audra and I did a little dialog on the stage as Victoria and Lily. Mark Bennett, by the way, was up at Audra’s and his cabin getting it ready for their honeymoon.

  “When we were finished, we went out the backstage door to avoid the crowds. Farrell instructed us to wait there while he went to get the car parked in front. He, of course, was in no danger of being recognized like Audra was. No one was around. After Farrell disappeared from our view, suddenly a car came screeching down the alley and skidded to a stop. Two men jumped out, ran up to Audra and me, held their hands over our mouths and half-carried, half-dragged us to their car.

  “We both were kicking. Once, I heard the man holding Audra yell out, ‘Ouch,’ and he swore at her. Audra let out one loud scream and was silent. He’d hit her and knocked her unconscious. We were put into the backseat, and the men jumped in next to us. The driver began to speed out of the alley with tires squealing, and the accelerator had to be jammed to the floor. We were weaving back and forth all the way down the alley. Just as we reached the street, I saw Farrell standing there with a look of terror on his face. I guess he must have heard Audra scream and came back to see what was wrong. He was standing there in the car’s path, waving his arms frantically, trying to block it from exiting into the street. The car was heading straight for Farrell, but at the last split-second, he jumped out of the way.

  “Audra was out cold. We drove and drove for a long time before she regained consciousness. The three men kept drinking beer, one after another, and tossing the empty bottles out the window. We were way out of town by the time she awoke, high up on some mountain road. I could see the lights of the city below us.”

  Helen stopped and caught her breath. “‘She’s awake,’ I heard the man holding Audra captive say. The driver stopped the car. Audra was crying hard, probably knowing what would happen next. I was nine and petrified – I didn’t move at all. Suddenly the door opened, and I was dragged from the car and shoved into the front seat. The driver climbed into the backseat with Audra and the other man. The dome light was on. The man holding me kept laughing. I closed my eyes, but I heard her...” Helen couldn’t go on. Tears flowed down her face.

  “It’s okay not to finish,” Stacia whispered as shivers commenced to travel through her because of Helen’s chilling story. She closed her eyes and could almost experience the heinous treatment Audra had been forced to endure.

  “You’d think after all these years, I’d forget, but I haven’t,” she said, unable to keep her voice even. “I still have nightmares. I can see it today and remember every little detail as if everything happened ten minutes ago.”

  “Please don’t go on,” Stacia pleaded.

  “I have to. If I start to tell the story, I know I have to finish it. I can’t let those deranged monsters win everything all over again. Going on is the only way I can keep from choking to death over the horror of what happened.” She lowered her head and buried her face in her hands.

  “Can I get you anything?” Stacia asked, wanting to do something – anything – to ease the burden Helen had trapped in her heart. Swept away in the terror of the moment and unable to think of anything else, she grabbed at the obvious. “Water, coffee or something stronger?”

  Helen shook her head. “No, I just need to finish what I’ve started. The two men in the backseat…” She wiped away the tears in both of her eyes and continued with her story. “I’m sorry, I can’t even say that horrendous word.” She swiped at her eyes again before going on. “The man holding me captive would turn around to look back and whenever he did, he turned me with him. I tried to keep my eyes closed, so I wouldn’t see what was going on, but Audra was screaming so loud, I kept opening them. I saw the men punch her body and face until she was bleeding profusely. Finally, the man holding me said, ‘It’s my turn.’ He let go of me and got out of the car. When he tried to get into the backseat, the other men objected. Suddenly, it hit me. I could escape. I jumped out of the car and ran into the woods and hid. The men didn’t realize I was gone. I could hear them arguing.

  “A short time later I heard one of them say, ‘Well, I guess she just spoiled our fun. Too bad, you didn’t get your chance, Jordan.’ Then they must have realized I was gone because one of them said, ‘Where’s the kid?’ I heard a guttural voice answer, ‘Let’s find her. We can get some ransom for her, instead of the dead one.’ They started arguing again. ‘Let her go,’ one man demanded. ‘She wasn’t supposed to be the target of the kidnapping. You should have left her at the theater.’ ‘Yeah, and have her identif
y us?’ the gravelly voice retorted. I was shaking so hard by this time that I had to stick my finger between my teeth to keep them from clattering together. I was afraid they’d hear me.” Helen began to sob.

  “It’s okay now. It’s all over. You made it through your story. They didn’t win.” Stacia moved her patio chair next to the older woman and put her arm around her.

  As if rejuvenated, Helen sat up straight. “But, I’m not finished yet,” she said, her voice strong once again. “There’s more.”

  “Are you sure you want to go on?” Stacia leaned back in the chair and put her hands in her lap.

  “I must,” Helen stated bravely as she continued her story. “After what seemed like forever, but I know it was only seconds, one of the men said, ‘I’m not goin’ in there. We don’t need her. We can try for a ransom without either one of them. Who’s to know one of them is dead?’ One of the others agreed with him. ‘Right. Maybe the mountain lions will get them both. Dump the body and let’s go.’

  “I heard the car drive away. I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed quiet, hoping the men wouldn’t come back, and the animals wouldn’t find me. I don’t know how much longer it was, but I heard a car come down the road and stop. I crept closer to the highway so I could see, and an elderly man and woman were standing by a truck. They must have seen Audra’s body in their headlights and stopped. I ran out of the woods and headed straight for the woman. She saw me and opened up her arms for me to run into. She stroked my hair and kept trying to comfort me for I was crying hysterically.

  “They loaded me into their car and took me straight to a hospital in some little town. The sheriff came, then my parents, then the FBI and the president of Starlit Studios and several of their lawyers. We were all cramped together in my small hospital room. But I felt safe for the first time since the men kidnapped us.

  “As is well-known, the studios had immense power back then. Not a word was leaked to the media. There was nothing about what Audra went through. Probably because of her image, they didn’t want anyone to know how she’d died. Everything was about image back then, so the newspapers simply said she was killed in a car accident in the mountains going around a curve. Because of my age, I wasn’t mentioned at all.”

  “No wonder you don’t want to tell your story. I almost wish I hadn’t heard it.” Stacia felt as if she was being strangled from learning about the grotesque happenings. She covered her neck with her hand, as if she was protecting it from harm.

  “Mark came back from their cabin the next day. I didn’t go to the funeral, but my parents did, and I guess Mark looked close to death himself. He hung around Hollywood for about two weeks until their scheduled wedding day. Then he disappeared. No one knew where. Again, this was hushed up. Winter came and went. Then the caretaker checked the cabin and found Mark’s body. Beside him was a journal. It described his last days. He had brought no food or water with him to the cabin for he didn’t want to live without Audra, and he said so in his journal. His last entry was three weeks after he’d arrived there, and so they estimated when he died. The journal was filled with love letters to Audra as well as the daily entries of his condition, his thoughts on dying, and his strong desire not to live without her.”

  “Where is the journal now?”

  “No one knows. It was rumored at the time to be in the vault at Starlit Studios, but the studios didn’t confirm it, and why should they have? They had no one to answer to.” By now, Helen had completely regained her composure.

  “Years later, my mother told me this part of the story. Because what I saw affected me so traumatically and also because I was so young, the studio thought they owed it to me to tell my parents about the three men involved. My mother kept it to herself until I was grown, but felt I had a right to know the final ending.

  “Since everything was hushed up, the three men couldn’t be arrested without the media knowing. The studio couldn’t keep a murder and kidnapping trial secret. However, Farrell had remembered the car’s license plate when he was almost run over. He told the studio head, and their mafia connections hired three hit men who located the three guilty men. These hit men were hired to make things right for Audra, Mark and me. They were instructed to do the worst they could imagine, so the men would feel every ounce of pain and suffering the three of us had gone through. The studio was very brief in describing the events that took place, in fact, they didn’t describe them at all. But they did say the three men begged to die after about three hours alone with the hit men. Their request was answered twenty-four hours later.” Helen stood up, wrung her hands together and walked over to the patio balcony. “Well, that’s it, end of story. Now you know it all.”

  “No one should have had to go through what you did at your young age or any age, for that matter. I’m so sorry.” Stacia reached for a tissue to dab at her moist eyes. “I have one more question, if that’s okay. You mentioned Farrell and said he was there when all this began. Is that why he started drinking?”

  “Farrell blamed himself for what happened because he left us alone. He couldn’t cope, so he turned to alcohol.”

  “Thank you for sharing your story with me.”

  Helen glanced at her watch. “I really must go now, Stacia,” she said. “Anyway, I understand you have a contract to sign in a little while.”

  “One more thing. Can you tell me what kind of person Audra was?”

  “She was a talented actress, as I’m sure you must realize. She was always patient, kind and thoughtful to me. I’d say her personality was pretty much like yours. She was a beautiful woman – again, you know this. But off screen, she was even more beautiful. Probably because she wasn’t acting then, so you’d get the total effect of her inner beauty also. You know, it’s rather eerie how much you resemble her. I can see why Nathan and Arthur chose you to play her role. It’s a perfect match.”

  “So, all I have to do is go in and try to copy this goddess. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Of course you can. You’re an actress, remember. We all do the impossible, and when we do and give an extraordinary performance, the audience loves us even more.” Helen smiled, stood up and walked to the door. “I enjoyed our lunch and most of our talk.”

  Stacia gave her a hug. “I’ll do my best to play Victoria as Audra did.”

  Helen squeezed Stacia’s hand. “Good luck, dear, or as they say in the theater, break a leg.”

  After her guest left, Stacia closed the door slowly as an unbearable sadness and agony built up inside her like an out-of-control blazing forest fire. Tormented, she ran to her bedroom, collapsed on her bed and wept. When she fell asleep, she reenacted the nightmare of Audra’s part in the atrocity of the evening of her death. She felt her pain, her suffering, and finally her release to a universe of peace. When Stacia awoke, she ached all over almost as if, she too, had suffered the same vicious attack Audra had.

  ♥♥

  He sat alone in the darkness of his disheveled room, the only light coming from the glow of the black and white movie playing on his TV. His psychotic mind ravished the actress on the screen, while he, once again, diabolically rewrote the ending to meet his own sadistic desires.

  It was only a matter of time now. He had all the ammunition he needed to succeed with his plan. Anticipating and waiting only made it more hellish.

  He watched silently while his fingers toyed with the loaded revolver resting on his lap. A smirk crossed his lips as the words of his mother entered his thoughts. Like father, like son…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ...“Where did the puppy come from?” the little girl asked her sister as they made their way through the piles of rubble and muted bodies. The small child reached up and petted the dog in Victoria’s arms.

  “He was cowering alone on a street corner we passed on the way to the tube,” Victoria said. “I felt sorry for the little thing and ran back to get him. He was shaking all over from fear. By the time I picked him up and comforted him, Mother, Daddy and you were way ahea
d of me, and I couldn’t find you because the streets were filled with people running everywhere.”

  “I wondered where you went, but I couldn’t wait. Daddy was pulling me along behind him too fast.”

  “You know,” Victoria said, “this puppy saved my life, just as Daddy saved yours. It delayed me long enough that the bomb exploded when I was still a few blocks away.”

  “Can we name the puppy?”

  “You name him, Lily. Whatever you choose is fine with me.”

  “So does that mean we get to keep him?”

  Victoria started to weep again. “I want to. We’re probably all the family he has, and he sure is the only family we have. We’re almost home now, sweetheart, so there’ll be something there to feed him. Here,” she said as she handed the sleeping puppy to Lily. “You can carry him.”

  The shock of losing their parents and the bombing made them oblivious to the avalanche of destruction around them. As they turned a corner and approached a sidewalk, they each took two steps forward and stopped.

  “Our house, Victoria! It’s gone,” Lily said, her voice showing her growing hysteria. She clutched the puppy closer to her. “Our house...I want mommy...I want daddy...Make them come back. I want my dolls and my bed and...” She collapsed on her knees and began to sob.

  Victoria cried as she knelt down next to Lily and hugged her tightly. “We’ll be okay, Honey. We really will. No matter what, we still have each other...”

  ♥♥

  Stacia’s flight to the Heathrow Airport in London aboard Clay’s plane was perfect. No turbulence. Just smooth flying all the way. Services, specialized to Stacia’s individual desires and needs, were dispersed by a courteous crew. She learned how a prince traveled as she was treated like royalty throughout the entire trip. After the plane had landed at the airport, she was walked through customs and then escorted to a limo waiting to take her to The Dorchester, the hotel Clay had chosen for her. He’d said he would stay in another hotel to stop gossip before it started. Thanks to the prince, everything was smooth and easy.