Revenge

had been inseparable and she had never really moved on from the loss of the love of her life. Melanie had no siblings and family consisted of just a few cousins she had barely seen since her childhood. It had been a happy childhood and she missed her parents terribly. The worst thing was that they weren’t around to enjoy the success she had achieved in the last ten years. She knew they would have been proud of her and she would have liked to have given them something back.
The press endlessly speculated about her private life, linking her romantically with every man she went within ten feet of but there had been no one serious for over a year now. Even that last relationship was barely deserving of the title. Less than a year spent with someone who owned a property empire and was continually pushing her, to introduce him to celebrity friends who might want to buy a house. She came to realize he was more interested in being known as the boyfriend of Melanie Adams and having his picture in the papers, rather than actually caring for her. It was about par for the course of her love life.
Her earlier flings with actors had not fared any better. They always seemed to put her second to their careers. Where were all the good honest guys? Or was it impossible for someone in her position to meet someone who could love her for the person she was, not for being a world famous actor who could further their career. It wasn’t as if she had unrealistically high expectations. Looks were nice to have but far more important was honesty and a sense of humour. Unfortunately her agent didn’t help matters by encouraging the stories about her and her leading men. He saw it as good publicity but she hated the lies that were printed in the celebrity columns of newspapers. She didn’t understand the fascination strangers had with reading about her imaginary love life. She was an optimist by nature but finding a true soulmate seemed a very long way off.
She rebuked herself for starting to feel sorry for herself. She may be alone but she was alive and still had a future. It was Carol and her bodyguard who deserved her sympathy. Melanie wasn’t very religious but she did think of herself as spiritual and believed there was something further after death. She was once again thinking what that something might be, when sleep eventually arrived with the help of a second pill. She had taken just one the night before to deal with the effects of jet lag but this night she knew at least two were required.
When she awoke there was the glimmer of a possibility it had all been a bad nightmare but turning on the television dispelled that hope. She moved about her room not knowing what to do. There was no Carol to go through the day’s timetable. No Carol to tell her where she had to be and at what time. She recognised she lived a privileged life. One where a team of people worked endlessly to ensure everything in her life went smoothly. But even so and despite all her wealth, the previous evening had seen her life torn apart.
She felt no sympathy for the man she had shot and whom the police informed her had died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. He had fully deserved his end and she felt no remorse for her actions. She was just pleased that her upbringing had included being taught how to use guns by her father and hunting had been a regular summer escape when she was young.
She was born in Pittsburgh but her family had a cabin in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania and it was there her father had taught her about guns. He would hunt deer in particular and though her appetite for the sport dwindled as she left her teenage years behind, the familiarity with weapons remained.
In one film a couple of years earlier, she had played an FBI agent and the film’s young Director had insisted she spent some time at a shooting range, so she looked like she knew how to handle a gun, for the various shooting scenes. She had surprised herself and the Director by how much she remembered and the film had been another great success.
She still owned the cabin but hadn’t been up there for several years. She had gone once since her parents died to sort out effects and one other time with a casual boyfriend for the weekend. It had seemed wrong to be there without her parents and the weekend hadn’t gone well. He had expected a fun filled wild time. She had been moody and thoughtful and shortly after, their brief relationship had fizzled out.
Melanie was in London to promote her new film and knew there was an endless round of meetings with the press arranged but they now seemed incredibly unimportant. Especially as those meetings would inevitably require her to recount time and again the previous night’s events, which would make for a groundhog style nightmare. She wanted to get out of London as soon as possible. She wanted to be home in Malibu with familiar sights and sounds. She wanted to walk along the sandy beach and feel the warm sea wash up on her feet. She snapped back to reality. She needed to focus. The one appointment she knew she did have to keep was with the police inspector, to give a more detailed statement. She realized that shooting someone dead, even a low life kidnapper, required thorough investigation. He was sending a police car to pick her up at eleven. She told the desk not to put through any phone calls and ordered coffee and newspapers from room service.
Melanie wondered what would have happened if the guy who had introduced himself as Tom hadn’t come along. Would she now be tied