Wendell's eyes were blank, as if I were talking to a robot. He didn't respond. He just stared off into the distance.

"Did you somehow get your hands on some of Rudy's poison and use it to kill Juan Carlos?"

Wendell looked at the ground and shrugged, like a schoolboy brought to task for shooting a spitball.

"I don't understand, Wendell. Why? Why would you go after Juan Carlos? The facts just don't add up."

"Because Wendell didn't kill him," a voice said from behind me. I spun around and gasped at the smiling corpse of Rudy Pearson. He was on his feet, and very much alive. "I did."

Chapter 34.

Rudy Pearson lifted his heavy body up out of the shed using the wooden door for balance. He pulled a white handkerchief out of a pocket in his trousers and began scrubbing off the dried blood on his face.

"Pretty nifty, huh?" he said. "Blood looks so real."

I stood a few feet away from him, my mouth agape, still somewhat in a state of shock. "I don't understand, Rudy. Why did you go to all that trouble to make it look like Wendell killed you?"

"Too many people knew I hated Juan Carlos, especially you. I would've been the first person the cops came looking for."

Wendell stepped over Charlie's inert body, and lumbered up behind me. I felt his presence, his hot breath on my neck, but stayed calm. The last thing I was going to do was make a sudden move and spook him.

"You knew I was hot on your trail after I found the monkshead poison in your room," I said. "So you manipulated Wendell into helping you set all this up."

Rudy grinned and nodded. He was rather proud of himself. I didn't dare to turn and see what Wendell was doing.

It was clear now that Wendell was Rudy's mysterious roommate at the hotel. He was the one taking a shower when I found the monkshead poison. All the facts kept spinning around in my head. It was an incredible rush of information, and I felt I was reaching up and grabbing pieces one at a time to fit into the puzzle.

"Why? Why would Wendell help you?" I said.

"Because I promised to help reunite him with his soul mate if he did as he was told. And look, I did," Rudy said as Wendell pressed his giant hand around my bicep in a steel-like vise grip. "See how happy he is, Jarrod? Just don't disappoint him by running away again. He suffers from separation anxiety, not to mention a white-hot temper."

I glanced up at Wendell, who squeezed my arm so tight, the pain shot through my entire body. I winced.

"Look at the big lug," Rudy said. "He was like a kid in the candy store when we were setting this whole thing up. He loved all the fake blood and makeup we stole from the set to make my murder look real. And the crew never even missed one of the retractable prop knives we lifted while you were shooting your death scene. Once we had you convinced Wendell had stabbed and killed me in the woods, I was free to poison that bastard Juan Carlos."

"Now you can just disappear and start over, and Juan Carlos can never hurt you again," I said.

"That's right," Rudy said, a euphoric grin slinking across his face.

"Why, Rudy? Why did you hate him so much?" I said.

Rudy clenched his fist, and stared at the ground. Just the thought of Juan Carlos sent him spiraling into an internal rage.

"Did he sleep with you too?" I said.

"No!" Rudy snapped. The thought of it disgusted him. "I'm not some love-starved, pathetic, needy, blithering idiot like that Dominique girl. I would never allow myself to manipulated by that piece of shit."

"You two obviously have some kind of history," I said.

"Yes, we did. When we were struggling actors, we both went up for the same parts time and time again," Rudy said, eyeing me for my reaction.

This was indeed a surprise. I had no idea Rudy Pearson had ever acted before. And given his rather slovenly appearance, I was hard pressed to believe he and Juan Carlos had ever competed for the same roles.

Rudy gauged my reaction and sighed. "I used to look a lot different."

I didn't want to set him off so I remained silent, still very much aware of the giant hand squeezing my left arm and the formidable presence of a much taller Wendell Butterworth standing behind me.

"It was the late nineties," Rudy said. "I gotta tell you, I was a real hunk. Worked out every day. Surfed on the weekends. My acting teacher kept telling me I was leading man material in my scene study class. But I just couldn't catch a break. My manager wasn't sending me out on any auditions. My prospects looked pretty bleak. I was about to quit the business and start looking around for something else to do, when a friend of mine came to me and said he heard they were looking for a good-looking, sexy guy around my age to play a professional rugby player from England to romance Tori Spelling for a story arc on Beverly Hills 90210. Man, I was perfect. I had just finished a short run doing a Noel Coward play at one of those small equity waiver theaters on Santa Monica Boulevard. I had perfected an English accent, and I knew how to play rugby. But my manager was useless. She said she couldn't even get me in to see the casting director. So I took matters into my own hands. I bluffed my way in. And I blew her away. I remember her saying, 'Where the hell have you been?' She took me straight to the producers and they loved me. I even tested with Tori. We flirted. I could tell she thought I was cute. It was pretty much a done deal."

Rudy let the stained handkerchief slip from his fingers and drop to the ground. He kept staring at the ground, remembering. "I had it in the bag. My manager, who actually took me out to dinner after she got the call, was busy negotiating the contract. I was going to appear in seven out of the first thirteen episodes of the new season, with an option for more. I had such a good feeling about it. I kept having dreams that I'd make such a great impression, they would reshoot the opening credits so they could put me in with the other cast members. You know, shots of me on the beach messing around with Luke Perry and Jason Priestly, pinching Jennie Garth's ass. That kind of stuff."

Rudy's eyes welled up at the memory, the lost opportunities, another Hollywood dream shattered.

I knew the rest. The rumors about Juan Carlos sleeping with the married executive producer to land the role of the sexy rugby player.

"Juan Carlos was runner-up for the same part," I said. "If they couldn't close your deal, they were going to go with him. He found out they were going to cast you, so he decided he had to do something about it. One of the executive producers had the hots for him, and he knew it. He used that to his advantage. Started up a big romance. That poor woman probably never knew what hit her."

Rudy nodded. "She should've known better. Actors will do anything for a part. She was a fucking executive producer! How could she not know that?"

"People, no matter how cynical, can often be blinded by love, or lust," I said, wondering at what point it was that I had suddenly turned into Dr. Phil.

"They gave it to him," Rudy said, almost spitting out the words. "He gave her multiple orgasms so she made sure they gave it to him. That fucking lowlife user. I was supposed to be the big cheese! Not him!"

"That's Hollywood," I said, instantly regretting it. Rudy stared at me with contempt. I shrugged. "We've all got a story like that."

"My one big shot, and he stole it away from me. I spiraled after that. My manager used the botched deal as an excuse to drop me. I couldn't even get hired to be a cowhand extra on a fucking Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I started eating too much, gained about a hundred pounds. I started drinking too much, smashed up my car, and got arrested for DUI. It was downright tragic. I was three months behind on my rent. I didn't know what I was going to do. I just sat at home watching soap operas all day and downing bottles of gin. I was becoming a fucking cautionary tale!"

Wendell loosened his grip, and for a moment, I had a chance to run. I could have made it out of the clearing, and into the woods, but I just couldn't leave Charlie. There was no telling what they might do to him. I had to make sure he was safe, even if it meant giving myself over to Wendell.

"Finally, the girl who lived next door to me was going out of town to visit her folks in Iowa or somewhere. Her mom had some kind of a stroke and she had to get home fast. She wrote freelance articles for Soap Opera Digest, and offered to pay me a hundred bucks if I finished up a couple for her while she was away. Hell, I figured it would be a cinch. I knew everybody on all the shows. I'd been watching them every day for the last six months. So I wrote them for her and they loved what I did. Then she recommended me to the magazine, and they started giving me my own work. An article here, an article there. And before long they offered me a staff position. Can you imagine the humiliation of writing fluffy profiles on those people? I was supposed to be one of them! They should have been writing profiles about me!"

"But things got better for you," I said. "You moved on and forgot all about Juan Carlos."

"That's right. Until they cast him as that rapist/preacher on The Hands of Time and the magazine asked me to do a fucking cover piece on him. I did it, but then he started to get bigger and bigger. He was popping up everywhere. Commercials. TV movies. I couldn't get away from him. It was driving me mad!"

"So you decided to get rid of him once and for all. You got your hands on some obscure poison while you were covering that soap convention in Nova Scotia, crashed the wedding at the Hearst Castle, and spiked some champagne intended for Juan Carlos. Trouble was, he had you booted off the premises before you could make sure he drank it. Poor Austin Teboe gulped it down instead. The wrong man died. So you had to try again. You couldn't stop until you killed the man who cost you your ticket back into the big time."

Rudy's eyes grew wide. He stared numbly at me. "Back into the big time? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Rudy," I said. "I knew the minute you recited your trademark line. 'I was supposed to be the big cheese!' I'm figuring Rudy is your real name, and you no longer go by your stage name . . . Cappy Whitaker."

I sized up his portly frame, the receding hairline of orange hair, a few freckles spread out over his fleshy cheeks. He had changed so much. But the eyes were a dead giveaway. They still had that same twinkle from those long ago Kraft Macaroni and Cheese commercials. I was face to face with Cappy Whitaker. The one who made a lasting impression in a Disney adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper, the one who played Debbie Reynolds's grandson on a short-lived situation comedy, and the one who landed on the cover of People magazine after Wendell Butterworth tried abducting him from a Santa Monica beach. He was also the Cappy Whitaker who wrote to the parole board in Vacaville, California, to request Wendell's immediate release from prison.

"So, Rudy, did your grandmother make you change your name in order to stand out at auditions?" I said.

He nodded. "You know, it's funny, Jarrod, when we were kids, we basked in so much attention. Everybody loved us. They did anything for us. Gave us everything. And then, when a lot of us hit puberty, they took it all away. And what were we left with? Pretty much nothing. My grandmother didn't have much use for me after the parts dried up once I turned thirteen. I was all alone. Not you, of course. You got Go to Your Room! That kept you going another few years. And I've seen you on TV now and then. You've managed somewhat of a comeback. Congratulations."

Charlie moaned softly a few feet away from us. I wanted to run to him, get him some medical attention, but it would do neither of us any good if Rudy or Wendell snapped.

"But nobody wanted me anymore," Rudy said. "Nobody but Wendell Butterworth. Without fail, he wrote me a letter from prison every damn week. Never missed one. And not only that, he sent me cards for Christmas and every year on my birthday. He was the only one, Jarrod. After years of fame, he was the only one. I was so lonely, one day in a weak moment, I wrote him back. I knew he was whacked out and crazy, but hell, I didn't even care at that point. I just wanted somebody to talk to."

We both glanced at Wendell, who stood silently, his eyes blank, as if in a trance.

I looked at Rudy. "So you became pen pals?"

Rudy laughed. "We sent each other all kinds of puzzles and games. Can you imagine that? I befriended the man who tried to kidnap me. My childhood stalker. My grandmother blew every cent I had ever made as a child actor. Wendell was the last tie to that whole life of fame and fortune. I found him to be a fucking comfort, if you can believe that."

"So when the authorities up in Vacaville were going to release him, you wrote a letter of support."

"Damn straight. Why wouldn't I want my only friend to be free? It worked too. Look at him. He's a free man. Free to do anything he wants."

"The only problem is," I said, swallowing hard, and trying not to panic. "What he wants to do is to kill me and then kill himself so we can be free together on the other side."

Rudy considered this for a long moment before looking at both of us and smiling. "Well, Wendell was there for me, so in all fairness, I need to be there for him. And if that's what he wants, then I don't want to stop him."

Rudy called out to Wendell. "It's time, Wendell."

Wendell snapped out of his trance. He bent down, roughly turned Charlie over on his back, reached into the holster strapped across his chest, and pulled out his gun. He stood back up and pointed it at me, a loving smile on his face.

Chapter 35.

"We've hung around here long enough, Jarrod," Wendell said warmly. "It's time for us to go." He released the safety on the gun and pressed back on the trigger.

"No!" a voice hollered. It was Charlie. He was conscious. He seized Wendell's right leg, and jerked it back with all of his remaining strength. Wendell tumbled just as the bullet fired. It nicked my left ear, drawing blood. As he went down, Wendell shot at me again, but this time his aim was way off. I heard an agonizing scream from behind me, and whirled around to see Rudy clutching his right arm, real blood seeping through the sleeve of his coat over the dried fake blood.

"He shot me! The fucker shot me!"

It was only a flesh wound. I heard a scuffle and turned back around to see Charlie on his feet, his arm wrapped around Wendell's neck, trying hard to subdue him. But Charlie was dizzy and weak from the blow to the head, and was no match for the much stronger, much bigger man. He flung Charlie off him like a piece of lint. Charlie hit the ground hard, and rolled down a hill of leaves until he smacked into the trunk of a tree. Wendell pounded down toward him. I couldn't let him get near Charlie. I couldn't allow Wendell to hurt him anymore.

"Wendell, come back. We can leave. Right now. You and me."

Wendell stopped in his tracks, and slowly turned to look at me. His face was full of hope but mixed with mistrust. I had betrayed him before, and he wasn't sure if I was being straight with him. But at least it took his mind off killing Charlie.

"Don't you worry, Wendell, I'll make sure your boy here doesn't play any more games with you," Rudy said as he came up quick behind me, twisting my arm up behind my back and pressing the cold, sharp blade of a knife against my throat.

Wendell stared at the two of us, in a state of utter confusion.

Rudy hissed in my ear, "Just so you know, this isn't one of those retractable prop knives, Jarrod. This is the real thing." He pressed the blade harder against my skin to prove his point.

"He's hurting me, Wendell," I gasped, trying desperately to appeal to Wendell's paternal side.

Wendell threw out his hands at us and cried, "Let him go, Cappy. He belongs to me. Not you."

Rudy didn't move.

"I said let him go!" Wendell bellowed so loud it echoed in the night breeze.

"You always preferred Jarrod to me," Rudy said, scowling. "I did so much for you. I sent care packages to you every week in prison, I wrote letters to the governor pleading for your release, and I was a better soul mate to you than he ever could be! So why, Wendell, why did you always prefer him to me?"

Wendell opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

"Tell me, Wendell," Rudy said, grabbing my shirt collar and pressing the blade so hard a small drop of blood slid down over my Adam's apple. "Tell me now or I cut his throat!"

Wendell, with downcast eyes, said softly, "Because Jarrod had a hit series and, well, you never did."

That was it. Rudy just couldn't face any more rejection. He was going to kill me. I had to take action now to save myself or at least die from trying. Cappy and I had long ago gone up for the same guest-starring role on The A Team, and I had won the part. I played a general's son kidnapped by a ruthless band of mercenaries that the much-decorated officer had abandoned in the jungles of Vietnam. They were out for revenge and I was the target. At one point, Mr. T tries to rescue me, and I mistake him for one of the bad guys, so I elbow him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. Had Cappy been cast instead, I never would have learned that move. And it wouldn't have saved my life at this moment. I slammed Rudy as fast and hard as I could. I felt the rush of air escape from his mouth, the shock of the blow forcing him to loosen his grip on my arm. The knife sliced across my neck as he stumbled back, but not deep enough to puncture my wind pipe. Rudy was only momentarily stunned. As I sprung forward to get away from him, he tackled me around the waist and we landed facedown in the dirt. He snatched a handful of my hair and started pounding my face into the dirt. I scrounged around with my hand for the knife he'd dropped, and finally my fingers felt the sharp blade. I circled my fingers around the handle, and raised it up to defend myself, but Rudy must have seen me out of the corner of his eye. He stopped driving my skull into the mud long enough to grab at my arm holding the knife. We wrestled and rolled for possession of it, clubbing one another with our free hands and kicking each other with our legs. Rudy tried prying my fingers off the knife handle one by one, but I had a tight hold on that sucker and I wasn't about to let go. That's when he kneed me in the groin, and I felt the strength rapidly drain from my body. I roared in pain, instinctively dropping the knife to protect myself from another blow, and it gave Rudy enough time to snatch up the weapon, shove me down on my back, and straddle my waist. He raised the knife high over his head, cackled with relish, and sneered, "And . . . action!"

As he brought the knife down, I shot my arms out to stop him from plunging it through my heart. Everything seemed in slow motion. Our eyes locked together, our bodies entwined, both our hands struggling to gain possession of the knife in a desperate last-minute murderous standoff.

Suddenly a burst of light blinded both of us. The whole woods lit up as if daylight had sprung upon us. Wendell looked skyward, probably expecting a UFO to land in the clearing. Rudy squinted, covering his eyes from the oppressive light. I recognized what it was right away-a powerful, megawattage klieg light used to illuminate a set. Whoever had turned it on had just rescued me from certain death.

I used the distraction to shove Rudy off me, and scramble to my feet.

"Who is it? Who's there?" Rudy screamed.

Larry Levant stepped into the light. He had a handheld Panavision film camera strapped to his shoulder and was aiming it at Rudy. "Drop the knife, Rudy. You don't want us filming you committing a murder, do you?"

Rudy stared into the camera lens, almost wistfully. Probably somewhere in the back of his mind, he was saying, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Levant." He let the knife slip from his fingers and drop into the leaves. Larry kept approaching him slowly, cautiously, until he was right up in his face with the camera.

"You've got a very expressive face, Rudy," Larry said. "You really should be in features."

"Really?" There was a slight smile on Rudy's face. He loved being back in the spotlight.

Wendell, mystified by the goings-on, made a sudden break for it. The person holding the klieg light flashed it in his face, and he stopped suddenly, blinded and disoriented. Five police officers swooped in and wrestled him to the ground, cuffing his hands behind his back. The light shut off, and I saw the smiling face of Laurette as she set the bulky light down on the ground and ran over to hug me.

"Do you honestly believe I would let you two come out here all alone at night without backup? Are you all right, honey?" she said in her usual motherly tone.

I nodded as I watched more cops swarm into the clearing and surround and arrest Rudy Pearson. He didn't put up a fight. He just kept staring at Larry's camera, smiling, as the police carted him away.

"Did you hear Larry Levant?" Rudy said to one of the officers. "He thinks I should be in features."

I swiveled my head around frantically. "Charlie!"

He was sitting upright, against a tree, as a paramedic stitched up his head wound. Laurette and I ran over to him.

"Charlie, are you okay? I was so worried!" I said.