The Notorious Pagan Jones. Nina Berry

studied him. Where was this going? More misdirection? “Believe me, I know,” she said. “I live with a hundred and fifteen mistake-prone teenage girls.”

      Devin went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Make a big enough mistake early in life and it can destroy everything,” His words were like Susan Mahoney’s stiletto, slicing into her, conjuring up her own countless errors.

      But he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were staring off at some faraway place, somewhere raw, somewhere that made him ache. “Ruin enough lives and you’ll ruin yours.”

      It sounded personal. What lives had Devin Black ruined? Or was this another cunning attempt to pull her in?

      “But if you’re very lucky, sometimes, someone offers you a second chance.” He turned back to her, smiling. “And if you’re smart enough to take that chance, it’s just possible that the thing you long for most, that thing you crave more than anything, will happen.”

      Pagan sat very still, not wanting to give away how his words affected her. She couldn’t put a name to it, but he’d touched a place inside her she hadn’t known was there. “Tell me, Mister Black,” she said. “What do I crave more than anything?”

      “Redemption.” His voice pulsed with a passion that echoed in her mind. “This is your chance.”

      Redemption. That was so far from possible that it hadn’t even occurred to her. She searched the riotous mess in her brain, the thousand conflicting feelings and thoughts that only alcohol had ever silenced.

      In A.A. they called it recovery. That was a much more manageable word. Redemption, with its vaguely religious overtones, promised a slate wiped clean, a complete deliverance that was too much to hope for. She couldn’t hang on to that, because it would never, could never happen, no matter what strange hunger for it the complicated Devin Black seemed to have.

      “Sounds more like a chance to be bullied and blackmailed.” She shook her head with finality. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

      “I see.” Devin swallowed hard. Was that regret in his eyes?

      But then he swiveled with sudden grace, scooped up the contract and script on the desk, and dumped them into a sleek briefcase. “Let’s go, Jerry.”

      Puzzlement crossed Jerry’s face as Devin snapped the briefcase closed. “But you said—”

      “Pagan Jones can’t take a chance,” Devin interrupted, sliding the briefcase off the desk. “After all she’s been through, I understand.” He glanced at Pagan, who was glaring at him. “Wasn’t your mother born in Berlin?”

      Her scowl became uncertain. “What? Yes. After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved to California with Mom when she was around two.”

      “Berlin’s a strange place these days,” Devin said. “Divided between Communist and capitalist, with thousands of East Germans fleeing across the border to the West every day. The rumors are that the East Germans won’t wait much longer to do something drastic. I thought you might want to see where your mother was born while you’re shooting the movie, find your grandparents’ former home, before everything changes. By the time you get out of this place, it may be too late.”

      The knuckles of Pagan’s hands, gripping each other, were white. “You think something big’s going to happen over there?”

      Jerry drummed the desk with his fingers. “In June, the leader of East Germany said he has no intention of building a wall.”

      Devin gave him a knowing look. “Walter Ulbricht studied politics under Joseph Stalin. Trustworthy he is not. Every other part of East Germany is cut off from the West. And the East Germans have just completed construction of a rail line that completely circumvents Berlin. How long can they continue to allow their best-educated citizens to flee?”

      Pagan was only half listening as Jerry asked another question. Whether by accident or design, Devin Black had touched on the only real mystery left in her life. She knew all too well why Daddy and Ava were dead. But when Mama took her own life, she hadn’t left a note. She’d never mentioned suicide and had shown no signs of depression. Up to the end she’d been the same: cheerfully in charge; planning the next move in Pagan’s career; pushing Ava to practice her piano three hours a day; organizing the next fund-raiser for the German-American Heritage League.

      So every day since she’d died, Pagan still asked the question: Why? Why had Mama abandoned them? Every day the wound reopened, fresh and painful as the moment it had happened.

      After Mama was gone, movies and photo shoots had kept Pagan busy. She had even fallen in love. But only alcohol had closed up the wound. For a little while, at least.

      Psychiatrists had told her that her mother’s suicide wasn’t her fault. They said it had nothing to do with her. But how could they know that for sure? They hadn’t spent long hours on a movie set watching Mama, a frustrated actress, act out Pagan’s dialogue for her when she messed up a line. They hadn’t heard Eva and Arthur Jones arguing late into the night about how Pagan’s latest bump in salary might not cover that month’s bills. Everything—the big house in the hills, Ava’s private school, Mama’s designer clothes, Daddy’s cars—they all would continue to exist only so long as Pagan was perfect.

      Pagan knew all too well that she was nothing but a collection of flaws, a rich stew of defects, a ratatouille of failings and weakness. And in lieu of another explanation, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe that’s why it had all come crashing down and Mama had died.

      Maybe.

      Maybe not. The shrinks didn’t understand how the uncertainty about why Mama had wanted to die gnawed at Pagan. If Pagan could find the answer to that question, she might truly come to understand that this one thing, at least, was not her fault.

      Maybe that answer lay in the place Mama was born. Berlin.

      Now here was a chance, not just to get out of this horrible place, to be free, but to explore an unknown corner of Eva Jones’s life. A chance that would not come again.

      “I’ll do it.” The words split open something that had long been closed inside her. She stayed very still, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

      The two men, in mid conversation, stopped speaking. Devin Black’s long-lashed eyes held a knowing look that should have bothered her, but didn’t.

      He’d succeeded in manipulating her this time. But it didn’t matter, not in the long run. What was important was that soon she’d be able to hunt down the answers she needed, whether they were in Berlin or somewhere else.

      “I said, I’ll do it.” She gave them her best I’m practicing patience look.

      With a flourish, Devin put the briefcase on the desk and unsnapped the clasps.

      Jerry took out the contract and laid it in front of Pagan. “Are you sure?”

      Devin Black shot him a suppressing look. “An excellent choice, Miss Jones. One I’m sure you won’t regret.”

      She took hold of Miss Edwards’s best fountain pen. “Worry about your own regrets, Mister Black. How soon do I get to see Mercedes?”

      Devin peeled back the top pages of the contract to show her the signature line. “Why not immediately? Then we’ll send a car for you at four o’clock this afternoon. You’ll spend the night in your own home. Tomorrow you’ll fly to Berlin.”

      “Very well.” Her mother had often used that phrase, and Pagan enjoyed the way it sounded coming from her own lips. She ran her eyes over the last page of the contract. It looked like standard language, except for a clause about her being on parole and having a court-appointed guardian with all the power of a parent on hand during the film shoot and thereafter at the court’s discretion.

      “My father’s lawyer is going to be at the film shoot?” she asked. At their confused looks, she added, “He’s my court-appointed