Free Wanted by Mila McClung Page A

and
brought him home for a one night stand. He’d been so good at it that the one
night turned into several months. Tierney had been caught in his snare; she
wasn’t sure then if she wanted to be but she hated being alone. Lately, though,
that didn’t satisfy her. She needed more than a lover – she needed love. The
real kind, that lasted forever.
    The afternoon
cameraman, gruff but handsome Bodey Gillette, entered, nodding his hello. “Got
any drama going, kiddies?”
    “Yes,” Istvan
huffed. “Start filming.”
    “No! I’m tired
of being this year’s pet monkey!” Tierney stood, gathered her Louis Vuitton
purse and car keys and headed for the door.
    “Where are you
off to, Baby? We’ve got six more episodes to tape!”
    “Stuff it, Bodey!
I’m out of here!”
    Istvan
shrugged, began to play a funeral dirge. Bodey eyed them both strangely, switched
on his camera, urged the young man to emote into the lens; he eagerly obliged.
    Tierney hopped
into her red Ferrari convertible; shot it out into the street and straight over
to Santa Monica Boulevard . It was slow going through a crowded freeway
or two until she found the Ventura Highway . Then she rammed the
gas with her spiky heel and flew over the pavement, ignoring a busload of
tourists who squealed at her from the top of a double decker.
    “There’s got to
be more to life than this!” she said out loud.
    She flicked on
the radio. Tina Turner was singing What’s Love Got To Do With It? Tierney
didn’t think love had anything at all to do with her situation. The lack of it,
maybe, or some mislabeled emotion that people were mistaking for love.
    She followed
the highway out to Pierpont Bay , hoping to make it
to her retreat in Santa Barbara before Istvan turned on his charm
and convinced her parents she needed counseling – again. He was obsessed with
pouring out his most minute miseries and sorrows to any fake TV therapist who
came along, and had her family believing it was the best thing for all
concerned.
    “No more!” she
shouted over the hum of the engine. “I want to be me now! I am not some spoiled
little rich bitch who needs a reality show to prove her worth to the world! I
want to be loved, God Damn It! I want a real man who knows what a real woman
needs!”
    She began to
cry, hard, the tears flying from her eyes and out the top of the convertible,
marking the sky like tiny raindrops. She thought she heard a strange buzz,
clicked off the radio, listening. The sound was louder, frightening her.
    Tierney eased
off the highway; stepped out of the car. She trailed the sound down to the back
wheel, peered underneath the fender and gasped. There was a bomb, a real,
ticking, flashing bomb, like you’d see in an action movie, and the numbers on
it were closing down on zero, fast!
    Tierney glanced
round – the cars zinging by might not get hit in the blast but she couldn’t be
certain. And she was way too close to a restaurant full of customers. She took
a strong breath, jumped into the car and steered it out as far away from people
as she could, finding a narrow stretch of beach to park on. Then she leapt out
of the driver’s seat and began to fling her arms like warning flags.
    “Get back!” she
screamed to the gathering crowd. “There’s a bomb in my car!”
    Panic broke
out; people scattered like bugs. Tierney sprinted towards the shelter of a line
of boulders just in time. The bomb exploded, showering fire and smoke and
bright red car parts all over the beach. She watched them fall; ducked to miss
her radio as it sailed by.
    “Who would do
this?” she wondered aloud. “Who would want me dead?”
    People were
closing in, smothering her. Some had recognized her. They were pulling out
their phones, hoping no doubt to get some good footage they could sell to one
of those sleazy online celebrity news sites.
    “Can I help
you, Tierney?” one guy asked, reaching out his left hand – his phone was in his
right.
    “That’s not my
name,” she