She was someone from a while ago—maybe around February—one of those girls-slash-women whom he had immediately singled out as a definite maybe and then gone in for the kill. She was an actress-slash-model—of course—and had only been in town for about two years. Maybe even less. This was the perfect kind of girl-slash-woman, he always felt, because she was still hopeful, still had a bit of bounce left in her, but had also experienced just enough of the rejection and longing and money troubles that she was also extremely vulnerable. Very. In fact, open to just about anything. He’d liked her right off—practically right off, after the first time they slept together, anyway—and had met her not half a mile from here, actually, up on the north ridge of the park as she was finishing off a bottle of Evian. He’d spotted her and made a snide comment about the French, which got them both laughing. The French were an easy target with actresses because—although they all secretly wished that they were Catherine Deneuve—none of those French starlets had ever really made it big in Hollywood and that’s what actually mattered to American actresses. So he’d made the French crack—something about her looking like the girl-slash-woman in Manon of the Spring or that kind of thing—and they’d shared a smile and a walk back down the hill. A fairly leisurely walk, too, with no real pretense of exercise taking place. He’d even given her a lift home that day, since her car—an ’82 white Toyota, which fairly screamed that she had very little cash—wouldn’t start when they reached the lower parking area. He fiddled with a few wires under the hood to make it look good—he actually hated cars and knew next to nothing about them—but he knew fully well that it was going to be a ride back in the ’04 BMW that she really needed. And that’s exactly what he was going to give her. A ride. A ride and then some.