Jason Stine’s Apartment

Van Nuys, California

 

Pain flared in his arm, his wrist aching like that of a ninety-year-old man with arthritis. He stretched his fingers and flexed his wrist before he even opened his eyes, trying to work the ache out. They’d told him there would be pain for the rest of his life, but they could never have described just how this felt. Half his nerves were dead, the other half working overtime, sending pain signals through his body even when there was no reason for the pain.

What a fine souvenir to bring home from Afghanistan. But then again, it could be worse.

At least he’d come home.

Jason sat up, rubbing his damaged arm with his good hand as noises from the other apartments filtered through the ceiling. Mrs. Lopez upstairs was arguing with her husband again. They argued almost every afternoon, whenever he came home for lunch smelling of booze. Mrs. Poole next door was watching her soap operas, the baby screaming for his lunch.

A typical day in the Valley.

Jason stumbled to the bathroom, undressing for a hot shower. He’d been out until three, finishing up a case in which he had to meet with a couple of out-of-town investors trying to bilk a local business out of thousands. He’d gotten the entire meeting on tape—including the side trip to the strip club—giving the client exactly what he needed to protect his business.

Not exactly fighting for world peace, but it was a satisfying conclusion to a good day’s work.

He stood under the spray of the shower for a moment, his eyes closed, enjoying the heated water. But within a minute, it began to cool until he had to rush through the last few minutes of his shower to keep from getting frostbite. He’d told the super that the water heater needed replacing, but the guy was so lazy it would be next spring before anything ever happened.

Why the hell was he living here? Was he really this big a glutton for punishment?

Tugging on a pair of jeans, he found an apple in his nearly empty fridge that he sliced for breakfast while he looked over the emails that had come in during the night. Nothing from Mastiff. A few reminders from his calendar app. And a note from Lesley.

He clicked on the last, both happy and overwhelmed with guilt when he saw the picture she’d sent. It was a school photo of her son, Mitch. He was six and was missing his two top teeth, making his smile goofy and adorable all at the same time. It was almost frightening how much the kid looked like his father. Younger and much cuter, but a cookie-cutter image just the same.

Lesley Shaw was the widow of one of the guys in Jason’s unit over there in Afghanistan, Mitchell Shaw. And this was his son, Mitch Jr.

Shaw had died in the IED explosion that mangled Jason’s arm. But he wasn’t the only one. There were five men in that Humvee. Four of them died.

Shaw was the only one with a kid. Martinez and Wagner were married. Toliver, like Jason, was single and playing the field with enthusiasm.

They all died. But Jason survived.

He’d wanted to go back, hunt down the men who’d set that IED in the road. He wanted to find them and kill them in a million painful ways. And then he wanted to kill anyone else who would ever consider putting an IED in the middle of a road where they knew soldiers would be driving.

But the Army wouldn’t let him go back. They gave him a purple heart and a medical discharge. Said his arm was too damaged for him to be a soldier anymore.

They were wrong, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He couldn’t fight the government. Instead, he stood in his tiny kitchen, eating an apple and looking at a picture of his buddy’s kid. A kid without a father.

Jason knew what that was like. He’d been raised by his grandmother after his mother died shortly after his birth, and his father was killed in a car accident. He had never known either of his parents.

Mitch would never know his father.

It wasn’t right.

Jason closed his computer without responding to the email. He’d write something later, a line or two of platitudes. He never knew what to say to Lesley when she emailed him. The phone calls were even worse. He didn’t have time to think about it, couldn’t plan out his words, couldn’t delete them and write something better. A phone call was immediate. Sometimes he considered not answering.

But Shaw had been his friend. Probably the best friend he’d ever had. He had promised to take care of Lesley and Mitch if anything should happen.

But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Shaw was supposed to be the one who lived.

Jason was nearly finished with his apple when someone knocked on his door. He rarely got visitors at his apartment. He had no friends in the area, no one he cared to share his address with. Maybe it was the super come to fix the water heater.

If only…

He yanked the door open, surprised to find Andres Maldonado standing there.

“Mr. Maldonado,” he said, curiosity making him bold as he studied the other man. He’d heard rumors about Andres before he took the job at Mastiff six weeks ago. He’d been a narcotics officer who, it was rumored, caused another cop to get shot during a raid on a crack house. That was tantamount to a soldier leaving a buddy on the battlefield. But then Andres pulled off that Klein case, taking out the leader of a serious street gang in East Los Angeles. That was impressive.

But the jury was still out on Andres in Jason’s mind.

“Sorry to show up at your home, Stine,” Andres said. “I have a case that I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Sure.” Jason gestured for Andres to come inside. He shut the door, crossing his arms over his chest, suddenly aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Andres didn’t seem to have noticed. The big man looked around the small room for a second, taking in the bare carpet and the couch that leaned to one side because of its broken frame. He finally settled on the edge of the armchair Jason had bought at a thrift store, looking completely out of place on the small, dainty chair with its stained fabric.

“Durango Masters brought this particular case to us, so it’s important that we handle this case completely by the book.”

“Yes, sir.”

Andres looked up at him, clearly a little annoyed that Jason chose to continue standing. But he didn’t voice his annoyance.

“Colt Murphy is filming a movie for Jackson Chamberlain’s production company. He’s been receiving death threats that have him spooked. Apparently, the threats are specific and claiming that he will die in an accident on set. Durango wants us to set up two teams, one at Murphy’s home and one at the studio.”

Jason nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

“I want you to head up both teams.”

Jason’s eyebrows rose. He was a little surprised to be given that sort of responsibility so early in his employment. But, then again, the entire office had only been open three months, so everyone was in the early stages of employment.

“I’d like to see Stevie Wayne and Zeke Maxwell placed on this assignment. The rest of the teams, you can choose as you please.”

“I know Zeke, but I’m not very well acquainted with most of the other operatives at Mastiff.”

“We’ll make their profiles available to you.”

Jason lowered his head, a little bothered with the idea of depending on teams filled with people he didn’t know. However, he knew things were done differently in the private sector. This was something he’d have to get used to.

“To begin, I’d like to go with you to the studio and introduce you to the client so that you might get a feel from him what is required.”

“He’s at the studio now?”

Andres lowered his head slightly. “Durango arranged for temporary security. But he is anxious to get us in place as soon as possible.”

In other words, this was a done deal, and he needed to get his ass in gear and join the party.

Jason gestured toward the bedroom. “I’ll just get dressed.”

“Thank you, Jason.”

 

***

 

Jason had grown up in a small town in Oklahoma where everyone knew everyone else. His grandmother ran a little country store, selling everything from horse feed to home-canned peaches. He spent his childhood carrying bags of oats to the back of his neighbors’ trucks. Hollywood was just a mystical place somewhere on the West Coast where the occasional decent movie was made. He wasn’t one of those people who’d come to Los Angeles to rub shoulders with stars, or to become a star himself. So, he wasn’t incredibly impressed with a real Hollywood studio.

It was a big piece of real estate with large, warehouse-like buildings scattered over concrete. There were dozens of travel trailers parked here and there, props moving around between buildings, people milling around in costumes that covered just about a hundred years of American history. To Jason, it just felt like chaos.

“Mr. Murphy is in his trailer,” the young woman who’d met them at the gate announced. “He’s refusing to go on set until someone checks all the equipment to be sure nothing’s going to fall on him.” She rolled her eyes. “The director is pulling his hair out.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Andres said.

Andres knocked on the trailer’s door, waiting patiently for a response. A short, overweight man pulled the door open, squinting into the bright morning sunlight.

“What do you want?”

“I’m Andres Maldonado, and this is Jason Stine. We’re from Mastiff Security.”

The guy looked them both over for a long second, clearly expecting something different from what he was seeing. But then he backed up and gestured for them to enter the trailer. Jason wasn’t terribly surprised to find the trailer fitted with leather seats and fine china hanging from hooks in the small kitchen. Expensive paintings hung on the walls, and a state-of-the-art sound system attached to a rather large, flat screen television hung on a back wall, attached to a gaming system that a young blond man was at that moment playing.

“Colt,” the short man said, “the people from Mastiff are here.”

The blond man glanced back at them. “You’re from the security firm?”

“We are, Mr. Murphy.”

“Call me Colt.” The man stood, proving to be fairly tall and what Jason thought some might consider to be quite handsome. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, one of those guys who seemed to always be on the billboards all along Wilshire Boulevard.

Jason wasn’t terribly impressed.

Colt shook both their hands and gestured for everyone to take a seat on the narrow leather couch across from his captain’s chair.

“Jackson assured me that you people are the best.”

“We know our jobs, Mr. Murphy,” Andres assured him.

Colt studied both of them for a second. “Which of you will be with me from here on out?”

Andres nodded toward Jason. “Mr. Stine here will be in charge of the teams. We will have a team of four on your house, twenty-four-seven, and a team with you here at the studio, as required.”

Colt turned his attention on Jason. “How long have you been a bodyguard?”

“I’m not a bodyguard. I’m a security operative.”

“Okay. How long have you been doing that?”

“A little over a year. I worked ten months for a company out of Houston and nearly two months for Mastiff.”

“And how many people have you shot?”

Jason tilted his head.

“We don’t get into gun battles often, Mr. Murphy,” Andres said.

“But I heard that Mastiff recently got into a fight with a street gang a month ago. Wasn’t that a gun battle?”

Andres seemed to pale slightly.

“That was a unique situation,” Jason said. “But we are well-trained and prepared for any situation. Most of us are either former military or former police officers.”

“Which are you?”

“I was an Army Ranger.”

Colt whistled, glancing over at his short friend who was standing in the narrow kitchen. “Army Ranger? That’s pretty impressive, right, Alan?”

“Sure, boss.”

“You see any action overseas?”

Jason frowned. He hated when people asked him that question, like killing people in the name of fighting a war was something to be proud of.

“I was stationed in Afghanistan.”

“How many terrorists did you kill?”

Jason tensed. Andres touched his arm lightly, barely a touch at all, to calm him.

“We need to discuss the kind of security you require, Mr. Murphy,” Andres said, redirecting the conversation.

“I want someone close to me at all times. The death threats suggested that an accident on set would be the cause of my demise. I’d like someone here all the time, checking credentials, making sure no one gets on set who isn’t supposed to be here.”

Andres lowered his head. “I believe that’s already being handled by the studio and the production company.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not enough. I want my own security doing the same thing.”

“Of course.”

“And I want someone at my house, making sure no one sneaks in there and sets up some sort of accident. People die all the time from accidents in the home, right?”

“Sure, Mr. Murphy. We can do that.”

“Good.” Colt studied Jason again. “You’ll be the one in charge? You’ll be with me all the time?”

“During the day. There will be a team of two operatives with you at night.”

“I’d rather have you with me all the time.”

“I have to sleep, Mr. Murphy.”

He seemed to consider that, almost like he intended to argue the point. But then he lowered his head and conceded that fact.

“My teams will be handpicked, Mr. Murphy. You will be in good hands.”

“I hope so. I’m too young and talented to die now.”

It took everything Jason had not to roll his eyes.

Colt didn’t even bother to walk them out as they took their leave. He was afraid of taking even a single step outside of his trailer because of the threats, even though the studio was probably as secure as the White House, what with security guards standing at the gates, walking the fence line, and posted in the doorway of Studio B, the chosen studio for this film. It felt like paranoia to Jason, born out of a sense of self that was highly inflated. He supposed success in Hollywood would do that to a guy.

The girl who’d escorted them from the front gate was waiting in her little golf cart, a soft smile on her lips as she watched them emerge. There was sympathy in her eyes when her gaze met Jason’s. It was almost as if she was saying, Welcome to the loony bin.

Andres took the narrow seat in the back, leaving Jason the more comfortable spot in the front. They headed out, swinging around the edge of the building into what looked like preparation for a party. Musicians were setting up instruments on a low stage, someone already playing a few chords on a wide keyboard that was already plugged into the massive sound system. Recognition danced in Jason’s thoughts as he found himself drawn to that bit of music.

“What’s going on?”

Their guide nodded toward the keyboardist. “They’re filming a little bit of a music video that’s going to be something of a promotion for the film.”

“That’s a Kat Carlisle song.”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing at him like he was the crazy one now. “Why wouldn’t it be? She’s the female lead in the movie.”

The keyboardist straightened to call to one of the other musicians in that moment, and Jason’s heart leapt to his throat.

It was Kat Carlisle herself.