Studio B

Universal City, California

 

Two weeks, and they were still no closer to figuring out what had happened to the light than they’d been the day it happened.

Jason stood behind the computer monitors, his arms crossed, as he spent more time watching the scene being filmed than he did the night’s playback the tech was showing him. Kat was on set, dressed in a silky baby doll and not much else. They were filming one of the many love scenes Colt had described to him when he asked about the plot of the movie, one that required a bed and hands in places strangers should not put their hands.

Two weeks of escorting Kat back and forth from her hotel to the studio. Two weeks of surprisingly candid conversations. She was clearly not the spoiled star he’d taken her for after their first conversation, but he had yet to figure out exactly what she was. Some days, she was so open and warm. Some days she was closed off. Unapproachable. On those days, like this morning, it was usually because something was due to happen on set that she was uncomfortable with. He’d wanted to offer her words of advice, but he had no experience he could draw from, no words that he was confident would be of help. So, he was quiet on the drive in, letting her stew in her thoughts.

He wished now that he’d at least tried.

“Did they tell you that they were able to enhance that footage from the night before the light fell?” the tech asked Jason, pulling him back to the work at hand.

“I thought they said it wasn’t possible.”

“Yeah, well, Ms. Ryland pushed them to try harder. They finally managed to get a pic of the guy.” The tech pulled up a photo on one of the monitors, touching his finger to the side of the guy’s face it displayed. “Caught him red-handed.”

The day after the light fell, Andres had sent all the footage from all the Mastiff-installed cameras to the tech team back at the office. They’d originally said there was nothing to see, but then one of the techs thought he saw a guy climbing a ladder at the back of the warehouse-like studio just off to one side of the range of one camera. It turned out that they had caught a split second of someone going up into the rafters, but the angle of the shot and the quality of the video itself made it impossible to prove more than the fact that someone had been there. That they’d already known.

But now there was a picture, and Jason thought he might recognize the guy.

He studied the picture for a long moment. “Can I get a print of that?”

“Sure. But they’ve already sent prints to the director and Mr. Chamberlain, but no one seems to know who he is.”

Jason was about to tell him they didn’t know the guy because they weren’t in the trenches all day long, but then raised voices from the set drew his attention.

“We have to do another take! I want to do this until it’s perfect.”

“It’s my job to tell you when it’s perfect, Colt,” the director said as the irate actor marched toward him, dressed in nothing more than a pair of boxer briefs. “I think the last four takes were perfect.”

“But it’s not your bare ass on a screen that stands fifteen feet tall!”

Jason could almost see the exasperation on the director’s face even though the man was facing away from him. He could see it on Kat’s face. But then the director lowered his head and gestured toward the bed.

“All right. One more take.”

Jason crossed the cavernous space and moved to stand behind the impossibly large group of staff sitting around the director. He watched as Colt climbed back onto the bed, turning slightly to allow the makeup girl to touch up the powder on his face. Kat was on the other side of the bed, another makeup artist applying a touch of gloss to her lips. She glanced toward Jason, something like desperation in her eyes. Colt saw the direction in which her eyes were cast and turned, his own eyes narrowing as he spotted Jason. And then he smiled, this evil smile that was almost a challenge.

Jason didn’t like it.

The director called for the set to be cleared. Kat moved closer to Colt, adjusting her body on the mattress so that he could mold his body to the side of hers. At the call for action, Colt began kissing her, his mouth covering her bow-shaped lips with a possessiveness that he had no right to claim. His hand moved over her hip, slipping under the silky material of her baby doll, the movement traceable by the lump it made against her flesh. Over her belly and higher up until her hand blocked its progress.

A hot hatred burned in Jason’s chest. He hadn’t liked Colt from the moment he met him, and that feeling hadn’t changed over the past three weeks. The man was a child in adult form, a child who thought it was his right to do and say anything he wanted. When he learned that Jason’s team had been expanded to include Kat under their protection, he’d gone ballistic, calling Jackson Chamberlain to his trailer to demand Jason be replaced. It was only Jackson’s apparent disdain for the man that allowed Jason to remain in charge. But he wasn’t sure how much longer that would be the case.

If they didn’t find out who’d caused the accidents there on set, Jason’s team was out.

And now this.

Kat responded to Colt’s touch because that was what her character would do. But watching it, seeing the way her body pressed against his, the way she responded to him, was tearing Jason apart. He didn’t have any right to be jealous, and he told himself that wasn’t what this was. He was angry because he knew Colt was pushing this scene because he knew it made him the big man on campus, the guy who got the girl everyone else wanted. He was angry because he knew Kat didn’t want to be in that bed with that guy. He was angry because…because she was Kat Carlisle, and she had the voice of an angel, and she wasn’t supposed to be making out with douche bags.

The scene couldn’t have ended sooner for Jason. When the director called cut, he marched up onto the set and held his hand out to Kat.

“We’re not done,” Colt announced.

“You are done.”

Jason gestured for the girl holding Kat’s bathrobe to bring it over to her. Colt jumped out of the bed and charged toward Jason.

“You’re not the director! You can’t tell us when a scene is over!”

“You’ve done ten takes. I think that’s more than enough for one morning.”

“You’re just the bodyguard!”

Jason turned, stepping into Colt. The man quickly recoiled, his hands moving to cover his family jewels, as if Jason was threatening him in some way. Before he moved his hands, Jason saw the truth of what he was really hiding, his teeny erection tenting the front of his shorts. And something about that just made Jason see red.

He pushed Colt on the shoulder. “This scene is over. Why don’t you go back to your trailer and do whatever it is little trolls like you do, and let us men take care of everything else. Okay?”

He turned to Kat and took her arm, gently guiding her toward the door as laughter hidden behind cupped hands began to spread from one end of the room to the other.

“You just put him in his place,” Kat said as they climbed the stairs into her trailer.

“Someone needed to.”

She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek lightly. “Thank you.”

Jason stepped back, taken by surprise. She blushed, turning slightly so that he couldn’t see her face.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“It’s not. I shouldn’t have done that.”

She walked off, going to the back of the trailer to the tiny bathroom tucked into one side of the small trailer. He followed, grabbing her wrist just as she was about to close the door.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just…I…”

She looked up at him, her eyes filling with hot tears. For a moment, he thought she was feeling sorry for him. He loosened his grip on her wrist, wanting to be anywhere but there. He’d always been awkward around women. They seemed to be drawn to him, always had been. There was a middle-aged math teacher at his high school who’d been so infatuated with him that he had learned things at fifteen that no boy should know. And then there’d been the drill sergeant’s daughter when he was at boot camp.

He’d never had to work for a woman. They’d always just come to him. He didn’t know how to be charming, how to do and say all the right things. And he didn’t know how to make tears disappear.

“I thought we were getting to know each other,” she said softly. “That there was something between us. I guess I just read your signals wrong.”

That awkwardness was familiar. She was giving voice to everything he was feeling; he just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that she was talking about him, that she was suggesting she might actually have thoughts about him.

He touched the side of her face, brushing his thumb over her lips.

“You didn’t read them wrong.”

He studied her eyes, and she studied his. After a moment, she smiled a shy smile. “Are you going to kiss me, or what?”

Jason groaned deep in his throat as he moved into her, his lips just brushing hers where his thumb had touched her. She sighed, her eyes slipping closed. He kissed her again, pressing his lips perfectly against hers. Her hand came up to slide across his jaw, hooking itself around the back of his head to hold him close. And the tip of her tongue offered an invitation he couldn’t refuse.

He buried his fingers in her hair, holding her head between both his hands. It was a kiss that had been more than two years in the making, and he wanted it to be perfect. He explored her, finding little places that made her sigh against him, that made the pressure of her hand increase, that made her tug at the front of his shirt and pull him that much closer. She did the same, touching him in places that hadn’t been touched in a very long time. If ever.

A first kiss was supposed to be awkward. Getting to know someone, getting to know their techniques and their unique structure was supposed to be complicated. This wasn’t. He’d never known anything so simple, yet so perfect.

A loud knock interrupted them, a voice calling for her.

“Ms. Carlisle, I have your next costume.”

“Just a minute,” Jason called.

“You’re going to start rumors.”

“I think that was a foregone conclusion after what just happened on set.”

“Maybe.” She touched a finger to his lower lip, allowing it to trace the spots she’d touched with her lips. Then she sighed, letting both hands fall to her sides. “You should go.”

He nodded, but didn’t move. He ran his hands over her face, memorizing the shape of her bones. “Don’t let that asshole make you feel like you owe him something. You don’t owe him a thing.”

“I know.”

“He’s a damn bully! I hate that you have to submit to these stupid scenes.”

“That’s the business.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Wait for me when the day is over. I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”

“I will.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, then walked away, not looking back because he was afraid if he did, he wouldn’t go. He had to remind himself that he had business to take care of. He had a potential saboteur to find.

 

***

 

“You’re Tony Fachelli, right?”

The man looked up at Jason, his dark eyes filled with distrust and anxiety. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Jason Stine with Mastiff Security. I’m sure you’re aware we’ve been brought in to provide added security for Colt Murphy.”

Tony tilted his head. “You’re not a cop. Why do I have to answer your questions?”

“Because I can’t—and won’t—arrest you. But when I hand the evidence I have over to my boss, she’ll go to her former colleagues at the Los Angeles Police Department, and then it’ll be out of my hands.”

Jason’s message was clear, and it was obvious the guy heard every word of it. He crossed his arms over his chest, glancing over his shoulder toward the door to the small break room where they were sitting.

“I’ll lose my job if anyone finds out about this.”

“You’ll lose more than your job if my boss goes to the cops.”

He dragged both hands over his scalp, pressing his dark, greasy hair into his skull. “I was just trying to make a little extra money. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

“Yeah, well, someone could have died if that thing had fallen an inch or two to the left or right.”

“I know. And I tried to send the money back, but the account was already closed.”

“What account?”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into the surface of the table as though it might open up and swallow him whole. “Someone emailed me weeks ago,” he said. “They offered me ten thousand dollars if I’d loosen the bolts on the light. That’s all. The email said that they just wanted to cause a slowdown on set, nothing else. It wasn’t supposed to fall.”

“That’s all you did?”

“Yeah. I loosened a couple of key bolts. But it shouldn’t have fallen! The bolts on the brace across the top were still tight. The worst that could have happened is that it would have shifted, causing the lights to be off a little. Nothing else.”

“Do you know who could have loosened the other bolt?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else that night.”

“But it had to have been loosened?”

“Yeah, man. Those things have redundant bolts because of accidents like that one the other day. Can’t have movie stars dying on the set of their next big movie, you know?”

“Can you show me the emails?”

“Trashed them, man.”

“Where did you access them from? Your phone? Your computer?”

“My phone.” He pulled the phone out of his pocket. “But, I told you, I trashed it.”

“What email service do you use?”

“Gmail.”

Jason pulled his own phone out of his pocket and freed the stylus from the bottom. “Write your user name and password down for me. I’m going to see if our tech department can pull up the emails.”

“I’ll give you anything you want,” Tony said as he scrawled the information on the note-taking program on Jason’s phone. “You can have the money, too.”

“How’d you get it?”

“PayPal.”

“Write down that information, too.”

He did, his chicken scratch almost indecipherable. But Jason was sure the tech guys could figure it out.

“Don’t go out of town, Tony,” Jason said, slamming his hand down on the other man’s shoulder. “I might want to talk to you again.”