“Are you all settled in?” my mom’s voice filled my ear.
At twenty-eight years old, I still found comfort in hearing her voice when I was away on location. I guessed, deep down, we were all just kids at heart who never really grew out of needing our moms.
“Yep,” I responded into the receiver as I watched the coffee machine brew my favorite beverage in the whole wide world. Helen Stone was an early riser, thank God. If she wasn’t, with my call times and hectic schedule, I feared I’d never really get to talk to her.
“So, what’s it like out there in Montana?” she asked. I nearly laughed. Montana was such a stark contrast to home, I wasn’t even sure she’d understand if I tried to explain it.
California sure as shit didn’t have snow, or ridiculously handsome alphas with police badges and bad attitudes driving around—or, if it did, I’d yet to meet them—but that was the least of it. The entire way of life—the pace, the relationships, the things they valued—was completely different.
Explaining all of that this early in the morning seemed daunting, though, so I stuck with the basics.
“Trust me, neither you nor Dad would enjoy the weather here.”
Both my parents were Californians through and through. Born and raised in the Golden State, they’d lived on the West Coast their whole lives, and their love for all of the amazing things it had to offer was why they’d stayed put in LA. They’d retired and sold off the small Stone family business—a few very successful secondhand, vintage clothing and antique shops—a couple of years ago, but I hadn’t seen even a hint of temptation to wander. Everything they wanted was right there.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” A soft laugh left her lips. “I’ll take sun and sand over snow and ice any day of the week.”
“Me too,” I said. A smile lifted the corners of my mouth as I poured myself a cup of coffee. “All right, well, I need to get to work. Love you, Mom. And don’t forget to say hi to Dad for me, okay?”
“Love you too, Ivy,” she said, and my heart squeezed. Those words from my mom would never, ever get old. After we said our goodbyes, I ended the call and slid my phone back into the pocket of my silk robe.
With a hot cup of coffee in my hands and the morning sun still tucked away behind a carbon winter sky, I sat down at the kitchen table inside my new humble abode and stared down at the first page of the script.
COLD
Screenplay by June Gatto
Based on the real-life events of the Cold-Hearted Killer
Trigate Films
Imaginext Entertainment
Today was day numero uno for Cold. We wouldn’t start actual production for another two weeks, but today was the beginning of my official preparation. Technically, I guessed my formal prep had started on the drive in when I’d outright refused to be chauffeured into town and demanded that production provide me with a suitable rental. Something like Grace Murphy would have driven.
I’d briefly read through the screenplay prior to my initial meeting with Hugo Roman, but that had been over six months ago. I still remembered the basics, mostly revolving around Grace Murphy’s character, but the bulk of it was just fuzzy details now.
This movie, and the true-life events it was based on, was not something I wanted to take lightly. What had happened inside the city limits of this small town, and the tragic events that had occurred at the hands of a ruthless serial killer, was downright shocking. I’d heard about the Cold-Hearted Killer—a man who’d murdered because he’d hated love—in the news. I’d even remembered some of the other details surrounding the case, including the disturbing signature of a tiny heart he’d carved into his victims’ skin.
But my job for the next fourteen days was to put myself into my character’s shoes as much as I possibly could before filming started.
Grace Murphy had been one of the detectives on the case. She had been young, late-twenties, and if it hadn’t been for her act of bravery, Walter Donald Gaskins might still be prowling the streets for new unsuspecting female victims.
I needed to get inside Detective Grace Murphy’s head. I needed to experience what her life would’ve been like when this case had been the top priority on her desk. I needed to eat, sleep, and breathe her life.
I wouldn’t say method acting was something I utilized for every film, but for Cold, it was a necessity. I couldn’t live up to the part without truly trying to understand Grace.
And some of my biggest heroes had utilized method acting. Hilary Swank had lived full time as a man for weeks before the shoot for Boys Don’t Cry. During the production of Taxi Driver, Robert DeNiro actually drove a cab around New York City to get ready for his role.
And don’t even get me started on Daniel Day-Lewis. He had proven time and time again that method acting only encouraged an authentic, award-worthy performance. There wasn’t one single work of his that didn’t make my heart race and skin tingle.
I flipped through the script, glancing briefly at various scenes until I finished my first cup of coffee. I didn’t make it very far into the story, but I had a full two weeks to get acquainted. There was no pressure to rush it.
I didn’t have any time left this morning anyway. I had to get ready to leave. First stop of the day: Cold, Montana Police Department.
I had an eight thirty a.m. meeting with the Chief.
My phone pinged as I pulled into the small parking lot of the Cold police station. Once I situated my rental in a spot, I shut off the engine and checked my messages.
Mariah: I’ve just been told you are wandering around that god-awful frozen tundra without any security. Tell me I’ve been misinformed…
I rolled my eyes and typed out a quick response.
Me: I don’t need security, Mariah. It would make me a spectacle in this small town.
I needed to blend in to my surroundings, not stand out like a Hollywood diva.
Mariah: IVY. I am not okay with this.
The truth of the matter was I’d reached the level of success where having a security detail follow me around wasn’t out of the norm. To be honest, it all felt pretty weird to me and seemed to be occurring more and more frequently.
But Cold, Montana was a small town in every aspect of the word. Their population had all of 12,000, which was peanuts compared to the over four million people living inside the city limits of Los Angeles.
I probably needed a parka, thick gloves, and wool socks, but I did not need security.
Me: This town is the size of your thumbnail. Trust me, I don’t need security. Does it help to know I’m literally standing outside of the police station right now?
Mariah: Ugh. A little. But I still think you should have security with you. Your stalker was never arrested.
She had a point about the stalker, but that guy was literally over a thousand miles away now. And since I wasn’t the only Hollywood actress he had been stalking, I figured he’d just keep sending the same creepy, love-profession-filled letters to my PO Box or find someone else to occupy his time with while I was out of the state.
Which…hey, sorry, whoever that turns out to be.
But it still meant it wouldn’t be me. I’d officially left his district.
And he, whoever my so-called stalker was, hadn’t been much of a threat. Just a creepy annoyance.
The soft exhale of air from my lungs left my lips and billowed out from my face in a small cloud. I shivered, realizing the car had grown noticeably colder since I’d shut off the engine. Not only did I need to seek the much warmer environment of the police station, but I needed to make sure I was on time for my meeting with the chief.
Me: I’ll be fine, Mariah. Promise. I’ll talk to you later, okay? I gotta run to a meeting.
Mariah: If anything weird happens, you better fucking let me and Camilla know about it. Otherwise, I’m telling Jason about the Cristiano fiasco.
Jason Hawk was a bloodhound. I mean, not literally. Literally, he was my agent and, as such, being able to scent out the blood of the weak was a commendable quality. That didn’t mean I wanted him riding my ass though.
Me: Aye-aye, captain.
Mariah might worry too much, but I could deal with her. I made a mental note to keep her in the loop should the need arise.
I shoved my phone into my purse, after turning it to silent, and hopped out of my rental, heading toward the entrance of the station. The flat heels of my boots pushed into the soft snow and crunched against the gravel below it with each step.
Once my fingers met the cool metal of the handle on the glass front door, I found myself face-to-face with an inside view of Cold’s police station.
I was all too prepared for chaos, action, something that resembled the scenes I’d conjured in my mind, but there was relatively little hustle going on when I stepped inside the police station at a quarter after eight. With blond-gray hair and muddy brown eyes, the receptionist was still slipping into her chair behind her desk, a black mug of coffee steaming in front of her. Through the glass behind her, I could see that ninety percent of the whopping five desks in the pit were empty.
Wait? That would mean there was half a guy, wouldn’t it? Whatever, I’m bad at math. There’s only one cop working.
Being a woman of Hollywood, I had been imagining mayhem and phones ringing off the hook, guys grabbing their guns and heading out the door in a hurry, and loud, intense chatter. My expectations for crime activity first thing in the morning on a Monday were apparently too high.
“Hi,” I murmured softly, trying not to startle the woman as she put the mug to her lips to take an audible slurp. “I’m—”
“Ivy Stone,” she finished for me, just barely peeking up over the edge of her hot beverage.
Amusement curled the edges of my mouth like a ribbon. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Her smirk was mocking as she set the cup down and stood up, hands planted wide on the desk in front of her. “Oh, honey. I know.” Slowly and purposefully, she dragged her eyes down the line of my entire body and back up again. “You stick out like a sore thumb.”
I surveyed my outfit, something simple I’d thrown on before leaving the house this morning without much thought, this time with an editing eye. All black in color, my cashmere sweater dress hung to mid-thigh, its hem just above the tops of my suede, flat-heeled boots. The inch of skin left between, I’d concealed underneath thick black tights to ward off the cold, and I’d undone my belted Zac Veeson coat as soon as I’d stepped inside.
The corners of the receptionist’s eyes crinkled as I moved my gaze from my outfit to hers—wearing a heavy oatmeal-colored, cable-knit sweater, jeans, and snow boots, she was clearly, of the two of us, the native Montana woman.
Internally, I winced. I had a little more work to do if I was going to truly assimilate myself into the Cold, Montana lifestyle and Grace Murphy’s shoes.
“Whoops,” I muttered.
“I’m Mona,” the receptionist said, her smile growing into something genuinely likable at my affable attitude. Obviously, she was expecting the prissy Hollywood A-lister to be confrontational, but I had neither the will nor the inclination. She was right; I’d overdone it. “You’ll get the hang of it. Trust me, a couple of times of trudging through the snow, and you’ll have no choice.”
I brightened with the glow of her reassurance.
A gust of bitter wind caught me by surprise as the front door opened behind me. I curled the edges of my coat closer and squinted into the sun to see the new arrival.
Wearing khaki pants tucked into untied boots and a heavy work coat, the older man yanked his bright orange knit cap off of his head and stomped his feet on the rug to clear them of snow and crud. He had unruly eyebrows and the hairdo to match, and a puff of hot breath made a cloud in the cold air in front of him.
“Hey, Red,” Mona said from behind me. “This here’s Ivy Stone. Here for your meeting.”
Red’s gaze shifted to me, and his wind-whipped face melted into a soft smile. His beefy hand felt work-worn as I took it in mine and shook. “Hey there, Ivy. I’m Red. Or Chief Pulse. Call me whatever you like, darlin’.”
It was the strangest thing, my cheeks flushing under his kindness. He wasn’t attractive and I didn’t know him from Adam, but something about the way he looked directly at me, like he could really see me, hit me right in the chest. In Hollywood, most people watched you with one eye, while they kept themselves open for someone better with the other.
I didn’t have time to linger in the awkwardness and make a fool of myself, though, because his attention went back to Mona immediately.
“Levi in yet?” he asked.
“Nope,” Mona answered. “But Nick got a call from Jeremy last night.”
I watched avidly as the chief’s face turned downright gloomy, from soft curves to hard lines in less than a second. I fought the urge to step back and settled for crossing my arms over my chest.
“Great. Just send him in when he gets here.”
A bud of curiosity over their discussion threatened to bloom, but Red blocked out the light before it could get anywhere by turning back to me. “Come on, Ivy. Come on in my office. Surely, there’s a pot of coffee on by now too.”
“There is,” Mona assured, lifting her cup as evidence.
“Thank God,” Red grumbled, stomping toward the glass door behind her and yanking it open. Mona jerked her chin, and I jumped into action.
Right, I’m supposed to follow.
Hustling into a quick jog, I caught the door the chief was holding and followed him through into the mostly dead space. He didn’t look back as he trudged toward his office, and I didn’t offer any witty conversation. His mood had taken a somewhat dark turn.
Unzipping his coat as we stepped into his office, Red tossed his hat into the chair he had in the back corner and offered me a seat with a mumbled, “Have at it.”
The chairs in front of his desk were well worn with heavy use, and the wood of his desk was chipped at the corners. His space wasn’t meant to be pretty, but with a nearly two-foot pile of files on one side of his desk, it was fairly obvious it was useful.
Silence descended and I squirmed. As a personal principle, when I did things, I made sure I didn’t leave room for error. I studied and plotted and strategized. I dug into the recesses of a character and pulled my motivation from reality.
But today, I wasn’t in control. It was up to the department to provide me with what they saw fit, and any holes left in the fabric of my research when they were done were my responsibility to sew closed.
I had no way of knowing how open to questions they’d be or how willing they’d be to delve into the mistakes and faults of a good friend.
Grace had been a member of their team, and I was just an outsider.
I didn’t like the uncertainty of it all.
“Can I go get you a cup of coffee while you get settled?” I offered as he hung his coat on the black, iron rack and shuffled through the papers on his desk without much finesse. They fluttered and flopped, and the stack in the corner was reminiscent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
I wasn’t sure exactly what had him so riled, but I’d gotten a glimpse of the easygoing guy he could be and wanted him back.
He paused at the end of my question, some of his frustration melting right away. The rest clung to his eyes like a ghost on his soul. “That’d be lovely, Ivy. Don’t mean to offend you with my mood. It’s just…complicated.”
I nodded even though I didn’t have the first fucking clue what he was talking about. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The man had demons in his eyes—big ones.
Pulling my coat from my shoulders, I draped it over the chair in his office and headed back out in search of the coffeepot.
It didn’t take long to find, right across the room in the center of the counter. Cops apparently liked their coffee—which was good. That was one thing I wouldn’t have any trouble getting into character for.
I had the pot in my hand and a healthy pour started into the mug labeled “Red” when the glass door opened, and the jerk cop who’d given me a ticket yesterday walked in.
He looked bad—the worst I imagined a guy as attractive as him ever did. Red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and clammy skin, he’d lived a year in only a day’s time.
But by some sort of voodoo magic, the man still managed to pull it off.
Call me clichéd, but I had a thing for alphas.
And Officer Fox was alpha to the max. You could see it in his strong jaw, the powerful way he carried himself, and the way his midnight blue eyes exuded sex and sin and control.
Hell, at first, I had the ridiculous urge to make him a cup of coffee and offer him some ibuprofen, but I quickly thought better of it. He might’ve been a hot as fuck alpha cop, even when he was so obviously hungover, but he was also the dick who welcomed me to Cold, Montana with a speeding ticket.
Without warning, piercing pain coated the skin of my hand and made me jump as the dumb, distracted version of me poured steaming hot coffee up and over the lip of the mug until it ran onto my skin like a glove.
“Shit!”
Officer Fox’s gaze came to me, a mean smile livening the dead lines of his eyes as he took in my disaster.
He didn’t hesitate to bask in my agony. “Must be a habit of yours.”
My eyebrows pinched both in pain and confusion as I shuffled to the sink, dropped the offending mug with a crash, and turned on the cold tap full bore. It soothed the sting on the surface, but it didn’t stop the pulsing pain inside.
Christ. Ow.
“What?” I asked like a fool, glancing up from the stark white singed skin of my hand and into his deep sapphire eyes.
He jerked his head at my mess, his features almost shockingly devoid of sympathy. Since they were vibrant and supple in all the ways that counted, I figured he had to work at making them appear that severe. “Always pouring shit all over yourself.”
Anger, hot and spicy, filled my mouth, its intensity momentarily stronger than the pain. “You asshole.”
Full lips pulled back to bare his teeth as he spat his next words. “Better an asshole than a stuck-up bitch—”
“Levi!” Chief Pulse yelled from the doorway of his office, his voice hard and unyielding. “In here! Now!” Head swinging across the room, he speared the only other officer on duty with hard eyes. “Help Ivy, Glen. Make sure she doesn’t need a doctor.”
The only other man in the room pushed up from his seat, clumsy legs tangling with each other as he tried to escape the web of furniture. He had on a Cold Police uniform, and it wasn’t too hard to deduce his name was Glen.
“I’m fine,” I said confidently. Actually injured or not, there was no fucking way I was going to the hospital. The last thing I needed on my first official day in town was that kind of attention.
Despite my assurance, Glen crossed the room the rest of the way in a hurry and took my hand in his to survey. He didn’t move it out from underneath the tap, and for that I was thankful, but he did a thorough inspection nonetheless.
“Looks like some minor burns, but nothing that won’t heal.”
I nodded with an easiness I didn’t feel. My heart was pounding from the encounter and all of the unexercised anger it had produced. Fucking hell, I wanted to let that arrogant asshole have it. Chief Pulse had intervened in our exchange too fucking soon as far as I was concerned.
“I’ll check our first aid kit. See if we have any salve in it,” Glen offered. I took a deep breath to calm down before answering on a whisper.
“Thanks.”
As soon as he stepped away, I peeked through my curtain of falling hair, eager to see what was going on in the office with Officer Levi Fox.
He was the one they’d been talking about this morning, and he obviously had a big fucking chip on his shoulder. I wondered if it would hurt worse than normal if I punched him in it.
His taut back the only thing of him I could see, I watched as his shoulders bunched, the chief’s mouth moving a mile a minute.
I was nearly desperate to hear what was being said, but no matter how hard I strained, the most I could make out was a muffled rumble.