by Reina Torres
“Hey, Hank.”
Hank Patterson was someone who guarded his private life carefully, especially because of his wife. He wouldn’t want to draw any kind of attention to his doorstep.
“Blake?” His confusion was gone in a moment. “What are you doing here?”
She winced, because what else could she do? “I was hoping to see Sadie?”
“Of course, come on in.” Hank stepped back and held the door open for her. “I’ll get you settled and go get Sadie. She’s going to be really happy to see you.”
Shame pinched at the back of her neck. She could only hope that he was right.
A couple of steps in she turned back and saw that Adam was still on the porch.
There seemed to be a kind of silent conversation going on between the two men and Blake’s stomach twisted in her gut. She hadn’t asked if Adam was welcome at the Patterson ranch. She took a step back in toward Adam and he saw the movement.
Lifting his hand in a friendly gesture, Adam smiled at her. Hank turned his head toward her and smiled as well. She wasn’t sure what to make of the awkward moment, but she didn’t have time to worry.
“Blake! Blake Lennox, you come here and give me a hug!”
Sadie.
Blake didn’t speak when she turned around. She couldn’t trust her own voice. One look at Sadie’s beautiful face filled with joy was enough to make tears well up in her eyes.
The last few days of manic worry, her energy up and down, and her nerves wound so tight as Blake struggled to keep herself together. As soon as Sadie wrapped her arms around her, Blake’s knees buckled as she returned the hug, holding so tight that it was probably the only thing keeping her upright.
She heard Sadie’s voice crooning to her, the gentle sweep of a hand over her hair. It brought back some dark memories for Blake that she thought she’d buried, only making the tears fall faster.
The only thing that reached her in the depth of her sorrows was Adam’s voice raised in anger.
Sucking down a sob, Blake raised her head from Sadie’s shoulder and looked toward the sound. Hank had Adam by the front of his shirt, trying to push him out of the door.
It took two tries before she could get her voice to make the climb out of her throat. “Hank, no!”
Sadie’s husband kept one hand fisted in Adam’s shirt, but he let the other drop so he could turn and look at her. “Did he hurt you?”
“No!” That was easy to say because it was the truth. “Adam brought me here because I asked him.” She turned her gaze on Adam, but he didn’t look at her angry. He looked concerned. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. What’s wrong?”
“It’s not Adam. Really! He brought me to see Sadie as a favor. He’s been nothing but kind to me.” Turning to look at Sadie, Blake pulled in a breath and bit into her bottom lip. “Do you think we could talk for a minute?”
Sadie pulled her in for another hug and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Of course. Whatever you need.” Leaving one arm wrapped around Blake’s back, Sadie began to walk her through the main room of the house and toward a hallway. A handful of steps later, Blake snuck a glance over her shoulder. Both Hank and Adam were standing beside each other, their hands at their sides.
“Thank you, Adam.” Her breath seared her throat like it was on fire. She already missed him. “You were so sweet to bring me here.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Blake turned back to Sadie and met her friend’s curious gaze.
“I need your advice.”
“Anything you need, sweetheart, anything.”
As Sadie continued to walk her through the house, Blake felt a tentative calm settle over her. She knew that Sadie would help her figure out what her next step should be.
Blake knew she was really and truly out of her depth.
Hank opened a beer and set it down in front of Adam on the kitchen counter. “You want to explain what all those tears were about?”
“You know,” Adam turned and set his elbow on the counter, crossing one ankle over the other, “if I knew I’d tell you, Hank.” Wrapping his hand around the bottle he enjoyed the cool kiss of the glass against his palm. “She came into the shop, because her car decided to break down in my lot. When she told me she was here to see Sadie I brought her over.”
Hank gave him a long look and took another sip. “Blake seems pretty attached to you.”
Adam shrugged. “I guess because I’m the first person she met here in town.” He took another drink and set the bottle down only to realize Hank was entirely too quiet. Hazarding a glance in the other man’s direction he found himself under Hank’s eagle eye. “What?”
“Blake seemed pretty upset.”
The thought sobered him. “Yeah. I knew she had something on her mind, but I had no idea what that was about.” Adam blew out a breath. “Whoever’s responsible for those tears deserves to have their ass in a sling.”
Hank almost hid his snort of laughter. “Sounds like you want to be the man who takes care of that.”
Adam met Hank’s eyes with a gaze full of fury. “No one should cry like that. Blake’s a... a sweet woman. She deserves to smile more.”
“Sweet woman.” Hank sighed. “I guess you could say that.”
Adam rose to his full height and stared straight into Hank’s eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing bad. You don’t know who she is, do you?”
Now that got under his skin like a splinter. “Blake Lennox. She works in Hollywood. That’s how she knows Sadie.”
Hank laughed and slapped the countertop earning him a full-on glare from Adam. “You don’t watch movies, I take it.”
His expression souring by the moment, Adam shook his head. “I go if my sister forces me, or if Ada wants to see one of those kid films, I’ll take her. What are you getting at?”
The look on Hank’s face as he pulled out his phone spoke volumes and Adam wasn’t sure he was going to like what he was about to see. Still, he knew Hank wasn’t a cruel man so it wasn’t going to be anything embarrassing for Blake.
When Hank held the phone out for him to take, Adam took it gingerly between his fingers and swung it around. The picture on the screen didn’t look familiar. The first person he recognized was Sadie dressed in an elegant ballgown with a sash around her body like a beauty queen. Standing beside her was a woman with messy hair, coke bottle glasses, and an outfit that was no better than some kind of trash bag with holes.
He looked up at Hank and held out the phone. “What is this?”
Hank adjusted the view of the image and waved it back at Adam who looked down at the bottom of the image where a caption could be seen.
Award winning actress Sadie McClain in “Beauty Queen Battle,” along with quirky character actress, Blake Lennox.
Blake. Blake?
Adam moved and expanded the image so he could see the woman beside Sadie. Someone had done a great job of making Blake look nearly unrecognizable in the image. “She doesn’t look anything like herself.”
Hank shrugged and gave him a searching look. “That’s what I thought too. The first time I met Blake on a set I didn’t recognize her from any films.”
“It’s a crime,” Adam felt his back teeth gnash together, “making her look like that. She’s a beautiful woman.”
“A beautiful woman with a problem. I’m letting you know right now,” Hank clarified, “if she needs help, I’m going to offer it.” Picking up his beer, Hank touched it to his lips and took a sip. “Too bad we’re not working together.”
Adam pushed the beer away from his hand and it moved a couple of inches. He didn’t like the sound of Hank’s tone, but what could he do?
“Hank?”
“Yeah?”
“If she needs help, I want in.”
Chapter 4
Blake looked down at the empty glass of water in her hands and laughed. Even to her ears it sounded a little manic, but she saw the concern in Sadie�
��s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she sighed, “it seems like everyone is offering me water. With all that’s going on at least I’ll stay hydrated.”
She felt another tear escape the corner of her eyes and sighed.
“Maybe not, since I’m crying it all out.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Sadie sat down beside her and pressed a tissue to her cheek to dry the errant tear, “what happened?”
“I need some time to think things through,” she blurted the words and saw Sadie’s eyes narrow, “I know that’s the conversation version of ‘vague-booking’ but there’s a reason I’m not telling you what’s going on, Sadie.”
Sadie set her hand over Blake’s. “You know what Hank does, right? Remember the trouble he got me out of?”
Blake nodded. “But we both know that Hank did that because of how much he loves you.”
Sadie balked at the idea, but with Blake’s pointed look she ended up nodding in agreement. “But the Brotherhood helps all kinds of folks, Blake, and you know that I love you like family. If you need help like the kind the Brotherhood provides, you don’t even have to ask, you’ll have it.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that, Sadie. I just need a few days to figure things out and it wasn’t until I got on the road that I thought of you here in Montana. There have to be a bunch of tiny towns around Eagle Rock-”
Blake saw Sadie’s raised eyebrow.
“Tinier?”
Sadie nodded her agreement.
“And maybe you might know of a cabin I can rent for cash where I don’t need to give my real name and-”
The door to the guest room swung open and Hank stepped in, ignoring Sadie’s unhappy pout. “You both need to come back to the living room.”
Sadie opened her mouth to speak and Blake didn’t want to cause the two of them to disagree, so she stood and walked toward the door.
She could hear a hushed conversation between the husband and wife as she moved but kept going. The last thing she wanted to do was cause trouble for the couple she loved so dearly.
When she reached the room, she saw that Adam was still there, but surely that wasn’t the reason why Hank had called them out of the guest room.
Adam turned to look at her and she saw the open concern in his eyes. Fear crept over her, riding high on her shoulders and up between her shoulder-blades sending a shiver down her spine.
He reached his hand out to her and she crossed the last few feet to stand beside him, setting her hand in his.
Before she could say a word, he lifted his chin toward the television on the wall.
“That’s right, Stone,” the news anchor addressed her co-host, “word from Hollywood is that two young actresses have gone missing.”
The screen was suddenly split between an image of Zoe Rogers and herself.
“Zoe.” She heard something akin to a moan come from her own throat. “What happened?”
“From what we can cobble together from the press release by Megalodon Studios less than an hour ago, the two women were seen leaving the studio together a few nights ago.
“Our request for security footage was blocked by LAPD and we can only wonder what the young up and coming ingenue, Zoe Rogers had in common with the perpetual comic relief and BFF in every chick flick for the last four years, Blake Lennox.”
The other co-host shook his head and sighed dramatically. “I hope there’s a reasonable explanation for this, Roberta. I’d hate to think that this is a kind of sinister event.”
“I know,” Roberta added her own ponderous nod into the mix, “but only time will tell. Until then, we’re just going to add our voices to the sobering call from their studio. If anyone has information on where LAPD can find either Zoe or Blake, you’re asked to call-”
Blake felt like she was floating outside of her body. She felt cold, dizzy, untethered.
“Zoe, oh God.”
Someone took a hold of her and sat her down, but she couldn’t do much more than try to breathe and stay conscious. Sadie murmured something to her and even though she couldn’t shake her head, she managed to grab on to Sadie and told her in no uncertain terms. “No more water.”
Sadie didn’t laugh, no one in the room did, but Blake still felt like she wasn’t quite there.
And thank goodness that no one jumped on her demanding answers. She didn’t think she would have been able to give them anything coherent as she remembered the shell-shocked look on Zoe’s face when she’d taken her home.
“I should have stayed with her.” Guilt pushed her further into the seat cushion beneath her. “She said she was okay, but I shouldn’t have left her.” She turned to Sadie and said it again, this time nearly shouting. “Why did I do that?”
“Do what?” Sadie leaned in closer and tried to grab both of her hands but only managed to snag one. “What did you do?”
“I left her alone and I should have known better. I know what she was feeling, but she told me to go.”
“Okay,” Sadie wouldn’t let go of Blake’s hand and Blake was thankful for the support, knowing she needed to calm down or she wasn’t going to be able to help Zoe.
Looking over at Adam, she saw the naked concern in his eyes and she felt horrible that she’d dragged him into this too.
“Blake, baby,” he closed his hand around her free hand and leaned closer, “breathe with me.”
It only took a handful of deep, slow breaths before she felt like she had a hold on her nerves and her thoughts, but instead of turning back to Sadie, she kept her eyes on Adam.
“Zoe is a friend of mine.” She let out a breath. “She’s been doing her best to work her way up to bigger projects and the pressure was getting to her. When she came to ask me how she should deal with it we started to meet pretty regularly. We’d go out for dinner or drinks when she needed someone to listen or a shoulder.” Blake sat back and realized she was sitting on the couch. Turning her head back toward Sadie she smiled at her friend. “The same way you used to help me after we did our first film together.”
Sadie nodded in understanding. Life in Hollywood could be crazy and many times hurtful and having Sadie there to help her focus was a God send.
“I was just coming back to L.A. after filming in Toronto and it had been so crazy busy we hadn’t talked. She called me and said she was getting in over her head with something. She said she needed advice.”
“And you went to see her.” Hank spoke, his tone even, his expression calm and almost relaxed.
Blake nodded. “I did. I stopped off at the studio and one of the production assistants said I needed to pick up something in my cabana.”
“Cabana?” She heard a strange note in Adam’s voice and it startled her. Thank goodness Sadie jumped in to answer.
“When I was under contract with Megalodon for a few films, I had a cabana assigned to me.” She reached out and touched Hank’s hand soothing him with a smile. “It was part of the old studio from back in the Twenties. Now they say it allows for actors on contract to have a little home away from home so that they’ll be around more.”
“Basically, they want us on call 24/7.” Blake sagged a little and barely held herself from leaning toward Adam. This wasn’t his problem. “I went to pick up the package and realized it was this thing that the social media division thought would be fun.” She couldn’t help the way she said the word, she’d argued against the idea until she was blue in the face, but it didn’t matter. “A video camera in my glasses for the next movie. So, they can have behind the scenes content for the DVD. I put them on and went to go find Zoe because she hadn’t called me back, I had to get used to the glasses anyway.
“Her cabana was just a couple down from mine and I saw her light on so I walked up to the door and opened it.” Blake swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see what the others were thinking. “Seth was there.”
“Seth?”
Sadie answered Hank. “Coleman. He owns the studio. He used to be an executive producer on a number of film
s and when he made billions on the Outset trilogy, he bought Peak Studios and renamed it Megalodon.”
“Probably because he’s a megalomaniac.” She heard Adam’s deep resonant tone and Blake felt her throat tightening up.
“He was touching her.”
The room around her went eerily silent and the panic she’d been trying to tamp down came bubbling up.
Blindly, she reached out her hand and Adam took it in his hand, holding her steady.
“She was on the couch and Seth had his... had his leg in between hers, his hand in her blouse. She was pushing him, trying to move him back but he wouldn’t move. He’s not big, but he was big enough to hold her down. And then he said, ‘You want that movie, don’t you?’”
Blake fought off the panic that was climbing up her back with claws. It wasn’t her. This was about Zoe.
“And I couldn’t let him do that. Zoe didn’t deserve it.”
Sadie’s hand wrapped around her arm. “No one deserves it, Blake. You know that, right?”
She nodded but didn’t answer Sadie, that was something she wasn’t ready to address on her own, let alone in front of other people. Especially in front of Adam. No one wanted to look like a wimp in front of someone they were attracted too, no matter how impossible it was between them.
“Seth told me to leave, told me it was in my best interest to turn around and forget what I’d seen.
“But I couldn’t.” Blake reached up her hand, and Sadie’s warm reassuring grasp fell away. “I wasn’t going to turn my back on Zoe. Not when I could do something.” Swallowing didn’t do much against the lump in her throat. “I couldn’t get him off of her, but I held him back long enough for her to get off the couch.”
An old memory reared up and threatened to pull her under. So much for a strong independent woman, right? Overwhelmed wasn’t something she wanted to be anymore. She’d certainly had her share of therapy and it worked for most things, but moments like this, when she could almost feel his skin against hers, it was everything she could do to put a few words together and not break down into tears again.