by Devney Perry
Only when the light from his bedroom window shone across the expanse between our homes, twinkling in my own room, would I be able to relax and sleep. I’d had a hard time falling asleep whenever he was gone at night because there were too many questions rattling through my mind.
Was he working? What had he done for dinner? Was he with a woman?
The nighttime hours were the only ones when I couldn’t seem to control my obsession with Shaw Valance.
“Would you like some coffee or water?” I asked.
He gave me a sideways glance, like he didn’t trust my offer’s sincerity. To be fair, it was the first time I’d greeted him without a glare. “Water, but I’ll get it.”
“It’s in there.” I pointed to the waiting room and filled my lungs as he disappeared to fill a cup.
The foot I’d been holding flat on the floor began bouncing. My limbs felt loose and uncontrollable. The electricity between us, the anticipation of this discussion, was unnerving.
Shaw unsettled me with his bright gaze and I lost track of my wits. The more time we spent around one another, the harder it was to keep up the icy façade.
It was a miracle I’d managed to kick him out of my house on Tuesday. He’d been funny. He’d been entertaining and kind. How was I supposed to deal with a charming movie star standing in my kitchen? When I’d bent to put my carrots in the fridge, I’d lingered inside the door, hoping the chill would cool me down.
The man walked into a room and the temperature spiked. It was no wonder he was melting me into a puddle.
Shaw emerged, a paper cup of water in hand. The way he walked was so . . . graceful. Manly. His hips swayed with confidence, like every step had been preordained. He knew exactly where to place his foot to make his leg look as long as possible. He knew how to highlight the perfect curve of his ass and draw attention to his zipper.
When he sat, the muscles on his shoulders and arms tightened, showing off the definition between the sleeves of his shirt.
I was so used to seeing men in T-shirts, bulging arms covered in tattoos on display. Shaw’s button-ups and rolled sleeves hid the bulk of his biceps, hinting at what I knew to be sexy muscle beneath.
He set his water on the desk and the smooth cotton stretched, revealing the definition of his bicep. It disappeared when he leaned back, placing his hands on the armrests, making his shoulders look impossibly broad.
“So where do we start?” he asked.
Right. We were talking about the movie. I tore my eyes away from his shirt and shrugged. “It’s your movie.”
“Then the beginning.”
I shifted in my chair, rolling it over an inch or two until he was directly in front of me and his words would hit me straight on. “Okay.”
“It starts with the murder. The scene is all about Amina, and it’s not a pretty one.”
Then no matter what she said, I would not let Genevieve see this movie. I knew Isaiah would be on board with me too. “Does it show Marcus?”
Shaw shook his head. “You don’t know he killed her until near the end. It’s just Amina, her eyes aimed at the ceiling and a trickle of blood coming from her mouth.”
Maybe I wouldn’t be seeing this movie either. I’d been debating back and forth, but I was leaning toward no. “Who is playing Amina?”
“Dacia French.”
“Oh.” They weren’t holding out on the cast, were they? If Shaw was one of Hollywood’s most notable and in-demand actors, Dacia French was his female counterpart. She was equally as beautiful and as captivating on screen as Shaw.
I’d recognized Dacia in one of the pictures with Shaw on the internet. They’d been a couple once, hadn’t they? Were they still? Was she in town? I hadn’t heard, but true to my vow, I’d been steering clear of all things gossip.
It didn’t matter. She’d be gone, like Shaw, before winter. “What happens next?”
“The next morning, Marcus arrives on the scene at the motel,” Shaw said without hesitation. He was trusting me with this. I knew it was confidential and he was violating a rule, but he kept talking anyway. “He examines the body and starts the investigation. He finds out that Draven was there the night before. He walks around the property and finds the knife in a field. He crouches down and pulls an evidence bag from his pocket. He picks up the knife and sees Draven’s name engraved on the side.”
“I bought him that knife. For Christmas.” I turned my gaze to the window. “I wish I had bought him socks instead.”
“Listen, if this is too hard—”
“No.” I shook my head. “Keep going.”
“Marcus rejoins the cops in the room. They tell him the victim’s name is Amina Daylee. He tells them he knew her once, long ago. Then it flashes back to the time they met, as kids. That’s how the whole movie goes. It follows his investigation at the time but jumps back in time.”
“How did they meet? In the movie?” I knew how they’d met in real life. Marcus had been Amina’s neighbor. When she’d moved to town, he’d lived next door, though a few years younger.
“As neighbors.” He raised an eyebrow. “How am I doing so far?”
“So far you’re authentic.”
He chuckled. “That was such a good word before I met you.”
“Keep going.”
“The next scene is him arresting Draven.”
“Where?” I’d been here the day Marcus and two officers had come and arrested Draven. We’d all been here.
“At a garage.”
“Which garage?”
“A fake one in LA. None of us wanted to try and shoot scenes here.”
So they weren’t completely heartless or insensitive about this film. “Thank you for that.”
I would have had to be the one to tell them no, because I answered the phones and would have taken that call.
“The next scene is in an interrogation room. We’re doing that in LA too. Then it’s another flashback of Marcus and Amina walking home from school one day. They’re friends. And when it cuts back to him in his office, he’s sad that she’s gone.”
Marcus probably had been sad. Maybe he’d been angry. Maybe he’d been heartbroken. But as far as I was concerned, he didn’t get to feel anything for Amina but shame. “See? Now you’re making me mad. The viewer is going to sympathize with him.”
“Probably,” Shaw admitted. “If I’m doing my job right. The next scene is him on the phone with Genevieve. She calls to find out about the investigation. He promises to get justice for her mom. She cries. It’s hard for him to hear.”
My molars ground together. “No one should feel bad for Marcus Wagner. I hate this.”
I understood what they were doing. The audience would be shocked. They’d drive home from the theater with popcorn kernels stuck in their teeth and wonder if they’d missed a hint or a sign at the beginning of the film.
Fucking Hollywood.
“I know, just . . . stick with me.” Shaw’s pleading eyes made me clamp my mouth shut. “The next scene is one from the past. Marcus comes to the garage to ask Draven questions about a guy who was beaten at a bar. Marcus thinks it was Draven or someone from his club. Of course, Draven knows who did it but he’s smug. He doesn’t say anything incriminating and Marcus has no choice but to let it go.”
They’d show Draven as the bad guy and Marcus as the cop who couldn’t seem to take down a criminal.
The most infuriating part was that Shaw wasn’t wrong. Draven hadn’t always been an upstanding citizen. Even after the club had disbanded, there’d been some questionable activities. But I’d kept my mouth shut about a lot of things that I’d seen happen or comments I’d overheard in my years working here.
“Is it wrong?” Shaw asked.
“Keep going.” It was the only answer he’d get.
“The next scene is in the present again. Marcus is talking to the prosecutor about the case. He’s . . . excited. Hesitant.”
“Because he’s had evidence against Draven before but hadn’t bee
n able to make it stick.”
“Exactly.” Shaw nodded. “Then it flashes back again. There’s three more times when he goes up against Draven and comes out the loser.”
Draven would be the smug, untouchable criminal. And in a way, that’s exactly who he had been. People had gravitated toward Draven because of his confidence. His power. He’d been a natural leader with a sharp mind and a no-bullshit attitude.
You loved him fiercely.
Or you hated him with equal passion.
Dash was like that to a degree, though Bryce and the boys had mellowed him over the years.
We’d all mellowed after the Gypsies had closed their clubhouse doors.
“There’s a scene with a young cop Marcus is mentoring,” Shaw said. “Another where he butts heads with Luke.”
“Luke’s in this?”
“Yeah. He’s the hero.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Genevieve is the hero.”
“True.” He sipped his water. “Luke and Marcus don’t agree on a burglary case. This kid breaks into a store, and Marcus wants to let the kid off with a warning because he plays golf with the kid’s dad. Luke argues that since the kid is twenty-one and was drunk off his ass at the time, he doesn’t deserve a break. It’s the first time you question Marcus as a cop.”
“Good.” Maybe that story was true. Maybe it wasn’t. But it was time to start infusing some doubt about Marcus himself.
“The scenes after that jumps into the present timeline. Draven was arrested but is out on bond. Genevieve has moved to town. She came because she wants to investigate her mother’s murder, but then she learns that she’s Draven’s daughter. Though her story is shown from Marcus’s perspective. He’s out to dinner with his wife and overhears a rumor. He’s upset. He liked Genevieve and he feels like she’s on the other team.”
“Because she was.” Genevieve’s determination to find her mother’s killer was the reason Marcus was in prison.
Though Shaw had it wrong as to why she’d moved to Clifton Forge, but since that truth was known by only a handful of people, that was no surprise.
Genevieve hadn’t moved here to watch the investigation. She’d come here to see her mother’s grave and had been kidnapped along with Bryce. It had taken them a year to learn that Marcus had been their kidnapper. Still, it had never been made public knowledge. That was one of the few Tin Gypsy secrets I’d been privy to.
The day of the kidnapping, I’d come to work and the entire place had been abandoned. I’d tried to call Dash and Draven with no luck, and I’d known instantly that something bad had happened. So I’d done what I’d always done: I’d taken care of the business. I’d claimed a family emergency and rescheduled appointments. Then I’d waited, hoping everyone would be all right.
God, what a year that had been.
The year of death. It had started with Amina’s murder, then the kidnapping and then Draven’s suicide.
We’d all been scared and on edge. There had been a murderer at large. The Warriors had been threatening retaliation for the death of one of their members—they’d suspected their man had been killed by a former Tin Gypsy.
Everyone had been stressed. Bryce had been pregnant with Xander, and Dash hadn’t let her out of his sight. Bryce used to come in and work here every day because Dash wouldn’t leave her at the newspaper.
It had been such a miserable year, yet we’d all become closer for surviving it together.
“We get more flashbacks,” Shaw spoke, his smooth voice pulling me into the present. “Marcus runs into Amina in Bozeman. He asks her out and they start dating.”
“Do you show that she knows he’s married?”
Shaw shook his head. “He never tells her. In one scene, he’s taking off his wedding ring before he meets her.”
Thank God.
None of us knew if Amina had known Marcus was married when they started dating. According to Genevieve, her mom hadn’t talked much about the man she’d called Lee—a nickname from when Marcus and Amina had been kids. Maybe Amina had known that Marcus was married. Maybe he’d promised her that he was leaving his wife. Or maybe he’d hidden it, along with so many other things.
For Genevieve’s sake, to protect the memory of her mother, I pretended Marcus had lied.
“Marcus hides Amina and the affair from his wife. He sneaks in phone calls and weekends to visit her. He starts drinking more. He isn’t as focused at work. My makeup in the movie gets more and more haggard.”
“He’s becoming the villain.”
“That’s right.” Shaw nodded. “I told you we’d get there.”
I gave him a small smile. “As long as the audience hates him as much as I do when they walk out, we’re good.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“How does it end?” We needed to skip forward. At some point, I was sure there’d be a scene for Draven’s death. It was yet another reason seeing this film probably wasn’t good for my mental state. If I couldn’t listen to Shaw give me the CliffsNotes version, I doubted I’d be able to watch the fictional retelling.
Shaw humored me. “Genevieve finds a picture in Amina’s things of Marcus. Again, it’s from his perspective, but she takes it to his house one night. She asks him about it. And it all clicks. It crumbles around him as she puts it together that he killed her mom.”
How hard had it been for Genevieve to go to his house? There hadn’t been a picture, but she had been the one to piece it together—Shaw had that right. Genevieve had been the one person able to give Draven and Amina justice.
She’d done that for them. For herself. For us all.
“Are you using their real names?”
“Marcus’s,” Shaw said gently. “Most of the others have been changed. I just thought it would be easier to refer to them as the names you know.”
“Thank you. For the names. For talking this through.”
“You’re welcome.”
The explanation, though helpful, didn’t make this project easier to accept. Shaw was trying to help me find peace with the movie but . . . it wasn’t there.
I didn’t want this movie to happen. It would, regardless of Shaw’s time spent answering my questions.
And that was a fact, a disappointment, I’d learn to live with.
Still, I appreciated his time. Shaw didn’t have to answer my questions. He didn’t have to spend his Friday afternoon in an uncomfortable chair.
Why me? Was it because I sat in the front? Because I’d been the first to ask? Would he have told Dash if Dash had been the one to press for answers?
Or was it because something simmered in the air when Shaw and I were in these seats? There was attraction here, more than I wanted to admit. But there was something else too. I didn’t hold back words with Shaw, afraid of how they could be turned against me or used to punish me.
My words flew, ripping, raw and honest.
At the first hint of my attitude, he could have left the garage and never come back. That’s what I’d wanted, right? But he’d returned.
He’d listened.
To me.
I was fucked. If he kept listening, if he kept being his charming self, I was fucked.
Shaw straightened in his chair. “You told me you were worried about the truth. How close are we?”
“Close enough,” I said, watching as the tension in his shoulders eased. “You have the main parts right. The rest . . .” I looked up at Draven’s picture. “The rest died years ago.”
“I’m sorry you lost him.”
I gave him a sad smile. “So am I.”
The room went quiet except for the noise from the shop. Sawyer and Tyler were likely finishing up for the day, anxious to clock out.
“I’d better go.” Shaw picked up his empty cup. “Trash can?”
“I’ll take care of it.” I stood and rounded my desk as he set the cup aside. Then for the first time, I followed Shaw to the door. He opened it and stepped outside, the sun glinting in his eyes, making the gold
striations jump. “Did this earn me dinner?”
I laughed. “No.”
“Worth a try.” He stepped away but stopped and looked back. “You still don’t approve of this movie.”
“No. I doubt I ever will.”
Did he need my approval? Not really, but it seemed important to him. I’d been focused on the description and visualizing it in my head as he’d talked. But there’d been something about his voice. Reverence. Like with every scene, he was begging me to like it as much as he did.
“Why is this movie so important to you?” I asked.
“Reasons.”
“Are they the same reasons you’re no longer a cop?”
He studied my face, then slid on his sunglasses. “That’s a different movie. Goodbye, Presley.”
“Goodbye, Shaw.” I stood in the doorway as he strode to his Escalade, waving as he left.
That’s a different movie.
That was a Shaw Valance movie I wanted to see.
Chapter Nine
Shaw
“You did what?” Presley’s shriek permeated the walls.
I’d been on my couch, pondering—dreading—the scene we were shooting tonight, when her voice echoed around the cul-de-sac. I shot up and rushed to the door, nervous about what I’d find outside.
It had been five days since I’d told her about the movie and we hadn’t spoken since. I’d seen her in passing, but I’d had a punishing week of shooting and hadn’t been home much. Had something bad happened in the past few days?
Presley wasn’t one to get loud. She’d get stony and speak with a sharp bite, but no matter how much I frustrated her, she stayed ice cold. What I saw from my porch was a woman on fire.
“How could you do this? Why would you do this?” she seethed, her arms flailing wide before she poked a man with shaggy-blond hair in the chest. “He was gone. I was moving on.”
“Had to be done, Pres. He doesn’t get away with this.”
Away with what? What the hell was going on, and why was it happening at seven o’clock in the morning?