Sam laughed and eased me onto the floor. He brushed the hair away from my forehead the way I looooooved him to do. It felt so good, and he felt so good, and he was so warm. I lay there and watched him do whatever he had to do. The ceiling spun around and around. This part of the plan was the bestest part. Except I really needed Sam to take off his pants. I tugged on them, but he just laughed and walked away. After a while, all I wanted to do was sleep. Screw and sleep. And sleep. And…
Chapter Fifteen
And the Award for Best Performance During a Double-Cross Goes to…
“She’s waking up.”
My head was made of cotton. Someone groaned, and after a minute, I realised it was me.
“Samantha? You’re in the hospital.”
I didn’t recognise the voice. My eyes opened a sliver and the sterile white and beige of a hospital room did indeed greet me. A lady in a white coat stood over the bed. “We think you were dosed with GHB, and it knocked you out. How do you feel?”
“Tired.” What the hell had happened? Last thing I remembered…
Ski mask. Sam. Some sort of plan…
I closed my mouth, afraid I might say something in my grogginess that we might regret. The doctor lady left, anyhow. My room smelt like a florist’s shop. Nearly every surface was jammed with bouquets, stuffed animals and balloons. How kind of everyone, I thought. The generosity warmed me, and I closed my eyes.
“Samantha, the police are here to see you.”
My lids popped open. Crust surrounded my lashes—I had no idea how long I’d slept. “Hello,” I croaked.
“I’m a huge fan!” said the tall, skinny woman in a pink button-down and no-nonsense black pants standing beside my bed. Her accent sounded Indian and British both, and her praise was wonderfully melodious. A man who appeared to be her partner was also there, in a terribly-fitting brown suit.
I tried to sit up, but everything went haywire and I fell back.
“Let me help.” A nurse hurried to my bedside and pressed a button on a white remote. The head part of my bed slowly elevated me into less of a recline.
“Thank you,” I said to the lady detective, who continued beaming at me.
“I’ve never seen you in anything,” said the dude cop. He sounded sceptical that he even should have looked at me in a film. “Can you tell us what happened to you?”
“I—I don’t remember.” Shit, I’d better get my act together. Wisps of cobweb clung to my brain synapses. I did know I’d been drugged. When Sam had found the GHB in Shelley’s bag, it was a blessing straight from the lord. Or the devil. But it was a blessing. One of the side-effects can be memory loss.
Flashes began returning to me—the cape room, throwing up.
Here goes. I took a deep breath. “We finished filming for the day. Night, sorry. I went to my trailer with Shelley, one of my assistants.” I shrugged and shook my head. “And then I woke up here?” I gasped, awake enough now to enjoy my role. “Is Shelley okay? Was she drugged, too? Why?”
“You poor dear,” said the female cop.
Her partner said, “We found you with your assistant next to the item she was attempting to steal.”
I recoiled in horror, clutching my thin hospital blanket to my bosom. “Steal? Item?” Really, this performance should earn me a daytime Emmy, at the least.
Copper long legs leaned in. “That Shelley woman drugged you!”
“No. I don’t believe it.”
“Yes. She knocked you out and tried to steal the golden cape.” Her eyes took on a distinctly conspiratorial shine. “But you tried to stop her by punching her! And”—she broke into a chuckle—“it appears you threw up on her. From the drug, you know. That’s a common side-effect.”
“I did?” I looked from one to the other of them, my eyes so innocent Bambi should be ashamed. “How mortifying. Was anyone else hurt? Oh, I hope not.”
“No.” The man cop clipped his answer before Officer Big Fan spoke. “She also drugged your other assistant”—he referred to his notes—“Zackary. He’s recovering in the next room.”
My head turned towards the wall he’d indicated, as if I could see him through it. My body unclenched just a little. We’d made it this far.
“Ms Lytton, did Shelley strike you as an intelligent girl capable of single-handedly carrying out the robbery of a museum? She even disabled the cameras, but got tripped up by the alarm.”
Bless Sam. “Well, no. Shelley always struck me as an idiot. But maybe she was acting. Maybe everything she ever said was a lie.” Perhaps I could convince them that Shelley was the most brilliant actress of all time. The more she played dumb and denied knowledge, the more they wouldn’t believe her.
“How did you come to employ Shelley as a masseuse?”
My heart slammed into my throat and stayed there. That had been a very good question. One that I did not have a good answer for. I licked my lips and tried to swallow.
“Do you need some water?” asked Ms Detective.
I nodded and smiled up at her gratefully. How had I met Shelley? How had I met Shelley? I couldn’t mention Valerie—I had no good reason to know her, either. Gaaaaaah. “She showed up on set one night. Said she was sent by my agent to help me relax.” I swiped a hand across my face. “Yes, I know I’m spoilt, and that a personal masseuse is a little obnoxious. So was Shelley. She never so much as touched me.”
“Then why did you continue to employ her?”
I shrugged. “I’ve found in the Hollywood game that it’s usually better to just be grateful anyone wants to do anything nice for you. Go with the flow.”
Man Cop put his hands in his pockets. “Why were you at the museum so late?”
“Just dawdling in my trailer. I was waiting for Zack.”
“Your boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend?”
I smiled. “Boyfriend, then ex, then boyfriend.”
My biggest fan tsk-tsked. “I thought you were dating Daniel Zhang. He’s such a hottie!”
“Well”—I played with my blanket—“Danny is amazing, but I’ve been dating Zack a while. You can’t fight love.” I pinned a star-filled gaze on her, and she practically sighed before nodding.
Her partner actually elbowed her in the ribs. She swallowed and referred back to her notes. “You foiled another art theft a year or so ago, Ms Lytton?”
“Big coincidence. You and art thieves.” The male cop was not having any of my shit. I took a deep breath in, and let it out. I just had to pray that Valerie had threatened Shelley enough to scare the idiot into taking the fall alone. “Shelley says you were supposed to help her steal the Mold cape.”
I laughed and put my hand over my mouth. Taking a beat, I glanced from one to the other of them, reading reactions. She didn’t believe Shelley—not one bit. He did, because why wouldn’t he? I was a big non-coincidence.
Finally, I gasped and let my face settle into innocent mode, with a hint of incredulity. “That’s…that’s insane.” I spluttered for a moment in alarm, and the lady cop sat on the side of my bed and took my hand. Yes! “I didn’t like Shelley. She got me in trouble with my director the other day by acting the fool. Why—” I laughed at the sheer preposterousness of it all, wait one, two, three beats… “Why would I help Shelley do anything, much less steal something so…so…”
“But the Picasso—”
“I put my life on the line to help law enforcement recover that painting!” Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned away to find a tissue.
“That’s enough.” My doctor to the rescue, exactly as I’d intended.
The woman detective patted my hand and rolled her eyes at her partner. “I think we’re done here. Thank you for your time, and we’re sorry we had to trouble you further, Ms Lytton.”
“You’re just doing your job,” I said with a piteous sniffle.
She stood to leave. “This Shelley has a record as long as my arm. She bit off more than she could chew this time.”
I shook my head, too overcome by my pretend-horror
to comment. They left. I let out a long, long breath. My doctor told me to rest and vamoosed as well.
“Wow,” came a voice from the doorway. Sam. He turned to check that the hall behind him was clear and shut the door. At my bedside, he whispered, “That was a thing of beauty. You’re the Meryl Streep of bullshit.”
“I have no idea what you mean, Zack.” A sneaky smile played on my face. “Are you okay? They said that terrible Shelley drugged you, too.”
“I’ll survive.” He sat on the bed and stroked my hand. “You really okay?”
“Yeah. Just kinda foggy.”
“Me, too.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s the next day.” He looked at his phone. “Nine-thirteen a.m.”
My jaw dropped. “We lost an entire day?”
“Most of one.” Leaning close to my ear, he said, “Your agent is not going to have any idea about Shelley.”
“I know. They’ll just think she lied to me to get on set.” Oh, shit. I squeezed his hand in my suddenly sweaty one. “But why didn’t I say anything to my agent about her?”
“Right.”
“Shit.” We considered this story hole for a moment.
“How ’bout this…” He licked his lips. “You asked me to send some flowers to your agent to thank him for sending a masseuse, but I totally forgot.”
I grinned. “You’re such a crappy assistant.”
“I’m good at the things that matter.” He winked.
“Zack.” I pulled him closer. “They’re already pulling up your passport info and stuff, right? What are they going to find?”
“My deal with the Brits includes an identity that checks out to a high level. I’m pretty much an informant for them. They’ll divert any attention and protect me.” He swallowed.
“Even now?”
He ran a hand behind his neck and grimaced. “I’m meeting someone after the hospital discharges me. They’re gonna want the truth.”
“Are you going to give it?”
“I don’t think I have a choice. My immunity deal is for past crimes, not current ones.”
I set my forehead on his warm, solid arm. “You’ll send them after Valerie?”
“I’m pretty damn tired of her. It didn’t have to be this way, but she forced the issue.” His muscles clenched and he squeezed me close. “The minute she began harassing you—”
“Samantha?” A knock sounded on my door—accompanied by Danny’s voice.
“Yes, hi!”
Sam stood just as Danny and JenX came in the room. They barely glanced at Sam, but hurried over to me.
JenX cocked one hip. “So, amazing? Punching. Foiling robbery. Badass, right? Publicity.” I couldn’t see her eyes because of her shades, but she almost sang that last word, and I’m sure her peepers sparkled with the promise of box office receipts.
“The press is calling you Sherlock Samantha.” Danny grinned and leaned against the bed. “Did you really lay her out with brass knuckles?”
“I don’t remember it.” I shot a quick look at Sam, who blinked prodigiously. “But, yes, I carry around brass knuckles for my protection. In the US I carry Mace, but it’s not allowed in the UK.”
JenX smiled, nodded and patted me on the knee. “So, rest. Recover. Interviews.” She pointed. “Star.” And with that, she bopped out of the room.
“Production is shut down because of the police investigation,” Danny explained.
“You’re good at speaking director.”
“I like the way JenX does things,” Sam said. “Simple. To the point.”
Danny deigned to glance at Sam. “They said she drugged you, too?”
He shrugged. “I’m totally fine. It was Samantha she dragged into the museum to take hostage.”
My eyebrows lifted. Danny turned to me in concern. “I don’t remember anything.” It would be my mantra until the end of my days.
“She needs her rest.” Sam set a concerned hand on my shoulder. Oh, brother. They were gonna measure dicks again, but it never turned literal, dammit. “But thank you for coming by, Danny.”
“Of course I’m going to come by. The rest of the cast wants to, too…”
“I’m sure they’ll let me out of here soon.” I smiled at both of them. “We can all get a drink or something. Please thank everyone for the flowers and stuff.”
Danny turned to leave, and was beset by a tall, brown-haired whirlwind. “What in the actual fuck is going on here?”
Yay—Ellen!
Oh, shit—Ellen!
She stopped dead and pointed an indignant talon at Sam. “You,” she nearly spat.
“Ellen, you remember Danny.” I yelled it too loud, and my head throbbed.
My tone seemed to bring her out of her rage stroke, and she uncurled her lip. “Hey, Danny. Long time, no see.” Nicolette had followed Ellen into the room, and she now waved at everyone while also taking the time to frown at Sam.
“I’m so tired!” I gasped, putting a hand to my forehead and doing my best semi-swoon.
Danny made polite noises and hurried himself out. None of my other compatriots felt the need to leave. Sam hurried to the door and closed it.
Ellen plopped herself on my bed. “Are you okay? What did this devil man do to you?”
“Nothing! And I’m fine, thanks. He saved us both.” My BFF’s face screwed up into the precursor of a tirade, so I continued, “That’s all I can say right now. Dig? Later. Somewhere else. But I’m totally okay.”
“You don’t call. You don’t write. I have to see the fucking newspaper to discover that ‘Sherlock Samantha’ Lytton is in the hospital—”
I threw my arms around her. “I’m sorry!” Over her shoulder, I said to Nicolette, “I’m sorry to you, too. I’ll make it up to you. The rest of your vacation is on me. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ellen said.
“Yes, she does.” Nicolette always knows what’s what.
My nurse came in then to give me another examination before they would let me go. My people all left with promises to meet me at my place—I gave the keys to Ellen. When everyone was finally gone, I sagged back in relief.
Had we really done it? Turned the tables on our nemeses?
“Will I play the violin again?” I asked the nurse.
She put her hand to my forehead. “Are you confused? Do you know what day it is?”
Having been working nights, I didn’t actually know what day it was. I guess bad American jokes like me don’t translate too well.
* * * *
That night—actual night, not morning night, this was seriously the worst jet lag in the history of jets or lags—Sam, Ellen, Nicolette and I yakked over pizza and beer in my apartment. Before we began, Sam swept for bugs, stole my hair recorder and powered off every cell phone in the place. He made Nicolette swear on Ellen’s life to never reveal what we spoke of in that living room. Ellen insisted that she’d not leave the room without the full story. Nicolette did it for Ellen’s sake. The fact that Sam/Zack wasn’t in jail told our lovely cop that he must be in league with the Brits, so that lent him some credibility.
My sneaky gut suspicion told me that Nicolette considered our adventures interesting, anyhow. Her eyes shone, even as she directed shady looks to Sam.
“Let me try and get the machinations of Sam’s devious mind straight,” began Ellen whilst lapping up a long string of pizza cheese.
“If you can,” said the devious mind deviously.
“After filming finished, you skulked after Shelley, because she was gross and not to be trusted.”
“Skulking,” I said, scooting closer to him on the couch. “That’s hot.”
He waggled his eyebrows and squeezed my thigh on the way to his beer bottle.
Ellen continued, sounding very much like the YA adventure writer she was. “You observed her donning a skeevy ski mask outside Samantha’s trailer.”
“Shifty,” added Nicolette.
“Even on the sl
opes, ski masks are shifty. Upon realising that Shelley was about to force the issue and undertake the devious robbery, the first thing you did was bolt to the security room—whereupon you found that the guards had already been locked in a closet—and turn off the system and the cameras.”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“You did not check on Samantha, who might have been shot by Shelley.”
I turned to him, frowning. “Hey! Yeah.”
He repaid my massive frown with interest. “Shelley had no reason to shoot Samantha. Samantha was worthless unless she was alive and inside the museum.”
“Worthless? These terms of endearment touch me greatly, darling.”
Massive eye roll. “I’m pretty sure Valerie’s plan involved using Samantha’s near-unfettered access on set to get Shelley inside when the museum shifted from filming personnel to the cleaning/normal overnight guard staffing, which was more minimal and, frankly, not as diligent as they are during the period when the museum is closing to the public. What? I’m trained to observe these things. Samantha’s second purpose was to serve as the patsy for the robbery because Shelley intended that she be filmed inside the museum.”
“I changed my mind. I’m glad you went for the cameras.” He made a face at me. I ignored his antics in favour of the pizza.
Nicolette’s eyebrows quirked. “How did you do that, by the way? Shut down the electronic security?”
“After Valerie told me I’d be robbing the museum, I put out feelers to buddies and learned whatever I could about the security. Not the first time it’s been broken into.”
Her eyes got wide, but she shook her head and didn’t ask for any more information.
“He learned how to be prepared at Thief Camp,” I told her.
The dimple smirked and said, “I got a merit badge in Pissing Off Authority Figures.”
Ellen gave him a round of applause. “I am always pro-fighting The Man.” She finished her beer and waved the bottle at me. That was our special signal for, ‘Skank, get me another beer’. So I did.
“To continue,” Ellen continued. “The security cameras are off. Sam joins the two ladies, and you three proceed into the museum. Sam tells Samantha to bust Shelley’s head, which she is only too happy to do.”
The Dimple Strikes Back Page 20