by Lisa Jackson
The crew had set up at the top of the very trail she’d run down almost a week earlier. There were lights in play, enough to pick up the action, but dim enough to make it obvious to the viewers that it was night.
Bianca closed her eyes. Gathered herself. Tapped into her raw emotions of terror and pain as she waited at the top of the trail, wedged between two huge boulders, standing on her mark, ready to race down the hillside.
She was pumped. Adrenaline raced through her bloodstream and her heart was pounding, her nerves tight.
Get this right. Do it!
She’d read the loose script, and Barclay Sphinx had talked to her about what he wanted from each scene.
For this one, she was supposed to run through the woods as if she were scared out of her mind, to keep looking over her shoulder and to show panic, fear, and pain. All she had to do was remember how she’d felt that night and she was there. The cameraman—a bearded guy named Rob—would basically be playing the part of the monster chasing her, the lens Big Foot’s eye, so she’d have reason to turn her face and really emote. Showing pain shouldn’t be a problem. Running on her ankle was certain to ensure a level of agony. Even now, while she was just waiting, it throbbed. She gritted her teeth. Her doctor would freak if he knew she was doing this, but she didn’t care. Poised for flight, she rotated the kinks from her neck, then swatted at a mosquito that buzzed near her head.
She’d been told that since Rob would be following her, she was supposed to look like she was running fast and hard, when, in essence, she would be slowly jogging so he could keep up without jostling the camera too much and they could get good, clear footage that wasn’t too jerky.
Other camera operators would catch the action as she headed downhill, one midway and the other at the bottom of the incline when she pitched headlong into the creek, where the “dead body”—really little more than a life-sized doll—was in place beneath the water. It didn’t look real with its fake hair and painted eyes, but she had been assured it would appear genuine in the film. And it could be doctored, made to look more real through computer-generated imagery, post filming. The images of it would be grainy and distorted, so the viewers would only get a glimpse before the camera cut away; most of the horror was left to the viewers’ imaginations.
Sphinx had explained to Bianca that there would be several takes of her run down the hillside and all the footage would be reviewed, edited, and spliced together to make the filming appear seamless and “real.”
Mentally she’d turned a corner by pushing back her doubts about Barclay Sphinx’s motives. She told herself they didn’t matter, that the filming tonight was the first step to achieving her goals of becoming a star, even though she was a little disappointed in the script as the story line surrounding this episode of the series was only minimally about her.
Still, she was one step closer to Hollywood.
“Okay, everybody. Places!” a disembodied voice called from somewhere behind her, and then, “Action!”
She took off. Jogging headlong down the path, breathing more loudly than she needed to, looking over her shoulder, hoping that raw panic was evident on her face. She remembered frantically racing down this very path, the twists, the turns, the sheer terror of the monster chasing her, and oh, yeah, the pain! She winced as she passed the second camera, maybe overplaying it as she hobbled, but the pain was real enough, each step downhill sending a jab of agony through her ankle.
She heard the cameraman behind her, pretended it was the monster she’d seen the week before, and kept glancing fearfully behind, reminding herself the red light blinking on the shoulder cam was that gold eye of whatever creature had torn after her through these stands of hemlock and pine.
She heard the creek before she saw it, noticed the camerawoman on the bank, and headed straight for the stream, which rushed and cascaded more loudly than it had before, as the crew was piping in more water from a truck situated upstream, out of view of the cameras.
For effect, Bianca was panting loudly as she passed the camerawoman on the fly. She recognized her mark, the edge of the stream where the water eddied and pooled, saw the exact spot where she was supposed to trip over an exposed root and fall with a little scream into the water.
Almost there!
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the mannequin, lying just under the surface, half hidden in the dark pool and tethered by an invisible bit of fishing line. Everything was in its place.
Now!
Her toe hit the root and she pitched herself forward, her arms flying out as she screamed for effect and hit the cold rush of water. Uncomfortable, but not terrible. God, she hoped it looked as if she’d stumbled. She submerged and focused on the doll.
The mannequin stared back.
Eye sockets were blackened. The lower half of the face was only a skull, as if something had eaten away the tissue.
This wasn’t the doll! The mannequin! This thing in the water was real. A dead woman! With rotting flesh flaking from stark white bone, pale hair floating around a face without eyes, rotting flesh hanging by sinews, a gossamer dress wafting in the current.
Bianca shot to the surface and shrieked for all she was worth, her scream echoing through the canyon. She scrambled wildly away, splashing water, slipping on the bank, trying to get away from the horror of the dead girl’s face, the terror that seized her throat. Coughing and sputtering, she staggered to her feet. Pain screamed up her ankle. She fell, slid back toward the water and the wretched, rotting corpse. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!”
Heart thundering, she flailed backward, scuttling frantically backward up the bank, eyes stretched wide, her body soaked, her fear real.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her. The production crew and Barclay Effin’ Sphinx had played her.
“What the hell did you do?” she cried.
“Cut! Cut!” a voice called loudly, then Mel, a production assistant who’d been beyond the scope of the lights, ran forward. “You’re okay,” she said. Small, athletic, hair cropped close to her head, she grabbed hold of Bianca’s arm.
Bianca yanked her arm back. “I’m definitely not fine! You put that horrid thing in there. You made me think there was a real girl down there.” She pointed a shaking finger at the stream. “What the hell is that?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not real. Hey, can I get a towel over here?” she called to someone behind her.
“I know it’s not real.” Now, Bianca silently added, I know it’s not real now.
Mel admitted, “We switched out the mannequins.”
“But that’s all wrong . . . I mean you were going to fix it in post-production. CGI or whatever.”
“We wanted to get your real gut reaction. Your horror.” Someone gave Mel a terry-cloth hand towel, which she passed over to Bianca. “And it worked,” she said as Bianca swiped the dripping water from her face. “Your expression was perfect. We wanted to see that terror, that fear, to get it all in one take, and you were fantastic!”
“I was scammed. I want to talk to Barclay.”
“It was his idea to change things up and surprise you, make it real to enhance your performance.”
Bianca was burned. Who did these people think they were? Obviously, despite anything else he’d said, Barclay Sphinx didn’t have faith that she could act, could pull off the scene on her own. God, she was pissed. Tossing her hair to one side of her face, she wrapped her hand around the strands and squeezed, wringing out the water, feeling like a fool, or worse yet, a naive teenager who’d just been shown how foolish she was.
Crap!
Mel said, “The point is, it’s done. Unless something shows up in editing, we’re good here.”
Bianca was pressing the towel to her face.
“Oh, watch that. Don’t dry yourself off too much. We need you wet for the next scene.”
Bianca wasn’t sure she wanted to do any more scenes. She was starting to believe that her mother was right about the whole damned show. �
�You got any more ‘surprises’ for me?” she snarled.
“That only works once.” Mel flashed an encouraging smile.
Bianca tossed a look to the creek, where the hideous, lifelike mannequin lay beneath the surface of the water, the blond hair still wafting in the current.
Her face burned with embarrassment, and she had the absurd feeling she was about to cry.
“Now come on,” Mel said. “Let’s get moving. Back to the parking lot. We want to wrap up that scene with you talking to your mom about what happened.”
Bianca reined in her emotions with an effort. “She’s not my mother,” she muttered, following after the woman to the gravel-strewn area where the party scenes had been filmed. The campfire, though gas-fueled and controlled, was still burning, a couple of rocks and a few sleeping bags scattered around it, while farther back, out of the camera’s sweep, were all of the equipment and vehicles—cranes, light poles, trucks and the like—and people clustered and waiting. Beyond the perimeter of the set, there were other vehicles, curious bystanders hoping for a glimpse of the filming, reporters thinking they might catch a story, as this was, after all, the scene of a recent murder.
“Take five,” Mel told her, waving toward an empty chair. “And you can put your ankle brace back on. We won’t film you any lower than your waist, so it won’t show.” She started to walk away, then turned and added, “But don’t dry off, okay? The next scene will be you, here.” She twirled her finger to include the parking area, where three pickups and a couple of sedans were parked around the perimeter of the lot, about ten feet from the campfire pit. “That’s the scene with your mom, the woman cop.”
That was another thing that bothered Bianca. Michelle being cast as not only her mom, but a policewoman, a detective. They had her dressed in slacks, a blouse and jacket, her hair clipped behind her head, a fake gun mounted on her belt, boots with significant heels, not at all like her mother’s, which was probably good. But acting as if Michelle were her real mom, that would be tough. Michelle was okay and all, and really cool usually. . . but . . . she just wasn’t her mother.
While waiting for the scene to be set up, Bianca grabbed a bottle of water from a cart, cracked the cap, and took a long swallow just as Maddie and Lara approached.
Eyes shining, Maddie said, “Is this the coolest or what?” She was taking in all of the action, watching the new scene being set up with one eye on Teej, who was joking around with Austin on the far side of the campfire.
“I guess.”
Mel was heading to Teej and Austin, directing them to sit next to the campfire.
Her gaze never leaving Teej, Maddie said to Bianca, “I can’t believe your mom didn’t want to be a part of it.”
“She doesn’t believe all this stuff about Big Foot. Thinks it’s all a lot of hype.”
“So?” Lara asked. “I mean, when does something like television come to Grizzly Frickin’ Falls. Never.”
Bianca said shortly, “Mom’s busy.”
“Oh, well, yeah, with the investigation,” Lara said.
For a second, Maddie and Lara both tried to look sad, almost as if on cue acting like they cared about Destiny. It kinda made Bianca sick.
Maddie broke the uncomfortable silence. “I’m going to grab something to drink. They’ve got Diet Coke. You guys want anything?”
“That stuff’ll kill you,” Lara advised.
“Oh, right. When? In about a hundred years?” Maddie tossed her hair and headed toward the drink cart, and Lara turned back to Bianca.
“At least Michelle gets to play your mom in the series. Kinda keeps it in the family, and besides she’s so cool. Sorry to say, but way cooler than your real mom.”
Bianca pressed her lips together.
“She’s hotter. Be better for the show,” Lara went on. “I mean, no offense, your mom’s okay, but she doesn’t have the same ‘it’ factor that Michelle does. This is way better. She makes a better cop.”
“What?”
“I mean TV cop. Oh, come on, you know I’m right.”
Bianca glanced over at the area tagged for the next scene: Bianca’s meeting with her cop mom. If the production crew had intended to make Michelle seem like Regan, they’d already got it wrong, Bianca thought. In heeled boots and a tight outfit Regan Pescoli wouldn’t have been caught dead in, Michelle was deep in conversation with Barclay Sphinx. Her platinum hair, braided and falling over a shoulder, gleamed in the production lights as she, intent on what the producer was saying, leaned a hip against a Jeep that had been fitted with a light bar and a sheriff’s department logo.
“See what I mean?” Lara said as Barclay even touched Michelle lightly on the shoulder as he went through the scene with her.
Yeah, Bianca thought, the television version of a female detective. So why didn’t it ring true? Why did it bug her so much?
Michelle looked fantastic, no question, but it wasn’t right. Bianca took another swallow of water and caught Michelle raining a smile back at the producer, the kind of smile she usually reserved for Dad. It was weird. Unsettling. Bianca had always known Michelle was a flirt, the kind of woman who lit up around men, but this was different. Bianca sensed a deeper emotion running here.
“And your mom’s sooo prego,” Lara went on. “Like huge. She’d fill up the whole picture on a wide screen.”
“She’s going to have a baby,” Bianca ground out.
“I’m just saying, she’s not right,” Lara sniffed.
Maddie returned, a sweating Diet Coke can in hand. “So has your mom figured out who killed her?” she asked Bianca as she cracked the top of the can open.
“What?” Bianca was pissed at Lara and everything else.
“Destiny. Does she know who did it? You said she doesn’t think it was a Big Foot.” She took a sip as a worker stretched an electrical cord around the perimeter of the next scene. “I mean, I don’t either, but who would have done it? Who does she think?”
“I don’t know,” Bianca said, more annoyed than ever. She didn’t want to discuss her mom’s work or the case. “She’s working on it.”
“Does she think that the baby’s father did it? Killed her?” Maddie asked. “I hear it wasn’t Donny’s.”
“I don’t know,” Bianca snapped again. Her ankle throbbed, she was sure the makeup used to disguise the split on her lip wasn’t working, the mosquitoes were driving her nuts, and the whole night was a big pain.
Maddie said, “Well, who do you think it was?”
“How would I know? For God sakes. That’s what the homicide detectives are for.”
“I was talking about the baby’s father.” Maddie took another drink from her can. “Who do you think he is?”
“Don’t have a clue.” Bianca was abrupt. “I didn’t know her that well.”
“Probably could be anybody,” Lara said. “All the boys liked her. And they’re all horny as hell.” She nodded, her blond hair catching in the low light. “I know.”
“Not all of them,” Maddie said pointedly.
Lara laughed. “What? You think Teej wouldn’t go for it, if she came on to him?”
“He wouldn’t!”
A sly smile curved over Lara’s full lips. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
“Lara!” Maddie sputtered as Simone joined the group.
Lara turned to Simone. “What do you think? Would Teej have banged Destiny if he had the chance?”
“He’s a guy, isn’t he?” she replied with a shrug. “Hey, where did you get that?” she asked, pointing to Maddie’s soda.
“You guys are sick!” Maddie spat. “Who knows who Destiny slept with, and who cares?”
“You were the one that brought it up,” Lara reminded her. The mean undertone in her voice couldn’t be missed.
“Teej wasn’t interested in Destiny,” Maddie said darkly.
“Think we hit a nerve?” Lara asked, and both she and Simone tittered. When Maddie looked like she was about to cry, Lara added, “Oh, come on. It has noth
ing to do with love or romance or any of that shit. It’s about wanting to fuck. Guys—all guys—want it all the time. Why wouldn’t he? Because Alex had already fucked her? So what? That would probably only make him want to do it more. Kind of a brother competition or sibling rivalry thing. You can’t take it personally.”
“Teej isn’t like that,” Maddie said angrily.
“Uh-huh.” Lara smirked.
“You are such a bitch, Lara. Such a bitch.”
Lara laughed as Mel yelled over to the group. “Okay, places, everyone! Bianca? You and your mom. Over by the Jeep.” Michelle straightened and took a couple of steps, getting in position for the correct camera angle that would include the sheriff’s department vehicles and Bianca. Before she could answer, Mel looked over at Bianca and, from the pull of her eyebrows and tightening of her lips, it was obvious she was running out of patience. “Bianca? Today?”
Bianca hobbled to the Jeep and heard Simone snigger, “Break a leg,” followed by giggling.
Idiots, she thought and had a fleeting thought that maybe, this time, her mother had been right. Maybe agreeing to be part of the production and recreating the discovery of the dead girl’s body was a big, big mistake.
CHAPTER 24
She couldn’t breathe!
Huge hands clasped over her throat, cutting off her air. Struggling, she tried to suck in any whisper of air, but it was impossible. The beast holding her wouldn’t let go. And here, deep in the wilderness, no one could hear the struggle or her strangled attempts to cry out.
No. No. No!
This couldn’t be happening!
She tried to scream, to kick, to scratch and rid herself of the manacles surrounding her throat, holding her fast. But her assailant was strong. So damned strong.
Help me, oh, please . . . someone help me.
But no one knew where she was, that she was in the forest at the hands of a maniac. God, please . . .
Her lungs felt as if they would explode, her eyes bulged.
Why would he do this? Why? Frantic, she fought, throwing her weight away from him, attempting to break his deadly hold, hoping to kick him hard in his shins or his nuts, wherever she could lash out. To no avail. Her blows found no mark, her stabs at breaking free only serving to make him increase his hold.