Spotlight

by Traci Hunter Abramson

  “And you helped with this?”

  “I didn’t know he was going to sabotage the brakes. I only told him how to mess with the steering,” Bruce insisted. “I promise. I didn’t know.”

  “Who is it? Who were you helping?”

  “Carter Wells.” Bruce tried to shift himself up in the bed. “You have to stop him before someone gets killed. He was going to sabotage the deck at the beach house.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure. I refused to help him.” He winced in pain when he shifted again. “That’s why I was there last night, to find what he did and try to fix it.”

  William unlocked his phone once more and made his call.

  32

  Craig considered the scene that was about to be shot, listening to Sienna and Adam discussing the format with their director. They had chosen to have this particular conversation in the living area overlooking the third-floor deck. Two sets of french doors led to the deck, and the doors of the set on the right were pulled open wide for the cameras to film through. Cameras were now in place outside to capture the action from below, and several members of the cast and crew were gathered beneath the shade tent that had been set up where the lawn gave way to sand.

  Craig still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the number of people it took to create a movie or how long it could take to complete a single scene. He had glanced at the scene with Sienna last night and had had to bite his tongue more than once. Objectively, with his training, he could find all sorts of holes in the scenario, but he supposed it all came down to what the public would believe.

  As he understood it, Adam and Sienna would pretend someone was trying to infiltrate the beach house where they had supposedly taken refuge from their enemies. He wasn’t quite sure what the deal was with the fictional biological weapon in the story, nor was he about to point out how many breakdowns in national security would have had to occur for the scenario to be plausible.

  He tuned back into the conversation when Sienna spoke. “Let me make sure I have this right. I take my mark on the left side of the deck until Adam comes out the other door.”

  “That’s right. Dalton and Kent will appear between you. You’ll engage Dalton, and Adam will fight Kent. As soon as you trip over the rope on the deck, we’ll cut for close-ups.”

  Craig looked up at where the stage would be set. Why someone would have heavy-duty rope on a deck that was used primarily for sunbathing and water watching he didn’t know, but, hey, he wasn’t the guy writing the story.

  Props littered the side of the room cluttered with cameras and sound and lighting equipment. A folding table held guns, pieces of wardrobe, and a second coil of rope. An A-frame ladder stood beside the wall, several extension cords stacked beneath it.

  George stepped up beside Craig. “Are you going to stay up here for a few minutes?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I want to check out the lower levels. Lots of people on set today, and I’m feeling more paranoid than usual.”

  Craig understood the sentiment. “Go for it. I’ll be here.”

  “Keep a good eye on her.”

  “Will do.”

  George headed for the stairwell near the french doors, and Craig listened to the director’s last-minute instructions to Sienna and Adam.

  “Okay, let’s make this happen,” Marcus said.

  Sienna and Adam headed for their starting positions. Marcus took his seat in his director’s chair and said to the cameraman beside him, “I want you to keep rolling on this one.”

  Craig’s phone rang, and he quickly silenced it.

  Marcus turned and gave him a hard stare. “And no phones on my set.”

  “Sorry.”

  Craig looked down to see it had been William calling. He walked across the room, away from where the action was being shot, missing the call by the time he was out of range of the cameras. Before he could call William back, his phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Craig, where are you?”

  “At the beach house with Sienna.”

  “Bruce woke up. It’s Carter. He’s the one who’s been behind the accidents.”

  Craig turned quickly to look back toward the set. “I think I saw him outside in the yard when I got here. Do you want me to track him down and detain him, or should I wait for the cops?”

  “I’m on my way right now. Just make sure no one goes on the deck. It may have been sabotaged.”

  Craig whipped around at the sound of Marcus’s voice. “Action!”

  Adam took three steps out onto the deck, a pistol in his hand. Sienna followed him, and Craig heard a faint crack of wood beneath their weight.

  “No!” Craig threw his phone down and shouted, “Sienna!”

  Marcus stood in a rage and yelled out, “Cut!”

  Craig’s focus was entirely on Sienna. He waved at her, motioning for her to stay back. The urgency in his voice had the opposite effect. Instead of moving back into the house, she stepped farther onto the deck. “No! Come back!”

  Craig sprinted toward the french doors as voices rose in confusion. Sienna started back toward him but only managed to take one step before an explosion sounded, followed by a loud crack.

  Time slowed, every second passing in excruciating slow motion. The wood beneath Sienna’s and Adam’s feet gave way, leaving them both suspended in midair for a brief moment. All of the voices unified in an audible gasp, and Craig prayed he could react fast enough.

  * * *

  Sienna felt like she was standing on a boat in a stormy sea. One minute the wooden planking beneath her was firm against her feet. The next minute it was gone.

  She tried to make a sound, but nothing came. Shock, pure and simple, took over, along with an overriding sense of disbelief.

  Beside her, she heard Adam cry out and throw his body toward the open doorway. She felt herself falling millisecond by precious millisecond.

  Her brain absorbed every detail: the wood beneath her splintering, shards of wood embedding in her left arm, the coil of rope that had moments ago been something to trip over now hovering above her head, apparently exploding upward when the deck burst into pieces.

  Instinctively, she grabbed for it, gripping it for dear life, even though, like her, it had nothing to keep it from falling. In her peripheral vision, she could see the ground more than thirty feet below her.

  She heard Craig shout her name and then heard the thump of Adam’s body impacting the floor of the beach house five feet above her.

  She looked up, saw Adam’s feet dangling from where he was sprawled in the open doorway, then her palms burned when the rope jerked hard beneath her hands.

  * * *

  Craig reached Adam first, gripping the back of his shirt and hauling him up over the doorway threshold and out of his way. Then he looked down, terrified of what he would find.

  Twin emotions of relief and fear pulsed through him when he saw Sienna wasn’t lying broken on the ground below but was dangling from the rope he had been mocking a few minutes ago. The thick strands of one end had caught in the jagged boards that now jutted six inches from the side of the house. Sienna clung to the rope several feet below.

  “Hold on!” Craig called out.

  He did a quick assessment. Only a few inches of rope protruded above the boards they were caught in. The splintered wood held flush with the side of the house several feet to his right. The nails holding the wood in place were already groaning under the strain, the end of the rope fraying dangerously.

  “Someone call 9-1-1!” Marcus called out to the room, and Craig was vaguely aware of someone tending to Adam while others tried to push to the doorway to determine Sienna’s fate.

  “Everyone get back,” Craig barked, and everyone obeyed.

  Sienna tried to put one hand above the other, causing the wood to pull away from the house another fraction of an inch.

  “Stop. Don’t move.” Craig struggled to stay calm. He looked around, searching for any
thing he could use for rescue equipment. He thought of the other rope across the room, but it was too thick to use easily. His eyes landed on the extension cords, and he raced the few feet to retrieve them.

  He put a hand on the banister post located six feet inside the door and gave it a good push to test it for sturdiness. Deciding it was the best he could do for the moment, he looped two extension cords around the base and tied them off. He then stepped to the edge of the doorway and tested his weight against it.

  He could almost hear Brent telling him not to push his luck, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. It was only a matter of seconds before the rope holding Sienna broke free. He wasn’t going to wait. He simply couldn’t gamble on whether she would survive the fall, and by the time the fire department got here, it would be too late.

  “What can I do?” George appeared at his side.

  “Hold on to the end of these cords to help support my weight. I don’t know how long the banister will hold.”

  George gripped the cords, lowering himself onto the ground so he could use his weight to counteract the pressure Craig was about to put on him. “Ready.”

  Normally he would have looped the cord around his waist and through his legs, but he didn’t want to get caught trying to untangle himself. Instead, he took a firm grip on the cords and prepared to climb down hand over hand. Rappelling without a harness wasn’t the smartest idea, but he could see no other option. He wished briefly for a pair of gloves but pushed that thought aside as quickly as it had appeared. Right now, all that mattered was getting to Sienna.

  33

  Sienna realized that what had felt like a gentle breeze before was actually enough of a gust to sway her back and forth, her breathing becoming short and shallow as she envisioned the moment when the rope would pull free.

  The hint of panic in Craig’s voice made her wonder how much worse the situation could get. She searched above her and could see it now—the rope’s threads and their tentative hold between the jagged deck planks, the nails under those planks bending slowing toward her.

  Any minute she was going to plunge the three stories to the ground below. Any minute she was going to die.

  Blood seeped from her hands and into the fibers of the rope, making it increasingly difficult to hold firm. Even if the rope did hold, she wasn’t sure she would be able to for much longer.

  She still couldn’t understand what had happened. Why would the deck simply cease to exist while she was standing on it? She could see the second-story deck below her, but it was several yards to her left, staggered with the other decks on the beach house to create a more aesthetic curb appeal. Right now all she wanted was something solid beneath her feet.

  She clenched her knees together around the rope below her and closed her eyes against reality. Surely her life wasn’t supposed to end this way. She had so much to live for, so much more than she had thought possible.

  No longer did everything center around her career. Now she had Craig too, someone she cared about enough to make changes in her life, someone worth sacrificing for.

  No sooner had the errant thought entered her mind than she heard movement above her. Then Craig descended beside her, three feet of space between them.

  “What . . . ? What are you doing?” she asked.

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” Craig said, his voice confident even if his eyes still illuminated his concern.

  Tears stung her eyes, so many emotions blending together, from hope to utter terror. She also felt Craig’s sense of urgency. “What do you want me to do?”

  He didn’t answer her, but he swung himself to the side of the house, now six feet below the doorway and four feet to Sienna’s left. His feet found purchase in the grooves between the pieces of siding, and somehow his fingers managed to do the same. Had she not known better, she would have sworn he was climbing up one of those rock walls instead of hanging on to the side of a house.

  To her horror, he eased his grip on the cords he was previously using to keep him steady and pulled up several feet of slack. “I’m going to swing this to you. I want you to grab on when it gets in reach.”

  “I can’t,” Sienna said, her heart lodging in her throat at the thought. “I’ll fall.”

  “No, you won’t. Keep your grip on the rope with one hand and with your knees. Use the other hand to grab the cords.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Sienna, you can do this.” His eyes met hers. “Trust me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “Okay, here we go.”

  * * *

  Craig wished he was as confident as he sounded. He uttered a silent prayer for Sienna’s safety before he counted to three and swung the cords in her direction.

  She reached for them like he had instructed her, but her adrenaline threw her timing off, and she only succeeded in putting more pressure on the rope she was currently clinging to.

  If he could just get her weight shifted to the extension cords, he could help her climb back up, or he could guide her through a climb down to the second-floor balcony.

  He knew the cords wouldn’t support both of them at the same time, and he was willing to take his chances with his own free-climbing skills if it meant getting her to safety sooner. A piece of siding bent slightly beneath his right hand, and he adjusted his grip to the next strip down, praying it would hold his weight.

  “Let’s try it again. You can do it.” Craig tried to believe his own words, willing Sienna to gain the confidence she needed to trust herself. “Pretend this is all a stunt for the movie. When I say three, I want you to reach for the cord I’m sending to you.”

  She gritted her teeth for a moment before taking a shaky breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  Deciding to keep things simple, this time he only sent one cord. “One. Two.” He pulled his hand back and sent the cord toward her. “Three!”

  This time, Sienna’s instincts took over, and she reached out and grabbed the cord.

  “Great. Now I’m going to send you the second one.” Craig followed the same procedure.

  Like with the first try, she reached too quickly and missed. A quick pop followed a short groaning sound, and the thick rope that had kept Sienna from plummeting to the ground went slack in her hand.

  A scream escaped her, and her grip tightened on the extension cord. Still, she didn’t loosen her hold on the thick rope, and the weight of it pulled her downward.

  “Let go of the rope!” Craig commanded.

  He could almost see her go through the quick thought process of figuring out which hand to relax and which one to grip tighter with.

  A fraction of a second later, the rope fell free of her hand and tangled between her legs, pulling her down another six inches.

  Her breathing was quick and shallow, and Craig saw the panic on her face. “Relax. Take a deep breath.”

  He knew his words were contrary to every instinct running through both of them, but somehow he managed to keep his voice calm and firm.

  He could see the blood on her hands now, and his concern heightened, suddenly understanding why she was having such a hard time maintaining her grip. He also realized that he might have to readjust his original plan of having George help pull her up.

  He looked at where the rope was caught on her left foot. “Try not to move any more than you have to, but I want you to point your toes on your left foot.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and did as he asked, but instead of falling free, the rope caught on the tongue of her tennis shoe.

  For a brief moment, Craig considered whether it was really necessary to free her from the rope. Then he saw her slip a little more.

  She was out of his reach by several feet, and he couldn’t use the cord he still held to support his weight without jeopardizing both of them.

  “We’re going to try something else,” Craig said, his mind racing. “I want you to lift your left leg and reach it toward me. I’m going to try to get that rope off
you. When you do, I’ll loop this cord around your leg so you can grab it.”

  Sienna remained silent, except for her rapid breathing.

  “Do you understand?”

  Again, she didn’t respond.

  Recognizing the signs of shock, he put some authority behind his words. “Sienna, reach your leg toward me.”

  Again, no response.

  Trying a different tack, he let his heart guide him. His words became soothing and persuasive. “Come on, honey. You can do this.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him but still didn’t seem to be able to send the command for movement from her brain to her leg.

  He continued. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you like this.” He saw surprise in her eyes and wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Deciding any change in her expression was good, he continued. “Now, I need you to reach out your leg.”

  She gave a subtle nod and strained against the weight of the rope to follow his instructions. Slowly she managed to extend her leg to him, and he reached his hand out as far as he could.

  His fingertips made contact with the rope. “A little more.”

  He could see her leg tremble as she complied.

  Craig finally managed to wedge two fingers beneath the rope and lift it the fraction of an inch needed to free it. “Okay, tighten your grip and try lowering your leg.”

  She did, her body jerking when the rope fell free and hurtled through the air below her.

  * * *

  Sienna felt the extension cord sway, her body now liberated from the extra weight. She tried to listen to Craig and managed to follow his instructions when he had her lift her leg again.

  She felt like she was watching a movie when he looped the second extension cord he had around her leg and then had her lower her leg to bring the cord within her reach.

  His plan worked, allowing her to adjust her grip so she was holding on to both extension cords firmly, or as firmly as her bleeding hands would allow.

  It took her a moment before she realized Craig no longer had anything to hold on to except the end of the second cord he had given her.