by Meg Collett
She and Cade stayed with Annabelle and Nancy late into the evening. They cooked dinner and listened to the old vinyl player. They taught Stevie how to play Rook, and there was too much laughter to recount. Through it all, Cade would pull Stevie to his side and kiss her, light and casual like he was just scratching an itch, like reaching for her was subconscious. And she went to him without an ounce of fear in her heart.
Maybe Annabelle was right. Everything she felt and heard about herself were just suggestions. She didn’t have to make any of it rules. She could decide who she was for herself.
In that one day, Annabelle did more for Stevie than her parents had in her entire life. For the first time, Stevie felt good about herself.
Like maybe she would be just fine.
14
Monday morning of phase five and the finale week of the show, she and Cade parked along the set’s street. The sun was just peeking out above the duplexes, splashing reds and oranges through the low clouds. Spotlights lit up the streets and tent areas, where crews worked to prepare for the first call time.
“Here we go,” Cade said. He took her hand, surprising her, and kissed the skin on top. He did it so quickly, so casually, that Stevie just blinked at him. Not giving it a second thought, he opened the truck door and got out. A second later, Stevie followed.
This might be a thing now, she thought. Casual happiness. Who knew?
Before they’d even started toward the main tent to grab coffee, Emilie was in their faces.
“What the hell? Your call time isn’t for three hours!”
“Uh,” Cade started. He shot a glance at Stevie.
“Crap,” she said. “Guess I got the times mixed up.”
Cade’s eyes narrowed. “You never get the times mixed up, especially if there are early mornings involved.” As he thought it through, he became even more suspicious. Stevie had, in fact, been very adamant about their call time being seven.
Of course she knew she was wrong—she wasn’t an idiot—but she needed time to snoop around Shepherd’s office before filming started and people—cough, cough, Emilie—kept track of her every move. It might technically be the last week of filming the show, but Stevie couldn’t risk Shepherd backstabbing her and not having Cade win. If Shepherd tried to pull something like that, she wanted to be prepared.
“Don’t think because you’re here now you get to leave early tonight. You’re here until we get it done. I suggest a nap.” Emilie took a long drag of the coffee she was carrying, hissed at the heat, and promptly stomped off.
Stevie glared at Emilie’s black velvet blazer. Who wore velvet anymore? The woman had to be a vampire. Or a troll.
“I guess I might sleep in the truck some. Want to join me?”
Mischief twinkled in Cade’s eyes and she almost forgot her mission, but she skittered backward as he reached for her.
“Sorry,” she said with a wink. “I’ve got things to do.”
She didn’t stick around long enough for him to convince her to stay. Besides, he could use the sleep. Heavens knew they hadn’t gotten much last night.
Just thinking about it made Stevie flush. The memory of watching his graceful fingers slide over her skin, his tall form above her, and his dimples flashing as she moaned—
Stevie crashed into something.
“Hey! Watch it,” the sound guy grumbled. He righted the boom mic in his hands, shot her a dirty glance, and marched away.
She took a shaky breath. She really needed to focus. She only had an hour to get in and out of Shepherd’s office with proof he was siphoning money from the accounts.
Back in L.A., she’d been with him for almost a year. She knew his habits, and she had some ideas where to start looking in his office. If she could log in to his computer, she’d be golden.
She wove through the chaos of the set to the cul-de-sack of the block, where the storage pods and Port-A-Toilets had been deposited. It was like a catch-all of madness back here. The metal pods formed rows, like mini streets, but they all dead-ended at one place: Shepherd’s office and the portable bathrooms, since the smell wouldn’t contaminate the entire set. The irony of Shepherd being amongst the shit didn’t escape Stevie.
His office wasn’t exactly an office, but a large tour bus. The model was older, with a few dings and scratches, and the air-conditioning unit wheezed. It was a step down from his usual offices. Yet another sign the show was on a low budget and another indication the network was punishing him.
Stevie ventured closer. All the blinds inside were pulled tight. Besides the air conditioner, she heard no sounds coming from inside. Shepherd never showed up this early to set—some days, he didn’t even come at all—but it wouldn’t be out of the question for an assistant or an associate producer, like Emilie, to use the bus, even though it would annoy Shepherd to no end.
He liked his private space. If he was stealing money, Stevie guessed no one else was allowed inside.
Just in case, she knocked on the front door. When no one answered, she tried the handle. Locked, just like she’d anticipated.
She walked around to the back of the bus, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching her. In the back was Shepherd’s smoking corner. A flimsy lawn chair sat next to a clay pot filled to the brim with ash and cigarette butts. Just a few feet beyond, the line of Port-A-Toilets started. After checking to make sure none of the them were occupied, Stevie crouched next to the flower pot and gripped its edges. Careful not to spill shit everywhere, she tilted the pot, shaking the ash and butts over to one side. There, taped to the inside of the pot and covered in filth, was the spare key.
She peeled back the tape but kept the pot tilted at an angle by sitting it in the chair. Only when she was certain it wouldn’t move did she let out her breath. If any ash got on the clean spot that had been taped over, Shepherd would know someone had snooped inside the bus. Someone who knew his hiding spots. It wouldn’t take him long to guess who that someone was.
She hurried back to the front door and wiggled the key into the lock. With another quick check behind her, she eased inside, latching and locking the door behind her. The inside smelled like mold and Shepherd’s cologne. The bus was old and it showed in the faded carpet, the tired couches, and the battered table that pulled up from the floor and worked as Shepherd’s desk. In the back was a bed covered in an eighties duvet and a tiny bathroom. The air conditioner spat out musty air that barely licked the sweat from Stevie’s brow.
Before she moved any farther into the dimly lit space, she checked the floor. And there, just like she’d expected, was a fine wire spread across the narrow entrance between the steps leading up into the bus and the driver’s seat. If she hadn’t been looking for it, the wire would’ve snagged on her leg as she walked through. Shepherd wasn’t high-tech enough to have the wire set up to a silent alarm or an alert on his phone. He actually didn’t trust technology.
He was just paranoid as hell.
How many times had Stevie watched him check and double-check his little booby traps? She knew how he operated. He’d gotten this far in running shows by being a little crazy and a little jumpy. He was likely protecting himself from assistants and lowly, power-hungry associate producers willing to steal information to get a leg up at the network, just like Shepherd had when he was younger.
Stevie stepped over the wire and went deeper into the bus. She knew the metal filing cabinet crammed into the little kitchen nook would be locked. Before she started looking through the papers on Shepherd’s desk, she took a couple pictures with her phone so she’d know where everything had lain. Shepherd’s office always looked disorganized and cluttered, but there was a startling method to his madness. He knew where everything went.
She pulled up a flashlight app on her phone and held it in her mouth as she lifted each piece of paper one at a time and quickly scanned the writing. It was all mostly paperwork—permits, schedules, log times. Shepherd could have stored everything on his computer, but he’d printed
it all out and scribbled his thoughts across it in red ink, his handwriting a slashing scrawl Stevie could barely read. It was another safety measure, like writing in code but with horrible handwriting.
Stevie shuffled through everything on the table and found nothing of interest. Obviously, he wouldn’t have anything important just lying around. It wasn’t like she’d expected a written note with a tally of all the money he’d stolen. She might have hoped a little, but not expected. This morning, she’d wanted to make sure she could get inside his office and get a feel for the layout, because when she came back to search his laptop—the one he carried back and forth from the hotel—he would have to be on set and she wouldn’t have much time. She would need to get in and out within a few minutes.
She crossed to the back of the bus. Inside the cramped bathroom was a plastic toilet that looked more suited for a toddler’s potty training than an adult’s ass. The room was spotless and barely used. She stuck her finger into the center of the toilet paper roll and pulled out a piece of paper, a tiny post-it note with all of Shepherd’s passwords written on them. She took a quick picture and returned the note.
Now she had everything she needed for her return trip.
Only after she’d examined the room to make sure every item and scrap of paper was in the exact same position she’d found it in did she step back over the wire and head down the steps. She lifted the curtain on the tiny door’s window and peered outside. The coast was clear, at least for the time being. Taking her shot, she darted outside, locked the door behind her, and scurried around the back of the bus. She pressed her back against the metal before peering around the corner. No one had seen her. The rows of pods were just as empty as when she’d come in.
She was taping the key back into the pot when a person cleared their throat behind her.
Stevie yelped and dropped the pot. The clay shattered at her feet, sending a puff of ash into the air and down her throat. She spun around.
“And just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Emilie asked.
“Uh,” Stevie sputtered, heart pounding. “Smoking? I mean, smoking,” she repeated so it didn’t sound like a question.
Emilie’s bold—Stevie wouldn’t dare call it bushy, at least not to her face—eyebrow cocked. “You don’t smoke. And you’re holding a key to Shepherd’s bus.”
Stevie’s fist closed around the cool metal as her mind scrambled for an excuse. Emilie had been glued to Shepherd’s ass since the first day of the show. She was his little gofer. She did everything he told her to, like a minion or the devil’s spawn. If Stevie didn’t come up with something fast, she was done for. Emilie would rat her out.
“I was just—” she started.
“You screwing Shepherd?”
Stevie scrunched up her nose like she’d just stepped in dog shit. “Hell, no. Aren’t you?”
“Ha!” Emilie snorted out a laugh. “I would rather soak my vagina in bleach.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that? After you ratted out Cade to him? You’re so far up Shepherd’s asshole, you could set up a permanent address there.”
“I had to keep his trust, obviously, and you had to know Cade’s stutter would come out eventually. Frankly, you should have prepared him better. That’s your fault. Not mine.”
Stevie inhaled deeply, reminding herself that violence was never the answer, even though her fist really wanted a bite of Emilie’s face. More importantly, she needed to get out of here before Shepherd came to set for the morning, and no matter what Emilie said, Stevie didn’t trust her. But then her thoughts caught on something Emilie had said. “Why do you have to make sure he trusts you?”
Emilie turned suspicious again. “Why are you poking around his bus?”
“I asked you first.”
“I don’t trust you with that information.”
“And you think I trust you?” Stevie fired back.
Emilie considered that for a moment, chewing on her dark purple lips. Finally, she said, “You know about the . . .” She glanced around, like Shepherd might walk up behind them, and Stevie caught a surprising hint of fear in Emilie’s eyes. “The stealing?” she finished in a low voice.
Stevie blinked in shock. Not in a million years would she have expected Emilie to know about Shepherd skimming money from RealTV’s expense accounts. But Emilie could be setting her up or trying to get her to say something that she could relay back to Shepherd. Even if Emilie was afraid of Shepherd, Stevie resisted the thought of Emilie being on her side, and she wasn’t making the mistake of trusting her again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit. If you aren’t sleeping with him—”
Stevie gagged at Emilie’s words.
“—then we both know what you were doing. I assume you’re trying to find out what he’s doing with the money? Someone from the network send you to check up on me? They didn’t think I could do it? Is that it? Was it that little shit, Jessica? That sleaze ball has been trying—”
“Wait. How do you know about the stealing?”
Emilie considered her for a long moment, likely thinking the same thing Stevie had: Could she trust her? “The network sent me down here to keep tabs on Shepherd.”
Stevie’s lips parted. If Emilie was lying, she had a lot of facts—more than Shepherd would have given her if they were just casual screw buddies.
“How do you know about it?” Emilie asked before Stevie could recover. “And why are you snooping around back here?”
Stevie didn’t dare believe she was getting off the hook this easily, not with how nasty Emilie had been to her throughout filming. Although, a part of her mind said Emilie’s story made sense. Sort of. If she wanted Shepherd to trust her while she was snooping around for the network, then she would have to relay information to him, like Cade’s stutter, and appear like she wasn’t on Stevie’s side in the process. But still, this was Emilie she was thinking about. The woman was poison. Despite it all, she took a tentative chance.
“A friend back in L.A. mentioned Shepherd might be involved in some shady shit with the network,” she said, watching Emilie’s reaction closely.
She just nodded, like she’d expected as much. “And you need something on him to keep him off your back.”
Stevie’s lungs contracted, but she forced her face not to give anything away. “So, what, the board doesn’t trust Richard’s opinion of Shepherd or something?” she asked, pretending like Emilie hadn’t completely guessed her plan.
“Don’t get it twisted. The board wants Richard out. They think he was involved in the scam from the beginning. I’m just doing the legwork down here to get them the evidence they need before they promote me to a supervising producer on another show.”
Stevie hated to be the one to admit it, but it seemed like maybe, just maybe, Emilie could be on her side. If not, Shepherd had arranged an elaborate hoax to catch Stevie checking out his business.
It was all giving her a headache, and she slumped into Shepherd’s smoking chair because her knees didn’t feel quite up to the task of standing after the magnitude of adrenaline that had pumped through her veins. “Yeah, well, you had me completely fooled.”
Emilie toed a piece of the shattered pot with her Converse, like she was nudging the tentative—at best—line in the sand between them. “I need him to think I’m on his side, not the board’s.”
“Do you have anything on him then?” Stevie tried not to sound too hopeful or even allow herself to feel it.
“Not enough. Nothing the board can use. That’s the problem.” Emilie rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes, further smudging her dark eye makeup and pulling at the star tattoo beneath her eye.
“He’s paranoid.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Stevie regarded the woman she’d presumed was her archenemy, but Emilie just met her gaze, blinked slowly, and chewed her gum. Emilie was . . . on her side, or at least she seemed like she was. Until Stevie could verify Emilie�
��s story through her connections back in Los Angeles, the revelation would take some getting used to and some resetting of Stevie’s automatic surge of hatred every time she saw the little associate producer. She sucked on the inside of her cheek, debating. Then she said, forcing the words out one by one, “We can, you know, help each other.”
Emilie looked as sick as Stevie felt about the prospect. “Did you . . . find anything in there?” She clearly had to force the words out too.
Stevie considered not telling her about the passwords. She still didn’t trust Emilie one hundred percent, but in the end, she decided they would be stronger working together, even if Emilie had other motives for bringing Shepherd down. If their goal was ultimately the same, what could go wrong? “I found his passwords. I just need his computer.”
“Shit,” Emilie hissed. “He keeps that thing with him all the time, and we don’t have much time left.”
“Unless we can separate him from it in the next few days.”
“What are you thinking?”
Stevie shrugged. “There are some things only the showrunner can deal with around here.”
A smirk tugged at the corners of Emilie’s mouth. “Something unexpected.”
“And urgent,” Stevie added.
“So he can’t take his laptop.” Emilie drummed her fingers against her dark-painted lips.
“Exactly.”
“I can think of a few things.”
Stevie nodded, her eyes falling to the pile of ash and broken clay shards around her. “How the hell am I going to cover this up? He’ll know someone found the key. This won’t exactly look like an accident. Thanks for that, by the way.” She shot a glare at the tattooed goth pixie.
“Maybe you should learn how to stop overreacting.”