by Blake Pierce
At the sound of his name, Boatwright murmured something unintelligible. That was good enough for Callie. He was getting it.
“So where were we? Oh yes, I went back from my dyed blonde hair to my natural brown, got a new agent, and carved out a fresh career for myself. For half a dozen years, I grinded every day. I did commercials, industrial films, and bit parts in horror films shot in Eastern European countries that ended in ‘nia.’”
“Nia,” Boatwright mumbled.
“That’s right, Miller. Way to keep up. Anyway, somewhere in there I managed to get married to a sweet guy—nothing like you— who’d been a grip on one of those horror movies. He was good looking, gentle, and didn’t ask too many questions about my past. That was more than I thought I deserved, so I leapt at it.
“Eventually, I got guest parts on a few procedurals as rape victims, party girls, or adulteresses. That led to recurring roles as evil temptresses or doting girlfriends. Eventually I nailed a regular cast role as a rookie cop in a cable series that lasted half a season before getting pulled from the schedule. After that, it was a rookie detective on a network series that lasted a full season before getting cancelled. Things were starting to look up, Miller.”
Again hearing his name, Boatwright tried to open his eyes. They fluttered briefly before giving up. The sight of him struggling filled her with both satisfaction and fury. She was glad that he was in pain. But he had to be alert if he was going to accept responsibility.
She licked her lips, trying to stave off the dry mouth that had suddenly overtaken her. She felt nauseous and exhilarated at the same time. Everything was heightened. She was invincible.
“I know it’s a lot to take, Miller, but please try to pay attention,” she said, her voice rising in a wild, sing-songy rhythm. “It finally culminated this year when I was cast as one of the leads in a network legal drama. The show was picked up for thirteen episodes, giving me a level of financial security that I’d never experienced before. Fairy tale ending, right?”
She waited for a response but Miller wasn’t being accommodating so she answered for him.
“Wrong! That’s when the problems started. I learned that the show was going to be at Sovereign Studios, where my first brush with success had ended in crushing disappointment. Not great, Miller, but not the end of the world. I moved past it because I’m a trouper. But it kept getting worse. We’d been shooting for a few weeks when I discovered that the Marauder reboot would be shooting on the lot too. Well, Miller. You can imagine that didn’t sit well me.”
She was talking faster now but, despite her best efforts, the words were starting to bleed together.
“Soon after that, the dominoes started falling,” she continued. “I discovered that Corinne would be starring in the film. Then someone said they’d be filming on Stage 32, which was right next to Stage 31, where I worked. The soundstages even shared a connecting door, which meant there was a chance I might bump into the woman who stole the career I was supposed to have.
“But here’s the worst part, Miller. She didn’t just steal my career, she debased it. I read, along with everyone else, about her fall from grace, mostly a result of terrible on-set behavior and poor career choices. Every time one of her films failed, I felt a weird mix of satisfaction and disappointment.
“Sure, I was pleased to see the woman who ruined my career face her own struggles. Then again, if she had become a megastar for the next decade, maybe I could have accepted that at least I lost my dream role to someone more talented and deserving. But the woman’s failures only reinforced the truth: that I’d been wronged. Wronged, Miller!”
“I’m Miller,” Boatwright said. His words were now comprehensible but he clearly wasn’t comprehending.
“Keep up, Miller,” she spat. “We’re getting to the exciting conclusion here. Things went downhill from there. All her prima donna behavior started to put my show at risk. We lost production days because of her delicate constitution. My show might never get on the air because of her. She’s still finding ways to cost me jobs. The tipping point came when we bumped into each other in the commissary a week ago. Nothing major happened. In fact, that was the point. She sniped “excuse you,” stepped to the side like I had a disease, and continued on without another word.
“I have to tell you, Miller, it wasn’t so much the rudeness that upset me as the lack of awareness. Corinne Weatherly had no idea who I was, nor did she care. She was oblivious to the pain she’d wrought with her pliable morality and entitled attitude. She moved through the world like she owned it and everyone else was there to serve her. It was simply too much. She had to pay. And she did.”
“What’s going on?” Boatwright moaned groggily from across the room. He was still out of it but he could speak and focus his eyes. He was coherent enough.
The rehearsal was over. It was time for the real show to begin.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
“Haven’t you been listening, Miller?” she asked him testily as she unhooked the bungee cords keeping him in place and stepped back out of his reach. “I told you there would be a test later. That time has come. Do you remember me?”
Boatwright squinted at the woman. She was a little fuzzy around the edges of his blurry vision but she looked vaguely familiar. She was in her thirties, about five foot six with medium-length, light brown hair and brown eyes that were currently trying to burn through him. She was attractive with a thin but shapely physique and sharp, angular features that would pop onscreen. He sensed that she had to be an actress.
“No,” he said, though he wasn’t sure that was true.
He wanted to demand what the hell was going on but something in the intensity of those eyes made him reconsider. He tried to swallow the creeping fear that he felt growing inside of him. Something about his throat felt funny.
“Come on, Miller,” she said teasingly as she paced back and forth. “Cast your mind back. I’d like to think I made at least a small impression on you.”
Hearing her speak more, there was definitely a familiarity to her voice. He tried to place it. Did he know her from around the lot? Had she been in one of his films? It had to be something else.
He glanced around and saw that he was lying on a filing cabinet high above the ground. Touching his neck, he realized the weird feeling was a rope wrapped tightly around it. He looked up and saw that the rope was connected to an exposed pipe above him. Both his wrists and ankles were bound. However he knew this woman, she wasn’t pleased with him.
“Did we work together?” he asked, his voice raspy.
She smiled and her perfect while teeth gleamed, almost hurting his eyes.
“Not quite,” she said, walking toward him.
And then, in a flash, it came to him. This was Calliope Mott, the actress who’d been cast in Petals and Petulance before he’d discovered Corinne. The one who’d tried to kill herself when she lost the role. She looked different but it was definitely her. He tried to hide the recognition in his eyes but could tell she’d caught it.
“Finally,” she said. “You were starting to hurt my feelings.”
“You killed Corinne,” he said more than asked. “Because she got the role you wanted? And you’re mad at me because I picked her?”
Calliope had stopped moving and now stood directly in front of him. He was tempted to reach out and grab her throat but doubted he could grab her with his hands tied. Besides, he was worried he might topple off the cabinet.
“Is that how you remember it, Miller? I was simply beaten out for the role by a better actress?”
“No,” he said, swallowing again, trying to find some saliva in his bone-dry mouth. “You were very good. I remember we offered you the role. Corinne was a late audition, a favor to an agent friend. No one expected anything from her. I’ve always felt bad that you got such a raw deal.”
“So she was just a late audition, huh?” Calliope said with a nasty edge. “It had nothing to do with me refusing to ‘act out’ a romantic scene wi
th you in your apartment? It had nothing to do with her being willing to do whatever it took?”
The memory flooded back. The truth was that Miller Boatwright had “rehearsed” scenes with so many actresses in his apartment over the years that they all started to blend together. He had a vague recollection of Calliope being among them, but nothing stuck out. He decided not to mention that. Instead he focused on her second comment.
“Corinne Weatherly didn’t sleep with me to get the role,” he told her.
Calliope’s face went red.
“You expect me to believe that?” she spat.
“It’s true,” he said, praying that convincing her might save him. “I won’t deny that once she got the part and the movie started shooting, we got together. But nothing like that happened to get the role. I can see why you would think that you rebuffing me and her getting the role were connected, but I swear it was just a coincidence. If we’d never seen her, you’d have played Rosie, regardless of what happened at my apartment. I wouldn’t blackball an actress I thought was right for a role just because she wouldn’t sleep with me. If I did, a quarter of the actresses under thirty in this town would be unemployed.”
Calliope started at him coldly, disbelievingly.
“The funny thing is that I bet you think that makes you noble in some way,” she said, suddenly adopting a deeper male voice, imitating him. “I pressure women I have power over to have sex with me. But I don’t hold a grudge if they don’t.”
“It sounds awful, but it’s true,” he insisted.
She shrugged.
“Here’s the thing, Miller. Either way, you’re a scumbag. Or you ‘were.’ That all ends tonight.”
Then, without warning, she shoved him off the edge of the filing cabinet. He tried to grasp the side of it but everything happened so fast that he couldn’t get a grip. He attempted to brace himself for what was to come. But nothing prepared him for the agony as his body wrenched downward while his neck stayed in place.
It took him a second to grasp he hadn’t broken his neck. But that relief was replaced by the horrifying realization that he couldn’t breathe. The rope was digging into his neck, compressing his trachea, and cutting off both his circulation and the flow of oxygen. He knew that wriggling would only tighten the thing but he couldn’t help it. He tried desperately to extend his toes out to reach the floor. He could feel them bump something slightly as he swung but he couldn’t quite plant them down. Through watery eyes, he saw Calliope watching him intently, a hungry grin playing at her lips. But with each passing second, she got more blurry, as if someone had rubbed a thick layer of Vaseline on his eyeballs.
He tried to blink but found it impossible, as was speaking or even breathing. He felt the terror giving way to resignation. It wouldn’t be long now.
*
The conference room was empty.
Jessie dropped to her knees, thinking that maybe Boatwright was unconscious beneath the large table in the middle of the room. But there was no one there.
She had been sure that this was where Callie Hemphill would have taken Boatwright to punish him, the place where her dreams of stardom were supposed to take shape. But there was no one here. She was at a loss. But then, as she stood there feeling defeated, her previous thought popped into her head.
Supposed to.
This was the room where Callie’s dream was supposed to come true. But it hadn’t. She’d lost the role before the table read. She might never even have been in this room. The place where the dream had first seemed real was where she’d auditioned and done well enough to win the part.
Jessie pulled out her phone and quickly scrolled through the documents to the audition files. In the top corner of all the pages were the words “audition room 5, Katz Building.” That must have been where everyone tried out. That had to be where they were now.
She looked at the door across the hall. There was no sign on it. As she began to run down the darkened hallway, it became clear that other than the two conference rooms, none of them were labeled. Audition room 5 could have been any room at all that someone had taped those words to a decade earlier.
Jessie stopped running and forced herself to think. Callie and Boatwright were somewhere in this building. Though she couldn’t be sure, she suspected they were on the first floor. Callie wouldn’t have wanted to drag a famous, unconscious man around any longer than necessary. So they were close. Maybe she could hear them or, if he was already dead, at least her.
Don’t run. Walk quietly.
She started at the end of the hall near the main door and moved softly down the hall, listening for anything unusual. It was silent. She was just reaching the end of the hall, starting to wonder if perhaps Callie had gone to a higher floor, when she saw it.
Peeking out from under the door of the last room on the right was a dim but noticeable light. She moved closer. The door was wood and looked old. Even if it was locked, she suspected she could kick it open. She texted her location to Trembley, unholstered her weapon, took one large step forward, and kicked.
The door flew open. It took Jessie a moment to understand what she was seeing. Miller Boatwright was dangling from a rope attached to an exposed pipe in the ceiling. His face was purple, his eyes were bulging, and his legs were twitching.
In the corner of the room, next to a door to the adjoining room, stood Callie Hemphill, dressed all in black. Her intimidating brown eyes blazed. Before Jessie could say a word, the woman flicked off the light switch, plunging the room into near total darkness. Jessie heard the other door open and a voice called out.
“Guess you have to choose between catching me or saving him.”
Jessie felt around near the door she’d just kicked in, found another light switch, and flicked it on. Boatwright had stopped moving. The sound of Hemphill running down the hall toward the exit echoed through the hall. She was right. If Jessie went after her, Boatwright would die for sure. If she stayed to help, the killer might get away. It wasn’t really a choice.
For half a second, Jessie considered trying to wrap her arms around Boatwright’s torso and hold him up until help arrived. But he was in bad shape and, with her aching shoulder, she wasn’t even sure she could physically do it. Instead she took two steps forward, aimed her gun at the rope holding Boatwright up, took a deep breath, and fired.
Nothing happened. The bullet missed the rope and slammed into the wall behind it. Jessie shook off the frustration, took another deep breath, squinted, and fired again.
The rope snapped and the man collapsed to the ground. Jessie ran over and tried to loosen the rope by squeezing her fingers between it and Boatwright’s neck. She could create a fraction of space but not enough to do much good.
She heard a sound behind her and spun around, pointing her gun at the door. It was Trembley, followed closely by Paul the security guard.
“Either of you have a knife?” she asked quickly. “This thing is choking him to death.”
Trembley hurried over, pulling a Swiss army blade out of his pocket. While Jessie tugged at the rope to create more space, he slid the blade under and cut furiously. Within ten seconds, it was frayed enough for him yank the pieces apart.
Paul’s radio squawked. Someone made a comment that Jessie didn’t understand. He grabbed it and spoke quickly.
“This is Stockton. We’re at the south end of Katz, first floor. Man in distress. Come quick.”
“What’s going on?” Jessie asked as she felt for a pulse. It was weak but there.
“The studio medic is en route. Thirty seconds out. Do you want me to try CPR? I was just retrained.”
“Sure,” Jessie said, stepping away to make room for him. “He still has a pulse but it’s faint.”
Paul hurried over and began compressions. Another announcement came over the radio.
“Cameras show a female running east on Bronx Street, just passing Avenue 8.”
Jessie looked at Paul questioningly.
“She’s cutting across
the New York back lot in the direction of Stage 31, where her show shoots,” he told her. “Should our people pursue her?”
“No,” Trembley said quickly. “She’s clearly dangerous. Have them hold back and continue surveillance. We’ll go after her. Please update Detective Bray when she and her people arrive.”
Just then, another guard and the medic burst in with a portable defibrillator. They rushed over. Jessie and Trembley stepped back and Paul slid over.
“You got this?” Jessie asked him.
“We’ve got it,” he assured her, tossing her his radio. “Take this. Go get her.”
She nodded and ran out of the room with Trembley right behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
“We lost her.”
That was according to Lionel, the security guard who’d been on the radio, guiding them with the assistance of the studio’s multiple cameras.
Jessie and Trembley were standing at the western edge of the New York back lot, near the corner of Alexander Dayne Way and Avenue 5, where stages 31 and 32 connected. Both gasped for air. Jessie tried to ignore her throbbing shoulder.
“She could have gone anywhere,” Trembley said, frustrated.
“True,” Jessie acknowledged. “But I’m willing to bet she’s on one of those two soundstages. She works on Stage 31 so she knows it well, and Stage 32 is where she killed Weatherly. Either would be a draw for her.”
“Should we just wait for the cavalry?” he asked. “It’s going to be hard for her to sneak off the lot at this point.”
“Normally I’d say yes. But what if there are still people on those soundstages? We don’t know what weapons she has and what she’s willing to do with them. She’s in a pretty desperate state of mind.”
“Good point. I guess we’re splitting up then,” he replied. “You have a preference?”
“Not really. I guess 32 since I’m at least slightly familiar with it.”