Troubleshooters 09 Hot Target

by Suzanne Brockmann

  She’d nearly escaped to the stairs when Decker caught up to her. “Patty, hi.”

  Darn it. She could hear Robin laughing and joking with Harve the makeup magician, his voice carrying up from below. Robin, who hadn’t called her or come to see her last night, whom she hadn’t so much as heard a whisper from since yesterday. Robin, with whom she hadn’t exchanged a coherent word in private since they’d had unprotected sex on her apartment floor.

  She forced a smile. “Oh, hi, Deck. How can I help you?”

  He wasn’t fooled. “Are you all right?” he asked, and of course, his kindness made her want to break down into a sobbing ball of tears.

  She muscled through, blinking it all back. “A little overwhelmed today,” she told him. “Things are crazy.”

  “I know the feeling. And I hate to add to your load,” he said, “but Mercedes said I should talk to you about getting copies of your personnel records. I need info on cast, crew, caterers, extras—anyone at all who has access to the set.”

  Oh, God. There were, literally, hundreds of people involved in making this movie.

  Decker correctly read the expression of horror that she couldn’t keep from her face. “If you can just point me to the right computer,” he reassured her, “I can download the information I need.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said. “Well, some of it’s on the computer, sure. But I’ve got about a thousand headshots and résumés of extras that we might use for crowd scenes—for the upcoming D-Day sequence. They don’t get entered into the computer until they’re actually scheduled and hired.”

  “A thousand.” Dismay wasn’t included in Decker’s limited arsenal of facial expressions, but she knew he was feeling it now, too. “Well, let me get started with the people you’ve already hired,” he said.

  “You really think one of them might be Mr. Insane-o?” she asked, using Jane’s irreverent name for the e-mail killer. But wasn’t that a creepy thought. Someone she’d had a conversation with could actually be a murderer, preparing to kill again.

  “It’s just a precaution,” Decker told her. “Part of the process of the investigation.”

  “I’ll copy the files you need,” she said, about to add, “If you’ll just give me twenty minutes . . .”

  But then “Settle!” was shouted. And her chance of talking to Robin was gone, so she might as well do the copying now.

  “Settle!” she echoed down the stairs, and closed the door, with herself on the non-Robin side of it. Motioning to Decker, she led the way through the door to the production offices—and nearly ran over who else but Wayne Ickes.

  Oh, no!

  She had so completely forgotten that last night she’d had plans to meet him for drinks. She’d been so wrapped up in Robin and all that had happened that she’d forgotten to call Wayne and cancel.

  Instead, she’d stood him up.

  There was no anger in his eyes, however, only concern. Which made her feel even worse. “I am so sorry,” she told him. “Things got crazy busy last night and . . .”

  “I figured it was something major,” he said. “It’s okay. I really need to get a cell phone of my own. I’ve been using a friend’s and last night he needed it. How about—”

  “Right now I’m in the middle of something very important,” she said. She had to tell Wayne that she and Robin were a couple now, but she couldn’t do it here, in front of Decker. That would be too cruel. “Maybe we can talk later?”

  He took later to mean later today instead of later this decade. “Maybe at lunch?”

  The way her day was going? Not a chance. “Maybe,” she lied, just to get him moving. She turned back to Decker. “I’ll get you those files now.”

  They left Wayne standing there in the hall.

  “Boyfriend?” Decker asked as they went into the studio office.

  “Gosh, no,” she said after she’d closed the door, although it was clear that Wayne was auditioning for the role. It had been stupidly moronic of her ever to agree to go anywhere with him, but at the time, she’d been so angry with Robin.

  “Another thing I need from you,” Decker was saying, “is a list of all locations where you’ll be filming. Mercedes mentioned something about some outdoor shots starting in a few days. My team will need to go out there to make sure it’s safe enough for her to—”

  “What? It’s not safe at all!” Patty had thought Robin had succeeded in talking Jane out of accompanying the camera crew. “It’s a night shoot,” she told Decker, nearly breathless with anxiety. Was Jane crazy? Did she want to die? “It’s in these woods. I helped scout the location. It’s in the middle of nowhere. No offense, but there’s no way even the best security team in the world could keep anyone safe out there. Not from a crazy man with a sniper rifle.” She lowered her voice, glanced around to make sure her boss wasn’t in earshot. “You can’t let her go.”

  Decker nodded as he watched her sit in front of her laptop, which was locked to the desk with a security wire.

  “I’ll check it out,” he told her as she keyed in her personal code and then began copying the personnel file onto a disk. “But my job isn’t to restrict Mercedes’ movements. As much as I’d like to, I can’t forbid her from going someplace simply because I deem it too dangerous. I can advise and recommend, but ultimately the choice is hers. You’d probably have a better shot at talking her out of something like that.”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried.” The computer clicked and whirred, and Patty pushed with her feet so her chair rolled over to the file cabinet. She opened the huge third drawer. “Here’s our headshot file. This entire drawer.” She could tell from looking at him that a thousand headshots and résumés took up a whole lot more space than he’d imagined. “Oh, and I’ve also got another stack—probably about three hundred more of these—at my apartment. I’ll bring them in tomorrow.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Patty braced herself for the worst—another round with Wayne Ickes. But instead, it was the newest cast member, Adam.

  “Excuse me,” he said. With his hair cut short, he actually looked quite a bit like the photos they had of young Jack Shelton. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got only five minutes and . . . You’re Patty, right? I’m Adam. Hi. Mercedes wasn’t sure and she thought you might know. . . . Are you, um . . . expecting Jules Cassidy today?”

  Patty rolled back to the desk, where she’d put her clipboard. “I don’t think he’s on my visitors’ list, but you know, he’s with the FBI, so he can pretty much flash his badge whenever he wants and—”

  “He left town,” Decker said.

  “Really?” Adam was surprised. “Is he coming back? I mean, he is coming back, right? He helped get me this job, and I haven’t had a chance to thank him.”

  “We need to thank him, too,” Patty said. “You’re terrific.”

  Adam beamed. “Thank you. You are so sweet. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have Jules’ cell phone number, would you? He gave me his card with his new number on it and—silly me—I left it at home.”

  Patty accessed Jane’s address book, which she kept on her laptop, and read the number off to Adam.

  “You,” he said, inputting it directly into his own cell phone, “are my new best friend.” He headed for the door, but then turned back. “I’m not needed until after lunch. Will you do me a favor and give me a call on my cell at one-fifteen—in case I fall asleep?”

  “No problem.” Patty wrote herself a note and stuck it onto her clipboard.

  “Thanks.” Adam closed the door behind him.

  Decker was looking at her, eyebrow raised. “I thought you were Mercedes’ assistant.”

  “On a shoot with a bigger budget, he’d have someone of his own,” she felt compelled to explain. “I don’t mind doing whatever I can to help the actors.”

  “As if you don’t have enough to do,” he said.

  The door opened. It was one of the crew. “Hey, Pattycakes, Mercedes is looking for you.”

  Shoot. The f
ile was only ninety percent copied. “I’ll be right there.” Patty turned to Decker. “I won’t have time to photocopy the extras’ résumés until, well . . .” She sighed as she looked at her watch. Her chance of talking to Robin at all today was dwindling fast. “I guess I could probably start after we’re done here tonight.”

  Another knock on the door. “Patty, catering needs to know how many cast and crew will be here on Saturday. They’re willing to take a guesstimate, but they need the number in twenty minutes.”

  Oh, brother, where was the scheduling book?

  “I’ll have one of my team come in tomorrow and copy everything in the extras file,” Decker told her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He smiled. “Maybe that way you can get more than two hours of sleep tonight.”

  Patty laughed. “Yeah, wish me luck.”

  “File’s done,” her computer announced.

  She popped out the disk and handed it to him, logged off the computer, grabbed the week’s scheduling book and her clipboard, and ran to find Jane, praying that Robin was with her, because darn it, she needed to see his smile.

  “I’m sorry, sir, the hotel’s completely booked.”

  Jules gazed across the counter at the desk clerk. “No, you don’t understand.” It was nearly one o’clock in the morning. It was easy not to understand things at one o’clock in the morning. He should know. Throughout his life, his most stupid mistakes had taken place after midnight. “I have a reservation. I’ve got a confirmation number.”

  He fished in his pocket, pulled out his notepad, put it on the counter so the worried-looking clerk could read it for herself. He gave her his most reassuring smile, but as the young woman typed some information into her computer, her frown only deepened.

  Which was not a good sign.

  “I spent the day in Idaho,” Jules told her. “So if I burst into tears, well, now you know why.”

  Nothing. Nada. No laughter. No smile even.

  He was starting to wonder if she had a pulse when she finally glanced up at him. But she went back right away to frowning at the computer screen, worrying at her lower lip now.

  “Irving, Idaho,” Jules tried. “Which, believe it or not, is as dull as it sounds. So I’m ready for my luck to change. Something good’s going to happen—I can feel it in the air. You’re going to upgrade me to a suite, right?”

  Either that, or he was on a roll of well-deserved bad luck. He’d brought it down upon himself by surrendering to Adam’s smile again.

  Again.

  And again.

  His own stupidity was astonishing.

  He was like his own little special needs brother. And this is Jules. Don’t let him get near the box of Twinkies—he’ll have too many and make himself sick. It’s not his fault. He just doesn’t have the brain power to realize—

  But oh, God, just seeing Adam again . . .

  Jules had been living with a heart made of stone. When Adam had left D.C., he’d shut everything out, shut everything down. No pain, but no real joy, either.

  He’d done more the other night than let Adam into his room, his life, his bed.

  For the first time in years, he’d let himself truly feel. And God, how it all came flooding back—anger, hurt, resentment, pain . . .

  Hope, joy, laughter . . .

  Love.

  He’d been going nonstop for the past few days. He’d had no time to think, to figure out what the hell he was going to do now, to at least try to order and organize all these untidy emotions he’d stuffed out of sight for so long.

  All he wanted was to get to his hotel room and fall unconscious across the bed.

  The young woman behind the counter shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cassidy,” she said. “We don’t have a room for you. This isn’t . . . well, it’s a confirmation number, but it’s not yours.”

  It was one o’clock in the morning, so Jules didn’t say anything right away. He just stood for a moment, absorbing her words, trying extra hard to understand.

  “It’s not mine,” he repeated.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  She actually looked truly sorry, so he kept his voice gentle. He even managed to smile. “Would you mind getting your manager”—he read her name tag—“Kaitlyn?”

  She blinked at him. “It’s after one in the—”

  “ ‘Cause here’s the thing,” he interrupted, still smiling, but yes, he knew quite well what time it was. “I called and made this reservation at 4:14 this afternoon. See where it says that right here?” He pointed to the page in his notepad. “I spoke to someone named Colleen”—he’d also written that down—“who booked me a nonsmoking room. I gave her my Visa card number because I knew I would be arriving late. This is my notepad. This is my handwriting. Ergo, Kaitlyn, it’s probably safe to assume that this would be my confirmation number.”

  She was tippy-tapping away on her computer keyboard again, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, sir, but our records show that someone from your office named Laronda called at eleven thirty p.m., transferring the reservation out of your name.”

  “Laronda.” Jules laughed. Perfect. Unbelievably, fabulously perfect. “Into whose name was it transferred?”

  Kaitlyn continued to be unswervingly apologetic. “I’m afraid I can’t give out that information, sir.”

  As if he didn’t know. “Is it Max Bhagat?” he asked. This was like a twisted version of The Three Bears. But instead of Goldilocks, it was Papa Bear’s boss sleeping in that bed.

  Kaitlyn’s reaction was a solid affirmative. Apparently she hadn’t yet taken the course titled Desk Clerk Poker Face 101. “I’m sorry, sir, I really can’t—”

  “I understand. I’ll need my rental car brought back up from the garage,” Jules told her as he reached for his cell phone, which he’d been carrying around turned off because Adam had somehow gotten hold of his number. As it beeped back to life, sure enough, there were about a half dozen messages from Laronda, who forevermore would be known as That Hotel Room Stealing Bitch. “Can you help me find a local hotel that does have a vacancy?”

  He pushed the button that would let him listen to the most recent of Laronda’s messages, holding up one finger to stop Kaitlyn from replying.

  “Jules, where are you?” Laronda’s rich voice chastised him. “You ought to be on the ground by now. FYI, I was just informed that the airline got you onto a different flight. Apparently you’ll be arriving in Los Angeles after all, but now I’ve gone and given Max your hotel room, because the original delay wasn’t going to get you out of Idaho Falls until the morning. Call me at home if you need to, but, honey, even I don’t have powerful enough magic to conjure up a room for you in a city where every hotel is completely booked.”

  “How could every hotel in L.A. be booked?” It was a rhetorical question, but Kaitlyn answered it for him.

  “There are six different conventions in town this week,” she told him helpfully. “I could maybe find you something in Anaheim.”

  “These may or may not be words that chill the blood in your veins,” Laronda’s message continued, “but it looks like tonight you’ll be bunking with the boss.”

  Jules laughed. No fricking way. Share a room with Max? She had to be kidding.

  But she wasn’t. “Call him when you get to the hotel,” Laronda continued. “He’s in room 1235. It was his idea. Call him, Jules.”

  Yeah, sure it was Max’s idea. No doubt he’d had it handed to him on a platter, with a serious side dish of heavy guilt.

  “How far away is Anaheim?” Jules asked Kaitlyn as he snapped his phone shut.

  “This time of night, you can probably make it in about an hour,” she told him, turning away to answer a phone that managed to ring soothingly.

  His own phone rang, too, far more jarringly, and he checked the screen for the incoming number.

  It was Adam. Of course. How else could Jules’ evening get even more pathetically awful?

  To start, he supposed that Kai
tlyn could morph into a demon vampire like on Buffy, leap over the counter to sink her teeth into his neck, and—

  Instead she smiled perkily, as only a Kaitlyn could at one a.m., and held the telephone out to him. “It’s for you, Mr. Cassidy.”

  He put Adam back in his pocket, still ringing, and took the handset. “Hello?”

  “I have a seven a.m. meeting.” It was Max. His boss. The head of the FBI’s most elite counterterrorist team. He didn’t sound happy. Of course, these days he never sounded happy. “I’m sitting here, watching Headline News cycle around for the third time, waiting for you to turn on your cell phone—which, by the way, you better have a goddamn good reason for turning off.”