“I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to fix it.”
“I hope so,” he said, his jaw tight. “Because the film certainly won’t make much sense without the main murder.”
“That is a problem in a mystery.”
“The editor has tried everything from tightening to overlaying, but there’s a key close-up where the guy looks like he’s coming right out of the killer’s ear.”
“From every camera angle?”
“Sounds like.”
“Bad luck. If you can’t find a workaround, will you have to go back on location?”
“Possibly. Unfortunately, three of the leads were in the scene. I know from experience that none of them are fond of reshoots, and I think Reynolds is actually out of the country.”
He shook his head slowly, probably thinking of the cost and scheduling nightmare of trying to grab three major stars, who’d most likely moved on to other projects. While she was thinking that, as the newbie, the whole mess might be left in her lap to work out.
She could hardly wait to get started.
“So, if you have to go back to New Mexico, I assume I’ll be going with you.”
“Yes. Like I told you yesterday, this job does include travel.”
“I don’t imagine there are any location scouting trips to Paris on the schedule, huh?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Bummer. It’s number one on mine and Liza’s bucket lists. She wants to go for the art. I want to go for the macarons, éclairs, bread, chocolate, and champagne.”
He barked a laugh.
“You think I’m kidding? I’m a total foodie. That’s why I need to hit the StairMaster. It’s also why I was out jogging the first time you saw me.”
“In spandex with that high, bouncy ponytail,” he said, sounding like he was enjoying a particularly good memory. “That was a very bad day for me. You were like a beam of light.”
She thought back, wondering about the timing. She knew roughly when she had gone into the gallery—it had been about eight weeks before Liza’s showing.
Now she remembered something else that happened about eight weeks before the showing. “Oh, my God, the fire.”
He hesitated, then admitted, “Yes. Believe it or not, me having to come back to deal with the fire was why the problem happened on the set.”
Double bad luck. He must have been walking under a little black cloud in April. She wondered what to say, but not for long. Reece was generally reluctant to talk about the past. He focused on the here and now, and on the future. Such a planner. So she said, “Anyway, about my thighs…” She quickly snapped her mouth closed, realizing how that sounded. Seeing his half grin, she knew he’d finished the sentence in his head. Probably with something like: About my thighs wrapped around your hips? About my thighs opening in welcome?
“I meant, um, about the sculpture, and my food issues. Liza not only disguised my chin, I think she thinned out my thighs, too.”
His glance at her legs wasn’t exactly surreptitious. She was wearing a pretty suit, a light blue one. The skirt length was modern yet still professional. Which meant a few inches of thigh were revealed when she was sitting.
“She didn’t change a damn thing,” he said, putting his eyes back on the road. “Nor did she need to.”
Jess closed her eyes at the audible appreciation; he’d practically growled his words. The car suddenly felt very hot, despite the air-conditioning blowing toward her face. Lord, how was she supposed to maintain the distance she’d demanded, both before and after that crazy kiss yesterday, when he made his attraction to her so obvious?
Reece had said he wouldn’t make a move on her again until she made it clear she wanted him to. As much as she’d told herself that day wasn’t going to come until Satan’s palace was buried in snow, she’d already started thinking maybe she’d be ready at the end of the summer, when her internship was over.
Who the hell are you kidding? You’ll be ready by the time the day is over.
She was doomed. So totally doomed.
“You know, we shoot a lot in Canada,” he said.
The comment yanked her out of mental lust land, and she replied, with such eloquence. “Huh?”
“We’ve shot in Montreal before. They speak French there, too, though I don’t know if the food is as good.”
Her brain finally caught up. “I guess it’ll have to do.” To her embarrassment, her stomach grumbled audibly. “Darn, now I made myself hungry. I stayed up so late studying last night I overslept and didn’t eat breakfast.”
“Don’t worry about it. You will soon be introduced to the joys of studio food. Not to mention the insane, fast-paced studio life.”
She settled deeper into her seat, able to shove all other worries out of her mind. This was the first day of her new life. She’d worked long and hard for this opportunity, and she wasn’t about to let her attraction to her new boss screw it up. He had done the right thing, backing off and putting everything in her hands, and she would be able to stay strong and resist him.
But as she cast a quick, surreptitious glance at him, at the strong hands gripping the wheel, the thick arms, the broad shoulders, and oh, all the rest of him, she had to concede one thing.
Maybe she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was.
Chapter 7
They thought he’d tried to kill Reece Winchester.
Sid might not care if the prick dropped dead, but he hadn’t been the one who shot at the famous director. True, he had a gun and usually carried it. But he’d left it at home the night of the gallery showing. He was an innocent man.
“Jesus, you really blew it,” he muttered, rubbing one hand over his bleary eyes and lifting a bottle to his mouth with the other. He’d been drunk for several days, while he tried to figure out how to get himself out of this mess. “You shoulda gone to the police right away, dummy.”
Nobody answered. He was alone in a dirty, stained-sheet hotel room, where he’d been holed up since last Friday. The place catered to poor surfers who stayed four to a room, but it was all he could afford, and the rent was still enough to suck him almost completely dry of cash.
“Shoulda told ’em,” he groaned, queasiness warring with fear in his gut.
Friday night, when the shot rang out, he’d been stomping up the beach, fuming and wondering how to get Sharon Winchester alone to tell his side before she got it from her nephew. Maybe somebody saw him there and could give him an alibi. Maybe a security camera picked him up. Maybe they’d believe him when he swore he’d seen somebody else—a figure all in black and wrapped in night—shooting from the edge of the shoreline.
Sid had stood frozen with shock for a sold ten seconds after the crack of gunfire. He hadn’t thought about his own safety at first, and might even have been visible to the shooter.
The realization had finally put some haul into his ass. He’d run toward the street, frantic to get far away from a crazy person with a gun.
Good thing he’d followed his instincts. Because it hadn’t taken long to figure out who the real target was: him.
“Why didn’t you stick around and tell ’em who was being shot at?” he said, hearing his own self-pity but knowing it was justified. “The cops woulda believed you.”
Sure they would have. He was a fuckin’ art dealer, well known and respected.
Mostly. Yeah, he was an art dealer, but art wasn’t all he dealt. Heroin had a better markup, and more people could afford it.
It all came down to money. Sid’s gambling addiction was a ravenous monster. He had to feed it, which meant dealing drugs, as well as skimming off the top at his legit jobs.
If he went to the police, they’d dig and probe, wanting to know why he thought he was the target. Sid couldn’t tell them. If he revealed his theory of why the shooting had happened, he’d get himself deeper into trouble with people a lot more dangerous than the LAPD.
“Fuckin’ horses,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ craps. Fuckin’ Vegas.”
<
br /> He owed more than fifteen grand to one of the toughest private bookrunners in Sin City. Little Joey was not one to forget a debt. So there were fifteen thousand reasons why that bullet had been monogrammed with Sid’s name, not Winchester’s.
It hadn’t been hard to figure out, given the warnings. They’d started with phone calls from guys with deep voices, and then his tires were slashed. A jackboot-wearing thug had come into the gallery last week, threatening to torch the place if Sid didn’t come up with what he owed.
Message received. The bookie didn’t want him dead, just terrified. It had been a warning shot. He’d been seen walking in front of the window that night, and somebody shot it out. So he’d been reminded of the stakes of this game: Fifteen grand or his life. He thanked his lucky stars the shooter sent by Little Joe hadn’t seen him on the beach before he’d run away. At least, he didn’t think he’d been spotted. That he wasn’t wearing casts on every limb said he probably wasn’t.
The very possibility, though, had made him bolt like an animal rather than thinking things through. He’d literally run in terror, fleeing through town, until his heart felt like it was gonna blow a valve. People out partying got out of his way, staring after him like he was a crazy man, and he was pretty sure he’d knocked one rich bitch right outta her Donatella Versace platform shoes.
A few minutes later, his brain had kicked back on and he called himself an idiot. He’d stopped, gasped for breath, and realized he was running when he should be making tire tracks. He’d returned for his car, hoping he hadn’t lost his chance to drive away. Unfortunately, he was too late. Cops were swarming. One bullet fired at a former movie star and all of Southern California showed up.
Watching from up the block, he’d lurked in the shadows. His tension grew, nerves straining, until he’d finally left. He had no friends to call, no car to drive away in, and no courage to steal one. Hide! It was all he could do, knowing he couldn’t go home with thugs looking for him.
The longer he stayed at this hotel—almost a week now—the more terrified he became. The shooter had probably already figured out Sid was lying low somewhere not too far from the gallery. He rarely slept, fearing he would awaken to the sound of his own arms being broken.
“Coulda taken a cab. Gone to the airport. The bus station.” He swigged some more bourbon, tipping the bottle back, draining the last few gulps. “Too late now. No money to get there. No cash to pay for a ticket.” He had a stack of twenties in his safe at home; in his line of work, banks were a no-go. But he couldn’t get home, even if he weren’t scared to death to try because it was surely being staked out.
He’d thought about making a try for his car again, but hadn’t seriously considered it. Joey’s goons, or the cops, would have his leased Mercedes guarded. He had no wheels, was down to his last twenty bucks, and was scared to risk even poking his head out of the crappy hotel room.
“How the fuck am I supposed to pay them back without my job?” he muttered, hating Reece Winchester even more.
All his problems would have been solved with one clear digital image. If only the rich bastard hadn’t been able to convince the paparazzi dude to give up his camera. Full-color pictures of the reclusive director and the bombshell in blue would have brought in a lot of money from the tabloids. Sid, having provided access to the photographer, could have claimed half of it. He’d tried demanding half of the thirty thousand Reece was “paying” for the camera. That would have cleared up his entire debt. But the photographer was a dick and wouldn’t play ball. Now, Sid had not only lost out on a windfall; he didn’t even have a job.
“Thanks to that son of a bitch.”
He wanted to get even with the stuck-up director almost as much as he wanted to get out of this mess alive. Not to mention outta this room. He was cracking up. He’d eaten only junk from the dusty vending machine in the lobby for the last six days. He wanted food—real food. Right now, a rare steak and a baked potato dripping with sour cream sounded like the closest to heaven he’d ever get. Glancing at his empty bottle, he realized he needed something else, too.
Over the next hours, as the blissful bourbon high began to wear off, visions of a tasty meal loomed larger in his mind. Joey, meanwhile, shrunk. He’d hidden for a long time; nobody could know for sure that Sid was still in the area. Even if they suspected it, what were the chances he’d be spotted?
“Nil,” he mumbled, trying to convince himself. “It’s a sure bet.”
Besides, starving to death sounded worse than getting beaten up. A man had to eat.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Can’t go out looking like this.
He dampened his hair, ran his fingers through it, then shook out his shirt and pants. He’d had nothing else to put on for days, and had been rinsing stuff in the tub. Another glance at his reflection said he wasn’t exactly respectable, but not too bad. Besides, the scruffier he looked, the less likely he was to be recognized—or identified by a waitress after he dined and dashed on a pricey meal.
Finally, he made his move. Opening the door slowly, he stuck his head out and sniffed the California night, surprised at how quiet it was. The world had seemed much louder from inside the shithole where he’d been hiding. Now, though, there were no voices, no car horns, nothing. It was eleven p.m. on a weeknight, and the neighborhood had settled down.
Knowing there were late-hour restaurants/bars down on Speedway, he crept out of his hole. He stayed behind cars as he walked across the gravel parking lot, his confidence growing with every step he took. Sure, somebody mighta watched the neighborhood for a day. Even two. But more than that? No way. He’d been totally paranoid.
Being out in the world, his rational self was coming back. There was a way out of this, sure there was. Reaching the sidewalk, he even started to picture it. He knew things about the artwork in the gallery where he’d worked until last week. There were pieces upstairs worth far more than he owed Little Joe. Sid had been there throughout the construction of the place, including the security system. He knew the position of every camera. He could figure out a way to get inside without getting caught. He had to.
With a plan developing, he began to smile. His steps grew more sure and steady. His car was probably still in the parking lot. He could get in it, go home, and get word to Joey about his solution to their little problem. No sweat. Everything was gonna be A-okay.
He was whistling, knowing the grumble in his stomach was about to be answered by a massive meal when he heard a sound. A soft click. It came from behind him.
Panic returning like a gunshot to his gut, he swung around. There was nothing.
“You’re losing it.”
His brain tried to calm his body, but his heart had started thudding and his skin felt limp on his bones. Taking deep breaths, he cursed his imagination. He was jumping at the slightest noise, at the touch of a cat’s foot on a porch, or a lock being flipped on a front door nearby.
Nobody was looking for him.
Besides, if the worst really did happen, if somebody really did find him, all he had to do was tell them he had a great idea and ask to get on the phone with Joey. The bookie was a businessman. When he found out he could get a shitload more than fifteen grand by lifting a few paintings from a rich Hollywood bastard, he’d probably thank him.
Turning around again to keep walking, he immediately let out a tiny squeal when he saw someone standing right in front of him. Someone dressed all in black, their face concealed by a hood, and by the mimosa tree overhead that blocked the streetlight. If danger were a physical thing, he’d have been knocked over. It wafted off this person who’d crept up on him so easily and eerily.
All thoughts of negotiating fled his mind. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one.
Turn. Run!
Before he could move, he saw the hand rise. It held something. “No, don’t, I can—”
Electric shock hit Sid in the chest. Running was no longer an option, because every one of his muscles exploded with pa
in.
He collapsed backward, hitting the sidewalk with such force he felt his head split open. His mouth slammed shut, his teeth plunging into his own tongue. Blood gushed from lips that wanted to form cries of agony but could find no air with which to do it.
Sid twisted, thrust and arched, not in control over a single movement. Pain. It was like nothing he’d ever felt. His body was completely beyond his control and he jerked and writhed, his muscles quivering, contracting, and spasming. Agony saturated each of his nerve endings.
The enforcer who’d come to collect on his debt moved above him. Tall and concealed in shadow, hard to see through Sid’s teary eyes, the person clicked a button, and the electricity ceased. There was no relief, though. Sid still twitched on the ground, his pants wet with his own piss, his body not obeying any of his brain’s comments.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Thank you for finally coming out.” The voice was soft, floating down to his ears on the evening air, barely audible. “You’ve made this a lot easier.”
“Ahh…” Trying to talk. Trying to think. Unable to do either.
Sid blinked, making out the dark figure through his twitching eyes. His attacker reached into a pocket. Pulled out a…“N-n-noo. Puh-please.”
The weapon rose, the muzzle pointing down. Toward his head.
“I’ll p-pay.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Money…can get…”
“Who cares about your money?”
What the hell? No money? No self-respecting bookie would say such a thing. “Not…from Joey?”
The head tilted, a glimmer of light shining on a pale chin. “Who’s Joey?”
If every inch of him weren’t hurting, Sid might be able to figure this out. Right now, only one thing sank in. This was not hired muscle here to collect on his debt. “Who…are…”
“I saw you last Friday night on the beach. I assume you saw me, too.”
“Didn’t see…swear.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t take that chance.”
A pop. A quiet puff from the silenced weapon. Sid heard it but didn’t feel anything.
Watching You Page 12