Billie slept late, since they were transitioning to nights. Call time was three in the afternoon. They’d start shooting soon after and go into the night. She didn’t look forward to it. She couldn’t shoot much without a flash, so she had to use a tripod. People on a film set never sat still, so there was a good chance she wouldn’t capture anything decent, despite her fast lenses.
She brought a small point and shoot with her. At first, making a scrapbook was a joke, but people might like it. She could burn the best behind-the-scenes photos on a DVD or flash drive, and everyone could have memories of their time on set.
Of course, it was possible no one would want to remember.
Everyone worked like nothing happened to Lark. It was like she never existed. She couldn’t decide if film people were heartless or pragmatic.
She asked Richard if he heard from the police and he said Claudia would have a better idea. He was evasive, and Billie wasn’t eager to talk to Claudia. She looked constantly stressed, and Billie didn’t want to go near her. While they were shooting, she locked the set down, told everyone to be quiet and organized everything. When they were done, she adjusted the schedule and made sure they were on time and budget.
Billie was in the dark. If she was like Diana, she could sniff out useful information. Hell, maybe Diana would be able to herself. She was always coming across things she shouldn’t in her job.
The sun didn’t set until after they took their lunch break—Billie learned, even if it took place in the middle of the night, the meal break was always called lunch. She liked the long summer nights up here. It’d be nice to shoot until nine-thirty at night in the summer. Of course, Richard wasn’t pleased.
“Why isn’t the sun setting?” He lit a cigarette and tossed the match onto the forest floor. “What does a guy have to do to get a little darkness around here?”
“Set the film somewhere further south?” Billie suggested. She walked over and picked up the match. With their luck, Richard would start a forest fire.
“Camera Girl, are you aware that most of this movie takes place in the dark?” Richard blew a stream of smoke towards her. “We’re sitting on our asses until darkness happens. I hate that. It wastes money and time.”
“Then you should’ve made the call time later. Or set the film in the winter. Look, I have pictures to take.”
“Of what? The camera crew has been laying down dolly track for an hour. I think I might die of old age before they finish!”
“We can’t shoot the scene until it’s dark anyway,” Miles grumbled. The camera crew spent the early afternoon clearing brush with machetes, and Miles was tired and in a foul mood. “It’s gonna take as long as it takes. We have to set this track up in the forest. In case you didn’t notice, it isn’t paved here.”
“It should be. Damn plants and shit all over.” Richard chucked his cigarette onto the ground and stomped back toward the trailers.
Billie picked up the cigarette and dunked it in his coffee cup.
When the sun set, night came swiftly. Jordyn’s screams echoed through the woods.
Billie didn’t like the forest. It was fine during the day, but it creeped her out in the dark. Big lights lit up the set near the creek, but the walk from the set to the trailers was long, and, even with a flashlight, tree roots and rocks made it treacherous.
Jordyn screamed again.
“Things like that disturb nature.”
Billie yelped and whirled around, stunned to see Joe there. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!”
Joe shrugged. Jordyn screamed in the distance, and Joe shook his head. “It’s bad luck.”
“What is?”
“All this screaming in the night. Never mind it will scare away sasquatch. But the wuchege . . . it feeds on things like this.”
“Like what?”
“Screams of death. It doesn’t matter they aren’t real. It’s drawn to them. Like I said, bad luck.” He walked toward the lodge.
Billie’s heart pounded in her throat. He knew how to freak a girl out.
She went to the set and sat on a camp chair, watching the action. The killer chased Jordyn through the forest, wielding an axe and bringing up bad memories. Jordyn screamed a lot, and Richard talked to her through his megaphone although his chair was ten feet from her.
“Richard, if you don’t put that thing down, I’m going to make you swallow it,” Jordyn snapped. Her voice was hoarse. It was almost three in the morning, and they would wrap soon.
Richard put his megaphone down and spoke to Jordyn for a moment, then told everyone to take five.
Billie stayed in her seat, but everyone else rushed the snack table. The hot chocolate smelled mouth-watering, and Billie was about to get some when she noticed Richard leading Jordyn to the edge of the dark woods.
His hand slid down Jordyn’s back and hovered above her ass. Billie shook her head. He really was stupid enough to go for it. Sure enough, he let his hand drop to her butt, and Jordyn’s body language changed. Richard said something, and a moment later Jordyn slapped him.
“You’re perverted. I don’t sleep with directors.”
“But agents, they’re okay? He’s twice your age.”
“He’s younger than you!”
“Technicality.”
Jordyn crossed her arms. “You’re a pig. Leave me alone. Now let’s finish this scene, I’m tired and I can’t talk.”
Jordyn stalked back to her place, and Richard called the crew back. He spotted Billie staring at him. “Camera Girl, if you keep watching me like that I’m gonna think you want a piece of this.” He gestured towards himself.
Billie groaned and rolled her eyes. He was too much.
By the time they wrapped at three in the morning, Billie had a headache and Jordyn was trying to cajole Miles into finding her some tea with honey for her throat.
“I’m parched.” She gave Miles a glance she probably knew would get the job done. That girl had Diana-levels of talent at making men fall to their knees.
Miles sighed, then went to find Pam to see if she had any. Billie didn’t know why he didn’t tell Jordyn to get her own tea. He complained about being Jordyn’s servant, yet he did everything she told him.
Billie went to the lodge and flopped down on one of the couches in the lobby. She was tired, but she slept late and she didn’t think she’d fall asleep if she went upstairs. Diana was lucky she could keep more regular hours, since she was at the mercy of reporters keeping regular business hours.
Billie was about to go upstairs when Grady came rushing in.
“Has anyone seen Jordyn? She isn’t on set, and she’s not in the trailers.”
People shook their heads, and Grady dashed up the stairs to the third floor where the cast was staying. He was back downstairs a minute later, breathing heavily from all the stairs.
“She’s not in her room. Is she in the bar?” He raced off to check and was back in a minute. “Okay, she’s vanished.”
“Unless she’s gained a new skill for her acting resume, she hasn’t vanished,” Richard said. “She’s probably with Miles somewhere. She asked him for honey, and you know how that goes.”
Grady gave Richard a look. “Well, I need to find her. She has terrible night vision, she can’t be wandering around the forest at night.”
He went back outside, and Richard followed him, asking Grady if he checked Miles’ room. Billie went through her camera gear one last time before packing it up and heading upstairs. She was halfway up the staircase when Richard came barrelling through the front doors.
“Alright, anyone who isn’t asleep right now, we’re going to look for Jordyn.”
“Grady still can’t find her?” Billie asked.
“Grady’s breathing into a paper bag right now, in mortal fear his meal ticket took off with another guy.”
“Gee, I wonder where he got that idea.”
“Come on,” Richard shouted. “Search party!”
Billie groaned and slung her camera bag over her shoulder.
Within ten minutes, the camera crew—including Miles—and the grips had flashlights and were exploring the lodge grounds.
“She probably got lost coming back from set,” Billie said.
She walked towards the set, not liking the dark, quiet trails. Searchers called Jordyn’s name in the distance.
A twig snapped behind her and she spun around—this time it was Miles.
“Jesus, what do you people have against announcing yourself? You scared me!”
“Sorry,” Miles said. “I didn’t think you should come up here alone.”
They made it to the set—Pam’s empty craft services table and a picnic table were visible. They had wrapped out this part of the outdoor set.
“Where was she seen last?” Billie asked.
“I don’t know.” Miles shrugged. “I came back with her tea, but she wasn’t here. When I went back to the lodge to look for her, Richard recruited me for the search party. I guess I’ll go check by the outhouse.”
Billie laughed. “I have a feeling you couldn’t even pay Jordyn to go there. I’ll look down this way. She ran along here a lot during the scene, maybe she came back this way or something.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
Billie raised an eyebrow.
“You think I want to find out what Diana will do if something happens to you and I’m to blame? I’m not a masochist.”
Miles walked down the trail toward the outhouse. Billie shined her flashlight along the creek. The running water made it harder to hear people calling for Jordyn. She probably wanted attention and was holed up in a trailer, crying into a hypoallergenic pillow.
Billie couldn’t see anything outside of the halo of her flashlight. It was pitch black in the middle of nowhere. She looked at the treetops and barely could make out the sky and hundreds of stars. An owl hooted, and she felt lightheaded and took deeper breaths. She heard another noise, then shined her flashlight toward the trees. Nothing. She wished she and Miles hadn’t split up.
She shined the flashlight at the ground, following the path, and a second later saw a shape in the distance that wasn’t supposed to be there. She dropped her flashlight, and as she bent to pick it up, something rushed her.
She screamed as she toppled over. Footsteps rushed away, and Billie sat up, then scurried over to her flashlight, lying on the forest floor. She picked it up and shined it in the direction of the retreating footsteps, but no one was there.
“That’s it. I’m outta here.”
She took one last look around, then gasped as the flashlight’s beam revealed a slumped figure lying in the distance. Billie had a horrible sense of deja vu as she rushed toward the body. “Not again, not again, not again, this is not going to be like the ski weekend at Big Bear.” She reached the body and was dizzy when she realized it was Jordyn.
“Jordyn!” Billie shook her and Jordyn’s head lolled to the side. Blood was in her hair. Jordyn was in the middle of a clearing; there were no rocks or tree branches on which she could have hit her head.
Someone hit her.
The same person who just ran into Billie.
Billie’s blood ran cold, and she felt Jordyn’s pulse, relieved when the girl moaned. Any second she expected some maniac to knock her over the head.
“Jordyn! Jordyn, wake up!” she said, her voice strained.
Jordyn came to, but was out of it. “Where am I?”
“In the woods, we have to get out of here, come on!”
“I hate the woods,” she said sleepily.
“Me too.” Billie groaned as she stood up, supporting Jordyn’s weight.
She dragged Jordyn down the trail, her flashlight nearly useless in her pocket, hollering for someone to help her.
Billie stumbled into Miles and they brought Jordyn to the lodge. Grady was having a nervous breakdown, and Richard looked worried when he saw the blood.
“This is bad,” Richard said. “She fell, right?”
“No,” Billie said. “Someone was there. They knocked me over. Someone hit her over the head.”
“Oh shit. Camera Girl, she fell. She so totally fell.”
“Billie!” Diana hurried down the stairs in her silk robe and bare feet. Diana flung herself on Billie, then backed away. “Oh my God. Blood. No. No, we’re not doing this again. Are you hurt?”
“It’s Jordyn’s blood. Someone attacked her.”
“Like I said, big ol’ nope.”
“We have to call the police,” Grady said.
“Yes.” Diana’s face lit up. “That is a fantastic idea. Call the police. Dick, you do it, you’re in charge.”
“No I’m not!”
“I’ll do it.” Fay wrapped her robe around herself and went to the office. Joe, standing in the doorway, caught Billie’s eye. He shook his head and headed into the office.
“Jordyn, sweetie, how are you?” Grady asked.
Jordyn’s eyes fluttered open. “I hurt. What happened?”
“Someone attacked you. Do you remember anything?” Billie leaned closer.
Jordyn shook her head. “No. I just remember looking for my cell. I left it on a tree stump before we started shooting. Ow!” She sat up and rubbed the back of her head, yelped when she saw the blood, then burst into tears. “I wanna go home!”
“Of course you do, we will first thing,” Grady said. “And everyone else should get out of here, too. This place is cursed.”
“We don’t know she was attacked, it could’ve been an accident.” Richard was desperate. “Jordyn, you’re drunk, right?”
“Someone hit me!”
“I’m outta here,” someone said. “Fuck this shit.”
“We all just need to sleep on it,” Richard said. “I’m sure the police will say it’s fine. Jordyn probably got high and slipped and hit her head.”
“I’m not high.”
“High people always say that, you look wasted.”
“She was just attacked! Leave her alone,” Grady said.
Billie pulled away from the crowd with Diana. “It’s winter break at Big Bear!” Diana exclaimed.
“Shut up!” Billie said. “Do not jinx it!”
“I think we’re beyond jinxes. Did you see who it was?”
“No.” Billie shook her head. “I couldn’t see anything. I think I may have interrupted them—I bet you anything Lark was murdered. I’m lucky Miles was able to help me get Jordyn back here. I didn’t want to spend another second in that forest.”
“Miles?”
“He was looking for her, too.”
“Funny, that.” Diana cocked her head and looked at Miles. “He says he can’t stand her, and he goes looking for her.”
“Lots of people were, Grady was worried.”
“Bils, it’s motive. He doesn’t want to be her personal manservant, so he tries to kill her!”
Billie raised an eyebrow. “Miles tried to kill her? Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. I bet he killed Lark, too.”
“You said Lark was an accident.”
Diana sighed, then took Billie’s hand. “I think it’s fair to say we are cursed, and Lark was murdered.”
Billie took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Look, let’s get some rest and figure out what to do in the morning.” Diana yawned. “We’ll lock the door and we’ll be fine. Miles likes you, he won’t try and kill us.”
“Di, I hardly think he’s the killing type.”
“That’s what you said about Axe Murderer Michael, if you remember right.”
Billie rolled her eyes. “Bad example. He had everyone fooled. And I’d love to get some rest, but I have to talk to the police first.” Red and blue flashed outside. They set a record getting up here. Jordyn Brooks’ name probably helped. This was going to be all over the news.
“Then I’m coming with you. I’m not letting those RCMP guys interrogate you again. Not unless they’re on horseback and wearing red serge.”
“When was the last time you saw Ms. Brooks, ma’am?”
Diana narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me? Did you just ma’am me? Do I look old enough to be your mother?”
The young officer squirmed. Diana was thoroughly disappointed that, despite the fact some of the officers had come out all the way from Chilliwack, not a single one had shown up in red serge. In fact, most of them wore ordinary blue police uniforms; she found it disillusioning, and, worse, boring.
“Ma—Ms. DeAngelis. When was the last time you saw Ms. Brooks?”
Diana shrugged. “I can’t remember. Early in the day? She was bitching about something. She was always bitching about something, so I wasn’t paying attention.”
The young officer—the same bastard who interrogated Billie after Lark drowned—fidgeted. “Did you not get along, then, ma—Ms. DeAngelis?”
“Aren’t you paying attention? No one got along with Jordyn. She was a dyed-in-the-wool bitch. Well, except for Grady. He got along with her. But that’s what agents do, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Ms. DeAngelis. Did you, in particular, not get along with Ms. Brooks?”
Diana sighed. “I’m tired. Are we going to go around in circles all night? Yes, I didn’t like her. No, I didn’t whack her in the head. I was busy all afternoon in the office—Joe can vouch for that—and I had dinner and went to bed early. There’s not much to do here, besides hunting moose.”
“There are no moose here, ma—Ms. DeAngelis.”
Diana flipped her curls. “Excuse me?”
“Moose reside further north.”
“Well, then, there’s not even that to do. What on earth do you do up here at the end of the world?”
He cleared his throat. “Could you go over your movements after you finished work?”
“What for? I wasn’t on set, anyone can tell you that. Too many owls. And snakes. You’ve got a lot of creepy-crawlies up here, you know that?”
The officer—his name was Frazer?—pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “If you weren’t on the set, where were you?”
“In my room. I read for a bit, took a shower, meditated, then went to bed.”
“Do you have a roommate?”
“Please, the only people who don’t have roommates are the leads, the line producer and Dick. There’s not enough rooms to go around.”
“Where was your roommate?”
“On set.”
“So your roommate can’t vouch for your whereabouts?”
She sighed. “I just told you my whereabouts.”
“What were you reading?”
“‘Taking the Game by Storm.’ Gare Joyce.”
“ . . . the Sidney Crosby biography?”
Her cheeks got hot. “Yes. I’m trying to soak up the Canadian culture. It’s my first extended visit to your country.” She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t say I’m all that impressed. It’s not going well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. DeAngelis.”
“Well, you’re not helping.” She leaned back into her chair, crossing her arms. “Are we done? I can’t imagine who hit Jordyn—like I said, she wasn’t well-liked on set, so it could have been any number of people—but she’s the lead actress, and we can’t finish the movie without her, so it really doesn’t make any sense.” She shrugged. “Unless someone did it in a fit of rage or something. Did you look at Miles Fordyce? He’s her personal assistant and not too happy about it, either.”
He frowned and glanced at his notebook. “I thought he was the first assistant cameraman?”
“That, too. It’s a small-budget film. Miles also got stuck with Jordyn. But don’t let me get in the way of your solving the case with clues or anything.”
He shifted in his chair. “You think Mr. Fordyce had a vendetta against Ms. Brooks?”
“Slow on the uptake, aren’t you, Dudley? I just said as much, didn’t I?”
Frazer cleared his throat. “My name’s Justin, ma’am, not Dudley. Do you remember the evening Lark Dunne drowned?”
Diana went still. “Yes. It was an accident; just a tragic accident. Everyone knows that.” She had a familiar feeling of dread.
He nodded. “Did you see her that day?”
Diana thought about it for a moment, but couldn’t remember much about Lark. She shook her head. “She was a production assistant. She would have been on set most of the time. Fetching things that needed to be fetched, taking messages back and forth, keeping people out of the way, if there were any to be kept out of the way.” The most interesting thing Lark managed to do was die.
He nodded and scribbled something in his notebook. She craned her neck in an attempt to see what he wrote, but couldn’t make it out. He snapped the notebook shut, and Diana pretended she wasn’t looking.
“I think that’s everything, ma’am. Stop and see the Ident officer on your way out and get your prints done, please.” He nodded at a man at a table near the lobby doors. Half a dozen crew members waited patiently to get their prints taken.
Diana sighed and got in line. It wasn’t her first time getting her prints taken, so while everyone else watched the Ident officer take prints, she watched Dick talking to a man who came in with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team from Chilliwack.
The man wore a rumpled brown suit and ugly, stained tie, so he had to be a detective. Only a police detective could dress so badly and look both pissed and bored at the same time. Diana knew; she’d seen her share.
She barely glanced at the officer who took her prints. Dick pulled the maybe-detective toward the back of the lobby and motioned to the doors leading to the back deck. The maybe-detective nodded, and the two of them disappeared through them.
As soon as her prints were finished, Diana grabbed the tissue from the officer and hurried into the lobby, wiping her hands. The deck doors were closed and the blinds drawn. Diana was stymied, but only for a moment. She hurried up the stairs and around the second floor gallery to the second floor deck, directly over the first floor deck. Diana eased the door open and slipped outside.
“—no water in her lungs.”
“I have no idea what the hell that means,” Dick said from below.
“It means she didn’t drown. We’re not sure she went into the water. The current wouldn’t have carried her to where she was found.”
“I don’t want to hear this.” The snap-hiss of a match being lit. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because there’s been another attack, and it’s good odds it’s someone working on your movie, Mr. North.”
Someone paced back and forth. “I vouch for all my people,” Dick said. “They all passed a criminal background check, and I’ve worked with most of them before. It could be someone on staff here at the lodge. Hell, it could be someone we don’t know about—neither one of them were actually found in the lodge.”
“Is there any connection between the two?”
Dick was quiet. The only noises were heavy footfalls as one of them paced. “I can’t think of anything,” Dick finally said. “Other than Lark wanted to be an actress, too, but she didn’t have the chops, not like Jordyn.”
“Right now, we don’t know that the death is connected to the attack on Ms. Brooks, but we can’t rule it out, either.” There was a pause. “I don’t like coincidences. I’ve been doing this long enough to realize there’s no such thing. We’d like you to consider shutting down production. Just for a little while.”
“Do you have any idea how much that will cost? Not just in money, but in time? I’m late getting this shot, it sets off a chain reaction. Each step will get further behind until I’m months past due! I can’t afford it. Luka is scheduled to be in Australia, shooting some fucking medieval thing, next month. We’re right up against it, especially if we’ve got to do pick-ups or re-shoots. I’m not shutting down unless you’re making me shut down. I can’t.”
The silence was broken only by footfalls below. The air was redolent with tobacco, and the rising sun was bathing everything in orange.
“Mr. North, you’ve got to see reason here,” the certainly-detective said. “We can’t risk anyone else being hurt. Since we don’t know why these two young women were targeted, we can’t be sure there won’t be more attacks.”
“What do you want me to tell them? That Lark was probably murdered? That some psycho tried to kill Jordyn?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do.”
Richard laughed, jagged and sharp as broken glass. “They’ll freak. Some of them are from LA, and they’ll bolt so fast your head will spin. What kind of luck do you think you’ll have getting your hands on one of them once they cross the border? Once they get to LA, what’s to stop them from continuing to Mexico? Hell, if I killed somebody, that’s just what I would do.”
“What do you propose?” the detective asked.
“Keep it quiet,” Dick said. “For now.”