INT. CHAPTER TEN – DAY

 

 

Working until lunch break had been… troubling. Marion hadn’t wanted to return to set, not after the likely truth of his murderous ex-boyfriend had come to light in the spilled pages of a script never destined for the camera. And I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want Marion within a hundred feet of that rat bastard Ethan. I didn’t want anyone around Ethan.

But I couldn’t make my move yet. The minute I phoned Grey, my cover would be blown. I had nothing on Paul but Marion’s sureness that the sound recordist had been listening in on private conversations. And only wishy-washy, circumstantial evidence against Ethan, which might be just enough for Grey to receive a search warrant for the dust-coated jeans of yesterday. So if I was going to call the police to back me up after having reached the limits of my investigative license, I’d be damned if I’d settle for anything less than Ethan in handcuffs and Paul at John’s mercy.

“Rory!”

I came to an abrupt stop outside the big open door leading to the set. I looked over my shoulder and felt myself relax as Marion rushed across staging. His costume shoes tap, tap tapped the entire way. “Go back to lunch,” I insisted. “Safety in numbers.”

“Says the man wandering around production alone.” Marion came to a stop beside me. “What are you doing?”

“I need to scope out the set for more evidence. There’s a lot of equipment right in the open.”

Marion blinked a few times as he caught on. “But because union guidelines don’t allow departments to touch one another’s gear… hiding in plain sight.”

“Right.”

“I’ll help.”

I quickly put a hand on his chest to stop him. “We can’t allow Paul to see us both absent. It’s too obvious.”

“I rarely stay for the entire meal,” he answered.

I moved my hand up and cupped Marion’s jaw. “I’ve been doing this since you were in junior high. Trust me.” I kissed his mouth lightly and took a step through the doorway.

I heard Marion let out a held breath and say after me, “Has anyone told you how fine you look for your age?”

A grin crossed my face, but I didn’t look back.

I heard his footsteps retreat after a moment, and I was left completely alone on the dimly lit, silent set. I carefully moved around light stands, piles of sandbags, and wrangled cables as I moved deeper into the room. Paul’s sound cart was where it had been all week. There were no drawers, merely shelves housing a state-of-the-art mixing board and a few recording devices. The bottom part had a plethora of cases, small leather satchels I’d seen him pull various tools of the trade from—moleskin, Topstick, nail scissors, even a box of unlubricated condoms, the latter being something I’d not yet learned the importance of while on a film set. But they weren’t big enough to stuff a thick stack of paper into.

Another bag of suitable size was empty but for a few pairs of unused headphones. I stood, rubbed my lightly bristled chin, then turned on one heel. The hard shell equipment boxes were still stacked against the far wall. Stickers of competing companies adorned the outsides, fighting for limited advertising space. They were Paul’s. I’d first seen him go into one the day he needed a cable made. I walked forward, unsnapped the top case, and looked inside.

Nothing.

I closed the lid, pushed it aside, and crouched to open a bigger one. There was some kind of mixer-looking gadget safely tucked into the foam specially shaped for the gear. I started to close the box as the convoluted foam fell. I muttered a swear and pushed it back into the top of the lid, then paused to stare at it.

Removable.

I leaned the lid against the wall, carefully took out the equipment, then hoisted out the middle section of foam. Underneath was a stack of white printer paper, held together by a binder clip. I picked it up, angled it toward a nearby security light, and read, John Anderson, across the title page.

I let out a quiet whoosh of air. All right. I’d have to put this back. Assemble everything just the way I found it, and give my evidence against Paul to John. The producer would have the authority to search—

“Son of a bitch!”

I was hit in the face and went sprawling sideways across the floor, script tossed somewhere in the dark. My tortoiseshell glasses dug into the side of my nose and snapped in two, leaving me at a distinct disadvantage. I slowly raised myself up on one arm and spit blood from my mouth.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I turned my neck with considerable difficulty, to see Ethan holding one of those foldable, high-legged director’s seats. The asshole had hit me with a goddamn chair. “Rory Byrne,” I answered.

“I don’t care what your name is,” he said. “I asked who you were. A cop?”

“No.”

“You’re sure as shit not a PA.”

“No,” I said before spitting again.

“No,” he agreed. “Because a PA would never be so stupid as to suck face with Marion Roosevelt out in the open for anyone to see.” He walked toward me, holding the collapsed chair like he was ready to beat my ass with it. “Do you have any idea who I am, Rory Byrne?”

“I know exactly who you are. A murderer.”

That gave Ethan pause. He wasn’t expecting that sort of response. Wasn’t expecting some nobody to be aware of his crime.

It was enough for me to scramble to my feet and lunge for the script. But the chair came down on my back with a deafening smash, and I collapsed. The wind was knocked from my lungs, and I gasped like a fish out of water. I tilted my head where I lay, watched Ethan toss the mangled furniture to the floor, and walk to the script.

He bent down, retrieved it, and stared at the title page for a moment. “How did you find this?” Ethan looked at me.

I winced, managed to swallow a shallow breath of air, and started to get up on my knees, when a suppressed shot rang out from behind me. Ethan screamed as he crumpled to the floor. It happened so quickly, I literally couldn’t react accordingly.

Not to my own pain.

Not to the sound of a gun using an illegal silencer.

Or the fact that Ethan had just been shot.

My adrenaline went into overdrive, and I scrambled the rest of the way to my knees.

“Don’t move,” Paul ordered, his voice too close for comfort.

I froze, hands up in surrender. “Paul,” I said, my voice almost steady. “I’m unarmed.”

“I know.”

I dared a quick look toward Ethan. He was alive, curled in the fetal position, and whimpering. The script had fallen nearby and was soaked in blood. “Can I stand?”

“No,” Paul answered without hesitation. “You move, and I swear to God, I’ll pull the trigger.”

“All right,” I said slowly. “But listen, we need to get help for Ethan—”

“Shut. Up,” Paul hissed.

I struggled for a plan, but I’d been dealt a dud hand in this round of poker. We were alone. My phone was in my pocket. Ethan was of no help. Paul was in fight-or-flight mode. And while silencers didn’t work like movies portrayed them, no way would folks all the way in the lunch room have heard the pop.

All I had on my side was a bluff.

“Paul,” I said again, keeping my voice low so as not to startle him.

“What?” he snapped. The rubber of his sneakers squeaked against the floor as he moved to the equipment cases and closed the lids.

“I have backup coming.”

“I heard you,” Paul answered in between the snapping of the locks. “You aren’t a cop.”

“No, you’re right, I’m not.” Sweat prickled under my arms. “I’m a private investigator.”

“Who’d you call, then?”

“Detective Grey,” I lied. “He’s a homicide detective with the 105th Precinct. He was here yesterday when I found Davey.”

“Let him come,” Paul answered. He moved past, gun trained on me with one shaking hand as he bent to retrieve the script. “If Ethan killed Davey, he deserves to rot in a cell.”

I watched Paul’s blurry shape walk to my right and then disappear from my line of sight as he moved behind me again. “And what do you deserve if you shoot me?”

Paul didn’t have an answer to that.

“You can’t use John’s script as your own. You can’t even take the idea now. You’ve been caught.”

“I said shut the hell up,” Paul warned again. “Damn it. If you’d just kept your fucking nose out of it, Rory—”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“No, of course not,” he spat. “I knew you’d come here to sniff around after I heard you talking with Marion.” Paul laughed, full of vitriol. “That overpaid prima-donna actor living off the laurels of us nobodies instead of accepting he’s a commodity—”

Paul was interrupted by a sudden scream. There was a thwack, a crack, and then the unmistakable sound of a pistol sliding across the floor. I jumped to my feet and turned to see Marion’s outline in the poor lighting. He was breathing hard, visibly shaking, and holding a graphite boom pole in his hands like a bat. Paul had crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll after a knock to the back of the head.

“He—he was going to shoot you,” Marion protested.

I nodded in agreement as I reached for the fallen weapon. I got down on one knee beside Paul, put two fingers to his neck, and felt his pulse. “He’s alive. Going to have a hell of a headache when he comes around, though.” I went to Marion, pried the pole out of his hands, and took him into my arms. “Thanks,” I whispered as he wrapped himself tight around me.