Chapter 2

Four Years Later The nameless victim lay motionless. Blood had surged from the severed carotid artery and pooled on the linens. A thick moist scab formed dark red edges around the fatal laceration.

Detective Malcort stepped through the doorway where he had stopped and continued his scan of the modest hotel business suite. Investigators busied themselves snapping photographs, dusting for fingerprints, and searching for DNA donations. It appeared no one had yet disturbed the body. The white rope tying the hands to the headboard indicated the night may have started with a sex game. The whisper of terror still etched into the smoky eyes staring deep into eternity showed that this partner didn’t know the sport required human sacrifice. In contrast to the carnage of the scene, with an unspoiled white sheet draped over one leg of the otherwise nude body, it appeared she had slipped undisturbed into a peaceful slumber.

Detective Malcort sauntered across the room toward the remains as if strolling through the park on a fall day. He folded his arms across his chest and turned his attention to the woman who kneeled at the bedside examining one of several chest wounds.

“Poor thing, doesn’t look like she put up much of a struggle,” he said. “What can you tell me, Doc?”

*

Natalie Beaumont listened again to the dialog. She had it memorized. This was the fifth take this afternoon. Someone missed a mark, forgot a line or they just wanted another angle to show someone’s better side.

As she held her breath and continued a vacant stare into the hot lights a few feet away, a recurring question confronted her. Is the road to stardom really paved by girls playing dead?

Over the last few months, she had been stymied over her floundering career. She had newspaper clippings proving her talent and she was a young, vibrant eighteen-year-old—almost nineteen—but it frustrated her that while she still waited to be discovered, others showed up in town, appeared on the set, and became an overnight success.

Since she hated every minute of the social economics of high school and the strict rules at home, she had enrolled in extra classes at the community college and took summer school so she could graduate a year early. Between school, studies, and chores, to scrape enough money into savings for her emancipation, she took orders and bussed tables at McDonald's. When she boarded the westbound Greyhound, her mom, with the same condemning tone she always used, said, “You’re just a child.” Mom and Dad approved of very few of her decisions—but this is my life, she had thought. Her choices were hers and she knew just what she wanted.

“Cut!” shouted Salvador Sliman, the director. “Miss, don’t move, we need to reset the camera. It’ll only be a moment.” He turned toward a grip and yelled, “There’s a shadow over here. You, fix it!”

Natalie exhaled. At the edge of her vision, someone moved toward the lights. The squeak of rubber-soled shoes scuffed against the cement floor.

When her agent had called and she realized she had been hired to do a scene with Ansell Parker, the actor playing Detective Malcort, she hoped this might put her career on a more aspiring actress tack. One of the most influential actors in Hollywood, he had a reputation for discovering beautiful women and promoting their careers.

She caught Ancell’s back as he walked off the set. Her spirit waned disappointed he hadn’t spoken to her except in character. The day’s not over. Who knows, maybe his people will call my person. Amused at her silly joke, a smile dimpled her cheeks.

With the powerful lights in her eyes, she continued to watch the stage lamp as it seemed to move to the right position propelled only by a pair of dingy athletic shoes. Now, with the lighting set, the camera picked up a shiny spot on her forehead.

“Makeup,” Salvador shouted.

A young woman appeared out of the darkness from behind the bright lights with a brush and powder.

After she finished, Salvador said, “Places everyone.”

The actors moved back to the set and found their marks. Natalie took in a breath, held it, and fixed her dead stare on an object just at the edge of her view.

“Action!”

She had been anxious about this scene—just her, face to face with Ansell. Her pulse escalated as he stepped into her peripheral vision. He was too old for her, at least that’s what her mother would say—probably mid to late twenties. When he first hit the screen as a teenager, his squared jawbone and rugged smile set girl’s hearts pattering all over the globe. Natalie’s was no exception. The difference now was, while the other girls only saw him on the movie screen, Natalie lay a few feet away and he was live in vibrant color.

Ansell walked to where her head rested and knelt beside the bed.

“May I,” he said to the ME and looked toward the actress who now kneeled on the bed.

“You can have the body,” she said and slipped out of the camera shot.

Ansell turned his eyes to Natalie. She felt them run the full length of her exposed flesh and, without humiliation, submitted to their heat.

“It’s such a shame,” he said and brushed a lock of blond hair from her cheek. He took her face in his bare hand. “You’re such a beautiful girl, well, woman, obviously. Why’d you end up here? Who did this to you?”

With the warmth of his hand on her cheek, she fought to stop a shudder from skipping down her spine.

“Tell me who did this,” he said and looked into her eyes, “so he doesn’t have a chance to take someone else as lovely as you away from us.”

Natalie continued her blank stare, not blinking, not breathing. He tilted her head, leaned forward, and brought his face to hers. She sensed something not written in the script about to happen and then his soft lips pressed and lingered on her mouth. Every instinct Natalie possessed demanded she return the kiss but she held character and, with great effort, controlled every facial muscle.

“I promise you,” he said as he pulled back, “I’ll find your killer and bring him to justice.”

“Cut!” Salvador shouted.

Natalie’s eyes flicked in the direction of the voice as Salvador leaned forward and shot himself out of his chair on a collision course with Ansell. His arms waved in front of him like two frantic tentacles grasping for the next meal.

“What the hell was that?”

“Inspiration,” Ansell replied. “It’s such an intimate moment, the victim and her . . . vindicator.”

“Inspiration? A detective kisses a dead girl?”

Natalie’s head swirled. The tender kiss felt so personal, like the beginning of a long-desired, one-sided romance. His lips had remained on hers for several seconds. Even now, not only the pressure of his mouth lingered on her lips, but his scent and taste hung near. She longed for more and dared hope they’d need another take. She held her position.

“And why not, it’s a kiss of . . . promise.”

“Promise?” Salvador shouted and Natalie could see the veins in his neck begin to swell.

“Yes, promise,” Ansell continued in his familiar slow manner with a hint of Aussie slipping through. “I’m making a promise to her. I’ll find and punish the bastard who did this.”

Salvador’s glare had such intensity, had his eyes been able to fire targeted heat-seeking missiles, Ansell’s eye sockets would have been reduced to black smoldering craters. Rather, Ansell smiled while everyone on the crew, except Natalie, held their breath and waited for the tempest of Salvador’s rage to subside.

After a minute of graveyard silence, Salvador said with a deep acquiescent sigh, “Okay, it stays.” As the enraged purple on his face faded to its usual pallor, he continued with sarcasm biting each word, “A promise kiss, huh? Okay, print! That’s it for today.”

Like someone had fired a starting pistol, Natalie watched the set become a sudden flurry of activity. Voices shouted orders; hot stage lights went dark and were pulled away; cameras disappeared. The voice of a baseball announcer came over the soundstage speakers calling the second inning of the fourth game of the World Series. The Red Sox, Natalie remembered, were playing the St. Louis Cardinals, her dad’s favorite team, and the broadcaster said the Sox were ahead.

A man carrying an off-white robe appeared and untied her hands from the headboard. After he finished, she sat up on the bed and slipped the dressing gown over her shoulders.

“Nice work today, Natalie.” Ansell’s Australian accent came out clear.

Surprised, Natalie shot her face up and looked into his deep aqua eyes. He stood just a few feet away and passed her a smile with a wink.

“I’m sure these scenes are difficult for you but thanks for your patience.” He turned away.

“Th . . . thank you,” she said to his back. Ansell took a cell phone from his assistant and gave her an over-the-shoulder wave.

She stood and made her way to the makeup table. The same woman, Steph, who had created the magic of the macabre death mask for Natalie’s scene and who, a few minutes before, took care of the shiny spot on her forehead sat ready to remove the wounds from her body.

Natalie took a seat next to her in a canvas chair. As she watched the injuries disappear one-by-one in the lighted mirror, she wondered if she would make her unwelcomed appearance. The only refection, though, was her high cheekbones and natural twin dimples just above the few freckles sprinkled across her small celestial nose.

She turned her mind to Steph’s voice.

“I remember seeing you in a movie not long ago. You played a victim then, too.”

“Let’s see,” Natalie responded thick with derision, “was I’m jogging in the woods and before I have a chance to scream an attacker slashes my throat or where I’m thrown naked off the balcony of a high rise loft in the opening scene?”

“Neither.” Steph tipped her head and gave Natalie a sideways wink. “I’m remembering you in a shower surprised by a slasher.”

“Yeah, that one. Maybe dead is what I do best.”

As a girl, she thought her destiny lay in breaking into major film. She believed in her talent and had moved to LA because of it. In her sophomore year of high school, she had tried out for a minor role in “Annie Get Your Gun” and had been surprised when she landed the part of Annie Oakley. At first, intimidated by the responsibility the lead carried, she soon found she loved everything about it: memorizing and delivering lines, rehearsals, wardrobe, makeup, and, of course, curtain calls. Her drama teacher had told her she was a natural, so, over the next year, she continued to perform in school plays. In the summer after graduation, she won the lead role in an original play directed by the writer at a small Iowa City community theater. Not well written and directed even worse, it closed on opening night, but the local newspaper’s review gave her credit for salvaging the performance.

“Well, we’re done here,” Steph’s cheerful voice chirped back into Natalie’s ears. “Great shoot.”

Natalie looked into the mirror again and saw her gashes had healed without a scar. Why can’t my career be mended so easily?

“Thanks,” Natalie said. She stood and cinched the robe around her waist.

As she navigated toward a small corridor leading to the cramped changing area she had been assigned, she wove her way through the maze of lighting, speakers, booms, props, and myriad other film-making equipment she couldn’t name. She longed for the day when her dressing room was a trailer on the back lot or maybe on location at some exotic foreign setting.

With her eyes not yet adjusted from staring into the lighted mirror, she thought she saw movement in the shadows a few feet away. She turned back to the security of the set but found the place devoid of human activity. Even Steph had vanished along with the ballgame repartee. With the figure in the shadows—if someone had been there—and her only covering a thin bathrobe, she felt vulnerable and even more exposed than naked on the set.

Her heart clenched in her chest and, apprehensive, she spun back to face the darkness.

“Is someone there?” she asked. Her voice quavered like the squeal of a rat scurrying at an unexpected burst of light.

When no answer came and no further movement caught her eye, she took a deep breath, pulled the robe tight around her body with both hands, and entered the hallway. She set a brisk determined pace toward the room.

As she approached the door, a dim light overhead illuminated a plain silver handle. She reached for the knob. Out of the shadows, a man’s hand brushed over hers and took hold of it first. Her heart already about to burst on the brink of panic, she gasped, drew her hand away, and took a startled step backward.

As the door opened, the light poured out from the room inside and revealed the face of a teenage boy about her age. He wore his hair chopped at the neck and draped over his ears like the hobbit Frodo Baggins of the Lord of the Rings movie series. The light brown hair framed a face she recognized. Despite her inability to recall his name, the tension began to lift like sun-blanched fog.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” she said, happy her voice had returned to normal. “Still working as a grip?”

“Yeah,” he said and passed her a timid smile, “I belong behind the camera.”

His eyes dropped toward the floor and, after a moment, he rolled them up again. She met them a second time. An expression scurried across his eyes and caught her by surprise, and then dissolved back into a shy smile. With it, the sudden twist like a battlefield tourniquet returned to her chest. She wanted to throw the door between them—now. Rather, she stepped through the opening and took the inside knob in her hand.

“Sorry if I frightened you. Great scene, by the way,” he said and turned to walk away.

“Thank you,” she called after him as he disappeared into the shadows.

When the sound of his athletic shoes shrieked against the concrete, confident he’d left, she shut the door and threw the lock. As she started toward the shower, the taut sensation in her chest relaxed. Even distracted by adjusting the water temperature and hanging her robe on a hook, though, she couldn’t quite shake the darkness emanating from the ephemeral look in the boy’s eyes when it transformed in that flash from disarming to deceiving.