She stared down at the body at her feet, trying to keep her expression as bland and professional as a cop’s might be.
“She’s dead?” she said in a squeaky voice that rose and fell in a rhythm that made it sound more like a question than a confident statement of fact by the seasoned detective she was supposed to be.
“Cut.” Paul strolled over. “A little more authority, okay?” He smiled at her. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t panic. You’ll get it.”
“And even if you don’t, nobody will be listening,” Terry whispered. “They’ll be too stunned by your beauty and the sparks already flying between the two of us.”
Her gaze shot to his. “Sparks? Already? What kind of coldhearted cad are you?”
“If you’d been watching, you’d know,” he said.
She had been watching, disc after disc of back episodes, in fact, but the flickering images hadn’t really registered. As she’d stared at the screen, she’d tried valiantly to memorize the various characters and their convoluted relationships.
But in the end, all she’d been able to think about was how ill-prepared she was to join such a cast of consummate professionals—one of whom was apparently out to get Terry, she kept reminding herself. At any rate, watching them work, seeing the number of lines they were required to memorize practically overnight, witnessing flawless performances with little rehearsal time, she’d been in awe. She wasn’t even remotely in their league. Recognition of that fact had her knees practically knocking together.
She backed up a step, making sure she was off her mark to indicate she wasn’t ready for the camera to roll. “Where the hell is Jason?” she muttered under her breath. “You’d think he’d want to be here for the debacle.”
“Maybe he thought he’d make you nervous,” Terry suggested, rubbing her frozen hands in an attempt to get the circulation going again.
“Maybe he realized he was the one whose body ought to be lying down there in a pool of blood,” she shot right back. “Maybe he saw the network stockholders circling for the kill.”
“And maybe you ought to get back on your mark,” Jason’s disembodied voice called out cheerfully.
Callie peered into the darkness. “Where are you, you coward?” She didn’t care that the question would arouse the cast’s curiosity about her relationship with the network president. It was too late for that kind of worry, anyway. Rumors had been circulating since her first day. Discretion didn’t seem to matter a hoot.
“In the control booth,” he responded.
Of course he was. Control was the man’s middle name. Unbelievably, though, the tight knot in Callie’s stomach eased. She realized that on some level she’d been terrified that Jason had realized what a terrible mistake he’d made and stayed away precisely so he wouldn’t have to witness her disastrous debut. His absolute confidence in her abilities was the only thing that had gotten her onto the soundstage day after day. If it had been shaken, she would never have set foot in front of the camera. She needed him here for moral support.
Reassured that he was still solidly behind her, she drew in a deep breath, glanced at Paul and announced she was ready.
“Way to go, Jason,” Terry murmured, shooting her one of his trademark, irrepressible grins. “If I’d known the effect that man’s mere presence would have, I wouldn’t have offered you those Valiums. I’d have made a phone call to him instead.”
“If you two are finished chatting, maybe we could get on with the show,” the actress who was playing the now-dead Lauren Fox snapped. “This floor is cold as ice.”
Callie winced. For a moment there, she’d actually forgotten that the woman wasn’t really dead. She’d also forgotten that she was the one responsible for Lauren Fox’s rushed demise and actress Penelope Frontier’s untimely unemployment.
“God, I’m sorry,” she apologized. That otherworldly sensation came back as she stared at the gaping hole that makeup had created on the side of the woman’s head and the fake blood that had trickled into her hair.
“I’m sure,” Penelope said nastily, then rearranged her clothes just so before collapsing into a glamorous pose that gave audiences one last view of her exquisite body.
This time Callie ran through the brief scene without a single mistake. It might not have been the greatest performance ever recorded, but the line delivery was flawless. At the moment, she was satisfied with that.
There were two more scenes, including a preliminary interrogation of the man initially suspected of killing Lauren Fox. With his sharp features and chilling eyes, Jonathan Baines was so adept at portraying a villain that just being on the set with him gave Callie goose bumps. She forgot completely that Terry had told her time and again what a soft touch the man was in real life.
When she removed her gun from its holster, set it on the desk between them and kept her hand on top of it as she interrogated him, the gesture was pure instinct. She wanted protection.
“Cut! That’s a wrap,” Paul called out, then came over to Callie and draped an arm around her shoulders. “What was that bit with the gun? We hadn’t rehearsed that.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said contritely. She’d accepted from the first that the director was the final authority and no one made changes without his approval. Her first day on the job and she’d already violated that unwritten rule. “Victor is just so creepy that I needed the gun in plain sight.”
“Stop apologizing,” Paul said at once. “It was wonderful. That’s exactly the kind of subtle reaction that was needed to bring it home to the audience that he’s a dangerous man. I wish I’d thought of it.”
Callie stared at him, astonished by the approval. “You mean that?”
“Of course. Once you get over those jitters and lose yourself in the part, you’re fantastic.”
“I told you so,” Jason chimed in, joining them on the seat.
He
