Simple but very clear. Callie shivered every time she thought about it.
She’d sworn her mother to secrecy and put the plastic Baggie containing the letter into a manila envelope for safekeeping until she could figure out the best thing to do. From the beginning Terry had been so adamant about keeping the police out of it that she knew it wasn’t an option. Not yet, at least. There might come a time when she would be forced to overrule his objections and insist that they talk to a real policeman.
For now, all she could do was keep her eyes open around the studio. If she couldn’t catch someone leaving a note in Terry’s office, perhaps she would catch a glimpse of the perpetrator of the rash of pranks that so far hadn’t resulted in serious injury to anyone.
She had decided to pick a different cast member each day to observe intently, studying the interaction with Terry, the movements, any hints of hostility. It wasn’t much, but it was better than asking too many questions and drawing attention to what some might view as an excessive interest in her new coworkers.
“Okay, detective, you’re off-duty,” Terry declared.
The comment interrupted her surreptitious survey of perky ingenue Lisa Calvert, who was currently trying to seduce the town’s leading citizen. She was practicing her wiles on-screen and off. Callie’s dressing table mirror offered an amazing view of the even more astonishing activities backstage.
“Did you know that much about seduction when you were her age?” Callie inquired, unable to take her eyes off the scene currently being played just out of camera range. Lisa had her tongue down Randall Trent’s throat. Her hands were very active, as well.
Callie tore her gaze away from the absorbed couple and turned to look at Terry. “Well, did you?”
“No comment.”
“Did she ever come on to you?”
Terry shrugged. “She’s come on to every male on the set at one time or another.”
“What did you do?”
“Jealous, dollface?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, be serious,” Callie retorted. “Tell me what happened. Could you have offended her when you rejected her? Could she have guessed that your lack of interest was gender-related rather than personal?”
“I’m sure her ego is plenty big enough to survive without adding me to her list of conquests, if that’s what you mean. Lisa didn’t send those notes. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m not,” Callie said succinctly. “Scorned women can turn vicious.”
“Only if they had something invested in the relationship in the first place.”
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word on this,” she countered, her attention returning to Lisa’s activities, which had progressed several heated degrees toward indecency. Her eyes widened. “My, oh, my. No doubt about it, she stays on my list.”
Terry grinned. “Don’t look now, but your envy is showing. Why not ask the big shot to demonstrate what you’ve been missing?”
“My suspicions have nothing to do with...” Callie scowled at him. “Oh, never mind.” She picked up her purse and headed for the door. Terry stayed right on her heels, his expression puzzled.
“Hey, what did I say?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Callie?”
“Look, I’m tired. I’m heading home. Do you want a lift?”
“In the limo? Won’t the big shot object?”
“To what? There’s room enough in there for an army.”
“I’ve always heard three’s a crowd.”
“And two’s company,” she retorted, giving the phrase an unexpectedly bitter significance. “I could use the company.”
“Uh-oh, trouble in paradise, dollface?” he asked, scrambling into his jacket as he followed her out of the studio.
“What paradise?” she inquired as she looked up and down Fifty-seventh for some sign of the limo. Henry was late. Henry was never late. He was the most reliable man she knew—far more reliable than his boss, whom she hadn’t seen since the night he’d accompanied her and the wardrobe mistress on a shopping excursion from one end of Manhattan to the other.
Terry’s hands locked on her shoulders, stilling her impatient pacing. “Okay, dollface, what’s up? Did you and the big shot have a spat?”
“No,” she said honestly. In fact, he’d left her that night with a blistering kiss that had stolen her breath. Terry didn’t need to know about that. It was too humiliating to admit that she’d been rejected just when she thought things were really heating up.
“Come on. Let’s get to the bottom of this. Tell me exactly what happened the last time you saw him,” he persisted.
She debated answering, then decided that perhaps Terry would see something in Jason’s behavior that she’d missed. “We went shopping,” she admitted finally.
Terry made a dramatic display of dismay. “Well, no wonder. There’s not a man alive who can tolerate more than five minutes of shopping with a woman, not even me and you know what a fashion hound I am.”
She surveyed his khaki shorts, T-shirt and well-worn leather jacket. “I’m not sure the ever-elegant Neil would agree. Anyway, Jason wanted to go. In fact, he insisted on it. We were picking out the wardrobe for my character. He had a certain image in mind.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Watch it!”
“Okay, okay. So, it was strictly a business excursion, then?”
For most of the evening it had been, Callie recalled. Jason had displayed an astonishing sense of what would look good on her. He’d examined and discarded clothes so fast it had made her head spin. The wardrobe mistress, who’d been at her job for thirty years, had been equally awed by his skill. She’d gone back to the studio laden down with their purchases.
All except one very slinky midnight-blue dress that Jason had insisted Callie wear to dinner. That dress seemed to have had quite an impact on him. He’d finished three quick glasses of water before the wine steward even showed up at the table.
“Mostly,” she hedged.
“Mostly. What does that mean, mostly?”
“Just what you think it means.” She scowled at him. “I don’t want to deal with this.”
Terry glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t look now,
