“Actually, what if we use the Go Pro?”
That could work. The tiny camera used mostly for outdoor sports and underwater image taking had been used before on sets. “What would we attach it to? Robot?”
The cameraman shook his head. “Didn’t think we’d need one, so we didn’t bring anything that small.”
“So it’s a no go?” Which had her wondering why did he bring it up at all.
“Actually.” He waved a finger over his shoulder at a rather adorably ugly dog sniffing around the lunch spread. “We could strap it to her head. Edits can get the few seconds we need.”
Val squatted on her haunches and the dog waddled over. “French bulldog, right?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Is she well trained?”
“Not very, but I bet if we just do a trail of hot dogs or dab the guys’ faces with hot dog juice, our roving cameraman will get the shot.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She scratched the dog one quick minute behind its ears and pushed to her feet. “We’ll give it a go.”
According to her watch and her growling stomach, it was just about time for a lunch break. She was really pleased with how the morning had gone. Things couldn’t have been better had the entire show been totally scripted. Well, except for when one of the production people flushed the toilet without ever turning off their microphone. But that won’t be the first or last time it happens.
Standing off to one side, she watched the cameramen bait the dog. What an odd breed for a guy like that. She’d have pictured him owning something larger, like a golden retriever or a lab. Maybe even a mutt, but not something as prissy and popular as a French bulldog. Regardless, the effort came off without a hitch. The dog followed the trail right up to Neil’s face and moments later did it again to Ryan. Yep. The production Gods were watching over her.
“Chow line is forming.” Morgan sidled up beside her. “Planning on a bite to eat?”
“A bite? I was thinking an entire side of beef.”
“This is cattle country.”
“Oh,” she cringed, “I wish you hadn’t said it quite that way. I like thinking my steaks come from little cellophane packets at the grocery store with no previous links to the food chain.”
Morgan threw his head back and barked out a laugh. He really did have a nice laugh. Nice smile, too. Who was she kidding? The man had a nice everything.
Anyone looking at the amount of food piled onto her plate would have thought she’d just been rescued from a deserted island.
“Hungry?” the same cameraman, Jim, snickered and bit into the biggest spare rib she’d ever seen.
Sliding onto the picnic table bench across from him, she rolled her eyes. “Just a little.”
“Hey, a healthy appetite is good for ghostbusting.” Apparently, Jim thought he had a sense of humor. “Speaking of which, how did you sleep last night?”
“Like a baby.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Great actually.”
“So nothing went bang in the night?”
“Not even bump.”
Morgan slid in beside her. “All is well with the haunted room?”
“Shh.” She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t even tease about that or I’ll have half the crew and meal company running for the hills.”
“Nah.” Jim shrugged. “Most of us are made of stronger stuff.”
“At least you didn’t have any unexplained happenings.” Morgan spread butter on his roll.
“Nothing like what happened to Ted, but I did get a visitor.”
Morgan’s eyes circled round. “Who?”
“Not exactly a who. More of a what.”
“What?” Morgan and Jim echoed.
“I took some crackers to bed last night to nibble on as I went over the sheets for this morning.”
“Okay.” Morgan set his fork down. “And?”
“This morning when I woke up the wrapper was on the floor and most of the crackers were gone, some were just left in crumbs.”
“Mice?” Morgan asked.
“I sure hope it isn’t rats. Mice are bad enough.” She spread her paper napkin across her lap. “I’m betting that the mouse, or mice, is what tripped someone’s alarm clock that spooked Ted.”
“What about the furniture?” Jim looked up. “Must have been one helluva mouse.”
Morgan tried not to laugh. “He has a point. My money is still on Ted’s a closet drinker.”
“Nah.” Jim shook his head. “I’m going with heavy sleeper with crazy dreams and possible sleepwalker.”
“Whatever. At least that problem is over. Which reminds me,” Valerie reached for a chip, “I really appreciate letting us use your dog to solve the camera problem.”
“My dog?”
Valerie nodded.
“He’s not mine.” Jim shook his head. “I thought she was yours until you asked me if she was trained.”
“Well, she must belong to someone.” After all, dogs didn’t just appear out of nowhere.
It was one thing getting used to knowing a camera was following your every move, it was another to have the big eared mutt in his face all the time. “Have we figured out who her owner is?”
“His.” One of the cameramen, whose name Morgan didn’t know yet, corrected him.
“His?” Morgan could have sworn Jim and Valerie had said that this morning’s dog was a she. “Okay, whatever it is, any chance we skip the hot dog induced scenes for a while? I’m going to waste a lot of wood if he keeps trying to lick my face.”
“Sure.” The cameraman shrugged.
“Great. I’m going to go wash up a minute and I’ll be right back. In the meantime, somebody find out who his owner is.”
Hot dogs fresh from the grill with a little relish and mustard on a warm bun was a great midsummer treat, but rubbed on a person’s face, even just a little, was miserable. This was definitely not what he’d signed up for.
“My, don’t you look handsome this morning.” The tall redheaded sister smiled proudly at him as though he were her own son.
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” The shorter sister with the tall blonde hairstyle that had gone out of fashion long before he was born, beamed at him. Clearly, she had an olfactory issue. “I can’t tell you how pleased we are to hear that Valerie didn’t run into any issues last night. We were fretfully worried about her.”
“That’s right.” The redhead nodded. “Hardly slept a wink.”
From anyone else he would have thought the words were nothing more than lip service, but from the concerned expressions, Morgan was pretty sure they’d meant every word. “Now you can sleep easy tonight.”
“Yes, yes we can.” The blonde nodded.
“Speaking of Valerie, do either of you know where she is?” He needed a small mood booster and that pretty smile would be just the prescription.
“She was going to her room. Said she’d forgotten some notes.” The blonde pointed up the stairs.
“Got it. Thanks ladies.” He’d go wash off the scent of hot dogs and then casually loiter until Valerie came back.
The notes had to be here. Valerie crossed the room to the stack of receipts and miscellaneous toiletry items on the tall boy dresser, but still none of her shooting notes. She glanced at the floor and the nightstand and still nothing. Unless… squatting down on all fours it occurred to her that maybe it has slipped off the table and glided under the bed. She just hoped Mr. or Mrs. Mouse wasn’t visiting under her bed.
Leaning a little sideways, she hunched over and the sight of two round green orbs had her falling back on her butt. Scooting quickly to one side, she got a grip of herself. After all, not even rats had eyes that large. Or green. Slowly easing back down the floor, she managed to get a better look. “Oh, for the love of Pete.” She scooted down a little lower. “Here kitty, kitty. Come here.” She tapped her fingers on the floor and when the cat didn’t budge she tried drumming them on the old wood floor. Sitting up, Val wondere
d what the heck the cat was up to.
“Wouldn’t you like a cracker?” Val still had an entire package in the box. Quickly grabbing one, she shoved it under the bed. If she’d learned anything about cats through the years, she was now completely convinced the animal snubbed her nose at Val. “I guess not.”
Two seconds later, the cat broke the staring game and scurried low to the ground from one end of the bed to the other and dramatically, almost desperately, scratched at a crack in the baseboard. “Are you trying to tell me that’s where our friend Mr. Mouse has gone?” Well, she had no intention of crawling under the bed after the cat or the mouse. Giving the bed a good shove, she managed to move it out of the way for a better line of sight of the cracked baseboard. Except it was too even for a crack. Tracing her finger along what she now realized was a seam, she pushed up on one foot, then the other, until she was nearly upright, feeling up the wall.
This was ridiculous. Now both she and the cat were on hind legs, arms against the wall, in search of what? A mouse? “This is silly.” She looked down to tell the cat, leaned a little harder on the paneling board and the next thing she knew she’d fallen face forward, onto all fours, in a dark hole. “What the heck?”
She was either sitting in the strangest damn closet she’d ever seen, or she simply couldn’t see into the black hole that she suspected went way deeper than where she sat. Scrambling onto all fours, she crawled back onto the bedroom carpet and checked the nightstand drawer. She had a vague recollection of seeing a flashlight in there. A tad unsteady on her feet, she reached for the nightstand and sure enough, one LED flashlight at her disposal. Thank heavens for modern technology.
“Okay.” Val pushed the button, lighting up the long narrow corridor on the other side of the hidden door. “Ready for an adventure, Kitty?”
Pointing to the ceiling, the light bounced around the dark hole, illuminating the entire tunnel, not just the floor. A threat of fear, or maybe panic, clawed at her throat as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. Wasn’t this the sort of thing horror movies were made of? Dumb blondes walking into the darkness rather than run to the big strong hero just outside. Well, even if it was, it was too late now. She’d committed herself to inch along the downward sloping tunnel.
What felt like a mile later—probably only because of the minced steps she was forced to take out of fear of falling and breaking her neck and never being found again—she reached a wall. A dead end much like the other walls that lined the tunnel. All she had to find was the lever. Somewhere.
Feeling blindly along the sides as she’d done in her room, she felt something click under her foot, and like Ali Baba’s cave, the door swung open. Where the heck was she? One step inside, she waved the light forward and the beam bounced off the pews. The church. She was in the church. Now wasn’t that an odd connection. The brothel Madame’s bedroom and the church. Morgan wasn’t kidding, this part of the country really did go out of their way to entertain—
A cold clammy hand clamped around her mouth, robbing her of words and thoughts and sending her heartbeat racing like a thoroughbred at the Kentucky Derby.
“Do not move,” the deep raspy voice growled at her.
Damned if she wasn’t one of those dumb blonde heroines too stupid to live after all.
Chapter Fifteen
“Knock knock,” Morgan called as he rapped lightly on Valerie’s door. His ear to the solid wooden surface, he called her name a little louder. One more knock and he slowly turned the knob, praying she wouldn’t be mad as a hornet for this invasion of her privacy. The room was empty. No sign of her. How had he missed her? He hadn’t closed the bathroom door when he’d washed his hands and he’d kept his eyes on the mirror in case she walked past him. Maybe when he’d turned to dry his hands?
A few more minutes without her smile wasn’t going to kill him. This time trotting back to the construction spot, he scanned the surroundings for any sign of Valerie. Nothing. The hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to prickle. Nothing bad could happen out here in the happiest place in West Texas. Nothing really bad ever happened in Farraday country.
“You coming back to work or planning on catching rays the rest of the day?” Neil shouted up at him, no humor in his voice.
“Have you seen Valerie?”
Both brothers shook their heads.
“I’m sure she’ll be back any minute,” Jim offered, pulling back from filming Ryan.
The little dog was once again underfoot. “I thought someone was going to find his owner?”
“Her.” Jim set the camera down and scooped the dog up into his arms. “I’ve asked everyone here. No one brought a dog.”
Morgan might not be an animal expert, but he knew the difference between a male and female dog. “Something’s not right here. The dog that was all over me a short while ago was beyond any doubt a male.”
Jim raised his brows and turned the pup in his arms belly up, shaking his head at the clearly female anatomy.
Not wanting to argue, Morgan put his fingers between his lips and blew loud and strong. From under the tablecloth by the food area another identical big eared dog came prancing over to him.
“There are two of them.” Jim wasn’t asking.
Neil walked over. “They don’t look like they’ve been going hungry.”
“This is awfully far for a couple of fancy dogs like that to be strolling around without their owners.” Ryan looked up and down the street. “Hmm.”
“What do you mean, hmm?” Morgan glanced up the street. Sitting, ears up, eyes piercing, a dog that looked a helluva lot like Grey was perched in front of the churchyard, staring him down. “I don’t like this.”
“Wonder what he’s doing so far from home?” Neil took a step further into the street. “Think he hitched a ride in the back of a truck?”
Morgan didn’t have time to process or respond when the other Farraday dog stepped out from behind the picket fence, and muzzle up, let out a sharp bark followed quickly by a short howl.
The two French bulldogs took off at a trot as if the dog had called them each by name.
“I really don’t like this.”
Ryan nodded. “Something feels off.”
“And I can’t find Valerie.” Morgan didn’t bother to wait for anyone else and tore off up the street after the pups. Not till he reached the edge of the churchyard did he realize his brothers were on his heels. All four dogs had run off between the church and hotel toward what had to be the back of the church. Raising his hand, he urged them to slow down as he carefully traced the dogs’ footsteps and tried to figure this mess out.
Instincts told him to move slow and hug the wall. He could hear a man’s voice yelling.
“What the hell did you grab the girl for?”
The girl. Son of a… Morgan bit down hard on his back teeth.
“She saw us.”
“You stupid idiot. All she could see is an empty church. If you’d have kept your lame brain hands to yourself she’d have left an empty church! Now we got to get rid of her. She’s a witness.”
Morgan’s heart lurched to his throat. Witness to what?
“And what the hell are the dogs doing out here?”
“They looked lonesome all locked up in the kennel.”
“Lonesome?” the first voice roared. “They’re F-ing dogs. If anything happens to them, that’s ten grand a piece down the tubes.”
Morgan had inched his way close enough to see what was going on. A big beefy guy had Valerie in a near headlock, his hand over her mouth. One strong twist and he could easily snap her neck.
“Go ahead and get her in the car. Tie her up first and make sure she doesn’t make a peep. There are enough television people crawling around here to cause us some serious trouble. Get her and these dogs out of sight.”
Right about now he’d kill for his cousin DJ to come riding to the rescue. Morgan didn’t have anything he could use for a weapon except the element of surprise. From where
he stood it didn’t look like either of the goons had a gun, but underestimating them could be deadly.
The beefy guy took a couple of steps backward and Valerie’s legs flailed out from under her as her shorter legs tried to keep up.
When Morgan got his hands on the creep he was going to snap his neck in two. For now, he needed back up. Pulling out his phone he sent his brothers a text and hoped their phones were still on silent from filming.
NEED A DISTRACTING NOISE FROM BEHIND THE HOTEL AND ANOTHER FROM SOUTH OF THE CHURCH DIVIDE AND CONQUER. I’M GOING AFTER MR. BEEFY.
Two thumbs up emojis popped up on his phone, followed by
ON THE COUNT OF TEN. NOW.
His mind did the mental math, one, two, please God, five, six, make this work, nine and a bang sounded from his left and a clank from the right.
The skinny goon turned to rush south and the big guy seemed more confused than anything.
His arms straight in front of him, holding a screwdriver like a gun and hoping the sunlight would catch the steel just right, Morgan ran straight and fast and yelled as hard as he could. “Duck!”
Bless Valerie, she stomped down hard on her captor’s arch, thrust an elbow in his gut and rolled away when the surprise of it all had Mr. Beefy letting go and scrambling to defend himself from Morgan in front and Ryan coming at him with a two by four from the side. All he could think was thank the lord Valerie was free.
It took Valerie several long minutes to catch her breath. More than once the buffoon who had grabbed her had nearly robbed her of all air. Lifting her head she was able to see the action ahead. Morgan had shoved the buffoon onto the ground, pummeling him with both fists. Either the idiot had a glass jaw, or Morgan was mad as hell.
“That’s enough.” Ryan dropped the piece of wood on the ground and was yanking his brother away from the guy who had almost strangled her.
Morgan Page 13
