Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something large and dark hurtling toward me.
But it was too late to react.
I felt the blow to the side of my head with an explosion of pain. Stars swam before my eyes, stunning me as the ground rushed up to meet me.
Before everything dissolved into blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I was floating. My body was light and fluid, my mind drifting slowly through a fog. Consciousness ebbed and flowed like the clouds rushing by me. A whiff of pine. The sound of leaves crunching. A bird chirping nearby. They all felt like a dream—real one minute and fading into nothing the next.
Though as the fog slowly began to dissipate, revealing a world around me, I realized those clouds weren't moving—I was. I was slowly floating forward—wait, no, I was being pulled forward. I felt pressure on my wrists, like warm bands encircling them. The more I focused on the sensation, the more the fog began to part, my dreamlike state fading and the soft, fuzzy feeling in my head giving way to something much more jarring and uncomfortable as consciousness overtook me.
I wasn't floating through clouds. I was being dragged. Roughly. Through the woods.
Branches and rocks bumped against my knees, jarring my teeth together as I tried to make my eyelids work. My wrists were being squeezed so hard with someone's effort of moving my weight that the small bones seemed to grind together painfully. My head lolled to one side, and I could feel a thin, warm trail of wetness trickling down from my temple.
As I forced my eyes opened, I saw the forest floor beneath me, the toes of my high heels tracing parallel tracks in the dirt behind me. Leaves and dry grass clung to my legs. Birds chattered overhead. I couldn't hear human voices. That wasn't a good sign.
No voices meant I was too far from the set for safety.
Even through my haze, panic set in. Where was I? I had no idea how far into the woods I'd been taken, in what direction, or by whom. Considering the pain in my head, it was entirely possible I had a concussion. How long had I been out? For all I knew, it could have been minutes or hours—giving whoever was dragging me ample time to drive me deep into the wilds of Saskatchewan.
I craned my neck, but at my current angle all I could see was a pair of feet and legs. Boots. Jeans. Pretty nondescript. Male or female, I couldn't make out.
I tried to look up, but the movement must have caught my attacker's attention, as I was unceremoniously dropped face first into the dirt.
"Good. You're awake."
As my upper body slammed to the ground, my teeth clashed together, and a stab of fiery pain lanced my jaw. Swallowing a groan, I coughed up dust, causing the pine needles in front of me to scatter. The voice was female. Though, my pounding head was having a hard time placing it.
"Get up," it commanded.
I did, slowly pulling my knees up underneath me and pushing to a standing position. My legs were wobbly, and nausea rolled through my belly at the sudden elevation.
Though as my eyes focused on the person in front of me, I felt sick to my stomach for a whole other reason.
"Tarrin?" I heard my confused voice come out.
She gave me a wan smile. "Not who you were expecting?"
Honestly, I hadn't been expecting to end up unconscious, facedown in the dirt in the woods at all. But my throbbing head was having a hard time catching up to what I was seeing.
"Wh-what are you doing here?"
"I'm supposed to be shooting a movie here," she spat out.
I blinked at her. "Here?" I glanced around, the movement of turning my head causing a wave of dizziness to wash over me.
Tarrin sighed, as if exasperated with a small child. "No, not here here." She shook her head. "Oh, Maddie, why couldn't you have just left it alone?"
Puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place. Slowly, as if having to be turned on their heads to finally make sense in the grand scheme of things. "You mean, left Frost's death alone," I surmised. "You…you killed Frost?"
Which, in hindsight, should have been clear to me at that point. If nothing else, the gleaming silver handgun I now noticed in her right hand would have been a great clue.
"I had it all under control," she said, doing more headshaking as she trained the gun on me. "Dana would have been fine. She never would have gone to jail. She was the victim here, and everyone would have known it. She would have been the poster child for the cause."
"Your cause?" I asked. I thought back to the soapbox speech she'd given at what I'd thought had been an impromptu press conference. "Time's Up. Equality for women in Hollywood."
She scoffed. "You say that as if I'm some freak feminist for wanting to be treated as an equal."
I shook my head, instantly regretting it as the throbbing and dizziness intensified. "Of course not," I assured her. I'd never call a woman with a gun a freak. I might be slow to catch on, but I wasn't dumb. "We all want that."
"It didn't have to end this way." Her tone was flat, her eyes dead. Gun steady.
I licked my lips. "It still doesn't."
"You should have stayed in Los Angeles."
I whole heartedly agreed with her right about then.
"You should have minded your own business. You didn't belong here. You had no part in this." Her expression hardened. "But you made yourself part of it. You just had to get involved." She tilted her head, assessing. "I could have liked you, you know."
Was that supposed to make me feel better? "My best friend is sitting in a jail cell because of what you did," I snapped. "She didn't have anything to do with it, either."
"Just another victim," she said bitterly. "I saw her go into Frost's trailer. I knew what was going on. I'd seen it happen before."
"Nothing happened," I told her. "He didn't attack her. Didn't victimize her. He…he just hit on her."
Tarrin laughed out loud. "You are so disgustingly naive. A man in power, with her career in his hands, 'hits' on her," she said, making air quotes with one hand. Unfortunately the one holding the gun stayed steady. "You think she could just politely say no and walk away? You think Frost would have taken that?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but I realized the question was rhetorical as Tarrin continued her tirade.
"No! He would have ruined her. If he didn't flat-out force himself on her first." She was practically frothing at the mouth, and I suddenly wondered if she'd been a victim herself. "Men like him," she went on, "preying on young girls who are just trying to chase their dreams. Who don't know better. It was despicable. He was despicable."
"I don't disagree with you," I said, but she didn't seem to hear me. I'm not sure she would have cared, if she had. She seemed lost in her own narrative now, and I was just as much scenery as the trees. I took a small step to my left, testing the possibility of escape.
But her gun followed me, straight armed in front of her. Steady. Menacing.
"That sort of thing has been going on in Hollywood for far too long," she ranted on. "Frost was just another entitled man. A small part of a whole disgusting culture of misogyny."
I glanced around for anything to use as a weapon, any way to distract her long enough to pry that gun from her hands. To my left was a bunch of trees. To my right, more. Small sticks, pine needles, creepy crawly things. All dirty and making me itch just to think of them but nothing that could compete with the speed or lethality of a bullet. Where was a well-timed elk stampede when you needed one?
"It's even worse for women behind the camera," Tarrin went on. "For all the talk of change, no one takes women seriously. No one puts real money behind their projects. You know how many women are in the Directors Guild?"
I didn't even know they had a guild, but I just shook my head docilely. Slowly this time. To keep the dizziness at bay.
"Only 17% of the Guild is female. 17%! It's like women are afraid to even try! They know no one will give them a break. Not while old has-beens like Jasper Frost are available. I'm twice the director he was!"
Having seen t
hem both in action, I didn't disagree with her there, either.
"But I was stuck playing his assistant," she said. "Get my coffee, Tarrin. Get my wife on the phone, Tarrin. I'm a director, not a secretary!"
"That was sexist," I said. "But maybe he asked you to do those things because you seem like a born multi-tasker?" I said, trying to stem the tirade as she started frothing again.
Her look was withering. "God forbid I had an idea of my own other than which Danish to put on his plate. He didn't want to hear anything I had to say, even when it could have improved the movie."
"That was really unfair."
"He couldn't even stick to the budget," she stormed on. "It's like he had no constraints at all. No one challenged the great Jasper Frost. But I knew. I saw how unhappy Elora was. She would've loved to get rid of him, except she knew he'd turn around and sue her for breach of contract. She told me I'd be much better than he was."
"Wait," I said, realization hitting me. "You didn't kill him because of some cause. You did it for his job!"
Tarrin's eyes went flat, her mouth curving up into a slow smile. "And it worked."
Her complete lack of remorse was chilling.
"Really, it was a win-win," she went on. "I get the break I deserve, Elora gets her movie made on time, and I've saved who knows how many young actresses from Frost's advances." She smiled in a creepy, emotionless way. "Everyone is better off."
"Except Dana," I couldn't help pointing out.
Her smiled evaporated, her eyebrows drawing down. "I told you I had that under control. I was spinning a narrative that would have guaranteed her a self-defense acquittal."
"You would have put her through a murder trial? Ruined her reputation?" I felt anger rising on Dana's behalf.
"Solidified her reputation as a crusader for women," Tarrin argued. "Anyone can be an actress. Dana could have been something more. The victim who stood up. The one who fought back."
"But she wasn't a victim! And she didn't fight!"
"I saw her!" Tarrin stabbed the gun my direction, instantly silencing any further arguments I might have had. "I saw her come out of Frost's trailer. That look on her face… I knew he'd gone after her."
I licked my lips, finally seeing the entire puzzle laid out before me. "You framed her on purpose," I said softly.
She scoffed again. "You're just now putting that together? You're not very bright, are you?"
I let that slide. Mostly because at the moment, I didn't feel very bright. I felt injured, scared, and extremely vulnerable. My eyes scanned the area between us for any wiggle room to overtake her. But as unhinged as her emotions seemed, her grip on her weapon had been steady the entire time. The best I could do was keep her talking and hope someone on the set came looking for me. I wondered how much time would have to pass before they realized I was gone.
And how much more before they thought to look for me deep in the woods, isolated, and alone with a killer.
I licked my lips, squelching that thought before it could take hold and blossom into full-blown panic.
"So, you saw Dana leave Frost's trailer, and you guessed he'd propositioned her," I said. "And you saw an opportunity."
"Look, if there's one thing that being a woman in Hollywood has taught me, it's that an opportunity does not come around very often. You have to jump on that opportunity when it presents itself."
"Like it did with Dana."
She nodded. "I'd told you I'd seen it before. Young actress goes into his trailer. Or his office. Or his limo. Only to come out shortly afterward, looking like she'd been molested and offended."
Offended—yes. But in Dana's case, that was all Frost had done. In fact, I realized that no one I'd talked to had actually confirmed that Frost had crossed a line with any woman—except Tarrin. There was the possibility he was Alia's father, but it was also possible that relationship had been completely consensual. And while he'd clearly hit on Dana, he had taken no for an answer. Begrudgingly and with a few insults thrown her way, but he hadn't physically attacked her.
"Have any other victims come forward?" I asked.
Tarrin blinked at me. "What?"
"When you had the press here, you asked other victims of Frost to come forward. Did they?"
"I-I don't know!"
"The other actresses you saw Frost with—they told you he actually attacked them? Or coerced them into sleeping with him?"
"Of course not," she sputtered. She shook her head, again looking at me like I was stupid. "They're scared. Afraid of the backlash. They're not going to say anything. Don't you see, that's why someone had to stop him? Someone had to stand up for those girls!"
"And boost her own career in the process." I couldn't help the note of sarcasm in my voice.
She shrugged. "And that."
"So you waited until you knew he'd be alone," I said, trying to keep the narrative going as long as possible. Even if my hope of discovery was waning with each passing moment.
"I saw him at the Tipsy Moose, and he told me he was going to go watch the dailies. Apparently he and his wife had gotten into an argument, and he didn't want to go back to their hotel room right away."
"So you followed him to the set," I said, picturing it. "To his trailer." Frost would have had no reservations about opening the door to his 1st AD. No qualms about turning his back to her.
"I stopped at props first," Tarrin said.
"To get a sword that you knew had Dana's prints on it," I said, putting it together out loud.
She nodded. "Frost had had her and Alia do a battle scene the day before. I knew there was a strong chance her prints were on it. It was just dumb luck they were the only prints."
"He never even saw you coming, did he?"
Tarrin sighed. "It wouldn't have made any difference if he had. I'm sure he wouldn't have believed that an insignificant woman could have been the end of him."
"And the next day you pretended to wait for him, saying he was late that morning when you knew he was dead."
"Guess Dana isn't the only good actress on this film, huh?" She laughed. "Did you buy the shock on my face when I ran out after finding his body?" She mimicked the same look I had seen that day.
Which, yes, I had bought—full price and with no questions asked.
"And you let the police believe it was Dana."
"Of course. And they wouldn't have even questioned it." She frowned. "But then you brought your policeman husband around. And your mom. And your…whoever that crazy lady and the Hispanic girl are."
"Boy," I said, knowing she meant Marco. Though, honestly, he would have been fine with either pronoun.
"Whatever. You just could not help yourself trying to mess up my plans. Trying to change the narrative of the story I was directing."
Oh boy. I realized she was not only homicidal, but her grip on reality seemed tentative at best.
"I tried to warn you." She shook her head again, almost looking sad. "If only you'd taken it."
"Warn me? You mean the snake?" I asked.
"I told you I liked you, Maddie," she said. "I just wanted to scare you away."
If putting a snake in someone's bed was what she did to people she liked, I hated to see what she did to people she didn't like.
Oh, wait. That's right. She killed them.
"But you didn't take the cue." She looked perplexed, as if no one had ever not taken her direction. "So, I knew I had to get rid of you."
"The pool. You held me under."
"You were alone. It was there. With that crazy entourage you have, I knew it was a limited time opportunity. And you know, I never pass up an opportunity."
"But you let me up. Was that a warning too?"
She frowned. "No, that was bad timing. Someone pulled up in the parking lot."
Whoever they were, I'd have to thank them later.
If I lived until later.
"I couldn't chance them seeing me, so I slipped back into my room." She paused, eyes focusing in on me. "But no one will
disturb us this time."
I had a terrible feeling she was right. For all my stalling for time, no one had shown up. I didn't even hear anyone else, the birds chirping innocently overhead the only possible witnesses to my impending death.
"You won't get away with this," I told her, cringing at how trite that line sounded.
"But I already have," she reasoned, taking a step toward me. Clearly she wasn't concerned with trite. "Frost is dead, Dana's been arrested, and I'll be the name on the marquee this summer when Lord of the Throne becomes this season's blockbuster hit." She paused. "Even if it isn't exactly the big budget movie I envisioned."
"And me?" I asked. "Clearly you can't pin my death on Dana. She's in custody right now."
She shrugged. "I don't need to. City girl wanders into the woods alone, gets lost. Tragic accident, really."
I glanced at the gun in her hand. "Am I supposed to accidentally run into a bullet, too?"
"Funny thing about the woods." She scrunched her nose up thoughtfully. "It's full of wild animals. Hungry animals. If they happen to come across some carrion, they'll tear it apart in minutes."
Carrion? As horrifying as that thought was, there was a more horrifying one—she was right. No one knew where I was. Even if they realized I was missing, it could be days before they found me out here. Wherever here even was. There had to be acres of dense forest surrounding Moose Haven, making it nearly impossible to search every inch of it.
"Oh, I could bury you, I suppose," she went on. "But why go to all that effort when the animals will dispose of the body for me?"
Now I was the body. I think I preferred carrion. Although either way, it meant dead.
"Ramirez will find me," I said, hearing tears form behind my words. "And he'll find you."
She smiled that insane grin at me again. "He's cute. I see what you like about him. But you and I both know he's got no clout out here. He might raise a fuss, but in the end, none of that will matter."
I could feel those tears making their way into my eyes, blurring my vision as I tried not to think about my cute husband. My twins. My mom. All the reasons I had to not be shot dead in the middle of nowhere by a crazy woman with a fake social conscience and deadly career aspirations.
Peril in High Heels (High Heels Mysteries Book 11) Page 23
