by Meg Collett
“I’ll email you. How long do you need?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Okay. Watch the trip wire by the door and make sure you keep everything the same on his desk. He’ll notice if you don’t.” Stevie pulled her phone from her pocket and fired off an email containing the picture she’d taken of the passwords. By the time she looked up, Emilie had left.
From a short distance away, Cade shot her a funny look. “Are you and Emilie friendly now?”
Stevie made a face at the thought. “We have a mutual goal.”
His eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”
“Don’t look so skeptical. I can make friends.”
“Very interesting.”
Stevie rolled her eyes at him before turning her attention to her parents. To think she’d thought Hale’s grumpiness would be the worst thing she’d have to deal with today.
Gathering up all the courage she could muster, she left Cade and headed over to her parents and Shepherd. For once, Shepherd actually looked vaguely uncomfortable. His face was a little clammy, as though the sight of the Reynolds made him sick. Stevie understood the feeling.
“Hey, Mom,” she said, coming up the stoop stairs. “And Rory.”
“Stephanie!” Her mom threw her spindly arms around her neck and clung to her. Edith had starved herself down to nothing more than thin skin and wasted air. “How have you been, darling? You look, well, you could look better. Have you talked to Wardrobe about your clothes? I mean, goodness gracious. Surely this place can afford some Burberry. Right, Shepherd? I mean, you are running it, after all.”
“I—” Shepherd tried, but Edith wasn’t finished yet.
“And besides, I had an email saying we were welcome to come down and film with Stephanie’s little team for the finale. As you know, we’re between shows right now, so we thought, why not? Right?”
“An email?” Shepherd was practically growling. “From who?”
Edith’s face attempted a frown. She’d had almost as much Botox as Shepherd. “Dear?” She turned to Rory, who looked up, surprised she’d asked for his input. He put his phone away and cleared his throat. “Didn’t we get an email to come down?”
“Ah,” Rory fumbled, the broken blood vessels at the tip of his nose flaring red. “How am I supposed to know that?”
Stevie tried not to roll her eyes. Knowing what Shepherd wanted her to do without him having to say it, she shot him a glance before saying, “Mom, why don’t we go over to Wardrobe? You can find clothes for today.” Stevie knew, as did Shepherd, leaving Edith alone in the wardrobe trailer meant she’d be in there for hours, and there would be a few dresses less—Edith couldn’t resist the temptation of sneaking out a few items in her bag—but they wouldn’t have to worry about getting them on camera today.
“Yes, of course!” Shepherd clapped his hands and the assistant beside him lurched to attention. “Wardrobe. Great idea, Stephanie.”
Stevie took her mom’s arm and started steering her away. She’d gone a few steps when she heard Shepherd hiss to his assistant, “Find out who sent that fucking email, and fire them.”
She grimaced. Emilie would have been smart enough to send the welcome to Edith and Rory from another email account. It just sucked that someone would have to take the fall.
Stevie had made it all the way to Wardrobe with her parents before her mother brought up their reality show Shepherd planned to pitch to the network. “Do you think you’ll be back in L.A. by October? My assistant said she sent over the paperwork to put your house on the market multiple times, but it keeps getting sent to your spam folder.”
Stevie sucked on the inside of her cheek. She’d deleted those emails three times now, always feigning innocence when her mother called, confused about the lack of response. Rory shuffled over to a makeup chair in the trailer and collapsed into it. Stevie left the door open behind her so she could beat a hasty retreat after dumping her parents off.
“Sure thing,” she said. Now was not the time to get in an argument about returning to Los Angeles. “October. No big deal.”
“That’s so great, dear! You know, this show isn’t the greatest, but it’s good to start back small, right? Ours will be so much better. You’ll be back in the limelight in no time.”
Her mother’s grip on her arm tightened by a fraction, her acrylic nails digging into Stevie’s arm. She smiled up at Stevie, her teeth bleached so white they were almost clear, and giggled.
Stevie wondered how many pills Edith had taken this morning.
Over in the corner, Rory was already passed out.
The saddest thing was that beneath the musty smell and the fluorescent clamp lights hung in the boxy trailer packed tight with designer clothes, her parents were at home. Maybe it was the years and thousands of miles that had separated them, or maybe it was simply returning to her first show’s set in ages, but Stevie finally understood her mother’s desperation to schedule one show after another. Here, unlike anywhere else in her life, Edith Reynolds felt important.
Stevie’s heart broke for her mother.
She promised herself that if she made it out of this show intact, she would try to help Edith. She’d get her out of L.A. and away from Rory and leeches like Shepherd. It was likely useless, but it was at least worth a try.
Edith had already drifted off, browsing the clothing racks and chatting with Rory like he was awake and listening. Stevie took her chance and slipped away. In a few hours, Edith would probably be too far gone from eating pills like candy to remember why she’d even come down to Georgia in the first place.
Outside the trailer, Shepherd fell into step beside her. “You took care of them?” he barked as if her parents were an infestation.
She gritted her teeth. “They’ll be in there all day, especially if you send in someone to do her makeup.”
“Christ.” He raked a perfectly manicured hand over his chiseled face. He was handsome enough, but the lifestyle had made him look a bit hollow, a bit sucked dry. He had more in common with her parents than he knew. “What an ordeal.”
“Just take them to dinner somewhere expensive. Tell them how great they are and how wonderful their show will be. They’ll leave tomorrow.”
Shepherd snorted. “As if they’re getting a show.”
Stevie stopped walking. “What?”
“I said I was pitching a show for them so I could get your pathetic mother to help me convince you to work with me on Reno Reality.”
Stevie stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“It worked didn’t it?” He checked his watch. “Got to go. Make sure they don’t stumble back out into the daylight. I can’t afford for the crew to take care of them today.”
He strode off, heading back toward his bus. Stevie watched him go, her blood boiling with hatred. She’d known how awful he was, how much of a snake in the grass he could be, but her mother didn’t. Edith practically worshiped him. When Stevie was dating him, Edith had loved every second of it, begging for every detail like she was living vicariously through Stevie.
The show Edith and Rory had been living for wasn’t even going to happen. Not that Stevie would have participated, and not that she wanted her parents on another show where they would be mocked, but they deserved better than petty lies.
Stomach burning, she returned to set and entered their side of the duplex, her eyes adjusting from the sunlight to the prop lights.
“Stevie! Diary cam.”
Startled, Stevie looked up at the sound of Emilie’s voice coming from the back of the room. Emilie sat in her normal spot, in front of the Cade Cam. Luckily, no one had noticed her disappearance in the chaos of unleashing Edith and Rory Reynolds.
Stevie navigated her way to the associate producer and asked, “Did you get what you needed?”
“I got something after I tried a couple of the passwords you sent me. I took some screenshots of his accounts to look over tonight. I want to be sure before I report it to the board, but it looks like he’s du
mped large sums of money into one particular account. It could be the proof I need.”
Stevie’s eyes narrowed. “And that I need.”
“Right.” Emilie waved her off. “Same thing. I’ll call you tonight so we can go over it.”
“Send me an email with what you found.”
“As soon as I leave—”
“Ladies,” the paunchy line producer said from behind them. Stevie jumped and spun around. “Shouldn’t Stevie be filming? We can’t afford overtime today.”
“On it, sir,” Emilie said quickly. “We were just going over some questions.”
They shuffled into position, no longer able to talk about the screenshots, and got to work.
She didn’t see her parents for the rest of the day, and they left Georgia that night without remembering to say goodbye.
17
“Last day of filming. How does it feel?”
Cade grimaced at Arie’s question. “Like we’ve been on a runaway train headed straight for the end of the tracks.”
“Glad to see you’ve found a flair for dramatics after all these weeks,” Stevie said with a snort. As she talked, she flipped through hangers all labeled in bold black marker with another cast member’s name. In parenthesis below, it said, “Not for Stevie.” The stylists were getting pissed. She sighed.
“After filming with Hale yesterday, I can’t help it.” Cade shook his head. “I honestly had no clue he would be that bad on camera.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Arie argued.
“He brought filming to a complete standstill because he insisted on someone getting him a special kind of finishing nail. It took four runners going to eleven different hardware stores to find the dang things, which they eventually did, in Charleston. It put our reno day completely behind schedule. We’ll get like a few hours of Finishing Touches today before we jump straight into the filming the judging for the finale show.”
“Okay. That’s pretty bad,” Arie laughed as he pulled down the clothes the stylist had assigned him and walked around a rack to change. “I bet that put Emilie in a fine mood.”
Cade frowned as he smoothed out his assigned shirt. “Actually, she wasn’t around much yesterday. Odd since we’re filming for the finale.”
Stevie paused in her prowl through the racks. She needed to change the subject—fast. She’d almost made it through the entire show without Cade discovering her battle with Shepherd. She couldn’t have him figuring it out now, not with so much depending on the outcome of the show today. He was so close to winning the entire thing. “How did things go yesterday?” she asked Arie.
“Can you find me another pair of pants, Stevie? These make my butt look weird.” He wadded up the garment and tossed it into the corner of the trailer. “And yesterday was bullshit. It took my insurance three weeks to tell me the company I need to make my prosthetic is outside my HMO.”
“Does that mean you can’t get it?” Cade asked, pausing in his search for a new shirt.
From behind the rack, while he waited for Stevie to bring him new pants, Arie shrugged. “I can’t afford to pay out of pocket for it, but I’ll get by with this one. A lot of guys have it worse than I do.”
Stevie glanced over her shoulder in time to see the raw look flicker across Arie’s face, deepening the lines around his mouth, where his lips were almost always set in a grimace from the pain in his leg. His brow was in a constant furrow as he considered each step for a fraction longer than the one before. Maybe he’d thought this new prosthetic would make him feel normal again, or maybe he would never feel that way again. Either way, it broke Stevie’s heart. Unable to bear seeing that expression on her friend’s face any longer, she turned back to the clothes in front of her and casually said, “Someone was asking about you yesterday.”
Behind her, Arie’s interest sparked like a firework on the Fourth of July. “Who?”
“Found some.” Stevie snagged a pair of Carhartts off some other assistant’s rack. “These should fit. I think the stylists are hiding the good shit from me now,” she mused. She skimmed through the hangers, taking in each piece for a second before flipping onto the next. Finally, she found what she was looking for. “And here, Cade. You’re not wearing that god-awful shirt they picked for you. It looks like sherbet-flavored vomit.”
“Stevie, who? Focus!”
She tossed Arie the pants she’d found. “You remember that really smelly sound guy the other day? The one that kept looking at your butt?”
“STEVIE!”
“Okay, fine, but I think you and that sound guy would look good together—after he had a shower.” She held out the shirt for Cade. “Anyway, it was Violet. She was very concerned you weren’t around. Apparently, she’d been looking for you all day.” Stevie made up that last bit, but it could have been true.
Arie’s eyes danced with excitement, and the lines around his mouth smoothed out.
He disappeared back behind his changing rack. “Maybe I should find her today. You know, just so she doesn’t worry or anything . . .”
Cade came over to Stevie and took the looser-fitting shirt she offered. “Thank you,” he said and planted a light kiss on her mouth. Whether he’d meant thank you for his shirt or for Arie, she didn’t know and it really didn’t matter.
She shot him a crooked grin she hoped conveyed her dirty thoughts. It must have worked, because Cade reached for her again, his eyes on her mouth. He hooked an arm around her waist right as the trailer’s door flung open and Emilie thundered in.
“Stevie!” she barked. “I need you.”
“For what?” Stevie didn’t bother hiding her annoyance.
“Shepherd wants a quick meeting before filming,” Emilie said. The look she sent Stevie told her not to argue. “Cade. Arie. Head straight to set. Crew’s waiting on you to start Finishing Touches.”
“Without Stevie?” Cade frowned, his eyes a little too suspicious for Stevie’s liking.
“It’ll be fine. Be back in a sec,” Stevie said quickly, stepping around him and hurrying after Emilie. As she ducked out of the door, she glanced back and saw Cade watching her. She smiled to keep him from worrying, but from the expression in his eyes, it didn’t work.
Outside, she caught up with Emilie and asked, “What’s going on? You didn’t call me last night to go over the screenshots.”
In the sunlight, Stevie spotted the dark circles beneath Emilie’s maple syrup–colored eyes. Her face was drawn and pale, and her wiry hair worse than normal. “Wait, have you even slept yet?”
Emilie used her curvaceous body like a battering ram to cut through the early morning traffic on set. A particularly unlucky camera guy bending down to pick up a cord got bowled over when he didn’t get out of her way fast enough. As he went sprawling, Stevie hopped over his legs and rushed back up to Emilie’s side.
It defied physics how someone with such short legs could walk so fast.
“Emilie, what is it?”
“Just come on,” the associate snapped.
Her short fuse was shorter than normal. Stevie would have chalked it up to the mess tent running out of Emilie’s favorite stale bagels if it hadn’t been for the strained set of her mouth. Emilie kept swallowing as though hot bile were repeatedly filling her mouth. Stevie knew Emilie’s tendencies well enough to know she hadn’t partied last night, not with such an early call time and lots of work to do on the last official day of filming.
Actually, Stevie doubted Emilie allowed herself to have any fun, making the blatant fear on her face even worse.
“So he waited until the finale to make me do something awful,” Stevie guessed. “What will I have to do?”
Emilie screwed her mouth shut and ducked into the row of temporary pods.
“Is it that bad?”
They were two storage pods down from Shepherd’s office bus. The light was on behind the drawn shades covering the front windshield. Emilie pulled Stevie to a stop, her little fingers biting into Stevie’s flesh.
For the first time since Stevie met her, Emilie looked helpless. “You’re scaring me.”
“I had no idea,” Emilie repeated, almost whispering.
“Just tell me.”
Emilie opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, the bus’s door banged open. Shepherd stood on the metal stairs, his suit freshly pressed and his hair still wet from his morning shower. When he oozed at her, Stevie knew she was screwed.
“There you are,” he drawled. “Oh, Emilie, since you’re here, you can join us. I would like to talk to you as well.”
Emilie’s grip on Stevie’s arm tightened. “What?”
“You heard me. Get in here.” Shepherd stomped back up the stairs and disappeared inside, leaving the door swinging open for them.
Stevie wanted to ask what was going on, but Emilie’s stricken expression shut her up. Emilie bit her lip, her face a pale sheet of fear. If he wanted to meet with them both . . .
They started toward the stairs, Stevie leading the way, though every step felt like a walk on a narrow plank suspended over shark-infested waters.
Inside, the bus stank of cologne, just like last time. Papers were strewn across every surface, and the pop-up table next to the couch held Shepherd’s three laptops, his phones—all of them—and a slim scanner.
In here, the outside world was blocked out, like a tomb.
“Lock the door. I don’t want any interruptions.”
Emilie froze, her eyes flashing wide. She shot Stevie a worried look before turning back to the door she’d closed behind her and flipping the lock in place.
“What do you need?” The question came out steady enough, even with all the roiling feelings in her gut.
“Well,” Shepherd started as he took a seat behind his makeshift desk, “since you two have become so close, I figured Emilie wouldn’t mind if you were here while I talked to her about a little . . . issue.”
