I threw my badge and my piece on Barnes’s desk and opened the door.
“Why’d you do it?” asked Barnes suddenly.
I was halfway through the door. Some civilian in a shirt and jeans was walking by like he was the Prince of England, cops fawning over him and following him around.
I thought about it for a second, the anger rising and twisting inside me. “You know why,” I said at last. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried. The other cops went quiet. “Because he was going to hit her again. As soon as we’d gone. He was going to keep hitting her and hitting her and he was never going to stop, not until they took her off in a body bag and then maybe, maybe he goes to jail or maybe his five hundred dollar an hour attorney gets him off!” It was boiling out of me, now, the hopeless anger like steam rising off a hot plate. Hux’s death kept it permanently red-hot, deep down inside me, and every time I got frustrated it was like dumping in fresh water.
“You’re done,” said Barnes sadly.
I wasn’t angry at him. I think I was angry at everyone but him. He was just stuck playing his role in the whole broken system, the same as me.
I turned and stalked through the room, my shoulders tight from the feel of all the eyes on me. I could feel pity from them...but relief, as well. I’d been screwing up for weeks, and no one had wanted to be standing next to me when I self-destructed. Hollister was lucky that he’d walked away clean. Now that it was all over and I was just another ex-cop, the sympathy could return. They’d all be offering me contacts in the security industry and buying me goodbye drinks in the cop bar. Probably the last time I’d ever go there.
I was no longer a cop, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. It was all I’d ever known.
I put my hand out to open the door. Running footsteps behind me...awkward ones, accompanied by panting. Not a cop, then. Even Hux could run, when he had to. A civilian. “Wait!” the guy croaked.
I turned. It was the visitor, the guy in shirt and jeans everyone had been kissing up to.
“I love you,” the guy said. His eyes were shining as if someone had just handed him a plate of chocolate cream pie. “You’re perfect!”
The anger evaporated, I think out of shock, more than anything else. I blinked. “Uh...I’m flattered. But I’m not—”
“For my TV show! I’m A.K. Dixon. You’ve got it all going on: the rogue cop! The maverick.” He drew in his breath. “The loose cannon! You’re going to bring down the bad guys, and you don’t care if you have to cross the line!”
“What?”
“And you have that dark, brooding thing going on. All moody. Haunted. Perfect. And you’re so big!” Dixon reached up and squeezed my bicep. I shook him off. “I need you. I have to have you. Barnes! Captain Barnes!”
Barnes stuck his head cautiously out of his office like a tortoise.
Dixon was breathless—not just from running after me, but from excitement. “I have to have this man,” he told Barnes.
Barnes walked toward us, running a hand through what was left of his hair. “You want Kowalski?!” he asked. “For a TV show?”
“I told you, I want real cops for some of the roles,” said Dixon. “It gives the show authenticity. Texture. We did it on Foxtrot Company.”
“Foxtrot Company?” I asked, trying to catch up. I’d watched that show. Good, gritty stuff. And it had felt realistic. I vaguely remembered something, now, about real-life soldiers playing some of the roles. That was made by this guy?
“Dixon was shifting his weight around—I swear he was only a few seconds away from hopping from foot to foot in joy. “ That’s why he’s so perfect. He’s authentic! Do you know what that’s worth, these days? It’s exactly what audiences want! The honest, good-hearted, downtrodden cop... you gotta give him to me!”
“Is anyone,” I asked slowly, “going to tell me what’s going on here?”
Barnes ignored me completely. “You’d pay him and everything?”
Dixon nodded wildly. “Absolutely. Full pay plus bonus pay plus residuals if the series airs.”
Barnes stopped beside us and gave me a long look. “I can’t keep you here,” he told me slowly. “City Hall would have my ass after what you did.” He stared at the guy in jeans. “But if I was to send you off with this guy for a while...I could say you’re on a leave of absence. Then, when the heat’s off…” I could see him turning it over and over in his mind, trying to find a way out for me. “If you do this and keep your nose clean and don’t screw it up...yeah. Maybe I could make that work. You could sneak back quietly, drive a desk for a few months, then maybe I could put you back on the streets.”
I was blinking. “But I’m not an actor!”
“You don’t have to be,” said Dixon. “Just...be you. The troubled, misunderstood, bad boy with the heart of gold.”
“The heart of—what?”
“Be smart, Kowalski,” said Barnes, his voice a low rumble. “This could be a good thing for you. Like a holiday. If you come back with your temper in check, maybe I can get everything back to normal.”
I looked at Barnes and then at Dixon—who was beaming at me. I’d never seen someone so happy before. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. I shook my head. “This is crazy,” I told them.
“It’s your best shot,” said Barnes. “Jesus, Kowalski, for once, don’t be an idiot.”
I gave him a long look. I could see the pain in his eyes. He wanted things to work out for me.
“Fine,” I said with a long sigh. “When do we start?”
Chapter 10
Jasmine
Thirty minutes before the screen test, I sat in a Starbucks across the street, sipping coffee through a straw because I didn’t want to smudge my lipstick.
Given that it’s always good to arrive early to these things and given that the Starbucks was right across from the studio’s doors, I figured that I was probably surrounded by my competition. A lot of worryingly-attractive people sat sipping mochas and lattes, all glancing at one another, trying to work out who was one of us. Between all the chisel-jawed men and the size zero women, it looked like we were filming a Starbucks ad.
And then there was me, in snug jeans and a tank top that I hoped said off duty female police officer. I wished I’d thought to ask Sierra what she wore.
A probable-actress sat down next to me, cast a cursory glance over my body, and probably decided I was a civilian. TV actresses didn’t have hips like mine, or an ass like mine, or boobs like mine. Not unless they were the comedy relief, or playing a hooker—
Stop it!
I’d wrestled my body issues into submission when I became Jasmine. Emma had hated her curves. Jasmine rocked them. But there was still a part of me that wished I could slip into some flimsy shift dress and prance merrily through a meadow in an ad for...I don’t know, dish soap or something, all light and airy and carefree. If I tried that, I’d be all bouncing boobs and swaying ass and... sex.
The probable-actress became a definite-actress when she took out her smartphone to double-check the address. Great. So it was me against a slender, gorgeous brunette, as well as all the other slender gorgeous brunettes and blondes filling the place. I just hoped there were plenty of parts up for grabs.
Another actress sat down on the other side of me. Maybe a year younger than me, with hair that was almost black, and carrying a Google maps printout of the route to the studio. She clonked her coffee down too hard on the counter and it slopped. I tossed her some napkins.
“Thanks!” She wasn’t as skinny as the others. In fact, her body wasn’t so different to my own. And there was something about her smile that was almost like looking in the mirror—
Ulp.
It’s always unsettling when you realize that you’ve met another you. That someone with a very specific brief picked you out because you were perfect for a role...and picked her out as well. It’s sort of like going to the reading of a will to inherit the family estate and meeting the twin sister you never knew you had.
We looked at each other and I could see the realization in her eyes, too.
“Nervous?” I asked.
She gave a huge groan and slumped her shoulders. “So nervous. It’s my first.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “They’re doing multiple screen tests?”
“No. My first TV audition. Ever.”
My jaw dropped. I mean, I wasn’t exactly experienced myself. If I landed the part it would be my big break—truly career-making. But I’d had a couple of walk-on roles and even a few lines on TV shows over the years. To go straight into a big part...wow. No wonder she was nervous.
“You’ll be fine,” I told her. “I’m Jasmine.”
She told me she was Francesca, and that she was straight off the theater circuit, spotted at an off-Broadway production by Dixon himself. It sounded like all he’d been doing for the last few weeks was prowling the city, looking for fresh faces. Which made sense, if he wanted a cast of unknowns.
When I said I went to Fenbrook, her eyes went wide. “I’d love to have gone there,” she told me. “But I couldn’t afford it.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but bit it back.
It didn’t matter. I knew what she was getting at: You must have rich parents. Yeah. Right. And yet the irony was, it was my dad who’d paid for my tuition. Just not in the way she assumed.
I couldn’t blame her for thinking I was privileged, though. All she’d done was to buy into the exact lie I’d been selling everyone. It was just hard, sometimes—being Jasmine meant everyone thought I had it easy. They didn’t know where I’d come from, or how hard I’d worked to stay afloat over the last few years. Francesca wasn’t rich but, judging by her clothes, she wasn’t poor, either. She’d never considered sleeping with her slime ball landlord in lieu of rent, or becoming an escort to pay the bills. My stomach twisted. Karen had saved me from those fates but, if I didn’t get this part, I was going to be right back in that situation again. My rent money had gone on bribing Sierra.
But I couldn’t tell her any of this. So I smiled and nodded and said yes, I was very lucky.
***
I noticed something was up as soon as I walked in. I’d expected it to be chaos, and it was. Dixon’s idea of getting everyone in at once to mingle and “mesh” meant that, instead of a quiet studio with just the director, crew, and a few actors, there was a whole crowd gathered behind the cameras. All the hopeful actors up for parts, from the starring roles down to the bit parts. There must have been close to a hundred people there.
But within the chaos there was something even weirder. Actors have a vibe. They’re confident and fun-loving and sometimes slightly annoying, especially when you get a lot of them close together and they’re all competing for attention like a flock of peacocks. But scattered in the crowd was a second set of people who didn’t have that vibe at all. Some were male and some were female and some were in uniform and some were in street clothes, but they all had the same attitude, serious and watchful. An attitude I’d learned to spot from the other end of the street.
Cops. Real cops.
Immediately, I felt my insides tighten into a cold little knot. I saw one of the assistants coming back from making a Starbucks run for the crew and, as I helped her carry the teetering stack of lattes, she explained Dixon’s grand plan. Real cops, mixed in with the actors, for authenticity. I’d watched Foxtrot Company, like everyone else. I should have seen it coming.
Okay, I thought, trying not to panic. Chill. You’re Jasmine. Jasmine’s fine with cops. But it wasn’t that easy. I kept expecting a hand to land on my shoulder at any moment. I instinctively looked for the bathroom, before I remembered I didn’t have anything illegal that needed flushing away.
“Is it always like this?” asked Francesca, as she found me in the crowd. She looked as if she was about to turn and bolt.
I grabbed her hand. “No. Normally it would just be a couple of people testing, and maybe a few more hopefuls waiting in another room. This is crazy. I don’t know why Dixon’s set it up like this.”
And then I saw the man himself. Dixon was wandering through the crowd as if this was his birthday party. Watching us.
This wasn’t just us waiting for our screen test, I realized. This was a test. He was watching to see how we all interacted. Most of the cops and actors weren’t mixing. They were clumping into little groups, finding their own kind. The actors were doing the same. Dixon would be looking for the people who crossed the boundaries.
I looked at Francesca. She was almost certainly being considered for the same part as me. All I had to do was say, Just wait here, or pass her onto another actor to talk to, and I could eliminate the competition. I had to get this part….
But I didn’t want it if I had to screw someone else over to get it.
“Mingle,” I told Francesca. “Find a cop and talk to him. It’s a test.”
She looked around. “How do I know which ones are cops?”
“Shoes,” I said automatically. “Male cops always wear cop shoes when they dress up. Look for shiny black shoes.”
“You’re incredible,” said Francesca, looking at feet. “How do you know stuff like that?”
Because I had to know who not to sell to, when my dad wanted me to get rid of some coke.
I pushed Francesca toward the nearest pair of shiny black shoes and went to find my own.
There was a huge, dark-haired guy in faded jeans and an eggshell-blue shirt facing the craft table. I headed straight for him, already shifting gears. I’d flirt. I’d chat. I’d get him to tell me stories of life as a cop: taking bribes or beating up suspects or fixing evidence or whatever the hell real life cops did all day, other than eating donuts. I know, there’s a certain irony in mistrusting cops so much and yet dreaming of playing one on TV. Look, millions of people enjoy pretending to be a gangster in a video game, but they don’t want to hang out with gangsters for real. If getting close to a cop would win me the part, though, I’d become the guy’s best buddy.
“Hi,” I said, coming up behind him and standing on tiptoes to peek over his shoulder at the food. “What looks edible?”
The guy turned around. “Hi,” said Ryan.
You know that bit in the disaster movie where the side of the plane rips open mid-flight and everything’s sucked out through the hole? It was kind of like that. Every thought I had, every carefully-planned line and piece of schtick just shot into the void and my brain was left completely empty. Except for: what looks edible? He does.
This is not the time for that, I told myself. This is so incredibly not the time for that. It was true, though. His shirt set off his eyes and he was looking down at me with such intensity, looming over me even in my heels, that a big part of me just wanted to lean forward and melt into him, allow him to scoop me up in his arms and—
I closed my eyes for a second and tried to focus. What the hell was going on? I’d been about to prove myself to Dixon by chatting away happily to a real-life cop, and he’d somehow been replaced by the one cop I must never, ever talk to.
“What are you doing here?” I croaked. Not the best line but, under the circumstances, I think I did pretty well.
He just stared at me. He seemed to be as surprised as I was. Then, “They wanted real cops. For—”
“For authenticity, I know. But—” But in my head, I’d been imagining some smooth-talking, oily, PR-friendly guy. An all-American blond from a recruitment poster, squeaky-clean and insincere. Not Ryan, with his dark stubble and his pecs pushing out the front of his shirt. He was too big: too tall and too wide. He looked as much like a criminal as he did a cop, all brooding and intense and... I squirmed inside. Handsome.
Don’t think that way!
“But do you act?!” I said. “At all?”
He slowly shook his head. “I tried to tell them that,” he said.
He didn’t sound as if he wanted to be there at all. Which made sense, because he’d never seemed like the sort of guy who’d want to act. But then wha
t the hell was he doing here? He looked different to how I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t put my finger on how. His eyes...something about the look in his eyes….
I grabbed a plate and started filling it to give me thinking time. Carrot sticks. Carrot sticks were always good. Humus. Cucumber. “It’s good to see you,” I said, which was both true and completely failed to describe what was going on inside me. My heart was slamming in my chest like a caged animal, all the pent-up feelings I’d grown used to hiding threatening to rise to the surface. I’d had no warning, no time to put on a mask. I could feel Emma swimming up from the dark depths, trying to wrestle control.
I didn’t dare look at him. I kept my eyes on the food, piling on tomatoes and peppers. Then I sighed with relief because I finally came up with something safe to say, something that would allow us to chat like old friends. Maybe Dixon would even see us talking away happily and I could turn this into something good!
I turned to grin at him. “How’s Hux?” I asked brightly.
A second too late, I finally identified the look in his eyes. Pain. Pain that was now blossoming rapidly into something he couldn’t control. He dropped his plate on the table, turned, and walked away. I could see his shoulders hunch up, tight with emotion. Shit!
Was he just upset because, after not seeing him for a month, I’d immediately asked about his partner instead of him? That didn’t seem like his way at all. But then the look in his eyes wasn’t the Ryan I knew, either. Something had changed him. Something had happened.
My stomach seemed to turn itself inside out. Something had happened to Hux?!
I went to go after him, but the doors of the studio were already swinging shut behind him. He was the one guy I was crazy about, and I’d just chased him away.
Chapter 11
Ryan
There were several sets of double doors. I blundered through them as if they weren’t there, searching for sunlight, for air—
Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) Page 7
