“It’s fine,” Johnathan said with a smile. “We’ll just set up, you’re all free to take your time. I wanted to get here early so I could get a feel for the lighting, and Trevor needs to make sure he’s got the microphones set up so they don’t catch the traffic noise. The corner location might be great for business, but it’s noisy as all get out.”
Ellie nodded, forcing herself to smile at him. She saw Trevor behind him, setting up some complicated looking equipment. She recognized the woman who had done their makeup before, and Francis, and she stared at her with a frown. Johnathan followed her gaze.
“She’s here to help out with the cameras if we need it,” he explained. “She was one of Mike’s assistants at his old job, and she followed him to this company. She’s been in the film industry for decades. She knows what she’s doing.”
“Okay,” Ellie said. He must have caught the tone of her voice, because he grinned at her.
“Don’t worry. I like your grandmother. She’s going to do just fine. How could she be anything but perfect at playing herself?”
She smiled at him, despite her reservations. She could see why Linda liked him.
“All right,” Trevor said a moment later once he had finished setting up whatever piece of equipment he had been fiddling with. “Does anyone need Darla’s help?”
“We all did our own makeup,” Linda said.
“Well, it’s up to you, but we’re going to be using some artificial lighting since the buildings across the street block out most of the natural light. The light I brought is a lot harsher than what you’ve got in that bathroom, so you might want to let her touch you up. She knows how to make people look good on television.”
They all glanced at each other, most of them shrugging. Ellie didn’t complain when they started joining Darla in the corner where she had set up her makeup and hair tools, but she didn’t join them either. She just wanted all of this to be over and done with.
Chapter Thirteen
She knew she was hovering, but she couldn’t help it. They were about to start filming, and she was a bundle of nerves. She wasn’t sure whether she was worried about the fact that one of the people in the room might be a murderer, or about the fact that in just a couple of minutes they were going to begin filming an advertisement that most of southern Florida would see. Everything had blended together into a ball of anxiety that had settled in her stomach and was making her feel slightly sick.
“Right, everyone take your places,” Trevor said at last. “This is going to look great, the lighting’s perfect. I want to get this done before the sun moves and I have to adjust it all again. John, you’re up. I’m on camera one.”
They all settled down. Ellie stood in front of a table with the three pizzas on it, with Nonna to her left. Linda was to her right, smiling and shifting nervously as she stared at the cameras. Behind them, the employees were pretending to go about their duties.
“Action!”
Half an hour later, Ellie breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t known how repetitive just making a simple advertisement could be. They had shot the scene nearly ten times, and every time either Johnathan or Trevor had decided there was something wrong with it. They had finally called for a break, in which everyone else would be free to mill about and de-stress while they reviewed the footage. If it was good, they still wanted to take some closeups of the pizzas, as well as get footage of the front of the building and the kitchen. Ellie let out a slow breath as she sat down in one of the booths, sipping a bottle of water. At least she was done with her part, unless one of the two men saw something that they didn’t like in the most recent shot.
Somehow, the stress of shooting the ad had mostly driven Ellie’s other concerns from her mind. Her worries about whether or not someone in the room had killed Mr. Jacobson had taken second place to a vague annoyance with the film industry in general. If she never had to be on television again, it would be too soon.
“Ellie, dear, I love you, but I’m beginning to hate those lines you wrote for me,” Nonna said, gingerly taking a seat at the other side of the table. “I’ve repeated them so much, they’ve lost all meaning to me.”
Ellie chuckled and leaned back in the booth, closing her eyes for a blissful moment. “I don’t blame you. Those lights are what really get to me. They’re bright, and they make it so hot in here. I should go back and turn the air conditioning up. I’m going to if they want us to try the shot again.”
“I’m sure it will all be worth it in the end.”
“I hope so,” Ellie said. “I can tell you, this made me decide not to film an ad for the Kittiport pizzeria. I don’t think it would increase our revenue enough to be worth it for that location. And I’m not talking about the price of the ad. It’s the time and the stress that are killing me.”
“Hey, you two,” Linda said cheerfully, approaching them with a smile. “Isn’t this great? “
Ellie and her grandmother exchanged glances, and then both began to laugh.
“What?” Linda asked, looking puzzled.
“We were both just talking about how glad we are it’s finally almost over,” Ellie admitted. “You had a great idea, don’t get me wrong. I think the ad will be amazing for this location. But if I have to spend any more time being told that I’m standing just a hair too close to the table, or that I’m not enunciating my consonants enough, I’m going to explode.”
“It’s not that bad,” Linda said, her gaze darting away. Ellie followed her look and shook her head, suddenly understanding why her friend seemed so enthusiastic.
“You really like him, don’t you?” she asked softly. Linda turned back to her and blushed.
“Yeah… I do. I know I haven’t really known him that long, but it feels like I have, you know? If things are still going well in a couple of weeks, I might have him join my daughter and me for dinner. I can’t believe I actually want this man to meet my little girl. I never thought I’d feel this way again.”
“I’m glad for you,” Ellie said honestly. She glanced at Johnathan again, who was leaning over Trevor’s shoulder to get a better look at the laptop screen. A surge of worry for her friend rose up in her, but she pushed it aside. Johnathan probably wasn’t the murderer. He and Linda would be fine.
Her friend beamed at her, then walked away to go talk to one of the employees. Ellie was about to say something about the new relationship between her friend and Johnathan when her grandmother got up, a frown on her face.
“Nonna?”
“Francis and Darla have been gone for quite a long time,” her grandmother said. “I’m going to go see what they’re up to.”
Ellie looked around, realizing that the two women weren’t anywhere she could see. “I didn’t even realize they had left.”
“They went into the kitchen a while ago. I thought they were just having a look around, but they haven’t come back.”
The pizzeria owner put her bottle of water down and stood up as well. “I’ll join you,” she said. “None of them should be back there without an escort.” There wasn’t much that they could get into, so she wasn’t particularly concerned, but the family recipe for their famous pizza crust was kept in the kitchen, and it could conceivably be stolen. She didn’t know why either woman would want it — the restaurant wasn’t famous enough for the recipe to be worth anything, she didn’t think — but she still didn’t like the idea of them snooping around in the back alone. Maybe it was just paranoia speaking, but she really didn’t trust anyone from the film studio.
She followed her grandmother through the door that led to the kitchen, where they both paused and looked around, frowning. The kitchen was empty.
“Where’d they go?” she said.
“Maybe they fell down the floor drain,” her grandmother muttered. Ellie raised her eyebrows.
“Am I missing something that happened between you and them?”
Her grandmother actually blushed. “Sorry. I may have been more bothered than I let on when they wante
d Francis to replace me,” she admitted. “I don’t have anything against them, not really. I’ve barely traded two words with either of them.”
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said with a frown. She had taken her grandmother at face value when she had said she hadn’t been bothered by it.
“It’s silly of me,” the older woman said dismissively. “I’m just… I don’t want to stop being useful. If I can’t even play myself in a commercial, what’s left?”
“Mr. Jacobson was just being a jerk,” Ellie said. She patted Nonna on the arm. “He probably would have replaced me if he’d had a double and I had a cough.”
Nonna smiled at her, then chuckled. “Thanks, Ellie. Now, let’s go find those women. They have to be somewhere.”
“I think I know where.” Ellie nodded at the back door, which was propped open with a brick.
The two of them walked across the room and paused by the door, listening. They could hear the women talking on the other side, and neither of them were bothering to be quiet. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted in, making Ellie realize they had probably just taken a smoking break. She was glad they had gone outside for it, at least.
“… will probably get better now,” one of the women was saying. “At least, I hope so. I don’t want to have to look for another job at my age.”
“I’ve got some leads already,” the other woman said. Ellie was almost certain it was Darla. “I can ask around, see if anyone has a position for you. Don’t let your husband hold you back.”
“You don’t think their studio will make it?” the woman who Ellie thought was probably Francis said.
“I don’t know. It’s better to be prepared, though. I’ve been looking for possible openings for months, to be honest. Mike was sinking this company.” There was a pause. “I know, I know. You’ve worked with him for years, but you’ve got to admit, Fran, he’s terrible with clients. It’s always about his vision, not theirs. Can you imagine if I tried that? No, I’ve got to do makeup how the client wants, not how I want. Sure, I get to make judgments based on my experience, but they always have veto power. That’s not something Mike was ever happy with. I’m not sad he’s gone. Maybe not thrilled with how it happened, but I’m not going to cry about the results. This business is killing my family.”
Ellie and her grandmother exchanged a glance. It sounded like no one had liked the director very much.
Francis spoke up after another pause. “I might have worked with him for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I liked him. I only followed him on this new venture of his because after he left the old studio, I knew they would start looking to replace me. They only kept me around because I could put up with his attitude.”
“Well then, I guess neither of us are shedding many tears. I do wonder who did it, though. There are a lot of people I can think of who might want to get back at him for something.” Darla coughed, then continued. “Do you have any ideas?”
Ellie, who had been beginning to feel bad about eavesdropping, leaned in closer.
“I don’t… know…” Francis said hesitantly. “But the owner of this place, that Ellie woman, the police found her lipstick in Mike’s car. So, she was obviously with him at some point after she left.”
“How do you know?”
“They actually brought me in to ask me if it was mine,” the older woman muttered. “They knew we worked together for a long time, thought we might be friends outside of work. They probably thought I killed him. But I set them straight. Told them I remembered her wearing that color, then I told them all about the argument they had.”
“Do you actually think she did it?” Darla’s voice held what Ellie thought was mild interest.
“Probably not,” Francis admitted. “But who cares, as long as they quit poking around at the studio every waking hour. I’m almost as sick of that as I am of Trevor and Johnathan arguing about everything under the sun.”
The other woman made a noise that might have been of agreement, or maybe just acknowledgment, then said, “We should head back in. They’re probably done going over the footage by now.”
Ellie touched her grandmother’s arm and gestured toward the door that led to the main dining area. The last thing she wanted was to be caught eavesdropping, especially after hearing a conversation like that.
Chapter Fourteen
Those two women are horrible,” her grandmother fumed as they entered the dining area. “Did you hear them?”
“I heard everything you heard, Nonna.”
“They don’t care if you get arrested, even though you didn’t do anything!”
“I heard.” Ellie frowned. “We can’t do anything about it. Let’s just finish this up so we can be done. We won’t have to see them again.”
She glanced around the room and realized that both Trevor and Johnathan were absent. After giving her grandmother’s hand a reassuring squeeze, she walked over to Linda.
“Where are they?” she asked.
Her friend looked puzzled for a moment, then realized who Ellie was talking about. “They had to run out to the van for something,” she said. “Something about needing a different lens for the food.”
“Thanks.” She turned and strode toward the door. She just wanted to hurry this along. She was upset, her grandmother was upset, and at the moment she didn’t trust anyone from the film studio as far as she could throw them. Overhearing the women’s conversation had just made it all worse.
Stepping out of the building and into the southern Florida heat, she crossed the street, pausing only to briefly check that no cars were coming. The large van in which the film equipment had been transported was parked along the opposite curb. She frowned at it, then tried to smooth her expression out. There was no sense in starting something when they would all be leaving very soon.
She walked around the front of the van and turned to see that the panel door was open. She was already opening her mouth to tell them that everyone in the pizzeria was ready to continue when she realized what scene she had stumbled on.
Johnathan was standing in the van, slightly stooped, holding a black handgun which was pointed right at Trevor’s chest. Trevor was sitting on a metal tool chest, his hands raised and fingers splayed, a panicked look in his eyes. Ellie was frozen, her mind racing to process what she was seeing. She didn’t make a noise, and Johnathan might not have noticed her at all if Trevor’s eyes hadn’t slid across to her. His cousin noticed the movement and turned slightly, his gaze fixing on Ellie.
The instant he took his eyes off Trevor, the other man moved as if to escape, but Johnathan turned back to him in an instant, his grip on the gun tightening.
“Don’t move,” he growled. “Not an inch.”
“Ellie —” Trevor started, but Johnathan gestured with the handgun, cutting him off.
“Not a word either.”
Ellie took a half step back, trying to figure out the best course of action. She was on the opposite side of the van from the pizzeria, so no one that she knew could see her. The building the van was parked in front of was an empty, abandoned Chinese food restaurant, so there wouldn’t be any help from there either. She considered, for a moment, just making a run for it back to the pizzeria, but there was a chance that Johnathan would shoot at her. If one of the bullets missed her and went into the restaurant, it might strike one of her employees or Nonna.
The result of her indecision was that she froze, wasting the precious moments that she could have used to get help if only she had been able to think a bit faster or ignore the rush of fear that made her limbs go cold. By the time she realized she should have run, just run, down the sidewalk and around the corner, Johnathan had shifted his position so he could see both her and Trevor clearly.
“Ellie,” he said, his eyes flicking between his two hostages. “Do you have your cell phone on you?”
“No,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. She was being honest. Her phone was on silent in her purse on the counter in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Ellie blinked at him, sure that she had heard his words wrong. She met his eyes, wondering if it was some sort of trick, and he jerked his head toward the front of the van.
She jolted herself out of her shock and opened the passenger door, reaching across the seat to the cell phone that she saw in the cup holder. She grabbed it and then stepped back, meeting Johnathan’s eyes again.
“Go ahead.”
Hands shaking, she fumbled with the phone, which was a different model than hers, trying to get the screen to turn on. She managed it, glancing up nervously once more, just in time to see Trevor shift in his seat.
“Watch out!” she said, not sure exactly who she was warning. Johnathan seemed to be already turning to face his cousin, but it was too late. Trevor had launched himself forward and caught Johnathan around the knees, knocking him to the van’s floor. The gun went flying out of his grip and skidded across the sidewalk. Ellie jumped back with a yelp, somehow managing to keep her grip on the phone as the two wrestling men tumbled out of the van. The fight was surprisingly silent, with only the occasional grunt as a punch made contact.
Sweet Chili Murder Page 6
