Shooting on Location (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Estelle Richards

  Lisa put the phone back in her pocket. She could feel eyes burning a hole in the back of her head but didn’t dare turn around and let them know she knew.

  Very casually, making sure her next movements could be predicted, she turned around and smiled. “I have to hit the little girls’ room. You’ll be ok, right?”

  She went inside, pausing just past the door to listen for the tell-tale jingle of someone picking up her keys. She smiled when she heard it, then quickly scooted away from the door and toward the bathroom.

  The rest of the day’s shoot, after the break was over, crawled by at a snail’s pace. Her keys had reappeared behind the carafe when she returned to the front porch. Toby hadn’t come to the Folly, and Lisa started to worry that he’d missed her message. What if the killer took her phone in Kaden’s gaudy phone case and got away with it before the police could even arrive? No, Toby had to get the message. He had to come and arrest the guilty party. Her stomach did flip-flops as she waited for the end of the day.

  Chapter 27

  When the final cut was called, there was still no word from Toby or anyone else from the Moss Creek Police. Lisa’s heart hammered as she watched the crew depart.

  She went to the kitchen to try to distract herself by starting a batch of muffins. She couldn’t concentrate, and added salt in place of sugar, ruining the batter.

  Mama Cat wandered into the room, meowing for food.

  “Of course you can have dinner, gorgeous,” Lisa said.

  The cat swished her tail in approval of the prompt service by her human. She allowed a few scratches behind her ears before diving into the food dish. Lisa watched the lovely black and white cat eat. Her coat was glossy and seemed extra thick, as it should be in winter.

  Lisa paced to the front room to look out the window in case Toby was outside. Still nothing. Lisa put her head in her hands. She couldn’t just sit there and wait.

  An idea started to percolate. Of course. She ran upstairs and grabbed her laptop, logging into her Apple account. A few quick keystrokes and she’d activated the Find My iPhone feature. A map popped up on the screen, showing a dot representing her phone at the Lucky Horseshoe Inn. Lisa’s shoulders relaxed. Whenever Toby did show up, it would be a simple matter to go to the Lucky Horseshoe and make the arrest.

  Her relaxation didn’t last long. The dot on the screen started to move. Lisa’s eyebrows shot up. Why was it moving? Was the killer leaving town? Had she made a mistake, thinking Serena wasn’t the type of person to make a run for it?

  She paced the floor and returned to the laptop. The dot was still moving. She had to do something. She ran to the locking closet and stowed Kaden’s phone on a high shelf. Her hand touched metal, and she pulled down the prop gun. She considered it a second, then tucked it in a pocket to bring along.

  Grabbing her laptop, Lisa ran outside and jumped in her car. She would just follow at a discreet distance, making sure the killer didn’t get away.

  Starting the car, she had a sudden pang of worry. How would the police know where to find her when she didn’t have her phone with her? Maybe she could email someone. Did she even know anyone who checked their email frequently enough that a message would get through right away?

  As soon as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. Dylan checked his email compulsively throughout the day. It had been something they’d argued about when they were together. She hadn’t liked it when he’d pull out his phone and check for messages while they were out on a date. He always insisted that his big break could come at any time, and he wasn’t about to miss it. It rankled at the time, that he couldn’t just concentrate on her, not even for a night. But now, it could be a life-saver.

  She turned the ignition off again and grabbed the laptop, glad the Folly’s wifi reached into the parking area in the courtyard. The dot was moving through town, still heading in a westerly direction. She pulled up the email program and started a new email.

  Subject line: Catching a killer.

  ‘Dylan,’ the email said, ‘I’m following the killer. Call Toby. Have him track my phone. The password is the same as before. Lisa.’

  She hit send. Please let Dylan still be the same maniac about checking email, she thought.

  She closed the email program and looked at the dot on the map representing her phone. It was nearly at the state road, at the edge of town. Lisa pulled her seatbelt across her body and stopped when something jabbed into her hip. She let go of the belt and fished the prop gun out of her pocket.

  The dot on the tracking map was still moving, so Lisa opened the glove compartment and stuck the prop gun inside before buckling up. She put the car in gear and headed across town, trying to skate the line between fast enough and too fast.

  The sights of the town where she grew up, and where she and Dylan had met and courted, flew by the window. Lisa thought about how much they’d shared, everything from a first kiss to an apartment, to each other’s passwords.

  Pausing at a stop sign, Lisa snuck a look at the map on the laptop. Connecting to the Wi-Fi at the nearby library, the tracking program refreshed itself. The dot was already outside of town and heading through the national forest. Lisa turned onto the state road and followed, her foot just heavy enough to slowly close the distance.

  Snow started to fall, and more than once Lisa felt her tires slip for a second before gripping the road again. She eased off the gas. Speed wasn’t worth a potentially fatal accident.

  The snow fell more and more heavily. Lisa turned on the windshield wipers and eased up on the gas pedal. So far out of range of any open Wi-Fi connections, the dot on the laptop screen sat frozen in its last known location. A set of fresh tire tracks on the road before her told Lisa the fleeing car wasn’t far ahead. Downy flakes softened the tracks and made dazzling patterns in her headlights.

  Coming around a bend in the road, she beheld a frightening sight. The road curved but the set of tire marks continued straight, ending at a car stuck in the ditch. Lisa slowed her car to a crawl as she approached.

  The car door opened and a figure got out, waving its arms frantically at Lisa. She shivered, remembering the feeling of being stuck in a ditch and not knowing when or if she might be rescued.

  There was nothing else she could do. Lisa stopped the car and popped the locks.

  The figure approached the passenger side door. Lisa grabbed her laptop and slammed it shut, shoving it under her seat.

  The passenger side door opened and Gavin Jump’s smiling face appeared. What was he doing here?

  “Thanks for stopping. I didn’t know if anyone would be out here,” he said.

  Lisa stared at him. “Hi.”

  He blinked. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  Heart pounding and blood rushing to her face, Lisa tried to keep her tone light. “Oh, just taking a drive,” she said with a little laugh. “Same as you?”

  He pulled the door open further, and a swirl of snowflakes rushed into the warm interior of the car. Lisa tried not to cringe as he climbed into the car and closed the door again. The light from the dashboard gave his face an eerie glow. His silence made Lisa uneasy.

  “I don’t know if you’ll get cell service out here — it can be kind of spotty in the forest depending on your carrier — but if we head back toward town you can call for a tow,” she said with another nervous giggle.

  “What are you really doing out here?” he said, his voice flat.

  “N-nothing,” she stammered.

  He nodded, as though her nervousness confirmed a theory. “Drive.”

  “I’ll just look for a wide spot where I can do a K-turn, and—”

  “No, just drive.”

  “Gavin, um, what about your car?”

  He sighed. “You said there’s no cell service out here?”

  She nodded, hands tight on the wheel and eyes locked on the twin beams of yellow headlight illuminating the road ahead.

  “But I don’t know if I can trust that,” he mused. “G
ive me your phone.”

  “What?” She laughed again, cringing inside at the hysterical sound in her voice. “I left it at home.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He ignored her question and picked up her purse from the floorboards at his feet.

  The intimacy of a man going through her purse jolted her. “Hey!”

  He opened the purse and started removing its contents and dropping them in the back seat. Tissues, lipstick, hair ties, wallet, sunglasses, all dumped in the back seat.

  When it was clear he wouldn’t find a phone, he grunted in what sounded like mild surprise.

  “Gavin, are you ok?” Lisa said, hoping to elicit some form of ordinary conversation from the film director.

  “You really did leave it at home. I guess not every word out of a woman’s mouth is a lie.”

  “Um, girlfriend troubles?”

  He barked a mirthless laugh. “Can you really call someone a girlfriend if she’s just using you for your industry connections?”

  Lisa shrugged, not sure if it was meant as a rhetorical question. “Was it a recent breakup?”

  He looked at her with quiet contempt. “How long have you known about Serena and Kaden?” he said.

  “Serena?” Lisa could hear the surprise in her voice. “I didn’t know you two were, uh, you know...”

  “Just the way she wanted it. Pretty little film student wants some work experience, and flirts with the writer-director to get hired.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Joke’s on her. I would have hired her without the flirting.” His voice turned earnest. “She has real talent.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “But she couldn’t just trust me to hire her, she had to make me feel something. Was it just a game, Serena? Make me fall in love and then flaunt your fling with that actor in my face?”

  The anger in Gavin’s voice made Lisa shrink away from him.

  “Is that why she did it? To frame you?”

  “What? No, of course not. Only an idiot would think something like that.” He glared at her.

  She shook her head. “What, then? It really was just an accident?”

  He didn’t answer her, instead opening the glove box. She held her breath.

  “What’s this?” He took out the gray pistol and turned it over in his hands. “I guess you country types really do love your guns.”

  He pointed it at her.

  “What are you doing?” she squeaked.

  “Just drive,” he said, his voice gaining the certainty of a man holding a gun.

  Lisa held the wheel in a white-knuckled grip. She risked a glance over at Gavin. There was no hint in his expression that he could tell it was the missing prop gun from the set.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  “It’s the only thing I can do. I’m not going to give up my career over a no-account pretty boy like Nicolini.”

  “Give up your career? Of course not. You’re too talented for one movie to have much effect.”

  Gavin stared out the windshield at the falling snow. “He thought he could change the direction of my script. Force me to do reshoots.” He shook his head and muttered an obscenity.

  “Don’t you have to reshoot around him anyway?”

  “We already got his important scenes. The rest we can do with a body double,” he said. His voice sounded more like his usual self, discussing filmmaking. “A little careful editing, and no one can tell the difference. And with Serena’s little 27 Club film, now we’re talking about some real marketing power. A hit.”

  Lisa touched the brakes to avoid sliding as they went around a curve in the road. “Wait a minute,” she said, her voice a froggy croak. “It was you? You killed Kaden? Because he wanted you to reshoot some scenes of your movie? Are you insane?”

  “He had no right to tell me how to make my movie! No right to demand we go off schedule and over budget. He knew who loaned me the money to finance this project.”

  “Oh, the guy from Vegas,” Lisa breathed, pieces of the puzzle falling into place.

  “When I reminded him, he just laughed. The world is better off without a narcissist like him.”

  Gavin’s voice was sounding more heated again. Lisa’s heart pounded. Even if it wasn’t a real gun in his hand, she knew she was in danger.

  There was a muffled ding from under her seat. An incoming email on Lisa’s laptop. Lisa cringed, remembering that she’d connected to a Forest Service Wi-Fi that one time.

  “What was that?” Gavin demanded. “You lied to me. You do have your phone.”

  He leaned over the seat to search for the source of the noise.

  Lisa saw her chance. She slammed on the brakes, tossing him forward into the dashboard. Without a seatbelt on, he hit it hard, and lost his grip on the gun. She scrambled for it while he groaned and held his neck.

  “Ow, ow, ow. Why did you do that?” he whimpered.

  She got her hands on the prop pistol and breathed a sigh of relief. Hand shaky, she put the car in park.

  “I have the gun,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to use it. We’re going to sit here until the police arrive.”

  He whimpered again.

  “I’m sorry about your neck,” she added.

  They sat in silence, watching the fat snowflakes drift through the buttery yellow beams of the headlights. Lisa noticed Gavin eyeing the door.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said.

  “Recommend what?” he grumbled.

  “Trying to run for it. The woods are cold, the car is warm, and with this snow to leave tracks in, they’ll find you anyway.”

  He sat back, then winced as the motion twisted his neck.

  Minutes later, Lisa heaved a giant sigh of relief as red and blue flashing lights appeared in the rear view mirror.

  Chapter 28

  Toby’s police cruiser pulled up behind them, with Officer Handy in the next car. They got out of the car, guns drawn.

  Lisa rolled down her window and tossed the pistol outside, not wanting to invite any alarm from the police at the sight of it.

  “Open your doors and slowly step out of the vehicle!”

  Lisa and Gavin got out of the car and waited for Toby and Officer Handy to approach them.

  “Cuz, you are a maniac,” Toby said. He gave her a quick, hard hug. “Are you ok?”

  “Yeah. I am. But Gavin might have a neck injury.”

  “Hear that, Karen?” Toby called to Officer Handy. “Watch out for his neck.”

  A pickup truck pulled up behind the police cruisers a moment later. Lisa recognized it as Mo’s truck.

  The doors opened and Mo got out of the driver’s side. Lisa’s mouth fell open in shock when she saw Dylan get out of the passenger side.

  They rushed over, identical expressions of concern on their faces. She smiled at them apologetically.

  “You’re ok?” Mo said.

  “Is she ok?” Dylan said to Toby.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Scared, but otherwise fine,” she said.

  When Mo opened his arms for a hug, she fell into them gratefully. All the fear she’d been holding in since she’d found Gavin welled up in her breast. A tear slipped out to soak into the material of Mo’s jacket as he held her close and stroked her hair. She inhaled a shaky breath and chuckled a little as she noticed how his coat smelled like wet dog.

  “You scared me to death,” Mo said. “You can’t keep doing this.”

  Lisa gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “I know. I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t let a murderer get away.”

  Standing on the other side of the road, his arm firmly in Officer Handy’s grasp, Gavin glared at Lisa.

  “Ok, enough hugging and kissing,” Toby said. “This is a crime scene, and we’re going to need to interview witnesses.”

  Lisa’s teeth started to chatter as the wind picked up and blew snow into her face. “I never thought I’d
say this, but can we go down to the station instead?”

  Her cousin laughed. “Can’t handle a little snow,” he said, shaking his head. “Too many years in California.”

  “Toby!”

  “Sure, we can do your interview at the station. Mo, can you give her a ride back to town?”

  “What about my car?” Lisa protested.

  “We’re going to have to process it for evidence.”

  Lisa groaned. “How long will that take? How am I going to run the café, and get to the store, and go to set?”

  Dylan laughed and gestured at Gavin. “I don’t expect we’ll be filming with the director in jail.”

  “Oh. I knew that.”

  “Come on, let’s get you back to town,” Mo said. “You’re shaking.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Is the heater in your truck still broken?”

  “Nope. Fixed.”

  “Besides,” Dylan said, “you’ll be in between two hot guys.”

  He laughed at the shocked expression on her face. “Don’t worry. Me and Mo, we’re good now.”

  “You are?” She quirked an eyebrow and looked from him to Mo.

  Mo nodded. “He called me as soon as he got your email. You might say we’ve had a chance to get to know each other a little better tonight.”

  “Ok, then. Let’s go.”

  The ride back to town was warm, crowded, and still a little awkward, with Lisa squashed in between the two broad-shouldered men in the cab of Mo’s truck.

  “I guess you’re off the hook for the murder,” she said to Dylan as they passed the town limits sign.

  “Thanks to you,” he said. “Of course, I don’t know what this whole thing will do to my acting career.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are the most single-minded person I’ve ever met.”

  Dylan shrugged. “I know it’s not saving kittens and puppies, but it’s what I’m meant to do.”

  “I guess I can’t argue with that,” Lisa said.

  “I am sorry about the way things ended,” Dylan said. “But I think it was for the best that they did end. You weren’t happy in LA, and I couldn’t stand being the reason for that anymore.”