Kilty Secrets

by Amy Vansant

  “I’m here about the missing person,” said Catriona, realizing Sean had never given her a name.

  The man stared down his nose at her and then glanced at his clipboard. “Name?”

  “What’s your name?” she asked, hoping to turn the tables.

  The young man pursed his lips. “Greg. I need your name to crosscheck it against the list.” He emphasized the word crosscheck as if it were a weapon.

  “I’m afraid crosschecking isn’t the answer. My name isn’t on there. I’m Catriona Phoenix. I work for the studio. You called me.”

  Greg scoffed. “I didn’t call you.”

  “Not you, personally. You, as in the show. Someone here called Sean and then Sean called me.”

  Greg’s gaze dropped to his clipboard once more. “Last name of this Sean person?”

  Catriona dug her nails into her palms and tried not to lose her patience. Her head throbbed, making it twice as hard not to lose her mind on the boy with the inflated sense of importance. Crafty People was a new show, inspired by the popularity of HGTV and other ‘homey’ shows and networks. She knew little about it, which was a good thing. Generally, when she had to pay attention to a show, something was going horribly wrong.

  She spotted a camera man strolling by with a plate full of eggs and bacon from craft services.

  “John!” she called. He turned at the sound of his name. Upon seeing her, his face cracked into a grin.

  “Hey, Cat. What are you doing here?”

  “One of your hosts is missing?”

  John nodded. “Yeah. Dixie. I think they’ve been looking for her a while now.”

  She motioned to Greg. “Can you tell him I’m legit?”

  John turned his attention to the boy. “She’s legit. She works here.”

  Greg frowned. “She’s not on the list. I don’t really know you either, for that matter. How do I know she works here and you’re not working together?”

  Catriona laughed. “Working together? Why? So I can sneak in and get my macramé plant holder autographed?”

  John dipped his head to peer over his sunglasses. “Because if you don’t let her in, you won’t be working here much longer. That’ll be your tipoff we both work here.”

  Greg seemed to pale a shade as he turned the clipboard toward Catriona. “Fine. But I need you to sign—”

  Catriona was already several steps past him before he could finish his sentence. She headed toward a man sitting in a director’s chair wearing headphones, watching something on a small screen.

  She glanced behind her to be sure Greg didn’t give Broch a hard time. Greg tilted to the left as if to block the Scot and then thought better of it and bounced back to the right.

  “Ah nae in the mood,” grumbled Broch as he closed the gap between himself and Catriona.

  She smiled. At least Broch’s displeasure with her could be channeled into useful work-related crankiness.

  She approached the man in the chair.

  “You the director?” she asked.

  He didn’t flinch, so she waved her hand in front of his eyes. He pulled off his earphones.

  “Yeah?” He stared at her face, peering over his readers, his eyebrows knit. She suspected he was curious about her battered appearance, but after a moment he looked away to make it clear he wouldn’t be asking questions.

  “I’m Catriona. Sean called me. You have a missing host?”

  The man’s expression changed and he smiled with what looked like relief. “Oh, great. I’m Jake Hastings.” He shook Catriona’s hand and glanced up at Broch. “Whoa. Big man on campus.”

  “Brochan.” The Highlander held out his enormous paw and folded it around the small-boned director’s hand like a loaf of bread swallowing a muffin.

  “You’ve got someone missing?” asked Catriona.

  Jake nodded. “The second host.”

  “The likable one,” mumbled a young woman sitting to Jake’s left. His gaze darted in her direction without his head following and he offered Catriona an embarrassed smile.

  “She is sweet. Pretty. Name’s Dixie. She’s got that sex-appeal-without-trying thing. Sexy but women like her, too. It’s rare.”

  Catriona nodded. “Girl-next-door pretty. A Mary Ann.”

  “Exactly. Only with Ginger’s body.”

  “Ew,” said the girl.

  From her repulsion at the idea of Jake noticing Dixie’s body, Catriona guessed the girl to be his daughter.

  “Any idea where Dixie might be? Did she leave any word?”

  “No. She just didn’t come into work and today was a big shoot day for her. She knew it, and she’s not the sort to blow off work.”

  “Any drug or alcohol issues?”

  “If there are, she hides them well.”

  “Last one to see her?”

  “From here, probably Maddie, the other host.”

  “The unlikable one,” mumbled the girl.

  Jake twisted in his chair to look at her.

  “Why don’t you go get me some coffee?”

  The girl looked up from her phone, glanced at Catriona and Broch and huffed before standing. Her shoulders were so loose Catriona could almost hear her bones jangling as she sauntered away.

  Jake watched her go. “Sorry. My daughter. I’ve got her shadowing me, working as my assistant but she’s got opinions.”

  Catriona smirked. “At that age nothing’s an opinion. Everything’s a fact.”

  Jake chuckled. “Isn’t that the truth.”

  “She doesn’t like Maddie?”

  The director grimaced. “She thinks she’s fake. Do you know her? Maddie?”

  “Should I?”

  “She got famous on YouTube making things out of trash, basically. She’s got a real bubblegum, sticky-sweet personality online that clicked with the younger gen, but in real life she can be a little intense.”

  “Intense, how?”

  “I dunno. Everything has to be right, you know? Real type A.”

  “She and Dixie get along?”

  “They seem too but...” Jake nodded his head back and forth, seeming to look for the words. “I don’t know. You’d have to see them together. Maddie was real sweet to Dixie—I’ve heard they carpooled, which is why I think she might have been the last to see her—but I’d catch Maddie looking at her sometimes like—”

  “Like she’s trying to figure out how to make her explode with her mind,” said the director’s daughter appearing behind him with a cup of coffee in hand.

  Jake jumped at the sound of his daughter’s voice and took the Parasol Pictures’ mug from her. “Go find something to do.”

  The girl shrugged and wandered off.

  Jake searched for somewhere to set his mug and then, giving up, rested it on his knee. “She isn’t wrong. It did look like Maddie was wishing Dixie gone.”

  “Where can we find Maddie?”

  “She should be in her trailer over there.” Jake motioned toward a group of trailers sitting at the far left edge of the lot.

  Catriona turned to find Broch had moved several feet away to commandeer a large camera. He had it pointed at her.

  “Ah kin see the wee holes in yer face,” he said.

  Catriona turned away. She doubted he’d discovered how to roll film, but the last thing she needed was a permanent record of her swollen lip and every pore in her face.

  “My assistant,” she said to Jake, and he chuckled.

  “So you feel my pain.”

  “I do. Thanks. Anything else you can think to share that could help?”

  “No. But if I think of anything I’ve got Sean’s number.”

  “That’ll work.”

  Catriona glanced over her shoulder and motioned to Broch to follow her. When he didn’t move, she put her hand in front of her face and beckoned with her finger. His head bobbed from behind the camera.

  “Eh?”

  “We’re going.”

  “Ach. Richt.” He tipped an invisible cap at Jake and followed her
toward the trailers.

  They traversed the lot, passing a large, brightly lit cross-section of a fake room packed with nine wooden workstations. On the walls hung every tool imaginable and shelves containing bags of glitter, bottles of glue, spray-adhesive, construction paper and other craft-building paraphernalia.

  She glanced up at Broch as he strode beside her.

  “You liked the camera?”

  “Aye. Ye cuid see things far away like a spyglass.”

  He answered with enthusiasm and Catriona smiled, turning her head so he wouldn’t see.

  He’s forgotten he’s mad at me.

  They reached the trailer with “Maddie” written on a whiteboard pressed to the door and Catriona knocked. A moment later, an attractive dark-haired woman with bright red lipstick opened the door. Catriona guessed her to be about twenty-five. She had the broad smile and flashy teeth of a person who looked good on camera. Her hair was rolled into a fifties-style hairdo, with a thick fringe of dark bangs across her forehead. All she needed was a red dress with big white polka dots to complete the look. Glancing past her into the trailer, Catriona could see she owned at least one.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi. My name is Catriona. This is Broch. We’re looking for your co-host and we’ve been told you might have been the last to see her?”

  Maddie put her hand on her chest. “Me? I doubt that.” She walked down the short flight of stairs to join them outside, shutting the trailer door behind her. Smoothing her oversized black t-shirt over her black tights, she looked up at Broch and flashed him a demure smile before turning her attention back to Catriona. “Who said that?”

  “We heard you carpooled sometimes?”

  “Oh.” Maddie nodded her head, as if that explained everything. “Right. I picked her up a few times.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And you took her home?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this morning?”

  “I came in by myself this morning. It wasn’t a regular thing. Just a way to get to know her, you know? So we could bond for the show and our on camera relationship could feel genuine.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  Maddie’s expression flashed with annoyance before shifting to open-eyed confusion.

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘so the relationship could feel genuine.’ As if there was no way it actually would be, but you wanted to be sure you faked it well.”

  Maddie laughed and all traces of vexation disappeared from her demeanor. “Oh, no, that’s not how I meant it. I meant so we could get to know each other and become friends and then that would show on camera.”

  “So you considered yourself friends with her?”

  “Yes. I mean, we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks but sure. She was swell.”

  “Is.”

  “Huh?”

  “She is swell.”

  “Right. What did I say?”

  “Was.”

  “I meant was swell to me during the friending process.”

  “Gotcha.” Catriona chewed at her lip, wondering what question she could ask to trigger another response like Maddie’s last. The craft star hadn’t seemed flustered after being called out for using the past tense. Maybe it was nothing.

  Maybe Maddie was a seasoned liar.

  “So you don’t know where she is?” asked Catriona.

  “Nope. I’m sure she’s fine. Might have had a call back for another opportunity. Actors hide things like that all the time. You think they’ve gone missing or caught the flu and the next thing you know, they’ve left to join another cast.”

  “Is there any reason to believe she might want to leave this show?”

  “No.”

  “Was her job in danger here?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. We do have two hosts. Maybe she wanted to be solo lead somewhere else. Who knows?” Maddie reached for the knob on the door of her trailer, a move that made Catriona feel as though she’d been dismissed.

  Catriona felt Broch’s presence behind her and glanced back. The Highlander loomed over her shoulder, staring down at Maddie, his mouth a straight, grim line. His right eye squinted, as if he were trying to bore a laser through the woman’s head with his left.

  “What’s up with you?” she muttered.

  He grunted and crossed his arms against his chest.

  Maddie’s megawatt smile dimmed a shade. “Is that all? I have to get ready. I think we’re going to shoot around her.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Maddie nodded, glanced once at Broch and disappeared inside the trailer.

  “What was up with the death stare?” Catriona asked Broch as they started back across the lot.

  “She doesnae lik’ her.”

  “Maddie doesn’t like Dixie?”

  “Nae. And her smile is lik’ a mask.”

  “In all fairness, around here it’s hard to tell sometimes. Everyone’s always pretending to be someone else. It’s Hollywood.”

  “Aye. Ah’ve seen as much. Bit, did ye see she didnae lik’ ye implying thay weren’t friends, bit whin ye said it plain tae her they weren’t—she smiled even mair. Ye caused nae pique.”

  Catriona nodded, impressed he’d noticed. She’d seen that flash of annoyance on Maddie’s face when she implied the women didn’t get along, but when she’d pushed on, and actually said their friendship might be fake, Maddie seemed less annoyed. That was the part where most people would have been the most angry. Instead, Maddie dropped a gear.

  Catriona suspected she knew why, and could tell Broch felt the same thing.

  Maddie had had time to prepare.

  The first question caught her off-guard, but then she knew Catriona was suspicious. She knew better than to be visibly annoyed and raise more suspicion, so she turned on that ridiculously toothy grin to appease her accusers.

  She was a practiced liar.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” she said, bumping her hip against Broch’s upper thigh.

  He grinned. “Aye. And ah ken ye set her up to fail.”

  Catriona put her hand on her chest. “Me? Would I do that to a studio asset?”

  “Ye ken she’s hiding something.”

  “I do.”

  “Me tae. Ye ken she did something tae the lass?”

  Catriona drew her lips into a tight knot and thought about his question.

  “I don’t know. It’s a far leap from jealousy to murdering your cohost because she stepped on your line.”

  “Stepped oan yer line?”

  “Talked over your time to speak. Your line in the play, so to speak.”

  “Och. Sae whit next?”

  Catriona pointed toward craft services. “I thought I’d—”

  “—ask the cooks if thay saw anythin’?”

  Catriona stopped and put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at Broch. “Did you just step on my line?”

  He chuckled and walked on, the bounce in his step betraying how clever he thought he was.

  Catriona talked to a few more people on set, but no one seemed to know where Dixie might be. They all seemed to like her more than Maddie, though, that much she was able to divine.

  Catriona called Sean.

  “No sign of her, no one has a clue.”

  Sean grunted. “I was hoping she’d just show up by now.”

  “Should I grab her address from the office and swing by her house for a peek?”

  “Yes. I suppose so. When you’re done with that can you come by here?”

  “Where’s here? Please don’t tell me your house.”

  “My house. I’ll make you dinner.”

  Catriona groaned. “You’ll have to. We’ll be on the road for days trying to get to you.”

  “It’s less than an hour. We need to talk and I’d rather not do it near the studio or Fiona.”

  Catriona stretched her aching shoulder.

  Does no one realize I migh
t need a day off?

  They did need to talk, though. There were way too many time-travelly things going on and she felt as if she was losing track of all the threads. With Fiona hanging around and Rune possibly still in the area, now wasn’t the time to fall behind.

  And anyway, all she had to look forward to at home was Fiona.

  “Fine. What about Fiona? I left her at my apartment, but she can’t stay so close to Broch. It triggers the scar she gave him.”

  “Right. I forgot about that. What about the guest suite?”

  “That’s what Broch suggested.”

  “He thinks that’s far enough?”

  “He said it stops itching when she leaves the room.”

  “Okay. Let’s do that then.”

  “Will do. We’ll go check out Dixie’s place and then swing by your house. Dinner better be fantastic.”

  “You like frozen pizza, right?”

  Catriona hung up to call the Parasol Pictures office and retrieve Dixie’s address. The co-host lived in a townhouse complex with which Catriona was familiar. A lot of their new actors started there before collecting a few paychecks and moving up—or having their show cancelled and moving out. It was always one or the other.

  They found Dixie’s front door locked. Broch pressed his face to the window and tried to peer past the curtains.

  “Are we goan in?”

  Catriona shook her head and took a spot beside him. They couldn’t see much but what they could spy didn’t look like anything they needed to worry about.

  “No. We can’t just break in. She isn’t officially missing yet. She could have just had a family emergency or something.”

  They walked around Dixie’s end unit to the back. Catriona tried the door to find it locked. She was headed back to the car when Broch called her back. He motioned to the door as she rounded the corner.

  “’Tis open.”

  “What?”

  She moved back to the stoop and saw the door handle, which had been firmly mounted a moment earlier, hanging loosely from the door by one long screw.

  “Did you break that?”

  Broch’s eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “Hm?”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Whit? T’was open. Ye just didnae turn it hard enough.”