Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (27 page)

Um, clearly not.

The one time he
wanted
his mom hovering over him, she was at the beauty parlor. He might have relished the irony if, you know, he didn’t have to pee like a racehorse. Mitchell considered invoking his rights and asking for an attorney, but he knew how that looked. If they didn’t already suspect you, asking for a lawyer sealed your guilt. Besides, his parents had taken out a second mortgage just to afford his doctoral studies. They couldn’t afford the five-hundred-dollars-an-hour fee, plus the retainer. And a public defender? Yeah, Mitchell had watched enough
Law & Order
to know that he was probably doing a better job then that.

Just as Mitchell was about to ask to go to the bathroom again, the door jerked open. A man in a suit followed the police lieutenant into the room. The new guy was definitely a Fed. Sure, he had on the same cheap suit and close-cut hair as the lieutenant, but his attitude? Oh, he owned the room. This guy was used to going anywhere he wanted and getting his way.

“This is Special Agent Derek Boulder,” the lieutenant explained.

Bingo
. Mitchell was good. Well, and he’d seen
Silence of the Lambs
enough times to understand protocol.

“Great ... Just great ...” mumbled the detective.

Ha. The locals never liked it when the FBI interfered. This would have been thrilling, if, you know, he wasn’t the suspect in custody.

“Johnson, give them a few minutes,” said the lieutenant.

The detective scowled at Special Agent Boulder before he exited the room. The lieutenant closed the door and propped a shoulder against the wall. Guess he couldn’t count on his detective to stay out.

“And you are here because. . .?” Mitchell asked the agent.

“I'm investigating the deaths surrounding
Terror in the Trees
.”

“Finally!” Mitchell threw his head back and raised his hands to the ceiling. “Have you figured out what happened to Elmore?”

The agent studied Mitchell up and down, like some kind of
Terminator
body scan. “We were hoping you could clear that up for us.”

Mitchell rolled his eyes and tossed his hands up in the air.
Here we go again
.

“I didn’t kill Elmore!” Mitchell exclaimed. He choked back a sob. “He was my friend. Whoever killed Elmore is still out there. You’ve got to believe me.”

An image flashed of blood, so much blood. What if the killer came back because he thought Mitchell saw something? They always go after the witness. To tie up loose ends and stuff. Was he going to be another of
Terror in the Trees
’ victims?

“I'd love to.” Agent Boulder braced his hands on the table, leaning his body toward Mitchell. “Why don’t you start with why you were at the studio so early?”

“I ...” Mitchell swiped at his eyes. “I was working on my doctoral thesis.”

The agent raised an eyebrow. “
That
early?”

“Elmore had to rush-edit the film for the premiere tonight.”

Mitchell could remember how excited he had been. Back when he wasn’t in an orange jumpsuit being grilled by an FBI agent. He shifted in his seat, trying to find a position that didn’t stress his bladder.

“When you got there, did you see anyone else around?” Boulder asked.

“No. But the security cameras in the halls should show everyone who was down there.”

“What did they show?” the agent asked the lieutenant.

The officer shifted, scratching his head nervously. “Um ... I’m not sure if we have reviewed them completely yet.”

“What?” Boulder’s eyes narrowed on the lieutenant. Mitchell squirmed even though the lieutenant was the one getting the Darth Vader stare.

“We didn’t think ... since he was covered in blood ... it seemed an open-and-shut case.” The lieutenant tried to justify the department’s actions. “All we needed was a confession.”

“Oh, great!” Mitchell cried. “I’m a little preoccupied being a murder suspect, and I have to do your job, too!” How was it that the cops didn’t even look at the tapes? What exactly had they been doing for the last two hours? Plus, Mitchell felt about a hundred times braver with the special agent glaring at the lieutenant.

“Perhaps you should think about bringing those tapes in here,” Derek said. When the lieutenant shuffled his feet, the special agent barked, “Pronto!”

If Mitchell were gay he would have fallen in love with Boulder right then and there. If Kyle MacLachlan from
Twin Peaks
and Tommy Lee Jones from
The Fugitive
ever had a love child, it would be Special Agent Boulder.

Maybe
now
Mitchell could go to the bathroom.

* * *

Amanda paced back and forth in the conference room, chewing the edges of her expensive, manicured nails. Damn it, she’d chipped the forty-five-dollars-a-bottle nail polish. She thought that she had broken the habit. Fifteen thousand dollars in hypnotist bills said she had, but here she was gnawing away like a seven-year-old.

But who could blame her? How could it be her fault that the arrogant FBI agent had decided to impound her film? No matter how she tried to justify it, she still felt as though her father’s ghost gazed down upon her, demanding that she “fix it.” That had always been his mantra. If she had been bullied at school or had lost her lunch money, his only response had been, “fix it.”

But how could she fix
this
? If she lost the studio to creditors … Her entire legacy, her entire family’s legacy, would be lost.

Her vice president rushed into her office. “Look, I haven’t even sealed the
Truth or Scare
deal. I just need a few more—”

“They want to impound the film!” Amanda replied as she resumed biting her nails. “
Terror in the Trees
. The FBI wants to confiscate it.”

“What?” Howie stammered. “Why?”

“It’s that damn Mulder-wannabe.”

This was
all
Jill’s fault. Like Amanda didn’t know that the FBI agent knocking on the studio’s door was the same exact agent whom Jill had left at the altar. Was he doing this to punish his ex-fiancée? Did his reason really matter? Right now, she needed to figure out a way to salvage her opening.

“What about Ms. Connor? The premiere? The
president
?” Howie fidgeted with the cuffs on his shirt. Probably worried about his own bonus.

“Jill’s out of the loop.”

“But ...”

“Her entire studio doesn’t ride on this film,” Amanda snapped, wanting so badly to put that fingernail back between her teeth.

“There’s still that Charlie Sheen project coming up for auction ...” Howie suggested.

“Charlie? In a romantic comedy about mimes?”

Howie might get an A for ass-kissing. However, he got an F for not using his brains at all.

“So, what are we going to do?” he asked.

“The premiere will go on,” Amanda announced. Her will was resolved. She would do her bootlegging ancestors proud. “We can’t miss this chance. Not with
POTUS
making an appearance.”

“How are you going to go around the FBI?”

“Who said I was going
around
them?” If only Amanda could see the look on that agent’s face when she was done. “I’m going
through
them.”

“But the film?” Howie asked, his eyes darting, trying to catch up.

“They can’t impound what can’t be found.”

“Huh?”

“A copy of the film was stolen once,” Amanda explained, relishing the plan. “What’s to stop someone from stealing the original?”

She really should credit Jill for the idea. The whole stolen film on the day of the premiere would generate some great publicity. Too bad that Jill wouldn’t be around to bask in the glory.

“You mean ...?”

Amanda sat down at her desk, the impulse to chew at her nails long forgotten. Folding her hands, she placed her index fingers at her lips.

“We’re gonna steal our own film.”

“Who could you hire to do that?

Poor Howie. Always so slow on the uptake. Amanda steadied her gaze on her vice president as a slow, satisfied smile crept across her face.

“Oh, shit ...” he replied.

CHAPTER 8

Hold it together
, Jill thought.
Hold it together
.

Jill stared down at the text sent from Amanda’s
assistant
.

You. Are. Fired. So sad. Too bad.

She doubted that Amanda had instructed that last part, or maybe she did. To say that their last conversation had gone well was to say that Kate Gosselin’s career was on the rise.

Nausea rolled over Jill as her head throbbed.

Fired
.

Don’t cry. Don’t puke. Don’t swoon.

Breathe. This will work itself out.

Yeah, right
.

Amanda would make sure that never happened. If the premiere got canceled and
Terror in the Trees
took a nosedive, taking an entire studio down with it, that would be Jill’s fault. If somehow the film ended up doing well, Amanda would assert that it only did so by being rid of Jill’s “bad vibe.”

For as intellectual a town as Hollywood tried to appear, it was also as superstitious as a prosecutor at a Salem witch trial. Everyone was already on edge, waiting to see if
Terror in the Trees
tipped the balance of power. Would this be another
Blair Witch
or
Jaws 3-D
?

If Amanda could convince the other studios that the poor opening was because Jill had “jinxed” the project … well …

And it seemed that she was already jinxed. Jill had put in a call to every major studio head and hadn’t received so much as an auto-respond email back. News spread like wildfire in the Hollywood Hills. If something didn’t change, and change quickly, she could forget ever working in Tinseltown again. Even Vancouver would be out of her reach. As a matter of fact, she doubted if even her old ska bands would take her calls.

Every muscle in her body wanted to carry her home for a hot bath and a good cry. Carry her far from
Terror in the Trees
and Derek. Not necessarily in that order. But what would that accomplish? That she tucked her tail between her legs and went back to promoting pizza joints?

Nausea lurked at the back of her throat again. Just thinking of Derek and the way he strode back into her life, creating havoc and undermining her career as if it were three years ago.

Breathe
, she reminded herself.

Besides, if she were being honest, the entire
Terror in the Trees
campaign had gone off the tracks as soon as they launched it. If anything, having Derek here, with his pit bull tendencies, could work in her favor.

If anyone could figure out what was really happening, Derek could.

And if that exonerated her in the process, so be it.

That is, if she could convince her stomach to stay in one place.

* * *

Derek studied Mitchell, trying to get a read on him. The kid was definitely terrified. His face was as pale as the concrete wall behind him. The pulse in his neck pounded with each heartbeat.

He also knew that the kid was lying, though. Not about the murder. Not the way Mitchell’s face lit up when Derek mentioned the surveillance tape. Guilty people seldom liked video proof of their guilt.

But if Mitchell wasn’t lying about the murder, then what was he hiding?

Sure, the kid ate up all that fake blood and gore from horror movies. But once it became real life, the kid looked like, well, like they were lucky he hadn’t wet himself already.

The door opened as the lieutenant wheeled in a cart with a small TV and DVR machine. The squeaky wheels only added to the tension in the room. Jill followed him. Her eyes red rimmed. Her bottom lip tugged between her teeth. Derek knew that look. He had caused it too many times to count. But he couldn’t worry about her right now. Not with the president attending the premiere tonight. Derek was on the clock.

As the lieutenant popped the DVD into the machine, Derek pulled up a chair and sat down next to Mitchell.

“This is your last chance to tell us what happened before we see for ourselves,” Derek explained.

But the kid shook his head. “The tape is going to show everything exactly like I said.”

“Are there any others involved?” Derek asked, but he feared that Mitchell was right. There was no way this scrawny kid cut off anybody’s head. Maybe he had been used as a decoy. Someone needed his credentials to get into the building and the editing suite.

“Is anyone paying attention?” Mitchell demanded, as his eyes darted around the room. “I don’t know what’s going on. But it has something to do with that film.” Mitchell closed his eyes, inhaling a shaky breath. “The way it lashed out at Elmore ... almost like it was attacking him.”