Smoke and Mirrors (30 page)

It was so dark in the dining room it looked as though Hartley had drawn a line of shadow across Brenda's throat. Tony didn't exactly find lines of shadow comforting, but they were infinitely preferable to the way the candlelight reflected off the liquid that flowed glistening down over the wardrobe assistant's chest.

Brenda's eyes widened. Her hand came up to clutch her throat. She gasped. Gurgled. Crumpled.

Lee surged forward, the movement blowing out his candle, and caught her before she hit the floor.

Tony stared past the two of them at Hartley who was turning the broken bottle so that the dark stain gleamed in the flickering flame of the candle melted onto the floor.

Murder.

Suicide . . .

This wasn't a replay. This was real life. Real death. Really happening.

Lee was yelling. Voices out in the hall were answering. Tony somehow managed to get to Hartley's side without his candle blowing out.

The boom operator looked over at him, blinked, and stammered, “Hate that d . . . d . . . damned music.” Then he tossed the broken glass aside and bent to pull another bottle from the cabinet.

Jamming his candle into one arm of the candelabra on the sideboard, Tony launched himself onto the older man's back. The rush of air blew both candles out.

Graham sat back on his heels and swiped at the beads of sweat on his forehead. “They're not answering.”

“Keep calling. They might just be distracted. We have no idea what's happening in there.” Henry frowned down at the medium's expression. “Do we?”

“Know someone named Brenda Turpin?”

Old wood shuddered as CB stepped up on the small porch. “She works for me.”

“
Worked
for you,” Graham corrected matter-of-factly. “She's dead.”

“Trapped?” Henry asked. “Like the others?”

“Well, I didn't feel her leave . . .”

“But you felt her die?”

He nodded. “And it wasn't pretty.”

“It never is.”

TONY WAS JUST
as glad that Hartley's howling protests were drowning out most of the noises Lee was making. Unable to see anything in the pitch-black dining room, he fought to hold down the struggling boom operator.

“What is going
on
in here?”

As Tina's irritated question followed the light from the second lantern into the room, Tony shifted back and pinned Hartley's arms with his knees. The howling stopped and Lee's cries faded to pained gasping for breath. It might have been Lee . . .

It might have been Brenda.

“Holy crap.” Amy's quiet observation held horror enough that Tony managed to twist around to see the women grouped in the doorway staring down at Lee holding Brenda crumpled across his lap. Tony could only see the curve of his back and Brenda's legs, but Lee looked broken and Brenda far too still.

“Lots of blood!” Brianna pushed between Amy's and Tina's hips. “Is she dead?”

“I don't . . . she isn't . . . I can't . . .” Lee shook his head, hair flicking back and forth with the violence of his denial, then he curled even more tightly around the body.

Not Brenda.

The body.

Amy stepped forward as Peter, Zev, and Adam pushed in from the hall. Zev took one look at the tableau and grabbed the girls, pulling them back out of the dining room.

“I already saw!” Brianna protested.

“Then you can get out of the way,” Zev told her calmly. “Ashley, Mason stayed in the circle; maybe you should go sit with him so he's not alone.”

“Her heart's not beating,” Amy murmured over the sound of Ashley leaving. “It was fast, Lee, there was nothing you could do. The carotid artery was cut. Wound like this, you bleed out in less than three minutes.”

“How do you know?”

Tony could hear hope in Lee's question and maybe, just maybe, a slight relaxing together of all the bits and pieces he'd become.

“I saw it on a television show.” Amy sat back on her heels, and Tony could just see her face over the black line of Lee's shoulder. Somehow the magenta hair and heavily mascaraed eyes lent weight to her explanation. This was death. Goth girls knew about death. Right?

“It was the same situation,” she continued solemnly, “except it was a gunshot and not a wardrobe assistant, but the same wound. Bled out in less than three. There was . . .” She gripped his shoulder, the black tips on magenta nails disappearing against his jacket. “. . . nothing you could do.”

“Why was there nothing Tony could do, then?” Kate drawled. “He's supposed to be on top of all this.”

“Hello.” Amy ground out the word through clenched teeth. “He's sitting on the perp.”

“Too little, too late. And I think . . .”

“No one gives a flying fuck what you think!” Without rising or releasing her hold on Lee's shoulder, she swiveled around. “Peter!”

Given the director's reaction, Tony could imagine Amy's expression.

“Yeah. Right. Uh, Kate, be quiet, you're not helping. Lee, let Brenda go, and we'll carry her in and lay her beside Tom.”

“What do we do with Hartley?”

And once again, Tony found himself at the center of attention.

Hartley, his right cheek flattened against the floor, glared up at him with one bloodshot eye.

“Duct tape.”

“Kate, that's not . . .” Peter paused and Tony all but heard everyone considering it. “Actually, that's a good idea.”

Once Mouse arrived in the dining room, Hartley stopped struggling. Given their relative sizes, there wasn't much point and Hartley was generally not an aggressive drunk. Tony slipped back and let the larger man flip Hartley over and effortlessly cocoon his arms to his sides.

“Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it?” Mouse moaned the words over and over as he moved down Hartley's body and began to tape his legs together. No longer needed, Tony stood and backed away. He didn't understand the look Mouse shot him. He wasn't sure he wanted to. The cameraman had been double shadow-held.
If Mouse snaps, we're fucking doomed.

“Why did he do it?” Tina wiped tears off her cheeks with the flat of her hand, unaware she was repeating Mouse's quiet mantra. “I can't remember Brenda ever saying more than two words to him.”

“It wasn't him,” Tony reminded her wearily. He stepped back as Adam and Lee lifted Brenda—Amy covering her face and the ruin of her throat with Lee's tuxedo jacket. “It was the house. Nothing that's happened here tonight is anyone's fault. The thing in the basement is using us. Manipulating us.”

“And there's nothing we can do?”

“Survive until morning.” He wasn't aware he was clutching his throat until he saw the direction of Kate's scowl. Forced his hand back to his side. Put them both in his pockets just in case.

“You didn't cover his mouth,” Peter observed as Mouse hauled Hartley upright and slung him over his shoulder, duct tape creaking ominously.

“Nose is plugged.”

“And you're afraid he'll suffocate?”

“Let him,” Kate muttered as Mouse grunted an assent.

“All right. That is it from you!” Tina blew her nose and turned on the younger woman, her words emerging with the kind of distinct enunciation achieved only by nuns and senior NCOs. “I am sick and tired of your attitude, young lady. From now on, you will either have something constructive to say or you will keep your mouth shut. Am I understood?”

Even the house seemed to be waiting for Kate's answer.

Tony had gone to a Catholic elementary school and lessons learned under the steely-eyed glare of the older nuns lingered. Apparently, Kate had also had involuntary responses installed by the Sister Mary Magdalenes of the world.

“Yes, ma'am.” Strangely, she looked almost peaceful as she turned to follow Tina into the hall.

She knows who's in charge,
Tony realized, stepping out of Mouse's way. He picked up the two candles, his and Hartley's, and waited for Peter, who held the lantern, to leave the room.

But the director stood staring down at the dark puddle on the floor, apparently unaware that the others had left. He moved the light back and forth, mesmerized by the reflection of the flame. After a long moment, he sighed. “That's way too much blood, people. Let's try and keep it realistic.”

“Peter?”

“You may know what's happening, but you're not responsible for any of this, Tony.” His voice was low, too low to be overheard by anyone more than an arm's length away. “I am. That's why I get the big bucks.”

Peter, as much as Tina, was the voice of reason. She couldn't hold them in place alone. He couldn't slip.

Tony snorted. “CB pays big bucks?”

The older man started, stared at him for a moment, then he snorted in turn. “Relatively speaking. Come on, they'll need the light.”

They left Hartley lying inside the circle of salt staring sullenly at the ceiling. The pair of candles lit so Peter could carry the lantern into the dining room were left burning, the second lantern blown out so as not to waste the kerosene, and everyone followed Brenda's body into the drawing room.

They set her down next to Tom. Lee's hands were visibly shaking as he released her shoulders and straightened. Although Adam moved to join the others, he remained standing over her, facing away from the group, the back of his dress shirt a brilliant white like a beacon reflecting the lantern light.

I should go to him. He needs . . .
Except that Tony had no idea what he needed.

It was Mason who finally broke the tableau. Mason, who had made vested self-interest a cornerstone of his personality, stepped forward until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Lee and offered him a cigarette.

Lee looked down at Mason's hand, up at his face, and almost smiled. “No thanks, I don't smoke.”

“Good.” He slipped the cigarette back into his jacket pocket. “Because it's my last one.”

Almost became actually and Lee's teeth flashed as he shook his head. “Jackass.”

“And I thought you gay guys were supposed to be the sensitive ones,” Amy muttered, so close to his ear her breath lapped warm against his skin.

He'd have suggested she bite him, but given the distance . . .

As Lee turned, he almost seemed to be searching for something. Someone. His eyes locked on Tony's face just for an instant and, for that instant, flashed . . . relief? Tony was too distracted by the dark stain dimming the brightness of his shirtfront to be sure. By the time he looked up again, Lee was moving away from the body and Amy was moving toward it and Zev's hand was around his arm. A quick squeeze. And gone.

“Is anyone going to say words over the body?” Amy asked as she worked off her two remaining rings.

“No one said anything over Tom,” Adam pointed out.

“Yeah, well, Tom took us by surprise.”

“And we expected
this
?”

Amy's arched brow was answer enough. She waited. “Fine. I'll do it.” A deep breath. A glance down at the bodies, the rings jingling in one hand. “To the living, death sucks. But to the dead, it's just another stop on the journey. Have a nice trip.”

“That was . . .” Tina began.

“. . . stupid,” Ashley finished. “Because they're not going anywhere, they're just trapped in the house like all the other dead people.”

“You think you can do it better?”