“You want to use me as bait?” Mia’s voice rose to a level of shrill just slightly below dog whistle.
“No, no, ” I reassured her. “He’ll only think it’s you.”
“I’m the bait, ” Dana said proudly.
Mia gave her a slow up-and-down and made a face. “You seriously think someone would mistake you for me?”
“They mistook Veronika for you, ” I reminded her.
She sucked in her cheeks, thinking this over. “What do you need me to do?”
I felt my stomach lurch-maybe at the relief of getting her cooperation (no small hurdle, as the last week had taught me), or maybe at the thought that we were actually going to go through with this Lucy-and-Ethel scheme.
“All we need you to do is stay away from your trailer tonight.”
Mia frowned. “Why?”
“I’ll pretend I’m you, ” Dana chimed in, “and after we wrap, I’ll go into the trailer, seemingly alone. Only Maddie will be watching from the bushes, ready to call for help as soon as the killer appears. But if he sees two of us, well, he’ll know I’m a fake. So we need you to stay out of sight.”
“Can you do that?” I asked.
Mia nodded slowly. “All right. You really think this will work?” she asked, watching me carefully under her sculpted brows.
I took a deep breath. “I hope so.”
The rest of the day passed in slow motion as I hid out in the talent trailer, drinking coffee, playing solitaire on the tiny laptop computer, and feeling the bundle of nerves in my stomach escalate higher than the price tag on a pair of Blahnik originals. I diligently ignored the piling messages on my voice mail from Felix, all of them promising bodily harm if anything happened to his Neon, and none of them using language I could repeat in polite company. But they paled in comparison to the escalating threats from Ramirez. He’d gone from a peeved, “Where the hell are you?” last night to this afternoon’s growling, “Goddammit, Maddie, call me or I swear to God I’m going to…” Then it trailed off into Spanish curse words. I almost felt bad. I almost gave in and dialed his number. Almost. If he had any inkling I was within ten feet of the set, he’d probably cuff me to a radiator somewhere and throw away the key.
Instead I kept a close eye on the windows, watching for any sign of Bad Cop or his buddies in blue. None. Though my heart leaped into my throat when I saw a swish of black hair disappear into Blake’s trailer. I think I forgot to breathe for two full minutes until Kylie skipped out, wearing the black wig for her scene as Tina Rey’s evil twin sister from Baltimore.
By the time the sky was beginning to turn a dusky blue, I was nursing my fifth cup of coffee and my nerves were strung tighter than Felix’s wallet.
“Hey, ” Dana said, popping her head in the door.
I yelped, spilling coffee on my wrist. “Geez, you scared me.”
“Oops, sorry. Next time I’ll knock.”
I wiped at the coffee with a napkin. “You finished?”
Dana nodded, stifling a yawn. “Yep, we’re done blocking. Ricky and Mia are shooting their last scene, and then we’re a wrap.”
And Operation Bait was a go. I felt those nerves do another flip and sipped at my drink.
Dana stretched and yawned into her hand. “Man, I am beat. Any more of that left?” she asked, gesturing to my cup.
“I’ll make a new pot. Stand-in work more tiring than you thought?” I asked, slipping a filter into the Mr. Coffee in the tiny kitchenette.
Dana nodded. “It’s exhausting. Plus I had kind of a late night last night.”
“At SA?”
“What?”
“Sexaholics Anonymous? That’s where you were last night, right?”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. Right.”
I paused, a scoop of French roast hovering over the basket. “You were at SA last night, right?”
Dana shifted on the sofa and gave a nervous laugh. “Where else would I be?”
“Oh, no. Don’t tell me-that extra with the cute butt? The PA with the van? Please tell me it’s not a grip?”
“No! Geez, none of the above. I’m celibate, remember?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me that this new stand-in job of yours is not the product of your sleeping over at the shifty-eyed AD’s house.” “Maddie, please!” For the first time in her life, I thought I saw Dana blush.
Yikes. This was more serious than I’d thought. I was about to further lecture my best friend on just what Therapist Max would have to say about all this when the trailer door burst open again. I jumped, spilling coffee grinds onto the counter. Maybe I should switch to decaf.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here, ” Deveroux said, stepping into the trailer. Then he took one look at my pink heels and blushed like a schoolgirl.
“Oh, you’re wearing them again.”
I stepped around the counter, obscuring his view. “Long story. I didn’t have time to change.”
Deveroux sat down on the sofa beside Dana. “Maddie, I want you to know that I am so, so sorry.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “For?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how it happened. Usually those Web sites are so discreet. I don’t know how this clip got out.”
“Clip?” My internal radar pricked up. “What clip?”
He looked down toward my feet again. “You know, from yesterday. I have no idea how it got out.”
“Wait…” I held up a hand, crossing the room to face him. “What do you mean, ‘got out’?”
Dana looked down at my shoes. “Ohmigod! I didn’t put it together before. It’s you!”
“What’s me?” Okay, now I was starting to worry. “The YouTube clip!” Dana yelled, bouncing up and down. “It’s all over the Internet, this girl doing a foot striptease. Ohmigod, you’re, like, famous!”
Mental forehead smack.
Dana popped up from the sofa and grabbed the lap-top, closing my solitaire game. After a couple of clicks, she opened a browser window and typed in the address of the Internet video-sharing site. I watched in horror as she clicked a clip entitled “High Heels Seduction, ” and the sound track to a Debbie Does Dallas-esque film played over a scene in a pink, fluffy bedroom. A scene featuring a pair of pink leather ankle-strap, rhinestone-buckled high heels. On my feet!
“Oh. My. God. I’m going to kill her!”
“Who?” Dana asked.
“Jasmine! She must have put that video up on the Internet.” I was supremely thankful she’d edited out my face, though the idea of Internet pervs getting their rocks off to my pink pumps still squicked me out beyond belief. “How many people have viewed this?” I asked, frantically trying to see if there was a delete button anywhere. No such luck.
Deveroux (who was turning a little flushed as he watched the screen) looked at the counter in the corner. “Only three hundred thousand.”
“Only?” I smacked my forehead with the heel of my palm. No wonder I’d been getting shoe snickers all day. If this was some sort of retribution for getting Jas-mine’s windows shot out, we were so even after this.
“Great. I have sunk to a whole new low.”
Deveroux made a low groaning sound.
“Stop watching that!” I flipped the laptop screen shut, then tucked my feet back under me.
The trailer door opened again (this time I was too pissed off to jump) and a PA stuck his head in.
“Steinman just called a wrap. We’re done for the day, ” he said, before ducking back out as his headset crackled to life.
Dana and I looked at each other, images of strangling Porn Star Barbie fading as she voiced my thoughts.
“I think that’s my cue.”
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked, that bundle of nerves returning full force.
“Of course!” She grinned. “Wish me luck, Mads.”
“Good luck, Ethel.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
The air was eerily still for how chaotic it had been just hours ago, cranes, props, and trailers casting odd shadows along the outside walls of stage 6G. I hugged the walkie-talkie that I’d “borrowed” earlier from a PA as he left. (Borrowed. That was my story and I was sticking to it. Okay, so I slipped it out of his bag when he wasn’t looking, but I fully intended to return it once the night was over.) One press of a button and a yell of a code two-fifteen, and security would be swarming from all directions. As well I knew.