Jovan stepped behind him and picked up a knife on a small table. Quick as a flash, she grabbed Federico’s hair and pulled his head back, revealing his throat. She passed the blade in front of him, and for a moment I thought she’d slit his jugular.
“Federico Marquez slept with my mother to get even with my father.” Jovan kept repositioning the knife. At any moment she could easily kill him.
“So Vincent Day is your father,” Tinkie said. She walked closer. She was calm and poised. Tinkie had courage.
“That bitch Carlita seduced my father. She used him to try to manipulate Federico. And then Federico turned on his best friend and tried to ruin him. My father’s last two films ended in bankruptcy because Federico convinced the backers to pull out.”
The man tied in the chair began to struggle and fight against his bonds and the gag.
“Why don’t you let Federico speak?” Tinkie asked. “Have you given him a chance to tell you his side?”
“I don’t need his side. His pathetic daughter told me how he’d killed Carlita and wouldn’t allow the children to see her. He’s a vile man and he deserves to die. I’m going to make sure it happens.”
“Carlita died of anorexia,” Tinkie said. “No one killed her. She killed herself.”
Tinkie was getting to Jovan. I inched around to the flank position. If Tinkie could just distract her, I could knock her down and douse her with pepper spray.
“Federico loved his children and his wife. Carlita was ill. She needed validation of her beauty, and she did some bad things to people, especially to Federico and his children. And to you and your parents. Federico is as much a victim as you are.”
“That’s not true!” Her rage was instantaneous. “How dare you!” She started to lunge at Tinkie and I hurled myself out of the shadows and at her legs. I took her down at the knees like an Ole Miss tackle. She hit hard and before she could recover, I pressed the button on the pepper spray and sent a thin jet of it directly into her eyes.
“I’ll kill you,” she raged, thrashing and choking. “I’ll kill all of you.”
Tinkie found an extension cord and together we bound the model’s hands behind her back. “I think you’re killing days are over, Jovan. And just so you know, Estelle is going to be fine.”
We left Jovan on the floor and untied Federico. He looked like he might keel over, but he assured us he hadn’t been harmed. While Tinkie went to signal the deputies inside, I knelt beside Jovan.
“Where’s Graf?” I demanded.
“Screw you,” she said. “He’s as good as dead.”
I grasped a fistful of hair. “I swear to you, if you don’t tell me where Graf is, I will snatch you bald-headed.”
Something in my tone must have convinced her. “In the trunk on set eight.”
As King and the deputies entered the building, I was rushing to set eight. It was built to be an attic, and I saw the trunk instantly. It opened with a creak, and I found Graf bound and gagged.
For a moment I thought he was dead, but he opened his eyes when I removed the bandanna she’d wadded into his mouth.
“Sarah Booth,” he said. “I knew you’d come.”
Tinkie had walked up behind me. In the background, Sheriff King was reading Jovan her rights. Tinkie helped me loosen the bonds that held Graf, and he climbed out of the trunk bruised, but none the worse for wear.
I can’t say for sure who embraced whom, but we were holding each other like we intended to graft.
“Oh, no.” Tinkie spoke so softly that I thought something had happened to her. But when we followed the finger she was pointing, we saw it.
What looked like miles and miles of film had been pulled from canisters and burned. Cameras were bashed and destroyed.
We ran toward the devastation, but I knew what it was. Jovan had achieved her goal of destroying the movie. Every scene Federico had shot was ruined. In one vengeful, insane act, she’d changed all of our lives.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Graf, Sweetie Pie, and I stood on the tarmac of the private airport and waved good-bye to Tinkie and Chablis. On the flight to Los Angeles from Costa Rica, Tinkie had formed a strong friendship; Charlize was loaning Tinkie her private jet for a quick trip home.
My heart ached as she waved out the door and then disappeared into the plane. She reappeared at a window, waving Chablis’s little paw.
“What’s Federico going to do?” I asked Graf.
He’d spent the morning with the director. Not a single frame of the movie was salvageable.
Jovan was in jail, charged with Suzy Dutton’s murder, kidnapping, and a dozen other offenses. Estelle was recuperating in Petaluma. She was scheduled to fly to L.A. to stay with her father.
“Federico doesn’t know. He can’t afford to reshoot the film. His backers have abandoned him. They don’t care that none of this was his fault.”
“I’m not so certain I want to do it again.” I couldn’t believe I was speaking those words. “I mean, it’s fun and all, but I-”
“You were far more involved in solving the case than you were in acting.”
Graf said it so well.
“I don’t know. Can’t I do both?”
He smiled. “I don’t see why not. You can be biprofessional.”
My cell phone rang and I saw with surprise the number from the Sunflower County Sheriff’s Office. I answered cautiously.
“Sarah Booth, I’m trying to find Tinkie. It’s important.” Coleman’s voice was strained.
“She just boarded a plane to head home,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
He hesitated, and I felt a sharp blade to the gut. Whatever had transpired between us, I’d never given him reason to doubt me.
“It’s Oscar,” he said. “He’s deathly ill.”
He could have slugged me and I wouldn’t have been more shocked. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Coleman took a breath. “We’re not certain, but it’s bad. Remember the old Graystone Estate? The bank has held the mortgage on it for years, and Oscar had a buyer, so he went out to check the property. When he got back, he wasn’t feeling well. Two hours later, his secretary found him in his office, unconscious.”
Before I could even think, I was signaling frantically at Tinkie to stop the plane. She quit waving Chablis’s paw and made a face at me.
“Stop the plane,” I told Graf. “You have to stop it. I’ve got to get on.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just stop that plane.”
While Graf went to find someone in authority, I ran to the plane with Sweetie right at my heels. Tinkie’s face reflected horror, but in a moment the door of the plane reopened. She came out.
“What?” she yelled above the roar of the airport.
Before I told her, I had to know the extent of it. I spoke into the telephone. “Coleman, how bad is Oscar?”
“Sarah Booth, it could be fatal.”
I made my decision. “We’re both headed home.” I couldn’t abandon Tinkie with Oscar so sick. What I was really worried about was telling Tinkie about Oscar.
“I’ll call you when I land,” I said to Coleman before I hung up.
As I stood on the steps of the plane, I saw Graf. I ran toward him and explained briefly, that Tinkie’s husband was seriously ill.
“You’re a good friend, Sarah Booth. Do you want me to come?”
I shook my head. Tinkie was going to require my undivided attention. And Graf’s career was hanging in tatters. He needed to be where he could address a million issues.
“Stay here. As soon as Oscar stabilizes, I’ll be back.”
He kissed me. “Go. Call me when you get there. And be careful.”
I kissed him with my heart tearing in two. But then Sweetie and I were on the plane, and in less than fifteen minutes, I’d ripped my friend’s world apart and sat holding her as she cried.