His Every Word (11 page)

“And Hunter. How is he?”

“He’s doing better. He’s awake and alert, seems very upbeat and optimistic.”

Bryson grunted appreciatively. “That’s some man you’ve got yourself. He’s the real deal, isn’t he?”

“I think so. I think he’s the bravest man I know.”

“You’ll get no quarrel from me. Before he went and took on a crazed gunman, he took on that maniac Max Weisman and went to bat for an unknown screenwriter to direct a major motion picture. Remember that?”

Kallie laughed. “I do remember that. Speaking of which, you mentioned that Max had been in touch with you. Did he say anything of note?”

Bryson grew quiet. “Listen, now might not be the best time to discuss that.”

“Why not?” Kallie asked.

“I just think that right now you and Hunter need to focus on his health, and the last thing I want to do is make you feel like you need to get involved in something silly, when you’ve got real concerns to deal with.”

“Your movie is a real concern,” Kallie told him. “Hunter just gave me my marching orders, and the first thing on his list was your film. So what’s going on?”

Bryson sighed. “Max called me yesterday and told me that things are moving very quickly with the movie, and that he’s already got the female lead on board.”

“He does? Who is it?”

“Eliza Johnston. She was in Forty Nights with Robert Pattinson.”

Kallie nodded. “She’s perfect. That’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Max told me that Eliza would only sign on if Stephen Soderbergh directs. Max also told me that I
might
be able to be Soderbergh’s assistant director, but only if Stephen is okay with it.”

Kallie’s stomach tightened and a sudden pounding headache came over her.

“You’re kidding me, Bryson.”

“No, I’m not kidding. Max said that he had to try and get Soderbergh on board—

that he owes it to the film and all that. Who am I to argue with him?”

“He can’t just do that without even talking to me or Hunter about it first.”

“Max said he didn’t want to bother you two with Hollywood shenanigans while you were having such a hard time.”

Kallie laughed. “He’s so full of crap.”

Bryson laughed with her. “I’m sorry, Kallie. I don’t want to start any trouble.

Maybe we should just let this one go.”

“I need to think about it. I’ll call you back soon, okay?”

“Sure. Take care of yourself.”

They got off the phone and Kallie sat there, her thoughts muddled together and confused. She felt completely lost. With Hunter in the condition he was in, she didn’t have anybody who could help her through this problem. And who was she in the movie business? She was a complete and total nobody.

Hunter had the clout to stand up to Max Weisman, but Kallie had zero clout.

“Damn it,” she said softly. Suddenly, the tears came, only this time, they were tears of self-pity. She hated to cry and feel sorry for herself, but it was impossible not to.

She was worn down, tired, mentally and physically spent. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”

When she was done crying, she didn’t feel any better. There was no release.

Kallie just felt empty—she felt transparent, as if she might just disappear and fade out of the world altogether. This was too much.

Just then, her phone started to ring. She checked and saw Nicole’s number. Part of her wanted to answer, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It would mean having yet another emotional conversation, and she’d already had enough of those to last a lifetime.

Instead, Kallie sat and watched Hunter sleep. The time drifted by, and she simply sat and watched, dozing a little bit now and again. He was all she really cared about—

none of this other stuff mattered. As long as Hunter was okay, she would be okay.

Detective Phillips came in a sometime later and checked on her. He asked if she wanted to head back to the hotel now, since visiting hours were ending soon.

Kallie agreed that it was probably time to go. Like a zombie, she rose slowly from her chair and went to Hunter’s bedside, kissed his cheek. He murmured something but didn’t wake up. “I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

***

Kallie slept so deeply that night that even the hotel alarm clock didn’t wake her the next morning. She opened her eyes at about ten o’clock and the radio was on, playing some kind of alternative rock song that she’d never heard, blaring loudly in the room.

She sat up in bed, anxious that she’d lost so much time with Hunter. She wanted to be at the hospital with him, she wanted see him smile and hear his little jokes, touch his hand.

He might be feeling better today, she thought. He’d seemed to be sleeping much more deeply last night when she left, which was a good sign.

Kallie hopped in the shower for all of about five minutes and then put on the fancy dress that had been meant for a celebration dinner with Hunter at some posh restaurant. She’d only brought along a few outfits for the trip to L.A., and still hadn’t gotten the time to buy anything new to wear.

When she checked her phone again, she had a bunch of new messages. Some from reporters, a message from her mother asking her to call and give an update, and three messages from Nicole, who’d apparently gotten wind of things only just last night from Danielle.

The last message was left early this morning. Nicole had sounded frantic, begging her to call and let her know what was going on.

Kallie ignored the other messages and gave Nicole a ring while she readied herself to leave the hotel for the day.

“Kallie,” Nicole answered breathlessly. “Please tell me you guys are okay.”

“I am. We are,” Kallie replied. She’d never heard Nicole sound so panicked, and she felt bad for not calling her sooner.

“I had no idea anything had even happened.”

“I know. I’m so sorry to have kept you in the dark, but everything’s been happening so fast.”

“Red and I are coming out to L.A. this afternoon.”

“Nicole, you shouldn’t do that.”

“We need to be there for you, Kallie.”

“What about Riley?”

“She’ll come with us.”

Kallie shook her head. “No, Nicole. I can’t let you do that. As it is, my family is out here and I don’t even have any time to see them.” It was true. As much as she wanted to have Nicole out here, she couldn’t allow them to turn their lives upside down over this. They’d already done too much for her, they were dealing with a newborn baby, and Nicole still had health issues of her own.

“Please, I can’t just sit here in Connecticut and do nothing while you and Hunter are struggling.”

Kallie was in the mirror in the bathroom, fussing with her hair as she talked.

“You don’t need to come out here just yet. I’ll let you know if I need you to come, but right now everything’s under control.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Kallie left the bathroom and grabbed her purse. She thought about her phone call with Bryson and everything that had gone on with the film. “I could use some advice, though,” Kallie told her.

“Advice about what?”

Kallie explained what was going on with the movie, and how Max Weisman seemed to be using Hunter’s absence as a chance to take control of the film and push Bryson out of the director’s position that everyone had agreed to. “I’m not sure how to handle it,” Kallie said. “If Hunter was up and about, he could go to battle for us. But he’s not in any condition, and I don’t want to stress him out. I think I need to find a way to handle it myself.”

“Wow, that’s a slimy move that Max pulled on you guys,” Nicole said. “You definitely can’t just let him get away with it.”

“But how can I stop him?”

Nicole seemed to be thinking for a while. “I could have Red call Max Weisman and try and persuade him to back off.”

“I don’t know,” Kallie said. “It just seems wrong to use Red that way. He already went above and beyond to get Bryson’s script into Max’s hands in the first place.”

“Red wouldn’t mind.”

“No, I can’t ask him to fight my battles for me.”

Nicole sighed. “Jeez, this is a tough one. Maybe you need to just come at it from a totally different angle.”

“Like how so?”

“I don’t know. If you could somehow convince Eliza Johnston to use Bryson instead of Stephen Soderbergh…but that’s a long shot, isn’t it?”

Kallie started to smile. “You’re a genius, Nic. Seriously.”

“Seriously? Did I say something that helped?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. Listen, I should go now, but I promise to call you later and let you know what’s going on. I love you Nicole.”

“Love you too. Please take good care of yourself.”

Kallie got off the phone, and for the first time in a while, she felt energized.

Nicole had given her an idea. She happened to recall that Eliza was single—she’d had a notoriously bad breakup with a boyfriend (and former leading man)—if you believed the tabloids, anyway.

But it gave Kallie a sliver of a chance. She had an idea now—a way to fight back against what Max was trying to do.

First, though, she needed to get in touch with Eliza Johnston, and she had no idea how to do that. She left her hotel room and texted Detective Phillips to meet her in the hotel lobby.

Within minutes, Phillips was there, looking much the same as always.

By way of greeting, she said; “Would you be able to find out the phone number of a huge celebrity?”

He looked at her like she was insane. “Yeah, of course. I’ll just pull it out of my huge celebrity rolodex I carry with me.”

“I’m serious. I need to get in touch with Eliza Johnston—have you ever heard of her?”

Phillips shook his head. “Can’t say I have. But I suppose I could figure something out if you really need me to.”

“I’d owe you one.”

“I’m the one who owes you, Kallie,” Phillips said. “This Eliza Johnston is a movie star or something?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll make some calls when we get to the hospital and see what I can do.”

***

Kallie didn’t expect to see Scarlett when she went in to see Hunter. In fact, Scarlett was the very last person on Kallie’s mind, so it was a shock when she walked in and saw her sitting by his bedside, talking softly to him.

Hunter was awake, clearly, but Kallie thought that he still looked far too pale and his eyes were heavy-lidded.

“My angel’s here,” Hunter said, weakly, smiling as Kallie came toward him.

Scarlett shifted her seat away from the bed and gave Kallie room to maneuver between them and kiss Hunter’s forehead. “You feel a little bit warm again,” she told him.

“Yeah, they said he spiked a fever at around five or six this morning,” Scarlett replied.

Kallie turned and looked at her, feeling a mixture of alarm and rage. She knew the rage was totally misguided and misdirected, but couldn’t help it. “He had a fever and you never thought to call or text me and let me know?”

“The nurse said it was okay. They were handling it, I didn’t think you’d want me to bother you—“

“Well, next time, please put yourself in my position. Of course I’d want to know if anything was going on with him. Anything at all.” Kallie grabbed his hand.

“It’s okay, Kallie,” Hunter soothed her. “I’m feeling good.”

“Where’s the nurse? And has Dr. Forrest been in to check on you?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Forrest came in around eight and the nurses have been coming fast and furious, like Santa’s elves working on some broken-down toy.”

“I need to talk to a nurse. You shouldn’t keep having these fevers.”

“They said it’s perfectly normal,” Scarlett told her.

Kallie just ignored her. She wanted to scream—why don’t you just go back in the hole you climbed out of? But she was able to resist the urge. Scarlett hadn’t done anything wrong and it certainly wasn’t her fault that Hunter had a fever again.

Kallie left the room and went to the nurses station, where a woman that she didn’t recognize explained to her that everything with Hunter was under control. “He spiked a tiny fever of about one hundred this morning, but we brought it down again with some Acetaminophen. Dr. Forrest looked him over and said that everything’s on track.”

“Are you sure it’s not an infection?”

The nurse looked at her as though Kallie were asking if two plus two might equal five. “I know this is a very stressful time,” the nurse said slowly. “But it’s very common for patients to run slight fevers post surgery. It doesn’t mean that anything terrible is happening, and as long as the fever comes down quickly, we’re fairly confident that there’s no underlying infection.”

“It just seems like he keeps getting fevers.”

The nurse’s patience seemed to be wearing thin. “Like I explained, it’s very common for patients to run slight fevers after a procedure, and Dr. Forrest is one of the best surgeons in the country. For him to take the time to check in so often on Mister Reardon is actually way above the call of duty. You’re lucky he didn’t just push it off onto a resident.”

Kallie wanted to slap her face. Instead, she smiled coldly. “Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions.”

“Not a problem,” the nurse said, smiling just as coldly in return.

Kallie went back to the room, her blood boiling. Scarlett looked at her warily.

“Do you need some time alone? I can go to the cafeteria or something.”

“No, it’s fine. Stay, stay.” She sighed, feeling bad that she was being so bitchy.

“I’m just having a stressful morning.”

Hunter laughed. “You should try some of the drugs they have me on. You’d never be stressed again.”

“I’m worried about your fever.”

“Dr. Forrest said if all continues to go well, I’ll be out of the hospital within the next four or five days. So obviously he’s not to worried about it.”

Kallie was about to respond, when Detective Phillips came into the room. He was grinning. “I got a number for you,” he said.

“How the heck did you pull that off?” Kallie said, standing up.

Phillips shrugged and acted nonchalant. “I got in touch with her agent and told him I had official police business to conduct. That usually gets things moving.”