Hollywood Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (Hollywood Shifters Book 3) (5 page)

Chapter Five

Mindy was used to being nervous before a job.

She compulsively checked everything over and over—her cell charged with all its handy apps loaded, her recorder ditto, packed inside her soft curved purse with the handle that turned inside out in case she had to nose it over her back as a dog. She’d bought a new slithery halter dress that she could slip out of in ten seconds flat, this one a loud tropical print that plunged low in front. She put on another pair of stylish flat sandals that wrapped up into a tight sausage with the dress.

She had carefully put on evening makeup, which looked overdone in the light of day, and skinned back her hair into a little puff at the top of her head, tied by a Hermes scarf. She finished the look with bright crimson lipstick that matched her tropical print dress. Then she pulled a crimson scarf around her shoulders, and looked at herself in the mirror.

She shuddered. She looked like a total ho.

At least I have decent cleavage
, she thought. She was used to dressing in neutral colors to avoid notice, and most of her work halter dresses were picked for blandness as well as ease of removal. But her role as Dan Moore’s girlfriend called for loud and brassy—especially if Haskell recognized her.

Her heartbeat pattered when she pulled up at the meet point, the parking lot of a library on the border of Venice in West L.A. Her heart quickened when she spotted Dennis, wearing a black shirt and slacks, and carrying his cane. He looked handsome and sinister.

His eyes crinkled when she approached, and he said with that sincere note in his low, rough voice, “You look great.”

“I look like a skank,” she said.

“But Dan Moore likes ’em skanky, the skankier the better.” He licked his lips in a sleazy manner, wiggling his eyebrows, and she had to laugh.

He went on, “Ah, I was to ask, if you have that paperwork done, to leave it in your car.”

“I didn’t finish it,” she said, her heart thumping against her ribs. And she didn’t intend to—and with luck the job would end before it became an issue.

Dennis shrugged, clearly not a by-the-book kind of guy. “Then we don’t have to worry about the stuff falling into the wrong hands. Do you have ID for Payton in case the studio guards ask?”

She nodded, patting her purse. “Oh yes, Payton Lee has a long history of being lost in the wrong buildings. One of my first clients has a brother in law enforcement who helped me get it.”

“Awesome. Ready?”

“Let’s do it,” she said, glad her voice at least sounded cool.

He opened the door to the Lexus for her, and when she glanced up over her shoulder, she caught the curve of a smile. Feeling self-conscious, she busied herself putting on a pair of huge Italian sunglasses as he got into the car.

His presence seemed to fill the car, putting them in intimate space in a way that made all her nerve endings tingle. She was hyper-aware of the subtle hiss of his shirt sleeves as he moved, the soft sigh of his breathing deep in his broad chest, and a quick peek upward drew her fascinated gaze to the little hollow above his upper lip, with tiny glints of gold in his whiskers that in a few hours would become stubble.

She wondered what that stubble would feel like rubbed against her thighs—

Her belly fluttered at
that
thought, and she cleared her throat, relieved as he turned on the engine and the air conditioner blasted. Yes, definitely time to cool off. Sheesh, it hadn’t been that long since she’d ridden in a car with a guy, so why was she acting like a teenager on her first date?

Only it wasn’t any guy. It was
this
guy. She breathed through her mouth to fight the instinct to sniff him all over. “Where are we going?” she babbled inanely. “Are they at Sony or Paramount? Or on Sunset?”

“No. They took over part of an old studio off Laurel Canyon, in the Valley.”

She nodded, breathing out and in as he handled the traffic smoothly. Film companies, she knew, had offices all over, and rented sound stages when they needed to. Some studios were converted barns from the old days of the orange groves, and so forth.

She kept her gaze firmly out the window as Dennis drove up the treacherous narrow, winding Lauren Canyon, and down into the shimmering bowl of heat that was San Fernando Valley.

The studio turned out to be a picturesque old building with a new sign saying Viking Productions. “There are a couple small companies renting space upstairs, but Viking has the main offices and also the single sound stage. Both of which we’re here to get a personal tour of,” he said.

She nodded, remembering what Agent Sloane had told them.

He pulled up at the gate and said in a loud voice completely different from his own, “Daniel Moore for Jerry Haskell. Payton Lee, same.”

The guard obviously recognized Dennis, and peered in at Mindy. She pulled down her sunglasses and simpered at him. He stepped back and waved them through.

“How’s my bimbo?” Mindy asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

Dennis flashed his grin. “Perfect.”

They parked, Dennis pulled his cane from the back seat, and limped noticeably as they walked up the low steps to the arctic office. The thermostat had to be set at around 60, incredibly wasteful of energy. The pretty young front office girl who welcomed them was wearing a light sweater, Mindy noticed as she pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head.

Then Haskell came out, and it was time for the loud male voices,
hurr hurr
, fake smiles and broad gestures taking up a lot of space. Alpha male posing. Mindy wondered why the cane and the limp as Dennis introduced Mindy as Payton.

Haskell grinned her way, barely looking at her face. His gaze stopped at her breasts and stayed there as he uttered an inane welcome, then gestured toward the office he had come out of.

“You’ll remember this, of course,” he said, and then launched into a lot of bragging about the famous actors he’d auditioned in there, and the famous directors he’d had to turn down before deciding to go in a new direction with the young, going-places  Michael Benedict.

Mindy listened with half her attention as she took in the room: enormous desk the size of an aircraft carrier, big chair behind it, smaller chairs for the peons. Ah, and behind the desk, a low, discreet file cabinet of some kind of expensive wood, with serious-looking locks on the fronts of the two drawers. Mindy slid her hand into her purse to pull out one of her favorite doodads, a bent paperclip. She knew she had about one chance in ten of actually being able to use it—but why not grab that one chance if it happened?

Dennis interrupted to say, “Hey, Jerome, can I see that contract if you have it?”

Haskell pulled out his keys and unlocked the file cabinet, then opened the top drawer as he said, “It might take a minute. You know we’ve got six pictures at various stages of development, and one in post-prod. That’s post-production, heh heh, a little insider lingo for you.”

What a gasbag
, Mindy thought, watching the way he flipped his fingers through the files. No way was he actually looking for something. “Damn. Looks like my paralegal is slacking on the job again. We’ve been expanding the legal department—and somehow that causes slow-ups,
hurr hurr hurr
.”

Her heart hammered. If Dennis would just do some more Dan Moore antler-dancing—

“I know we talked about it,” Dennis said, and Haskell turned his way, obviously glad of an excuse not to be looking for what clearly did not exist. “And I’m totally on board,” Dennis went on. “Totally, as you know. I really want to get into the industry. But my guy, he’s a typical pencil neck—”

Dennis went on complaining about his mythical accountant while Haskell’s head bobbed. The two guys’ attention was on each other so she made two soundless steps on the thick carpet and laid her doodad over the edge of the file cabinet.

She had one second to straighten up and stare out the window as she fiddled with her scarf. She held her breath, sensing Haskell’s gaze rake down her body before he turned back to Dennis. “I’ll have to fire my paralegal’s pretty little ass if she doesn’t get on the ball. Let’s take a rain-check, or better, we should revisit
my
idea. Trust me, Danny, I can absolutely guarantee your taking on an executive position if you come in high with a check.”

“Sure, sure,” Dennis said. “And that’s what I want. But you know how it is. Me, I like to strike while the iron is hot, but these CPAs and lawyers, they get a guy by the short hairs . . .”

Haskell kneed the file cabinet shut, and kept his attention on Dennis as the file cabinet closed. Mindy listened for the click of the lock, but didn’t hear it. She let out her breath silently.

Okay, there was one strike for the team. Maybe one of Agent Sloane’s people could ninja-sneak in to get at that cabinet after hours, or something.

“So,” Haskell said, “Shall I send the girl for coffee? Pastry?”

“No, we’re good,” Dennis said without waiting for Mindy to answer. The way a Dan Moore would.

And Haskell didn’t even give Mindy a glance to see how she felt about his offer. “Great. Then how about taking a look at the sound stage? You’re in luck—Michael is here today, doing setups right now. If you like, we’ll head right over and catch him before the cameras have to roll. I’ll introduce you as the new executive producer . . .”

He led the way past the sweater-shrouded receptionist, who was busy at her computer, earphones on, though the phone didn’t seem to be ringing. Mindy craned her neck, and glimpsed the edge of her terminal: she was watching Dean and Castiel fighting some demons.

Mindy smothered the urge to snicker, then her humor froze as Haskell turned her way. They were talking about her!

“Want to try acting, do you, honeybunch?” he said to Mindy.  But he didn’t wait for an answer. His eyes narrowed, then widened. “Aren’t you the belly dancer?” He turned to Dennis.

One thing con men were usually good for, Mindy had discovered, was a memory for faces. And when she’d snapped the camera shots the second time, he and Patrice had been staring right at Mindy.

“Oh, yes,” Dennis said easily as they crossed a little patio and headed for the doors of the big sound stage. “Belly danced straight into my life, if you know what I mean. We’ve spent the last three days auditioning.” He uttered a fake laugh.

Haskell joined right in,
hurr hurr hurr,
as he opened the doors to the sound stage. “I like a guy who knows how to move fast,” Haskell said to Dennis, and then, with a leer at Mindy, “Well, the way
you
move, we might just have to find a part for you.”

So Haskell
had
noticed her dancing. Mindy didn’t know whether to be gratified or repulsed.

But she knew her role as Payton the belly dancing airhead. “Ooooh,” she squeed, clapping her hands. “What can I do?”

Haskell’s forced smile broadened as he said in a patronizing tone, “Tell you what, sweetie, see those girls over there? The blonde is the screenwriter. Why don’t you go talk to her? She’ll tell you all about the picture, while we boys handle some business with the director.”

And as she turned away, he swatted her on the rump.

She kept walking. Payton probably would love swats on the rump. But inwardly, Mindy thought,
You are so going to pay for that
.

She dodged around cables snaking every which way across the cement floor, and ducked past a lot of other lighting and sound equipment, to where a girl who looked college age sat at a makeshift table, going over papers with another girl.

And Mindy got an idea.

“Um, excuse me. Where is the ladies’ room?” she whispered.

“You’ll have to go in through the office,” the dark-haired one said. “It’s all the way to the back. Can’t miss it.”

Exactly what Mindy had hoped to hear. She sashayed away, hustling the moment she got outside the sound stage doors. When she reached the office, her heart thundered against her ribs.

The receptionist hadn’t moved—now it was a shirtless Sam fighting demons.

Mindy eased up to Haskell’s office, and tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked. She slipped inside, eased the door shut, then carefully, slowly pressed the lock, which would give her a few seconds’ notice, at least.

Then she stood there and checked for an escape route as woman or, if she had to, as a dog. There was another door, but a quick peek showed a private restroom, with a closet off it. Last resort. There was also the desk, under which a dog could conceivably get caught. But she’d have to be desperate. Much better to move fast and get out before she was discovered.

She moved to the cabinet. Her trusty doodad had worked. She eased out the drawer. The stuff in the front that he had been so busily looking through all seemed to be submissions from hopeful screenwriters. He definitely had been fake searching! There wasn’t any contract, Mindy was certain of it. What a sleazechief. But halfway back—where his fingers had not gone walking—was a green divider marking off files with names, beginning with MIL GATE.

According to Agent Sloane, the fake picture was called
Millennium Gate
.