HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) (18 page)

“
Impossible.”

“
Nothing is impossible with the right contacts and money.”

Mega
n thought for a moment, “true…”

A
melia shifted straighter in her seat and looked at Megan with a gleam in her eye. “I mean, this guy has to be dirty, right? How hard could it be to find someway to hurt him a bit, like he hurt us?”

“
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“
I haven’t either, but I’m also used to getting what I want and women scorned can be formidable.”

Megan laughed,
“ain’t that the truth.” She sat up straighter in her chair and pushed back her pink, padded shoulders.

“
You know. Why not? What’ve we got to lose?”

“
Exactly.”

A member of the sound staff walked up to the table,
“Ms Rhein, we’re ready to continue.”

“
No problems.”

Amelia stood and said to
Megan, “how can I contact you?” Megan pulled a pen from her bag and wrote her mobile number on the back of the envelope containing the tickets.

“
I can’t believe I’m giving my number to Amelia Rhein.”

“
I’ll be in touch later today after filming. Are you free tonight?”

“
Tonight?” Megan was taken aback by the quickness of it.

“
Ms Rhein...”

“
I’m coming,” to the staff member then to Megan, “are you free?”

Megan was free every night, her social calendar made up of the odd family dinner
. “Yep, I’m free. How about we meet at Murphy’s?”

“
Sounds great. Will give you a call.”

Amelia and Megan smiled at each other
, a common goal binding them and something more; an unlikely friendship.

After work that night, they met at the local cafe to the studios, the one frequented by most of the filmies that worked there. Over a dinner of wilted chicken wraps and a bowl of chips, the women formulated their plan of attack.

“
I checked the files at the office and pulled everything I could find on Luminous Pictures. There isn’t much more than contracts and meeting minutes but there are some names that we could use.”

“
Fantastic.”

Amelia was typing into her smartphone
with her thumbs, “so, from that list I’ll find Denise Formason, Mike Windsor and Khahil Mood.”

“
And I’ll locate Shawn Wong and Florelle Smith. Question, are we offering cash?”

“
We’ll try to get it free but if not, yes. It’d be worth every cent if we catch Gafford.”

“
I don’t even like saying his name out loud.”

“
Yeah, me neither. Let’s call him something else. It’ll also mean we can discuss him in public and others won’t know.”

Amelia and Megan thought for a
moment.

Megan
said, “Mr Smith? Nah, too Hollywood.”

“
It has to relate to something underhanded and feral.”

“
Rat?”

“
Rat, rat.... mister-rat...”

“
Mr Sirrat?” Megan offered.

“
Hah! Sir Rat, love it. Mr Sirrat it is.”

Megan was flattered Amelia liked it
. Whilst more relaxed than earlier, she was still in awe of Amelia’s self-assuredness and stunning beauty. Amelia was wearing head-to-toe designer labels that fit her figure perfectly and flatteringly. Megan felt she could never look like that and she self-consciously brushed down the pink lapel of her jacket.

“
Right,” Amelia began, “so we’ve got our list, our cover story and questions sorted. Shall we meet up at the end of the week?”

“
Yep, Friday suits me.”

“
Where do you want to meet?”

“
Well... I know this fantastic diner about 15-minutes from here. You’ll love it, I eat there all the time. I’ll text you the details.”

“
Done.”

On the morning of the fifth day
at the resort, Kate clambered from her tent and stretched languorously in the morning sunshine, greeting the day with a massive yawn and a bare tummy where her shirt separated from her comfy denim shorts. She felt wonderfully rested despite the bumpy camp bed and attributed it to all the fresh air and long days of activity.

She wandered over
to David Tilburry who was clicking a laptop furiously, his white skull shining under the #2 crew cut. He was about 5’10 in height, thin and had a face structure similar to Geoffrey Rush. He only ever wore black shorts and t-shirts and today’s effort had a skull emblazoned across his back. What Dave did have was an uncanny ability to know what everyone was doing. He missed nothing.

“
Morning Dave.”

“
Kate, morning.”

“
You’re up early.”

“
Just checking the weather for the day and it looks like the storm system is heading our way after all.”

“
Really?” Dave pointed to the large blob on the screen and clicked on the ‘run’ button and Kate could clearly see it moving towards their location, which was marked with a simulated pin. “It’s early for this time of year. Rainy season doesn’t start until late November, usually, which is why we came to Ross River early.”

“
Any idea when it will hit?”

“
Hopefully late tonight after filming is over.”

Kate
looked at the pink morning sky as it stretched in a huge arch above her head. There were some puffy white clouds moving steadily east but they looked innocent. Still, she didn’t doubt Dave’s prediction.

“
Where is everybody?”

“
Mac and Barry are across the river with the light metres. They’re wanting to start filming at 8:30, by the way. Half the crew are still in bed with the other half starting to load the equipment into the four-wheel-drives. Bradford is out running; freakin’ madman that one, heard him up at 5am doing something, and Pete and Sam are eating all the breakfast.”

“
Okay, thanks Dave.”

“
No worries.”

Kate
wandered towards the dining marquee and sure enough found Pete and Sam spooning down baked beans on toast like it was the best and last meal on earth. Both big men, it wasn’t a surprise they ate half a farmyard a day. She grabbed some cereal from Nambita’s immaculately set table and sat with them, feeling very diminutive next to their bulk and glad they were friendly. They were discussing the approaching storm.

“
Morning Katey.”

“
Hey. Did I just hear you discussing the storm?”

“
Yeah,” Sam muttered. “Looking at the Bureau website, it’s going to be massive. I’m concerned about being on the other side of the river.”

“
But the river was only a couple of feet deep yesterday.”

“
Maybe now, but have you noticed how deep the bed is and how high the rocks go up the sides? In a decent storm, that place would fill like a dam’s broken.”

“
I had noticed that. Have you tried talking to Mac about it?”

“
Yeah, but he’s too concerned about the filming schedule. Am heading there soon with Pete to try and talk more sense into him. I hope they haven’t got too much of the equipment across.”

“
Fair enough. Are you leaving soon?”

“
When we’re finished here,” Pete joined in.

“
Right.” Kate looked pointedly at their half-full plates. “Then I have about thirty seconds.”

They continued to chat about the day’s filming and ten minutes later the three of them
stacked their plates on the dirty-dishes counter for the kitchen hand, Rani, to pick up, and headed towards the film site.

They were filming about 15-minutes’ walk down river. A regular 4WD shuttle service ran between the resort and film locations, but many preferred to walk. When they reached the crossing point in the river, Kate dropped into the bed and she saw what Sam had been saying. It was deep; almost above her head, indicating a lot of water came through here occasionally. She shivered at the thought of being caught in something like that and easily crossed the now small creek by rock hopping and hurried up the other sandy bank to reach terra firma. She could barely keep up with the long strides of Sam and Pete and ten minutes later, walked onto the set.

Barry and Mac were looking at the production notes and arguing about the placement of the
sun and Kate took in the familiar buzzing of the tech crew preparing the magic. She had just over an hour before filming started and getting into costume took about 45-minutes, so she helped with the set-up, loving being involved on both sides of the camera.

She was just about to head back across the river for costume when
Rhys jogged onto the set. His grey t-shirt was marked with large damp patches, his hair plastered down with sweat but he still managed to pump out charisma like a high-pressured hose. Kate turned towards the river and within a moment, Rhys appeared at her side. He looked too cheerful for someone who’d been up for nearly three hours already.

“
Morning!”

“
Morning. Sleep well?”

“
Yeah, I can sleep anywhere. Has Mac mentioned to you the change in Scene Ten?”

“
Yeah. They’re going to start filming at 8:30?”

They walked back to camp talking about the scenes for the day,
Rhys effortlessly crossing the creek in three strides to Kate’s six little rock-hops.

“
Have you been running since five am?” she asked.

“
How do you know I’ve been up since then?”

“
Dave heard you and told me you’re mad for doing it. I agree; getting up that early shortens your life, I’m sure.”

“
Probably, but I couldn’t sleep. It’s too darn quiet out here. Actually, I went for a swim at the waterhole.”

“
There’s a waterhole?”

“
Yeah, about 700m downstream. The river narrows where it goes through a gap in the ranges and there’s a waterhole in there. It’s deep enough to swim but you can touch the bottom in most places.”

“
I haven’t heard about it until now.”

“
Maybe I’m the only one who’s found it?”

“
Possibly.”

“
By the way, they want to film the last part of scene 19 after lunch,” Rhys conveyed.

“
Mac knows about the storm, that’s cutting it pretty close.”

“
Reports say it won’t hit till late and the scene shouldn’t take long.”

“
Reports have been wrong. I’ve never seen a desert storm though; should be spectacular.”

“
From the safety of a sturdy building.”

The beaten track they’d been following single file was ending at the resort
car park.

“
I’ll see you in make-up shortly.”

“
Yep.” Rhys set off in a jog and disappeared around the back of the trailer, heading for the toilet block.

Forty-five minutes later,
Kate was ready to film, looking purposely more dishevelled than she did when she got up that morning. She was wearing the costume she’d tried on in Alice but it’d been rubbed into dirt to give the impression she’d been running away from enterprising baddies. Her hair was loose and scrunched into ringlets that sat below her shoulders with two pieces of grass threaded through the curls. She was talking to Trystan, who was looking debonair in his dirty corduroys and flannel shirt (which looked suspiciously like his own). A few minutes later, filming started.

When they broke for lunch,
Kate first saw the fringes of a large grey mass on the western horizon, still far away. She shrugged it off.

The charcoal clouds rested heavily on the mahogany earth, contrasting dramatically against the rolling red hills, twisted gum trees and grey-cream scrub bush. In the distance, a slate-coloured panel of water filled the gap between cloud and rocky ridges. It was breathtakingly beautiful and the damp wind pushed strongly against Kate, filling her nostrils with a sharp freshness that stoked her senses and sent goosebumps shivering delightfully down her exposed arms. She hadn’t felt this alive, this awake, in so many years and she stood in the centre of the frantic set facing into the oncoming clouds and wind, temporarily distracted from assisting the tech teams pack-up the equipment. All around her, staff were rushing from box to box, getting clumsy with hurry, their gazes frantically pointing west to see how much longer they had to put their precious hardware into the sturdy cases.

“
Kate, need a little help!” Kate broke from her reverie and rushed over to where Sam was trying to roll up metres of black co-ax cable.

“
Isn’t it wonderful, Sam!” Kate nearly clapped her hands like a schoolgirl, totally geed up by the unexpected magnificence and raw power of the spring storm.

“
Yeah. There’s two hundred thousand dollars-worth of equipment here, not counting my valuable arse on the line of it gets washed away. Now grab that end and start pushing it towards me.” Kate grinned and shoved the cables towards him as asked, speeding up the coiling process. Suddenly, the first roll of thunder cracked and undulated across the open land and a call of “hurry up!” sped up the tumult. Another five-minutes and the last clasp clicked into place and all the boxes and straps were hauled up onto shoulders and dropped into several 4WDs until every bit of space had been taken up; but still more boxes remained.

The rest of the cast and crew grabbed the remaining lighter cases and
moved quickly towards the river bed to walk back to camp. It was here Pete stopped the cavalcade and a worried frown creased his wide forehead.

“
I don’t like the look of this,” he grumbled.

Kate
pulled up her own light load and noticed with some alarm that already the storm upstream had raised the muddy water a good metre since that morning. She was staggered at how fast it had gone up and how quickly it was moving. She looked at Pete who was analysing the murky river with his experienced eye. The river, while still shallow was about four metres wide now and spreading very quickly. The first sprinkles of rain splattered in large, round droplets which sizzled slightly as they smashed against the hot, red boulders next to them.

“
Sam. What do you think?”

Sam’s frown matched Pete’s and he looked across to Mac who shrugged.

Sam said, “Well. There’s nothing on this side to protect us. I can’t believe it took so long to get that scene canned.”

“
We could send back the four wheel drives?”

“
By the time they get to camp, unload and get back to us, we’ll be drenched.”

“
I say we cross now, before the water gets higher, we should be okay.” Pete nodded in agreement. “We could cross close together, so if anything goes in, someone can grab it.”

As Sam and Pete were talking,
Rhys moved up behind Kate who was listening in worriedly.

“
You going to be okay?” He shouldered a big crate like it was an empty box and looked down at her frightened face.

“
Yep, just thinking I should have worn swimmers.” She gave him a false smile. Now this place didn’t seem so magnificent.

“
I want you to walk across with me,” Rhys ordered. “Stay upstream, that way if you fall, you get me first. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Do you want me to take that?” He nodded towards the microphone case she hugged against her chest.

“
No, it’s not heavy, I’ll be alright.”

“
Just make sure you stay on my left.”

“
Bossy aren’t you?”

He smiled at her and his face softened.

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

She watched the crew walk into the rising waters, pushing against the current that was now
mid-thigh on the shorter members, the equipment held above their heads. Waiting any longer would be suicide she reasoned and settled the case more comfortably in her arms. Kate took a few steps into the rushing water and stumbled slightly on the submerged rocks. Rhys lined up on her right and pushed into the water, keeping his tall frame almost pressed against her. The strength of the current made her suck in her breath and nearly took off with her feet but she wobbled then righted herself. The temperature was chilly and the muddy water hid the rocks she’d rock-hopped a few hours before, now not so easy to avoid and very slippery.

Rhys
was only just keeping his balance on the rolling rocks under his feet, and said, “Kate, don’t risk your life for that case. Let it go if you need to. How are you doing?”