Authors: Tanya Huff

Smoke and Mirrors (29 page)

BOOK: Smoke and Mirrors

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“What boy?” Ashley snapped.

“The boy whose room it is, Zitface.” The younger girl rolled her eyes. “He's not even a little bit gross. I want to see the baby.”

“Just hang on a minute.” Tina cut off both Ashley's reply and any potential attack on her sister. “There's a boy in the bathroom?”

“Yeah, but you can see through him, so . . .” She pursed her lips and blew a disinterested raspberry.

“You can see the ghost of a boy in the bathroom?”

“Duh.”

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

Releasing her hold on Ashley, Tina grabbed the wardrobe assistant's arm, keeping her from bolting. “Brenda, calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down! How am I supposed to calm down! There's a dead person in the bathroom!”

“There's going to be another one right here if you don't shut the hell up,” Kate growled.

Amy stepped forward and leaned over the threshold. “I don't see anything.”

“Maybe that's because you're in on it, too.” Kate folded her arms as Amy leaned back to glare at her. “Well, you could be!”

Brianna shrugged. “She doesn't hear the baby neither.” She cocked her head. “I don't hear the baby.”

“Maybe you're too far away?”

“You can always hear the baby.”

Kate's lip curled. “Unless Tony's playing ghosts again.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake and for the last time!” Amy snapped. “Tony has nothing to do with this! You don't know him. Until tonight, you've hardly ever spoken two words to him. You're totally losing it.”

“That's not helping,” Tina warned as the two younger women moved closer together.

“You people are all nuts!” Whites showing all the way around her eyes, Brenda jerked her arm free and ran for the door of the suite.

Tina swore and raced after her.

The other four watched as the script supervisor crossed the dressing room and disappeared into the darkness of the bedroom. They winced in unison at the soft hard crash of flesh and furniture hitting the floor. After a moment, Tina limped back into the light, alone.

“I lost her in the dark, but I think she made it to the hall. I'm sure she'll be able to see the light of the other lantern coming up the stairs. She'll head right for it.”

“She'll head right for Lee,” Amy snorted.

Kate snickered an agreement.

“Do we go after her?”

“I'll go.”

Tina grabbed Brianna's arm on her way by. “No, you won't.”

Ashley pushed past Amy still standing by the bathroom door. “You guys can do what you want, but I'm going to pee. Any boy shows up and I'll slap him stupid.”

“She will, too.” Brianna tugged experimentally on Tina's grip, and relaxed against her side when it became obvious she was going nowhere. “She slapped Stewie so hard his nose bled. It was pretty gross.”

“Brenda will be fine.” Tina's tone suggested that the wardrobe assistant wouldn't dare not be.

Amy shoved her hands into the front pockets of her black cargo pants and rocked forward on her toes. “You know, that sounds a lot like famous last wo . . .” Tina's expression froze her in place. “Never mind.”

She hadn't expected it to be so completely dark. Eyes open so wide they hurt, Brenda bounced off the side of the dressing room door and out into the hall. Arms outstretched, swaying in place, she tried to get her bearings.

There was someone with her in the hall.

Someone angry.

Too terrified to scream, she turned and ran.

Stumbled.

Found her balance.

Kept running.

Her left side slammed into something that moved and she grabbed at it as she fell. Wood. Smooth wood. And a handle. The door to the back stairs. It was open, swinging out into the hall. She'd run the wrong way, but she could get down the stairs to the kitchen and then find the others. Find Lee. Lee would make it right.

Eyes narrowed, Amy moved out to the edge of the lantern light. “Did you hear that?”

“It was the toilet.” Tina folded her arms and glared at her companions. “I thought I told you no flushing until we were all done? With the power off, we only have the water in the lines.”

“Toilets don't thud.”

“Like someone chopping?” Brianna asked brightly. “Whack. Chunk.”

“No . . .”

“It was the toilet,” Tina repeated. “Keep the girls from running off while I use it.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Ashley muttered as Amy took hold of Brianna's arm. “Don't touch me.”

“It wasn't the toilet,” Brianna insisted.

Kate nodded in agreement. “Sounded like an ax.”

The stairs were narrow enough she could touch both sides. She moved as quickly as she could on the steep uneven footing. Stumbled again at the bottom when suddenly there were no more steps. Groped for the table. Hand walked along the long side. Off the end. One hand still holding on, she reached for the wall.

Her fingers brushed something solid.

Something cold.

The basement door.

It
was in the basement.

“Lee!”

Tony shook off the sound of Stephen and Cassie's death in time to see Lee leap to his feet and cross to the edge of the circle, stumbling over Adam's legs and ignoring the 1AD's creative cursing.

“Brenda?”

Very faintly, from nowhere in particular, they heard a terrified, “Lee!”

“Brenda!” He paced the edge of the curve. “Where the hell is she?”

“She's not upstairs.”

“No shit!”

Mason shrugged and lit another cigarette. “Fine. So you don't need my help.”

Pivoting on one heel, Lee recrossed the circle. He looked, Tony thought, like he was trying to catch her scent.
Or I've just spent way too much time with Henry.

“Brenda!” And across again. “I'm going after her.”

“You don't even know where she is,” Pavin muttered.

“And you're not taking the lantern.” Mason hooked his foot around the base and slid it closer to his chair.

“Fine.” Lee dropped to one knee by the box of candles. “I don't need the damned lantern, but I
am
going after her.”

“No one's going anywhere,” Peter began, his hands spread and his voice reasonable.

“She's in trouble.”

“You don't know that.” Reason began shading toward annoyance, but Peter managed to pull it back. “She just went off to use the bathroom.”

“Yeah, and since she's calling for me, I suspect she's not using it now!” He snatched the lighter from Mason's hand and lit the candle. “I'm going to go . . . uh . . .” The candlelight threw his puzzled expression into sharp relief.

Tony understood his hesitation. The house had stretched and twisted Brenda's voice so that it could have come from anywhere.

Glass broke.

“Dining room!”

“Step over the salt! Over it! Ah, Jesus, right through it . . .”

Snatching up a candle, Tony followed.

She thought the light was from the hall, but it was a candle, on the floor and shielded so that had she come out of the butler's pantry at any other angle she wouldn't have seen it.

Light glinted off glass.

“Hartley?”

Sitting on the floor by an open cabinetâone door hanging at a crazy angleâthe boom operator straightened and lowered the now empty bottle.

The rush of relief was so great she had to grab the back of one of the dining room chairs. Trust Hartley to find the booze in an empty house. “I'm so glad to see you,” she murmured as he stood, still holding the bottle loosely in one hand. “I thought I was following Lee's voice, but I guess I wasn't.”

“Leesh not here.” He staggered toward her and, although it was hard to tell for sure because his eyes were just at the edge of the small circle of light, he didn't seem to be focusing very well.

“Are you drunk? Because you know what CB said . . .”

The bottle smashing against the edge of the table cut off her comment.

“Brenda!”

“Lee?” She pivoted around her grip on the chair . . .