Hollywood Scream Play (22 page)

“But if the shooter wasn’t a cast member or movie extra, whose gun was it, and why would they shoot Rachel?” I ask.

“Good question. I think I’ll do a bit of snooping on my own.”

The rain is now coming down in sheets. I walk over with his coat, a hat, and an umbrella. “This weather is going to make it harder to find clues in the woods, if that’s where you’re going.”

My consideration earns me a furtive kiss.

He checks the chamber of his HK P11. The bullets in it are real.

Best yet, one of the gun’s highly touted features is that it actually shoots underwater. Considering Dawlish’s flood advisory and the way it’s pouring outside, he may get the chance to find out for himself if that’s true.

He and his gun may get soaked, but he’ll be safer than whoever killed Rachel.

Mary slept only two hours. Jack is still not back, but he’s phoned to give me updates on the ballistics reports as they come in. So far, the killer’s weapon hasn’t been identified.

Jeff and Trisha are back from the movie. While they help Aunt Phyllis prepare dinner, I sit with Mary. I’m relieved she seems to want to talk about what happened almost as badly as I want to hear about it. Her sobs trickle out between every other sentence. I hold her hand. It’s a small comfort, but maybe it will get her through the ordeal of reliving her memories.

“It’s all my fault,” she laments. “Rachel thought it would be fun to cut through the woods and follow the dogs. But she wouldn’t have done it by herself if I’d said no.”

“Wasn’t she more interested in watching the scene being shot?”

Mary looks at me as if I’m the one having the breakdown. “No way! Rachel could not have cared less about it. The fact that Willow and Reed are so unprofessional drove her crazy. And overall, she hated action movies. She would have preferred to attach herself to a small independent film. The only reason she accepted the role in this movie was so that she could get on Sebastian’s radar.” She closes her eyes. “For the next season of 
Bloomsbury
 he’s writing in a big part for an American woman, exactly her age.”

“Is that what he told her?”

She shakes her head. “She read it in the 
Wrap
. She felt the exposure would be incredible for her. She was dying to move to England so that she could take on some stronger female roles. ‘Here, they don’t just hire you for your looks,’ is how she put it.”

“Why didn’t she just ask Sebastian if she could audition for the role?” I ask.

“She did. He said he’d certainly consider it. He was always flirting with her, so she thought he meant it. But…well, I don’t think so. Frankly, I think he was leading her on to…you know, just to date her.”

I’ve seen that side of Sebastian. He can turn on the charm when he wants something. When he gets it, he goes his merry way.

“Why do you feel he wasn’t being honest with her?”

Mary frowns. “He takes a full set of bound copies of each episode’s teleplay with him wherever he goes. She asked him if she could read them. She wanted to learn them backward and forward. But he wouldn’t lend them to her. He said he needed them for research while he worked on next season’s scripts. But she was determined to change his mind, so that he wouldn’t see her as just another ‘silly American actress.’ She knew about his—well, about his ‘dates’ with Willow.”

No surprise there. So Emma’s scuttlebutt was right and Willow was sleeping her way through the whole cast and crew!

“Rachel was desperate to impress Sebastian before she left tomorrow,” she continues. “He finally consented to hear her read. She was even more determined than ever to get her hands on the scripts. She knew the desk clerk at the inn where Sebastian was staying had a crush on her. The clerk gave her a skeleton key so that we could sneak into Sebastian’s room and grab a script whenever we wanted one. She’d memorize it, then we’d slip it back into his room. Soon, she had the lines all memorized.” Tears roll down her cheeks. “She auditioned yesterday. She told me she pulled out all the stops. She knew he was impressed with her knowledge of the show, and with the insights she had on all the characters. He was even laughing at her imitations of some of them, calling them spot on. She thought she had the role in the bag.” She sighs. “I think it’s why she confessed about our break-ins to him.”

I sigh. “I presume he didn’t take it well.”

“You can say that again!” She shudders at the thought. “She said he turned purple, he was so angry. He yelled at her, telling her that there were no copies in circulation for a reason—because they were historic, and that every word in the script was there for a reason. He made her assure him that she’d returned all of them, and he threatened to ruin her if she were lying.”

“What a pompous ass,” I mutter.

“She thought so, too.” She shrugs. “For the most part, he’s right. The actors follow the script verbatim—that is, except for the character of Virginia Woolf. Every now and then she’ll alter a line or two.”

That’s certainly strange. “How do you know this?” I ask her.

“It was part of Rachel’s obsession with 
Bloomsbury
. After getting her hands on a script, we’d compare them to the actual episodes, which we’d stream on Netflix. She wanted to see how the actors read their lines—their tone, the inflections they’d use, that sort of thing.”

“Was there anything else that stood out to you, or to Rachel, regarding the scenes in which the lines were changed? For example, did it take place on a particular set, at the same time within the course of the show?”

“No, not that I can remember.” But then Mary hesitates and a strange look comes over her face. “Wait! Yes, there was one other thing Rachel noticed. Whenever a line change occurred, the phrase ‘the Apostles’ was substituted for another—‘the Clapham Sect.’ At first I didn’t get it, but Rachel explained that both were elite social cliques for really smart people who the Bloomsbury Group respected—Mom, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

She’s right—it’s the ghost of Johan Richter.

Sebastian is a Quorum operative.

Somehow, the scripts fit into the equation—

Oh my god—the shows are syndicated throughout the world. Could he be using the shows to relay messages to the terrorist cells controlled by the Quorum?

The only way to verify this is to get my hands on the scripts, and compare them to the actual episodes.

“I…I’m just so surprised Rachel picked up on something so—so insignificant,” I say as nonchalantly as possible, but in truth, the last thing I want for Mary to learn is the significance of those words in our lives.

“Rachel was really smart in so many ways. Her attention to small details was amazing.” Mary’s eyes cloud up again. “And now she’s gone.”

I pat her arm. “You can’t blame yourself, Mary. You both just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I should have never let her walk so far ahead of me! If the hunter had seen both of us, perhaps he wouldn’t have shot her.” Her voice is practically a whisper.

I guess the sedative is still doing its magic. I have to ask her one more question before she drifts off to sleep. “Mary, do you know if she still has any of the scripts?”

“Yes…one…” Her eyelids are too heavy now.

The next thing I know, she’s snoring.

I wrap the blanket around her and give my sweet girl a kiss on the forehead.

If Sebastian checks his scripts, he may realize one is missing. He’ll be searching Rachel’s room for it.

I’ve got to get it before he does, so that we have the proof we need.

I make Aunt Phyllis promise to keep the doors locked to anyone besides Jack, Arnie, Emma or me. She has Jeff and Trisha set up in front of the cozy fireplace, roasting marshmallows. Considering the storm slamming up against the house, no one should be outside unless his or her life depends on it.

Mine does.

I brace myself for whatever awaits me, slamming the door behind me.

Chapter 14

Lady Killer

“Too many hurricanes, blow you right out of bed. Wake up in the morning and find a boat in your lap.”

—James Cagney, as “Dan Quigley”

[Final scene in the screenplay for
 The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook
]

Cut to:

Ext. Railroad Bridge – Night

The camera captures DONNA STONE’s face as she walks slowly along the RAILROAD TRACKS on a SEAWALL, clinging to a SEASIDE CLIFF.

SFX: TRAIN WHISTLE

From over her shoulder a TRAIN can be seen coming down the tracks. She is silhouetted in its HEADLIGHT.

SFX: TRAIN WHISTLE – tooting frantically, warning her it can’t stop.

She ignores it—

Until it’s just fifty feet away—

Which is when she turns around, whips out a GUN, and aims it directly at the train’s headlight—

And fires right at it.

SFX: Glass breaking as the headlight shatters, the SQUEAL of BRAKES, the CRASH of STEEL upon STEEL—

But Donna stands her ground as the train jumps the track—

Falling into the lake, engine first.

Donna stares down, as the train’s CABOOSE disappears under the surface of the water. A few BUBBLES roil to the surface.

She pulls a CELL PHONE out of her pocket and hits a BUTTON on it:

DONNA

Mission accomplished.

She continues her stroll down the track.

THE END

Because she was part of the featured cast, Rachel was given a townhouse with a spectacular view of Dawlish’s seawall, which holds up a pedestrian promenade along the railway track, at the ocean’s edge.

With a gale force of over a hundred miles an hour, the storm slams into the shore every few seconds and whips the waves into walls of churning froth rising as high as twenty feet.

It takes all my might to move forward. To do so, I’m practically walking sideways and clinging to anything that looks as if it can hold me on my quest to reach the dead girl’s doorway.

Only someone desperate would be out in this weather.

I resemble that remark.

Unfortunately, so does Sebastian.

I’m a block from my destination when another wave rises beyond the seawall, drenching me in its spray. My curses can’t be heard in the howling wind. I realize this is a good thing when I see Sebastian coming out of Rachel’s doorway.

When he turns around, he sees me, too.

He freezes. Then he smiles.

Until he sees the gun in my hand.

I see something, too, in the crux of his arm—a script, wrapped in a plastic sack.

“Hand it over!” I scream over the storm’s moan.

“Sorry, but it’s got a date with a match, just like all the others,” he shouts back.

Aw hell, he’s already burned the rest of them
.

A bullet is much faster than a woman drenched to the bone and walking in a pair of soggy sneakers. I raise my gun to fire—

Only for it to get slapped out of my hand by a mammoth wave.

It also tosses me down and flips me over.

I resurface, spewing salt water. By the time I’m back on my feet, the gun is long gone.

Worse yet, Sebastian is nowhere to be seen. Was he washed away, too? I scour the street, but the curtains of rain slapping me in the face make it next to impossible to make out anything beyond a few feet in front of me.

I run to Rachel’s doorway, to see if he was able to make it back inside. I’ve almost reached it when something broadsides me—

Or I should say someone. Sebastian has me on the ground, and under the water.

It may not be ladylike to twist a gentleman’s nutsack, then again he’s not much of a gentleman if he’s shoved the lady’s head into a briny puddle. I’m surprised Sebastian’s howl can be heard above the shrieking storm, but it just goes to show you that men are sensitive, too—at least where it counts the most.

To them.

While he rolls on the ground in pain, I go for the script—

But the wind blows and whips it just beyond my reach. It glides on a low tailwind toward the seawall. I duck and dive for the script, but it bobs and weaves and skids just out of reach.