Page 11 of Unbound
Chapter Three
“Cut!”
I’d been halfway through my line when Mike called it. Taken aback, I hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to make of the situation. I felt like I was suddenly detached from the shoot as the crew got to work resetting the stage. I approached Mike. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We were doing great!”
“You’re off,” Mike said.
I frowned, bristling. “I’m off? I feel fine. We were doing fantastic.”
Mike shook his head. “No, something’s off,” he said. “Listen, maybe you’re just upset about all this excitement over the last few days. Why don’t you take the day off? We have some B-reel to shoot, anyway. We’ll get caught up.”
“You did B-reel the day before yesterday,” I pressed. “How are you behind?”
“Just take the day off, Cari,” Mike said sharply before turning away.
Planting my hands on my hips, I looked around. Something wasn’t right, I was sure of it. Wiping my brow, I headed to the refreshment tent for a bottle of water. As I leaned against the table and considered what I would do for the rest of the day, someone caught my eye. I stopped drinking mid-gulp and examined him.
I’d seen him before. Part of the reason I’d noticed him was that he seemed out of place, standing at the edge of the set with his hands in his pockets. All around him, people were buzzing like frantic bumblebees, but the guy seemed Stiff. Watchful. That wasn’t something you usually saw, at least not on this set.
His clothes seemed out of place, too. We’d been shooting in the sand for a while now, so most of the crew had gotten the hint and started showing up to work in older clothes, the kind that you wouldn’t mind getting dirty. This guy was wearing a pair of jeans that seemed to have been bought recently—that looked as though they’d been ironed, actually—and a plain white T-shirt. Again, the shirt looked brand new. Who would wear a white T-shirt to an archaeological dig? That would be like wearing a three-piece suit while trying to eat spare ribs—an accident waiting to happen.
It wasn’t just his outfit that bugged me, either. I’d never seen him before, but I felt like I had—
At Daly’s office!
The man’s face clicked. I’d seen him at Daly’s office, in the lobby, only then he’d been in uniform.
Why? What was he doing here at the set?
Did it have to do with me?
I sipped my water. That was probably it. That was why I’d gotten the afternoon off. Mike was cooperating with the police to get this whole situation resolved. Obviously, they wanted to do it without me getting caught in the crossfire, so Mike was “clearing the area” so the police could move in. Sure, they might be shooting B-reel today, but that wasn’t the reason I was going home. They were sweeping me under the carpet in case all hell broke loose.
I finished off the water and chucked it in the trash. Part of me thought about going back to Mike and giving him hell. I wasn’t some cute little damsel-in-distress that needed to be stuffed away so the great big strong men could take care of the problem. I didn’t need to be cocooned in bubble wrap and tucked under a bed somewhere. No, if something was going to happen, I could take care of myself!
What was the use? Even if I managed to convince Mike otherwise, the cops would want me gone. They were probably the ones that had arranged for me to be out of the way. And even if I somehow managed to convince the cops to let me stick around, there was no way in hell Jasper would, not if he saw an opportunity for the police to put an end to this once and for all.
So much for the show staying on schedule. Never once in five years had an episode been delayed, and I hated that the tight rein I held on things was now out of my hands.
Sighing, I threw up my hands. I guess it was time for me to head back to the motel room—my new one, since the old one currently had a piece of plastic taped over what used to be its window. What the hell else was there to do?
…
The old saying “the world passing you by” never made as much sense to me as when I found myself in my new room, staring out through the slatted blinds at the traffic passing on the highway in the distance. It was the middle of the afternoon, and here I was, stuck in my room like a caged animal.
I’d tried to leave earlier, just to go grab a cola from the machine in the lobby. I’d run into Margot, who had insisted on getting it for me before nudging me back into my room to “rest.”
Plan “Keep Cari Safe” was in full swing.
I appreciated it, even as I chafed under it.
My phone stared at me from its perch on the edge of the desk. I tore myself from the window to check it for the hundredth time. No missed calls. No voicemails from the cops, saying they’d had a major breakthrough and I could go back to living my life normally instead of cowering in a motel room for hours on end. No texts from Jasper saying he’d put down my stalker like a rabid dog and it was time for me to get back to the set and start rolling on the show.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Stood up. Looked out the window. Returned to the bed, turned on the TV, flipped through the channels, turned it off again. I drank my cola, then killed ten minutes trying to crush the can with my bare hands.
Ugh.
While I was checking my phone for the hundred-and-first time, a knock at the door snapped me out of my self-pity. The door rattled, but I’d locked it as per Jasper’s instructions. I wandered to the tiny corridor in front of the door. “Who is it?”
