Page 76 of Secrets in the Dark
“No, no, no. I can’t be arrested, seriously, she was telling me not to hurt her and I was going to explain and then that lady pulled a gun on me and I was terrified!”
His hood had fallen back. The young man couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one. Without the hoodie around his face, Della could see that he had serious brown eyes, soft brown hair and a clean-shaven innocent face with fine narrow features.
And he looked terrified.
He called out to Stacey.
“Tell them! Tell them that you know me and that I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t hurt anyone! That guy who was on the set that day, too, Ken... Ken Rippon! He said that he was a good friend of yours and that you were too careless and that I just needed to get you to follow me to the alley!”
Della looked at Mason.
The story was stupid but rang true.
Which meant that Jesse Miller was out there somewhere. He’d used another extra from the movie, convincing him that he was truly worried about Stacey and that she needed to have a stern and serious warning.
“Sean—” Mason began.
“I’ve got it,” Sean assured them. “I’ll get him to a patrolman and have him brought in. Then I’ll get back out on the streets. He is out here—go!”
“What do I do?” Stacey cried.
“We’re going to need your statement,” Sean told her. “I’ll get you in a separate car and the patrolmen will help you. We’ll be with you soon, I promise.”
Stacey nodded, looking at Della, straightening and finding her courage and composure.
“Right,” she said.
Her attacker suddenly started crying and calling out again.
“I swear, I’m telling the truth! I’d never have hurt her. Honestly, look at the knife!” the man cried.
Della frowned, nodded to Stacey, stepped around her and hurried over to where the knife had fallen.
It was a damned good facsimile, but when she moved it, the plastic blade fell back into the hilt.
“It is a prop,” she told the others. “So, you stole it off the set?”
“No, no, I didn’t steal it! He stole it! Said that we weren’t really paid enough but that it would be cool to have a souvenir no one would really miss when the movie came out. I swear, I swear, I’m telling you the truth!”
“And you listened to a man who wanted you to pretend to attack a woman with a knife when a killer is loose in the city?” Della asked.
“I needed the two hundred pounds! And I was just about to let Stacey go when you came around out of the darkness and mist and scared me!”
“I could have shot you!” she snapped.
“I made a mistake, a serious mistake. I know it, I just... I needed the money. Please, believe me. I was playing a joke for money for a good reason. He wanted her to start being careful! He said that Stacey followed people too easily.”
“He lied to you!” Stacey said angrily.
There was silence for a minute. Della winced, knowing that she shouldn’t yell at Stacey as if she were a child, but wondering why she had followed the man.
“I’m not that dumb!” Stacey cried. “I know this guy from the set—he’s Rick Fields, and we talked when he was on set, too! I knew that he wasn’t Jesse Miller, so when he beckoned to me, I thought he just wanted to talk outside and I should have realized he had a stupid prop knife and—”
“Stacey, he was luring you out for the killer!” Mason said, trying to contain the anger in his voice.
“For the killer?” the man Stacey had identified as Rick Fields said. He sounded stunned. “No, no, no! The point was to get her to realize that she shouldn’t be alone!”
“We have to move,” Mason said. “We can sort out the rest at Scotland Yard.”
