Return to the Black Hills (3 page)

“Sounds good. Shiloh is going to go into the community center and use the computers to print you a map. Aren’t you, Shiloh?”

Shiloh heaved a sigh and took her boots. “Sure. I can do that.” She smashed her feet into the boots then stomped across the street and straight into the building.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice so low Jessie had to lean in to catch what he was saying. “I didn’t think she’d do something that stupid in public.”

“Sure. No problem.”

The show would be starting in a few minutes and she hadn’t had time to go through her usual warm-up routine. She looked at her sister. “Rem, would you do me a favor and stick around for the map? I need to meet the guys to make sure we’re all on the same page. Have you seen J.T.?”

“Who’s that?”

“Our camera guy.”

“The one you used to date?”

Jessie winced. She didn’t want to be reminded of that mistake. She never would have gone out with J.T. in the first place if not for Dar—J.T.’s mom
and
Jessie’s mentor. In hindsight, Jessie should have recognized the blatant manipulation for what it was—a last-ditch attempt to solidify Jessie’s loyalty against the coming firestorm.

“We went out a couple of times.” Until his possessiveness got him in trouble. “Anyway, you know what he looks like. Have you seen him this morning?”

Remy shook her head.

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath. “I really need someone to film this.” She paused. “Wait a minute. I have a camera you could use if he doesn’t show up.”

Remy put one hand to her heart dramatically. “Me?”

“Wait here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

She raced to her car. The camera was right where she left it on the floor of the backseat. She returned inside a minute. “Here,” she said, handing Remy the compact black bag. “It should have a full battery, but just in case, don’t turn it on until the action starts.”

Remy looked doubtful. “Are you sure about this? I’m a rank amateur at best. What if I screw up?”

“Just do the best you can. I have to go.”

“Good luck,” Cade said.

Jessie paused. “Thanks. I’ll try to give you a good show.”

Then, she took off at a slow jog, mentally running down her pre-performance checklist. “Everybody ready?” she asked, joining the group assembled at the picnic table behind the Sentinel Pass Post Office. A quick head count told her someone was missing. “Where’s Zane?”

“We don’t know,” Eerik answered. “He left on his bike before I finished passing out the Team Shockwave fliers and hasn’t come back.”

Winding mountain roads, a Harley and a speed demon. What could possibly happen?

She fished out her cell phone. No messages. “Crap,” she muttered. “If he found some bar and forgot about the show, I’m going to throttle him.” She replaced the phone in her knapsack and pulled out the gray-blue shirt she’d borrowed from wardrobe that morning. She quickly changed shirts. “What about J.T.? Anybody seen him?”

“Yeah, he’s around here someplace. Probably too ashamed to show his face.”

Jessie looked at Marsh—by far the most stable, easygoing member of the Shockwave team. “Why?”

“He said he got drunk last night and forgot to charge his battery. He used the spare for the shoot this morning. Sorry, Jess, I know you were counting on the footage.”

The producers of
Kamikaze
had asked her to submit a new audition tape. Apparently, they’d seen the YouTube video of her rollover and wanted proof that she was healthy enough to participate. With any luck, Remy would get sufficient footage to send with her formal application.

“So, no Zane means one of you gets to be my hero. Drag J.T. into position and make this happen. No excuses,” she said, quickly buttoning the ugly shirt. She swept her hair into a loose ponytail and pulled on a regulation U.S. Postal Service employee cap.

She did a couple of deep stretches while she ran over the story line in her mind: ordinary postal worker trudging back to work gets accosted by three—no, two—hoodlums. Movie-star hero-type comes to her rescue. After a brief skirmish, good guy realizes he can’t fight them all and urges the woman to run for it.

The Freerunning that followed would pack its usual visual punch, employing existing structures, as well as a couple of well-placed obstacles—her car, for one. The tower at the end of the street was the ultimate challenge. Jessie and her hero would make it to the top; the bad guys would fail spectacularly.

“Cue the music,” Jessie hollered. “Stay safe, everybody.”

There came a point in any stunt where backing out was not an option. And for Jessie, forward momentum was her personal mantra. Keep moving. Keep doing. Keep going.
And maybe, just maybe, the demons won’t catch up.

Then she picked up her fake mailbag and marched to the yellow tape. “And go,” she called out.

Once she rounded the corner, she let instinct take over.

Fear—the thing every smart stunt person knows to expect and respect—made her senses sharpen. She and the others weren’t
actors
per se with marks to hit and set lines to say. This was mostly ad lib, although the five of them had worked together often enough to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Marsh and Eerik would play the bullies, she gathered, when the two entered Main Street near the corner coffee shop.
Please let that mean Zane is back,
she prayed.

The crowd parted to let them through. Low-riding pants, sloppy sweatshirts, hats worn off to the side, they looked like gang members out for trouble.

Jessie walked fast to reach the first mark they’d sketched out the day before. She ignored them completely, although she never completely lost sight of them in her peripheral vision.

“Yo, postal beyotch,” Marsh called. “Whatcha got in your bag?”

He did an impressive little hop, twirl and backflip to land directly in her path. The crowd let out a small cry of surprise. Eerik ran straight at the brick wall of the building to her right and continued up the side then dropped backward to land on his feet, eliciting applause.

Not to be outdone, Marsh grabbed the old-fashioned metal pole that supported the building’s overhang with both hands and swung around so his body was perpendicular to the pole, creating a pencil-straight line blocking her path.

The cheers pleased her. The guys were on their game and things were only going to get better, she hoped.

Marsh swung around and let go of the pole to reach for her bag. “Gimme that. I bet there’s money in there.”

Her character wasn’t the weep-and-cry kind of girl. She’d put up a fight even if the odds were against her.

“Messing with the mail is a federal offense,” she said, speaking loudly so her voice would carry to the onlookers.

“Oh, yeah? Who cares about Uncle Sam? We want what’s in that bag, ho,” Eerik snarled.

The script had called for Zane to rush to her rescue the moment Marsh picked her up and twirl her overhead like a sack of potatoes.

Marsh reached for her, but before he had them both in position, she heard a voice cry, “Leave her alone.”

The wrong voice.
What the hell?
Jessie spun around to see J.T. approach. J.T.? She nearly groaned out loud. “What are you doing here?” she asked—the right line but with a different meaning than originally intended.

“I’m here to help. Because, no matter what you do or say, I love you. And I know you love me. And need me.”

Jessie was honestly and completely speechless. Either his acting had improved or he really meant what he was saying. Yes, Dar had told her as recently as a week ago that J.T. was still mooning over Jessie, but even Dar admitted the two were completely incompatible. J.T. was a control freak. A micromanager. Jessie was as independent as they came.

She looked over her shoulder toward where she hoped Remy was filming. Her sister wasn’t there. She didn’t know what to do—yell “Cut” or try to fake it.

“I…” She looked at her two colleagues, pleadingly.

Marsh made the call. He grabbed the front of J.T.’s shirt and gave him a shake. “Ain’t that sweet. Her hero decided to show up. Let’s show him what we do to heroes.”

The script called for a fight scene—an artfully choreographed kind of battle where no true contact was made. Jessie doubted J.T. knew how to avoid walking into a punch. She decided to jump ahead in the program.

“Leave him alone, you bums,” Jessie shouted. “Did I forget to mention I have a black belt in karate?”

She assumed a fighting stance. Eerik understood to keep a visibly squirming J.T. restrained while Jessie did her thing. Her skirmish with Marsh was like a dance—feign, dip, twirl, kick, duck, roll, rebound.

The crowd cheered for her and booed every time Marsh knocked her down. On cue, Eerik released J.T., faking a loud “umph” as if J.T. had elbowed him in the gut.

J.T. stumbled in his haste to reach Jessie, but when he did, he grabbed her arm and pointed toward Yota—the only car parked on the street. Its boxy shape and overall height was perfect for launching yourself into the air for a couple of backflips or twists.

“Run,” J.T. cried, pulling her arm the same moment she pitched her mailbag through the open door of the post office. Although she could appreciate his enthusiasm and lack of experience or training, the force of his tugging wrenched her off balance. She would have fallen flat on her face if he hadn’t been there to catch her. Once she regained her balance, she had to stifle the urge to send him to the ground in pain with a swift kick to the groin.

The script called for her anonymous hero to lead them on a circuitous route up and over Yota, vaulting across strategically placed planter boxes and making use of light poles in an attempt to lose the bad guys. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the only way J.T. could keep up with her was by not doing any of the stunts. That was fine with Jessie. This was supposed to look serious, not comedic.

“Wait here,” she cried, pushing him into the doorway of the abandoned building they’d been given permission to use. A narrow alley between two brick exteriors provided the right gap for her to spider-walk from ground level to the roof. With hands and feet pressed firmly against the opposing walls, she hopped upward a foot or so at a time.

The crowd cheered, but the effort was so taxing, Jessie barely heard a thing over the sound of her breathing and the blood rushing through her veins. When she reached the top, she dug the fingers of her left hand into the lip of the roof to swing her body over.

“Oh,” the crowd cried as she dangled by one arm.

With a graceful arc, she lofted up and over the edge. Breathing hard from the effort, she bent over to watch her team follow. The script called for only one of the mock bad guys to make it, although both were perfectly capable of doing exactly what she did.

She turned and danced across the edge of the roof, balancing like a gymnast above the street.

“Be careful.”

“Watch out.”

“Oh, no,” people cried from their vantage point across the street.

The wall she was running across was actually two feet wide, which is why she’d picked this building. That and the fact it had an exterior fire escape within view of the street. Made of wood nearly a hundred years ago, the rickety-looking structure was surprisingly sound. Jessie eschewed the steps, choosing to dive for the open railing then swing from level to level like a monkey in a rain forest until she reached the bottom landing.

With only a few feet to get up to speed, she pumped her legs hard: step, step, go. She launched her body into the air, flying up and out toward the street. When she was certain she’d cleared the sidewalk, she executed a neat tuck and roll to come up on her feet in front of the climbing tower.

J.T. was waiting for her.

“You can’t do this trick,” she whispered, her breathing strained from the exertion.

“Neither can you,” he said. “Not alone.”

She looked over her shoulder. As scripted, only one bad guy was still on her trail. Marsh. Unfortunately, the script also had called for Zane—not J.T.—to lead the way up the tower. Partly because he was supposed to be her hero; partly because the two dismount lines that had been added to the tower were slightly outside Jessie’s reach. A design flaw she blamed on Zane’s ego. In practice that morning, Jessie had needed his help to reach her line.

But Zane would not be waiting for her at the top. Was that J.T.’s plan? Had he convinced their friend to let Jessie face failure so she’d be forced to see that she needed him?

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Watch me.”

As planned, she ripped off her ugly blue shirt and kicked it to one side. The crowd cheered. Jessie knew her bright orange tank enhanced her image of a strong, fit, woman athlete. Now, she had to live up to her image.

Instead of reaching for the blue route—the one she’d picked during the practice run—she chose Zane’s path. Black. “Scary enough to make the spectators piss their pants,” he’d crowed.