Smoke and Mirrors (12 page)

“I know.” She'd been a minor but reocurring character in CB's first moderately successful series
Ghost Town.

“And she says our dad promised he'd make her a star and then ruined her career so she made sure that that bitch Lydia Turrent got caught doing dope and that flushed the show down the toilet.”

Didn't know that,
Tony thought as Ashley paused for breath.

“Did you like the way I fell?” A small foot drove into his calf with considerable force. “I'm going to always do
all
my own stunts.” Brianna held out her hand and allowed him to haul her upright. “I'm not afraid of nothing. The light going bang—that didn't really scare me.”

“You probably made it blow up,” her sister snorted.

“Didn't. And I didn't do that neither,” she added as a cable box slid off the lower shelf of the video village and bounced back down the stairs.

A passing electrician jerked to a stop, the transformer he was carrying nearly yanked out of his arms.

Brianna stepped off the dangling cable. “What?”

The second-floor bathroom had already been lit and a second camera was in place and ready to go. Although Peter hadn't been prepared for CB's children, he
had
been prepared for children. Given that CB had made it quite clear they were to be used only this one afternoon, it was imperative to work as quickly as possible while they were on the set. Considering how long it often took between shots, the half-hour break between the front hall and the bathroom was up to pit standards at any NASCAR track in North America.

As the camera feed was hooked up to the video village out in the hall, the director went over the scene with all four of his actors—Mason standing as far from Ashley as close quarters allowed. “All right, we're going to do the girls' taunting dance once with Mason and Lee in the shot and then the exact same thing with just the two of you pretending that Mason and Lee are in the shot. Then we're going to do it again from the top with each of you individually so we can get close-ups, then we'll do it again from the top with the blood.” And then remembering the age of his actors, he added heartily, “But it's not real blood.”

“Oh, please,” Ashley drawled, “we know it's not real. We're not stupid. Well, I'm not stupid. The Cheese is a moron.”

Head cocked to one side, a stubby braid sticking straight up into the air, Brianna ignored her.

Peter took a concerned step toward the younger girl. “Brianna?”

She snorted and frowned up at him. “There's a baby crying.”

The silence that followed her announcement was so complete Tony could hear a car passing by on Deer Lake Road way out at the end of the lane. He could also hear a baby crying.

“I don't hear a baby.” Peter glanced around at his crew, his gaze moving too fast to actually see any of them. “No one else hears a baby.” Statement, not question. They didn't have time for babies.

“I hear a baby!” Her brows drew down into a familiar obstinate expression. In spite of a two-hundred-pound difference she looked frighteningly like her father. “I'm going to find it!” Head down, she darted toward the door.

Fortunately, maneuvering around the camera and Mouse and Kate slowed her down. Tony caught up at the door as she circled around Mouse and under the camera assistant's outstretched arms and managed to keep her from getting out into the hall. “Why don't I find it for you? Where's the noise coming from?”

Her lower lip went out. “It's not noise; it's crying!”

“Fine. Where's the crying coming from?”

She stared up at him suspiciously. Tony could feel the rest of the crew holding their collective breath. Few things held up a shooting schedule like chasing an eight-year-old around a house the size of some third world countries. Finally, she raised one skinny arm and pointed toward the far end of the hall. “That way.”

Yeah, that was where he heard it coming from, too.

“All right. You let Peter set the shot and check your levels. I'll go look and be back before the camera's rolling.”

“Yeah, but you're a liar.”

“Yeah, but you know I'm a liar, so why would I lie to you?”

He held her gaze as she worked that out—a trick Henry'd taught him.

After a long moment, Brianna nodded. “You check. Then you don't lie.”

“Deal.”

Reaching for the door handle, Tony realized that the door at the end of the hall had been divided in half—like the doors of fake farmhouse kitchens in margarine commercials. He could no longer hear the baby crying and since he couldn't hear it, he doubted that Brianna could. Given that she was safely back inside the huge bathroom being fussed over by both Brenda and Everett, he briefly considered lying about having checked.

Except that he'd more or less given her a promise and, staring at the door with the hair lifting off the back of his neck and a chill stroking icy fingers down his spine, he realized that this was neither the time nor place to break his word—although he didn't know
why
and that was definitely freaking him out.

The brass door handle was very cold.

With any luck, the room would be locked.

Nope. No luck today.

He expected a dramatic creak as he pushed it open, but the well-oiled hinges merely whispered something he didn't quite catch as he stepped over the threshold. The sky had grown overcast again, replacing the afternoon light with the soft drumming of rain against the windows. His right hand went back to the light switch, found it where it always was, and flicked the first little plastic tab up.

Nothing happened.

They weren't actually using this space, so no one had replaced the thirty-year-old bulbs.

Tony really wished he believed that.

The air was colder than the air in the rest of the house and, considering the rest of the house had been comfortably cool in spite of television lighting, that was saying something. He could smell . . . pork chops?

There was ambient light enough to see the wide border of primary colored racing cars just under the edge of the crown molding. Light enough to see the hammock strung across one corner and filled with stuffed animals so covered in dust they all appeared to be the same shade of gray. Light enough to see the crib. And the changing table. And that the safety grate had been removed from the fireplace in the far wall.

Light enough to see the baby burning on the hearth. The border suggested it was a boy, but things had gotten too crispy to be certain. His stomach twisted and he'd have puked except there were close to a dozen adults, two kids, and a camera between him and the nearest toilet.

Besides, this was just a recording of something that had happened in the past. He wasn't watching
this
baby die and that helped. A little.

He could hear it screaming again.

Or he could hear something screaming.

The room grew suddenly darker.

Tony stepped back and slammed the door. Realized it had separated and he'd only brought the bottom with him, realized the darkness had almost filled the room, spat out the necessary seven words in one long string of panicked syllables, and
reached
. The upper part of the door slammed shut.

The half-dozen people standing around the video village were watching him as he turned.

“What the hell was that?” Peter demanded sticking his head out of the bathroom.

Wishing that the skin between his shoulder blades would just fucking stop creeping back and forth and up and down, Tony hurried away from the nursery. “Air pressure,” he explained, hands out and away from his sides, fingers spread in the classic ‘not my fault' gesture. “It slammed before I could stop it.”

“If we'd been rolling . . .”

“We weren't,” Tina broke in pointedly from behind the monitors, holding up her arm and tapping one finger on her watch.

Peter's eyes widened. “Right. Well, don't just stand there. Haul ass and tell Brianna you didn't see a baby.” CB's “one afternoon only” trumped doors slamming, production assistants making lame excuses, and mysterious crying.

Lying in this house might be a bad idea, but—in this case—telling an eight-year-old the truth would be a worse one. Hurrying back to the bathroom, Tony really hoped that whatever weirdness was involved here would take that into account.

“He saw Karl.”

“That's unlikely, Cass, no one's ever seen Karl. They just hear Karl. Even Graham hasn't seen Karl.”

“
And
he wasn't touching the upper part of the door when he closed it.”

Stephen stared at his sister and sighed deeply. “You've never missed that part of your brain before.”

“What?”

He waved a hand toward the place the ax had hacked through her head. “The living need to touch things to move them; he's alive, therefore he had to have touched the door. Q.E.D. And where are you going?” he added hurrying to catch up.

“I need to see what's happening in the bathroom,” she told him without turning.

She was wafting, not walking, and that was never a good sign. Cassie was usually militant about them maintaining a semblance of physicality lest they forget how flesh worked—he hadn't seen her so distracted for years. Memories drifted around him. They had no form and less substance, but he didn't like the way they made him feel, so he hung on to what he knew for certain. “Graham told us to stay out of the bathroom while these people are using it.”

“It's
our
room.”

“Well, yeah, but Graham said . . .”

“Graham doesn't know what's going on in here.”

“Of course not, he's just the caretaker, he couldn't possibly . . . Cass!” He sighed again, slipped through a bit of the camera operator, and followed her in under the lights.