Smoke and Mirrors (8 page)

Moving out and around a stack of cables and half a dozen extra lights, he picked up the pace.

The cat slipped out the library's main door, Tony following it out into the main hall. His reaching hand touched tail. The cat picked up the pace, streaking toward the front doors, then turning at the last minute and heading up the stairs. Tony made the turn with considerably less grace and charged up the stairs after it. Three steps at a time slowed to two to one and at the three-quarter mark, as an ebony tail disappeared to the right, he realized there was no way in hell he was going to catch up.

He reached the second floor as the cat reached the far end of the hall. It paused outside the door to the back stairs, turned, and looked at him in what could only be considered a superior way—no mistaking the expression even given the distance—and then disappeared into the stairwell.

Just for an instant, he considered calling the cat to his hand, but the memory of the exploding beer bottle stopped him. While blowing up the caretaker's cat would certainly keep it off the set, it seemed like a bit of an extreme solution.
Not to mention hard on the cat.
Besides, from what he knew about cats, it'd probably head straight for the food in the kitchen where it would be Karen's problem.

Nice to have his suspicions about that creaking sound he'd heard earlier proved right—the upper door to the back stairs
had
been left open.

The faint unhappy sound was coming from his left. He turned slowly. They weren't using that end of the hall, so he had no idea what was down there.
Gee, you think it could be the nursery?
And the million-dollar question now became: Was it a new ghost or were the two teenage ghosts he'd already seen just screwing around trying to freak him out?

For half a heartbeat, he thought it was the baby calling his name. Apparently, the freaking-him-out part was working fine.

“I'm on it, Adam.” He thumbed off his microphone and started back down the stairs. Investigating phantom babies would have to wait.
And I'm so broken up about that. . . .

Crossing the porch, he felt someone watching him. The caretaker's black cat sat staring at him from one of the deep stone sills that footed the dining room window.

“Good,” he told it. “Stay out here.”

Maybe a cat could make it from the second floor and through half of a very large house in the time it took him to cover a tenth of the distance. Maybe it was really motoring. Maybe he didn't much care. Cat weirdness was pretty low on his list at the moment.

As Lee and Mason entered the drawing room for the fourth time, Tony headed for the kitchen and the side door. Tucked into the narrow breezeway linking the main house with the four-car garage added in the thirties, he thumbed CB's very private number into his cell phone. This was the number he'd been given when they'd thought a dark wizard's army from another reality was about to invade. This was the number he'd been told never to use except in the case of a similar emergency. Ghosts weren't exactly on the same level, but the bar
had
been set pretty damned high first time out.

“We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”

Great. His direct-to-CB number was worthless. One of the producer's ex-wives had probably gotten hold of it. No chance of getting to him through the regular office number either—not through Ruth the office manager, not by telling the truth anyway. Lying, on the other hand . . .

“Give it to me and I'll pass it on.”

“Tough.”

Something more complex, perhaps . . .

That might work. When Mason was in one of his moods, CB was the court of last resort.

“Sorry, Tony. CB's in a meeting.”

“But . . .”

“Look, Peter'll just have to handle whatever it is on his own. Call back in about an hour.”

“But . . .”

“It's a money meeting.”

Crap.

Rumor was the police had called during a money meeting when they'd arrested CB's third wife for torching his Caddie after a matinee viewing of
Waiting to Exhale.
CB dealt with it when the meeting was over.

“How long's this meeting supposed to last?”

“How should I know?” He could almost hear Ruth roll her eyes over the phone. “All morning definitely.”

“I guess I'll call when we break for lunch, then.”

“Why don't you do that.”

“Yeah, why don't I.” Switching off his phone, Tony stared out at the rain pocking the puddles. “Nothing'll happen before lunch.”

He just wished that sounded less like famous last words.

Nothing happened before lunch.

The ghosts stayed out of sight. The baby stopped crying. Flies didn't gather, the walls didn't bleed, and there were no spectral voices telling them to get out. The traditional high body count never happened. Peter finished with the extras, completed the close-ups on the one bit player, and sent everybody home before they legally had to feed them. Although not feeding them was a relative term since craft services looked as though a swarm of locusts had passed through as they exited by way of the kitchen. Their souvenir hunter didn't snatch anything else, but neither was the broken garden claw returned to the conservatory.

“I'm sure I can find a broken claw somewhere to bring in,” Keisha sighed, standing over the kitchen sink washing makeup off cocktail glasses. “I'm just glad those tea bag figurines are still there. I could replace them off eBay, but we both know I'd never see my thirteen dollars again.”

“Thirteen bucks?” Tony was amazed. Or appalled. He wasn't sure which. “No shit?”

“Shit was up to $72.86 last time I checked. Sure, they call it coprolites, but we know what it is. Are you going to let the cat in?”

The cat was sitting outside the kitchen window languidly tearing at the screen with the claws of one front paw.

“No.” He threw the denial as much at the cat as at Keisha. “It lives with the caretaker, so it can just go home. It's not like it's homeless and starving.”

And speaking of starving—the caterers had set up lunch in the dining room.

Tony crossed the kitchen toward the butler's pantry, passed the back stairs, glanced up and thought he saw a black tail disappear around the second-floor landing heading for the third floor. He turned back toward the window. The cat was gone.
Next time don't look up the stairs,
he told himself heading through the butler's pantry.
If you don't want to know, don't look.

He'd barely settled down with a plate of ginger sesame chicken, noodles, and a Caesar salad when he felt a cold hand close over his shoulder.

“Geez, you're a little jumpy.”

Considering he'd just dumped his lunch, not really much he could say to that.

“Listen, finish up quick . . .” Adam paused and grinned as Tony scooped another handful of chicken and lettuce off his lap. “. . . and head back to the studio. CB wants you to pick up the two kids playing the ghosts and bring them here.” The 1AD cut off Tony's nascent protest. “You did drive today, didn't you?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“So that look's just because you've got ginger sauce seeping into your crotch?”

“No . . . well, yeah.” Setting his plate back on the table, Tony applied a napkin to the warm, wet, fabric and prayed that warm, wet and pressure wouldn't be enough to evoke a physical reaction.
Oh, yeah, because that sort of thing never causes wood.
He looked up in time to see Lee glance away and realized the actor had seen him spill his food. Tony's brain immediately threw discretion to the wind and added Lee Nicholas to warm, wet, and pressure. “Someone spoke to CB?”

“Peter called him about ten minutes ago.” If Adam noticed the strain in Tony's voice, he ignored it. “Why?”

“No reason.” It was just going to make getting through Ruth to the boss a lot harder. Hang on; he was going to the studio. Problem solved. While CB had what could charitably be referred to as a slammed door policy, it was always easier to speak to him in person. Where
easier
was generously defined as
taking your life in your hands
.

“Finish eating first.”

“Right. Thanks.” Might as well since standing up wasn't currently an option.

“CB's not here right now.”

“And the kids I'm supposed to pick up?”

Amy glanced around the crowded production office as though the pair of child actors might be hiding in and among the gray laminate desks or the stacks of office supplies. “No sign of them.”

“Great. Why doesn't Wanda drive them over when they get here?”

“Because the collate function on the photocopier's broken again and Wanda's helping Ruth with some remedial stapling in the kitchen.”

Tony half turned following Amy's gesture and realized that the background thudding was not in fact the sound of a hammer falling but instead the distinctive slam-crunch of a staple forced through one too many sheets of paper. If he'd been paying more attention, the intermittent profanity would have given it away. “So I'm supposed to just hang around here,” he sighed. Caught sight of Amy's expression. “No offense.”

“Taken anyway.” Artificially dark brows drew in as she scowled up at him. “I've half a mind not to tell you what I've discovered.”

“If it's about Brenda and Lee; Lee already confirmed it.”

“No. Knew it. You should see the graffiti in the women's can. What is it about wardrobe assistants anyway? Didn't Mason boing the last one?”

“Yeah. And
boing?
”

She snorted. “Perfectly valid euphemism. The house is haunted.”

It took him a moment to separate the sentences.

“Caulfield House?”

“Yes.”

“Is haunted?”

“Yes!” Eyes gleaming under magenta bangs, she all but bounced in place. “Isn't that totally cool?”

The boy-who-was-younger was in a loose white shirt. Well, white except for the splashes of what had to be blood—had to be because a huge triangular cut in the right side of his neck looked as though it just missed decapitating him. The girl-who'd-been-talking-to-Lee was wearing a summer dress, one strap torn free, the whole fitted bodice as well as her bare shoulders stained a deep crimson. She was also short the top left quarter of her head—her face missing along the nose and out one cheekbone, her left eye completely gone
.