Fade To Black Page 2

  “Good to hear.” Lila clearly didn’t believe her. “Tomosino and Becky are looking into it right now.”

  Sloane didn’t reply, thinking hard while simultaneously trying to not get lost in her thoughts and hoping her AD wasn’t judging her.

  Tomosino and Becky were both terrific production assistants. Everyone who worked for Shellter Productions was a high performer at the top of his or her respective game. Dominic and Melinda each had a sixth sense for spotting raw talent. Sloane had been watching them operate for most of her life, enjoying a front row seat for the last twenty years as they went from the husband and wife team representing a small cadre of Hollywood up-and-comers to the power couple now staining the industry’s lips.

  Still, it didn’t matter how excellent Tomosino and Becky might be. They were production assistants, not lighting techs … or investigators.

  Except Sloane didn’t need an investigator.

  And she really needed to bar such thoughts from assaulting her mind.

  There was no longer any scene of the crime by the time Sloane and Lila arrived in tandem. The glass was all gone from the ground. Abel got a couple of cuts while helping Sasha, but his were even more superficial than hers, and both were ready to work. Still, the accident had the feel of a narrow miss. A little to the left or right, and that fallen light kit might have led to a brutal injury. Perhaps even death.

  That wasn’t a constructive thought, and right now the production was waiting on Sloane, but she wasn’t ready to do anything beyond studying a scene that was no longer there.

  She turned to Lila. “I’m glad it’s cleaned up, but shouldn’t we be investigating?”

  “Investigating what?”

  Sloane didn’t want to say it.

  “Are you suggesting that Christian didn’t properly do his job?” Lila asked into her silence. “Or are you suggesting that there might be sabotage on our set?”

  “No, I’m not suggesting that at all.” But that was exactly what she was suggesting. “Where is Christian? Why isn’t he here? Shouldn’t he be setting everything back up?”

  Sasha, Abel, Tomosino, Becky, and a mess of people whose names Sloane couldn’t rattle off the top of her head right now were all watching her while pretending not to.

  Lila said, “Christian’s on his way in right now. I called him a few minutes ago.”

  “Why wasn’t he here?”

  “Dominic has him working next door.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Of course.”

  Maybe it was arrogant to think the Shellys would give Sloane an entire crew all to herself.

  Christian entered the scene on cue, having just caught the wiggling caboose of their conversation. He glanced at the broken light kit, now in a pile off to the side. His face twitched with annoyance and worse. “I told Dominic I could flip back and forth between projects. Sorry about that. So, what happened?”

  Lily gave him the lowdown as he nodded.

  “Any idea how that might have happened?” Sloane asked. Then, because she was the director, she said, “Is it possible that you made a mistake?”

  “Of course it’s possible.” Christian shook his head. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve done this? Thirty-two years now. And I still triple check my work every time. So yes, it’s possible. But not likely.”

  Christian didn’t sound defensive at all. His voice had the tone of a man reading facts.

  “What would cause the kit to fall?” Sloane asked.

  “It could have been anything.” Christian shrugged. “For instance—”

  “In your opinion, could whatever happened to cause the crash been done without someone tampering—”

  “In my opinion, no.” He gave her an emphatic shake of his head.

  Lila cleared her throat. “I’m not sure that—”

  “We need to call the Shellys,” Sloane said.

  She looked like she wanted to argue. Instead, she nodded. “I’ll call them right now.”

  Maybe this was nothing. It was probably nothing. But Sloane knew herself well enough to cut her paranoia off at the pass. She needed to look this situation in its beady little eyes and acknowledge that her worst fears could possibly be true — the monster who tried to destroy her was now sabotaging her movie.

  Yes, of course there were an infinite number of alternative explanations. But that one lived and writhed in her gut enough that she couldn’t ignore it.

  Waiting was hard. The Shellys were always busy, and it wasn’t reasonable for Sloane to expect them to drop everything. Day one and they were already behind schedule. Seemed like everyone on set was ready to work except for her.

  But Sloane was the director. If her head wasn’t in it, how could she be expected to make magic?

  The doubt kept creeping through her, gaining strength and waging war on her confidence.

  Dominic would be pissed.

  Melinda would have to soothe him.

  Sloane should really be working right now.

  And she shouldn’t have had Lila call but rather should have called them herself.

  She could do that now, tell them never mind, sorry to bother them.

  Or maybe Sloane could call the police. They would look into things, maybe ask a few questions. Then it would be in someone else’s hands, and she could get back to work.

  She had her phone out and was deciding on who to call first, the police or Melinda. The law made more sense. Sloane could more easily tell Melinda not to worry about it if the cops were on their way.

  “Lila?”

  Her AD was talking to Abel, the two of them standing several feet away. Lila paused her conversation and turned to Sloane.

  “Can you please call the police and report—“

  “I really don’t think that’s necessary.” Lila tried to smile, but the expression seemed so uncertain on her face. “There was an accident. This sort of thing happens on set.”

  “Lila’s right,” boomed a voice from somewhere behind her.

  Sloane turned to see Dominic walking in-stride with his wife, their expressions neutral.

  “I’m glad you guys are here.” But Sloane wasn’t so sure about that. “It’s probably nothing, but—”

  “Lila’s already caught us up,” Dominic said.

  “Why don’t we take a little walk.” Melinda gave her a kind smile, but there was no question mark at the end of that sentence.

  Sloane followed the Shellys, same as she always did — this time to the edge of her set where any potential eavesdroppers scattered like leaves in the wind.

  Dominic, direct as always, started right in. “There won’t be any way for you to prove this was sabotage.”

  “There’s also no way to prove it was only an accident.” Her blurted words sounded sharper than she intended.

  “Publicity would be bad for this project,” Melinda said in her perfectly even tone. “Especially now.”

  “I thought there was no such thing as bad publicity. Isn’t that what you guys always say?”

  Dominic shook his head. “Not exactly.”

  Melinda clarified. “You’re mistaking our expressions. The quote, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’ belongs to P.T. Barnum. We prefer Oscar Wilde’s, ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’ But the story being told does matter.”

  “Story is everything,” Dominic added. “You can only affect your reality, but you can always change the narrative. The better you are at that, the better you are at winning life.”

  Melinda stared at her. “So, what’s our story?”

  Sloane knew some approximation of what she was supposed to say, but it wasn’t fair. She offered the Shellys a shrug instead of her answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Do we want law enforcement to be a character in this particular narrative?” Dominic asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Calling the police right now is a losing move,” Melinda said. “I have no doubt
Christian and his crew did their jobs effectively. The police will draw the wrong kind of attention. If the sabotage is coming from inside, then Dominic and I are more equipped to handle the situation. If it’s not, then the police won’t be any help anyway. Our resources will still be more devoted and potentially less corrupted. You’re worried this is related to Wentz, and we both know he has friends on the force. It’s better for everyone if you let Dominic handle this by talking to the union.”

  Sloane was dying to look at the floor, but needed to shove past her discomfort and accept what her producers were saying. The Shellys always had her back, and they always knew best.

  “You’re right.” Sloane nodded. “We’ve lost enough time already.”

  “That’s our girl.”

  Melinda put a hand on her shoulder. “What can we do to make sure you’re still able to meet your obligations for tomorrow morning?”

  Dammit.

  She kept wanting to forget about that.

  Melinda wasn’t referring to the shoot — Sloane had agreed to meet with John and Vicky Treadwell, a hotshot writing team the Shellys had hired as part of the overall deal for West Hollywood Sunset. There would be a memoir to accompany her movie, and the Treadwells — despite being blockbuster authors themselves — would be ghosting it.

  “I don’t need anything.” Sloane delivered her very best smile. “I’m ready, and I’ve got this. I’ll finish today’s shoot, have an awesome night with Jolie, and be prepared for my first interview with the Treadwells tomorrow.”

  But really, Sloane could not have been less excited about this obligatory part of her project. Of course she wanted to take the predator down for what he had done to her and Nicole all those years ago, and of course she wanted to finally be heard, but there was a big difference between the art of catharsis she found in spinning fiction around her trauma and reliving the nightmare through an unending battery of questions.

  The memoir would tell the story of what happened.

  Yet, Sloane was much more interested in the narrative of what could have or perhaps even should have happened. She and the Shellys had the same goals — to get her career started off right with the best possible movie, while damaging if not altogether destroying the monster’s reputation in the process. Her memoir would tell the true story that inspired West Hollywood Sunset. The two projects would each feed the other.

  Sloane had no doubt the Shellys were right, but that didn’t make it any easier to do.

  “We’re already here.” Melinda squeezed her shoulder. “Would you like us to stay?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  Dominic’s phone buzzed in his hand. He glanced at the screen, then at Melinda before turning to them both. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

  And with a nod he was off.

  “I’ve got it,” she reassured Melinda. “Promise.”

  But even before the words were gone from her lips, they sounded to Sloane like a lie.

  Chapter Three

  Dominic

  Dominic had been on the phone with Bryant Nash for fifteen minutes now, and he could feel the conversation continuing to slip away from him more and more by the moment.

  But it wasn’t his turn to speak. Right now, he needed to pretend Bryant was being perfectly reasonable and wasn’t a cowardly pile of shit.

  “That makes sense.” It didn’t, but Dominic nodded along with the words anyway. Bryant couldn’t see him, but that didn’t matter to Dominic in the least. He poured his whole self into the posturing, visible or not.

  Bryant kept milking his bullshit excuse as Dominic walked the lot. He sounded desperate for Dominic to say something that might make him feel better. But there was no mystery around what was happening right now or who was pulling their former investor’s strings.

  “So, you do understand?” Bryant asked once finished.

  Dominic offered him a long moment to marinate in his cowardice before responding. “You want to pull funding from West Hollywood Sunset without any warning or reason, despite your numerous commitments, after filming has already started. Seems easy enough to understand. Did I miss anything?”

  “I’m sorry about the lack of warning, but I did give you a reason.”

  “Oh. Is that what you call it? ‘Things are a bit tight for me right now’ sounds a lot more like an excuse to me.” Dominic sighed then waited a few seconds to see if Bryant might interject, knowing he wouldn’t. “I don’t want to insult you by saying, or even implying, that you haven’t given this enough thought … but really, Mr. Nash, have you given this enough thought?”

  “Come on, Dominic. Don’t do that.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “Mr. Nash? We’ve known each other for more than a decade.”

  And how long have you known Wentz? But instead, he agreed. “Yes, we have.”

  “And you haven’t last-named me since the day we met.”

  “I remember that day. Park City. You approached me at the Montage, said you were starting to invest in a few projects and were dying to do business with the Shellys. Is that right?”

  “Sure, and haven’t I—”

  “You were with your wife, right?”

  “Yes. Why are you asking me that, Dominic?”

  “That wasn’t your wife in Cabo, though.” No question mark on that one.

  Or any response from Bryant.

  “What about Ibiza? I don’t remember seeing her there, either.”

  Still no reply.

  “One might think it was only when traveling internationally that you need a replacement for Allie. Maybe she doesn’t like all the jet lag … but I do remember that redhead in Napa, and that awfully young-looking brunette in Carmel.”

  Bryant finally found his balls. “Are you seriously blackmailing me right now?”

  You mean, after Wentz already got to you? “Not at all. This is just the threat of blackmail.”

  “You can’t do that to me.”

  “I think you mean, You don’t want to do that to me. I would agree, Mr. Nash. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

  “You don’t have pictures, you don’t have proof, and you’re not dumb enough to ruin one of the best investor relationships you have.”

  Bryant was right. Dominic just wanted the guy to talk. “What is the relationship worth if the investor is no longer investing?”

  “It’s just this project,” Bryant said.

  “You mean, just the one about about the Hollywood producer preying on children. You mean, just the movie that’s not even been officially announced. Do I have that right, Mr. Nash?”

  Another long and uncomfortable silence.

  Melinda was walking his way, but still Dominic said nothing, letting Bryant stew in the uneasiness and hopefully wonder if he’d made a massive mistake, choosing to align with the wrong mogul.

  He finally cleared his throat. “It’s just not a good time.”

  “Give me a call when you change your mind.” Dominic yanked the last word from their conversation, killed the call, dropped the phone into his pocket, then smiled at his wife.

  “Shall I start guessing, or are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Melinda said.

  “It was Nash. He needs to back out.”

  “Needs to, or wants to?”

  “Needs to. If he doesn’t want Wentz to ruin him.”

  Melinda raised her eyebrows. “He said that?”

  “Of course not.” Dominic shook his head.

  “Did you push back?”

  “That wouldn’t have helped.” He shook his head again. “This is a long play.”

  Melinda was quiet, obviously thinking.

  “What is it?” Dominic asked.

  “Did you mention his extracurriculars in Cabo?”

  Dominic nodded. “I mentioned all the ones he knows we’d be aware of but kept the rest to myself.”

  “Why? Wouldn’t he—”

  “Three girls, five girls,
a hundred girls — the number of infidelities won’t make a bit of difference. Wentz obviously has something much worse on the guy.”

  “Maybe not,” Melinda said.

  “You think it’s a pipeline issue.”

  “I do.” She nodded. “It’s not that Wentz can ruin his reputation or his marriage, he can get Nash blacklisted in Hollywood, where he’s been making most of his money for the last—”

  “Thanks to us! We’re the ones who—”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Melinda put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Wentz has been at this longer, and people are allegiant to him. There’s a reason why nothing ever sticks.”

  “Nearly thirty years in the business, he knows where all the bodies are buried. I’m sure he has something on Nash. And the shit we’ve seen …” Another shake of his head. “Nothing would surprise me. But you’re right; this might be as simple as following the money. Nash could have his funds tied up in any number of projects. Maybe Wentz threatened to stir up a scandal or fire the lead in some project where Nash will lose a lot more than the relative pittance he’s invested in Sunset.”

  “You said he wasn’t going to be a problem.”

  “I didn’t think he would be.” Dominic shook his head.

  Melinda sighed as she looked at her watch.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Dominic warned her.

  “I can be in Napa by—”

  “No, Melinda. Paying Nash a personal visit right now isn’t going to change anything. This particular problem is bigger than your powers of persuasion, formidable though they are.”

  “He’s fifteen-percent of our budget, Dominic.”

  “If we do our jobs and this movie does what we both know it’s going to do, then that money-grubbing fuck will have plenty of egg on his face by the time this is over. So, he’s out. Who cares? Nash has lost the chance to make a shitheap with us. Someone else will be happy to—”

  “We’re already shooting. And again, it’s fifteen-percent of our budget.”

  “We can cover the money ourselves if we—”