Page 4 of Threat of Danger
She liked being good at what she did. And a much-needed break waited for her next. Life was good.
Eliot spoke at her elbow, his tone gruff. “You look like you rolled down Niagara Falls in a barrel.”
“I have three weeks to fade.”
Jess chugged her water and tossed the bottle into a cardboard box next to them that already held other garbage. As Eliot stepped back, she kicked off her boots and then tugged off her tight bodysuit completely. She had worked up enough perspiration during the stunt that dragging the latex back up would be a pain.
“I’ll be back in a sec.” She wanted to watch the footage back with Eliot.
She wrapped her towel around her shoulders and hurried to the white changing tent in the corner of the roof, taking her costume and boots along. She needed to keep track of the bodysuit or the costume assistant would have a fit. Nobody pissed off Anezka—an incredibly talented, feisty Czech. The petite fiftysomething woman had ways of making a person uncomfortable, ways that people who didn’t know her couldn’t even imagine.
Jess put a wiggle in her step as she walked away from Eliot. His stifled groan gave her hope. And a couple of very nice tingles.
They’d been circling each other for two years. They were friends. Both wanted more.
Eliot was wary because they worked together. Jess didn’t see that as a big deal. They worked in fricking Hollywood. Who was going to judge them?
She had three weeks off. She planned on spending a significant portion of that time with Eliot—preferably in bed. She stood ready to drop some serious hints while they watched the stunt footage back. Harvey never joined them. The Scotsman loved the stunts, but hated watching himself, only seeing what he could have done better.
The air in the changing tent was positively balmy, a heater going in every corner. For once, nobody else was in there. Jess hung her costume in its exact spot on the numbered rack, then grabbed her T-shirt from her cubby and tugged it over her head.
The script forZombie Zoolay on top of her folded-up jeans. Finishing one job meant she needed to begin preparing for the next. She’d been reading through the script during her breaks. In the story’s universe, zombies could not cross water, so the heroine spent a lot of time in various lakes and rivers.Bleh.
Water stunts were the bane of Jess’s existence. Give her a high jump or wire work any day. On her first big job, before she’d joined Eliot’s crew, she’d nearly drowned during a botched stunt for a movie about the disastrous 2004 Malaysian tsunami.
She filled her lungs.Eliot won’t put his crew in danger.His planning was meticulous. Since an injury had ended his own stunt career, he was obsessed with the safety of the people on his team.
Jess tugged on her pants and stepped into a pair of comfortable sneakers, then pulled on her knitted black sweater. The watch back was going to be great. Tonight was going to be even better. She was going to ask Eliot to dinner. Then three weeks off together ...
Jess was grinning as she picked up the script, folded it, then shoved it into her back pocket. The last thing left in her cubby was her phone, lying on the bottom. One missed text.
Mom.
Jess stared at the white-blue screen, her muscles tenser than they’d been a few minutes ago while she’d dangled over the abyss.
Her adrenaline rush popped like champagne bubbles until her mood went flat, then worse. A dark pressure settled onto her shoulders. The air around her felt thick and tasted bitter. When she’d run off the set, she’d been perspiring from exertion, but now, despite all the heaters, a cold shiver raced across her skin. The movie shoot outside the tent seemed a million miles away.
Her thumb hesitated over the message icon for a second, then another, and another, before she touched the little yellow folder.
Her mother had texted:Fell down the steps. Broke my hip. Didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.
Jess stared at the news. Who would she hear it from?
She didn’t keep in touch with anyone from Taylorville. The small Vermont town was the place of her birth and the origin of all her nightmares.
She checked the time stamp. The three short sentences had been sent an hour ago, the message finished and complete. Nothing more would be forthcoming.
No plea for a visit.
Her mother knew better.
If Rose Taylorhadasked Jess to go home, Jess would have said what she always said: she was fully booked, busy at work. Yet as her thumbs hovered over the keys, she didn’t type her usual excuses.
She typed,I’m getting on a plane, instead.
She hovered over “Send,” then moved to “Backspace,” then “Send” again. As she finally clicked, her tough, martial arts–trained, stunt-hardened body trembled for a moment. Because she’d just committed to doing something she’d sworn never to do again.
She was going home.
