“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go. But if anything looks like it’s going to get stupid, we’re out of there. Or at least I am.”
I let out a breath and smiled. “Thank you. And you know me. How could anything get stupid?”
“It’s because I know you that I know things likely will.” He hit the unlock button on his key fob. “Get in.”
FORTUNATELY, THE DRIVE to Pear Magic was relatively short. But the traffic was awful, and the sun baked in on us, leaving a hot stripe across my legs. He had donned his sunglasses, which was how I was used to seeing him. Cane free, sunglasses in place, anger softened by yellow. It was almost as if the hit-and-run had never happened.
Hit-and-run. Why had those words come to me in eggplant?
Albany eggplant.
I turned down the radio—muting the stupid talk station that he was always listening to. “Does Albany mean anything to you?”
He glanced in my direction. “No. Should it?”
“I don’t know. It’s that this actress is from Albany, and when I read that, it made me . . . well, I just sort of have a feeling Albany is important to us somehow.”
“A feeling.”
I nodded. “I can’t quite place it. But there’s some sort of connection between Albany and the guy who hit . . .”
I trailed off. My mind spiraled back and back and back to where I’d seen a similar eggplant color. On a computer screen. In Chris’s office. The guy who hit him. A name that I couldn’t connect because it had come to me in an unusual color. Albany. Eggplant.
Only not Albany. Something similar. Albania or Albano. Or . . .
“Abana,” I said, incredulous excitement coursing through me.
“Excuse me?”
“Heriberto Abana. That’s who you were searching for before you got hit. I was in your office and I got bored and started to look around. You had been looking for this guy. Heriberto Abana. Albany. Shit. I fucking knew it.”
“Heriberto Abana,” he repeated, trying to keep his eye on the road while also looking at me.
“Yeah.”
He scratched his neck, thinking, then shook his head. Frustration came off him in pillowy green waves. “It’s like the name sounds familiar, but I don’t know why. What was I looking for?”
“Beats me,” I said. “You wouldn’t tell me. You said it was none of my business and you were all into some personal case. Like, it wasn’t assigned to you officially or anything. Do you think . . . he could be the one who hit you?”
“I don’t know. He could have been just about anyone. Maybe I was looking for him as part of another case and he wasn’t important.”
“For someone who wasn’t important, you were sure searching the hell out of him.”
We had come up on Pear Magic and he steered the car into the driveway. “Then I guess I should figure out why.”
7
WHEN I WAS a kid, and I used to follow Dad around on his shoots, I went to lots of the studios. None of the huge ones, of course. But plenty of little ones like Pear Magic, which were generally pretty underwhelming. A few warehouse-looking buildings crammed with people and props and cameras and pouty actresses who ordered my dad around like he was their dog. And some doughy guy eating cookies in a tiny “security” building at the head of the driveway, acting like he could do something if you wanted to bust your way inside. One time, when I was fourteen, one of the security guys at a studio I can’t even remember the name of tried to kiss me when I was hauling one of Dad’s anvil-like camera bags through the parking lot. Even though he was kind of cute in a completely unkempt way, I was still skeeved out and elbowed him in the ribs to let him know I wasn’t into older guys with neck beards. I tried not to go to too many studios after that.
Chris inched his car up to the security hut and rolled down his window. An impossibly short guard with a buzz cut ambled to the car, one thumb tucked into his waistband like he was some sort of Old West gunslinger.
“Help you?”
“Celeste on set today?” Chris asked.
The guard frowned, tapping his finger against the front of his pants just under the waistband. “She expecting you?”
Chris opened his mouth, and my world exploded with yellow. If I let him talk, he was going to blow everything. I lunged across the seat so the guard could see me.
“I’m late. Sorry,” I blurted. Chris and the guard looked at me with equal amounts of surprise. I had to come up with something, fast. I tried not to think about it too hard. “Makeup?” I said, miming brushing something onto my cheeks. “I’m her makeup artist.”
“I thought Jayelle was—” the guard started, but I shook my head to cut him off.
“Something about a situation at home? I don’t know. The agency sent me to take her spot.”
“And you are . . . ?” the guard asked Chris. I could see the back of Chris’s neck instantly redden.
“He just carries my kits.” I stretched my lower back, the fact that the guard’s eyes followed my breasts with his eyes when I did it not lost on me. I held the stretch a beat longer. “I’m recovering from a surgery. He stays in the car when he’s done hauling stuff. The agency doesn’t mind. It’s not a problem for him to be here, is it?”
The guard narrowed his eyes. “I probably should double-check,” he said. “I’ve got a number somewhere.” He started toward the hut.
“Miss Day is waiting, though,” I said. I tried to take the panic out of my voice and replace it with authority. “She can’t go on set until I apply the . . .” I mimed some more motions around my face.
“Oh, you’re the blood girl?” the guard asked. “They’ve been waiting.”
I nodded frantically. “Yes! Exactly. They’ve been waiting for the blood. I’m the best the agency has. Honestly? I’m better than Jayelle. I’ve won awards.”
“Okay. Yeah. You should get back there. The director doesn’t like it when he has to wait for people. He’s probably going to lay into you a little.”
I hung my head, contrite. “I deserve it.” I smacked Chris on the arm. “I told you we didn’t have time to stop for that Cronut.” Chris’s eyebrows went up. His lips were parted, as if he wanted to speak but didn’t have the first clue where to start. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
The guard stepped off the curb and gestured toward a small building. “Miss Day’s in building three. You can park in the lot right next to it.”
“Thanks,” Chris finally said, and rolled up his window. It wasn’t until we had driven forward a few feet that I finally let my laughter loose.
“Oh my God, you should see your face,” I said. “You’re a detective. Shouldn’t you be better at playing along?”
“You’re the blood girl?”
“You had a better plan?”
“Yeah, actually. Show him my badge and tell him we needed to talk to her.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What? You’d be amazed what people will spill when they’re confronted with a badge.”
“Right,” I said. “And this girl is just going to hand Luna over on a silver platter. Because Luna’s friends are all so well-adjusted and cooperative. Give me a break.”
He rounded the corner and parked the car. “You do realize you’re going to be expected to actually”—he mimicked my hands flailing around my face—“do something with her makeup now, right?”
I shrugged. “It’s all in the authority. You pretend you know what you’re doing, and people believe it.”
“Do you know anything about theatrical makeup? Anything at all about blood?”
I flashed back eleven years. Nikki . . . go. Mom, lying in a pool of her own blood, her hand outstretched. Me, kneeling next to her, trying to get her to stay awake, to come back.
“You’d be surprised,” I said as I got out of the car.